Take Dad Out To The Range

In a simple exchange last week, I took my dad to the local golf driving range as he's a big golf aficionado (I'm really not), and the next day we went to the shooting range.

While I love my dad dearly, he's a product of his environment - with a very liberal, Canadian, anti-gun outlook which has very much been driven by the media etc.

With his age of 77, there is no point arguing it with him, he's not going to change his views, and getting into a heated argument, which is where we tend to end up would have spoiled the day if not the whole visit. 

In short I've finally learned not to fall into that particular no-win situation.  Only took 48 years to figure it out, but yay me.

As such, I declined to argue and said let's just go have some fun.

And fun there was to be had.

I met up with Tosh and he brought his family who were visiting from New York to the range.  In contrast to my dad they are big firearms aficionados and looked forward to shooting stuff they can't have in New York.  They live near the PA border in New York.

So we got setup at Range Six as our usual Range 4 was busy. 

We started with some pistols.

I had him start with the suppressed 22 as that's always a nice intro and he had fin with that.  I then had him shot the Beretta 81 and then my Glock with the 509T on it and (gasp! - 15 rounds in the magazine).

Then I got him shooting some more historic pistols, starting with my Romanian Tokarev.

First, since he's Canadian, it was my Inglis Hi Power, which is only a couple years older than he is:

Since he has a washer and dryer at his place made by Inglis it was all rather fitting.  Letting him shoot it with the magazine filled up to the "dangerous" 13 rounds capacity rather than the Canadian legal 10 rounds was a bit of subtlety on my part.  Amazingly, yet absolutely predictably,  nothing bad happened.

Then on to the Colt 1927 - The 1911A1 Colt made for the Argentine Army contract and marked 1927.  This one was older than he was and yep, it still works flawlessly.

He nailed all the plates on the plate rack with both.

I thne had him shoot my suppressed Tavor, and the 300 Blackout pistol with the suppresor on it, and let Tosh's family shoot all the pistols and rifles as well.

We all had a good time at the range, which is what it's all about.

Today's Range Trip - A Great Range Outing With Friends

A bunch of friends decided to meet up at the range today.  Four of them were rolling buddies from jiu-jitsu - it seems there's a large cross-over between the jiu-jitsu community and the firearms community. 

Tosh had also brought Scott along, one of his co-workers that had recently escaped from California and is now enjoying standard capacity magazines and the many other benefits being relocated from CA can provide.

It was sunny out, but the temperature had plummeted 30 degrees from yesterday. Standing in the sun, it wasn't bad - but get under some shade and 30 degrees feels cold pretty quickly.

We started out with rifles/arm-braced pistols and I shot my new build for the first time:

 

It's a 10.5 inch AR on a stripped Spike's lower.  Lower and Upper all pit together from parts. I had a stripped upper lying around for awhile now, and I decided to get it built up, and now seemed to be the time to do it.  I decided to put some decent parts into it, including a flat Geissele trigger which is awesome, a Midwest industries rail and some other decent parts.

It ran flawlessly on this it's first time out, which was nice. Got the scope dialed in as well. It's a Vortex Strike Eagle 1-8 and it is very decent glass.  Very fast at the low magnifications and sharp at the high end.

I also installed the AAC 7.62SDN suppressor onto it and it ran like a champ, but a quieter champ.

Then on to the Tavor, complete with silencer attached as I had installed an AAC flashider on it as well.

It ran like a top with the suppressor attached, and with the suppressor it was still shorter overall than the 10.5 was bare, complete with the Tavor's 13" barrel.  I do think its my favorite rifle at this point.

Interestingly, it appears that 5.56 makes the suppressor a lot hotter, longer,  than the 300 Blackout for some reason. 

Scott had a blast and enjoyed shooting the suppressed rifles, and everyone else's rifle there too.  We're friendly like that.

Then on to pistols.

I had a great set at shooting at a steel A zone at 25 yards.  

On timer, from draw to hit my best time today was 1.4 seconds, with other runs at the 1.67-1.70 second range.  Quite happy-making.

The 3x2 drill was in the 3 econd range so it still needs some work.

Scott and others liked the Masada quite a bit.  A solid 150 rounds through it with zero issues.

Scott also enjoyed shooting my suppressed M&P Compact 22 - so quiet you don't need ear pro, and the sound of the bullet hitting the steel is louder than the shot.  Much fun.

He now wants to buy a suppressor, because he can now.  And another angel gets its wings.

We also helped Jason out quite a bit with appendix carry.  Jason has a lot of reserve muscle mass you might say, so he's shied away from appendix carry as a result.  

