Ballistic Testing...

At the range yesterday doing ballistic gel shooting with a few loads in two different chamberings, one of which was .327 Federal Magnum. The test gun was this Taurus 327 TORO with a Gideon Judge optic.

As a control round, I used a .32 H&R Magnum Hornady 80gr FTX Critical Defense. The Critical Defense did not expand through 4LD, and I didn't expect that ti would. It came to rest backwards in the gel block, 13" in.

The .327 Federal Hydra-Shok 85gr projectile, normally an iffy expander in 4LD, proved that even an iffy projectile can expand if you put enough ass behind it. It mushroomed nicely and came to rest, also base-first, at the 14" mark, just beyond the Hornady bullet.

The 100gr .327 Fed Gold Dot worked exactly as predicted: It expanded like a catalog photo and was found tangled in the denim on the far side of the 16" gel block. This is pretty much identical to what you get from 9mm 124gr +P GDHP and HST, which are pretty much the current gold standards, and it's what the load was designed to emulate.

That's the load I'm going to sight the dot in with.

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Lever-age

At the range last week I helped Michael Grasso dial in his .44 levergun with some .44 Special loads, just because having a gun in the house with an unsighted optic is anathema to all right-thinking people.

That mount for the Aimpoint Acro was pretty groovy. I hadn't gotten a good look at one before. I also dug the Magpul ELG furniture, although I'd expected to. I remember being skeptical of their shotgun stock before it came out and winding up having to eat crow, so...

Some people are skeptical, but I think a levergun has its uses, although it's possible to get carried away with one. 

I remember back at TacCon '19, Lee Weems made a pretty good case for why he used a .30-30 as a patrol rifle...

See the dot, hit a lot...

Back at the range with the Staccato C on Tuesday morning.

The reticle on the Trijicon RMR HD is selectable between a regular dot and an EOTech-esque "donut of death" that has a central dot, a large circle, and crosshairs-style tick marks at the top, bottom, and sides of the circle. That might be okay atop a carbine or something, and I guess it could be helpful for people who have difficulty finding the dot, but in that little slide-mounted MRDS window both Michael and I found it a little cramped and busy and we opted for the plain dot.

Anyway, the Staccato C made it through another two hundred rounds without any sort of malfunction, bringing the total round count thus far to six hundred rounds. Fourteen hundred left to go.

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Reliability Check...

My friend Michael Grasso was able to obtain a loaner RMR HD from Trijicon to use on the Staccato C test pistol. There's some question as to whether the fact that the element slightly overhanging the rear edge of the ejection port would affect the reliable ejection of spent cases or not.

I was optimistic, since I've put thousands of rounds through several FN509's wearing a Trijicon SRO, which similarly overhangs the rear of the ejection port, without any problems.

We mounted the optic, got it dialed in, and proceeded to crank out two hundred rounds at a pace that left the slide hot enough to be painful to the touch. Not only were there no malfunctions of any type, the brass does not seem to contact the sight housing at all.

This morning I'll get back to the range and we'll try some different brands of ammunition with varying power factors.

A new 2k round test begins...

So here's the new Staccato C with its redesigned magazine profile and 4" barrel. Staccato also sent along their new in-house match ammo, loaded with the 125gr Hornady Action Pistol projectile.

Yesterday morning saw me at the range with my friend Michael Grasso and 200 rounds of ammunition. I glorped some FP-10 lubricant onto the slide rails and around the flared lockup area on the barrel out by the muzzle and then it was off to the races. We only had two magazines, but we also had two Uplulas, so one of us would blaze away while the other hastily stuffed fifteen rounds into a magazine.

By the end of the 200 rounds, the pistol was noticeably toasty to the touch, however we were off to a promising start. The Staccato C went through the full cycle of operation every time with no malfunctions of any type to report. 200 rounds down, 1800 to go.

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New revolver from Heritage Mfg...

Fifty rounds of 130gr FMJ, seven yards, double action

Just announced at NRAAM: The Heritage Roscoe. It's a classic 5-shot .38 Special snubby, in carbon steel with checkered wood grips. (Basically, it's the return of the Taurus 85 in a retro format.) Suggested retail is well under four hundo, so street prices should be quite reasonable.

