Category Archives: Gun Fun

Quote of the day—Tom Knighton

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I’ll consider it my sacred duty to create as much spent brass as humanly possible.

You know, for the children.

Tom Knighton
January 2, 2017
Are Ammo Prices Ready To Drop?
In regards to concerns that some ammunition manufactures are having financial stress because of a lower ammunition prices.
[There are other options available as well. Teach your child to shoot, and/or send them to a shooting class, and buy them all the ammunition they can consume. I’ve been giving my kids reloaded ammunition tailored for their specific usage. And Santa stuffed at least one stocking with ammunition last year.—Joe]

Rounds in the last month & yearly report

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This month I finished reloading all the .45 ACP bullets I had—1507 of them.

In .40 S&W I reloaded 502 rounds of 180 grain TCFM (I presume this means Truncated Cone Full Metal jacket) Zero Bullets. These are a little cheaper than the Montana Gold bullets I usually use and I decided to try them. They seem accurate enough and reloaded just fine, but until I had one in my hand I forgot one of the reasons I was using the JHP Montana Gold bullets. The JHP’s do not have exposed lead in the base which means there is less lead put into the air when I’m shooting.

Also in .40 S&W, I reloaded 270 rounds of truncated cone, 145 grain, Master Blaster (the company went out of business years ago but I still have the sample I purchased from probably 10 or 15 years ago) polymer coated lead bullets. These are hot loads with a muzzle velocity of nearly 1390 fps. The intent is to be able to detonate Boomershoot targets from my handgun. I’ll have to be close, perhaps as close as 15 yards, but I think they might work.

I reloaded 296 rounds of .223 Remington. These were all SS109 bullets. Last year, among other things I did in preparation for a Clinton presidency, I purchased a large number of these bullets. They are taking up space on my shelf of bullets and I had many pounds of powder for them on another shelf. It’s time to reduce my inventory of components. I expect the next few months will be spent reloading .223.

Combined that is 2,575 rounds I reloaded in the last month.

2017 was a very good year in terms of reloading. I reloaded over 23,000 rounds. Nearly 21,000 rounds were in .40 S&W.

My life history of hand reloading ammunition by caliber, month, and year:

