Category Archives: Gun Fun

Powder puff load report

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As I reported last week I was trying to make some very light loads in .40 S&W for new shooters. I made up 200 rounds with the 180 grain Rainier FP over 3.9 grains of Bullseye with an OAL of 1.131”. On Christmas day, while at Brother Doug’s place I shot some over the chronograph. This load yielded a mean velocity of 825 fps (standard deviation of 9.6 fps) for a Power Factor of 148.5. The expected result was 800 fps for a PF of 144. Not too far off from the actual. I would have preferred it be on the low side instead of the high side but still, not bad.

My typical handloads run about 940 fps for a PF of 169 or so. 180 grain factory loads run about 1000 to 1025 fps for PFs of 180 to 185. Hence these new loads are have about 80% of the momentum of a factory load and a little under 90% that of my usual handloads. This is better but I would like to do better still.

While in Idaho this weekend I bought a pound of Clays from Alan B. I loaded up 100 rounds of the 180 grain Rainier FP over 3.0 grains of Clays. I ran them over the chronograph today. Remember that the reloading manual said to expect:

180 grain bullet over 3.0 grains Hodgdon Clays => 727 fps with 131 PF

The result was 728.11 fps (standard deviation of 8.8 fps) for a PF of 131.06. Wow! That was freaky close compared to the expected result.

That gives me a load with about 78% of the momentum of my typical handloads and a little over 70% that of a factory load. And get this, it’s right at the same momentum as a typical 147 grain 9mm round but with a muzzle velocity that is about 100 fps less. That is even less velocity than a typical 230 grain .45 ACP. With such a low muzzle velocity it is much more of a push than a “snap” on the recoil. It’s a very comfortable load to shoot.

Thank you Mike B. and Alan B. for the Clays powder. That made a big difference.

I was thinking ahead to how to make a self-defense load with similar recoil properties and found that Speer makes a bullet they call Gold Dot Short Barrel for good self-defense characteristics with lower velocities. This sounds like just the ticket for Cherie. We have another range trip planned for the end of next month to do some more training and test out the new loads.

Bill was correct

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Regarding the issues I was having with a new gun and feeding Bill suggested the gun was simply breaking in rather than the different lubricants I was trying actually making a difference.

While at Boomershoot Mecca on Christmas day I shot it again after lubricating it with Interflon Fin Super. This was the lubricant I thought was causing me problems. It was cold, about 25F, and with two different types of ammo it functioned flawlessly.

I have to conclude that Bill’s suspicion was correct.

Powder puff

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I decided I should make some low power loads in .40 S&W for new shooters that are recoil sensitive. “Powder puff” loads. After exploring lots of options I came up with these as the best possibilities. From Hodgdon:

135 grain bullet over 4.0 grains Hodgdon Clays => 940 fps with 127 PF
180 grain bullet over 3.0 grains Hodgdon Clays => 727 fps with 131 PF

Typical factor loads are in the 180 to 190 PF range. So this should be about 70% of the recoil of factory loads.

The difference between power factors of 127 and 131 with equal weight bullets is probably undetectable in your hands. But because the 127 PF load is with 135 grain bullets versus the 180 grain for the 131 PF you get a much different recoil impulse. The lighter bullet is going over 200 fps faster and that means the recoil impulse is much shorter and hence will feel sharper. So, the 180 grain load looks like the winner. That nice because I have lots of 180 grain bullets around.

But I don’t have any Hodgdon Clays powder. I started looking online. Nothing.

[Heavy sigh.]

So what other options do I have and do I have any powders that could come close to this? I have an older version of the Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading and they list Bullseye powder for a mild load.

180 grain bullet over 3.9 grains Bullseye => 800 fps with 144 PF.

I have some Bullseye powder left over from my explosives experiments with it about 1996 or ‘97. This would be a good opportunity to get rid of it. This isn’t as good at the loads with Clays but it is still less than 80% of a factory load.

I loaded up 20 rounds Saturday and went to the range to see if it would cycle my gun and if it was accurate. I used some 180 grain Rainier truncated cone FP bullets I had won at a match this summer. I have had problems with the accuracy of Rainier HPs once I went beyond about 7 yards so I was a bit skeptical of these too.

The ammo cycled and fed well in two different guns. The accuracy wasn’t great at 7 yards but it was far better than new shooters can manage. And I don’t have them shoot beyond that distance anyway.

Today I loaded up 180 rounds using some nickel plated brass I had laying around. I used the nickel plated so I could easily keep track of it being “special”. I’ll load up the remaining 300 Rainier bullets in that configuration in the next couple of days.

