Long overdue range day

Got out to the range today for some long overdue practice.

I took a pair of pistols--a Smith and Wesson Model 57 in .41 Magnum, and a Ruger LCP in .380.

Yeah, a bit of a size difference. And the cartridges are a bit different as well:

The LCP was shooting factory .380 rounds consisting of 95gr. bullets traveling at about 960fps. The .41 rounds were a bit heavier at 215 grains, and they were running about 1250fps per my chronygraph. They grouped well and hit just a couple of inches below point of aim from 20 yards, but I'm still experimenting and I'd like to get the velocity up just a bit more and raise the point of impact a bit to boot.

Bruce, a newer shooter, came out with me to work with his M&P Shield. He's definitely getting better with practice as he becomes more comfortable with it.

He also had this nifty CMP Service Grade Special M-1:

Nice gun. It's one of the ones that the CMP built on a refinished receiver with a new barrel, in this case, a Springfield Armory WW2 serial number and an SA 3/65 barrel.

It has new wood on it that's been causing problems because it is binding on the operating rod and causing the rifle to short-stroke and fail to pick up subsequent rounds from the magazine. I already sanded the rod channel once, but apparently I didn't quite sand enough, and I missed another spot on the left where the rod is still rubbing the wood.

I'm hearing from other CMP shooters that this isn't uncommon, and while I'm glad to see Boyds Gunstocks making these for the CMP, I do wish that they'd make them right. But now Bruce knows where to sand, and hopefully the next time out the rifle will be functioning as flawlessly as a new M1 should.

Meanwhile, Bruce, a brand new shooter, is already putting every round on target at 100 yards.

I had my Spanish 1895 Mauser (cal. 7mm) out to pay with when not spotting for Bruce.

Nothing special here--just a long rifle made at the Ovideo arsenal in 1931.

It wasn't expensive and it looks and shoots nice, so I have no complaints.

At the end of the session, all rounds fired were accounted for on the target. Grouping cound have been a bit better, but I blame myself today, not the rifle.

And as we all know, any day at the range beats any day at work any time.


And back in Alaska:

It's currently Dallas Seavey back in the lead, with Aaron Burmiester in second place just three minutes behind him and Aliy Zirle third. All three have reached Koyuk, as has Jessie Royer, who holds fourth.
Mitch Seavey is in fifth, Martin Buser is back in 20th, the Berington twins are 32nd (Anna) and 33rd (Kristy), Alan Moore is in 47th place and presently in the Kaltag checkpoint--shocking for the guy who just barely took second place in last month's Yukon Quest--and Lisbet Norris has dropped was back to 62nd.

Every musher has dropped at least one dog by now and three mushers are down to 9 dogs each: Nathan Schroeder in 15th, Katherine Kieth in 40th, and Marcelle Fressineau in 57s, still at the Nulato checkpoint. Gotta have 8 dogs to finish.

The four leaders are less than 200 miles from Nome, so we're likely to see a finish sometime tomorrow night or early Wednesday.

Update: As of 2199hrs EST, Dallas Seavey is the first musher out of the Koyuk checkpoint. He rested there for 4hrs, 14 minutes and dropped one dog, leaving him 11 to finish.

A Good Day For Shooting

Because Bruce, a relative newbie to shooting, is about to buy a pistol, several of us went out to the range today to put him on various handguns and generally just have some fun on a January afternoon.

Since Bruce wants a 9mm, we brought out three for him to try:

Top to bottom: Browning Hi-Power, Smith and Wesson M&P, and Glock 19.

I don't think that he even shot the Hi-Power, as he was already leaning towards an M&P just from his own research. But he got to shoot a 9mm M&P courtesy of John, who has one, (Mine's a .40.) and he liked it and did pretty good with it when he concentrated on sight alignment and trigger press.

Most importantly though: He was safe. No safety violations, so I was pleased. I'm thinking that he'll go far as a decent shooter.

We also got some rifle shooting in.

Here's Cindy, with her Savage .22:

I forgot to tell her that she needed to shift her rear sight up to go from 25 yards to 100. But she figured it out when she went down to see her target.

Here's John with his DPMS G2 Recon .308.

He added a decent scope and a Harris bipod, and his 200 yard target was a thing of beauty after he got done knocking it's center out. I'm going to have to get one of those now.

Here's Bruce, shooting my M-1 Garand:

And here's my Garand, s/n XXX5009 again.

Also present: A Universal M-1 carbine, one of the older ones that still uses a number of GI parts.

And special mention goes to our friend Keith, who was supposed to come out but decided to finish a cleaning project at home instead.

All in all, a good day indeed.

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.

The Fed-Ex Fairy Came Calling

And a box from the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) got left behind.

Opening it up, I find this beautiful service-grade M1 Garand rifle.

At first glance, I'm pleased. The wood is tight and sports just a few little nicks here and there. The finish is great. This rifle looks to have been used very little.

But appearances deceive. This rifle sports a serial number that indicates that it was made in November of 1943. As such, there's a pretty good chance that it saw service in World War Two, and maybe Korea as well.

