My first unexpected retirement reloading project and range trip PIF.
Day after 4th of July, the elderly couple I am teaching defensive point shooting to (
Defensive point shooting training is always done as PIF) called and said he had ordered 1000 rounds of 9mm from LAX Ammunition for his son and wife living out of town for 4th of July visit. Ammunition was ordered 3 weeks prior but had not been delivered yet but he did pick up two Glock 19s he had ordered for him and his wife after enjoy shooting my Glock 22/23 with 40-9 conversion barrels (both in their 60s after the second point shooting training session, they were putting all their fast point shooting double taps (Not using sights) into 1/4 sheet copy paper targets at 5-7 yards). Quickly reading between the lines, I offered to load up 9mm rounds, offered to provide point shooting training to his son and wife and asked what other firearms they were shooting (Son hoped to zero his scoped .30-06 that belonged to his grandfather and shoot his Bulgarian AK bought many years ago for the first time).
I quickly sorted RMR pulled mixed 9mm bullets using Frankford Arsenal DS-750 digital scale and set aside 1000 115 gr plated RN bullets. Using 4.2 gr of Promo, 800 rounds were loaded on Auto Breech Lock Pro to 1.125"-1.130" OAL in a few hours (Since I shoot so much more 9mm now, I may set up the Dillon 650 with case feeder for 9mm and load 45ACP on Dillon 550 or Auto Breech Lock Pro) to add to about 200 I already had in an ammo can. This is the beauty of reloading as you are independent from dependence on retail supply of ammunition.
I also pulled .223 factory (Remington/Black Hills blue box 55 gr FMJ), 7.62x39 factory (Tulammo steel cased FMJ/Greek SP) and 22LR (Walmart Federal 36 gr CP HP and Winchester 40 gr CP RN) ammo cans for the range trip. I also called my son (whose birthday was on 5th of July) to join us who gladly agreed.
Early next morning, we met and drove to a shooting area in the hills of Oregon. Before we started point shooting training, we decided to zero the Marlin bolt action .30-06 first. We set up cardboard targets at 100 yards and set the Redfield 3-9x40mm scope to 9 power. After initial fouling shots, not happy with holes on target/response to scope adjustments, I tightened the scope mount screws (Son claimed he tightened the screws with Locktite but confirmed they were loose). With scope mount screws tight and barrel cooled, around 1 MOA 5 shot group slightly larger than a quarter was produced using Remington Core-Lokt and we called it good enough for elk hunting.
Next came Bulgarian AK that immediately displayed failure to feed from my PIF new East German 90s era ribbed AK magazines (They have been 100% reliable in all different AKs). After rounding/smoothing the feed ramp and cleaning/oiling the AK, when it fed reliably if we held the magazine back, we deemed the feeding issue to faulty mag catch that was slightly too short. Son thought about fabricating a new mag catch but since he could weld, I suggested he fill the pin hole and drill a new hole slightly further away from the end of mag catch, which he agreed.
After 6 hours of point shooting training and shooting up the various paper targets and bouncing ground targets with Glocks, ARs, AK, GSG 1911 22LR and ARs with CMMG 22LR conversion kits, son and his wife were producing fast point shooting double tap holes on 1/2 sheet of copy paper targets. Everyone enjoyed the range trip and the elderly couple were very happy that their son/wife got to learn how to point shoot. We ended the range trip with a nice lunch together.
Today, elderly couple's husband, his friend and I went on a 9 hour deep sea fishing trip on his boat. While we didn't catch any halibut (He caught a 40 lb halibut last week), we got plenty of rock cod and ocean trout. Ocean was particularly calm with occasional light drizzle which cleared later in the morning. Can't wait to finish my 18' and 21' fishing boats. Not a bad start of my retirement reloading life.
(Picture below shows unusually calm smooth water that was surreal and serene)
Tomorrow, I will ship out Pro 1000 reloading package PIF to ohihunter2014 and his brother who have been patiently waiting through my impromptu/unexpected retirement "celebrations" and resume my wife's long list of "retirement projects".