Blammer - Gun Blog

Shooting buddy Seuss and I went to the range today to blow off some steam. It was a cold overcast day, and the range was pretty packed the entire time we were there. Members can reserve a lane, which comes in handy on the weekends. MFL Manchester only has 10 lanes, so it gets pretty smoky and crowded during the winter.

We started off with my Bushmaster XM15-E2S, which has been sitting in my safe for 4 years. The previous owner, a friend of mine who had to dump all his guns when he moved to California, had only shot it once. We figured today was as good a day as any to break it in, after finding out we could shoot it indoors at MFL.

We got 20 rounds of .223 at MFL, and couldn’t get the gun to completely cycle. Either the ammo was a little underpowered for indoor use, or the gun was too dry to cycle reliably after long storage. I suspect it was more the latter, despite how wet it was when it was first packed up. Plus the gun had never been broken in. I actually had to use the bolt-assist once when the cartridge had partially been stripped forward, but in general there was no feeding. There was no problem with extraction. We’ll need to shoot it more. I broke it down when I got home and gave it a good lubing, and the action seems a little slicker now.

After shooting through our expensive bag of .223, we switched to the Glock, XD9, Kimber, and Ruger, shooting at a distance of 10 to 17.5 yards. The pictures are wide-angle, so the targets look much smaller than they really were (NRA B-2 50foot slow fire targets).

We were not really doing any bullseye, except for the last set of 2 to determine who was buying dinner. We shot 2 strings of 10 shots, two-handed, with the Ruger .22 / red-dot optical sight. When I brought my target in (see left photo), I was disappointed to see I was shooting high and to the left, compared to Seuss’ centered but slightly wider group. But then, Seuss pointed out that he hadn’t finished zeroing the sight in, so he’d been compensating by shooting at the 5 o’clock point of the black!

I guess my face showed my displeasure, so we shot a final set of targets. We only had 6 rounds left, so we shot for “smallest group”. Seuss won that by a smidge, so I ended up buying BBQ at Smokey Bones. Oh well. Can’t win them all.

Here’s a bunch of miscellaneous pictures of ammunition. Whee! I just noticed that the bullets in this box have copper-colored bullets, but the other batch had brass-colored bullets. Interesting.

One of those personal defensive pistol articles said, “If you’re going to have a defensive handgun, get some quality hollowpoints and run through a box. If there are no problems with feeding or extraction, keep a mag of them handy.” What I’ve got here is Speer Gold Dot GDHP in 9mm.

It’s suggested that you don’t shoot more than one caliber at the time… too much possibility of accidently loading a .40 into a 9mm, or a 9mm into a .38, and so on, and ruining a perfectly good gun / hand / face. I didn’t find out about this rule of thumb until recently, but I had actually made the choice of choosing relatively extreme calibers that would be easy to tell apart prior. 9mm versus .45ACP is pretty obvious, as is 9mm to .22LR. This sort of rules out .40 from my gun collection at the moment, though. Next I need to choose a nice revolver caliber that stands out from all of these.

That Speer GDHP uses some kind of non-brass cartridge material. Is it steel? Aluminum? I don’t think it’s reloadable, but it reflects light very nicely. Looks like a nice wedding gift for someone, doesn’t it?

A nice bunch of Federal .45ACP. The guys at the gun store said, “If you plan on reloading someday, save some good brass. Federal makes great brass.”

Exactly two weeks after dropping off my application for my LTC, I dropped by the Nashua PD Permit office and picked it up. No hassle, very efficient, cost me $10 for 4 years.

The permit itself is quite large and on a tissue-type paper. I asked if I needed to carry the original permit with me when carrying, and the woman said “yes, I know it’s a pain, but you can laminate it.” And no, you can’t carry a reproduction of it. At least, this is what the Nashua Police Department said when I picked up the license, but packing.org notes that different LEOs say different things, and suggests that you shouldn’t mess with your original.

I picked this up as gun #3. I didn’t t need it at all, but I’ve always wanted a 1911-style pistol, and this one I just liked. It’s an older model of the TLE II with some wear marks and scuffs, but it just makes the gun look that much better. The trigger is great, the gun is tight, and as a used gun the price was in the high $500s. Not sure I got gyped, but I like the gun and am glad I got it.

The TLE is one of the cheaper Kimbers you can get, but it feels pretty good. I’m a bit partial to the simpler “three hole” aluminum trigger, as opposed to those funky triangles you see on some of the newer Kimbers. And though I’m not a huge fan of the forward slashes, they don’t look that bad here.

After shooting a few hundred rounds through this gun, I can understand why people recommend just picking one gun and sticking with it. Compared to the striker-fired Glock and XD-9, the 1911 trigger requires a different mindset. The idea of carrying “cocked and locked” and training to sweep the safety with the thumb is something that requires training. If I were serious about carrying, I would have to definitely pick something and stay with it.

The first few times I shot the Kimber, I accidentally touched off a quick double because I was used to more forward trigger movement required to reset. Bad. Now I hold the trigger back until I’m ready to shoot again, which probably helps with followthrough at the same time. I’m still a little intimidated by the 45ACP, but this is still my favorite gun to shoot. I just don’t shoot it particularly well. I am thinking of reloading just so I can shoot this more.

This particular Kimber has the glow-in-the-dark meprolight sights. I don’t find them particularly easy to see in the dim light at the range, though, and they’re a bit difficult to line up vertically. I might replace them with Big Dots. The raked back angle of the rear sight also contributes to shadow issues, making the two dots even harder to see in regular light. The newer TLE II is different in that the sights are raked forward, so I wonder if they’re a bit easier on the eyes.