Look for a review in the next issue of Concealment magazine. 

The stocks are pretty, but you'll want to swap them out for carry use.

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Heavy Metal Range Trip

At the range yesterday morning with the Daniel H9 Compact reboot of the Hudson, as well as a Walther PDP Compact Steel Frame, both of which will be in reviews in upcoming issues of Shooting Illustrated.

There was a time, not all that long ago, where metal-framed guns were largely a dead letter, because the difference in manufacturing costs were so great that there just was no point in even trying to compete on price.

With the advances in CNC manufacturing over the last decades, costs have come down enough that some metal-framed pistols, like the alloy-framed Smith & Wesson M&P variants, are barely more expensive than their polymer-framed kin.

There's also this idea that a metal gun, being heavier, will shoot much flatter and faster, although the difference is usually minimal for the vast majority of shooters (and raw split times are among the most meaningless measurements in shooting.) Still, though, think of how many jillions of dollars people have spend on esoterica like tungsten guide rods in the hope of adding another ounce or two out toward the muzzle.

I, personally, just dig the fact that there are more choices out there.

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So anyway, I started blasting...

So I slapped a Swampfox Justice on the Rost Martin RM1C and took it to Indy Arms the other morning as part of a trip to help longtime friend-of-the-blog Global Village Idiot’s daughter pick out a pistol.

I brought along a box of Winchester 124gr NATO ball and figured I could get the lane next to theirs and put some work in with the new review gun while ducking into their lane every now and again to offer pointers and get feedback. The pistols she was considering were a Glock 43X, a Shield Plus, and a Taurus GX4.

I ran the pistol-training.com Q-PT target out to seven yards and popped off three shots at the center of the 8” circle, just to see how close to zeroed the dot was. They made one ragged hole about two inches high and right.

Rather than fiddle with adjustments that morning, I just started putting five and ten rounds in the magazine at a time and hosing. And I mean hosing.

Other than that one shot out of the circle at 12 o’clock, which came from getting a little bit too aggressive while prepping during recoil (b-BANG!), I’m really very pleasantly surprised, especially since the PD10 is the only striker gat I’ve put in much trigger time with over the last several months, since I'd been mostly shooting revolvers and the Walther PD380.

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #250...

At the range the other day getting red dots dialed in. That 509 Edge longboi shoots like a laser, and if you went back to 1996 and showed me that FN Reflex with the enclosed emitter Holosun EPS Carry and a tiny five hundred lumen Streamlight TLR 7 Sub, and then popped out the magazine with eleven witness holes, I'd have thought it was some kind of sci-fi space magic.

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Snap Softener

The ostensible purpose of yesterday's range trip was to get the Trijicon optics dialed in on the FN 509's, but on the way out the door I tossed the Smith & Wesson Model 639 into the case as well, since I hadn't fired it yet.

I'd forgotten how much 9mm recoil a two-and-a-quarter pound all-stainless pistol soaks up. This is a very soft-shooting handgun. I'd also forgotten how the stainless front sight, machined integrally with the slide, disappears against light-colored targets.

I let my friend Michael pop off a few mags, too, and managed to get at least one decent action photo!

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #248...

Currently underway are reviews of the Avidity Arms PD10 for RECOIL: Concealment and the Girsan MC-14 for Shooting Illustrated.

It's still pretty early in the process for both. I've got a hundred rounds of Hornady Critical Defense .380 through the Girsan and two hundred rounds of Remington 9mm 124gr FMJ through the PD10, all of it just blasting away at seven yards on the indoor range at Indy Arms Company.

Projects...

Friday morning's range session finished up the 2k with the Echelon. Putting the finishing touches on the words today and sending them in, as well as doing photographs to accompany the article.

Monday morning I have to get back to work with the Taurus 856 TORO and Holosun 507k combo.

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Ouch.

I don't go to public ranges on the weekend because they're way too crowded with normies and their questionable gun-handling habits, and I missed my Monday morning range session because I was home sick, so I'm really rushing to get this 2k test finished.