It turns out the loaded ammo looks particularly pretty. Barb said it looks like Christmas:

IMG_5238Web

I suppose it does. We have Powder Puff Christmas ammo.

Master class

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I knew my son-in-law (Xenia’s husband) shot in USPSA Nationals this year. But I never bothered to ask how he did. It turns out he won A-Class. Wow!

I just looked his classification on USPSA.org. He is now a Master Class shooter in Limited Division (85% to 95% is Master class):

LIMITED Class: M Pct: 86.56 High Pct: 86.56

And in a couple of stages, (Tables Stakes, and 15VAMD at Southern Maryland Practical Shooters) he had Grandmaster level results.

Nice going John. I’ve got a long way to go catch up. If ever.

Lubrication matters

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Of course whenever you have metal parts moving against each other it is important to consider the lubrication. I’ve been using Interflon Fin Super on all my guns and have been very pleased with it. So I didn’t expect to have any issues using it on any gun.

But recently I purchased a .22 that was known, even by the manufacturer, as being very picky about the type of ammo used in it. Okay, fine, I like my guns to be reliable but this gun had some advantages that I was willing to put up with using only certain types of ammo. I’m not mentioning the gun or the brands of ammo because I, legally, obtained this gun without any paperwork and I would like to keep the details as private as is practical.

I had a two of the recommended types on hand and put several hundred rounds downrange with only a few problems which I attributed to it being a new gun and probably weren’t anything to worry about. I cleaned and lubricated the gun and took it to the range again when Cherie was doing some training. The gun failed to feed on almost every round and we quickly gave up on it.

Later I took it to the range with the specific goal of diagnosing the problem. The slide appeared to not coming all the way back and hence would not properly strip the round off the top of the magazine. This was consistent with the recommendation to only use 40 grain high velocity ammo in the gun. They want to deliver lots of momentum to the slide and low velocity/mass ammo and/or viscous lubrication would result in a slide that didn’t go completely back. I ordered 1000 rounds of another type of recommended ammo to see if that made a difference.

While waiting for the ammo to show up I cleaned the gun again, carefully lubricated it with Interflon Fin Super and put the disassembled gun underneath an incandescent light bulb to dry the liquid so it would just have the semi-dry film rather than the moist layer I had with the previous trip to the range. About the first five to seven rounds failed to strip off the magazine properly. Then it worked great for probably fifty rounds of every type of ammo I had that the manufacture recommended and even did mostly okay with brand the manufacture specifically said would not work.

That’s odd, I thought. It needs to warm up before it functions properly? Maybe it does! The gun had been cold in my car all morning. The range was pretty cool too. So I set the gun aside with the action open and shot some .40 in my STI DVC for a while. When the .22 was cool I tried some of the ammo, in the same magazine, that was working fine a few minutes earlier. Again, the first half magazine was nothing but failure to feeds, then it worked flawlessly for a couple hundred rounds.

Time to try a new lubricant.

I cleaned the gun again, pulled the Eezox Synthetic Gun Oil off the shelf, lubricated the parts, and put them under the light to dry off for 24 hours and went to the range again. The first couple rounds had a problem then it worked great again. Letting it cool didn’t result in misbehavior like with the Interflon Fin Super. I’m making progress!

I again cleaned the gun, this time I lubricated it with Brownell’s Friction Defense, and again put the parts under the light to dry for 24 hours. I went to the range today at lunch time and the gun worked fine with all the recommended ammo, including the new stuff I ordered which just came in, and, again, even some of the stuff the manufacturer specifically did not recommend. The only ammo which basically didn’t work at all was some “standard velocity” ammo.

Okay, so I have an extremely sensitive gun. It needs the right type of lubricant, the right type of ammo, and probably can’t be counted on to function properly in really cold weather either. I still have an application for it. But it’s more of a hassle than what I had originally planned on.

The Ruger .22s I have eat anything I feed them and with whatever I lubricate them with. But they don’t quite deliver on one thing this new gun does. There are trade-offs in almost everything you do. Now that I know what lubricant works best I can probably avoid the problem most of the time and make it work for my intended use.

Update December 27, 2015: New information here.

Boomershoot 2016 registration

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We have another fantastic Boomershoot event planned for 2016. The long range event will be Sunday April 24th with the Precision Rifle Clinic and High Intensity events on Friday and Saturday the 22nd and 23rd.

