Wringing out the Pit Bull 9mm

[Damon555]

Now that I'm up to speed on the nuances of the Charter Arms Pit Bull 9mm it was time to get the point of impact issue under control. I hit the range today with 4 different loads using Missouri bullet company's 147 grain lead flat point bullet. As mentioned in my post initially reviewing the revolver it was shooting a little low using the Berry's plated 124 grain RN bullet. I figured that I could fix the problem with a heavier bullet........Well I was right.

Using 2 different charge weights of WSF the point of impact moved up significantly....A little too high....but if I stepped it up a little I think it could be where it needs to be. The 2 different charge weights of Unique....well the only thing I can say is WOW! It's very rare that I stumble on to what could be the best possible load right off the bat but this could be it....Point of impact was perfect and all 6 holes were within an inch of each other.

Just in case anyone was wondering I was shooting my groups @ about 10 yards....Yeah it may seem on the short side but being a snubby and all it's pretty tough to do load development much farther out than that...for me any way. I did shoot at some Bianchi plates at 25 yards and didn't have any problem knocking them down consistently.....probably 80% of the time. Which is fine by me.

After very little effort I think I've found my plinking load for the range......and the best part of it all is that each round is roughly only 10 cents each...Gotta love loading a box of extremely accurate range ammo for $5!

I learned some lessons with this little revolver....first of all is that a heavier bullet can raise your point of impact. Second, a 9mm revolver can be made to function very well even without the use of moon clips. Lastly, if I try hard enough I can get a snub nose revolver to shoot decent groups.

Now that I got my POI figured out it's time to bust out a bunch of ammo on the Dillon.

 

[Monac]

Damon555, I am ignorant of reloading and ballistics, but I thought that in pistols, the general rule was that a heavier bullet (with the same powder charge) resulted in a higher point of impact because it took longer to exit the barrel, thus giving the gun more time to recoil back and up in your hand. This overshadows the effect of the lower velocity (and therefore greater gravity drop) en route to the target at typical pistol ranges.

Is this just another thing I thought I knew? I am finding a lot of those as I get older.

 

[Damon555]

I'm not sure why or how it works Monac....after watching a few slow motion videos of pistols being fired it appears that the bullet exits the muzzle before the gun has any chance to move (except for shooter induced movement). So there are other forces in play here that I don't understand.

I've read all the theories about it but I'm the type of person who needs more....Are there any engineers on here who can explain it?

 

[swopjan]

Doesn't take much change at the muzzle to have a big impact downrange. A 'minute' (as in 'minute of arc/angle') is 1/60th of a degree. So if a person was hitting 6 inches higher at 25 yards, that's 24 MOA. 24/60 is four tenths of a degree difference in muzzle angle. You're not going to tell the difference just by looking at the muzzle on high speed video.

I remember a topic on another forum about Jerry Miculek shooting a thousand yard shot with his S&W 929 revolver. Some folks were saying it was fake because he'd have been pointing at the sky, I did the math and I don't remember what I came up with but it was something ridiculously small like two and a half degrees muzzle elevation.

 

[Damon555]

24/60 is four tenths of a degree difference in muzzle angle

Amazing how a tiny change like that can make such a big difference.

 

[moxie]

What monac said in post #2 is essentially what happens. Heavier bullet=higher POI. Lighter bullet=lower POI. Ceteris paribus.

 

[C0untZer0]

This is either 115gr Federal Champion or 115gr Winchester Target - I can't remember which, from 10 yards, single action offhand slow fire.

Since I use 6 O’clock hold my shots are a little south of the bullseye on this target, but I think you get the picture that the gun is generally accurate.

I didn't try double action with my PITBULL for the first couple of outings since, IMO the double action trigger was terrible. It's improved quite a bit with a lot of dry-firing so I'll see how I do firing it DA next time at the range.

 

[Panzerschwein]

Very awesome!

I just bought a new Charter Arms Bulldog in .44 special. Unfortunatly, I haven't shot it yet as it had a timing issue right out of the box. It's back at Charter now getting fixed. I can't wait to get it back!!