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.

Shoot Day

Hit the range today. Proud Hillbilly stopped by and we went out to do some shooting. I tried out the Iver Johnson TP-22 (below) and I was impressed. Compared to other small pistols that I've shot or owned, it was slick smooth and more than accurate enough for what it is--a last-ditch back-up pistol intended for point-blank range. With standard Winchester loads, I had a few rounds where the slide didn't slam home hard enough to put the pistol all the way into battery, but with CCI's 1435fps "Velocitor" hollow-points, it ran flawlessly. I'm by no means an advocate for small pistols as a rule, but as a back-up, or a convenience sidearm to jam into my pocket for a quick trip to the store, this one works. It's the same size as my Ruger LCP, only difference being 8 rounds of .22lr vs. 7 rounds of .380. Oh--and the IJ has better sights and a better trigger pull, especially when fired in single-action mode.

Verdict: I'm keeping it.

Next up, I practiced with my LCP since Aaron at The Shekel got me a spare magazine and a DeSantis pocket holster for it. I practiced drawing and firing two-shot strings from the pocket holster, and while I coud not practice this drill as much as I wanted to due to other club members on the range (and silly rules against drawing from the holster or other "tactical" shooting methods), I still got a feel for what's possible and I was happy with the session.

Now there's always got to be a downer, and this time, it was my newish Trapdoor Springfield. I picked u some Ultramax cowboy loads for it for testing, and while it shot and ejected perfectly, it was also hitting nearly three feet high at 100 yards with the Buffington Sight set as low as it would go, and it wasn't much better with the battle sight. As the sights are gradated from 200 to 1400 yards, I moved the target back to 200 yards (or rather Proud Hillbilly did as I used her shamelessly as my range monkey on the rifle line) and fired some more. Still way high, but I was at least able to land some hits. I would not want to be defending myself with this rifle, at least with this ammo. Had this been a real shooting situation, the Indians would have wiped out the wagon train.

A plus though was watching PH shoot the new M1 carbine that she got from Aaron. With virtually no rife experience to speak of, she managed to tear the center out of her target at 25 yards standing off-hand, and she did so well at 50 yards that we decided to try her at 100. Again, she kept all but two rounds in the target's 8 ring (most of them being 9s 10s and Xs), and when I called on her to switch to my 200 yard target, she made several nice hits on that as well. Truth be told, as a shooting coach, I'm proud of her, and if I were an attacking bad guy, I'd be afraid...very afraid.

Post-shooting, we went for wings and beer. It would be hard for the day to get much better as of right now. Hopefully she'll have a post up soon as well.

Took the little ones out to shoot.

THESE little ones--(from top to bottom) The Ruger LCP, Walther PPK, and Smith and Wesson Model 642.The first two are .380 ACP and they hold seven shots each, the S&W is .38 Special and it holds five.

Given my druthers, the .38 is still my favorite carry pistol because it's the most powerful of the three, and I consider five .38's worth seven .380's any day, especially in a quality pistol like this little Smith. But all three of these pistols have their applications. The LCP has the worst sights and trigger but it practically disappears into my pocket. And that horrible trigger acts as a reliable safety to keep negligent discharges in said pocket from occurring.

In between, the PPK...well it's got style going for it. James Bond and all... (Yes, I know that his was .32ACP and not .380, but I didn't need yet another anemic caliber in my ammo closet.) But this PPK probably has the best trigger and sights of the three of them. It's got a serious Double-Action/Single-Action trigger and small but prominent front and rear sights, whereas the other two only have front sights and a channel instead of a real rear sight.
The PPK came broken from a Gunbroker sale although it was represented as being fully functional and I just fixed it after finding the necessary part and schematic at Numerich Arms.

None of these are match pistols, nor do they have the stopping power and magazine capacity of a modern combat pistol, but they all have one thing in common that makes them handier than larger, better fighting pistols--they're small. They're easier to conceal than a full-size 1911 or K-frame revolver, and they can often just be slipped into a pocket, making them more convenient to carry into more places than a full-sized pistol. That means that sometimes they wind up with me where one of my regular carry sidearms might not be. And Rule #1 of a gunfight is: "Have a gun".

These three also have the one prerequisite for any gun that I'll ever own or carry: They're reliable. They shoot when I squeeze the trigger and the round goes where I aim it. They may be small, but in a crunch they'll still put rounds on target every time, and that's not something that you can take for granted when buying a gun. If your pistol won't fire your chosen self-defense rough a hundred times out of a hundred, it's not reliable enough to trust you life to no matter how small or light or "cute" it is.

