.45acp Range Day

[Graybeard]

Yesterday was another range day for me. I decided to make it a .45acp range day taking only handguns so chambered up with me.

I took four different handguns with me, three pistols and one revolver. They were:

1. Ruger Black Hawk Convertible .45acp/.45 Colt
2. Walther PPQ M2
3. Springfield XDm 5.25
4. S&W M&P

First gun up to be shot was the Ruger BH. I bought this gun because I had loaded up over a thousand rounds of ammo using 185 grain plated FN bullets from HSM and somehow managed to load all of them with too short an overall length to feed in the pistols.

I loaded it up with 6 rounds of that ammo and lined up on target. BUT the sight picture was all wrong. At first I was puzzled, then I realized that the right hand half of the rear sight blade was missing. Yup, don't ask me how cuz I have no clue but the right had half of the rear sight blade is sheared off right in the middle of the notch, everything to the right is just gone.

I finishing shooting that cylinder of ammo at a paper target at 25 yards cuz I was planning to sight this gun in with this load and leave it that way until I finish shooting up the 1014 rounds of it I loaded.

Surprisingly I turned in a fairly decent group to have only a half a rear sight to use. But it was bad low and bad to the right. Still a quite decent 3" or so group, far better than I had a right to expect from half a sight.

Today I called Ruger and told them what happened and they were as surprised as me and like me had no clue how half a rear sight blade can shear off and fall away. But one is on the way so I'll get back to this gun once it arrives.

Next I shot the Walther PPQ M2. Last time I was out I had opened a 50 round box of hardball ammo and so I began with that to see if the Walther shot it close to POA or not. I shot my 8" falling plates and found that yes hardball does shoot pretty much to POA in this gun. I also shot some reloads with 200 grain plated HPs and some factory reloaded 185 JHPs and all of them were hitting close enough to POA to hit the 8" falling plates and also my rabbit and 12" steel plate targets. All shooting was done at 25 yards from the bench with wrists rested on sand bags. I'd guess today I hit about 75% to 80%, not as good as last time out but for a shaky old fart who no longer can clearly see the sights, not too shabby.

Next up I broke out the Springfield XDm 5.25. I've had this pistol quite a few years tho I've never really shot it extensively. It has prolly been a couple years since I last shot it. I finished up the last of that box of hardball and then moved to the 200 grain plated HPs.

I loaded up 10 rounds of the 200 HPs and settled in to shoot. First round hit steel and then the next just snapped. I ejected it and saw a good dent in the primer but it failed to fire. Of the next 6 rounds four failed to fire but had good dents in the primer. I'm thinking an ammo problem even tho all the rest I've shot of this ammo worked fine.

I finished off the 10 rounds with only four of them failing to fire. Just for grins I loaded those 4 in the Ruger with a half of a rear sight and pointed the gun at the back stop and fired all four rounds with no issues. So it wasn't an ammo problem with another gun issue.

I'm guessing this one just needs to be taken down and given a good cleaning and lube. As I said I've had it several years and haven't fired it in likely a couple years at least. I figure it's pretty dry and perhaps dirty as well.

Next up should have been the S&W M&P but by this time I was kinda worn out from walking back and forth resetting the falling plates so I shot the Walther one last time and packed all my stuff up and put it away.

I guess I shot close to 75 rounds, I didn't count. I found almost all the cases I fired but was with shooting splattermatics ya never find them all.

I came away from this shooting session with a few insights. One is that shooting isn't nearly as much fun for me these days as it used to be when I was younger and when I had a shooting partner. Two, I really don't like recoil that much anymore. My old arthritic hands don't deal with as well as they used to.

Used to be shooting hundreds of rounds of .44 magnum in a day was easy and I've also shot up to a couple hundred rounds of .454 Casull and .480 Ruger a day when doing the reviews on the two Raging Bulls and FA83 in those calibers.

My next shooting session will be with .22LR guns.

[Ranger99]

If you're at a place where it can
be done, put down an old sheet
or a tarp. That should make it
way easier to police up your
stray brass.  I do it sometimes
to make sure I don't find any
later stuck in a tractor tire

[Graybeard]

I could and I have but the way the guns I've been using toss them I'd need several sheets or tarps to hope to catch them all. It is truly amazing the different angles and distances I find cases thrown to.