He recently got a Shadow Systems MR918 and its a great pistol and he's running an RMR on it with good results.  

With a borrowed PHLster Floodlight holster  and a Surefire attached to his pistol we got him trying appendix carry out. First with just a bluegun, then the real gun and active shooting.

Having him try appendix as compared to his usual IWB hip position, his draws were measurably faster on the timer - At least a second or more faster - and that's trying appendix for the first time after carrying hip side for years.   Pretty impressive improvement just from changing the carry location.

Lots of fun shooting and a great bunch of guys.

Saturday Snowy Range Trip Day

Yes, it is May 9, and it snowed here today. Not enough to stick, but enough to make you wonder about claims of global warming.

So, on with the winter jacket taken out of storage and off to meet two friends from jiu jitsu at the range for outdoor recreation activities.

I'll say this much, the whole shut down is getting me more range time than I've had otherwise by far. Also, speed limit on the highway is still 90 mph or so, but gas has gone up in price recently as more people are saying screw it and heading out and about. Aside from the impending doom of income drying up, it's all good, right?

Anyways I met both Tosh and Jason at the range and both are seriously good shooters and definitely gun culture 2.0.

Much fun was had, and it was darn good to see them again after all this time off the mats. Great guys.

I shot the Masada and they both tried it as well and liked it.

That's another 300 rounds through it with zero failures.

We did the casino drill which was fun. We also did a dot torture run and I got a 49/50 on it, my closest to perfect so far with the Masada.

We also did a battle dot shoot off, which was a lot of fun.

Battle dots is a fun little drill where two people each pick either the black dots or white dots and then each firing one shot in turn, the race is to see who finishes of all their dots first. I shot it clean each time which I was very happy about.

Tosh was rocking his customized Glock 17 that was cut stippled and down to take Glock 19 mags, had the gadget, and a flat trigger, and had an RMR mounted on it. It ran flawlessly and was very fun to shoot.

Jason had his Glock 17 and a new Glock 44 in 22 which was also fun to shoot.
We also shot my Walther P99 and shooting it was a case of put dot of the Walther's front sight on a dot, and hit the dot.

We also shot some rifles first on the pistol range at 25 yards against paper targets only.

Yep, the muzzle break on Tosh's rifle offered much flash for pictures. Amazingly, the hair on his knuckles remains unsinged.

Shooting it was an experience.

That rifle was a lot of fun to shoot.

The muzzle break on Jason's rifle, while not giving picture worthy flashes, gave muzzle blast that was physically perceptible both to the sides and behind him that was actually uncomfortable to experience.

 Good for the shooter, hellacious if close by otherwise. When shooting it however, the muzzle blast was directed completely away from the shooter making it very comfortable to shoot.

I brought along my 300 Blackout AR Pistol and we all shot it, which offered a nice respite from the noise.

I also brought a rifle that I hadn't shot before and one that I had waited a long time to get, which will be the subject of the next post.

Sunday Range Day: Speed Practice

I decided to work on my speed today, both with the P30SK and the Glock 17.

For extra punishment, for the Glock 17 I did all drills by drawing from a Safariland ALS holster that had two levels of retention - the thumb press and a switch over it. The ALS retention is quite good - if you don't know how to operate it the firearm is not leaving the holster. On the downside, if you have any upward pressure on the firearm before you're done pushing fully down on the thumb switch, the gun gets all sorts of stuck in there, requiring you to ease up on the gun and reapply pressure to the thumb switch before trying to draw it. Add gloves for the weather, and many a mess up was had.

The practice drill of the day for the Glock was two USPSA targets 5 yards away and to draw and put two hits on each target in the A zone within a par time of 2 seconds.

Leah got lots of practice with commands of "shooter ready", "standby", and then hitting the timer whenever she felt like it.

The timer started in the 4-3.5 second range and with practice started moving lower. Leah provided an enthusiastic cheering section as the time kept creeping toward the goal.

The best time I could get today was:

Yes, 1.94 seconds! So I managed to beat the par time of two seconds and then I got stuck at 1.94 as the fastest time, with a few runs equaling that time.

I'm pretty happy with that for a first attempt, and expect with a non-retention holster I'd be a lot faster as the draw was where the hang up seemed to be.

Prior to practicing if you told me I could do that drill in two seconds I would have been rather doubtful, now with practice and pushing to improve it is doable, and I might as well keep on practicing to keep improving and getting faster.

Leah tried it with her Compact .22 and had quite respectable scores from a low ready position, she also shot the M&P 9 for the first time and liked it, although it had a weird trigger reset failure twice in two separate strings - the gun loaded a round fully into battery but the trigger did not reset. She had to rack the slide, ejecting an unfired round to get the trigger to reset. Kinda strange and that gun has done it before to me at matches before which is rather irritating, especially as I had sent it back to S&W to be fixed. It may need to head back again.

