Windy Day Range Report

[CaddmannQ]

I went to the range with my wife and buddy Dave today, but it was so darn windy we had trouble keeping the targets up. A couple of my targets actually blew off the stands while I was waiting for a cold range to retrieve them.

I took the Mossberg 464, the AR-15, the new Benjamin Regal pellet gun, the Ruger 10-22, the Ruger Mark 3, the Evil Roy SAA 38 Special, the Henry .22 lever gun, and the SAI .45 cal 1911 clone.

Buddy Dave brought his S&W .357 revolver, a Colt .44 mag revolver, and an AR-15 chambered in 7.62x39.

All the guns shot well but the .45 is a little balky to chamber the first round. It definitely needs some work on the feed ramps. Once the parkerizing was polished down a little bit I could see tool marks on the casting that were not obvious when the gun was new.

But they're there and you can feel them, so they definitely need to come off. A little work with the dremel and this thing should be feeding slick as snot.

I was shooting Silhouettes from 7 yds, and I managed to put about half my shots in the heart or aorta. The other half wound up in the ribs and lungs.

I actually had about the same kind of luck shooting Silhouettes with the .38 cal Evil Roy. In both cases I was shooting Federal American Eagles.

I shot all the long guns at 50 yards, except for the pellet gun which I shot at 7 yards and then 50 yards.

The Mossberg .30-30 shot almost flawlessly today. I had one round that didn't chamber until I jiggled the gun, but otherwise it seem to feed very well with my modified follower. Since I readjusted the mainspring link I have had no FTFs with this gun.

AR-15 however did have an FTF, and on the very first round I chambered. The strike was so light it barely left a mark on the primer.

I don't know why that happened. I tried the same round again and it fired fine. The next 40 rounds fired fine as well, and the primer strikes all looked substantial. Perhaps the gun wasn't fully cocked or something? I'm too new to the AR to understand everything that happens with it.

Both Ruger's ran flawlessly, as did the Henry .22 and the Benjamin.

At 50 yards with the Benjamin, the wind was taking my pellets a good 18 inches sideways! But at 7 yards I could put them all in a one inch bullseye. I sighted it in my backyard at about 20 yards, so I had a pretty good handle on what it would do before I got to the range.

More to come...

 

[CaddmannQ]

Best shooting of the day: this was the AR-15 at 50 yards shooting .223 Remington UMC. This was also the first shooting of the day and it got increasingly windy after this.


My first shot with the Benjamin at 20 yards was 6" high! This is the second shot with the Benjamin .177 pellet rifle, from 20 yards. (Calm winds at that time.)The scope is a cheap one and the guys at the shop who mouned it screwed up totally.


Without clicking the scope I got it within three inches after some work. I had to file on the scope rings a little bit to get them to seat into the dovetails properly. One had been dropped and had a burr on the tip of each claw. They were not really sharp enough from the factory. Chinese stuff.

Finally, after about 50 clicks on the scope, I got a very nice 1.25 " group at 10 yards in the wind, but that wind blew my target away and I didn't recover it.

The Benjamin has this double trigger safety system. The short trigger must be pushed forward before the main trigger will move. It's shown here in the safe position.


These are the nasty tool marks on my 45 feed ramp.

I think the whole feed ramp is too high, and I need to remove a little material from it to get it in line with the magazine better. If you don't smack that magazine into the handle hard, the first round does not want to pop up and chamber. The tip of the bullet must be hanging up at the joint between the magazine and the bottom of the feed ramp.

This was my best shooting with the .45. 230Grn American Eagles at 10 yards. I had a jam on one shot, so there are only 9 holes. This is the silhouette of a large man. I'm not sure what range this was supposed to be shot from.

This target came from the police range at the Police Science Institute. Perhaps that means it's an official police target. (I'm just a civilian who paid the day fee to shoot there.)

 

[CaddmannQ]

3 hours later, I have finally finished cleaning the guns. That wind blew up a lot of dirt, and everything got a coat of it.