Boomershoot 2016 registration will be open on the following dates and times:

  • Registration opens for staff 12/20/2015 5:00:00 PM Pacific Time.
  • Registration opens for 2015 participants 12/22/2015 5:00:00 PM Pacific Time.
  • Registration opens for everyone 12/26/2015 9:00:00 AM.

Registration is only online. You sign up here. You should sign up as soon as you can to have a better chance of getting the shooting position you want.

Before and after

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Yesterday, as you might imagine, there was quite a bit of talk at work about the shooting in San Bernardino. Two different people who I barely know and seldom see wanted to talk guns with me. Usually I might get one or two conversations a month.

One was a middle-aged woman who lives alone. She wanted to take a shooting class to prepare for home defense. She had done a fair amount of shooting growing up but had never taken any classes. Her boyfriend has quite a bit of rifle shooting but no handgun shooting. They both wanted to take a handgun class or two. I referred her to West Coast Armory and Insights Training. And suggested the specific classes I thought would be appropriate for their skill levels.

The second person was a young guy. He owns at least three guns and has a concealed carry permit. He had just got a new gun and it was shooting to a much different point of aim than his carry gun. He couldn’t figure out why it was so different. I figured I knew what the problem was but didn’t want to tell him until I knew for certain. I offered to take him to the range and look at his guns with him and figure out the problem. He brought the guns to work (left in his car, yes, our parking lot is an okay place for guns) and at lunch time we went to the range to do some tests.

I had him take a few shots with his gun to demonstrate the problem. I put the target at 15 feet and asked him to shoot at the top right diamond (I very deliberately suggested the TOP). Most of the .45 caliber holes below are the result:

ShooterBefore

Okay. I know what the problem is, but need him to figure it out on his own. I asked him to shoot a few rounds with his carry gun. The 9mm holes above are the result.

I then shot three rounds with his .45 at the top left diamond on the target. Here is the result:

JoeTest

Oh. He got a big clue and I pushed a little bit more by suggesting, “I don’t think there is anything wrong with the gun or ammo.”

He agreed and had him shoot my .22. The .22 holes mixed with .45 holes in the target above where the result. The first one was the one low and to the left. The rest were in on very close to the diamond. Much better. But I knew he could do better still.

I then had him doing some dry fire exercises. I explained what it meant and repeated the mantra as he pulled the trigger on an empty chamber again and again, “Trigger prep, sight alignment, squeeze, follow through.”

The first half dozen “shots” resulted in the muzzle of the gun dipping down as the hammer fell. He got it under control and after he had “fired” probably 20 in a row holding it rock steady I told him I was going to either have a live round in the chamber for him or it might be empty.

He again had a steady muzzle for five or six rounds before I put a live one in the chamber. It was on target. More empties and another live one. Again on target.

We talked about it for a while and he then wanted to shoot a few more rounds knowing they were all live. The top three holes below were the result:

ShooterAfter

He asked about how to aim. I explained and he said that because his guns always shot lower than than that he would always aim a little higher than what I suggested. He tried aiming as I suggested and the hole at 9:00 on the target above was the result. Close enough. I told him to go home and do lots of dry fire exercises before going to the range again. And consider getting a .22 to practice with. It will take a while to get the bad habit out of his trigger finger and dry firing 10 rounds for every one live round is what my instructors recommend.

As we left I pointed out the Insights Training flyers in the hallway to the ranges and he and I both picked up a few. He seemed very interested in taking a class and thanked me for helping him.

We went back to work where I gave the flyers I had picked up to the woman I had talked to yesterday and I figured I had done my good deeds for the day.

Changing our culture. One new shooter at a time.

Steel match results

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On November 3rd I had surgery on my left shoulder. Over three and half weeks later I still have large bruises and somewhat limited range of motion.

WP_20151109_18_35_22_ProWeb

But I had made it to the range a couple of times for practice and my shooting was okay and only occasionally experienced some pain. So Saturday I went to Whidbey Island for the Holmes Harbor Rod and Gun Club steel match.

I tried to take just a little more time before squeezing off the shot but still make the target transitions as quickly as I could. This seemed to work a lot better than if I tried to make everything go fast.

