Blog Archives

It’s been a while since I looked at my stats and the search terms people are using to get here.

Looks like this one turned into a gun one.

can you reload brass for springfield xd

Yes.

what is the most controllable 9mm

There’s no blanket answer for that as what one person can control (or find controllable) may be different from another.

However, as a general rule, a physically larger and heavier gun is more likely to be controllable. As well, a gun that fits properly in your hand, in terms of getting a good and complete grip on it (with both hands, and the skin of both palms contacting the grip), not having to reach too far (or too little) to get at the trigger, getting all your fingers — especially your pinky — onto the grip. All of these things will help.

how to manage pistol recoil

Technique.

There’s the Todd Jarrett approach, which is “grip the gun 20% tighter”. That is, grip it, now tighten your grip up more. Massad Ayoob calls it a “crush grip” and writes about it here.

But I’ve recently been re-reading my Brian Enos book and he’s not such an advocate of that. He more advocates finding just the right amount of tension that lets the gun recoil then come back to exactly where it was before the trigger was pressed. He says there’s no way to stop recoil, so don’t fight recoil; just let recoil happen and manage it, letting the gun fire then come back to exactly where it started. There’s certainly something to this.

I’ve been experimenting more with both of these approaches. I see merit in both.

airweight snub nose vs steel frame snub

First, let’s clarify. “Airweight” are Smith & Wesson’s lightweight revolvers (e.g 642, 442, 638, 438) whose frame is constructed from aluminum. Thus they are lighter than steel, but consequently can also only chamber up to .38 Special +P whereas many steel can chamber .357 Magnum (e.g. the S&W 640, 649). Then there are the “Airlight” series (e.g. 340, 360), whose frame is made from a scandium alloy. These are even lighter than the Airweight models and can also handle .357 Magnum.

So apart from the above weight and chambering differences, what do you want to know? Well of course, there are also price differences, as the Airlight’s tend to be very expensive. I’ve handled one but never shot one. The Airlight’s are amazingly light, you barely notice it in your hand. Consequently, I can imagine they’d also be painful to shoot, especially .357 Magnum loads. Weight helps to soak up recoil, and weight is one thing the Airlights lack. I mean, shooting .38 +P loads out of my Airweight can sting your hand enough… I can’t imagine less weight and more recoil being pleasant.

The lightweight models are of course designed for carry, so they’ll be comfortable. But the steel really aren’t that much heavier. It’s a personal choice, and depends in part on how much you’ll shoot with it. Some people say to get both: a steel and a lightweight, in a similar form factor (e.g. both “Centential” body style, both “Bodyguard” style) and outfit them with the same setup in sights and trigger and grip and so on. Then use the steel to practice with, since it will be more pleasant to shoot, then carry the lightweight. All depends what you want to do.

corbon dpx or hornady critical defense

That’s up to you. Try both in your gun. If one doesn’t work reliably in your gun, then don’t use it. If both work reliably, pick the one that works better for you. For instance, while presently I use Buffalo Bore 20/20C in my .38 Special snub revolver, I am fortunate that my local Cabela’s carries Buffalo Bore; I know BB isn’t available everywhere. If say you can’t get enough of your desired self-defense ammo, that can play a part into it as well.

my m1a doesn’t cycle the bolt after ever

If your M1A isn’t cycling, you may have problems with the gas system.

When I first got my M1A it was “short stroking” meaning it would fire, but it wouldn’t fully cycle. Sometimes the brass would not eject at all. Sometimes it might eject but a new round doesn’t get stripped from the magazine so the next shot just goes “click” on an empty chamber.

In my case the problem was the gas system. The gas cylinder lock was not completely tightened down from the factory, thus the gas holes weren’t lined up fully and consequently not enough gas was getting into the gas cylinder to operate the action. I was able to test this by field stripping the rifle such that I could see the gas port in the bottom of the barrel. Take a 1/16″ allen wrench and insert it through the gas port into the bore of the barrel. There should be zero resistence when you do this, and looking down the bore you should see the allen wrench sticking up into the bore. If there’s any resistence, if you don’t see the wrench sticking through, then things aren’t lined up. When I called Springfield Armory about this the tech on the phone said I should be able to tighten the lock down another full turn (or 2… surprised it came from the factory that way). Sure enough, one more turn and things were lined up and short stroking no more!

But there can be other reasons for it. Clint McKee has a Q&A on this topic but with a Garand. Still, the M1A and Garand are close enough relatives that the answer applies just as well.

223. semi automatic banana clip

Magazine. Not clip. Know the difference.

minimum caliber for texas concealed hand

Ugh. I hate it when the stats thing cuts off the phrases.

As of this writing, there is no minimum caliber for carrying.

The only caliber minimum is during the taking of the qualifying test, a .32 caliber is the present minimum.

On a related search….

texas concealed carry .22

Yes, you could carry a pistol chambered in .22 LR but you cannot use it to qualify.

is a .223 legal for deer hunting in texas

Short answer: Yes.

Better answer: A summary of the “means and methods” from Texas Park & Wildlife.

So using a single-shot or semi-automatic rifle chambered in .223 Remington without a suppressor, that’s usable for game animals.