Michael Tinker Pearce
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- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
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Last night at dinnertime Linda and I headed over to Champion Arms indoor range with a mixed bag of guns and ammo. Along for the ride were the Kahr E9, the Para-Ordinance LDA .45 Carry, The Taurus M905, the Rossi M68 and the Steampunk Snubby (custom S&W .38 Safety Hammerless.) Ammo was a mix of Freedom Munitions Copper-Plated Hollow-Points in .38 Special and .45 ACP and some of my reloads (Reloading data published at the end of this post.)
All three revolvers needed testing for one reason or another; the Rossi has a new firing-pin bushing that I fabricated. These are simple to make if you have the right tools but without special equipment they are fiendishly difficult to stake in and have them stay in place. The Rossi M905 had been experiencing light strikes and I had repaired this by turning a small spacer to add tension to the mainspring. Lastly the Steampunk Snubby has always shot low and the other day I finally got around to making a taller front-sight to bring the point of impact down.
Linda loves the LDA.45! She has a bad wrist, but the relatively soft shove of recoil from a 1911-type gun isn't painful for her. She shot the lion's share of the .45 ACP ammo and was getting dialed on pretty nicely with it. The Freedom Munitions ammunition functioned flawlessly, as we have come to expect. My reloads with 200gr. LSWCs failed to go fully into battery twice; I attribute this to my inexperience reloading rather than any flaw with the gun; it took me a few rounds to get the taper-crimp set up properly. The rounds did feed and chamber just fine. and the gun did go into battery with a little assistance. Here's one of Linda's 7-yard targets:
The Kahr E9 is one of the company's early models, and is a compact steel-frame single-stack 9mm. It's very well-made, has great ergonomics and is soft-shooting and very reliable. The only downside of this model is that it's a bit of a PITA to field-strip. Kahr used to offer a special tool for this but we don't have that tool. Linda owned one of these a few years ago until her best friend talked her out of it and she has regretted it ever since. We finally tracked another down for her birthday this year and she is delighted. I didn't shoot this gun yesterday, but Linda happily put a half-box of 9mm through it and it functioned flawlessly as always.
The Rossi M68 also functioned flawlessly and the firing-pin bushing is still tight, so that much is a win. We only had a half-box of the Freedom munitions ammo, and these are not light loads. Linda found the gun painful to shoot with this ammunition, so I'll be loading some light target loads for her, probably some nice wadcutters.
The Taurus m905 is now getting reliable ignition. It's a bit of a beast with standard 9mm loads, so I had a box of home-brewed 9mm-rimmed with a lightly-loaded 115gr. TMJ-RN bullet. These are very low-recoil and Linda enjoyed shooting them, but did not find the gun special enough to shoot it a lot. I fired the rest of the standard 9mm and the rimmed ammunition. I produced this target (recycled target) at ten yards, which I think is quite acceptable for a double-action-only revolver with a 1-3/4" barrel.
Linda was getting a bit of a headache and retired from shooting and I pulled out the Steampunk Snubby. This is a custom S&W .38 Safety Hammerless, and it is uniquely challenging to shoot. The double-action-only trigger is a bit heavy but gloriously smooth; the real issue with these guns are the sights. They are tiny, and on this gun the sight radius is only 2-3/8". Of course these were never meant for target-shooting.
I really enjoy shooting this little revolver; the ergonomic grip is very comfortable and recoil is quite light either with factory ammo or reloads. Again, the sights aren't much but I believe the gun is inherently accurate enough to shoot at ranges up to 25 yards. Mind you, I can't shoot it well enough for that yet, but I am working on it! I rapid-fired two cylinders full at ten yards to produce this target, showing that i have quite a way to go:
I should note that our targets are printed on standard printer-paper, and low-velocity wadcutters tend to tear the paper rather than punching through cleanly. You can still see the spots where the bullets hit though.
Concerning the ammunition: The Freedom Munitions ammunition has proven very reliable and accurate. Their Copper-Plated Hollow-Points are very accurate and good mid-range loads. As their web-site states these are not intended as defensive ammo and from the design they do not look like they would expand reliably if at all. Still, it's good, relatively inexpensive target ammo.