My rimfire results in particular were very good. I cut my total match time by over 10 seconds (this is about a 15% improvement!). This was a total of 56.64 seconds for five stages. Since there are four strings of five shots in each stage this means my average time for each string was 2.83 seconds. And since every stage requires five shots the average time per shot was 0.5664 seconds. I’m constantly amazed this is even possible let alone that I am capable of shooting this fast on targets likes these:

WP_20151128_10_33_29_ProWP_20151128_11_00_38_Pro
WP_20151128_11_14_13_ProWP_20151128_11_35_48_Pro
WP_20151128_09_57_44_Pro

But it’s possible. Here is the video to prove it:

The scores were:

Class: Rimfire Rifle Open  
Name Match Time
Brian Lawson 37.54
Tony Ceci 48.39
Brian Lawson 48.64
Ron Wigger 50.24
Dan Lavaty 54.02
Ethan Kimball 63.90
Class: Rimfire Iron
Name Match Time
Joe Huffman 56.64
Brian Lawson 71.27
Scott Bertino 84.73
Class: Rimfire Open
Name Match Time
Dan Lavaty 64.03
Jim Dunlap 88.05
Rev Barchenger 96.47
Dave Shupe Mechanical Issues
Class: Centerfire Iron
Name Match Time
Joe Huffman 78.44
Bruce Barchenger 90.18
Dave Shupe 124.71
Dennis Bohling 132.05
Scott Bertino 140.83
Class: Centerfire Revolver Open
Name Match Time
Chris Ceci 80.93
Class: Centerfire Revolver Iron
Name Match Time
Ron Wigger 96.82

Quote of the day—Dana Loesch

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Women think it’s not a world for them and I say the hell with that! It absolutely is. I believe if you can drive a car you can handle and shoot a gun.

Dana Loesch
April 18, 2015
Dana Loesch – Truly A Well Armed Woman
[Actually, in many circumstances, you can shoot a gun safely and effectively even when you can’t drive a car.—Joe]

Good advice

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From Tactical Warrior Wear.

I like this one best:

KeepCalmReturnFire

Bullets and bombers

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Sebastian sent me an email this morning and suggested:

Apparently the Paris bombers had vests made of TATP explosive material. I was wondering if it might make a good post on the nature of the explosive, and particularly its sensitivity to bullets.

Good idea. I have written a little bit about TATP before but not in this context.

Sebastian also wrote on the general topic today. I would like to add that steel matches are excellent practice for making multiple head shots. In the right circumstances five head shots can be made in two seconds flat.

If you are in a shooting situation where your target is in close proximity to TATP explosives you should either make certain you don’t hit the containers or you are prepared to accept the consequences of a detonation. TATP is extremely impact sensitive:


Acetone peroxide impact sensitivity by JudyMaceo

GlobalSecurity.org says, “TATP is one of the most sensitive explosives known, being extremely sensitive to impact, temperature change and friction.” I have zero doubt about a TATP bomb detonating from a bullet impact.

In the case of a suicide bomber give serious consideration to a head shot. This is not just because of the reason above but because if you don’t shut them down in a fraction of a second they are likely to manually detonate it after they take a solid hit to anything but the central nervous system. Even then, a deadman switch could cause detonation as soon as they let go.

The range of the explosion is of course dependent upon the amount of explosives and the type of fragmentation jacket (which creates the shrapnel) used, and the objects between the bomber and innocent people. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this but it is better than no information at all:

A common security drill against suspected suicide bombers is to isolate the suspect to at least 15 metres (49 ft) away from other people, and ask him to remove his upper clothing (coat, shirt, etc.) in order to see if there is an explosive vest strapped under them.

Personally I would want at least this much range between them and me and I would take cover as low to the ground as I could. You will also have a fraction of a second between the time you pull the trigger and the time shrapnel arrives at your location. Use that time wisely.

Interflon Fin Super update

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About three months ago I wrote about a gun lubricant which I was rather pleased with, Interflon Fin Super. Today I received an email which said, in part:

We have been informed by the Head Office of Interflon in the Netherlands that there is an issue with selling Interflon products directly to consumers online, because the Licensing Agreement that Interflon has with DuPont for the use of Teflon in their products limits them to selling these products to the professional market only. Selling to consumers is in breach of this licensing agreement and we have been asked to take the offering on Amazon offline immediately.

…

We will be taking the product off line by the end of this week and will no longer be selling directly to consumers. The product will still be available to professional buyers such as gun clubs and gun stores.

I haven’t seen this in any gun store so I immediately went on line at Amazon and ordered what I figured would be a lifetime supply for me. I don’t know if they will actually ship it but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Shooting the Glock 43

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Apparently it’s a thing. People often talk of shooting their guns, but it never quite made sense to me. Why shoot a perfectly good gun?

Media definition of a clip

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For many years I’ve been fighting a losing battle (daughter Jaime claims I lost the battle years ago) about people calling a “magazine” a “clip”. I’m not fighting the battle alone though. Guy Sagi posted Top Media-Abused Gun Terms and points out the problem is larger than I usually view it:

Clip—Any ammunition-retention system, including magazines, speed loaders, belts, bandoleers and TSA screeners.