That's 100 more rounds through the Glock 17, making it 200 rounds with zero malfunctions.

We had a very nice time at the range, even as we had to take a warm up break in the car prior to continuing shooting due to the cold. Lots of fun was had and its nice to leave the range with a pracice goal accomplished.

P30 At 1450 And Range Trip

A badly needed range trip took place yesterday.

My cousin Matt came in to visit this weekend and I took him to the range. He only has experience (quite extensive experience) with his duty pistol, with which he is quite good, so he was interested to try out a variety of pistols and I was happy to oblige.

Together we ran another 150 rounds through the P30, making it to 1450 with absolutely zero malfunctions of any kind to date. The feed ramp is now covered in black gunk but it keeps on going.

He rally enjoyed shooting my M&P 22 Compact with the Gemtech suppressor. Mirabile Dictu, Walmart had some .22LR CCI standard velocity in stock (3 round box maximum purchase). The M&P and Gemtech loved it and ran very very quietly with no issues and it was much more accurate than the Remington Thunderbolt and quieter as well.

He liked it quite a bit.

I also had quite a few other pistols for him to try: The Inglis Hi-Power, The S&W Model 29-2, The S&W M&P 9, The Glock 17, the Glock 21, the PA-63 and the 1911 and the Mauser HSC out to shoot.

Lots of ammo was turned into noise and many a steel target dropped only to be reset and dropped again.

Then back to the house for an epic cleaning of the guns (all save the P30) and then a good diner of Thanksgiving leftovers and a binge-watching of Game of Thrones.

A darn good time.

P30 hits a flawless 1,300

Ran 100 more rounds through the P30 last night at the range after work.

I went shooting at an indoor range with the Synagogue's gun club. Yes we have one, which I found out about chatting with certain people during the run up to Abby's Bat Mitzvah. While it is a Conservative congregation, most members aren't conservative nor pro-gun politically so to speak, so it was fun finding some kindred spirits among the membership.

So we met up at an indoor range and had a half-hour range rental time to work with.

At 10 yards, my shooting wasn't too bad.

However, for some reason all my left-hand-only shots ended up clustered on the right side of the target with most clustering low (the bunch in the 9-8-7 rings at low right).

In short, more left hand only practice is needed. Heck, more practice is needed period.

The P30 had zero malfunctions, again completely flawless operation and I'm pretty impressed with how this gun fits and functions.

I then shot the M&P Compact .22 with silencer (the shots at the top of the head are the first string from it). I'm finding the sites on it are a bit to the right, most especially with Remington Thunderbolt (the only .22 ammo I could find at the moment) which for some reason shot a lot more to the right than the CCI Mini-Mage. I let some others try it and they enjoyed shooting it quite a bit.

I then, running out of time, did a rapid mag dump from the M&P9 full size. Compared to the P30 it felt like an absolute block in my hand, but it was decent enough shooting though for a very quick emptying of the magazine.

Then we went to a nearby deli for some excellent corned beef sandwiches and good conversation and that was the end to a very pleasant range trip.

It's Just Like A Real M&P Pistol, Only Smaller

The gun I brought to the range is the new (to me) M&P Compact 22.

It looks like an M&P, but it is smaller and lighter in every way. This will be important for its intended purpose.

It comes in a cardboard box, not quite as nice a presentation as their center-fire caliber pistols with their plastic carry cases.

Nicely small and lightweight, it's quite an ideal kit gun and in my case, kids' gun.

The kids can easily get a grip around the thin grip and it's smaller and much lighter than the Ruger MKII bull barrel I have. Soon I shall take the kids to the range with it and see what we can see.

It comes with two magazines, both of which are markedly easier to load than the Ruger MK II's magazines, which again makes it attractive for the kids.

I put 50 rounds through it after first cleaning and lubricating it as it arrived bone-gratingly dry in the box. The bore had a bit of gunk in it which I got out with a patch and am glad I did so before firing it.

All 50 rounds of Remington Golden Bullet fired through it flawlessly, recoil is nil, and keeping it on target is a cinch.

I expect this will be a real kid-pleaser at the range, once I scrounge up some more 22 LR that is and take them to shoot it.

Range Trip!

Murphy's Law is in town so I met up him and his sister after I finished up some work at the office and then we headed to the range.

ML's sister is still a novice shooter, complete with a new M&P Shield 9mm. We went over safety and handling procedures and then went on to loading and firing.

