Sunday Range Day

I met up with Will at the range this morning.

When you're with him it is very important to never give the range command:

"Fire At Will".

Makes him nervous. Quite understandably so.

We started off with some shotgun patterning.  I had recently changed the choke on the Tavor TS-12 to a cylinder choke, for reasons.

Patterning with it showed nice tight patterns at 10 yards with Flite Control, but it opened up considerably at 15 yards - patterning with three rounds, all pellets but one were still on the target but it had spread quite a bit at that distance.

I'll likely put the factory choke back in when not using the attachment that requires the cylinder choke attachment.

I did a bit more shotgun shooting and found even the el cheapo Euro buck still would stay on the target at 10 yards, but not nearly as tightly as the flite control, which is definitely preferred for self-defense.

We then switched to handguns.  

Since the Sig 320 is currently pistola non grata both at the range and in local competitions and local firearm classes, at least for now, I had to go to an alternative which had just arrived this week, along with a new holster for it.

I'll do a more thorough write up on the alternative in just a bit.  I zeroed the red dot on it, it had come mounted and was shooting a tad low for me.  It didn't take long to get it right on, and I and quite pleased.

Ran it through its paces, and I'm quite pleased with it.  Once home I changed the grip to a smaller one to fit my hand better, which was pretty easy to do.

Did some Bill Drills from concealment and I'm clearly out of practice with times in the low 4 second range for clean runs which sucks. Some of this is due to using a completely new firearm and holster, but mostly it is because I need to get out to the range more to practice. 

We then shot plate racks, and again I was out of practice on that too.  But I soon had times in the 5 second and below from concealment, not great but at least not terrible.

Oh, did I mention the other possible reason why my performance sucked - it was raining cats and dogs while we were shooting the Bills Drills and plate racks?

Because it was, a lot. 

Shooting glasses are kinda hard to see out of when covered in rain, just saying. 

So, after getting pretty thoroughly soaked we called it a morning as Will had an appointment to go to her.

So we packed up, cleaned up the range, and headed off. 

It was a good time with Will, who I hadn't seen in awhile, and a clear sign I need to get more consistent with practicing in order to improve. Fun was had.

Gun School - Definitive Shotgun - Day 2

Day 2 began with a discussion about Slugs and their usage.

We then fired some slugs at some steel targets, with amusing results, including one slug that when it hit the steel target, the wood post holding it snaped in two from the hit.  

Then we moved on to buckshot and its usage at longer range.

Good Buckshot can hit a target out to 70 plus yards, and we demonstrated that.

The issue is it will hit the target and likely the target beside it if it is shoulder-to-shoulder.

A realistic usage case for buckshot at such a range is if you're being attacked by a shooter standing alone at that distance and you don't have or cannot switch to a slug for some reason - you can still get hits. Indeed, using FliteControl, we got some very tight hits as opposed to the cheap stuff that we used for comparison that sprayed everywhere - and in 20 gauge  on the vast majority of shots taken, the cheap buckshot actually missed the target entirely with its pattern at that range.

The less realistic and in my opinion far more legally risky usage case that was discussed for buckshot at such a range, is if you're being attacked by a vehicle or a mob bent on destruction.  

Justifying such a long range shot against a group of people, especially as at that range you are going to hit multiple persons with shot,  may be rather hard to do. Short of all of them possessing ranged weapons that can reach you and they've demonstrated a willingness or viable threat to do so it;s going to be hard to justify.   Such justification, while never totally impossible, is still pretty unlikely and I'd recommend not trying to shoot at a mob of people or vehicle from 70 yards away, knowing your shot is going to hit multiple persons.  Short of an end-of-the world, breakdown of society-type scenario, it is likely going to legally end rather badly.

We then worked on ammo select drills - switching from Buck loaded in the shotgun to Slugs when the transition was called for.

Had I been allowed to use the Tavor as designed, I would have had one tube loaded with slugs and the other two with buck and transition would be a cinch, and I woulda seriously smoked everyone else's time doing so, by a wide margin.

That was not to be. Instead, I had to eject a buck round, rotate the tube to the loading gate, load a slug from the shot card on the outside of the gun into the tube, rotate it back and load it and get it done.  Quite a but slower.  It was, however, excellent manipulation practice for me, but I sure wasn't winning the competition that way.

After that, we did some further drills, and then got a chance to try other people's shotguns.

Quite a few people wanted to try the Tavor, and they rather liked it.  I also demonstrated a full 16 round tube rapid dump on target with the Tavor, running it as designed, which is always a lot of fun.

