tom turner

It RAINS!

I had some "minor" surgery a week ago that kept me out of work until Tuesday afternoon. As I recovered, I hit my loading bench and did some "housekeeping" chores pertaining to getting my brass and loaded ammo sorted out better.

During that time, all my handguns got a good cleaning . . . and I finally got filing around to HOPEFULLY do the final filing down on the new front sight I'd bought and installed on my favorite S&W revolver . . . the one with a custom chopped barrel.

Since that gun wasn't stock, I had to start with a front sight height that was deliberately too tall, and drill & pin it in. Then a trip to the range allowed me to see how low it shot and then make calculations as to how much height to file off the top of the sight. I'd done that already.

Well . . . I filed the sight down and spot blued it and was now CHOMPING to get to the range Tuesday night to test it out and see if I needed to file more.

IT RAINED THAT AFTERNOON, OF COURSE!

This evening was my only free evening this week. Wouldn't you know it, as I head out of town to the range the clouds get bad . . . and it started raining cats and dogs!

I WENT ANYWAY!!!

Yeah, the bench area is covered, but I got wet running targets and such.

LOTS OF FUN THOUGH . . . and the sight shot a couple of inches low at 10 yards with the rear sight cranked all the way down at the bullet weights I want to use. PERFECT! This means I have latitude to go up and down on the rear adjustable sight.

A few clicks upwards on the rear sight, and it was drilling 230 grain .45ACP into the bullseye on 230 gn. hollow-points and hardball . . . with my lighter 200 semi-wadcutters hitting an inch low. Perfect for matches AND defense.

It is a GREAT feeling to finally get some personal stuff taken care of that I'd been too busy to do. The surgery gave me a little time to do these things.

I'm very excited to have my favorite N frame back in "business" again!


HEY .40 CAL . . .

I also shot my aluminum framed little Kimber Ultra CDP .45 . . . and as always it shucked everything I fed it, and shot nice tight groups! Boy, the recoil is snappy in that little auto with full-house 230 loads! I really wanted to wring it out after your comments about the problems some of the folks you know had with theirs.


By the time I was through, I'd done some accuracy tests with different loads on my .40S&W revolver, tested my dad's old Colt Agent .38 snubby for the first time, and shot a .32S&W revolver I got recently (a .32S&W is always a joy to shoot).


I DON'T KNOW WHY IT ALWAYS RAINS . . . but I wasn't going to let a little rain keep me from enjoying some testing and shooting!!! After being cooped up for most of a week . . . I just HAD to get out and smell some powder!

T.

40cal

How did it do?

I'm assuming it functioned fine, otherwise you would have put in your post what a piece of poop it was acting like.

Like I told you before, one buddy had one, biggest lemon you could find, one of my bosses has one, thing runs great.

Go figure.

(Oh, and we need some pics too)

__________________


“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace.”

Thomas Paine 1737-1809

“That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd

tom turner

Hi,

As always, no problems, and the accuracy was as good as I could get from all the steam in the rain constantly combining with the smoke to fog my shooting glasses!

The little Kimber IS shooting left a little, so I'm going to have to drift the rear sight over a little to the right. It shot left on all the ammo I ran threw it by about an inch at 10 yards.


THE ONLY GUN WITH PROBLEMS . . . was the Colt "Agent" sub .38 I inherited from my dad a couple of years ago. If you are familiar with them, it is an aluminum framed snub about the size of a Smith J-frame, but with a six-shot cylinder. It's very light and compact!

I hadn't shot it before, and ran some factory Hornady 140 gn. XTPs through it. I COULDN'T FIND ANY 158 GRAIN IN TOWN!!! I was concerned about shooting lighter weight self-defense loaded bullets through an aluminum snub, for the additional velocities and muzzle blast ain't the best thing for a snub.

By the third round the cylinder was beginning to really bind, and it became hard to rotate it! With the rain, and poor light conditions I still need to inspect it. I'm going to place the spent cartridges back in it tonight and see if it drags still with them. It may be backed out primers, but I doubt it.

