Monday, May 28, 2012

Sunday Was Take Your Kids To The Range Day

Early Sunday morning, I got a dive in at Union Lake before it was overrun with boats, as Memorial Day Weekend signifies the official start of Michigan Boating Season. We did some basic drills including ascents, descents and mid water drills and we seem to be improving, even though I'm getting a leak in my suit at the wrist that is causing some cold and wet discomfort.

After the dive I came home, we had lunch and then Tash got some time to herself as I took the kids to the range.

We made good time getting to the range, when we got to the range, we found it empty so we setup on a convenient bay, put the shooting mat down for comfort and brought out the new rifle. The kids know that eye and ear protection are mandatory and are good about wearing it at all times on the range.

The selling of the Plainfield Carbine allowed me, with a bit more added, to buy this, and this was its first time out to the range:

It's a Smith and Wesson M&P 15-22. It came with a 25 round magazine and the sights and controls mimic the AR-15 quite nicely.

With the stock closed, Abby could shoulder it and aim, although it is still too big for Leah to do so, so I would hold the hand guard to steady it while she aimed, and she just had fun blasting away.

The kids had a great time shooting at the paper and the Orange peel targets that let them see their hits. They had a great safe time and that's all that matters. They'll certainly grow into the M&P over time.

Overall impression of the M&P 15-22: Very good fit and finish, excellent ease of use and it is nice and lightweight and an excellent inexpensive practice tool for the centerfire AR15s.

Accuracy was excellent when I shot it, recoil non-existent. The lack of any recoil makes it great for first time shooters like the kids.

It's a very fun gun indeed.

I find that the bullets in the 25 round magazine the rifle came with tend to lie flat rather than angle up to feed as they should. As such, you need to adjust them on occasion before loading the magazine into the rifle, otherwise you get a failure to feed with the initial round. Otherwise, feeding was pretty much flawless with only a few bad rounds that were more likely the ammunition rather than the firearm. I now need to buy some more magazines for it.

I then brought out the other rifle:

Instead of shiny new and modern polymer, its old-school steel and wood.

It's a 1944 Finnish M39, manufactured by VKT, Valtion Kivääritehdas, The Finnish States Rifle factory. The M-39 is perhaps the finest model of the Mosin-Nagants, and certainly the ones with the best triggers.

The kick was considerably greater than the M&P, as Abby found out when she insisted on firing it. Ouch, but she's fine. However, the kick was far less than my 1891 Nagant Rifle, and the stock shape seems to help with the recoil quite nicely.

The M39 shot very nicely, and the bolt is much, much smoother than the average Russian Nagant rifle and the trigger was very nice indeed. I'm quite happy with it, now to find some Nagant stripper clips.

We then got home and I roasted a chicken in the oven and we had a fine feast for dinner.

Afterwards, I cleaned both rifles and put them away until next time.

2 comments:

Murphy's Law said...

Ooooh! Finn Mosin! when did you get that? Impressed, I am. Mmmmmmmm.

Aaron said...

You're to blame for that one.

You sent me that link to the fellow selling the Finns about a year back and I couldn't resist. I finally got it out to the range.