223 Remington Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1998 160 0 0 0 0 0 0 140 20 0 0 0 0
1999 1777 0 0 181 578 25 0 0 0 0 140 653 200
2000 43 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 43 0 0 0
2001 47 0 0 0 47 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2016 397 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 140 257 0 0
2017 296 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 296
Total 2720
30.06 Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1997 180 0 0 40 20 79 41 0 0 0 0 0 0
1998 150 0 0 0 80 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 30
1999 90 20 70 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2003 47 0 0 0 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 0
2016 76 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 76 0 0 0
2017 213 0 0 0 0 0 0 65 148 0 0 0 0
Total 756
300WIN Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1999 250 0 0 0 0 0 151 60 0 0 39 0 0
2000 460 50 120 142 0 57 0 0 0 0 20 60 11
2001 382 25 0 0 185 15 20 0 73 0 0 0 64
2013 499 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 399
Total 1591
40SW Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1997 31 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 31
1998 11537 570 258 718 1850 1812 1710 402 0 0 1200 900 2117
1999 2795 0 894 0 299 693 506 0 0 0 0 0 403
2000 3187 795 0 0 0 0 1095 400 396 0 501 0 0
2001 2295 0 300 497 300 0 0 1198 0 0 0 0 0
2002 898 0 0 0 0 0 0 198 0 200 300 0 200
2003 602 0 300 302 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2004 1345 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 300 600 445 0
2005 1059 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 659 400 0 0
2006 1000 0 0 0 0 400 0 0 0 0 200 400 0
2007 1136 0 0 0 0 0 0 118 518 300 200 0 0
2008 2398 0 300 0 0 0 0 900 399 0 200 0 599
2009 1702 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 102 300 900 400
2010 1400 0 0 0 0 100 200 700 0 200 0 200 0
2011 2300 300 0 400 100 0 500 500 200 0 0 0 300
2012 399 0 200 0 199 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2014 530 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530
2015 7012 1699 1630 1137 0 0 0 547 200 400 100 200 1099
2016 17792 2197 700 1462 837 1899 1999 1000 1500 1000 1700 1500 1998
2017 20840 3300 975 525 200 1899 3700 2048 2644 2063 1015 1699 772
Total 80258
45ACP Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2017 2007 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 500 1507
Total 2007
9MM Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1996 11274 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10944 141 189
1997 7374 300 0 0 1190 640 65 0 100 1088 804 1060 2127
2015 2993 0 1066 1927 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 21641
Yearly and
Monthly Totals
Year Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1996 11274 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10944 141 189
1997 7585 300 0 40 1210 719 106 0 100 1088 804 1060 2158
1998 11847 570 258 718 1930 1812 1710 542 20 0 1240 900 2147
1999 4912 20 964 181 877 718 657 60 0 0 179 653 603
2000 3690 845 120 142 0 57 1095 400 396 43 521 60 11
2001 2724 25 300 497 532 15 20 1198 73 0 0 0 64
2002 898 0 0 0 0 0 0 198 0 200 300 0 200
2003 649 0 300 302 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 0
2004 1345 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 300 600 445 0
2005 1059 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 659 400 0 0
2006 1000 0 0 0 0 400 0 0 0 0 200 400 0
2007 1136 0 0 0 0 0 0 118 518 300 200 0 0
2008 2398 0 300 0 0 0 0 900 399 0 200 0 599
2009 1702 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 102 300 900 400
2010 1400 0 0 0 0 100 200 700 0 200 0 200 0
2011 2300 300 0 400 100 0 500 500 200 0 0 0 300
2012 399 0 200 0 199 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2013 499 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 399
2014 530 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530
2015 10005 1699 2696 3064 0 0 0 547 200 400 100 200 1099
2016 18265 2197 700 1462 837 1899 1999 1000 1500 1216 1957 1500 1998
2017 23356 3300 975 525 200 1899 3700 2113 2792 2063 1015 2199 2575
Grand Totals 108973 9256 6813 7331 5903 7619 9987 8276 6198 6571 18960 8787 13272

Because the case preparation required to reload for rifles takes more time than pistol I doubt I will produce nearly as many rounds in 2018 as I did in 2017. But still, it should be enough to give the anti-gun people severe stomach cramps and/or high blood pressure.

Boomershoot Christmas presents

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Daughter Kim and her husband Jacob gave Barb and I Boomershoot Christmas presents!

Customized range officer vests:

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From Daughter Xenia and her husband John gave me a rear shooting rest bag:

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From Barb’s daughter Maddy I got an earmuff and hearing protection carry bag:

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It’s protection for my ear protection.

Among other things Santa put 200 rounds of ammunition in Barb’s stocking (it’s a good thing it is a sturdy stocking!). She says, “It’s the good stuff!”

Crayon Boomerite

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About a month ago daughter Kim sent me a video of someone successfully making colored smoke bombs using “oil crayon”. I couldn’t find the type of crayons I think they were using in the video but I did find some cheap bulk crayons on Amazon and ordered them:

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We know that if we put several pounds of colored powder on top of an exploding target it will disperse the powder into the air and give some color to the explosion. But it would be nice if the explosive itself also resulted in colored smoke. I also ordered some colored corn starch powder from Amazon which I thought also might be worth a try:

Last Saturday, December 16th, we melted the crayons in an electric skillet.

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Then added the ammonium nitrate.

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Then we mixed in the other ingredients to make Boomerite.

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We also made a batch of Boomerite with a cup of the colored corn starch powder mixed in.

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We then took the targets out for testing. None of the targets resulted in any colored smoke.

I knew the additional ingredients would make detonation harder so I used 50 grain VMAX ammo in a .223 rifle with a 24 inch barrel to get the best velocity and expansion for a better chance of detonation. All the targets hit with these bullets, from 20 yards away, detonated. The velocity at the target was probably just over 3300 fps.

