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KR Training December 2009 Newsletter
The KR Training December 2009 Newsletter is posted.
Many classes coming up. I’m trying to figure out which ones I’m going to help with and which ones I’m going to take.
This is cool, but it’d be nice if it was a real RSS feed.
One of the best parts of the newsletter? 21 things a burglar won’t tell you:
XS Sights
ToddG agrees! Just say no to XS Sights.
I tried XS Sights, but for a different reason. I wear glasses. If my glasses got knocked off or weren’t on to begin with, could I still see a front sight? I wondered if the Big Dot XS Sights would work for that. Upon receiving them, it was obvious it wouldn’t be visible to myopic me, but I tried them anyway.
The more I used them, the less I liked them. I couldn’t get accurate enough hits. There’s just way too much you have to play and fiddle around with to get the shots to go exactly where you want them. Some say it doesn’t matter: for close-up defensive shooting the accuracy is close enough, “combat-accurate” and will put things center-of-mass no problem. Likely so. But who says your defensive shooting situation is going to provide you with that perfect scenario? I recall while I had the XS Sights sitting in a restaurant, being over 25 yards from the cashier, and thinking to myself “Gosh, if I had to make a shot at that distance, I’m not sure I could do it… the dot would cover the target, and while XS says to use a 6 o’clock hold for that, it’s still too coarse of a sight picture to ensure I’d hit the scumbag and not an innocent.”
Some will say I’m just inept and stupid and XS Sights work great for them. Â Awesome. If they are the bees knees for you, by all means continue to use them. For me, they don’t work. For lots of people I come across, they don’t work.
The Dawson Precision sights I use? They work. I can pick them up very quickly (the 0.100″ red fiber front and 0.125″ all black rear are very fast). I can use them to get very precise shots out to long distances, or I can use them to nail rapid fire up close. I can shoot fast, I can shoot slow. I can shoot groups, I can shoot for combat-accuracy. They’re great in competition. It’s like they have all the upside of the XS and none of the downside.
If XS Sights work for you, great. Shoot them in IPSC or IDPA matches. Shoot them in Steel Challenge matches. Take high-speed high-stress training courses at top training schools. Make sure they really do work for you.
Picking Defensive Shotguns
RevolverRob weighs in with his take on defensive shotguns. Good read.
I’d like to add to the pump vs. semi-auto debate.
Pumps are simpler machines, run almost any ammo you can feed the gun, cheaper to purchase, can handle some abuse and neglect better. But they will also recoil harder and are a more complex manual of arms to operate. Semi-autos have a simple “point and click” interface, and you should be taking the time anyway to find the best ammo for the gun (that works, that patterns, etc.) so the ammo finickiness shouldn’t be too big an issue.
Think about the operator of the firearm. If it’s me, I could care less. Pump is fine. I’m a big guy, the recoil won’t bother me, operating the action is just fine and dandy. Now let’s take a small statured woman or even a child; something with less recoil could be beneficial to them (consider low-recoil rounds as well, which are more than adequate for home-defense shotgunning). Is the operator someone who practices? If so, pump might be OK as there’d be less risk of short-stroking. If not, the simpler interface of “point and click” from a semi-auto may serve them better.
There’s no blanket answer here. Merely adding more things to the mix for one to consider.
Speaking of all of this, KR Training will be having another Defensive Long Gun course on January 23, 2010. I took it last year with my AR. I wonder if I might want to take it again but with a shotgun. Hrm.
These Dreams
I wake up this morning from a dream. I figure dreams, at least in part, are your brain sorting through all the things flying through your head recently.
A dream where I’m in an airport. I have no idea where an airport came from.
I recall having a set of Makita power tools with me. I figure that’s from a discussion I had yesterday with someone about buying a new drill. But talk about a strange carry-on. I even wondered to myself how airport security would let someone take a cordless drill and a circular saw through airport security… but of course, not a 4 ounce bottle of water.
Who else is in the airport? Ted Nugent. I can guess why I’m dreaming about that.
And I go over to talk with Uncle Ted. I cannot remember what it was about exactly, but I remember trying to show him the picture on my iPhone of my first buck but not being able to because that’s about when I woke up.
I’ve got hunting on the brain.
I look at various animals now and while I admire the creature in and of itself, the immediate second thought is “gosh, look at the size of those hams… .can you imagine how big that backstrap would be? mmmmmmm.”
I think I’m hooked.