At sometime in it's life though, it saw enough shooting that it's original barrel was replaced at least once. Now it sports one made in March of 1965, twenty-two years after the rifle itself was made.

This barrel has a muzzle wear of 1 on a scale of one to ten, one being virtually new, and ten being shot out. It also has a throat erosion of 2 on that same scale.

All of it's marked parts appear to be Springfield Armory parts, so there will be no temptation to remove bolts, trigger assembly parts or operating rods for substitution onto other Winchester, H&R or IHC rifles. But I'm good with that, as this rifle came here intact and it's parts are it's parts, either original to it or added during some chapter of it's service life.

The stock is undoubtedly a replacement, as it bears no stamps indicating arsenal re-working. Pulling the stock off reveals that she saw an arsenal rebuild on September of 1965 at the Red River Army Depot.

Interestingly, they seem to have left the early-style gas cylinder lock on instead of "upgrading" to the newer version with more metal on the top.

That pleases me, because I like the older ones like this.

This one is a beauty, and I can't wait to get her out and see how she shoots.

Of course I might have a bit of trouble taking it out. It looks like Miss Memphis Belle is laying a claim on it for herself.

Trade you for a marrow bone, Belle? How about two marrow bones?


And no, it didn't come with a sling. CMP seems to have stopped sending those with the rifles. But fortunately I have a few spares so I could put one on quick before Tam calls me out for not having one on my rifle again. ;-)

Range Day!

Proud Hillbilly's Daughter and Son-in-Law D. are in town with their newish baby. PH decided to get D. out of the house today so she dropped him off at my place this morning and demanded that I take him shooting.

Gee. Twist my arm.

We started out wish some South African action, courtesy of my Uzi.

Then something a bit more sedate: pistols. D. had a sweet 1911A1 custom job that he uses for PPC matches. Just put the sights on the target and think the word "pull" and it sends rounds downrange quite consistently. Shame on me, but I didn't get a picture of that fine, fine pistol.

I just brought out these old Smith and Wessons.

Top: Model 19, .357 Magnum. Bottom: Model 10 heavy barrel .38 Special.
They shot flawlessly. Me, not so much. I put pretty much every round on my paper plates at 25 yards, but the grouping was nothing to brag about. More practice needed!

Then it was rifle time. The 100-yard line was occupied so we went down to the 400 yard line and set up. I let D. run the targets down while I watched the rifles.

The top rifle is a World War Two-dated Springfield Armory M1 Garand with a new 11-64-dated barrel.

This rifle was rebuilt in the 1960's and appears to have been put right into storage. It probably didn't see the light of day again until I got it from the CMP in the late 1990s.
Little to no wear at all in here:

Nice Dept. of Defense cartouche on the stock:

The bottom one is another WW2 vet--this one a British #4Mk1 Enfield made by Savage Arms Co. in Mass., USA. Since at the time, we were barred by our own silly laws and Isolationist policies from arming any country fighting a war, the fiction of "Lend Lease" was created. Under this scheme, we could "loan" surplus American equipment to other countries, so these British-pattern rifles were stamped "US Property" and "loaned" to Britain for the duration.

The "S" denotes Savage manufacture.

MOst of these rifles had really nice adjustable aperture rear sights, but this one just has a rather crude flip sight, with peeps for 300 and 600 yards meters.

We shot the Garand at 400 yards first. Both of us did fairly well, hitting high but on with the first clips, then after a target check and sight adjustment, we both were on target. Neither of us really distinguished ourselves, but had the targets been actual bad guys, they'd have at east been stopped.

Then we shot the Enfield. The sights and trigger were a bit cruder than the Garand's was, and as it turned out, we both put our rounds low but right on windage-wise. We were using the 300M aperture, and I suspect that the 600M peep would have put the rounds right on. I'll take it out again next time to see.

Rounds dispensed with, we adjourned to PH's house for lunch and beer.

Yep. That's our Proud Hillbilly.

And don't forget, shooters--Charity blogshoot here on Saturday, Sept. 14th. Lots of regulars will be there, including Proud Hillbilly, Keads, Aaron of The Shekel, and many others. Bring your favorite firearms, because we'll have a range all to ourselves this time out to 100 yards.

A Memorial Day well spent

Memorial Day. What a great day to head out to the range with some old military veterans that have "been there and done that" in defense of this great country.

Of course I mean old military firearms, but I suppose we can include my shooting buddy, too.

A famous blogger and former military aviator came out to do some shooting. Murphy sure was happy to see his old pal again.

"Hey! It's him! He's back!"

We hit the range and broke out the rifles first. I had this Harrington and Richardson M1 Garand that I got from the CMP back in 2000. As far as I know, this it the first time I've actually shot it.

It has a February of 1954 barrel that gauged almost new at both throat and muzzle. This more than made up for a stock that looked like someone had thrown it down a flight of stairs.

It shot fantastically, too. Much better than I did. It's rear sight had to come up 14 clicks to hit point-of-aim at 100 yards, but once set, it was all sweet spot and joy.

Old NFO had himself a Garand too--a National Match job that was just beautiful to behold. (He's like Batman, folks...he's got all the really neat toys.)