With a bit of instruction from me and ML, after a few runs she started settling down and knocking down some steel plates with aplomb.

She did quite well with the Shield, using both FMJ ammo as practice and some Speer Gold Dot which will be her carry ammo. You can say the pistol is now well and truly broken in and should serve her well.

I took the opportunity to put another 150 rounds through the P30, making it 950 rounds so far with no cleaning and no issues of any kind.

I shot the M&P 40c as well, putting another 100 rounds through it with no issues, including some Winchester Ranger ammunition, and the TRUGLO TFX Sights sights are dead on and ridiculously easy to pickup quickly. I really like these sights.

I then brought out my Glock 17 which I haven't shot for awhile. The grip angle on it was distinctly different from that of the P30 and M&Pc and took a bit of getting used to, but after shooting the M&P40c, the by contrast low-to-no perceived recoil of the 17 made it very easy to shoot quickly and accurately. I had also brought along another gun which will be the subject of my next post.

ML had brought along quite a few nice handguns, including his Walther PPK.

On drawing it, you could hear him say: "My name is Law, Murphy's Law".

I can guarantee that he's a better shot than Daniel Craig.

It was a darn good range trip.

One Hot Match

Today's USPSA match was a real scorcher.

The sun was out and it was brutal with nary a breeze to stir the air during the match.

By the end of the match I was seriously dragging - 9 stages felt like an eternity.

Some bays had covered rest ares which were helpful but they often weren't large enough for everyone, and four of the bays at one end were cruelly naked under the sun and you were in the open to bake for a long time.

Even worse there was a major bottleneck at our very last stage.

Due to an error in course design, there were a ton of re-shoots which slowed everything down so we were stacked up 3 squads behind the squad shooting it in the very next bay. We sat around for an hour waiting to get a turn to shoot our last stage.

The problem was that not only was it a large and confusing stage with 32 rounds consisting of two runs, as well as hidden and angled targets, but it also had a center portion where it had 3 poppers clustered behind 4 no-shoots laid out in the vertical square so you were shooting through a small hole between the no shoot targets to get the poppers. Knocking a popper down through a no-shoot target caused the re-shoot and a pause as the entire stage was pasted and the shooter got to go again. That sucked. Our Squad RO declared that if a no shoot was hit and a popper dropped, he was just going to score it and not declare a reshoot. We all agreed as by then we were not going to drag this out anymore than it had to be to get it done.

Even with lots of sunscreen, a hat and drinking a liter and a half of water I still felt dehydrated. I'll be sure to bring more water next time.

I was dragging badly by the end of the match, so I came in 20th of 28 limited class shooters with 1008 out of 1085 possible points.

The M&P 40 Pro still ran like a champ. One magazine with the Taylor Freelance base did not lock the slide open on empty which is apparently fixable with a stronger spring than kjust the factory magazine spring, while the other worked 100%.

Lots of people had magazine seating fumbles as the day wore on, mostly due to heat exhaustion. There were lots of issues due to reloaded ammo not being powerful enough to operate the guns, especially with 1911s. One Glock shooter had a front sight fly off while shooting in the open, not due to hitting any object, which locked the gun up for a bit as the screw holding the sight jammed the slide until it was cleared. Loctite is a mandatory thing for sight attachment screws people.

It was a long hot match for everybody with over 217 rounds fired.

On the upside, I found out I made C-class in Limited from last month's classifier match. Considering how i flubbed my way through the classifiers that was rather happy-making, but I've got a long way to improve.

Some Needed Sighting Improvements Made

I just swapped the factory sights on my M&P 40c for a set of TRUGLO TG13MP1A Brite-Site TFX Handgun Sight for S&W M&P Set, Black.

The difference is simply amazing.

And when there's a light source, they're much, much brighter than the standard sights. Incredibly easy to pickup.

Of course in the dark, it's no comparison. The stock sights disappear as they're have no tritium inserts while the TFXs glow nicely. Not as bright as a pure tritium night sight but bright enough that you can pick them up without any issues. Thwe daytime rapid acquisition more than makes up for it.

The front sight is markedly longer than the factory, but it fits all my holsters just the same with no issues. The rear sight matches the overall length of the factory rear sight.

The sights are much faster to pickup and get on target in daylight especially during rapid strings or after drawing from a holster. At night, now the tritium lets me see the sights very well indeed, unlike the non-tritium standard factory sights.

To put them on, I used the Ameriglo Smith & Wesson M&P Rear Sight Installer Tool. Model # SW Tool 12.

