Shooty Monday

It was a nice day out, so Proud Hillbilly and I went out shooting. She brought her pistols and that M-1 carbine that she's so deadly with, and I brought out a few of my pistols, plus a couple of other items. Starting out with the pistols, top left, the 9mm Heckler & Koch P7M13. Top right, Glock Model 19 (also 9mm). Bottom is Smith and Wesson Model 642 in .38 Special.
I just got the P7 back from a rebuild courtesy of an H&K armorer friend of mine, and truth be told, I didn't realize what a sick gun it was. The fact that it has been shooting normally for months if not years with a gas piston so undersized that a gauge won't even seat on it any longer is a testament to that gun's solid design. As it was, the drop safety spring finally gave out due to the excess internal pressures, but even with that problem, the pistol continued to fire. As bad as I feel for not catching that problem earlier (I don't own the factory gauge used to catch the bad piston), I cannot help but be impressed with the pistol's ability to keep functioning well out of spec. But it's got a new piston and new drop safety now, so it's as good as new. And it shoots like new too, as the swinging steel target tree at the range can testify.

The Glock is my ex-Washington DC Police Department pistol that used to belong to a detective friend of mine until he decided that he wanted an Enfield rifle that I owned about as much as I wanted that Glock. We're both much happier today, even though I'm still unable to smooth out it's trigger pull no matter how many times I swap the disconnector out. But even with that gritty trigger, it still does the job on the swinging steel, even if it lacks the style of the P7.

The 642 was just in my pocket, like always, so I fired some of the .38 rounds that always seem to be in my range bag, just to stay current with it. So often we forget to practice with the ones that we carry the most, and those are likely to be the ones we're going to need to be the sharpest with, just by virtue of the fact that they're most likely to be at hand when trouble brews.

And in that vein, I took out the old Remington 870 house gun and ran 45 rounds of slugs and buckshot through it. This is one that I rely on for when things go bump in the night, so practice with it is always a good thing. As you can see, this gun has been modified with an extended magazine tube, a sidesaddle shell carrier and a speed-feed stock. It holds 16 rounds now, both buckshot and slugs, and the Surefire light on the fore-end makes for 100% target identification.

Then it was time for some heavy metal, and the M60 came out to play. I wanted to put a proper zero on it's barrel and also zero it's new Elcan M145 optic, but alas, I did not bring enough ammo with me to compete the job so I'll have to bring it out again...oh, darn.That Elcan is nice. 3.4x magnification means I can see the look on the target's face just before I send a burst into his right leg because that's as close as I got to centered before running out of ammo for the day. Please note that I'm not blaming my spotter, hereafter referred to by her indian name M'uuluk-atu'uka-look-i-not, which translates as: "I-didn't-see-where-those-went-either!" She honestly tried and her good shooting this trip out more than made up for my lack of same.


It was a good day out, made better by running into another mutual gun friend of ours on the range, followed by lunch at a favorite pub that boasts an awesome coffee stout beer. A good day, to be sure.