Archive for the ‘Range Reports’ category

Range Day

September 22nd, 2007

Got in a little trigger time at the range today.

I noticed a couple of young girls there (both between 9 and 13, sisters) and they were shooting for the first time. One shot some skeet, the other tried her hand at trap on the same line as me. She pegged 10 of them.

I got 11.

Yeah, I suck at trap.

After trap I drove home, got a handgun, and found the same father and his daughters on the pistol range. Cool. He was showing them how to shoot pistols with a .357 Rossi, stainless steel, about 6″ long barrel, loaded up with .38 Specials. They seemed to really enjoy it and I didn’t hear any complaints about recoil.

One of them put 6 rounds into 2 holes at 7 yards. I’d dare say she was shooting a bit better than her old man.

Fun day.

Oh, and I got to see a guy shoot trap while sitting on a five gallon bucket. he got bored and tried this at stations 1 and 2. He got all 10.

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Posted in Guns, Range Reports

Range Report: Walther P22

August 5th, 2007

The more I shoot this gun the less likely I am to recommend it to anybody else.

I hit the range with one of my brother’s today to play with some pistols. I ran a mag through the Walther, had a malf in the first 10 rounds, handed it off to him, and he got at least 5 in the first mag.

Bleh.

The gun ran around 40-50% reliable today through 100 rounds. I suspect the failures are because I grabbed a bunch of Federal Lightning instead of the Remington bulk packs that I’d been running through it so well in for the last 700-ish rounds.

What’s happening is the slide comes back hard, too hard perhaps, and rams into battery before the magazine spring can get the next one in place. Gah! I’d try a different mag but of the two that came with it I managed to destroy one.

Further, the faux ported barrel weight (I have the 5″ target model) worked itself loose again.

I’m gradually starting to regret ever buying the thing. The similarly priced Ruger 22/45 that I originally intended to buy might have been a far better deal.

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Posted in Guns, Range Reports

CZ RAMI .40S&W

July 1st, 2007

I’ve been hauling the CZ RAMI in .40S&W out to the range the past two weekens. My routine is to start with the Walther P22, shoot at least 50 rounds through it, then shoot a mag through the RAMI. I then transition back and forth until I’ve had my fill.

This keeps me from developing any further trigger control issues.

I like CZ, and I like the RAMI, but I’ve had a few failures to feed on each recent outing. In both cases I was running 165 grain FMJ PMC ammo through it. The bullet profile on this stuff isn’t as flat as other rounds I’ve shot, so I don’t suspect that the issue is a rough feedramp. If it was it’d show up more often with the flat-nosed 180 grain stuff I’ve run through it in the past.

Instead I think there’s an issue with the recoil spring being too light. I’ve heard this before from folks that love the CZ line and my experience seems to confirm this. I purchased one of the earlier RAMIs to the hit the market so I suspect I’ll need to grab a Wolff replacement to make it run right.

I love CZ pistols, which shouldn’t be a big surprise to anybody that’s read this blog for a long time, but I must say: Aside from the CZ-100 the RAMI in .40S&W is probably the only other pistol I’d recommend folks not buy unless they’re sure they really want one. The difference there is that nobody should be buying the CZ-100. The RAMI in .40S&W at least shows some promise, and can be made to work right.

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Walther P22

July 1st, 2007

Here’s a thread with pictures on slide’s breaking.

I’m intested because I own one, and now that I’m trying to hone my pistol skills, or what there is of them, I’m shooting it a lot more.

Like, 750 rounds in the past two weekends, 500 of which went down range just this weekend.

It has issues, that’s for sure. It took a while to break in, failing to cycle occasionally when I’d shoot Remington bulk ammo through it. It works alright now but once it’s dirty it’s sluggish and occasionally needs an extra “tap” to get it into battery upon initial loading.

Further, with the 5″ target barrel I’ve found that the front weight will occasionally come loose and walk forward. It’s annoying, especially if you don’t bring an allen wrench to move it back into place. You shouldn’t need to bring tools to the range.

In hindsight I’d probably have been better off with a Ruger MKII. Still, I don’t plan on selling the Walther — it’s still a fun pistol and fills my needs, and should continue to do so provided the slide doesn’t break in half.

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That’s a Little Better

June 24th, 2007

It’s nice living all of 2.5 minutes from the range. On a whim I packed up a couple of pistols and decided to try and get some semblence of competency back.

