Range report - 5/21/06

I usually go to the range with my stepdad, but since he crapped out to go see that "DaVinci Code" bullshit I called my old friend Troy to see if he was up to it. He was, so we went.

I was really eager this trip because I just bought a new gun. It's a Ruger GP-161. It's a .357 revolver with a 6" barrel. I got it because I like to shoot on the 100 yard rifle range with a handgun and the 6" barrel allows me to better do that. I also want to be able to save all of my brass so I can reload and cut down on the cost of ammo, which it being a revlover allows me to do.

Let me start off by saying I love this thing.




I shot 100 rounds of 158gr lead flat-nosed ammo out of it. It took some getting used to but it shoots great. Not one problem. The recoil was noticeable but not obnoxious, as expected from this pistol because of it's weight.

I decided to get this gun and good thing I did when I did. It seems that these little boogers are getting hard to get your hands on. This was the only one I could find around here, and it was the last one the guy had. All of the gun shops I talked to told me that these are on backorder from Ruger with no date as to when they'll be available. I originally wanted it in blue but it seems that those are even harder to find. So I opted for the stainless, and I must say I'm glad I did.

Anywho, we stopped into Acadmey before the range because Troy needed some .22 and .45 ammo. Damn that store is nice! I picked up some American Eagle 7.62x39 to run through my SKS to see if better ammo would make a huge difference in accuracy. It did and it didn't.

The AE stuff seemed to be alittle more consistant than the Wolf, but not enough to warrant the huge price difference (8.50 for 20 of AE or 2.50 for 20 of Wolf). The other thing that made me want to steer clear of the AE stuff is that I had a slamfire with it. At first I thought that I didn't do a good enough job of cleaning the firing pin channel on my SKS, which is a known problem that leads to slamfires. But upon closer inspection, the primers on the AE stuff were not seated correctly. Not just one or two but damn near the whole box!
It's alittle hard to see in the picture but some of the primers are set as much as 1/16th" high!

Troy brought with him his Bushmaster Ar-15. About 50 rounds into the trip, it started to jam. It was the first time it did that to him so we were abit concerned. It would not seat a round in the chamber fully. We looked and looked but could not find a reason. He put it down awhile and shot the 30-06 and .22 he also brought for awhile. Then we picked the Ar back up and gave it another look.

After afew more failed attempts to chamber a round, he ejected a live round that wouldn't chamber and it looked like the projectile itself had been shoved further into the case. Given a second look, we found something much stranger than that...



What had actually happened was the neck and shoulder of another round that had split and broken off had jammed itself onto the live round! It had ejected the back half and the other just lodged in the chamber.


You can kinda see in this pic the dent in the neck and shoulder.

All in all it was a great trip. I got to shoot my new gun, found out that the people at Chik-fi-la are holy rollers, and saw a case split totally in two.



P.S. The Chik-Fi-La thing is totally true. We found this out because we went there to grab something to eat and they were closed on sundays so that their crew can go to church. Weird.