Tag: shooting

Mid-range calibers in semi-auto for our not-so-new Bangstick Beginner

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Of course it will be the omnipresent Nine Millimeter! AKA 9 mm Parabellum and 9 mm NATO.

Designed by Georg Luger in 1901, it’s been around a long time and has steadily improved as powder and bullet design modernized.

It would be virtually impossible to list the names of all the 9 mm handguns currently in production. Most every manufacturer builds the 9. The interwebs tell me that about 60% of US police forces use the 9 as their standard issue handgun. All branches of the US military carry it. It comes in many sizes and flavors.

So how does the advanced beginner choose one? Try them out. Figure what size fits your hand and allows you to manipulate all of the controls without changing your grip. When you find a few that fit, go shoot them. Many ranges and gun stores will rent guns. If you belong to a range, ask around and see if any members give instruction or will just let you shoot with them – you’ll be surprised at the number of offers you get.

So, Mr. KatNapFever blogger, any suggestions? Why, yes!
Start off with another Germanic designer, Herr Gaston Glock. Glocks in 9 mm are some of the simplest, most reliable designs around. The full sized Glock 17 started it all off:

I find, however, that the compact version, the Glock 19, fits my hands better and can be carried concealed more easily:

Some people love Glocks, some don’t. For the latter, there are lots of alternatives – Smith & Wesson, Colt, Beretta, Taurus, CZ, etc. I guarantee you will find one or more you like.

Side note

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Now what do you think this was all about?

More clues.

I had not shot .38 Spl in a while. I grabbed the big ole box of UMC and assumed that I was firing all factory ammo. When I looked at the spent rounds, though, the primers were different colors. I suspect that I had topped off one of the factory boxes with some hand loads.

I told you that snubbies are snappy, right? Evidently the recoil from one round was sufficient to unseat a (poorly) seated bullet enough that it partially launched forward. You can see the powder burn on the side of the bullet closest to the forcing cone’s blast. And those are just scrape marks on the side of the bullet, not rifling marks.

And apropos of nothing, did you know that Colt and S&W have opposite revolving cylinders? And that the cylinder latches release in the opposite direction?
And who cares? Well, if you want your hammer cocking to advance the cylinder to a particular bullet, you’ll need to know what direction it revolves. Try it at the range – you’ll see what I mean. The reason I knew I had a malfunction was that the cylinder would not rotate into position. For an obvious reason, once I looked.

Next, midrange calibers for semi-auto new(er) shooters.

Rotating back to Revolvers

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By now, our aspiring Bangstick Beginner has expended numerous rounds through .22 rifles, pistols, and revolvers. They may have dabbled in shotguns (against previous advice). What is the next step?

Let’s get back to handguns. What is a good progression from .22 in a revolver? How about .38 Special? This is a S&W Model 10 Air Crew revolver knockoff by Taurus. It, too, was purchased just off Ft. Campbell grounds about a half century ago. It came in blued and chromed.

I replaced the original skinny wooden grips with Hogue grips ages ago. They give a much firmer and hand-rounded grip when firing. Nonetheless, this has always shot a bit left of target. I compensated automatically.

Warm-up shots. Let’s see if I can do better.

.38 Special is a mild recoiling round, and was a police standard for ages. A new shooter might want this as an intermediate step before going on in size. Such as .357 Magnum. Why the big leap? Well, .38s fire in .357 just fine. You can have an awesome defensive revolver in .357, but shoot .38s in it for practice. Note the difference in size. The .357 is an eighth of an inch larger and will not fully seat in a .38. Great safety factor.

Tomorrow we will discuss why you do not get your new shooter a .38 “snubbie”. No.

Bad juju!

Next up in Bangsticks for Beginners

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This is a bit of a misleading title. A shotgun is more like a Bangtree than a Bangstick. And in the recommended order of Beginning, I’d put this one after rifles larger than a .22. But, since I brought it up before, away we go.

Now, I DON’T recommend the way I did it. After starting out at age 12 with a .22, I decided at 16 that I needed a Man’s Firearm. What better than the vaunted 12 gauge? Oops, best back up. We’ve indirectly covered “caliber”, .22 caliber being (approximately) .22 inches in bullet diameter. What is this “gauge” measurement? Well, by my recollection and by the inner tubes, it means how many balls of lead the size of the barrel diameter would total one pound. So, 12 balls is a 12 gauge, 28 balls a 28 gauge and so on. (However, see the exception, .410 gauge, comparable to .45 caliber Long Colt. Well, never mind, we’ll get to that later).