The full-length guide rod is kind of a pain in the butt, but I’ve gotten the hang of taking it apart. The gun came with one of those Kimber magazines that I hear are terrible, but the replacement mag I got is even worse. I’m pretty sure it was a new 8-round Wilson Combat mag, but I’m not sure …the mag isn’t marked and I already tossed the packaging. The big problem I have with it is that when empty, you can’t push down on the slide release because the top of the magazine flexes and jams. The follower, I think this is called. It’s plastic, which I’m told is used for guns with aluminum frames.

My first handgun purchase was this Springfield Armory Xtreme Duty polymer frame pistol. I’d been reading about it on the HS2000 forums and in several mainstream gun magazines. This being my first handgun, I wanted to get something that was robust, modern, and interesting. Also, I wanted something that would be cheap to shoot in a reasonable caliber.

I was pretty much set on getting an HK USP in 9mm, because I liked the way it shot at the range and the operating controls. However, the day I went to Riley’s to get one, they were out, and weren’t expecting any for a couple of weeks.

When I picked up the XD9, I liked the way it felt. I also liked that it had the Glock-like action, but with a passive grip-safety that didn’t seem to impact the trigger pull in a way I could detect (but what do I know?). As I was thinking of getting 1911-style pistols after I had learned to shoot better, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to get used to it.

The XD also has two features that, as a newbie shooter, I found reassuring: the “chamber loaded” and “firing pin cocked” indicators. You can check ‘em by sight or by feel. The XD slide is also milled to take SIG-style sights, uses Beretta mags, and was very reasonably priced.

Why didn’t I just get a SIG or a Glock? I figure I’ll get them eventually to fill out the collection. I didn’t like the SIGs at the range, and everyone has a Glock. The XD9 was also a good intro gun, and I figured I can use it to introduce other friends to shooting.

This is my Bushmaster XM15-E2s. It’s a post-ban configuration, I think from around 1998-9. I’ve never fired it, though this is technically my first gun. It sits in the safe for the day when I take a rifle course.

In preparation for the day when I shoot it, I’ve been practicing its takedown. The trick was to get one of those AR-15 handguard removal tools, which allows you to one-handedly unlock the foregrip nut so you can separate the upper and lower receiver. Ordinarily, it is a 2-person job (at least, according to the army manual that came with it).

Shooting buddy Seuss and I were burning way too much expensive 9mm and 45ACP, and needed to keep our ammo costs down while keeping the number of shots fired high. Enter the Ruger Mk III. We picked this one up new at Riley’s up in Hooksett, NH.

Seuss, who’s much into bullseye-oriented shooting than me, also sprung for a ADCO Red Dot optical sight…we weren’t sure how much it would help, but it certainly dresses up the gun. Combined with the Ruger’s bull barrel and slanted grip, it looks like something out of Star Wars.

The gun itself is a fixed-barrel, straight-blowback design. I imagine the fixed barrel contributes to its accuracy, but makes takedown a bear (read a little further to see why).

It’s a fun little gun to shoot. A brick of 500 rounds of .22 high velocity costs about $5, compared to $10 for 100 rounds of 9mm. The gun is highly accurate, as far as we can tell, if not entirely reliable in feeding. It appears to depend on how the magazine is loaded…dropping the cartridges in maybe makes them stack funny.

My biggest gripe is that taking the thing apart for cleaning is a royal pain in the ass; the manual recommends that you keep a paperclip and a rubber mallet handy to take it down. The fit of the frame to the barrel is tight but difficult to align; you’ll need to be very careful about how the holes line up or you will not be able to put this thing back together. On top of that, there are a number of “gotchyas” you need to be aware of as you re-insert the bolt, let the trigger not be set. Compared to a combat auto, this gun is pretty finicky. It might just be mine…I should call Ruger and see if this is normal.

That aside, it’s a solid gun…it just reminds me more of a 1950s bicycle pump in design than a modern handgun. Now that I’ve gotten the hang of assembly, it’s not so bad.

I ordinarily am not too moved by Beretta, but I liked this one. It’s small, pretty, and Italian. It’s a single-stack, 7-shot 92 series, made sometime around 1985 I’d guess. The full-sized 92SB was the iteration prior to the 92F that eventually won the US Army Trials to replace the M1911. The major cosmetic difference between the 92SB and the 92F, I think, is the trigger guard. It’s rounded in the SB.

The 92SB Compact is a smaller-framed version of the full-sized 92SB with a double-stack magazine. Mine is a Compact Type M, the single-stack version, which results in a slimmer grip profile. It’s still not a tremendously small or concealable gun despite this.

I got this gun used also, because I just liked the proportions on it a bit better. Plus, as an example of a 1980s-era combat auto, it’s nice to have. It’s made all out of metal, and the curves machined into the slide are beautiful. The gun has some ugly scratches on it, but the gun itself locks up very tight.

I find it a bit difficult to shoot accurately, but then again, this is the gun I shoot the least. I still like it, though.

I like WordPress better as a blogging system, plus the plugins I have installed make writing posts with images much easier. The two other advantages of WordPress: Easier to edit a post, and no need to recompile everytime you make a change. It’s much less stressful on server time too!

Here’s my Glock 34, a used range gun that’s seen maybe 1000 rounds through it. I got it at Manchester Firing Line, during their Glock sale. It’s in pretty good condition. The Glocks are pretty well-established, so I figured that a growing collection should include at least one example.

I got this gun because the size and shape is supposed to be a little more like the M1911 (what Glock calls the “Practical/Tactical” length). It’s longer than your standard Glock 19 or even Glock 17. It also has an adjustable rear sight, 4.5 pound trigger, and lightened slide for faster cycling, targeted as it is more toward competition than carry. I suppose it might fall into the “operator” category of firearms, if you’re into that kind of thing. I got it because it was a bit different from the usual run of the mill Glock.