So, after 200 rounds from the Walther P22 I transitioned over to my trusty CZ-75B and dumped 30 rounds of 9mm down range, one second or so between each shot:


(Click for hi-res version)

It’s by no means great, and I can see that I still have a bit of a trigger pull issue combined with a varying flinch, but it’s a heck of a lot better than missing a paper plate at 7 yards!

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Kickass Range Trip

June 24th, 2007

I got a chance to hit the range Saturday with my project manager from work and his teenage son. I love trips like that.

We kept it to rifles for the most part; shooting the AR-15, AK-47 clone, and Marlin 1894C on the 25 yard line. No need to test our marksmanship here — we’re just trying to get them familiar with the different weapons and have some fun with them.

I’ve never shot my 1894C and AR-15 on the same range session before. It was interesting. I never realized it but I’m much better with the AR’s sights than the buckhorn sights on the 1894C. I guess I really should look into putting a peep on that thing.

There was a little bit of pistol play too. They brought out a Ruger Mark series target pistol and I had my Walther P22 and S&W 1911SC. Once again I saw a horrible flinch on my part with the 1911. I can see why S&W discontinued that series now. Weighing in at 28oz it can be a bit punishing on the hand. I looked up the technical specs on my Glock 21 last night and found that it tips the scales at 26.28 oz unloaded. Barely any difference between the two in felt recoil.

So, I’m starting to think that I should try and find somebody that’d trade me a good steel 1911 for my Glock 21.

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Posted in Guns, Personal Life, Range Reports

Update on the Previous Post

July 30th, 2006

I try to spend my Sunday’s around my family and that’s what I did this Sunday. Mostly. I did take some time to hit the range as I said I would in the previous post.

Not bad.

First off, the cadet wasn’t that bad of a pistol shot. Oh, he’s horrid, but he can at least drop them all in a target the size of a man’s chest a 7 yards with ease. It looks like a shotgun pattern but I’ve seen much, much worse.

Actually I’m being a bit hard on him. It doesn’t look like a shotgun pattern at all, the shots tend to pull in one direction or another fairly consistent. There would be a vertical string off the left of the bulls-eye on one mag, a spread-hand sized grouping around 5 o’clock on another one, a group way too low, etc.

He’s got a flinch. It happens. With a .22LR pistol he’s quite able to put them where he wants them.

Expected. Practice, provided that he keeps using the .22LR to get rid of that flinch, will solve the problem in the long run.

Not that I’m one to talk — I am by no means a crack shot with a pistol.

It was very interesting to watch a total novice today. He’d fire a full magazine consisting of 12 rounds of .40S&W out of his Springfield XD and then wonder why they’re all to the left and strung out like that.

Trigger control.

After some time I handed him my Smith & Wesson 1911 and let him give that a guy. First shot: Bulls-eye.

Why? He had no idea when the trigger was going to release. Any 1911 design has a pretty short trigger pull compared to most pistols but when you put it up against something like the XD or a Glock the difference is astounding.

Of course, the rest of the magazine he emptied was off target and showed evidence of flinching.

With enough practice he’ll get the hang of it.

He did bring along his SKS too. In my previous post I said he needed to get the cosmoline out of it but it was actually pretty clean already. Clean enough to shoot at least.

I did a couple checks to make sure that the firing pin wasn’t going to lock in place and cause a slam-fire. It was still floating around nicely so I wasn’t concerned with that. I then took it to a sunny part of the range and gave the bore and chamber a quick check. No blockage — good to go.

We played around for that a bit with it. Long enough to realise that it works and it shoots where you point it. We also played around with my Marlin 1984C in .357/.38 special and my Schmidt-Rubin K-31.

Good times.

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Posted in Personal Life, Range Reports

Sweet

July 30th, 2006

My gun-nuttery is wearing off on others, I think.

One of my youngest brother’s buddies is a cadet for a local police department and has gotten the gun bug. While I’m not directly responsible for that I am somebody he can bounce gun ideas off of without him having to worry about sounding like a nut.

He’s got a Springfield XD in .40S&W right now and just purchased an SKS the other weekend. After I had told him, about ten times, that the SKS is a prefectly fine rifle. He still needs to get the cosmo out of the SKS but the XD is good to go. Unfortunately he can’t hit anything with the XD yet and needs somebody that knows a thing or two about pistol shooting to verify that it’s hitting at point of aim.

Definately going to put that boy behind a .22LR pistol tomorrow.

So, I’ll be checking out his gun tomorrow and let him fire a few of my pistols and rifles.

