The Guns We Own (1 Viewer)

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Resp:
I like your rifles. My favorite is the one I have in my hand. I am likely old school compared to most. I was taught to 'master' whatever I was handed. Shooting a steel butt, too short and too low comb stock of an 8 lb 30-06 was my biggest challenge at age 17. A 1911 came at age 18. I was told that if you can shoot the hard ones, the others will be easy. Today, it seems it is all about feel. If it doesn't feel good, or seems too heavy . . . it is somehow unworthy. I asked a retired lawman if he had been in any gun fights. His reply was 4. I asked him how many times did he have to shoot each time. He said he was a little embarrassed that on the last fight he fired 3 shots, saying he got a little flustered. The third shot was unnecessary. I asked him what he carried. A 4 inch bbl 357 Combat Magnum, he replied. So he ended the hostilities with 1 or 2 shots. (By the way, he never missed). Today, no one can see themselves doing battle with less than a 15 shot magazine pistol. Except in competition, I cannot ever remember shooting more than 40 shots at one outing, usually three cylinders worth (18 rds) growing up. Is the firearm a status symbol, or is it a tool that requires using to be skilled? I shoot the big ones, but Don't forget the 22 rimfire. Stance, sight picture and trigger squeeze apply to all. I never load my auto with more than 6 rds, when practicing. If I know I am going to 'pull' a shot off center . . . I drop my arms, to rest and clear my mind. The I proceed. I am teaching muscle memory. In the end the mind controls the muscles to bring off a good shot. Good habits become consistency.
 

Interesting, my wife's 'go to' is the S&W Model 19 .357 and mine is a 1911 Combat Commander. When I practice, I always shoot about a box for pistol and for shotgun - at least 50 rounds for clays.

I have access to Running Boar range for which I use one of my steel butt types with open sights. Shotgun is useful for that type of shooting - in context of practice - but sustained lead is better than swing through on steel targets with a rifle (for me).
 
Resp:
Today, I shot in a match that required 124rds. So there are times when I do shoot many cartridges, just don't practice by shooting as much. Fatigue plays tricks on the mind, as if it has no patience. Not a good habit to become muscle memory. My mind thru routine keeps the muscles under control. By the time I was on the last two stages, I was tired. However, good muscle memory prevailed because that is what my brain only knew.
I have shot center fire pistols since 1970. There was only one yr since then that I did not have access to a firearm, although armed men were all around. When I got home, I went to the range. I was impatient and wanted to 'yank' the 44's trigger. I fired 18 shots standing, slow fire at a 25 yd silhouette . . . where all landed in the ten ring. I was able to do this only by shear discipline; the strong side of the mind was telling me not to yank the trigger. I can actually shoot pretty fast, but only thru years of only shooting when things were 'right' enabled me to do so!' I read where a policeman, who's main job was the department's chief firearms instructor. To fool the mind in thinking it had complete control during a match, he counted from 1 to 8. When he touch the grip of his revolver . . he said 1 to himself, when the pistol was raised at about 45 degrees . . he said 2, when he fired the first shot . . he said 3, and so on until 8 . . . as it was time to reload! One night, when the city was under the grips of a serial killer, he was sent on patrol. His partner was driving when they turned into an alley with their lights off. When they decided to exit the vehicle, some movement a short distance caught his attention. Suddenly he caught the reflection of light on a pistol. Training from muscle memory kicked in. Resulting in 3 shots fired at three perps . . . with his mind ending its count at 5. He didn't choke because his mind was in complete control! My first year of pistol competition, I did not think about speed. Instead, I worked on technique. Speed gradually caught up.
 
Wasn't sure where to post this. Post in this thread, What cheered you up, or what annoyed you today. Could go either way.

Went to the local Outdoors Shop yesterday to buy one of these,


a speedloader for a Ruger MkIV which run about $10, but they did not have any so I ended up walking out with one of these instead,



S&W 586 Classic. Been looking for one for a while and was floating between a 4" and 6" model and whether to buy new or a used one. Bought new, but made sure the barrel was on straight (these have been known in the past to have canted barrels on them). Opted for the 6" model, .357 Magnum. This has a very nice trigger pull in single action, which should only get better with some break-in. Double action is a bit stiffer, but not to bad.
Need to clean her up tonight and wait for the rain to stop so I can put some rounds through it.
 