I tried a Beretta 1301 and I do indeed find it to be a very nice and well-designed shotgun. It's impressively ergonomic, well though out and easy for mounting a red dot. I don't think anyone would go wrong by purchasing one and using it as a defensive/tactical shotgun, and it's likely the current top dog in that category.  Of course,  I personally believe the Tavor TS-12 is a similarly worthy competitor for that title and also a top-notch choice for a defensive/tactical shotgun. 

 It was a great class, with a great instructor.  I also ended up meeting a bunch of great people who attended it and it was a great time. I certainly improved in manipulating the shotgun from this class.

Definitive Shotgun is definitely a "Learn to use your tactical shotgun at a fundamental level" type of class, and it excels at that.  Zach Bush as an instructor is very clear with his instruction, explanations, and demonstrations. It is a very comprehensive class on the use and operation of a shotgun for defensive purposes. 

If you're looking for an in-depth class on the fundamentals of shotgun usage, I can recommend Definitive Shotgun. 

Gun School - Definitive Shotgun - Day 1

On Memorial Day Weekend, very bright and early at 5 am on Saturday morning, I met up with Tosh and we drove down to New London, Ohio to attend Definitive Training Solutions - Definitive Shotgun Class.

We arrived at the range at 7:45 and checked in to the class, and did the waivers etc and got our gear set up and set out.

With 16 students attending, it was a full  class. 

Shotguns ranged  in the pump department from a couple Remington 870s, a couple few Mossberg 590s, including two in 20 gauge brought by the two female shooters attending the class.

In the semi-auto category, there vast majority were Beretta 1301s, one Beretta A300, and my Tavor TS-12.

Only three years ago, at MDFI's shotgun class, the Benelli M4 series dominated.  Now there was not a single one on the line.

The class began with a safety brief and an introduction to what we would be doing and some note-taking on shotgun usage.

We then began by patterning the shotguns with our choice of high-quality buckshot.

 

Two words when it comes to quality buckshot - Federal FliteControl.

Some people tried cheaper buckshot and the difference - in their own shoguns when they tried FliteControl was night and day in terms of putting buckshot on target.

We patterned at 5, 7, 10, 12, and 25 yards. 

Using FliteControl, as seen above, the Tavor TS-12 kept some nice tight patterns, and even at 25 yards kept all the shot on target.

 The ladies using the 20 gauges had major issues patterning. Neither of them had the rare 20 gauge flitecontrol buckshot, and the buckshot they had looked like it had been thrown all over the target at 5 and 7 yards, and most of the shot was off target when shot from farther away. 

Interestingly, the malfunctions this class were all with the pump shotguns -  both of the ladies' Mossberg 20s were new and had issues including the end cap working loose on one and the safety coming loose and off on the other. First time for both of them using shotguns and they brought these new to class and both needed lubrication.  After some teething troubles, they worked but were simply not as accurate as the 12 gauges on the line, especially with buckshot.

In short, ladies certainly can, and probably should, handle 12 gauge shotguns for defense for the benefits from FliteControl alone, and for the much better ammunition choices that are available when using a 12.

Other malfunctions included some jams when port-loading a Mossberg 590, which was caused by the angle the gun was held at the time and was easily solved accordingly.  

The Tavor TS-12 ran like a champ, zero malfunctions.

 

After the buckshot patterning, we switched to bird shot for the rest of the day.

Lots of manipulation drills - loading via both the magazine tube and port, including under pressure during rolling thunder and Peel drills tom get used to moving with a shotgun.

We had an awesome lunch prepared for by the range owner and his wife and it was great - absolutely top rate hospitality and great people.

We also did one handed-manipulation and reloading drills as well. 

We finished up with a drill under competitive pressure which was fun, but the drill as structured didn't let me use the benefits of the Tavor to its fullest extent - namely its multiple tubes for very fast reloading. Instead, I had to load ammo that was loosely in my pockets compared to others who had them on cards secured via velcro on the gun.   This pocket retrieval was notably slower.

The next morning, I installed the cards on the sides of the Tavor.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

After the end of the class day, the entire class went out to dinner together.  The Tosh and I headed back to the hotel and got ready for Day 2.

It was a great start to the class.  We prepared to slug it out on Sunday. 

Range Trip - SIGs, Bullpups, And More

Went to the range this morning with Tosh.

We started off doing some handgun practice.  