Should be fun.

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Posted in Personal Life, Range Reports

Range Time

July 12th, 2006

I think I’ve scared people off the range twice out of my last three weekends of shooting.

On the first outing, of which I didn’t seem to scare anbody off, I had a metric crapload of guns and ammo with me. I had some buddies with me there, a couple of my pistols came out, a lever-action .22LR, a lever-action .357, and eventually I pulled out the 9mm Kel-Tec Sub 2000. Everything, save for the last gun, was pretty much something any old timer would have been quite familiar with.

This was unique because we had some very classic guns out there as well as some very modern ones. The older gents actually took an interest in us because it was obvious that we weren’t punks — but guys that REALLY liked their guns and REALLY knew about them.

I, and my shooting buddies, even whipped out extra hearing protection for the grandpa and his grandson that showed up just to shoot some .22LR. They didn’t bring good enough protection.

We even got one of the older guys to shoot the Kel Tec Sub 2000. He seemed to get a kick out of it. Nifty little gun, that’s for sure.

On my next trip I brought an AR-15 and AK-47 and went by myself. There was, again, an older guy and his son shooting a couple of .22LR rifles — one of which was a really nice tricked out Ruger 10/22. The guy chatted me up, we had a good time, he let his kid shoot his 1911, and everything’s fine. Turns out he’s actually built an AK out of a parts kit. Sweet!

Near the end of my shooting another guy shows up with his son and a .410 shotgun and a .22LR rifle. Crappy hearing protection too. They packed up without saying a word after shooting 10 rounds of .410 and not even finishing a 50 round box of .22LR. Total time: 10 minutes.

Odd.

The next weekend I show up with my brother in tow and I pulled out the AK-47 first. The older guy there, again shooting .22LR, pretty much stopped upon sight of the thing and packed up within a few moments of us getting there.

I don’t get it. I presume that older guys think I’m some punk kid when I pull out some of the modern military-ish stuff that I own. I usually dress in slacks, a button down shirt, am quite friendly, and I have never had anybody call me on safety practices. When the range goes “cold” (no shooting) I do not touch any gun. I do not touch any ammunition. I do not touch any magazine. These are NOT the range’s rules. Their only rule is to not touch a gun. They are my rules.

While not shooting my actions are always open. With an AK that cannot lock the action back I shove a soft object into the action to make sure that it’s fairly obvious that it is not going to fire.

Muzzle control is so engrained in my handling of guns that it carries over to staple guns and household cleaners with a trigger on them.

I really think it’s a prejudice against some firearms and my fairly young age. I’m a little young to be a responsible “gun nut” I suppose. We aren’t in the majority at ranges around here. Of course, you find a guy that actually shoots AR’s and AK’s and they’re all geeked when I pull one out.

Then again, maybe it’s the noise factor. I don’t know why on earth you’d show up to a gun range with a rimfire rifle and expect NOT to be sharing a range with a centerfire rifle but I’m starting to think that people actually do that.

Am I out of line for presuming that people that go to gun ranges should be prepared with proper hearing protection?

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Posted in Range Reports

Range Report

June 28th, 2006

I managed to get out this weekend for a wonderful range trip. It was a last minute type of thing, but it worked out quite well.

For one, I was ready to rock-and-roll. I packed up the truck full of enough guns and ammo to keep 5 men busy for 3-4 hours on some remote land. When those plans were cancelled I dialed up a buddy, who hit up another buddy, and we decended on a local range.

Whoa boy.

I got there first and started plinking with my “new” Henry .22LR lever action rifle. Damn that’s fun. However, I had multiple failures to extract. I hadn’t cleaned it yet, so I presume it is a dirty chamber. I had trouble getting the spent rounds out with my pocket knife for crying out loud. I can’t really blame the gun. I think I just need to clean it up.

I didn’t have a single problem with my 1911, aside from the magazine release sticking. I need to take it in for that. The only other problem I had with that, and any other handgun I shot, is that I can’t hit diddly with it.

Oh, to be sure I can punch holes in a paper plate at 7 yards rapidly. Quite suitable for self defense purposes but I had to hit the range with a guy that’s got excellent fine motor control skills and it shows with his handgunning.

You see, I had to talk him down into using the 7 yard pistol range instead of the 25 yard range. At 25 yards I can’t hit a paper plate. He can — and quite well.

When I got him to the 7 yard range he started shooting out the staple holding up the paper plates. My pistol, his pistol — it didn’t matter.

Bastard.

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