Saturday, November 10, 2018

Range Report

Took the new Ruger to the range.  There were a few hiccups in the first couple of magazines.  A couple of FTF, at least one where the case didn't eject all the way and got caught in the chamber as the slide closed.  I put about 200 rounds through it yesterday, and I tried all kinds of ammo.  The cheap plinking ammo is where I had problems - I tried Gold Dot, Sig Sauer and Hornady hollowpoints, and they all fed/cycled just fine.  Like I said, the problems were only in the first couple of mags.  After that, the gun ate everything I threw at it.  So maybe the springs needed to be beaten into submission before they operated properly.

Came home, and found my Talon grips in the mail.  So I put them on last night.



That's SEXY right there.....  I do find it humorous that I got my hot-weather carry gun just as the weather here turns cold and wet.  It'll go into my carry rotation anyways; the Mrs. decided that she wasn't in love with her Vedder holster so she gave it to me.  Also ordered a LC9 shell for my Alien Gear holster, which the Mrs. might just steal when it comes in.  That's a comfortable holster.  The Vedder is smaller, which will come in handy depending on what I'm wearing.

Anyways, there it is.  Mine all mine.

Friday, November 09, 2018

Been a screwed up month

So I'm going to the range today with the Mrs. and a friend.  Nothing like poking holes in paper at long distance to make you feel better.

Thursday, November 08, 2018

Pompous, puffed-up prick loses his White House Press Credentials

It's about damn time.  Jim Acosta is a legend in his own mind, but for anyone else who's unfortunate enough to be around him, he's an arrogant, ignorant, egomaniacal narcissist who spends his time shouting accusations at Donald Trump rather than asking questions.  His press pass should have been yanked a long time ago, and that fat, stupid cow April Ryan should be next.

We normals have waited decades for someone to treat the mainstream media with the contempt and disrespect they deserve.  Trump could publicly lynch 90% of the White House Press Corps on national TV, and I wouldn't shed one tear.  I'd celebrate.

I ain't paying $10 shipping for a $5 item

Look, let's say you're selling a widget, and it's not a widget I can't live without.  It's a small, light widget that might weigh an ounce.  Maybe.

Shipping on that widget should be a buck or two.  Call it a dollar for postage and shipping materials, and another dollar for the time you spend slapping it in an envelope.

I'm not going to pay $10 for you to put your widget, your nice flat light widget, in an envelope and put a first class stamp on it.

Hell, Talon Grips didn't charge me a damn thing for shipping, because they can effectively ship me their grips in a flat first-class USPS envelope.  And USPS will come pick it up for free.  They don't even have to fight lines at the Post Office.

Anyways, just wanted to get that off my chest.

Wednesday, November 07, 2018

National Socialist Democrat Worker's Party regains the House

This sucks, obviously.

However, it also means that this country now gets to stare Nancy Pelosi in the face for a few years.  America doesn't like Nancy Pelosi.  Not really.

Dear GOP:  If you had actually helped the President along, you might have had more people that were willing to vote for you.  But on damn near every issue, you sat on your hands.  Paul Ryan is to blame for his feckless, weak, and establishmentarian leadership.  He's a big-government punk, and we're better off without him.

The Kavanaugh fight actually helped us in the Senate.  Possibly because we voters got to see the GOP senators actually fight back.

Belated birthday present

So, the Mrs. got a Ruger LC9s Pro for an anniversary gift.  It's going to be her carry gun, and she's put several hundreds downrange since she got it.  And of course, since I'm in the lane right next to her, she allows me some time with it.

Oh my, that trigger.  And it's a single stack 9mm that's almost as small as a .380 pistol.  And it shoots so very, very nice.....


So I got one as well for my birthday.  Somewhat belated, but I'm calling it my birthday gift.  So we now have His and Hers Rugers.  I ordered some Talon grips for mine, in Moss.  So we can tell them apart. 

This will be my carry gun during hot weather.  My Taurus or my 1911 will be my cold weather gun.  Screw this whole "dressing around the gun" thing.  I'm just buying a gun that fits the climate. 

Tuesday, November 06, 2018

Vote! Vote American! Vote Red!

You know what to do.  If you love this country, you can't allow the Democrats to take any more power than they already have.

The Mrs. and I have both voted already, since we have to do mail-in ballots. 

I honestly have no idea how things are going to shake out.  This election cycle especially, since the pollsters flat out gave up any pretense of objectivity and have simply used their polls to attempt to sway the election.  And I think America has wised up to them, especially after 2016, so their propaganda is less effective than it has ever been.

Anyways, go out there and vote.

Monday, November 05, 2018

Ammo Review

So, a while back I was contacted by a gentleman from AmmoToGo, asking if I had advertising space on the blog.  I responded that yes I do, but that's because my blog readership is small enough that people wouldn't really get a bump at all from any advertising I put up.  I'm just an extremely small fish in the blogging world.

