Virgin no more. The SBR shoots. And scores

Off to the range today with the new short-barreled rifle (SBR).

I fired one box of factory Remington 220gr. loads to check function and dial in the back-up sights. It's now "minute of paper plate" at 50 yards, which I chose because the heavy bullet loaded to low velocity to stay suppressed really starts to drop when it gets out near 100. I also WILL need to go with a longer stock, both to get a proper cheek weld and because as a lefty, my face is too close to the ejection port with this short stock and I kept getting popped in the face by debris (and a casing or two).

But it functioned flawlessly, both with the suppressed loads and without the suppressor when I tested some higher-velocity 147gr. stuff that I loaded for my other .300 Blackout rifle. That stuff has a lot more kick to it and shoots noticeably higher at 50 yards but I kept them all on the same plate with the Mag-Pul sights and that too-short stock, so overall I'm quite pleased. No failures to feed or function with either round and it stacks my brass nicely behind me (subsonic loads) or whips them at the shooter directly to my right if shooting the higher-velocity stuff.

The range was really too busy for me to be able to just sit down and run the tests that I wanted to run, but I'm satisfied for now and it's nice to have the choice of options between suppressed strikes and AK-like power from the more traditional rounds. I do like the 5.56mm cartridge and the AR platform, but at 0-300 yards, give me a 150gr. FMJ moving at 2,000fps+/- most any day.

Baby's first brass marks on the case deflector.

Quite happy with this one. Now we wait on a more appropriate stock and a quality optic.

I also got some practice in with my SIGnificant other, the Sig P229 in .40S&W.

It's an older version but a truly sweet shooter that I picked up a couple of years ago, intending to convert it to shoot up all of the .357 Sig brass that I've collected. I need to get out with this pistol more but sadly, I keep forgetting that I own it. The other day I was actually surprised for a second to find it in a back corner of the gun safe. You know that feeling when you reach into the pocket of a jacket or fresh-washed pair of pants and find a twenty dollar bill? Yeah, it's like that. I really need to do more inventories of the gun room.

Range Time

It's been too long.

My June wrist injury has thus far kept me from shooting most handguns for more than a few shots, so it's been kinda frustrating these last few months. But today, the wrist wasn't hurting, and my physical therapist told me to "go out and shoot and see how it feels".

Hey, that's great! Can I get a prescription for a thousand rounds of .40 and .45 ammo, and can we get my insurance to cover it as medically necessary?

Sadly, the answer was no. But I still went out, and I took my somewhat new (to me) Sig P229 out.

This is the DA/SA model that I got right about the time that I injured my wrist so I haven't been able to do anything with it all summer. I had it out once but was unable to shoot it more than a few rounds. It's the second Sig that I bought this year as the last one turned out to be Double-Action Only, a fact that I was unaware of when I bought it, so it was re-sold and the money set aside for one with the DA/SA trigger.
(There's nothing wrong with DAO pistols...they just aren't my thing.)

This one shot point-of-aim on the dueling tree steel plates that neither Aaron or I seemed able to hit satisfactorily in the competition a couple of weeks ago, and the trigger reset felt pretty good. However it did jam up on me a few times while shooting with one hand so I'll replace the springs and quit feeding it Tula steel-cored crap ammo from now on.

I'd been wanting a Sig for quite some time, but after getting it and comparing it to my Glock 23, I have to wonder why. They are both about the same size, although the Gock with it's polymer frame is half a pound lighter AND it holds an extra round in the magazine (13 vs. 12 for the Sig.)

Still, I like redundancy so owning more than one .40 is good, and I like the Sig for it's accuracy and reliability (not that the Glock gives up much of either of these, btw). I plan to get the .357 Sig barrel for this one (and probably one for the Glock too...you know, that "redundancy" thing) and like as not, I'll carry and shoot them interchangeably when I'm in the mood for something smaller than a .45 or .41. The Glock has been a favorite of mine since I bought it 12 years ago, and as for the sig? Verdict's in: I like it.

My May Day activity

The Occupods and other Socialist losers ran around yesterday telling us all to "strike" today and not work, go to school or shop.

Well even if I supported their cause (which I don't, whatever it is), I fail to see how making myself poorer and dumber for a day would help it. So I did what any good American would do instead: I worked an extra job and put some overtime cash in my pocket, and I spent some of it on a nifty pre-owned Sig P229.

Not only did I do the opposite of what the loser-class wanted me to do, I also got something that might well come in handy if they keep getting aggressive and attacking the rest of us, like the five Occupy anarchists in Cleveland just tried to do. Keep it up, Occupiers...you'll all go the way of the Carrier Pigeon and the Dodo Bird if you try to declare war on those of us who love this country.

But back to my new Sig...

I really had to get one of these if for no other reason than to keep a promise.
Several months ago, I found a seller who had some of these for sale at a pretty good price. I immediately called up Aaron at The Shekel and told him about these Sigs. "Come on, Aaron," I enticed. You know that you want one. If you buy one, I'll buy one. What do you say?"

Naturally, in response to my arm-twisting, he bought one. Now I had intended to buy one too (honest!), but as I was going back on line to do so, I found this Trapdoor Springfield being offered by another seller, and...well you know how that sort of thing goes. By the time I went back to get one of the Sigs, they were sold out. Meanwhile, Aaron was inviting me to get with him for some shooting. "And when you come, bring your new Sig!"

Uh, yeah. About that...

I'd always kinda felt like Lucy tricking Charlie Brown into taking a run at the football for talking him into buying his Sig and then not buying one myself. But now I got one like I said that I would, and that's a load off of my conscience, let me tell you!

And come the day, I can probably pacify more rampaging Occupiers with it than I could with the Trapdoor Springfield, too.

Next purchase: a .357 Sig conversion barrel for it, so I can make use of all of the .357 Sig brass that I've scrounged up off of the range!