The amusing part? I believe Daughter is hooked too. She’ll sit and watch hunting shows on TV with me and comment about this buck or that antelope and just love it. I do hope to get her to the rifle club this week.
Just because it’s part of their job…
… doesn’t mean they have a clue.
“A local, uniformed, patrol officer came in to my office last week, complaining of headaches and lower-back pain. She stated that pain was occurring while she was on duty, and mentioned that her duty-belt was uncomfortable.
I began by asking about her duty-pistol. She stated that it was a SIG. When I asked what model, she paused and answered, ‘Why, it’s a Sig/Sauer. Is there another kind?’
I let out a breath and then asked if the weapon’s magazines were single or double-stack, what caliber, how many spare magazines she carried, and where she carried them. I got back a confused look, and then she asked me what ‘double-stack’ meant. In addition, she had no idea what caliber her pistol was, but we determined that both spare magazines were routinely carried on the same side as her pistol.
I asked if she practiced reloading her pistol with magazines carried thus. She indicated that she ‘… couldn’t remember,’ adding ‘I don’t know; I just carry them there.'”
This isn’t to say all police officers are clueless — the above is closer to exception than rule. Consider how many times you’ve encountered professionals that had no clue, be it a mechanic, or a repairman in your home. We’ve all had experiences where someone’s job lead you to believe they were competent, but alas they were not. Why would the profession of police officer be any different? On the same token, I’m sure you’ve encountered people who weren’t professionals at something but performed work far better than any pro you ever met.
When people say “only police and military should have guns”, remember the above quip. Training (education) is important for success in any endeavor in life.
All pistol rounds suck – round 2
Said it before, say it again: all pistol rounds suck.
What’s fun this time? Someone made a pretty graphic. Via Caleb I find Mike (or I guess it was Mike) cobbled together a nice graphic of Winchester ballistics data. I’ve seen that before… that is, the graphic layout that presents that data I’ve seen before on some website for getting information about the product, but try as I might I can’t find the website right now. I swore it was Winchester’s own site, but I can’t find it. *sigh* Anyway, I just remember the little web-app wasn’t great for doing a lot of comparisons, so I figure Mike (or whomever made the graphic) must have generated all the data then with a little Photoshop skills put it all together. It’s nice to see “the big picture” so to speak.
Bottom line: they all perform about the same. Pick the one that works best for you, that you can handle and shoot quickly and accurately. Generally that’s going to be 9mm, but everyone’s different.
Switzerland’s Crime Rate
The key to freedom is the ability to be able to defend yourself. And if you don’t have the tools to do that then you are at the mercy of whoever wants to put you away. And the tools for that are guns.
Found via Fark, and interestingly the comments started out making rather a good point (instead of just lots of snark).
DrRatchet: hubiestubert: Any tool can become a weapon if you hold it right, and by focusing only on weapons, means that you don’t focus on WHY people are turning to crime, which is the more important question, and the larger issue.
Which is why controlling or eliminating weapons fails as a way of reducing crime (I’m looking at you, England.)
Very much so. Gun control is a false debate when you talk about crime prevention. It is a distraction from talking about what actually concernsboth sides of the debate, and that is crime prevention. Preventing crime is something that few can argue against, at least with any honesty, save perhaps those who are invested in the prison industry.
So, it would be nice to see folks veer from the whole gun control debate and instead focus on what they all share, and that is how to reduce crime. Rather than investing so much time and effort to talk about the style and manner which crimes are committed, but to get to the root causes.
Less worry about the symptoms, than the actual disease.
Second Opinions Are Good
Previously I wrote about a hunting AR.
Excitement got the best of me (and my wallet) and I went ahead and ordered a Burris Fullfield II 3x-9x-40mm rifle scope, the Burris AR-P.E.P.R. Mount, and a few other little things to go along with it (e.g. covers). Not so much that I want to modify the rifle, but more that the sooner I get this set up the sooner I can get my kids shooting with it. The sooner they can start shooting, the sooner they can practice, the more the practice the better they get, and eventually I can take them hunting. In the end, it’s all for the kids (but I get to play with new toys too).
I took it to the local indoor range this morning to sight it in. I started off having them do a bore sight. Note that the P.E.P.R. mount is 1″ to the bottom of the rings, 1.5″ to the middle of the scope. That’s rather high up over the barrel. You can see in the picture that I probably don’t need to be that high, probably could go with something like Burris XTR medium rings and drop about 0.5″. But this is fine. Trouble was, the guy doing the bore sighting couldn’t get it to work. He used this little deal they stick into the muzzle then when you look through the scope you’ll see a grid and line up on the grid. He had to put in a spacer to put it a little higher due to my higher mount, and I can’t help but wonder if that didn’t line things up right. Reason I wonder is because he cranked the adjustment knobs on the scope about as far as they’d go and couldn’t get things lined up. Not good.