Also, after shooting it on of the six cylinders wanted to rotate slightly past locking up. Hmmmm . . .

Strangely, in a few moments I couldn't get that cylinder hole NOT to lock up with the Colt bolt again, at the range or at home!!!!!

I'll have a gunsmith look at it and make sure it is fine. Strangely, I marveled at it's tight lock up in each cylinder before taking it to the range.


I'm gonna load some powder-puff 148 gn. wadcutters for this revolver too, and see how it does with my loads . . . and order some 158 gn. LSWC-HP Hornaday lead bullets for it IF it gets a clean bill of health.

Airweight snubbies are made to carry a whole lot . . . but shoot only a very little.

Dang! . . . I had started to really fall in love with it as my "pocket gun" vs. my Keltec .32 auto (it only weight a LITTLE more, seriously!)

Until I can get it checked out, and know it will function flawlessly, I'll have to go back to the Kel-Tec as my BUG.


DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE SHORT BUTT COLT AGENT's.

Tom

tom turner

Photos? You want photos of the results?

OK . . . but it WAS raining and my shooting glasses got too fogged at times to even wear.

Here are the best loads TODAY that I shot.

I ONLY shot one five-round group for each load, and shot about three types of loads for each gun.

Some of the flyers were simply when I couldn't see well enough on a 6 o'clock hold on the flourescent orange, 1" diameter stick on circles.

Loads (I'll type 'em below, since the ink ran in the rain):

Kimber - Not surprisingly, it liked my choice load for self-defense, the Remington Golden Saber 230 gn.

.45ACP 25-2 revolver on top (with new front sight) - Handloaded 230 gn. Gold Dot "flying ashtrays"

.40 S&W PC revolver - Winchester 165 gn. FMJ target loads


I usually can put 'em all in a ragged hole, standing unsupported, at 10 yards. Today, these shots were sitting at a bench, resting the guns on the table. When I finish "dialing in" the new front sight on the 25-2, it will be back to completely eating the centers out of the 1" sticker targets like before. MAN I LOVE THIS REVOLVER!!!

Naturally, I took the custom rosewood grips off the revolvers so they wouldn't get scratched and shot 'em with Hogue "rubbers" . . . for "protection and pleasure!"



T.

PS: What self-defense loads and weight bullets are proving best for the .40 S&W?


PPS: Yep . . . those vertical strings are indicative too that I haven't been shooting much lately. It's been too danged HOT!!!

40cal

Well,

I am issued the 165 grain Federal Tactical. The reason being the barrier penetration is superior to other 40 cal loads, and in my situation it makes sense. (And of course, I get it for free).

When in KC MO we used speer gold dot 180 gr. Just about everyone shot w/that round seemed to die.

I don't know if federal is making a HST in a 40. I use the HST +P in my 45 and love it. (230 grain of course). The gun shop I used to frequent had several federal employees that shopped there, one of which was a guy who did a lot of the testing on the HST.

__________________


“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace.”

Thomas Paine 1737-1809

“That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd

SteelyDan

Tom,
I had a similar thing happen to me with the only NIB revolver I've ever bought, a 4" Ruger GP100. That tank ran flawlessly at first untill one fateful day that I decided to test a few boxes of 125gr +p+ .357 from CorBon.

First six rounds grouped REALLY well. Great! Let's try another cylinder of these pills...Next three rounds were going into a SINGLE bughole then - BOOM!!! WTF?!?!?! The fourth round sounded and felt like a MUCH larger caliber. The range officer was standing nearby and he came over to see what had happened. We couldn't see anything wrong, but decided to have a smith check it out since the cylinder was binding up pretty bad even while empty.

The smith gave an all clear, but the problem persisted. Eventually he admitted his function check consisted of firing a single round of .38 Special and offered to buy it back since I'd been a longtime customer and had spent a lot of time going back and forth trying to fix it. Eventually, I moved away and never found out what the problem had truly been, so I'm really curious to find out what the diagnosis will be on your snub.

Regards,
Steely

__________________
Why are we so obsessed with bore size? Are we trying to compensate for something?