Notes from the range

Two M44 rifles. One was hitting way to the left, until it was tried with the bayonet extended: then it was dead-on. Heard of it, first time I've seen it. The other one, the bayonet position made no difference.

Trying to get accuracy with ANYTHING when the wind is 25-30, gusting to 45, is a losing game. For the most part. I got a five-shot group from the Martini that spanned 1.5" at 100 yards, then the wind came back up and the group went to hell.

There's some Czech 7.62x25mm ammo available now, comes in a box of 40 on 8-round chargers(for loading subgun magazines, I guess). I picked up a couple of boxes at the last gun show to try and fired a box of it today. Clean, shiny ammo, all went 'bang' and fed & ejected properly, and accuracy seemed to be equal to anything else I've fired in the Tokarev. One odd thing about it: it's berdan primed, but where everything else of the type I've seen has two tiny flash holes, one on each side of the anvil, these have one. But it works.

Steve mentioned he's considering using some Colibri ammo in his .22 if the squirrels go after his tomatoes. If you've never tried this stuff, it's worth messing with. It fits any .22 long rifle chamber, and has no powder: primer only. They have two, Colibri and Super Colibri, the latter having a bit more priming compound. Neither will work a semi-auto action. They shoot out of all handguns I've tried, but the bullet won't make it out of the barrel of some rifles. But in the ones it works in... I've got a Remington bolt-action out of which the Super gives minute-of-squirrel-head accuracy to 20-25 yards, and when you pull the trigger all you hear is the 'click' of the firing pin falling; it makes a pellet rifle sound loud in comparison.

This was the first time I've been to this range in quite a while, and I picked up a BUNCH of Lake City .30-06 brass. And some Federal .308. All in the tumbler now.

When I say it was windy, I had to keep my muffs on just to keep my hat from blowing off. And while walking into the wind to set up targets, twice a gust damn near took them both off.

The more I shoot the TT33, the more I like it. The one problem I have is the grip angle: it's a bit closer to vertical than the 1911, and it makes me shoot low if I don't watch it. With good hollowpoints, I think this would be a nasty self-defense round: something like a Gold Dot at 1500fps, damn.

Got a question: the .30 Mauser and 7.62x25 cartridges are almost identical. Can dies for .30 Mauser be used to reload the 7.62? Anybody know?

Oh Lord, look at this! It's freaking amazing what people will do because 'somebody at the range told me'. And remember, kids, booze and boomsticks do NOT go well together*.

And it's not range-related, but a thought occurs: Obamas' latest bit of bullcrap pretty much sounds like "I will be the government: and I will savehelp you. Whether you want me to or not. Because I know better than you."