This is simply an excellent tool. This was the latest model with the larger cut for the sight pusher so installing TRUGLO TFX sights was pretty much a snap. Both front and rear sights both came off and went on so much easier than using a punch that it is not even funny, and with much more precision to boot. Save yourself time and aggravation with one of these sight pushers, as well as not marking up the sights while installing them. The instructions are a bit scant on details and the alignment instructions are a bit vague, but you can puzzle them out reasonably well and it didn't take long before I had the slide in and secured in the pusher and the factory sights off and new TRUGLO TFX sights on.

A great product and if you own more than one M&P and want to change the sights, it pays for itself very quickly.

As to the TRUGLOs, without question, they're a huge improvement over the factory sights and highly recommended.

A Very Good Range Day

In the late morning, I met up with my friend Jason at the range.

Jason is a newer shooter and a heckuva nice guy. After a safety briefing and my demonstrating how to load and shoot the guns as they came out in order we were ready to hit some paper and some poppers.

The H&K P30 continued to run perfectly, eating another 250 rounds without complaint, making it to 450 rounds with no issues and no cleaning.

Jason shot the P30 quite well and knocked down the poppers in quick succession as well as hitting the paper targets.

I did both Dot Torture and FAST drills with the P30 while Jason knocked down steel poppers and did a Dot Torture sans holster work as he's never drawn from a holster beforevso we're elaving that until he gets a lot more practice and comfort with shooting. I need more work on Dot Torture with the P30 as I did drop a few shots out of the circles.

Happily, with some dry-fire practice since last time, I've at least redeemed my FAST times - my second and third FAST runs today were 7.15 seconds and 7.10 seconds, respectively. The first run's time is lost to history. Jason was running a timer for his first time ever and he hit the start button for a second time as if it was a stop button when I was done. He said I had looked pretty fast doing it that time. Ah well. In any case, it's nice to see some focused dry-fire practice can really shave seconds off your time on a FAST.

I still need to work more to get out of intermediate to reach an advanced time, not to mention improve my shooting overall, but it's a fun work in progress and at least its going the right way now that I finally convinced my brain that the slide release on the P30 is not the magazine release button. I'm also starting to like the P30 more and more as it seems to fit my hand like it was made for it.

We also shot 50 rounds through my M&P 9 - the sight is still slightly to the right even after an adjustment since the last range outing and needs a slight nudge to the left.

We then both shot my M&P40 compact and 50 rounds went through it without the slightest issue. Jason could definitely feel the difference in recoil between the compact 40 and the full size 9mm pistols.

Then it was rifle time:

I had brought out both the Tavor and one of my AR-15s with a Trijicon ACOG mounted on it.

We fired 200 rounds through the Tavor, bringing it to a total of 940 rounds fired through it without a single malfunction.

We also put 100 rounds through the AR15, again with no issues.

Jason liked the Tavor more than the AR-15 and found its manual of arms easier than the AR15 and he shot it better. This was an interesting result considering he had no experience with either rifle before today. He now wants to buy a Tavor as his first rifle.

That was a darn good range trip.

Lessons From Using The M&P9 And The H&K P30 At The Range

Finally got to the range again and it's been much too long, and it showed. Lesson #1 - more practice makes Aaron a better shooter.

I met a client of mine at the range, where we're both members, and what better way is there to entertain a client than at a shooting range?

I shot both my M&P 9 and My H&K P30.

First we shot a course of 18 steel targets that he had setup - poppers, chuckies (also known to others as mini-poppers) and ten plates.

From a holster and with a magazine change (10 rounds in each mag) I was shooting and getting all targets down in about 25 seconds, occasionally less, as we ran with my timer and took down the times for comparison.

I was clearly more familiar with the M&P 9 but was consistently only 1 second faster on each run using it over the P30. The P30's sights were more zeroed than the M&P. In fact the P30's sights were dead on. The M&P's however were slightly off to the right, complicating good hits on the farther small poppers. The M&P trigger was easier than the P30's but that didn't add nearly as much time to the P30's runs as I would have expected. 1 Second over 18 targets isn't a huge gap, especially when I've been shooting the M&P9 for years and have only 200 rounds through the P30.

Lesson #2 happened when I suggested we do some FAST drills and that drill really showed that I need lots more practice.

From a personal best of 7.66 seconds back when I took the AFHF class, I was now up to 10 seconds with the H&K P30 -- and with a good reason.

Whether it was regular use of the M&P combined with lack of regular use of the P30, I consistently hit the slide release rather than the magazine release paddle whenever I went to do the reload, which caused my time to suck rocks. Instead of a nice smooth magazine change I had to then hit the mag paddle, change mags and rack the slide - every time I did the drill. This resulted in the 10.8 and 10 second runs with the fastest a 9.4. The slide release on the HK for whatever reason was just beckoning to be unconsciously pressed every darn time I did a mag change. I think this was a leftover from regularly pressing the M&P's magazine release button which is close to where the slide release on the HK is as opposed to the location of the paddle release on the trigger guard.