Hitting them with slower FMJ bullets, as fast as 3200 fps, just punched holes in the target. A slower expanding bullet once resulted in a small pop which destroyed the target.

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Although we didn’t get any colored smoke we did manage to blast away quite a bit of the little berm we were shooting into. In the picture below the small mound of dirt the target is sitting on use to extend parallel to the target across where the crater is now.

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Rounds in the last month

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This month I reloaded some .45 ACP for the first time. I bought the dies and supplies years ago after I got the Para Ordinance Gun Blog 45 pistol. I ended up not shooting it very much and finally stored it as a “Safe Queen”. I still had all the equipment and supplies for the ammo so, mostly to clear out space, I decided to go ahead and assemble the ammo. I reloaded 500 rounds and ran a few rounds over the chronograph to verify the expected velocity and functionality.

I also reloaded 1699 rounds of .40 S&W this month. 1400 rounds were 180 grain Montana Gold JHP for practice at indoor ranges and 299 were 180 grain Black Bullets International bullets for USPSA matches. This finished off all the bullets I have in these types.

Year to date I have loaded 20,781 rounds.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 2,424 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1591 rounds.
40 S&W: 79,486 rounds.
45 ACP: 500 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 106,378 rounds.

Thanksgiving discount for Boomershoot

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I’m offering a discount on most Boomershoot events for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and decided to just make it the entire Thanksgiving weekend. Starting at Thanksgiving morning, November 23rd, at 12:00 AM Pacific Standard time until midnight Monday November 27th, there is a 20% discount on the High Intensity, Personal Fireball, and Long Range events.

The discount is only valid for entries which are placed during that time. Go to the Boomershoot Entry web site and use the code “BLACK FRIDAY” during the sign up process.

Here are some videos to give you a clue as to what you are getting a chance to participate in:

Sign up as soon as you can to get the best choice of the remaining shooting positions.

AmmoMan.com

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On the right sidebar of this blog is this image:

A little over a week ago AmmoMan.com contacted me about placing an ad to get the word out about their new “two day shipping”. 97% of people are expected to get their ammo within two days but some may take three days. They gave me a code to order some ammo with and I made two different orders. I had one shipped to Idaho and the other shipped to my Bellevue Washington address. From looking at their map it appeared to me that the Idaho shipment could take three days.

It turned out that, according to FedEx, the Idaho shipment arrived 50 minutes before the Bellevue order and both were on day two after the order. Nice!

An occasional problem I have had with mail ordered ammo is that it is packed poorly and the ammo box breaks and there is loose ammo rolling around in the box. That was not the case this time. This is the box in which I received three bricks of .22 ammo after I had removed the three bricks. It was packed tight with stiff paper:

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The other shipment was the original 500 round case, with shipping labels attached, which Federal Ammo packages their American Eagle .223 Ammo in. There were no issues with either packaging.

‘Twas a fine day

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There are “new shooters”, many of whom, long ago, had their fathers show them how to shoot a 22 or such, and then haven’t touched a gun for 20 years. Stuff like that, and then there are those who’ve never touched, much less fired, any kind of firearm. Last weekend I had the privilege of introducing one of the latter to the fine art of pistolcraft.

(Long, wordy, self-aggrandizing post, with something of a review of the Walther PK, 380 Auto pistol, and detours into cider-making and “gun psychology”, ensues. You have been warned)

Continue reading →

‘Dangerous game’

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It’s a relative term isn’t it?

The vast majority of times, a deer will run if it sees you. They’ll often ignore motor vehicles, but if you’re out walking, a deer will alert on your movements, and if recognizes you as human it will bolt. Anecdote abound, and situations vary widely, but a deer, as a rule, will avoid humans.

On the other hand, a healthy buck in the prime of its life is more than capable of killing you, and quickly, if it gets the hankerin’.