Resp:
I encourage every shooter/survivalist/neighbor who asked about what I recommend in pistols. My first is a 4" stainless 357. I show annually my revolver collection, and in the last four yrs or so, the guys who own 4 to whatever number of auto pistols, have asked for my recommendation for a single revolver. It handles shot cartridges when hiking, 38 wadcutters for target and training for new/young shooters. If you have to ask a neighbor for some ammo, the two most owned pistols are chambered for 9mm/38 Spl. Ruger also offers a Blackhawk in 357 w a second cylinder for 9mmx19 (Luger). A very practical setup.
Glad to see the 357 purchase. Well done!
 
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Exactly the reason I wanted a .357 Mag. Nice to be able to shoot a round (38 special) that is a bit more forgiving. I suppose for more power a .44 Mag would have been a better choice, but for just target shooting this should work well.
I opted for a blued gun over stainless because I just like the look of a blued revolver.
 
Resp:
I prefer blued as well, as I generally am not out when it is wet. But your next can be stainless.
 
Navalwarrior said:
Resp:
I prefer blued as well, as I generally am not out when it is wet. But your next can be stainless.
Click to expand...

Next is probably going to be a 1911. That's still a bit in the future, but I'm really thinking either a Dan Wesson Valor, or a Springfield Armory TRP. I like the looks of the Valor over the TRP (I don't care fore serrations on the front end of the slide), but being a lefty it would be nice to have the Ambi thumb safety that the TRP has.
 
Dug out my old T/C Hawken and banged off a few rounds, just for old times sake. Shoots just as true as she ever did. Love those 370 Gr Maxi Balls!
Damn this f___ing spellcheck! Doesn't understand the word "Hawken", keeps changing it to "Hellen". Even when I override it, it waits until I hit "post", then changes it! Think I got it this time. Grrrr!
Wes
PS: SUCCESS!
 
Bucksnort101 said:
Next is probably going to be a 1911. That's still a bit in the future, but I'm really thinking either a Dan Wesson Valor, or a Springfield Armory TRP.
Click to expand...
Got to shoot a Springfield Armory 1911 at our local sports store's range day promotion last spring. $3 for a full clip, $5 gets you two. Not bad. It actually shot where it was pointed, not like the sloppy slut of parts I tried to qualify on in the Navy.
The Senior Chief Gunners Mate who took us out to the range said, after none of us qualified: "The lesson here is not how to shoot the .45, it's how important it is when you're carrying one on Shore Patrol duty, to be creative in managing situations so you DON'T have to shoot it! It's more risky to your shipmates and civilian bystanders then it is to a potential assailant."
Cheers,
Wes
 
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Too many to list. I'll just mention favorite each class:

Semi auto rifle: FN FAL Para
Bolt rifle: (toss up) Tikka T3x Tac a1 in 6.5 cm/Weatherby MkV in .300 Wby
Shotgun Perazzi 12ga. Trap
Revolver Colt Python, 6" blued
Semi Auto: Bren Ten (one of the first 100 made)
 
Resp:
My second pistol was an old GI 1911A1 made up of parts. For grips I put on the Pachmyr wraparound (front frame). They aren't pretty, but your hand will not slide down the grip, as I found it did on my second 1911 with standard grips. In my book, 45s are never a mistake. If you can master the 1911, you can pretty much shoot any pistol.
 
I had a couple Ruger SR1911's, not bad for the price, but the last one had a pretty sloppy slide fit and the trigger was way too light. Going to get something a little better next time. From what I've read the Dan Wesson's give you good bang for the buck, but they are hard to come by at local shops.
 
Resp:
Anybody have any experience w Remington's R 1911?
 
