The family is headed out for a camping trip in the not so distant future up in the UP of Michigan. You know, where all the bears are. That always makes me a tiny bit nervous and the news about a bear attack in Yellowstone isn’t helping.

I know they’re not likely to interfere with humans. I get that. I really do.

But I’m still going to pattern some 1oz rifled slugs at 25 yards out of my coach gun this weekend.

Ed Friedman has some info on its development

For the record I’ll admit that I never thought the design would be approved by the ATF, not even after they initially approved it. Obviously I was wrong and I’ll own up to it. This thing really looks like it’s going to hit the market sometime soon and that makes me happy.

I hit Chick-Owa Sportsman’s Club tonight for another “action pistol” shoot. My recap on the last shoot can be found here.

This one was a single stage that we ran through a few times each. Two “good” hits required on 3 different cardboard silhouettes with a steel spinner obscured by a hostage at the end was the whole stage. Shoot well and it’s only 7 rounds.

I cleared my first run with 24 shots. Had a little trouble with that steel spinner at the end there. Total time: 73 seconds. My 3rd run was down to 19 seconds which was about par for the course. The winner came through in just over 11 seconds but he “cheated” a bit — no use of concealment, firing on the move the whole time. Nothing wrong with that though. Just a different way of solving the problem at hand.

On my 4th run I had a couple of malfunctions with my Glock 23C. Basically it’s due for a cleaning. I’ve been letting it slide on purpose, opting to carry my 1911 while I let the Glock get gunked up. I’m not sure if it was a premature slide lock or if the feed ramp is getting too dirty for those flat-nosed .40S&W rounds to glide up it. What made me happy there is I cleared the first malfunction with a mag change without thinking about it and the 2nd one, where I had no more mags and could see brass, did a quick tap-rack-bang without any thought. That was a bit comforting but I should have just done a tap-rack-bang on the first one. That was a mistake.

But, in the end after doing two of these shoots I’ve learned that I mostly need to work on:

• My accuracy (sight picture and trigger control are lacking under any stress)
• My reloads
• My presentation
• My speed

Yeah, about the only thing I really feel up to snuff on is safe handling. And I’m OK with that, for now.

Oh, and I will admit that I was the only one to put any holes into a “no shoot” target. Shooting the course “as designed” had you putting holes into a bad guy about 15 yards away with a “no shoot” just to the right of that halfway down range. I pulled two shots to the right and winged the “no shoot” guy. My bad. I think he’d have lived though.

Some shotgun steel plate shoots are coming up in my area and I’m hoping to improve my performance at these compared to the one I attended last year.

In an attempt to do that I’ve gone and, possibly, upgraded my 870 Wingmaster a bit. I slapped a TacStar 6 shot side saddle onto it. Last year I was fishing shells out of the same pouch I use to hold shells for trap, skeet, and sporting clays. Not exactly high speed.

Installation was easy. Just drift out the two pins holding in the trigger guard and replace them with the screws and washers provided in the package:

The flip side:

Note: The slide is pulled completely to the rear here and I’ve got plenty of clearance. That was nice because heaven forbid I’d have to take some sandpaper to that pristine foregrip you see in the picture, eh?

Here’s how the whole thing looks:

The barrel you see on it is a Mossberg made clearance special that I found for about $90, 20 inches long, cylinder bore, with rifle sights. The rear leaf folds down and I just use the front post much like one would a bead, though it is a bit high. Works well enough for 15 yards and under.

Of course, it’s not the hardware that makes a good home defense shotgun. It’s the software. I’ve run thousands of shells through this gun in the old configuration. Now I’m going to have to start drilling reloads off the side saddle before it becomes of any practical use.