I just had a thought:
To all of those people who say that "the primary purpose of guns is to kill people, and anything else is secondary" I'd like to counter with this: What about bicycles or cars? Their primary purpose, as much as I think the guns =?= cars argument is old and lame, is to transport people and their things from point A to point B. Why, then, do we regard "going on a bike ride" or "going on a joyride" or "taking a sunday drive" as recreational activities? Why can't I regard "spending time at the range" as a recreational activity? Oh wait, I do. Are we going to ban cars and bikes because some people don't use them for their "intended" purpose?
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Range Report
Turns out it was only The Reservist who joined me today, which was fine because shooting isn't new to him, so he doesn't have any bad habits to get rid of (or has already gotten rid of them). Curse the traffic, though! 40 minutes to drive what should've only been a 15 minute hop.
Anyways, we got to the range, he took the safety test, and then got in line for a lane. When we got out on the range, I went over how the 92FS works (it's pretty much like his M16--shoot, the action cycles, and shoot again). Sent out the target to 15 feet, and he was keeping tight groups easy with it. I heard the guys next to us commenting on my 92FS, noting the wood grip panels (bling!). I looked over and saw a '92 as well, but couldn't figure out what it was, so I asked: it was a 92S, which was actually blued (and not Bruniton-coated like the newer 92FS model), had a straight front-strap (the 92FS has a slightly contoured front-strap), and adjustable sights. Nice! So The Reservist got to learn the intricacies of loading pistol magazines--he commented that it wasn't like the M16 magazines, where all you have to do to load it is to press the round in from the top. Not so with pistols: you've gotta basically unload them in reverse--when you shoot a pistol, the recoil will operate the slide, which will extract and eject the spent casing from the chamber and then strip a round off the magazine and load it into the chamber, while the magazine spring will push the next round up into place to be stripped by the recoiling slide. To load the magazine, you've gotta compress the spring and slide in the round from the front--not the easiest operation in the world, and it takes practice to do it quickly (for instance, I could load 5 rounds in the same time it took him to load one).
When we had shot 150 rounds from the 92, we moved onto my friend's Glock, which is still in its "function testing" phase. I'm pleased to report that it didn't have a single failure of any kind that wasn't caused by the operator. It has an extended slide-release installed on it, and my usual thumbs-forward grip finds my right thumb resting on it, which inhibits slide-lock. My friend could get away with it because he gripped it using his left thumb to lock his right, well away from the slide release. I dunno...if I were to buy it from my friend, I'd put the original slide release back into it...but then I'm not all that interested in Plastic Pistols anyways. Don't get me wrong, though--if I could only have one pistol, I'd have a Glock because they're damned near indestructable.
Anyways, 100 rounds later, and The Reservist was still a good shot, although he noted that the '21 had considerably more recoil than the '92. We could've shot more, but it was getting late (he does have a wife, after all) so we packed it up, gathered a few handfuls of .45 brass, and cleaned up and left. Afterwards, he said that he had fun, which is good =)
Time for more cleaning...
Anyways, we got to the range, he took the safety test, and then got in line for a lane. When we got out on the range, I went over how the 92FS works (it's pretty much like his M16--shoot, the action cycles, and shoot again). Sent out the target to 15 feet, and he was keeping tight groups easy with it. I heard the guys next to us commenting on my 92FS, noting the wood grip panels (bling!). I looked over and saw a '92 as well, but couldn't figure out what it was, so I asked: it was a 92S, which was actually blued (and not Bruniton-coated like the newer 92FS model), had a straight front-strap (the 92FS has a slightly contoured front-strap), and adjustable sights. Nice! So The Reservist got to learn the intricacies of loading pistol magazines--he commented that it wasn't like the M16 magazines, where all you have to do to load it is to press the round in from the top. Not so with pistols: you've gotta basically unload them in reverse--when you shoot a pistol, the recoil will operate the slide, which will extract and eject the spent casing from the chamber and then strip a round off the magazine and load it into the chamber, while the magazine spring will push the next round up into place to be stripped by the recoiling slide. To load the magazine, you've gotta compress the spring and slide in the round from the front--not the easiest operation in the world, and it takes practice to do it quickly (for instance, I could load 5 rounds in the same time it took him to load one).
When we had shot 150 rounds from the 92, we moved onto my friend's Glock, which is still in its "function testing" phase. I'm pleased to report that it didn't have a single failure of any kind that wasn't caused by the operator. It has an extended slide-release installed on it, and my usual thumbs-forward grip finds my right thumb resting on it, which inhibits slide-lock. My friend could get away with it because he gripped it using his left thumb to lock his right, well away from the slide release. I dunno...if I were to buy it from my friend, I'd put the original slide release back into it...but then I'm not all that interested in Plastic Pistols anyways. Don't get me wrong, though--if I could only have one pistol, I'd have a Glock because they're damned near indestructable.