And what are we firing through this kind of firearm? Well, “shot”. Meaning round pellets as small as .08” up to .22”, then buckshot from .24” to .39”, and then slugs, which are more like fat rifle bullets the diameter of the barrel.

But one major difference – we are not sending shot through a rifled barrel (which imparts stabilizing spin to the bullet). We are sending it through a smooth bore, so it just comes out of the muzzle with no spin and spreads out the further it goes. Which is the raison d’etre for a shot gun – lots of pellets hitting a larger area. For fast moving things like birds. Or squirrels. Or fast, fearsome felons.

So, how’s this for a manly firearm?

12 gauge, bolt action shotgun. With a 2 round magazine!

And an adjustable choke on the muzzle!

Improved Cylinder, Modified, and Full choke. Oh. Yeah, choke. It chokes the muzzle diameter to allow a smaller or larger spread of the shot. The “Pattern”.
So, with a basic, entry level shotgun, we’ve been able to cover a lot of shotgun topics. One more thing:

Even with a heavy duty rubber recoil pad, it kicks like a mule. One reason I would start beginners with something else. More to come.

Let’s get the BBB going!

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No, I’m not talking about the Big Beautiful Bill. I’m talking Back to Bangsticks for Beginners!
Our story to date has covered .22 caliber firearms, starting with the single shot, bolt action rifle, the 6-shot revolver, and the 10-shot semi-automatic pistol. We now head to the .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle in various magazine capacities.

Surely you know that I’m coming back to the Ruger 10-22. But not just yet! Believe it or not, there are other rifles available. In 1972, the first firearm I bought on my own was a used Mossberg Model 352 KC, built between 1967 and 1969 according to the inter tubes.

Originally it had a crappy 1×4 (?) scope where the crosshairs would travel toward 7 o’clock when you increased the magnification. But it was accurate, both with the scope and with the iron sights. And it had a 7 round magazine, quite a step up from my old single shot. The magazine allowed Short, Long, and Long Rifle cartridges with a moveable tab to get the feed angle right.

A Thompson Center Arms on special scope mounts that clamp on to grooves in the sides of the receiver has replaced the original chinesium.
But even better, it has a thing that goes down!

Yes, the fore-end rotated down 90 degrees to make it a truly awesome Assault Rifle (TM).

So what does this step up for beginners get us? A much more stable platform than a handgun, where you have the ability to make follow-up shots without having to lose your sight picture or your grip. Since repeatability is a key factor in accuracy, keeping the rifle in the exact same position relative to your body is critical. And now you can do it 7 times in a row!

There are a ton of semi-auto .22s out there from which to choose (the Ruger 10-22 is ubiquitous, with a huge aftermarket for accessories, making it probably the most successful .22 rifle ever made). But there are other great manufacturers and options: Box magazines, tubular magazines, rotary magazines, drum magazines, they all are available to increase your ammo capacity. Find a rifle that fits your body and your length of trigger pull. It should feel natural and comfortable – you should not have to contort yourself to get a good sight picture and a comfortable trigger finger position.

OK, I think we can go on to a new class of Bangsticks for Beginners – shotguns!

Learn something new every day.

RI Red2 Comments

One thing I learned in the military is that equipment should be made so that it can’t be reassembled incorrectly. If there is a way do so, Private Snuffy will find it.

Imagine my surprise when one of my long range guests suffered a major jamming issue with his AR 10. It would fire one round, but the empty brass would jam in the left side of the chamber. Under great force, of course, requiring the release of both pins and complete removal of the lower, then much force on releasing the charging handle. After the brass was removed and the rifle reassembled, we tried loading a round and then ejecting it without firing. This was the result:

Another hard jam on the left side of the chamber, and the bullet now deeply seated. Light bulb goes off. Is it possible that the bolt could be installed 180 degrees out? Now, every M16/AR15 pattern rifle I have disassembled, the bolt cam pin hole is eccentric on one side and round on the other. It is physically impossible to insert the cam pin on the wrong side.
We found the exception – round all the way through. So 50% chance of reassembling it bass-ackwards. Huh.

And what have you been up to?

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Mmm, shooting, I guess.

Good thing this is Mrs. Red’s car. I wouldn’t stand for it in mine.

And the detritus of destruction?

Approximately 150 freshly tumbled cases, once-fired .308 brass, with a few 6.5 Creeds in the mix. And my buds are using the good stuff- Federal Gold Match! Single digit Standard Deviation and Extreme Spread. But as our mentor says, “Yeah. Good practice ammo.

