Sunday Range Trip

Two range trips in two consecutive days. 

Likely a personal record, and Tosh came along as well.

This time, it was at the outdoor range with temperatures in the mid to low 20s. So I wore a lot more winter clothes this time. Thankfully it was pretty calm and without a wind, so it wasn't all that bad.

I went to the range again as my Turknelli  (Copolla T4, a Turkish copy of the Benelli M4) came back from the importer after I had returned it due to some serious functioning issues.   Basically after about 60 rounds, the pistons would get covered in gunk and the gun would freeze up as the pistons would be un-moving and need a hammer to get them free.  Not satisfactory.

So after having it for 4 months, it was returned with a note online for the warranty process that they had changed out the bolt carrier, and in the box there was a further handwritten note said they changed the barrel, which makes a lot more sense.

Fedex dropped it off Saturday after claiming they had tried a delivery on Friday when they had not actually rang the bell or knocked on the door.  So, I had to go to the range again to function test it.

The barrel and bolt carrier do indeed appear to be new, Overall, it worked much better than before, with a few ejection issues initially. But, as I shot it more it worked better and was clearly getting broken in with 120 rounds of Buck and birdshot fired through it.  Visually and tactile-ly the pistons were still moving freely all this time whcih is a good sign that they actually fixed the problem.

Then, of course, something else had to happen - the stock was coming loose, and that hadn't happened before.  Likely they forgot to really tighten it down when they worked on it all.  So, I will strip everything down, clean it all, check to see the pistons are not gunked up, and tighten the stock down.   I will have to bring it to the range again after that soon.

Then we did some pistol shooting and it was great fun drawing from concealment with all that clothing on.  Certainly slowed down and it muffed a couple draws as well.  Ended up having the winter jacket unzipped and the P320 under the sweatshirt and so still concealed.

On the 3x2 Drill I deliberately tried to push faster, and I did a 2.68 and then a 2.38.

The single Bill drill I got done wasn't great with a 3.4.

On the upside, there was some good improvement on the 7 yard 11shot drill.

Most times were in the low 1.3 second range, with the slowest at 1.4, fastest was 1.18, with a nice satisfying string right in a row before it of 1.21, 1.25, 1.27, 1.30, and 1.27 ending with that nice 1.18.

The 1.18 beats yesterday's best of 1.27 nicely.   Now, to try and get it faster and more consistent.

That was enough exposure time at the range so we cleaned up, raked up the shotgun hulls, and headed off.