I always carry a sidearm when out and about. Elk and moose are common in my roaming area, and I hear that wolves are getting closer.

The unfortunate in the story was apparently unarmed. Whether that would have made any difference in this case is debatable, but having a heavy caliber pistol cannot but improve one’s odds. What an embarrassing way to die!

Low velocity 9mm self-defense loads

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A while back I made up some .40 S&W loads with “Gold Dot® Short Barrel®” bullets (it appears they have been discontinued) and then did velocity and milk jug penetration tests. I was very pleased with them.

A couple days ago I received an email from Drew Rinella. Here is part of it:

I met you very briefly a couple/few years ago at a Boomer shoot, so it was cool to find your site while researching low velocity results for speer gold dots. I saw that people were giving you shit in the comments about your low velocity 40 s&w gold dot SB loadings. I want to let you know that my terminal performance testing results have so far been great with loading the standard 147 gr 9mm gold dot at a low velocity.

I like the properties of the 147 grain 9mm gold dot bullet but I have always been frustrated by the challenging recoil impulse and inconsistent accuracy with their factory loading at nearly 1000 fps muzzle velocity, so I’ve been experimenting with loading at lower velocities. Despite the fact that they do not yet market a SB version of this bullet, I received an email back from that factory recommending a minimum of 850 fps for consistent expansion.

4.3 grains of Silhouette gave me 885 fps from a Glock 17. This was the most accurate and softest shooting load I tested which gave me the min recommended velocity. With this velocity I get consistent penetration of 4 water filled milk jugs, with the bullet puncturing a small hole into and bouncing off of the 5th jug. Assuming a 1.8x ratio of water to ballistic gel this slightly exceeds the FBI standard of 12″ ballistic gel.

Test #1: 2 layers denim

Penetrated 4 full milk jugs; bullet fully intact with signs of stress on the petals Expansion 0.525″

Weight 147.5 grains

Test #2: 4 layers denim

Penetrated 4 full milk jugs; one petal ripped off and stayed in first milk jug; signs of stress on remaining petals Expansion 0.563″

Weight 143.8 grains

As soon as the kids can drink more milk I’ll be testing with more materials including quilted denim, metal, wood, wallboard, and glass. I hypothesize less expansion and deeper penetration through these barriers based on observations of online video testing of factory loadings with this bullet, which I don’t necessarily consider to be a bad thing.

Silhouette was one of the few powders my thrower was able to throw consistently at these low charge  volumes, and gave me a small red fireball with some yellow sparks in low light shooting. CFE Pistol (my favorite powder for nearly everything else) wouldn’t throw consistently. Titegroup accuracy was very poor. AA#2 & 5 were consistent but wouldn’t give me the velocity I wanted without going into +P or +P+ territory.

Hornady XTP 147 grain at low velocity wouldn’t open up and looked like I could reload it and shoot it again. I definitely think Gold Dot is the way to go when downloading self defense rounds.

I figured there had to be other powders which would give the desired velocity so I went looking through all the sources on my book shelf. Here is a complete list of the powders for 9mm, 147 grain bullets, which yield velocities in the range of 850 feet per second.

Powder weight is in grains. Expected velocities are in feet per second. Some of the data is quite old and you should verify it with your own loading manuals or online to make sure the data is current and I have not made a catastrophic typo.

Powder C.O.L. Minimum Load Velocity Maximum Load Velocity
HS-6 1.100 4.3 773 5.0 885
Universal 1.100 3.0 803 3.3 869
Titegroup 1.100 3.2 855 3.6 929
SR 4756 1.100 3.2 800 3.8 950
WSF 1.100 3.3 800 4.2 950
AA #5 1.100 3.8 800 4.6 950
Solo 1500 1.100 3.8 800 4.6 950
HS-6 1.100 4.4 850 5.1 975
Blue Dot 1.100 4.2 800 5.5 1000
HS-7 1.100 4.4 800 5.6 950
AA #7 1.100 5.1 800 6.6 1000
Power Pistol 1.130 4.5 872 5.0 975
3N37 1.130 4.4 886 4.9 969
AA #7 1.130 6.1 867 6.8 961
SR 4756 1.130 4.2 841 4.6 957
HS-6 1.130 5.0 845 5.6 956
Unique 1.130 3.8 852 4.3 954
HS-7 1.130 6.1 866 6.8 953
WSF 1.130 3.6 840 4.1 931
AA #5 1.130 4.5 821 5.1 931

