A Day at the Range

Mrs. Santa got me a gunsmith and cleaning kit, so i cleaned up two new pocket pistols and headed off to the range yesterday...

these are the (to my limited knowledge) least expensive .22LR models on the market, but shot surprisingly well w/no problems on 100-round checkouts out of the box...

i named the one on the left 'Feinstein' and the one on the right 'Pelosi':

i have to say, however, that my favorite carry is a North American Arms Sidewinder .22WMR in a boots 'n belt holster (carried in my pocket):

of course, nothing beats the improved Seecamp-clone, the North American Guardian .32 ACP:

the Guardian did a nice job on its first 150-round outing of Fiocchi redbox .32 ACP FMJ:

and did pretty good on point-shooting at 10 feet; i was able to 'walk' rounds in from the left - it seemed like i was pointing the barrel downwards, but actually wasn't!

and here's a day at the range (04/24/18); ran a 100 rounds of Armscor .22LR i scored ($0.05/round) in my HP22A (along with a 100 rounds of that crappy Federal bulk - don't ever buy it!), then put my  NAA Sidewinder to work with some US-made Fiocchi FMJ .22 wmr - i like the results at 15 feet:

Here's another day at the range using Kel-Tec's NiB model and 50 rounds of Geco FMJ:

yes!

Testing out a new extractor assembly on the NAA Guardian .32 ACP (7/29/18); 50 rounds GECO:

S&W Pre Model 10 nickel-plated snubby. Interesting history behind this revolver. It was given to my 88-year-old father-in-law by his uncle-in-law in the late 1950s. His wife's brother was the sheriff of St. Johns County, Fla. for nearly 20 years, and then had been accused of collusion with moonshine runners and was removed from office by the governor. He was later acquitted of the charges in a trial.

 

NAA Guardian .32ACP - Ran 100 rounds of Fiocchi and GECO FMJ. A number of failure to feeds with the Fiocchi redbox, but none with the GECO. And one last-round stovepipe (normal ops on this pistol). Extractor assembly still in place. Pistol subsequently sold.

Ruger .22LR range day today with a target RIO-edition MkIII and my new SP101:

kinda sad today - took out my FN Browning Hi-Power for a spin due to the latest news that Browning is shutting down production of the High Power - the last time it was at a range was Sept. 23, 1997 with my buddy Paul Powers - so almost 21 years later, it was put to use again with some 115gr remanufactured FMJ - it still shoots great - put about 100 rounds through it:

Another fun day at the range yesterday. I swapped out the old-school smooth wood grips for some big rubbers. I think it helped - either that or I'm finally getting used to double-action on this small revolver:

new Ranger II Break Top:

update on the Ranger II: There's good news and bad news.

I put up three targets at my nominal distance for these little pocket mice - 3 yards, and then attempt to fire 10 rounds of each ammo.

The bad news is that the Hornady defense rounds had at least four failures, and one later on in the Pathfinder; there was one failure of the Speer Gold Dots in the breaktop:

The good news is that every one of the 10 rounds of the CCI TNT (30 gr) went bang at 3 yards, so I moved another target out to 5 yards, and again, every CCI went bang:

I have a couple boxes of the CCI TNT on hand, so that will be the ammo for my Ranger II. The Gold Dots were a pleasure to shoot in the Pathfinder, and all went bang:

So there you have it. Am I going to send my Ranger II back to the mothership at this point? I'm not inclined to, but will continue to practice with the CCI TNT. It looks like the strikes on the rims are OK, so I'm going to chalk it up to a slight variation in hammer strike. Kinda disappointed in the Hornady rounds, and didn't like how they shot out of the Pathfinder.

Update: I think I've found the issue with some of the light strikes. It appears that the tip of the hammer was impinged by the latch. This was evidenced by a wear mark on the top tip of the hammer (not the hammer face). Either a slight hone or further use may completely eliminate the problem:

 

Here's the latest target from my s2k 9mm. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the sight picture, but should still lay off the coffee before going out to the range:

 I like the s2k, but it is a bit challenging to get used to the sight picture!

here's a 5-yard target from today's outing with my new Ranger II Breaktop:

finally got my s2k dialed in - using cheap Wally World Winchester FMJ - 25 yds at a 1 1/2" wide bullseye:

and my last 10 rounds of the morning:

here's my 43-year-old Mossberg 341 w/a $26 Barska scope:

Ruger Charger at 25 yards today (120918) after sighting in with a cheap red dot:

here's a pic 2/26/19 of one of my Charger TDs, which runs cheap Aguila SV LRN with aplomb:

My new Charter Arms .380ACP - no moon clips! I really tried to punch out that bullseye, but my Pitbull missed by a couple chomps:

just came back from a little 25-yard paper shredding across the street... wanted to do a function check on a bobby-pin trigger mod to one of my little Charger TDs and to check its magazines... ran 365 rounds of cheap .22LR LRN... the only malfunctions were with one BX-25 magazine (fortunately i've labeled all the BX-25s); i'll strip it down later today

here's a gen1->gen2 conversion P32:

here's a pre-Veterans Day 2019 range pic:

a brand-new Ruger Vaquero Montado, out for a trial run on 011520:

Lots of fun with my plinker FrankenRuger today! I really like the VQ bolt - it seems easier to clean:

WARNING: Federal Sells Defective Ammunition and is UNRESPONSIVE TO SAFETY REPORTS!!!

As an avid geek-with-guns, I enjoy plinking .22 shorts, LR, and mag rounds with a variety of revolvers and pistols.

I recently purchased a bulk ammo pack from Cabela's containing a number of boxes of Federal 'Premium' 36-grain copper-plated hollow-points in .22LR:

LOT 1SP259

I went to the range with my Smith 317, and much to my dismay, found that 2 out of 8 rounds were defective in three different ways:

failure to fire (most likely due to bad/no primer)
double-charged round (due to excessive propellant in the casing)

and worse:

under-charges (which resulted in a lodged bullet in my revolver!)

This was very disappointing. First, as you know, you cannot return purchased ammunition. Second, there's no way to get a refund without going through Federal's warranty policy, which is an involved process requiring you to call for an RMA, then packing up and sending the ammo back (expensive), and hoping for a refund.

I figured I could eat the cost, but I wanted to let Federal know about this lot because I could just imagine a youngster plinking with a rifle, then firing an over-charged round into a lodged bullet in a barrel (known as an obstruction)!

So I called Federal at 1-800-379-1732 at start of business on Nov. 20, 2017. The operator reported that 'no one was available, but a tech will return your call'

So I then called back at 12 noon the same day, and was told 'We're very busy, but will call back." I told that operator that my info was important concerning over-charged and under-charged rounds and stressed that I was worried.

I never got a call back. So thanks, Federal, for looking out for your customers. I certainly learned a good lesson and won't buy Federal ammo again.

By the way, I filed a notice with Saferproducts.gov:

"Thank you for using SaferProducts.gov to submit your Report to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).  We received your Report No. 20171120-A4358-2147395237 on Monday, November 20, 2017."

So I hope that in the terrible chance someone does get hurt with this lot of ammo, there will be a record on file and a report of the lot number (I filed all pertinent info).

Federal: bad company, bad ammo, bad customer support, bad safety policies!

I also left a negative review about this ammo on Cabelas web site (as a registered customer), and guess what? Cabelas won't publish the review!

Not only that, but Cabelas is STILL SELLING the ammo! (as pictured above; could be a different lot, but who knows?).

Very disappointed in Cabelas as well.