Tosh wanted to work on splits so we setup a silhouette target at the center of the Bay and another on the far right side and worked on transitions between them. Good practice and we hadn't done much on transitions before and it showed.  Need more practice with that,. My heavy sweatshirt got in the way a few times as well to slow me down, so it was good to practice with different clothing on.

Then we moved on to Bill Drills, and my lack of range attendance the past couple months showed there.  While I fired three sets all clean, none were below 3 seconds. Shooting is a perishable skill and ,my Bill Drill progress sure perished.  Need to get to the range more.

After handguns, I broke out the PS90 and we each shot a full magazine of 50 rounds through it. Quite simply shooting the PS90 is a ton of fun.  No recoil to speak of, multiple shots right on target as fast as you can squeeze the trigger as the firearm simply doesn't move, and its' a nice compact package.  It's a fun gun that never ceases to put a smile on the face of whoever shoots it.

We then moved on to rifles, and I shot my Tavor  X95 and Tosh his shorty AR. he was getting a ton of gas blow-back from his Griffin Armaments suppressor. So much so that the charging handle occasionally flew back all by itself while shooting.  It's a great suppressor that works amazing, and a great value for the price, but you do pay for that sound reduction in gas right to the face.

We then decided to work on rifle reloads because that's not a thing we typically do, as in just about ever. Reloads were out of our back jeans pockets as we hadn't brought rifle magazine holders out.

Basic setup was a full magazine in the back pocket, a round in the chamber and an empty magazine in the gun. On the beep, safety off, come up and shoot the silhouette and then immediately drop the mag and reload and fire a second shot at the target. Then safety on, pickup the empty mag from the ground and reload it into position and full mag back into the back pocket and repeat. Both shots had to hit to count.

We did this on the timer and the lack of practice showed. Managed after a bit of initial fumbling to get the time from first shot to second shot hitting after the reload down to 4ish seconds but with practice I think I can get it faster.  Great practice and the Tavor does handle differently from an AR for reloading. But, once you have the process down, you can do it at a decent clip.

Then, we moved on to shotguns and did transition shooting with them.  I brought out my third bullpup of the shoot, the Tavor TS-12. Tosh brought his Mossberg 590A1.  With 16 rounds loaded on the Tavor it was fun to just keep right on shooting and hitting the targets long after he ran out of his 9 shot and was having to reload.  Much fun was had and I tried out his 590A1, as he got to use the TS-12, and it was a lot of fun and rather smooth - he's upgraded the safety and the magazine follower and it works quite well, and the pump action is rather smooth after all the rounds he's run through it. He's considering SBS'ing it and if he does I'll help him with his doing a Form 1 for the first time.

It was a heckuva good time at the range on a beautiful clear if cool morning.

A Red Dot Is A Cheat Code

Most especially when mounted on a shotgun.

Aiming both much quicker and more accurate that relying on a bead or ghost-type rifle sights.

Especially with my new shotgun.

The Tavor TS-12.

3 tubes of 5 rounds each with one in the chamber for 15+1 shots without a reload.  You can also ghost load it, if you so desire,  for a remarkable total of 17 rounds on board and ready to go. Plus, as my friendly local dealer remarked, it looks like a space gun.

The push button at the front of the trigger guard allows you to quickly rotate the next tube into position after you've emptied a tube.  It's both intuitive and very fast to hit it with your trigger finger as the support hand rotates the new tube into position. 

There is a loading port on either side of the firearm, and shells can also be easily ejected from the tubes without cycling the firearm.

Cross bolt safety is right where you would expect it to be, and it is solid and easy to operate, and the charging handle is similarly easy to use.

In short, I should have bought this rather than the Turknelli from the outset and would have been a lot happier.   It's actually more ergonomic, handles better, is much easier to take down and clean, and is much more reliable.There's something to be said about buy once, cry once.

Size-wise it's pretty darn amazing.

 

Same barrel length, in a much more compact package, with more rounds on board to boot.

For whatever reason, the recoil impulse is also softer than the Turknelli - the heavy 12 pellet 00 Buck recoils subjectively much softer in the Tavor than the Turknelli, and bird shot is a non-issue recoil-wise - you can keep it on target and just launch 16 rounds of birdshot without pause. I also found I did not get any gas in the face when firing the TS-12.

The Tavor TS-12 also balances better and you can shoot it much more easily and accurately with one hand.

Spencer and Tosh both tried it for the first time Saturday, and they both liked it quite a lot.

500 rounds through the Tavor TS-12, a mix of 00 Buck and birdshot so far and zero issues.

I'm certainly liking this shotgun.