Dave Markowitz
Member
I had an ATF Day today. In reverse order:
* Had a Yuengling Lager with dinner.
* Smoked a Padron cigar while leafing through catalogs from MidwayUSA, Widener's, and CDNN on the back porch.
* Went shooting.
The first gun I shot was my Smith & Wesson M-640. I ran 50 Winchester 150 grain LRN loads through it, followed by about 30 - 35 Speer 158 grain LSWCHP +P loads. The Uncle Mike's rubber grips I put on the gun are a major improvement over the wood grips that were on the piece when I bought it. Being a small, light revolver, it still whacks your hand when you shoot it, but now it's much less obnoxious.
After I was finished with the Smith, I shot about 60 rounds of ball through my Underwood M1 Carbine. The Carbine has long been a controversial weapon for military use, but most people agree that it's fun to shoot. The recoil is very light but there's enough going on to make it interesting. Under the conditions I'll be using it in it is reliable. I plan to pick up some Winchester 110 grain hollow soft points. If it feeds them reliably I'll have the ballistic equivalent of a semiautomatic .357 Magnum carbine.
The last gun I shot was my Browning High Power Practical 9mm. I had 20 9mm NATO 124 grain ball rounds by Federal that I shot first. This stuff is basically 9mm +P. I then shot 75 rounds of Sellier & Bellot 115 grain ball. In my experience (and my dad's), Sellier & Bellot 9mm is good, cheap practice ammo. It's loaded to SAAMI-spec pressures, which put less stess on the gun than NATO ammo and is more pleasant to shoot. The only malfunction I had today was with the NATO ball, and I think it was probably operator-induced. I think what happened is that I somehow just barely nudge the safety lever upwards causing a failure to feed.
While at the range I got to see a few neat toys that other folks had. One guy had a Springfield M1A Scout Rifle, another an M4gery built on a PWA lower and a Bushmaster Upper, with a Trijicon dot sight, and neatest of all, another guy had a SAKO TRG-22 bolt action rifle in .308. This is a neat rifle to say the least; SAKO guarantees that it is capable of 12.5mm groups at 100 meters. It makes a fine long range precision rifle, and in fact is used by the Finnish Army as its sniper rifle.
* Had a Yuengling Lager with dinner.
* Smoked a Padron cigar while leafing through catalogs from MidwayUSA, Widener's, and CDNN on the back porch.
* Went shooting.
The first gun I shot was my Smith & Wesson M-640. I ran 50 Winchester 150 grain LRN loads through it, followed by about 30 - 35 Speer 158 grain LSWCHP +P loads. The Uncle Mike's rubber grips I put on the gun are a major improvement over the wood grips that were on the piece when I bought it. Being a small, light revolver, it still whacks your hand when you shoot it, but now it's much less obnoxious.
After I was finished with the Smith, I shot about 60 rounds of ball through my Underwood M1 Carbine. The Carbine has long been a controversial weapon for military use, but most people agree that it's fun to shoot. The recoil is very light but there's enough going on to make it interesting. Under the conditions I'll be using it in it is reliable. I plan to pick up some Winchester 110 grain hollow soft points. If it feeds them reliably I'll have the ballistic equivalent of a semiautomatic .357 Magnum carbine.
The last gun I shot was my Browning High Power Practical 9mm. I had 20 9mm NATO 124 grain ball rounds by Federal that I shot first. This stuff is basically 9mm +P. I then shot 75 rounds of Sellier & Bellot 115 grain ball. In my experience (and my dad's), Sellier & Bellot 9mm is good, cheap practice ammo. It's loaded to SAAMI-spec pressures, which put less stess on the gun than NATO ammo and is more pleasant to shoot. The only malfunction I had today was with the NATO ball, and I think it was probably operator-induced. I think what happened is that I somehow just barely nudge the safety lever upwards causing a failure to feed.
While at the range I got to see a few neat toys that other folks had. One guy had a Springfield M1A Scout Rifle, another an M4gery built on a PWA lower and a Bushmaster Upper, with a Trijicon dot sight, and neatest of all, another guy had a SAKO TRG-22 bolt action rifle in .308. This is a neat rifle to say the least; SAKO guarantees that it is capable of 12.5mm groups at 100 meters. It makes a fine long range precision rifle, and in fact is used by the Finnish Army as its sniper rifle.