My shooting bench sits in a place where I have the ground pretty well cleared around it. Still some leaves have fallen and some greenery has sprouted. If I'd use a rake to clear the leaves again and clip what little green has grown up it would be some easier.

But overall it's not bad. I don't generally lose more than a half dozen or so in a range session and some of those I'll find next time even tho I'll also perhaps lose some from that next session.

I have many thousands of pieces of brass for each caliber and am not worried at all about the few I lose.

Now when I eventually get around to shooting my Remington R15 .30 RAR that's a different matter. Those cases are for sure not in unlimited numbers. Still I have several hundred rounds of ammo for it and figure that is easily a life time supply.

[Lloyd Smale]

I put up a treated plywood wall at my bench and the spot i shoot off hand. Cases hit it and fall right there. Ars are nice because you can put brass catchers on them that weight about nothing. I take my ak to camp when i want to blast there. Lots of tall grass and i can shoot cheap (because i bought 5 cases a few years back) steel cased ammo and just let it lay. But like bill i have tons of the common stuff like 556 9 40 and 45 and if i loose a few even every day, ill never run out.

[oldandslow]

I have the shaky hands, arthritis, can't see that great anymore, no stamina thing too. I pretty well solved my problem of rounding up spent brass from"splattermatics" by building a brass catcher from 1/4" mild steel rod bent into a frame that I attached a cut down laundry bag to with little tie-wraps that i can place on my shooting bench. It gets nearly all of them. I solved the steel target thing by using swingers hung on a frame that breaks down into five pieces made from thin wall conduit and j-hooks. Put 'em up, shoot 'em till you get tired, and take 'em down and that involves only two trips for the whole shooting match. Since so many people decided that where I live out of town is so nice and moved out here I can no longer shoot safely at my home. I drive 25 miles one way to a gun club range where I'm a member. Other than that it's out under the cap to BLM land using a portable bench and involving a longer drive. It certainly would be nice to have something set up to where I could just walk out the door and start shooting and I do so with air guns but something is just missing with them.

I shoot more 22 rimfire guns now than all the other calibers combined.

[Graybeard]

I have a 100 yard range in my back yard. I have a large berm at 25 with targets set on two rails. Rail one is a crosstie laying on the ground. I have holes drilled into it and have several swinger targets permanently mounted there. Next to it I have an 8' 4x4 with legs to look like a sawhorse.

On that rail I have a large rabbit target on the left end and a 12" gong on the right end of it. In between I place those 8" falling plate targets. So I have plenty of targets to shoot at 25 yards that don't require me to walk. But the swingers are all much smaller and not so easy for me to hit with my semiauto guns. The rabbit and 12" gong area little too easy so I do like to shoot those 8" falling plates. I just wish they were swingers rather than falling plates.

At 100 yards I have a 12' 4x4 rail again set like the one at 25 with legs like a sawhorse. I have a variety of metal plates mounted to it with hardware that lets them move when hit but holds them in place. I have sizes 4", 6", 8", 10" and 12" plates there.

All are supposed to hold up to centerfire rifles at 100 yards but I don't think I'll be testing them with FMJ .223 ammo tho do intend to use ammo with various varmint bullets loaded on them.

I did shoot one of my .44 magnum rated swingers at 25 yards one day with the AR likely FMJ ammo and boy did it pock mark it. I really think it would have worked OK even with FMJ at 100 yards.

[oldandslow]

All I can say is I'm jealous. If I were quite a bit younger I would just move somewhere farther from town but I'm happy with things the way they are except for too many close neighbors. At my age I'll just stay put and drive somewhere to shoot.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that AR500 steel targets shouldn't be shot closer than 100 yards with center fire rifles but can't swear to it as I only shoot them with pistols.

[Graybeard]

That seems to be the rule with AR500. I had a buffalo target, a rather large one that we used for shooting at a shoot set up thru GBO many years ago. We shot it at 250 yards and used all sorts of rifles to include .338 Win Mag and 7 STW and a lot of lesser rounds. It really didn't even dent it at that range using any of them. Bullets just disintegrated on it.

I had one once rated for 44 magnum and hit it with that at 100 yards and actually bent the target sideways. It's a good thing I didn't try it at 25 first.

All the targets I currently have are rated for 44 magnum at 25 and rifles at 100.