A good day busting caps

We had one of our semi-annual scheutzenfests over at my friend Nick's place today.

I brought my Marlin Camp .45, Ruger 10/22, CZ-52, and Browning High Power, which I wound up not shooting. This was the first time I shot the Marlin since installing a 21 lb. Wolff recoil spring. I'd put a 16 lb. spring in it after I bought it last year, but back in August I shot GeekWithA.45's Camp .45 with the heavier spring and was sold. The gun functions reliably, the already mild recoil is reduced even more, and less gunk blows back in my face from the ejection port. This was also the first time I shot the Camp .45 with the Bushnell red dot sight mounted. The zero will need some fine tuning, which will have to wait until I get it to a real range.

The Ruger ran great with CCI Subsonic HP .22 LRs. These loads are very quiet and I'd mainly bought them for my Savage Mark-II bolt action, but I'm pleased that they work well in the semiauto Ruger. This was the first chance I've had to shoot it with the Nikon 4x32mm scope I picked up a few months ago, and with the Butler Creek Hot Lips 25 round magazine. Both worked well. The nikon scope has nice optics, and I'll have to pick up a couple more of the mags. They are really fun when plinking.

We put about 30 rounds of Yugoslavian surplus 7.62x25 through the CZ-52. Muzzle blast and noise were on par with the CCI Blazer .357 Magnums my friend Rusty was shooting in his S&W Model 19. I made sure to run a few wet patches through the bore before we packed up, because the Yugo ammo has corrosive primers. After getting home I cleaned it well with Ballistol and will double check it tomorrow.

My friend Frank brought along a couple neat toys that I got to shoot: a Vepr-K AK in 7.62x39 and a Berretta Storm CX-4 Storm carbine in 9mm Parabellum. The Vepr is really nice, right up there with my Arsenal, Inc. milled Bulgarian AK. It's even heavier than the milled gun, though, between the RPK-type stamped receiver and the furniture. There is no comparison between a high-end AK like a Vepr or an Arsenal, and one of the cheap Romanian or Egyptian rifles. The latter may shoot and function OK, but the former actually look and feel nice while doing it.

I didn't like the Storm. They are certainly very cool looking (hence their use on the new Battlestar Galactica TV show), but it has one of the worst out of the box triggers I've ever felt. The trigger pull is heavy, long, and I noticed some trigger slap. Pistol caliber carbines -- like my Marlin -- can be really fun to shoot, but that trigger killed it for me. I'll probably get a 9mm carbine at some point, but it'll either be a used Marlin Camp 9, or a Ruger PC-9, probably the latter, because I also want to pick up a Ruger P-89 and they use the same mags.