Hello All,

So many cool topics covered here and I like most of them!
My first handgun was a 4 inch Blued .357 Magnum. It seemed like a pretty practical choice and has worked pretty well as long as I didn't really mess with it. I didn't have a choice at the time, but if I did, I should have gotten the gun in stainless instead of blue. The guns last longer in stainless if you fire a lot of full power ammunition. I figure I have between 8,000 and 9,000 rounds (closer to 9) through mine now and the forcing cone shows some serious signs of erosion and the top strap shows a bit of wear as well. The Stainless version of the same gun hasn't been shot quite as much but shows almost no wear. The stainless steel seems to be more resistant to gas cutting.

Hard to go wrong with picking a M1911. My Wife and I have several of various makes.
Just be careful though because every brand seems to come with its share of problem areas though just about all of them can be made to run reliably with a little work. They can also be pretty horrible or amazing for accuracy but a replacement match grade barrel will usually fix that problem and they are not hard to install. If I were to get yet another, It would be a toss up between new and used because I have found that unless the seller is a serious shooter the chances are pretty good that the gun hasn't been used much. I have come across a couple (one is my Wife's gun) that showed distinct signs that they had not even been broken in before I bought them and her gun was not that expensive and came with a pretty good holster. (The first few rounds had lots of malfunctions which cleared up by the time one box of ammunition was through the gun.) Almost all the new guns in my experience need some minor work anyway.
If you buy used and even if you buy new, make sure you do a good inspection. Some manufacturers really have no concept about how the gun is supposed to run and will shave metal from the Frame Ramp in to fit the barrel. I have seen this on a brand new Charles Daly gun made in the Philippines. Dimensions are very critical there, so if someone messed with the frame, you might have to over throat the barrel or have it machined for a ramped barrel. Some of the old Auto-Ordnance guns have issues with the disconnector notch being slightly misaligned. A friend of mine had a stainless gun (AMT maybe?) that had issues with the fit of the pins around the safety and something about the mainspring housing was not right. I helped him get the gun to run reliably anyway, but it was not a matter of drop in parts.
Be careful about ambidextrous safeties. I am always suspicious about those that are held in place only by a grip panel. I seem to remember the King's Gun Works had a better system without wood pieces holding the parts in place.

- Ivan.
 
Ivan,
My youth was many decade ago. We spoke little about pistol use in the so called 'combat' setting. One reason we shot 38s (& later 357, 44 and 45s) in addition to 22LR in pistols was because we cast our own bullets from old wheel weights (at local gas station), powder and primers were cheap. It required a fair amount of work, so it kept us focused when we had free time. PS. My vocabulary increased by reading technical Journals on Handloading, metallurgy, pressures, etc.. So much so I scored well on college entrance exams!
You can cast bullets fairly easy for the old pre WWI sporting rifles, but one used up more powder and got fewer reloads in rifle cases. We also rarely shot rapid fire, as to do so fails to teach disciplined gun handling. It looks cool on TV but not on paper.
Have fun. Be safe. Keep your powder dry!
 

Hello Navalwarrior,
That must have been a lot time ago before the GCA 1968 limited who could purchase a gun. I didn't own a rifle until age 18 or so and didn't own a handgun until I graduated college..... But I did learn how to shoot a rifle in New York City!

With bullet casting, I also used wheel weights because they were cheap / free. They didn't work all that well in my .357 Magnum because they tended to lead up the barrel pretty badly. By the time I reduced velocity down to where they did not lead up, it didn't seem worthwhile any more.
They worked much better with .45 and reduced .44 Magnum loads but here the question was whether they were worth the time to do. When I shoot handguns, I tend to shoot several boxes of ammunition at a time.
With my own cast bullets, I was getting superb quality, but most of the time, superb accuracy in a handgun goes unnoticed. If my gun can hold a 1 inch group at 25 yards off the bench or a 2 inch group makes no difference if I am shooting from a standing position! Casting for handguns was using up my lead supply way too fast especially with a 6 cavity mould.
Buying cast bullets gave me quality quite good enough for what I was doing.

