Category: Shooting

Color me skeptical about metal prices being a prime driver of ammo prices.  I’m sure rising metal costs definitely have some effect, but let’s do some math for a bit.  You can get 100 rounds of unprimed .223 Remington brass for 17.00 from Cabela’s.  Each case weighs about 90 grains, which means a bag of 100 would weigh about 1.3 lbs.  The current price for brass is about $2.20 per pound.   Strictly on metal costs alone, that brass should cost about $2.85.

If you look at bullets, figuring an FMJ bullet is roughly 1/3rd copper and 2/3rd lead (I have no idea if this is the case, but I suspect it’s the case), lead is going for about a buck a pound, and copper for about 3.40 a pound.  So 100 rounds for the bullet is going to be 89 cents for the copper and about 50 cents for the lead.  So the total price of 100 rounds of .223, in terms of material cost, is about $4.25.

So I think there’s a lot more going into the cost of ammunition that just rising metal costs.   Surely that’s had some small effect, but I think the cost of ammo is going up because demand has gone up.  Rising fuel prices also probably have something to do with it too.   Ammo is heavy, so carting it around places is expensive when fuel is expensive.  Overall, demand is high, both because civilians are shooting a lot, and because the military is consuming large quantities of ammo.   This will drive up prices for all calibers, since machine tools used to make ammunition will be busy with military orders in military calibers, rather than making ammunition for civilians.   I suspect that new production capacity may not end up coming online, since manufacturers probably expect military demand to be short lived.  We may have to live with high prices for a while.

I don’t know if I pointed this out before, but there’s a great online resource for downloading targets.  It’s called targetz.com.  You can download them in PDF format and print then out.  All kinds of shapes are available, as well as fun targets.   Take a look.

I’m sure there are some of you out there that are reloaders.  The price of 5.56x45mm has me seriously considering taking it up as a hobby.  It looks to me like the money saved doing it yourself is really negligible unless you reuse your brass.

What are the advantages to reloading really?   Can it save money?  How many times can you typically reuse brass?  Is it worth it for me to invest in all the equipment to do it?  Are there hazards?  The ammo I spend the most amount of time shooting, other than .22LR, is .223, 9x19mm, 9x18mm and 7.62×39.   I think the latter two, because they are typically Berdan primed, would be hard to reload.   Any advise is appreciated.

Since Bitter and I were invited on a squirrel hunt earlier, I thought maybe since I was headed the range tonight, I’d try at shooting some rodent targets.  I didn’t have squirrel, but I did have groundhog targets handy:

Shooting my Ruger Mk.II, weaver stance, at 10 yards, rapid fire, I noticed my shots are pulling to the left a bit.  I’m not sure if it’s me or the gun, but I wasn’t doing it when I was shooting the CZ-82.  The Mk.II 50th Anniversary edition has fixed sights.  Can fixed sights drift off center over time?

All the more reason, I suppose, to get myself another decent .22LR pistol for shooting target.

SayUncle linked to a great piece on ammo prices. Seems mostly caused by what we’ve talked about before. High commodity prices, war demand, higher fuel prices, and shrinking surplus supply. One thing caught my attention, because I had never heard of this before:

I think the scariest part of all of the shortages are the role that our own government has had in the shortages, and this role is only going to get worse. As part of the 1994 Gun Control Act that gave us the assault rifle bans and high cap magazine bans, we also got a great many more things that people never heard about. Ever wonder why US made surplus for 223(5.56mm), 308(7.62mm), and 30-06 disappeared from the market? Loaded ammunition in government inventory cannot be sold to the public any longer as of 1994. If it was in private hands, controlled by another government, or was demilled with the original primer killed and removed then reassembled with a new non-milspec primer then it can still be sold. I’m not going into every deatil, but only the ban on assault style weapons and magazine capacity had a sunset in 2004, everything else was signed into law. If you think this isn’t real, look into this a bit further. You might be surprised! There is a lot more to gun control than banning guns, and I feel all shooters should broaden their horizons a bit when it comes to laws.

When you measure up and total the overall damage that was done to the shooting community during the Clinton Administration, it’s staggering.  Recall also that it was during Clinton we saw the Civilian Marksmanship Program get de-funded.

It seems to me this restriction would be easy to remove as a rider on another bill, like maybe the NICS improvement?   Too much to ask maybe?  I suppose we could always tack it on to a bill protecting children or something.

One of these days I would like to do one of Mr. Completely‘s e-Postal matches. Tonight I went to the range with the aim of seeing how I’d do. I’m not much of a presicion shooter. I generally practice to be good enough in a self-defense situation, but not too much on slow and deliberate fire.

I tried both my Ruger Mk.II 50th Anniversary edition pistol and my normal carry pistol, the Glock 19. I shot a few targets to warm up, because it’s been several weeks since I had shot. First I tried the Glock 19. This edition of the e-Postal match is Golf. The shooting was from 25 yards feet, weaver stance. My pistols have no optics or modifications. It’s all factory. I have to admit, this was pretty difficult.

Continue reading “Practicing to Go e-Postal”

Tongiht, after Bitter departed, I decided to give my new range membership an inaugural shoot. It’s quite fun to get back from shooting at 10PM. I started at 8:15 and ended an hour and a half later. I was pleased as punch to have an entire pistol range to myself for ninety minutes. One thing I’m discovering I need is a decent .22 target pistol. I have a Ruger Mk.II 50th Anniversary Edition, but it’s got a fairly short barrel. I’d like to get something with a longer one. If I’m going to be at the range a lot, and if it’s not crowded I will be, I need something I can shoot cheap. I’ll go broke shooting my Glock that much.