It’s always possible the scope shipped broken from the factory… things like that can happen. While sitting there at the range/store they tried to talk me into buying a Leupold scope, but they were all $300+ and I’ve already spent more money than I should have lately so I wasn’t looking forward to that. I know this scope and mount setup should work, so if I just had to exchange the unit I’d rather do that…. but having bought from MidwayUSA any returns/exchanges would cost me money in shipping so I wasn’t looking forward to that either. I opted to put the rifle back in the case and look into it more when I got home. Spent my time checking out my handgun reloads, then went home.
The Second Opinion
I called Burris and spoke with a product support person. We checked out what we could on the phone and by all signs the scope was fine. I reset the dials to a midpoint, then called my local Academy sporting goods store. I seem to recall they did bore sights for free. So I figured to get a second opinion, it’d just cost me a little time. I figured if results came out the same as from the range, then the scope was likely FUBAR and back it would go. If the results didn’t come out the same then great.
The Academy had a similar muzzle-based bore-sighting setup, but no way to raise it up for my higher mount. So the guy pulled out a laser sighter, one that is shaped like a round that goes into the chamber, shines the laser down the bore, and off you go. We were only able to back up to about 18 yards, but that’s good enough. Sure enough, as soon as we turned on the laser, it wasn’t too far off on adjustment. Got it dialed in close enough, then I went back to the local indoor range. Saw the same guys there and told them I got a second opinion and smiled.
Went into the range, started at 25 yards and was on paper. Adjustments here and there, dialed in good. Went back to 50 yards and tweaked it, then back to 100 yards to get it properly dialed in. At this point the rifle is shooting well enough given the fact I’m using Georgia Arms Canned Heat, the heavy (crappy?) Bushmaster trigger, and whatever limits there are in my skills. Frankly the biggest thing I was longing for was a better trigger. But overall things are fine.
It was good to get a second opinion. I doubted that the scope was busted and doubted a problem with the setup as it’s common enough. Sure it cost me a little time, but no big deal in the end.
Next up… taking the kiddos to the range to get them comfortable shooting this setup! 🙂
Range Report – Reload Results
Went to the local indoor range this morning, because I had collected enough “stuff to do” and work was a bit quiet this morning — perfect to slip away for a little bit and get some stuff done.
First, I had a scope problem, but I’ll write about that later.
I had 2 main reloads to try: .38 Special and 9mm.
.38 Special Reloads
This was shooting my first go at .38 special reloads. You can read the recipe here, but basically 3.5 grains of TiteGroup, Berry’s .38 Special 158 grain plated RN DS bullet, Remington 1.5 primer, CBC brass, 1.510″ COL. Note that I had no crimp on these, because I wasn’t sure about crimping on .38, especially with these Berry’s bullets.
I was curious about the crimps and spoke with someone at Berry’s about it. The basic rule with their bullets is nothing over 1200 fps and no heavy roll crimps. He said that on .38 Special, a taper crimp would actually be best with their bullets, but a roll crimp would be fine so long as it wasn’t a heavy crimp. For now I opted to go with no crimp and not futz with what I had already loaded to see how it goes.
I was shooting out of my customized S&W 442. My goal isn’t going for some uber-load, I’m not looking for 1/2 MOA accuracy, right now I’m just learning to reload so I want to just see how things go, see if I can make a load that goes bang and how it performs. It’s just a desire to learn, not necessarily find that ideal load.
First thing I noticed was the cartridges were difficult to insert into the chambers of the cylinder. Factory loads just slide in and out with no problem (they’re just a hair loose). But these reloads would get almost all the way in then I would have to push firmly to fully seat them. I’m not sure what caused that, and as I write this I realize I should have not fired all 20 rounds that I loaded so I could get the calipers on them and measure and compare to a factory load. But such is hindsight. Could it be from lack of crimp? Could it be due to case expansion? I’m not sure, but I will go back and reexamine my reloading process when next I reload .38 Special.