Rounds in the last month

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I was out of town (and out of the country most of the time) for almost three weeks last month. That drastically reduced my reloading opportunities. I still managed to load 1015 rounds of .40 S&W. It was all Montana Gold JHPs over 3.9 grains of Bullseye. These are for new shooters at indoor ranges. They are accurate bullets with a minimum powder charge.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 2,424 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1591 rounds.
40 S&W: 77,787 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 104,199 rounds.

Year to date I have loaded 18,582 rounds. I’m still on course to reload about 20,000 rounds this year for a lifetime total of over 105,000 rounds.

Favorite, favorite, favorite

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That which one of my favorite YouTubers says is his “most valuable” firearm is one of my favorite (carbines?) also, and his has one of my favorite creations on it. OK, he doesn’t mention his M1-B optic mount, and doesn’t have an optic on it for the video, but we’ll take what we get.

He had his AK worked over at Rifle Dynamics, which is one of our distributors. They seem to know what they’re doing, and that is something worthwhile.

Rounds in the last month

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In September I only loaded .40 S&W. It was 1875 rounds of Black Bullets for USPSA matches, 93 rounds of Acme Bullet Company’s 180 grain “Lipstick Bullets” (I’m probably going to replace The Blue Bullets with these for steel matches), and 95 rounds of Montana Gold bullets over 3.0 grains of Clays for some “powder puff” loads for new shooters. This is a total of 2063 rounds this month.

I had a revision of some numbers on 300 Win Mag ammo. A few years ago I made some ammo for a friend and didn’t count the rounds. I put them in zip lock bags and gave them to him. In my log I just entered estimates of 300 and 100 rounds for the two different reloading sessions.

Then… earlier this month I was visiting him and found out he still hadn’t shot them. I counted them and found I had reloaded a total of 299 rounds. Whoops. That changes things a little bit. I corrected my log file so that shows up in the numbers below.

The corrected and updated lifetime reloaded ammunition totals are:

223: 2,424 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1591 rounds.
40 S&W: 76,772 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 103,184 rounds.

Year to date I have loaded 17,567 rounds. I’m still on course to reload about 20,000 rounds this year for a lifetime total of over 105,000 rounds.

Steel match results

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Ry and I went to the Holmes Harbor Rod & Gun Club (Whidbey Island) steel match last Saturday. The weather was great and the ferry ride was pretty and pleasant:

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As usual the stages were interesting:

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Ry had problems with his open class pistol. The red-dot optic kept turning off when he was shooting. Hitting small targets rapidly with no sights is challenging. His score is not representative of his true ability. Rimfire rifle went better for him but he did have problems with one magazine on the first stage he shot.

I thought I generally did well. Things felt good with few misses and fairly consistent times. There were just three people in my divisions. I came in second in Centerfire Pistol Iron sights with a total time for five stages of 77.00 seconds. That is an average of 0.77 seconds per shot. With Rimfire Pistol Iron sights I got first with a total time for the five stages of 63.70 seconds. This is an average of 0.637 seconds per shot.

I did not shoot in the August match as I was helping Barb’s son, Max, move.

In July the same guy, Todd Epps, who won in September beat me in the Centerfire Iron Sights division. I had a total time of 76.83 seconds in this division. And, again, I won the Rimfire Iron sights division with a total time of 55.11 seconds.

In June I won the Centerfire Iron sight division with a total time of 79.03 seconds. I also won the Rimfire Iron sights division with a total time of 66.25 seconds.