Next, I broke out the 1903A3 Springfield.

This one is a Smith Corona-manufactured rifle built in 1943. (Yep, the typewriter people. Go ask your parents, kids.)

I think I last shot it at Camp Perry back in 2002. It was a CMP return from Greece, and like the M-1 above, it shot well, only issue being a somewhat loose stock that allowed the action to shift slightly with every recoil. It made for a weird feeling shooting it but it still kept every round on a paper pate at 100 yards. I think that, since it's still in it's old Greek stock, that it's going to get some glass bedding to tighten things up. Then we'll see what it's really capable of.

Then it was M1 Carbine time.


This one was manufactured by the Underwood Corporation in 1944. (They made typewriters, too.) I got this one from the CMP back in 2001 as well and I've never shot it until today. It shot great, but it's not exactly "left-hander friendly"; I got popped in the head by so many ejected cases that I still have a sore spot hours later.

Old NFO had a early-model Winchester carbine that he was shooting that could have come out of a time capsule. It was most impressive. I'm really hoping that he posts pictures of his way-cool guns on his blog when he gets home (Hint, hint..)

Everyone else on the range seemed to have some AR variant but none of them carry the cool points of these old war rifles.


Of course there were pistols too.

In keeping with the military arms theme, I brought out my old Colt 1911 and Smith and Wesson Model 10 "Victory", both military issue.

The 1911 was stock World War One military, apparently departing US Military custody and control before any of the 1911A1 upgrades were performed on it.

Sadly, this vet was a bit under the weather. While firing the first magazine, the extractor broke. Big sigh. But those are easy to come by and replace, and being an internal part, the pistol won't look any different once the old one has been swapped out.

Next, I shot the Smith and Wesson "Victory".

This one also has a military history. I got it from the estate of a doctor about 15 years ago. Per his daughter, he'd obtained it while a military MD in the South Pacific during World War Two. According to the story, a Marine pilot gave it to the young doctor as the island that they were on still had plenty of Japanese soldiers in the jungle around the airfield. The doctor brought it home with him after the war and kept it in his office until he passed. I acquired it from the daughter through a mutual friend, and it still had six corroded .38 Special cartridges in the cylinder when she handed it to me for inspection. It also has the appropriate stampings:

GHD is the initials of Guy H. Drewry, US Army Ordnance Dept. Chief Inspector. His initials were used as the acceptance stamp for all military pistols produced between June 1942 and July 1945.
This pistol astounded me.
I think I've shot it once, maybe twice since I bought it. It's been a safe queen and sometime wall-hanger for the last decade and a half, but right out of the gate, it proved that it was dead on with this target shot at 25 yards, standing.

This pistol was not blessed with a crisp, smooth trigger like most old Smith and Wessons so I never figured that it could be much of a shooter. Wow, was I wrong. I spent some time chasing an empty soda can around the 25-yard berm, rarely missing it. Then I gave it to Old NFO, who also bulls-eyed his own target with it every shot but one. This pistol's great. Come the bad times, I'll have no qualms about pressing this one back into service.

Of course there were more cool Old NFO guns. I shot his Ruger single-action .45 Long Colt a few times and now I've just got to have one. (Thanks, guy!) I'd been on the fence mulling one for a while but shooting his knocked me right off on the "must buy one" side. (Sigh...)

After shooting, we grabbed a couple of burgers at Five Guys and then headed out to the airport. What better way to commemorate Memorial Day then a flight over Antietam Battlefield in Maryland? On this battlefield, on one day--September 17th, 1862--22,717 men were killed, wounded or went missing. America has never seen a slaughter of it's young fighting men equal to that before or since.

Old NFO grabbed some pics while I flew. Again, hopefully he'll post them. In the meantime though, here's some I took a couple years back when I was there on my bike.

I gave him the plane a couple of times, and he proved that he's still got it. He's the first passenger that I've ever felt comfortable enough with to take some pictures of my own while he flew.

And old Navy aviators never lost the knack for finding bad guys in the water apparently, because the first thing we found was a fishing boat that was sneakily hunting fish in that closed quarry near The Lair--the one that's supposedly so "off limits" to trespassers.

We also spotted what looked to be four vehicles back in the verboten zone, but on closer examination of this picture, there were really five.

Old NFO is such a great Naval Aviator that he can catch bad guys afloat even in land-locked West Virginia. Of course he's been at it for a while. Here's a pic I found of him back when he was first starting out in the Navy.

I think that's him in the hat. The guy with the mustache is Orville Wright.

Heading back into the airport, we overflew the local KOA campgroud. Looks like lots of RV space, in case someone currently in Texas who reads this blog and travels in an RV might be temptable.

Back at the airport, we found this way-cool Taylorcraft tied down in transient parking and naturally we thought of someone that we know.


It's fabric-covered! I think it uses a Briggs and Stratton motor, or maybe it's one of the earlier hamster-powered ones. In any case, it was neat to drool over for a few minutes.

Fun is finally over. Now I'm home, with a ton of guns to clean. But it was a great day with great company and I look forward to doing it again.

Lest we forget the real reason for the day though...