So the gent wrote back and said "Well, thanks for the honest response.  How's about you just do an ammo review for us?"  To which I responded back with where he could send the ammo.  Which showed up pretty darn quickly, I might add.

I should have had this up earlier, but between my multiple physical ailments (October was pretty much a lost month for me, exercise-wise) and TDY trips, the review didn't get done.  UNTIL NOW!

*cue trumpet fanfare*

So, how did I test this ammo?  The same way I practice at the range. - me, using an isosceles stance, unsupported, at seven yards.  If I can put the rounds on target at seven yards, I can do it at five or three.  I don't own a rest.  I don't own a chronograph.  So I'm not going to get into the specifics of accuracy.  Besides, plenty of other people have done that, and they have the data to prove it.  I'm going to talk about how this ammo performed for me in my gun.

My pistol is a Taurus PT111G2.  Pretty much the previous generation of the Taurus G2C.  9mm, double-stack magazine (12+1), 3.2 inch barrel.  I had been somewhat leery about buying a Taurus before I picked this up; everyone has heard the stories about their *ahem* reliability issues.  But it was a good price, and at the time I didn't own a 9mm pistol, so I bought it just to see what it could do.  I'm happy to say that this gun eats almost every kind of ammo you can throw at it, and the one or two failure to feed issues I had were due to me limp-wristing the pistol.  There are pistols with better ergonomics out there, yeah, but in terms of performance?  This pistol hasn't let me down once.  A big chunk of folks who are skeptical of it are more than pleased once they fire it.  And for the price?  Can't beat it.  I like this pistol so much it's my carry gun when it's cool enough to cover a double-stack 9mm with an overshirt.

For anyone scoffing at that last sentence, I have one word for you:  Mississippi.  Need a couple more words?  July and August.  Enough said.

Now, every firearm has ammo that it likes, and ammo it doesn't like.  My 9mm pistol doesn't like the Sig Sauer Elite Performance ammo.  Does that make it bad ammo?  No, it just means that it doesn't perform well in my pistol.  Two different pistols will have two different results with the very same ammo.  That's just part of shooting.  That's why so many competition shooters will spend hours and hours just to tweak their hand-loads to their guns.  And lots of my regulars are all nodding their heads, saying "No kidding Dave, we know, so hurry the hell up with this already...."

The generous folks at Ammo to Go sent me some Speer Lawman, and Speer Gold Dot to test.  I brought along some Blazer Brass and Federal American Eagle ammo just to have some other rounds to compare.  So, how did they do?  Well....  Here's Round One.  I loaded ten rounds of each and fired them off.  I held the boxes up against the target so you can get a decent measurement of the groups:





As you can see, my shots with the Blazer were all over the place.  The Federal was tight.  Both the Speer ammunitions were well within "minute of sternum", which is what you're looking for in a pistol like mine.  I loaded up with more Federal and Gold Dot ammo, for Round Two:


That grouping with the Gold Dot was probably my worst grouping with good ammo, and that's on me, not the ammo.  One last group, just to make sure.


The bottom line is that this ammo is far more accurate than I am.  My wife unfortunately didn't get any pictures of her groups.  However, she was pleased as punch with the Lawman.  This was her first time out with her new pistol, so she was breaking it in, and the Lawman was giving her nice tight groups.

Now for the important part:  I didn't have a single failure to feed in all the boxes I put through the pistol.  Both the Lawman and the Gold Dot were remarkably clean.  The Blazer Brass put out copious amounts of smoke, the Federal a little less so.  The Lawman and Gold Dot were damn near smoke free in comparison.  The Lawman is also a completely encased lead bullet, which means you're not getting any vaporized lead when you shoot.  Cleaner range, cleaner gun, and no heavy metal poisoning!

Both Speer ammos were easily controllable.  I borrowed the wife's Ruger for a couple of magazines, and her lighter pistol was still easy to keep on target.

Both the Speer and the Blazer are made in the same factory, so it's somewhat revealing just how much a difference even a little bit of refinement makes in a type of ammunition.  For about a buck or two more, the Lawman gives you much better accuracy.  Of course, they're both made in Idaho so I'm a bit biased in my ammo selection.  I would buy both of them without any hesitation, and I would note that the Speer Lawman is a under $13.00 at Ammo to Go.  I would carry the Gold Dot as defensive ammo with no concerns.  It ran through my pistol perfectly, and even when I was pushing my speed of shooting I managed to keep nice groupings with it.  My worst groupings with the Gold Dot could still be covered by my hand.

I want to thank Mr. Black at Ammo to Go for giving me the opportunity to test out some ammo and review it here.  I'll be looking at Ammo to Go when I want to get a big order of ammunition in the future.