It goes to show that shifting between different firearms with quite different magazine release locations can certainly slow you down.

Interestingly, on the clock with the poppers that mistake did not happen so it was likely the pressure to really drive down the time on the FAST drill had me consistently flubbing the reload by unconsciously hitting the slide release rather than the paddle as I really was trying to best my scores. On the plus side, the P30 was flawless for another 100 rounds, and it actually fits perfectly into the kydex NTAC holster I have for the M&P 9 (as does the Glock 17 for that matter - this thing is practically a universal holster). The P30 also fit the hand better than the M&P 9 and lined up on target very nicely. It was also reassuring to slowly holster it while holding the hammer down with my thumb as an extra level of safety to prevent an discharge while re-holstering. The M&P 9 also ran perfectly for another 100 rounds.

On the upside, even with the fumbles I still shot better and faster than my client so my ego, while bruised, wasn't completely battered. It was bruised enough to know that more practice and familiarization with the P30, and shooting in general, is clearly indicated.

I still need to find more mags for the P30 at close to MSRP prices.

A Good Morning On The Range

Instead of our regular Friday morning meeting, I took five members of a business networking group I'm a part of to the range this morning as a get out of the office event.

A few of them had never shot before, and a couple had either as hunters and one as a more Gen2 type shooter.

In short it was a great time.

We hit the rifle range first. I let them shoot one of my ARs, the AK and the Tavor on the rifle range. That's another 100 flawless rounds through the Tavor.

Everyone thought the Tavor was very cool and one of the guys that owned an AR was very impressed with it.

One of the guys brought along a GSG MP-5 in .22. It was a blast to shoot - lots of fun, ridiculously easy to control and just a fun gun. I could ring the steel plates at 100 yards no problem. It had quite a few failures to feed, most likely due to the ersatz lead round nose budget 22s that was all he could find to shoot through it, so can't blame the gun for that.

One not so funny event happened. One of the guys had brought his deer rifles out to sight in (He's a deer season only shooter). His first rifle had some serious functioning problems due to a complete lack of lubrication. It was so dry the bolt would not close on a round. I put on some Slip2000 EWL and it functioned like a champ.

The second rifle was a different story.

He fired a round and it worked ok, but the second round he tried to fire jammed completely and could neither be fired nor extracted, so he had a live round stuck in the chamber.

The round would not come out of the chamber no matter what - prying with knives and multi-tools did nothing, nor did a rod down the barrel. It was jammed in tight. I couldn't figure out how it could be so jammed into the chamber like that.

It was a 308 Winchester round, which he swore was the caliber of the rifle.

I took a look at the markings on the barrel and guess what? It wasn't chambered in 308. The rifle was chambered in 30-06.

Be sure you check you've put the right ammo in the gun folks.

Then we headed to the pistol range and had a blast. I set up a couple plate racks, then added some poppers and supervised them shooting at them in a friendly competition as to who could knock 'em all down with 10 shots on 8 targets. They had a great time shooting.

One of the guys brought a few interesting pistols - A Walther PPX, a S&W Shield and a SiG 239.

I got to try out the Walther PPX. If you're following Tam (and if you're not, you should) you know about the Walther PPX and can see how she's putting one through its paces. Handling the PPX was interesting. While it looks blocky as heck, the grip fit my hand like a glove and the trigger was truly and impressively excellent, I'd say certainly better than a stock Glock trigger. Knocking down plates quickly with accuracy was no problem.

The Shield was also easy to shoot as was his Sig 938.

I brought along my 9mm S&W M&P, my Glock 19 and two 1911s.

The 1911s were a big hit. But they had problems clearing all 8 targets with just the 8 shots in its magazine.

After putting hundreds of rounds through the guns it was time to head back to work. Now I've got quite a few guns to clean.

Everyone had a great time at the range and agreed that it kicked the Group's golf outing's butt and that we should do it again.

A Good Sunday Match

Just returned home from the USPSA match. The day and the match started out during a drizziling rain, which faded and was replaced by a blazing hot sun and humidity from the water the rain had just deposited throughout. To say I'm wiped would be an understatement.

Six challenging stages including one classifier.

Two stages were darn tricky, with some very alrge ones with a lot of steel and targets, some of which could be seen from multiple ports, and some hidden and only viewable from just the right position. It took a fair bit of thinking while shooting to clear those stages.