Shooting

I hit the range today. Took two pistols out with me: The old police veteran Beretta 92, and the relatively new young pup--the Ruger LCP.


The Beretta was out for testing after I replaced the springs. It was, shall we say, less than reliable when I got it, and I shudder to think of some New Orleans police officer carrying it on duty in the condition that I received it in. Lots of failures to completely chamber rounds, resulting in no sound at all where there should have been a second "bang" in the double-tap.

But now that it sports new Wolff springs and has been thoroughly cleaned and oiled, it shoots like a champ, icky double-action first shot notwithstanding.

The little Ruger, still fairly new to me, was just along for the ride, but since I had practice ammo for it in the bag, I downloaded the carry loads and set it up for some practice scenarios (which basically involved loading it with the target loads and stuffing it back into my front jeans pocket).

The course of fire consisted of two paper plates, one above the other at approximate chest & head level, but since my range has a bunch of sissy pacifists as members, we can't call them that or imply that it's what they represent. I also took another target stand back 15 yards and set it up as a barricade to shoot around. Firing was three-shot strings, two to the ches--uh...the lower plate, and one to the upper plate. I kept moving so that each string was fired from a different location on the range, and when the Beretta ran dry, instead of a tactical reload, I transitioned to the Ruger in my pocket.

I've found that the Ruger tends to shoot low, so that if I want a point-of-aim hit, I have to elevate the front sight so that it's wholly out of the rudimentary rear notch sight. If I remember to do that, I have no trouble double-tapping the paper plate, provided that I don't get too far back from it. But then it was never meant to be a stand-off weapon and I knew that when I bought it.

Close-in (under ten feet) the Ruger does great. I can pull it out of the pocket, index it, and fire twice into the plate in about two seconds. From farther back, give me the Beretta any day (or better yet, my 1911).

And of course it wouldn't be good practice without a couple magazines fired support-hand-only. (That means if you're left-handed, using only your right, and if you're cursed enough to be right-handed, using your left one.) It's only natural that we tend not to practice those things which aren't much fun--like support-hand shooting, but it's also fairly common in real gunfights to take a round in your primary gun hand since bad guys--like the rest of us--tend to instinctively shoot what they're looking at, and odds are that they'll be looking at your gun and, by extension, the hand holding it. And this theory has been borne out in my own simunition training numerous times, and I have rarely gone a day of force-on-force simunition shooting without taking at least one solid hit to my gun-hand fingers (and usually several). Consequently, as a proud southpaw, I always try to fire a few rounds each time out with my right hand only. It doesn't feel natural, and I can't shoot the nice, tight groups that I'm accustomed to, but I've gotten to where I can put consistent hits on the target fairly quickly, and that's really the point of combat shooting. Shoot fast, shoot straight, move to cover, and always have a back-up plan for when things untwist.

Now get out there with your own sidearms and start switching mitts. And don't forget to practice one-handed reloading as well. Your life may depend on it some day and trying to figure it out for the first time while under the stress of a real shooting situation probably isn't going to work out too well.

Gun Commercial

We interrupt the Spud Tales to bring you this new gun story.

I got a Ruger LCP.

It was sort of an accidental purchase in that I found a dealer who'd ordered one for a customer only to have the customer back out. The dealer agreed to sell it to me for his cost plus shipping and I took delivery of it the other day. It's small. Real small.
In fact, the picture doesn't do it justice. So for scale, here it is below a Beretta 92 and next to a paperback book.
Like I said, it's small. It's 5.16 long, 3.6 inches high, and 0.82 inches wide--less than in inch. But it holds 7 rounds of .380ACP and it's earned a solid reputation for reliability since coming onto the market. With it's polymer frame, it weighs next to nothing, making it a handy, easy-to-carry pistol.

Now I'm generally not a fan of little guns. In fact I usually disparage them and try to talk novice gun owners out of getting them as first-line defensive pistols. But there are a few niche areas where a pistol like this comes in handy, usually in situations where a bigger gun is impractical. Even a small gun is better than no gun, and the concealability of this one makes it a perfect fit for a role that I have in mind for it.

I took it out shooting two days back, Spud in tow. It functioned 100%, putting 100 rounds of Remington 95gr. FMJ downrange without a hiccup. It's not the most comfortable little thing to shoot because of it's size, but it put almost every round right where I wanted them, the few exceptions being my fault as I was still getting used to it. A 1911 it's definitely not.

But I like the little sucker and it fits in almost any pocket nicely and without printing, so even though it lacks the stopping power of my primary carry guns, I can see it earning a permanent place in my armory.

Now if only Ruger didn't gouge so hard on spare magazines!