Anyways, 100 rounds later, and The Reservist was still a good shot, although he noted that the '21 had considerably more recoil than the '92. We could've shot more, but it was getting late (he does have a wife, after all) so we packed it up, gathered a few handfuls of .45 brass, and cleaned up and left. Afterwards, he said that he had fun, which is good =)
Time for more cleaning...
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Range Report
Left a company all hands 'meeting' (really, more like a pep rally or State Of The Union Address) to go to the range (remind me that while it tastes good, Bar Food really sucks). Man the range was packed! The local Scout troop was having a meeting there, perhaps to introduce the kids to marksmanship--I dunno, I wasn't there long enough, but I did see them gathering in the classroom and the leader gesturing toward a diagram of a rifle. Aside from the Scout meeting, there was a considerable wait-time, so I put my name on the list.
30 minutes later, my name is called, and as I get up to the counter, I run into a guy from OpenCarry.org, and we take a lane together, taking turns putting lead downrange. It's thanks to this guy that I got The Ultimate Cliploader, a Ruger 10/22, and the Black Range Card. He wasn't really there to shoot, it seemed, but just to see what was up at the range tonight. We did chat up our neighbors, who were shooting all sorts of European-designed guns (an FN Five seveN and a bunch of HKs, including a P7M8)--apparently one of them was being deployed to Germany and the other one, as a parting gift, was letting his friend shoot everything he had. Nice.
As for my own equipment: The Mk. II only had two jams out of 190 rounds, possibly caused by limp-wristing. Interestingly, it also had one FTCycle from a round that only seemed to have enough power to kick the bullet out of the barrel, but not enough to cause blowback to cycle the action--and it was on the first round, too! The first FTEject occurred about 30 rounds in, jamming up differently this time, with the spent casing almost clear of the ejection port, but with the bolt nosing it into the port-wall while simultaneously feeding a new round. Not as serious a jam as the earlier stove-piping, but somewhat annoying nonetheless. I cleared it, and it had 120 rounds of flawless function (with allowances for crappy bulk ammo) until the last magazine, by which point I was rapid-firing as fast as I could pull the trigger. I wasn't paying that much attention to wrist stiffness, so I may have caused this second jam. On the whole, I'm pretty confident that the thing just needs to be cleaned every 200 rounds or so, but at the same time I think a new extractor will help things out immensely (and the parts are already on their way).
I'm happy to report that the sight-adjustment was good for my '617, allowing me to keep the sights down the middle of the target and to focus more on keeping the correct elevation, and not so much on Kentucky Windage, although the way I adjust the aim by holding higher or lower and not really adjusting the sights is already a compensation (Kentucky Elevation perhaps?). Evidently, when I futzed with the rebound spring, I forgot to tension the mainspring all the way, so while it had an awesome double-action trigger pull, the hammer didn't have enough energy to strike the firing pin with enough force to crush the rim of a cartridge and set it off. Single-action was nice, though. Whipped out my screwdriver and fixed it, although I had another truly dud round, again (no matter how many times I tried, it wouldn't light). So my '617 is good to go. Maybe. I think I want to send it back to S&W to have the trigger, sear, and hammer replaced--there's too much take-up before the double-action starts working, the double-action trigger pull isn't very smooth (there are, like, four or five distinct levels of "stacking"), and the single action is almost a hair trigger (and the hammer will fall if I push on the hammer hard enough). I wonder what it would take to send it in to have those pieces replaced (and maybe the cylinder?) and a trigger-job performed by one of their gunsmiths. Maybe I'll call them.
Finally, my friend's Glock 21, which had the striker spring and recoil spring replaced. Here, my OCDO friend and I took turns shooting it, and each of us experienced one FTFeed--the round had nosed up too far to enter the chamber smoothly when the slide was pushing it forward. Possibly due to weak magazine springs? I dunno...I haven't been able to take the magazines apart, so even if that were the case, I am not yet able to fix it. Other than that, there weren't any FTRTB (Fail To Return To Battery) or any light primer strikes as I've experienced previously. There's probably a "sweet spot" in the spring lives of a firearm where everything just jives the right way...probably from the 200-round to the 5000-round mark. Anything before this is termed the "break-in period" and anything after this is a "high round count". In my friend's case, this Glock 21 is 15 years old, and has probably had about 6000 rounds through it in those 15 years (lessee, he said he'd do about 200 rounds per trip through this thing, twice a week, probably for 3 or 4 years straight? that comes out to about 60K rounds...maybe I'm a little off on my estimation, then =). In any case, the new springs have seemed to eliminate the old problems (FTRTB and FTFire), but have introduced a new problem (FTFeed). Ah well. Ain't my gun =)
I've thoroughly cleaned out my equipment, and I'm going shooting again tomorrow, this time with my coworker(s). This guy is in the Army Reserve and is about to be deployed to The Sandbox, but he's never handled the M9 sidearm. He's shot (maybe even carried) an M60 machine gun, he'll be carrying an M16 rifle, knows all about the SAW...but has never used the M9. Weird. And wouldn't you know it, but I've got a 92FS, the civvy version of the M9 (with slightly different serrations on the front and back-strap, but otherwise the same pistol). So we're going to shoot that tomorrow. And if my other friend/coworker comes (the guy who owns the '21), I'll bring his Old Friends so they can get reacquainted =). And then my other coworker is interested in buying the '21, but he probably won't be able to make it (since we'll be shooting after work). And then finally, yet another coworker's interested in shooting a gun. Not owning one, but he's interested in at least experiencing it once. What will most likely happen is that two of them will go (the M9 guy and my is-interested coworker).
