Sunday Evening Shoot

After taking the kids sledding and doing some stuff around the house, I went to the range this evening for the first time in a while to get a little practice in.

In honor of District of Columbia v Heller, I brought out my District of Columbia Police Glock 17:

It shot quite well, except for the KCI magazine it came with that caused a stovepipe with a piece of brass consistently on shot 8 or so. The KCI was obviously not issued with it originally and replacing it with another mag made the brass stovepipe issue disappear. My first Glock 17, it functioned just like any other Glock I owned and was accurate and excellent as usual, once the magazine issue was remedied. The rest of the 100 rounds fired just fine.

I also shot my S&W M&P 9mm for the first time, breaking it in with its first 100 rounds. This is one of the pistol-training.com custom guns and I'm rather impressed with it.

I'm planning on taking ToddG's class when he offers it in Ohio next year as soon as he opens it up I'm going to sign up for it, especially after Tam's review. No, I didn't buy it for the class, I've wanted an M&P for awhile and this one came setup exactly how I wanted one to be - no mag safety, no internal lock, night sights and a nice trigger, besides, any excuse for a new pistol right?

The M&P shot right to point of aim and fit my hand like a glove. It feels a bit heavier than the Glock, and the trigger is smooth and feels better than the Glock's trigger to me. The trigger reset will take a little getting used, to especially its reset compared to the Glock trigger that I'm more used to feeling. I didn't hear/feel the Glock 'click' as the trigger reset on the M&P and it was throwing me off a bit and I missed the reset a few times.

I did some mag change drills and some half-fast drills with the M&P and they were quite smooth. Sadly, the range I went to does not allow drawing from a holster so I could not try the real FAST drill and I was stuck doing a half-fast job of it starting the pistol at the bench level and raising it to position rather than drawing from a holster. It will have to wait for another day and another range to practice the full FAST drill live. In any case, the conclusion from this range session was that I do need more practice if I want to get on to the next level of shooting.

To end the range session I ran 50 rounds of the Silver Bear 9x18 hollow points through my CZ-82, which, to no surprise, functioned well, but with great fireballs as usual with this ammo. Flamethrower-effect aside, all shots were nice and on target, with every shot hitting the Caldwell 5 1/2 circle bullseye I had put up to cover the holes from the Glock and S&W sessions.

Considering the flash of the Silver Bears, I'd recommend the Hornady 9x18 hollow points if you plan to carry it concealed. The CZ had less felt recoil than either the Glock or the M&P, and even as a smaller pistol its all-steel construction made recoil management a snap and very rapid, accurate shots were easy to make. It is an amazing pistol for the price and I'm sure Scott is going to love his, and he'll blog about it in due time.

So a good evening at the range and leaving with plenty to work on. On the upside, even after not shooting for awhile my skills haven't declined markedly, but they do need some reinforcement and more practice. Now that the lakes are iced over I can pay more attention to the art of the pistol.