Not so fast there, bucko.

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Yesterday I mentioned jumping on to semi-auto .22 rifles in our Bangsticks for Beginners discussion. Then I realized we had skipped some important things on .22 hanguns – actually shooting them! As I was remediating that condition today, I also rembered some stuff I glossed over. Spent cartridge ejection. Let’s cover that now since it has some range safety implications.

You can see the shiny ejection rod poking through the empty chamber. Once the rounds are fired, you go to half-cocked, as if loading, then push down on the spring loaded ejection rod at the front of the barrel. You need to pop out each spent round as you rotate the cylinder. Again, limited ammo and manual ejection slows down the process so beginners can grasp everything fully.

As far as the Ruger SR 22 (and all other semi-auto handguns), when the slide recoils to the rear, it first extracts the spent shell from the chamber, continues toward the rear where it is mechanically extracted and flung to the side, then cocks the trigger/hammer, moves back forward and strips a new round from the top of the magazine and seats it in the chamber. It all sounds very complex and happens fast, but is a simple complex.

Now the Range Safety Tip. Extracted Brass Is Hot! ‘mkay? As much as I appreciate women wearing low cut blouses, that’s a no-no on the range. Same same for open shoes. And an absolute necessity is eye protection (safety glasses for the slow to catch on). Finally, a brimmed hat to help deflect hot brass.

Safety nag over. Let’s shoot!

You can see a round in the cylinder, and the extractor rod tube ahead and aligned with it.

Results? OK, on paper but not very good.

Top is 5 yards, bottom is 7, two-handed grip, Weaver stance (file for future reference). I clearly was not keeping the front iron site down all the way in the rear notch, hence, shooting high. My trigger pull was poor, pushing the rounds left. Back to fundamentals, as certain people always preach. The Ruger? Also inconsistent:

Oh, we can do better than that. Sure, it’s 85 degrees, I’ve been mowing for four hours, and my socks are too tight. 7 yards, RG on the center, Ruger on the end of the right bar:

Practice, practice, practice. Maybe .22 rifles tomorrow. But, a teaser for later. See anything different?

Think hearing protection.

Let’s jump to semi-autos as our next Bangstick for Beginners.

RI Red2 Comments

Semi-automatic. What does that mean? A lot of politicians and leftists don’t know or pretend to not know. Simply, the firearm fires semi-automatically – one trigger pull fires one round. The slide recoils backward to recock the trigger, then forward to strip a new bullet from the magazine. That’s it. It does not continually fire as long as the trigger is pulled back. That would be “automatic “ – as in machine gun. No, AR-15s are not automatic. They are semiautomatic, requiring the trigger to be pulled for each shot. Another term for automatic is “select fire”, meaning that you have three settings you can select: Safe, Semi and Automatic. An M-16 is a select fire weapon, thus, a “machine gun”. Not generally available to the public without a lot of money, and BATFE approval/$200.00 tax stamp. And more money for ammo. The rate of fire is about 800 rounds per minute. Given that the Normal Capacity Magazine contains 30 rounds, you can empty it in less than 3 seconds. At $0.40 to $1.00 per round, you will need deep pockets. Oh, yeah. It’s a magazine, not a clip. See M-1 Garand for clips.
So, rant over. But introducing a new shooter to semi automatic firearms is a great opportunity to clear up misunderstandings (or fake news) about firearms.
Here is one of my favorite handguns:

Ruger SR22. A .22 caliber semi automatic handgun, with a 10 round magazine:

It is a Single Action/Double Action pistol, meaning you can choose to pull the trigger with a long stroke to cock the hammer and release it, thereby firing a round. At that point, it will recock and load a new round so that further shooting only requires a short pull. Or you can manually cock the hammer and go right to the single action of pulling the trigger. Easy peasy.

it also has a manual safety on both sides. But remember, the only true safety on a gun is between the ears.
Small, lightweight, easily packed, and has virtually the same manual of arms of most semi automatic pistols. Fun to shoot, and trains you with a light recoil, on most aspects of shooting. And .22 range ammo is inexpensive. Many .22s are picky about what they will feed; I have never had an FTF (failure to fire) with this gun.

Interestingly, Ruger makes a bigger 9 mm version of this – The SR 9 and a compact SR 9 C. Yes, I’m a bit of a Ruger fanboi, but they know what they are doing. Train on the SR 22 and then move up.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at .22 caliber semi automatic rifles!