The dark house stage was awesome as always, this time with a zig-zag pattern that made for an interesting variation and challenge.

I did pretty well overall, and I'm starting to shoot a bit faster which is good.

The classifier this time was The Riverdale standards. It had three strings of fire but only 20 rounds.

The first string was 4 shots, 1 per target freestyle, reload and repeat one per target freestyle.

string 2 was 4 shots, 1 per target freestyle, reload and repeat one per target strong hand only.

String 3 was 4 shots, 1 per target support hand only.

Overall I did pretty well on it, but had a failure to feed on the last string, probably from not holding it strongly enough in my support hand. Quite a few people had malfunctions during that part of the classifier.

And another good match done.

WECSOHA Range Results

So I took kids, and packed the M&P9 with its new Apex RAM installed and the M&P40 with its new Apex Sear and Apex RAM installed, along with the trusty Ruger Mark II and headed to the range.

The M&P9 with the new RAM installed this morning worked flawlessly - here's the first magazine shot through it rapid to try and work the reset:

Then it was the M&P 40's turn, again very rapid:

The kids had their own targets for shooting with the Ruger Mark II, each of which had 2 balloons on them for their shooting enjoyment.

Abby's color choice had a distinct MSU Spartan flavor:

Leah got up and popped her two balloons with her first magazine.

Abby missed with her first magazine, but got them with her second.

I kept putting rounds through the M&Ps, first running a  box through the M&P 9, then a box through the M&P 40, doing magazine changes with each and trying to really wring them out to make sure the WECSOHA hadn't been a Wreck-So-Ha!

All mods worked, the guns worked 100% and function better than they did before. The trigger pull on the 40 is so much nicer than it was originally, and the reset on both guns are now very nice indeed. I can highly recommend the Apex sear and RAM as very useful modifications to enhance your shooting of the M&P.

The kids took turns using the Ruger Mark II and loading the magazines for it. Both had a lot of fun and were very safe while doing so.

The kids ran my shot timer for me and I did a few FAST drills with the M&P and a few other drills.

They were really getting into running the timer.

Then Abby wanted to give it a go with Leah giving the range commands:

Coming soon to a USPSA match near you.

A fun time had by all, then we headed to lunch at Smashburger and had some tasty burgers, and then home.

A great range trip indeed.

WECSOHA: The Apex RAM And The M&P9

This morning was WECSOHA time.

WECSOHA of course meaning the Willie E. Coyote School Of Home Armoring. Genius I tell you, Sheer armoring genius. Note it's not gunsmithing as I'm not a gunsmith. I can take pistols apart and install parts but I sure can't make parts for them or do other gunsmithing kinda stuff.

Today I was going to install the Apex Tactical Specialties RAM on my S&W M&P to improve the reset.

Step 1. Check and make sure the pistol is unloaded.

Step 2. Check and make sure the pistol is unloaded.

Step 3. Check and make sure the pistol is unloaded.

Why three times? Because of the 3 Cs - Carelessness, Complacency, and Catastrophe. If you check it three times, the chance of one of them biting you becomes vanishingly small. Check only once, or even worse forget to check, and someday you will get bit.

Step 4. After checking, remove the slide from the frame. Using the Apex Armorer's Block helps keep the frame in one place and protects it when you start removing the roll pin.

Step 5. Then take a #4 roll pin punch and remove the rear roll pin from the frame, hammering from the left side towards the right.

Step 6. Then remove the sear block from the frame by pulling up on the rear rails, this becomes easier if you pull the trigger while doing so. Expect the ejector to fall off while you're doing this. That's normal, but don't lose it.

Now's a good time to clean the sear block, trigger bar, ejector, and other areas you don't usually get to cleaning.

Step 7. Then put the spring on the RAM, have the RAM with the flat spot and hook facing upwards and place in the hole in the middle of the sear block.

Step 8. Put the trigger bar back into place on the side of the sear block, pressing in on the right side of the RAM so the tail of the trigger bar fits into place right in the flat sport on the RAM and with the pointy tail resting back in the sear block.

Step 9. Put the sear block back halfway into the frame, then put the ejector back on the sear block, then push down until it drops into place and then hammer the roll pin back into place.

Step 10. Check for function, and you're done. The trigger reset is now seriously improved.

Now off to the range to do a full check.

The whole process took about 15 minutes, including chasing around parts that fell off the bench. Quite an easy upgrade to perform. Overall, the Glock is much easier to work on and only needs the Glock tool, unlike the M&P which requires a few different pin punches to fully take down especially if you replace the sear. But, with a little care and perseverance, the M&P is not that difficult to work on.