Now with RIFLES, on the other hand, the quality of cast bullets is quite noticeable and buying good cast bullets is either expensive or impossible. As before, I stick with bullet (boolit) configurations that do not require anything special such as a gas check.
With .45 caliber rifle (.45-70), I was getting my best results with a Lee 450 Grain bullet though I tried as low as a 400 Grain and as high as a 535 Grain Postell bullet. Interestingly, I was getting no leading even when running these bullets up to about 1500 fps but the same wheel weight bullets were leading pretty seriously by 1150-1200 fps. My theory is that the revolver jump from cylinder to forcing cone has something to do with it.
I didn't go much higher than 1500 fps because the recoil made shooting not a lot of fun at that point.
I also did some experimenting with a .40-65 rifle but don't recall the specific bullets I used. I knew they are much lighter which was the point of the caliber which is just a necked down .45-70.

I also did quite a bit of experimenting with casting for Black Powder 1859 Sharps replicas. Results were generally pretty good when the guns and moulds were more or less in agreement but there was a lot more scatter with the results.

I did find a good use for .45 caliber cast bullets in the end. In a .45 ACP, they go away too fast, but they function just fine in the .44 caliber Black Powder Revolvers and are quite accurate as well. They can be use as cast and grease over the bullet is sufficient lube.

-Ivan.
 
Resp: You covered many aspects of shooting, which is excellent. I am not much into watching the 'idiot box' so I have plenty of time to load.
My father trusted me enough to sign for them. Not sure what amount several boxes is. In my day all pistol rounds came 50 to a box. The only time I shot more than 50 rds was when I shot the PPC, which was several times a yr (1978-2001). 7, 25, 50, then back to 15 yards equaled 60 rds. I normally used cast 150 gr SWC. For service matches I used Rem factory 158 gr LSWC HP +P. I do Cowboy Action Shooting once a month now. FUN! Shoot autos @ once every 3 mos, but not more than 16 rds. I do practice reloading with dummy rounds over my bed when no one is home, to reinforce muscle memory.
 
Hello Navalwarrior,
Several boxes of pistol ammunition is about what you would expect. Probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150 rounds, but it doesn't seem like that much because if I am shooting pistol, there are usually at least two guns. I just about always shoot a full box of 50 at a time because it doesn't make sense to load less than 50 rounds of pistol ammunition at a time if you have already worked up the loads.
It is pretty quick with a Dillon 550 progressive press and I have two of them set up.
One is for Large Primer and one is for Small because I got tired of having to switch and adjust the primer feeds.

I used to go out to the range after work every Friday at least during the Summer months and spend about 2 hours or so there.
In the Winter, it got dark too early to make that kind of thing worthwhile because the ranges I went to were outdoors.
When I was shooting a .22 pistol, I generally shot A LOT.
I would try to see how fast I could knock down 6 steel plates at 25 yards and would have about 4 magazines in front of me and not keep track of how many rounds were left in the gun. The point was that when the gun ran dry, it was not predictable and I would have to immediately reload and continue on the next plate.
If I missed, I just had to keep shooting until I knocked the plate down.
What was really cool was that there were a couple times when I made a hit but the plate did not fall fast enough and I made a second hit as it was falling.
I figure I was burning about 300 rounds on an average session and would go through an entire carton of the Federal .22 which was 550 rounds in one trip.

The .22 pistol I was using was inexpensive and nothing to look at but was incredibly accurate.... When it was new.
When I first got it, I was able to shoot 10 round groups that were 3/4 inch center to center at 25 yards with Remington Target ammunition from the bench.
With Remington High Velocity, it was doing around 1 inch groups and didn't seem to like other brands as much.
I believe after 15,000 rounds or so, it needs a new firing pin and the accuracy isn't nearly as good as when it was new.
Then again, my eyesight isn't as good as when it was new either!
Now this is the sad part: I didn't realise how unusual this level of accuracy was at the time. When this gun started malfunctioning, I could tell the firing pin strikes were light and the firing pin tip and breech face were worn as was the feed ramp on the barrel. I figured I would just buy a new gun, so I bought a higher grade version. The accuracy of the new gun wasn't bad but was never quite as good as the first one.

- Ivan.
 
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