Michael Tinker Pearce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
- Messages
- 1,578
In honor of my upcoming birthday Linda wanted to be certain that I had a good outing to the range, and since tonight is Lady's Night at Champion Arms indoor range we went tonight so she could shoot for free.
First up I wanted to test a few things; my home-made .22 has a new barrel and naturally I wanted to see how that worked out. Pretty darn well, as it turns out- shoots dead to point of aim, but the chamber needs honing; removing the empty cases required running a rod down the barrel. I'd though that since it was made from a turned down 10/22 barrel that it would already be pretty nice. Nope. Call that one a qualified success. I also like the looks better now that I've taken some weight off and reshaped things a bit.
The .22 Derringer was also due for testing; it also has a new barrel, slightly longer. This and the re-profiled hammer will allow the addition of sights in the near future. I only fired a few rounds to make sure everything was working and that it would not, say, suddenly launch it's barrel downrange...
The Taurus m905 revolver was due for testing with the new .355/19R ammunition, which Linda found very pleasant to shoot. Unfortunately something is awry with the Taurus; while it has never preferred ammo with hard primers it is suddenly getting soft strikes regularly. I was inclined to attribute this to the slightly different head-spacing of the .355 cartridges, but testing with factory and hand loaded 9mm ammunition was nearly as bad. I'm beginning to think a new mainspring may be in order. Annoying but not tragic.
On the last outing the Remington Bulldog lost it's front sight while firing, so yesterday I fabricated and installed a new one. This one has held firm so far, and Linda was even talked into firing the beast. She liked firing it and was quite accurate, but cocking it proved to be a bit much for her. I was happy to burn up the rest of the box of ammo- 185r. LSWCs on top of 8.5gr. of Unique with CCI 500 Large Pistol Primers. This has proven to be a good load with reasonable authority well-tamed by the hefty gun. this seven-yard target was shot at a brisk pace with a six-o'clock hold.
The Shopkeeper's Special also got a workout, with both Linda and I shooting some pretty decent groups with it. The load was a 125gr. Montana Gold HP on top of 5.6gr. of Unique with CCI primers. This is a standard-pressure load that is pleasant to shoot out of a heavier gun. The hammer-pull and trigger are quite light on this gun, so it lends itself well to rapid firing. This was my best group of the night, rapid-fired at seven yards- I was pretty pleased but for the flyer-
A friendly forumite had sent me a batch of .38 caliber 173gr. semi-wadcutters sized to .361 to load in .38 S&W. This is a pretty heavy bullet for a S&W top-break, so I erred on the side of caution and loaded them over 2.2gr. of Unique. Out of my 1-5/8" .38 Safety Hammerless these shot very high at seven yards but grouped well. I'll be trying a bit stouter load next time around- I'll need to do a bit of research first. People don't normally load this heavy a bullet for top-break Smiths.
Linda left me to finish the session after putting some rounds through her Kahr E9. This is an excellent gun, extremely reliable and surprisingly soft shooting, with an excellent trigger. The new 9mm load- a 115gr TMJ/RN on top of 5.2gr. of Unique with a CCI primer- is a fairly light load and this gave Linda an issue at first- she experienced some FTEs, a first with this gun. I instructed her to hold the gun more firmly and the problem vanished. I didn't experience any issues, and after she left the firing line I burned through another box of ammo. By then I was alone on the range, so I loaded all three magazines- 2 7-round and one 8-round- and did a bit of technically illicit genuine rapid-fire. Very sweet shooting gun!
Altogether a very satisfactory outing.
First up I wanted to test a few things; my home-made .22 has a new barrel and naturally I wanted to see how that worked out. Pretty darn well, as it turns out- shoots dead to point of aim, but the chamber needs honing; removing the empty cases required running a rod down the barrel. I'd though that since it was made from a turned down 10/22 barrel that it would already be pretty nice. Nope. Call that one a qualified success. I also like the looks better now that I've taken some weight off and reshaped things a bit.
The .22 Derringer was also due for testing; it also has a new barrel, slightly longer. This and the re-profiled hammer will allow the addition of sights in the near future. I only fired a few rounds to make sure everything was working and that it would not, say, suddenly launch it's barrel downrange...
The Taurus m905 revolver was due for testing with the new .355/19R ammunition, which Linda found very pleasant to shoot. Unfortunately something is awry with the Taurus; while it has never preferred ammo with hard primers it is suddenly getting soft strikes regularly. I was inclined to attribute this to the slightly different head-spacing of the .355 cartridges, but testing with factory and hand loaded 9mm ammunition was nearly as bad. I'm beginning to think a new mainspring may be in order. Annoying but not tragic.
On the last outing the Remington Bulldog lost it's front sight while firing, so yesterday I fabricated and installed a new one. This one has held firm so far, and Linda was even talked into firing the beast. She liked firing it and was quite accurate, but cocking it proved to be a bit much for her. I was happy to burn up the rest of the box of ammo- 185r. LSWCs on top of 8.5gr. of Unique with CCI 500 Large Pistol Primers. This has proven to be a good load with reasonable authority well-tamed by the hefty gun. this seven-yard target was shot at a brisk pace with a six-o'clock hold.
The Shopkeeper's Special also got a workout, with both Linda and I shooting some pretty decent groups with it. The load was a 125gr. Montana Gold HP on top of 5.6gr. of Unique with CCI primers. This is a standard-pressure load that is pleasant to shoot out of a heavier gun. The hammer-pull and trigger are quite light on this gun, so it lends itself well to rapid firing. This was my best group of the night, rapid-fired at seven yards- I was pretty pleased but for the flyer-
A friendly forumite had sent me a batch of .38 caliber 173gr. semi-wadcutters sized to .361 to load in .38 S&W. This is a pretty heavy bullet for a S&W top-break, so I erred on the side of caution and loaded them over 2.2gr. of Unique. Out of my 1-5/8" .38 Safety Hammerless these shot very high at seven yards but grouped well. I'll be trying a bit stouter load next time around- I'll need to do a bit of research first. People don't normally load this heavy a bullet for top-break Smiths.
Linda left me to finish the session after putting some rounds through her Kahr E9. This is an excellent gun, extremely reliable and surprisingly soft shooting, with an excellent trigger. The new 9mm load- a 115gr TMJ/RN on top of 5.2gr. of Unique with a CCI primer- is a fairly light load and this gave Linda an issue at first- she experienced some FTEs, a first with this gun. I instructed her to hold the gun more firmly and the problem vanished. I didn't experience any issues, and after she left the firing line I burned through another box of ammo. By then I was alone on the range, so I loaded all three magazines- 2 7-round and one 8-round- and did a bit of technically illicit genuine rapid-fire. Very sweet shooting gun!
Altogether a very satisfactory outing.