That meant showing up at Indy Arms Co. yesterday morning with two hundred rounds of Winchester 124gr FMJ...

Even in 9mm, two hundred rounds just stuffed into magazines and dumped downrange as fast as possible...probably over the course of twenty minutes or so...is a lot of shooting. I sometimes feel it in my wrist and the base of my thumb these days, and it's a reminder that I probably need to get more religious about taking Osteo Bi-Flex and maybe an extra calcium supplement over and above my regular multivitamin.

Total round count is at 1,450 now.

1150...

It's good and dirty at this point, but still runs just fine even with jacketed hollow point ammo.

The optics mount is still snug. Everything's going great.

Also, those lens protectors are a godsend.

(There's a good article by my friend Chris Cypert on optimizing the home defense handgun here.)

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Halftime.

Yesterday's range session of a hundred and fifty rounds upped the count since the pistol was cleaned and lubed to an even one thousand.

That's seven hundred and fifty rounds of various types for the magazine test, a notional cleaning and a dollop of lube, and now we're halfway through the 2,000-round test for Shooting Illustrated Online...and the pistol has yet to fail to go through the complete cycle of operations with every one of the 1,750 pulls of the trigger.

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Pew! Pew! Pew!

Another hundred and fifty rounds on Monday morning at Indy Arms Co, following the usual pattern of a hundred rounds at seven yards just hosing away at the eight-inch circle, and then fifty rounds at the 3x5" from five yards at a slightly slower pace, around .5-.75ish.

The ergos on this thing really agree with my hand.

Bangity

Fifty rounds of Winchester Q4318 124gr NATO FMJ, fifty rounds of Blazer Brass 124gr FMJ, and fifty of Federal 147gr HST jacketed hollow points.

I'm just hosing here, as fast as I can get a sight picture, so I can duck in and out of the range and get to lunch and do some writing.

Dot's still snugly attached and holding zero. Combined with the rounds fired for the feature review, we're well over a thousand rounds at this point, and 550 into the 2k writeup.

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I was ready...

At Indy Arms Company again yesterday morning, with a hundred rounds of Sellier & Bellot 124gr FMJ and fifty of Federal American Eagle 115gr FMJ.

This time I was prepared, with a bandaid covering the blister on my trigger finger.

Owie...

So, I have a fairly limited amount of time to get two thousand rounds through this Springfield Armory Echelon. I started out yesterday morning with a freshly cleaned pistol, lubed with a healthy dollop of FP10, and a 250-round box of 115gr Remington FMJ range ammo.

I couldn't find my clear lens protectors, so I improvised with a strip of tape.

I only have the 17 and 20 round magazines that shipped with the pistol, so that meant jamming thirty seven rounds into magazines, dumping them downrange at a rate that was technically way faster than the "1 round a second" speed limit (but I had the rifle bay to myself, so no harm, no foul) and lather, rinse, repeat the process for seven iterations.

Outran my headlights there for a couple shots...

It took a little over twenty minutes to shoot up the two hundred and fifty rounds. The takedown lever was noticeably hot at the end of the session.

I'm a little embarrassed to note that my shooting and dry fire has tapered off to the point that I'd largely lost my trigger finger callus, and so I had a nice blister to keep me company for the rest of the morning.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

One hundred rounds of 60gr Winchester Silvertips and twenty rounds of 65gr Federal Hydra-Shok, all at five yards. I was firing eight-round strings, with the first shot fired double-action on each magazine.

Point of impact is roughly two inches high and one inch left of my point of aim at five yards.

The sights on this thing are execrable. Normally I just use my regular Wiley X sunglasses for eye protection at the range, since Indy Arms Co has very bright LED lighting available in the stalls and the range itself is well-lit. But the stainless nubbin of a front sight on the Tomcat got lost, especially against dark backgrounds. I had to switch to the Hunter HD Golds to be able to see the sights to any useful degree.

Of course, when the Tomcat was launched in 1996, its competition was the Seecamp LWS-32, which has no sights whatsoever.

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