The reloads- all of these use Unique powder (because a buddy of mine gave me four pounds of it!) and CCI primers, either Large or Small Pistol Primers as appropriate. All of these are mid-range to low-range target reloads, and are well below the listed maximum loads for their type
.45 ACP- 200gr. Hard-cast LSWC, 6.5gr. Unique
9x19mm- 115gr TMJ-RN, 5.2gr. Unique
.355/19R (9mm Revolver, uses .38 Special brass shortened to a 19mm length and reloaded with 9mm dies)- 115gr.TMJ-RN, 3.5gr. Unique
.38 S&W- Hornady 148gr. HBWC, 2.5gr.of Unique
All three revolvers needed testing for one reason or another; the Rossi has a new firing-pin bushing that I fabricated. These are simple to make if you have the right tools but without special equipment they are fiendishly difficult to stake in and have them stay in place. The Rossi M905 had been experiencing light strikes and I had repaired this by turning a small spacer to add tension to the mainspring. Lastly the Steampunk Snubby has always shot low and the other day I finally got around to making a taller front-sight to bring the point of impact down.
Linda loves the LDA.45! She has a bad wrist, but the relatively soft shove of recoil from a 1911-type gun isn't painful for her. She shot the lion's share of the .45 ACP ammo and was getting dialed on pretty nicely with it. The Freedom Munitions ammunition functioned flawlessly, as we have come to expect. My reloads with 200gr. LSWCs failed to go fully into battery twice; I attribute this to my inexperience reloading rather than any flaw with the gun; it took me a few rounds to get the taper-crimp set up properly. The rounds did feed and chamber just fine. and the gun did go into battery with a little assistance. Here's one of Linda's 7-yard targets:
The Kahr E9 is one of the company's early models, and is a compact steel-frame single-stack 9mm. It's very well-made, has great ergonomics and is soft-shooting and very reliable. The only downside of this model is that it's a bit of a PITA to field-strip. Kahr used to offer a special tool for this but we don't have that tool. Linda owned one of these a few years ago until her best friend talked her out of it and she has regretted it ever since. We finally tracked another down for her birthday this year and she is delighted. I didn't shoot this gun yesterday, but Linda happily put a half-box of 9mm through it and it functioned flawlessly as always.
The Rossi M68 also functioned flawlessly and the firing-pin bushing is still tight, so that much is a win. We only had a half-box of the Freedom munitions ammo, and these are not light loads. Linda found the gun painful to shoot with this ammunition, so I'll be loading some light target loads for her, probably some nice wadcutters.
The Taurus m905 is now getting reliable ignition. It's a bit of a beast with standard 9mm loads, so I had a box of home-brewed 9mm-rimmed with a lightly-loaded 115gr. TMJ-RN bullet. These are very low-recoil and Linda enjoyed shooting them, but did not find the gun special enough to shoot it a lot. I fired the rest of the standard 9mm and the rimmed ammunition. I produced this target (recycled target) at ten yards, which I think is quite acceptable for a double-action-only revolver with a 1-3/4" barrel.
Linda was getting a bit of a headache and retired from shooting and I pulled out the Steampunk Snubby. This is a custom S&W .38 Safety Hammerless, and it is uniquely challenging to shoot. The double-action-only trigger is a bit heavy but gloriously smooth; the real issue with these guns are the sights. They are tiny, and on this gun the sight radius is only 2-3/8". Of course these were never meant for target-shooting.
I really enjoy shooting this little revolver; the ergonomic grip is very comfortable and recoil is quite light either with factory ammo or reloads. Again, the sights aren't much but I believe the gun is inherently accurate enough to shoot at ranges up to 25 yards. Mind you, I can't shoot it well enough for that yet, but I am working on it! I rapid-fired two cylinders full at ten yards to produce this target, showing that i have quite a way to go:
I should note that our targets are printed on standard printer-paper, and low-velocity wadcutters tend to tear the paper rather than punching through cleanly. You can still see the spots where the bullets hit though.
Concerning the ammunition: The Freedom Munitions ammunition has proven very reliable and accurate. Their Copper-Plated Hollow-Points are very accurate and good mid-range loads. As their web-site states these are not intended as defensive ammo and from the design they do not look like they would expand reliably if at all. Still, it's good, relatively inexpensive target ammo.
The reloads- all of these use Unique powder (because a buddy of mine gave me four pounds of it!) and CCI primers, either Large or Small Pistol Primers as appropriate. All of these are mid-range to low-range target reloads, and are well below the listed maximum loads for their type
.45 ACP- 200gr. Hard-cast LSWC, 6.5gr. Unique
9x19mm- 115gr TMJ-RN, 5.2gr. Unique
.355/19R (9mm Revolver, uses .38 Special brass shortened to a 19mm length and reloaded with 9mm dies)- 115gr.TMJ-RN, 3.5gr. Unique
.38 S&W- Hornady 148gr. HBWC, 2.5gr.of Unique