As for the performance of the load, it was mild. Sure it still had a wee bit of snap to it, but it really wasn’t bad. I’d see a small spark and a tiny bit of muzzle flash. Overall felt recoil was mild. As a factory reference round, I had some Remington UMC .38 Special 130 grain MC (L38S11). By comparison, the UMC had more felt recoil, a little more snap, a little more muzzle flip, and a lot more muzzle flash. So if that’s a fair reference point as factory ammo, my load was milder no question. Accuracy was fine… no heavy measuring of accuracy, but rounds went exactly where I put them. I do know I need to continue to get used to the sights on the snub… they’re just not Dawson’s.
Overall, I’m pleased with the load. Next thing I’d do is reload the same recipe but verify my reloading process and ensure a roll crimp. After I see how that goes, I’ll start to play with things like how much powder I put in and see how that goes. Once I settle on something, then I’ll start looking at accuracy and velocity. One thing I do like about a lighter load like this is you could probably shoot it all day, even out of a snub with small grips and an exposed backstrap, and probably do OK.
As a quick aside, I also shot 15 rounds of Buffalo Bore 20/20c. I did this because last time I tried them (just after getting my snub back from the gunsmith), I had one misfire. I wanted to see if it may have been that round or if it may have been the customized snub not liking the Buffalo Bore loads. All 15 went bang (and bang they did… oh thank you for better grips and a covered backstrap). So I think they’ll be OK in this gun, but of course more testing is always good.
9mm Reloads
My first 9mm reloads had a recipe like this: Berry’s 115 grain plated RN bullet, 6.3 grains Power Pistol, Winchester SSP, Speer brass, 1.135″ COL. When I tried them out I used a Springfield XD-9 subcompact (3″ barrel) and the results were snappy with a LOT of muzzle flash. Details here. So my next step was to try out that same load in my XD-9 Tactical (5″ barrel). I also wanted to do a load with TiteGroup to see how that would compare. I’d want everything between the two loads to be the same, save for the powder.
The TiteGroup recipe is as follows:
Bullet: 115 grain Berry’s RN DS plated bullet
Powder: 4.2 grains Hodgdon TiteGroup
Primer: Winchester WSP standard small pistol
Cases: used Speer brass
C.O.L.: 1.135″
So as you can see, the only difference between the two loads is the powder, 4.2 grains of TiteGroup vs. 6.3 of Power Pistol.
I used Speer Lawman 115 grain as a factory reference point. I brought both my 3″ and 5″ XD to the range. I also brought some of the true first reloads I did at Karl’s place, which I think have Vihtavuori N330 don’t remember how much.
The Power Pistol loads of course performed the same as before out of the 3″. I expected a slight change in performance in the 5″ but didn’t get it: still kinda snappy and flippy and a fair lot of flash. I’d say the 5″ was a little less than the 3″ but certainly not by much. Compared to the factory load, it was fairly similar in feel (the factory was a bit different, felt “stronger” but not as snappy) but the factory load had almost no visible muzzle flash by comparison. Â Still performance seemed OK and I wouldn’t be to opposed to using the Power Pistol up because well.. I’ve got the powder, might as well use it.
The TiteGroup was another matter. I tried it first out of the 5″ gun and I swore I could watch the slide move. It was a really wimpy load. 🙂  The brass was ejecting consistently but only maybe one foot away from me. I swore I could feel the slide creeping along instead of flying in and out of battery. It was kinda fun, but the load barely worked in that gun. Switching to the 3″ gun, things felt a lot better, it functioned more like you’d expect. Overall the feel of the load was light, in terms of recoil. This also seemed to shoot a little bit cleaner than the Power Pistol.
At this point I’m really intrigued by the TiteGroup load. The above recipe could be fine for a light load, but I wouldn’t expect it to reliably cycle except in really light/weak-springed guns. Looking at the data on Hodgdon’s website, a 115 gr. LRN would use 3.9 to 4.3 grains of TiteGroup and a 1.100″ COL. Using a 115 gr. Speer GDHP it’d have a COL of 1.125″ and 4.5 to 4.8 grains of TiteGroup. So I have a little working to do to figure out my next step, but certainly it needs to go up from here.
Conclusion
All in all, I’m pleased. Pleased because I’m reloading my own ammo and it’s working. Plus I’m starting to see how things fit together, how things go, different characteristics of things. Just lots of things and soaking in all the information I can.
I have things to work on and change: for the .38 load ensure the loading process is not off and see about roll crimping, on the 9mm loads work with TiteGroup more.
And I hope Santa could bring me a Hornady Lock-n-Load progressive press. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 