I am now a proud member of the Falls Township Rifle and Pistol Association. Facilities include trap range, with manual and automatic throwers. Indoor 25 yard pistol range. Outdoor 25/50/100/200 yard rifle range. 25 yard plinking range. It’s NRA and CMP affiliated, which is nice.  I’m hoping to get some CMP stuff through the club.

Now the real question is whether to maintain my membership at Classic Pistol, in Southampton. Classic Pistol is, without a doubt, the best indoor range in the area that’s not members only. Full auto is allowed, as well as rifles of any caliber. Pistol lanes are up to 15 yards, rifle up to 25. I think I’ll probably maintain it, and only drop it if I’m not using it enough. Since I can shoot there without being a member, if I don’t go enough, it’s not worth it to maintain the membership.

I’ll extend an open invitation to any of my readers to go shoot as a guest if you’re ever in the area.

Yesterday I was shooting my Calico M950.

This is a 9mm pistol with a 100 round helical magazine that feeds from the top.

I had a round that failed to go off when I pulled the trigger. I waited a minute to make sure it wasn’t a hang fire, cleared the round from the gun, set it aside, and finshed shooting the contents of the magazine.

I removed the magazine from the gun, made sure it was empty, locked to bolt back (it doesn’t lock automatically) and made sure the breech was empty.

So now I had this one bad round left. I could see the dimple on the primer from the firing pin, so it was struck. The round otherwise looked normal. I figured I might as well see if I can get it to fire (this was probably bad move #1).

I dropped the round into the breech, released the bolt, and without inserting the magazine (this was bad move #2), aimed, and fired.

There was an exceptionally bright flash from the top of the gun. My first though was…

You know, it’s probably not a good idea to fire this particular gun without the magazine inserted.

Then I felt something strike me in the face. My next thought was….

Yes, its definitely not a good idea to fire this gun without the magazine inserted.

At this point I’m thinking that the shell, instead of ejecting downward, ejected upward though where the magazine feeds and hit me in the face. This shouldn’t happen though. The ejector pin is part of the bolt assembly, and should function even without the magazine.

I set the gun down, and reach up to check my face for damage. My next though was…

Wow. Thats a awful lot of blood.

I don’t however, feel any major damage. So where is all the blood, now all over my shirt and all over the floor, coming from? Teeth! Check teeth!. Ah, good, all my teeth are intact. The inside of my upper lip does feel a little strange though. So, ok, shell ejects backwards, hits my upper lip, pushing it into my teeth, tearing the inside. Not fun, but I’ll live. I get a handkerchief from my dad (who was standing next to me), and use it to stop myself from bleeding all over everything. My dad doesn’t see anything on my face that makes him want to dial 911, and the bleeding quickly slows to something that isn’t scary. Ok. Time to pack up, head home, and get cleaned up.

I pick up the M900, and go to open the bolt to make sure the gun is empty before putting it away in the case. Hmmm. The bolt is jammed closed. And then I notice something metallic on the inside of my upper lip. I discover what seems to be a tiny piece of shell casing that has obviously gone through the front of my upper lip and out the back. And there is a large chip knocked out of the front of my glasses.

So the gun somehow sprayed shrapnel at me. I decide I better go to the ER and get an x-ray to make sure there aren’t any metal bits somewhere scary that I haven’t noticed. So we pack up the guns, hop in the car, and go.

On the way there I call my wife. “First, before I say anything else, I’m ok, so don’t worry. I’m going to be home a little late…….”

At the ER its determined that all the wounds are tiny and don’t require any bandaging or stitches, and that there is one metal fragment stuck in my right cheek and one just at the top of the left eye socket. Most of the blood came from the one small hole that went all the way through my upper lip.

I always wear glasses, so I don’t normally think about the need to wear safety glasses while shooting, but it should be noted here that had I not been wearing glasses, I would have lost my right eye.

So now I need to go see a plastic surgeon to decide if the fragments should be removed.

I got home that evening, and did an ‘autopsy’ on the gun. With the bolt removed you can see where the shrapnel came from.

The shell never ejected. Instead the primer and top of the shell blew out.

The bullet is lodged in the barrel, about an inch down from the breech. So it looks like the gun fired without the bolt all the way closed, and without the magazine inserted there was a fairly direct path from the exploding shell casing to my face.

Whats strange is that bolt is designed so that this can’t happen. There are a set of rollers on the bolt. With the rollers retracted, the firing pin can’t reach the shell.

Only with the rollers extended will the firing pin hit the primer.

and there is only space for them to extend like that when the bolt is fully closed.

So at this point I’m not sure what went wrong or how to make the gun safe to fire again.

Bitter: Did you count the rounds of ammo in your Glock dear? :)
Sebastian: Oh, no.  I didn’t.
Sebastian: 16 more then :)
Sebastian: So what’s my total and grand total?
Bitter: 5796 rounds for you.
Bitter: 8121 rounds total.
Sebastian: Add 1000 shotgun rounds we’ll pick up on the way to that and it’s 9121 total.
Bittter: We might qualify as insane :)
Sebastian: I think we do