Steel match results

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I was expecting the worst when I went to Whidbey Island for the monthly steel match. I have been very busy recently and hadn’t shot a pistol in nearly a month. After I arrived I realized I had left my race holster at home. My centerfire shooting was all from an inside the waistband holster and my draw time showed this.

 

I was surprised to do as well as I did. I did quite well (I won) with iron sighted rimfire pistol and decent (second place) with iron sighted centerfire pistol:

 

Name Division Seconds
Brian Lawson RF-RI-O 42
Brian Lawson RF-O 44.08
Steve Mooney RF-RI-O 44.99
Steve Mooney RF-O 51.36
Steve Mooney RF-O 57.44
Joe Huffman RF-I 63.54
Theo Newstad PCC-O 67
Scott Bertino RF-O 69.14
Jim Dunlap RF-O 69.93
Scott Bertino RF-I 73.31
Theo Newstad RF-O 80.17
Rev Barchenger RF-O 83.17
Dave Shupe CF-O 83.29
MAC RF-RI-I 84.11
Bruce Barchenger CF-I 84.27
Joe Huffman CF-I 86.34
Brian Lawson CF-I 89.46
Theo Newstad CF-I 91.12
Dave Shupe RF-O 92.05
Bob Austin CF-I 92.27
Bruce Barchenger CF-I 94.32
Larry Languille PCC-I 116.05
MAC CF-I 124.95
Dennis Bohling CF-I 151.76
Linda Pickering CF-I 165.21

RF-RI-O: Rimfire Rifle Optics

RF-O: Rimfire Pistol Optics
RF-I: Rimfire Iron sights
PCC-O: Pistol Caliber Carbine Optics
RF-RI-I: Rimfire Rifle Iron sights
CF-I: Centerfire Iron sights

PCC-I: Pistol Caliber Carbine Iron sights

 

One round short

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I just finished reloading a few rounds for my next pistol match and ran my round counting program to report on the total number of rounds I have ever reloaded. By complete coincidence the total was one short of a nice round number (from a computer programmer’s viewpoint):

223.LOG: 2027 rounds.
22LR.log: 0 rounds.
3006.LOG: 467 rounds.
300WIN.LOG: 1351 rounds.
40SW.LOG: 40054 rounds.
45.log: 0 rounds.
50bmg.log: 0 rounds.
9MM.LOG: 21636 rounds.
Total: 65535 rounds.

Boomershoot 2015 video

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Via email from Ballisticarc:

A very select audience

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If programming languages were weapons. This won’t make much sense to you unless you are a computer programmer and a gun nut.

Marysville Monster Match

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This was a “USPSA like” match I shot in last Sunday. The shooting part was by USPSA rules but the stage designs were NOT! Stages had from 40 to 60 rounds. This was the 60 round stage:

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Here is a 59 round stage:WP_20150920_11_24_08_Pro

I didn’t do all that well at this match. I made a fair number of mistakes. I overlooked one target. I failed to shoot another target twice, and I had far too many misses on the all steel stage. I also started one stage, stage 5 which I don’t have video of, with a magazine that was only about half full.

It was fun though. There weren’t any no-shoots. There wasn’t any hard cover. There weren’t any disappearing targets. There was just a lot of trigger pulling, reloading and of course fun.

Overall I placed 44th out of 83. In Limited Division I was 25th out 41. Other results things such as individual stage results can be found here.

My shooter point of view video:

Loke was in my squad and has his own video and commentary on the match. His video, and of course his shooting (he came in second overall) is far better than mine:

I wonder what this will mean for concealed carry?

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From CNN:

A cloak of invisibility may be common in science fiction but it is not so easy in the real world. New research suggests such a device may be moving closer to reality.

Scientists said on Thursday (September 17) they have successfully tested an ultra-thin invisibility cloak made of microscopic rectangular gold blocks that, like skin, conform to the shape of an object and can render it undetectable with visible light.

The researchers said while their experiments involved cloaking a miniscule object they believe the technology could be made to conceal larger objects, with military and other possible applications.

The cloak, 80 nanometers in thickness, was wrapped around a three-dimensional object shaped with bumps and dents. The cloak’s surface rerouted light waves scattered from the object to make it invisible to optical detection.

What if you had a holster that was made with a cloak of invisibility? You could have the comfort and access of open carry with the discreetness of concealed carry.