Which will probably be as many people as I can watch at once anyways.
30 minutes later, my name is called, and as I get up to the counter, I run into a guy from OpenCarry.org, and we take a lane together, taking turns putting lead downrange. It's thanks to this guy that I got The Ultimate Cliploader, a Ruger 10/22, and the Black Range Card. He wasn't really there to shoot, it seemed, but just to see what was up at the range tonight. We did chat up our neighbors, who were shooting all sorts of European-designed guns (an FN Five seveN and a bunch of HKs, including a P7M8)--apparently one of them was being deployed to Germany and the other one, as a parting gift, was letting his friend shoot everything he had. Nice.
As for my own equipment: The Mk. II only had two jams out of 190 rounds, possibly caused by limp-wristing. Interestingly, it also had one FTCycle from a round that only seemed to have enough power to kick the bullet out of the barrel, but not enough to cause blowback to cycle the action--and it was on the first round, too! The first FTEject occurred about 30 rounds in, jamming up differently this time, with the spent casing almost clear of the ejection port, but with the bolt nosing it into the port-wall while simultaneously feeding a new round. Not as serious a jam as the earlier stove-piping, but somewhat annoying nonetheless. I cleared it, and it had 120 rounds of flawless function (with allowances for crappy bulk ammo) until the last magazine, by which point I was rapid-firing as fast as I could pull the trigger. I wasn't paying that much attention to wrist stiffness, so I may have caused this second jam. On the whole, I'm pretty confident that the thing just needs to be cleaned every 200 rounds or so, but at the same time I think a new extractor will help things out immensely (and the parts are already on their way).
I'm happy to report that the sight-adjustment was good for my '617, allowing me to keep the sights down the middle of the target and to focus more on keeping the correct elevation, and not so much on Kentucky Windage, although the way I adjust the aim by holding higher or lower and not really adjusting the sights is already a compensation (Kentucky Elevation perhaps?). Evidently, when I futzed with the rebound spring, I forgot to tension the mainspring all the way, so while it had an awesome double-action trigger pull, the hammer didn't have enough energy to strike the firing pin with enough force to crush the rim of a cartridge and set it off. Single-action was nice, though. Whipped out my screwdriver and fixed it, although I had another truly dud round, again (no matter how many times I tried, it wouldn't light). So my '617 is good to go. Maybe. I think I want to send it back to S&W to have the trigger, sear, and hammer replaced--there's too much take-up before the double-action starts working, the double-action trigger pull isn't very smooth (there are, like, four or five distinct levels of "stacking"), and the single action is almost a hair trigger (and the hammer will fall if I push on the hammer hard enough). I wonder what it would take to send it in to have those pieces replaced (and maybe the cylinder?) and a trigger-job performed by one of their gunsmiths. Maybe I'll call them.
Finally, my friend's Glock 21, which had the striker spring and recoil spring replaced. Here, my OCDO friend and I took turns shooting it, and each of us experienced one FTFeed--the round had nosed up too far to enter the chamber smoothly when the slide was pushing it forward. Possibly due to weak magazine springs? I dunno...I haven't been able to take the magazines apart, so even if that were the case, I am not yet able to fix it. Other than that, there weren't any FTRTB (Fail To Return To Battery) or any light primer strikes as I've experienced previously. There's probably a "sweet spot" in the spring lives of a firearm where everything just jives the right way...probably from the 200-round to the 5000-round mark. Anything before this is termed the "break-in period" and anything after this is a "high round count". In my friend's case, this Glock 21 is 15 years old, and has probably had about 6000 rounds through it in those 15 years (lessee, he said he'd do about 200 rounds per trip through this thing, twice a week, probably for 3 or 4 years straight? that comes out to about 60K rounds...maybe I'm a little off on my estimation, then =). In any case, the new springs have seemed to eliminate the old problems (FTRTB and FTFire), but have introduced a new problem (FTFeed). Ah well. Ain't my gun =)
I've thoroughly cleaned out my equipment, and I'm going shooting again tomorrow, this time with my coworker(s). This guy is in the Army Reserve and is about to be deployed to The Sandbox, but he's never handled the M9 sidearm. He's shot (maybe even carried) an M60 machine gun, he'll be carrying an M16 rifle, knows all about the SAW...but has never used the M9. Weird. And wouldn't you know it, but I've got a 92FS, the civvy version of the M9 (with slightly different serrations on the front and back-strap, but otherwise the same pistol). So we're going to shoot that tomorrow. And if my other friend/coworker comes (the guy who owns the '21), I'll bring his Old Friends so they can get reacquainted =). And then my other coworker is interested in buying the '21, but he probably won't be able to make it (since we'll be shooting after work). And then finally, yet another coworker's interested in shooting a gun. Not owning one, but he's interested in at least experiencing it once. What will most likely happen is that two of them will go (the M9 guy and my is-interested coworker).
