Thursday, April 30, 2015

Range day...

Had a good afternoon at the range despite the rain (we got ½").

First I shot the Colt Government Series 80 MKIV .380 with a mix of ammo which included most current production. The Tula does NOT feed and will NOT chamber but all the brass and aluminum cased stuff functioned just fine. That stuff also shot to point of aim at 30 feet. Good enough.

Then I got out the SIG Sauer 938-22. This is one of those guns that had promise but doesn't seem to live up to it. First problem I had with the gun is that it only came with one magazine. FINALLY got a couple of more magazines even though SIG has been showing out of stock for months. These magazines are made in Israel which surprised me but might be in part of the next problem, which I had today. With two different brands of ammo/loads, the second round from the magazine wouldn't pick up and every once in a while it would do this on the next to the last round. Supposedly of 10-round capacity I thought perhaps this meant that I should load 9 or 8. Nope, did the same thing. Have to figure this one out. Then I finally got the sights dialed in. This has been a problem as the sights were initially resistant to screw adjustment (this is the adjustable sight version) as in, one couldn't turn the screws. Soaking in oil fixed that but the adjustment seems "iffy". The next disappointment is that this gun is NOT minute of squirrel head capable at much over 25 feet. I suppose that it is only intended as a trainer for the 9mm gun but one would think that it could do better than this. It is fun to shoot but the Browning 1911-22 is more accurate.

Then I got around to shooting, for the first time, my 4" Ruger Redhawk. A friend was cleaning out his stock of no longer needed loading stuff and passed on to me a bunch of brass and bullets including some .44 Mag reloads. Yeah, I know, don't shoot somebody else's reloads but sometimes you just gotta live dangerously. In any case this was in a Redhawk, if ever there was a gun with a margin of safety... Anyway, one load was with the the 240 gr. Sierra JHC and the other with what appears to be the Hornady 180 gr XTP. Well, I guess I haven't shot a big bore sixgun for a while despite my shooting of .44 and .45 Ruger SAs. I was a bit "surprised". The JHC load came back with authority but not too bad but the XTP load was a fire-breather, literally. I was shooting at 25 yards and I do believe that the muzzle blast would dry the target. Quite impressive. No, I'm not going to shoot the rest of them.

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