Saturday Night Range Report

Last night the girls stayed over at my parents' house, allowing Judith and I to get to the range with my dad.

Judith shot the Ruger 22/45 Mark III that I bought her last summer. This was the fourth time she's been to the range and the first time she shot this Ruger. She kept most of her shots on a pie plate at 7 yards, which was pretty good shooting for someone who's still a rank beginner. The Ruger functioned perfectly with CCI Mini Mag solids.

We had only 100 rounds of the Mini Mags, so after they were gone we tried some CCI Subsonics. It worked OK for about a mag then locked up when a round failed to fire. It took me pulling on the bolt while my dad inserted a flat tip screwdriver between the bolt and the breech face to get it open. After getting the round out, I ran a BoreSnake through the gun a couple of times to clean the chamber. I was then able to fire the offending round and 5 more shots. However, when Judith tried to put another magazine-full through the gun, it started failing to eject, with one empty caught between the bolt and the breech. At that point we gave up on the Subsonics. I'll be ordering a good supply of Mini Mags today from Natchez Shooters Supply.

Incidentally, that .22 LR Subsonic that misfired was the first time I've ever had a round of CCI ammunition fail to function correctly, and I've seen thousands of CCI ammo shot.

Dad shot an M-1895 Nagant revolver and his Colt 1911. He had some new production Hotshot ammo for the Nagant, made in Serbia. We figure it was probably made by Prvi Partizan. Anyway, it shoots well, is pretty accurate, and the empty cases fell right out of the cylinder. None of the case mouths split, something he's seen with other 7.62 Nagant ammo. He's shot Fiocchi 7.62 Nagant before and prefers this stuff.

Dad shot some of his handloads in the Colt, 230 grain full power Ball. It shot well.

Finally, I brought my Browning High Power Practical along with CCI Blazer Brass 9x19 115 grain FMJ ammo. This was my first time out with the BHP since I removed the magazine disconnector. The improvement was very noticeable. It is much easier to shoot accurately without the creepy trigger induced by the mag disconnector. I was using two Mec Gar 15 round magazines. I need to get a few more of them. As expected, the Browning worked perfectly.