A Mother's Day USPSA Match

So this morning, after giving some happy Mother's Day wishes and bringing Natasha, the world's best mom a coffee to her bedside, I got to go head to the range for a match.

First match of the season, and the first time I've shot in about almost a month. As you can guess, I was a bit rusty.

I ran my M&P 9mm in production class and it ran perfectly - no issues and shot very well for me indeed, so i;m well and truly back on the M&P Kool-Aid.

On the upside, on my first stage, the shoot house, every hit was in the A-zone and all steel was dropped, with no misses. I was slow, but accurate.

Some of the stages were rather fiendish in that many targets could  only engaged from some locations, but even then you had to be at the proper angle to see them - whip by to fast and you had an unengaged target and lots of penalties.  Even worse some targets were visible from multiple ports, leaving you to womnder if you had already engaged them from a previous port as you were moving.

Happily, this match I paid close attention to the angles and left had no target unengaged. Others weren't as lucky, especially if they had a malfunction that threw them off their plan.  Overall I had some very decent runs, smooth draws and magazine changes and very good accuracy.

The classifier this time was CM 13-02 Down The Middle. Basically it's 4 targets in an offset line with only the center of each a shootable area to count as a hit, I didn't set the world on fire, but I had all 8 of 8 shots scored hits, and all of them were A-zone with a time of 7.81 seconds.

Here's a video of how to do this classifier quick, demonstrated by one of the shooters in the squad, in a tad over 4 seconds:

Yes, he's got a racegun, but with practice, even shooting Production I should be able to get my time down significantly from 7.81 seconds to something more respectable and still not drop any hits, so that's something to work on.

So it was a great match with a great bunch of people.

More practice and I'll be in better shape for June's match.

The Guns Of February

Sunny and 20 degrees, about as good a February weather forecast for outdoor shooting that you can get in Michigan.

And so, to the range I did go.

I went with my friend Manuel to the outdoor range where I'm a member.

Manuel had just purchased a Tavor with an 18" barrel with a Trijicon ACOG mounted on it, and he needed to take it out and try it alongside mine, and get it zeroed in.

We shot the Tavors side by side at 25 yards and hit our targets nicely.

I think that makes us Tavorishes.

Both Tavors, as expected, functioned perfectly.

At close range, the Aimpoint Pro gave a faster sight picture, especially when we practiced snap shots, but the ACOG shines at longer range with its magnification. We each appreciated each other's Tavor and the different optics on them.

After shooting the Tavors, we pulled out our carry pistols. My S&W M&P 40c and his Glock 27.

I also pulled out my new-to-me but clearly used 40 M&P full size.

This was a police trade in with night sights, and the pistol arrived with a lot of slide wear and it was pretty gunked up. It was so gunked up that the magazine release would not drop the magazine when pressed but it only moved down a bit. The gunk seemed to have been coffee and doughnuts stuck in the internals. Some judicious cleaning and oiling and it is as good as new and the mag drops freely, the grip is no longer sticky and the suspiciously-looking-like-coffee stain on the metal part of the takedown tool is now gone.

After shooting the compact, the full size was much easier to handle, even though the full size is not that much bigger than the compact, it fits the hand just a tad better and is more controllable.

A little bit more grip goes a long way, and I could clear the plate rack a lot faster, not to mention make consistent head-shots out to 25 yards on USPSA targets. I may just follow Tam's lead and just start carrying a full size M&P. We'll have to try it out and see how it fits, or I may end up rotating it with the compact depending on wardrobe requirements.

Manuel's Glock 27 had a Crimson Trace laser grip on it, which unfortunately in all the bright sunlight and snow was not useful as the dot was completely washed out. The laser still is a valuable tool for use at night and in dark areas, but don't expect it to perform in bright light with reflective snow for a fore- and backdrop.

His Glock also had an interesting custom safety installed:

The safety was a bit problematic - if you weren't careful while firing you could unintentionally activate it, so you had to take care with your grip.

The Glock 27 was decent, especially how he has it setup with the 13 round magazines from the Glock 23 with magazine sleeves on them, but I'm finding I'm shooting better with the M&P.

We also did some weak-hand only shooting, which showed that yes, I need to do more weak hand shooting.

Then we headed out to the 100 yard range, breaking a path though thigh-deep snow to get there.

We shot the Tavors again and shot my 300 Blackout AR15.

The Tavors had no problem ringing the steel plates at 100 yards, as did the 300 Blackout AR15.

That's another 120 rounds through my Tavor with no stoppages or issues to date.

The hours passed and our hands were starting to get pretty cold by the time we were done shooting. So we cleaned up, packed up, and headed home.

A darn good range trip.