Which will probably be as many people as I can watch at once anyways.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Volquartsen Extractor
I just ordered the Volquartsen Exact Edge Extractor (I ordered two to replace the one in the 10/22 that should be coming in this week as well) after reading many good reviews about it. Hopefully my cleaning job's cleared the jamming problem up, but I'll still replace the extractor anyways, just to be on the safe side.
Range Report
My Mark II is still jamming; evidently my cleaning hasn't fixed it. I might just call up Ruger and see if I can't get a new extractor and spring shipped out to me. 150 rounds, 5 jams. Thanks to The Ultimate Cliploader, I was in and out in about 30 minutes.
This time was better, in terms of range safety--no problems whatsoever. And there was some hot chick (and her guyfriend) shooting an AR-15 from the prone position. Mmm, mmm mmm. Jeans have never looked so good...
---
Went in and cleaned everything on the Mk II. Bore-brush'ed dry, wet, used the tornado brush (I don't--yet--have a boresnake, but I'll probably need one for the 10/22 that's coming in later this week), and even used a screwdriver to pry out flakes of encrusted propellant residue, and ran patches through until not a single one came out with any hint of residue. Evidently, according to Ruger's site, sticky extraction (as I'm seeing) can be caused by the bullet lube on .22 rounds. Who'd've thunk it? I should resolve to clean my pistols thoroughly after 250 rounds (although I usually do that in one range visit), and do cursory cleanings (dry-brush the innards, etc) in between.
And I got the replacement springs for my friend's Glock, so hopefully it won't fail to return to battery anymore, and it'll quit having light primer strikes too. And I got the trigger-springs pack for my 617 and I put the 14-lb spring in there (down from 17), and the pull is noticeably lighter in double-action, and in single-action it's almost a hair trigger--probably as low as I want to go (although I received 13- and 12-lb springs as well).
So I've got a lot of things to function-check for the next range visit (likely to be on Wednesday). I probably won't be satisfied with the Mk II until I've got 100 consecutive, trouble-free rounds. I've been noticing that, yes, on average the FTEs happen about once every 30 shots (today it was 150 shots, with 5 FTEs), but it isn't evenly distributed (the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th FTEs, for example, were all in the same 10-shot string, and occurred exactly once every three rounds).
This time was better, in terms of range safety--no problems whatsoever. And there was some hot chick (and her guyfriend) shooting an AR-15 from the prone position. Mmm, mmm mmm. Jeans have never looked so good...
---
Went in and cleaned everything on the Mk II. Bore-brush'ed dry, wet, used the tornado brush (I don't--yet--have a boresnake, but I'll probably need one for the 10/22 that's coming in later this week), and even used a screwdriver to pry out flakes of encrusted propellant residue, and ran patches through until not a single one came out with any hint of residue. Evidently, according to Ruger's site, sticky extraction (as I'm seeing) can be caused by the bullet lube on .22 rounds. Who'd've thunk it? I should resolve to clean my pistols thoroughly after 250 rounds (although I usually do that in one range visit), and do cursory cleanings (dry-brush the innards, etc) in between.
And I got the replacement springs for my friend's Glock, so hopefully it won't fail to return to battery anymore, and it'll quit having light primer strikes too. And I got the trigger-springs pack for my 617 and I put the 14-lb spring in there (down from 17), and the pull is noticeably lighter in double-action, and in single-action it's almost a hair trigger--probably as low as I want to go (although I received 13- and 12-lb springs as well).
So I've got a lot of things to function-check for the next range visit (likely to be on Wednesday). I probably won't be satisfied with the Mk II until I've got 100 consecutive, trouble-free rounds. I've been noticing that, yes, on average the FTEs happen about once every 30 shots (today it was 150 shots, with 5 FTEs), but it isn't evenly distributed (the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th FTEs, for example, were all in the same 10-shot string, and occurred exactly once every three rounds).
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