Shooting With The Oldies

And I don't just mean Old NFO, who came out for a range day yesterday.

The other oldies that I speak of are these two fine weapons:

The top rifle is my new/old M1 Garand, #5009, that I took out for it's first test-firing since I rebuilt it from a stripped receiver.

I'm happy to say that, other than a few hiccups with some old reloads that were assembled for a belt-fed Browning 1919 some years back, it shot flawlessly.

The ammo that it didn't like was reloaded stuff that functioned fine in the machine gun that it was made for and in other Garands and Springfields,, but this one, with a brand new barrel, still has pretty tight tolerances and it wasn't keen to chamber a few of them. But when I switched to some other ammo that I'd loaded with a little more care for CMP matches...Wow!

Can't do much better that that at 50 yards, off-hand from the bench...not unless your name is Old NFO. His cherry 1903A3 Springfield shot this beautiful target:

Then I got the Reising M50 on line.

I wish that I could say that it shot flawlessly as well, but it did not. It was having problems with the bolt not going all the way rearward and riding up on the back of the next round instead of smacking it into the chamber. We got some bursts off of it, and one or two mag dumps without a malfunction, but it needs work. Of course it only came with two 12-round magazines, and a sub-gun with a 12-round magazine is about as much fun as a tricycle with two wheels. Still, when it did shoot, recoil was very manageable and it grouped nicely at 50 yards...better than my Uzi does. Verdict: I like it. new 30-round Ken Christie magazines are on order, as is a new Wolff spring kit.

NFO had more of his typical Batman-style toys with him in the form of a slick Ruger 10-22 with an AAC supressor that shot touching groups at 50 yards and a vintage Colt AR-15 "slabside" SP-1 complete with original Colt 3x BCD optic.

It was a great day, with decent weather and light crowds, and the only flaw in the slaw was that the range had it's 100 yard line closed for repair, so we had to do all of our shooting at 50. I don't know about you, but I always feel like a mook shooting a .30 battle rifle (or even a full-length AR) at less than 100 yards.

But it was a good time with great company, and it needs to happen a lot more often.

Now what doesn't need to happen? The dognanigans that I had to put up with yesterday, namely Belle leaping the gate to go see NFO when he got out of his truck, after which, she loaded herself into my jeep with the guns, no doubt figuring that her presence in the jeep ensured that she too would be going to the range.

Not so much, huh, Belle? She got dragged out and brought into the house and we left sans dogs, only to return a few hours later to discover that they'd taken the full trash bag that I'd left by the back door (forgot to lock it up...dumb me.) and they'd scattered it's contents over the kitchen floor.

Effin' dogs.

Now as to the Reising, I fiddled with it this morning a bit and discovered that the bumper plug on the rear of the receiver was not fully tightened, and when I corrected that, it shot a couple of more magazines almost perfectly. (And to be fair, these 70 year old factory magazines have seen better days themselves.) I really think I'm close to having it running right, and we'll see what a new spring set and new magazines do for it.