Made a thread for all random gun stuff. General discussion.


I’ve really been tempted to try another DA/SA gun and in .45 Auto specifically. Either a really heavy-duty polymer gun like a USP, or a steel frame gun like the Magnum Research Baby Eagle III. I can’t say it’s necessary but it’s very tempting. Especially the Baby Eagle III, they look very nice. The local shop has a used but good condition Beretta Cougar .45 for a decent price that’s pretty tempting also. It would be a gun that’s right in the middle of the performance of the G27 and the 629 PC.

I’ve got all my categories covered now except one. I am still looking for a major caliber bolt gun, preferably in 308, since I already have the stuff to reload that round. I’ve been doing some bullseye pistol shooting that seems to be going pretty well, just rimfire. The Blackhawk will do double duty here for centerfire bullseye slow fire and long range pistol. Shooting with iron sights is coming along nicely and I shot my first sub - MOA group last trip out. Shot from a rest, with my rifle, using tailored hand loads, match bullets, aftermarket inverted V front sight, a 2-stage target trigger, on a 12” bullseye at 100 yards. That’s a long list of qualifiers but I did it. I need to practice more for the rimfire silhouette matches I tried. I may try to do them every month or so. It will also give me an excuse to tinker with my Marlins some more and install upgraded triggers. So far loads of fun all around. I really need to try more shotgun work. I’m sure I’m horrible. I haven’t touched my shotgun in several months. I bet I couldn’t hit the side of a barn from inside the hay loft.

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me2
I’ve got all my categories covered now except one.

For the moment I think I’m in the same boat as you.

Every time I consider getting another auto pistol like a .45 or a 10mm, I start doing serious number crunching and re-reading of Nathan’s findings, and then I determine that, realistically, I can’t gain enough over the .40 S&W without handloads or custom ammo to make a different cartridge worth the investment. And if my current 165 grain JHP’s at 1,075 FPS can’t do the job adequately, I have the .44 Mag to use.

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me2
I really need to try more shotgun work. I’m sure I’m horrible. I haven’t touched my shotgun in several months. I bet I couldn’t hit the side of a barn from inside the hay loft

Try it out if you like, it’s always a good time. Around here it’s been hard to find practice ammo but it’s not impossible. As long as you’re using buckshot or slugs, I would really recommend bowling pins for shotgunning. They’re ridiculously fun to shoot, basic buckshot or slugs really slam them around.

Lately I’ve been practicing my reloads. With both live ammo and snap caps. I’ve been shooting pump shotguns pretty frequently since like age 12, but what I haven’t practiced is quickly reloading from a shell belt while I’m out of breath and looking downrange instead of at the gun. So that’s what I’m working on.

Have any of you guys used shoulder holsters before? I’m really starting to like them because the gun and two reloads are all in one system. And it doesn’t matter what kind of clothing you have on, no need for a specific belt, etc.

My buddy carries a 1911 in one with 2 mags on the other side. He likes it but moves away from both for summer carry.

Yeah concealment is one thing, I think that mostly depends on the gun and the clothing worn. But for driving, outdoor stuff, hunting, combat, etc. I’m really starting to like them. Gotta get one for the G27 soon.

Also, an update on the Mossberg 590 Retrograde:

Not long into my testing I noticed two stress fractures in the wood stock. Contacted Mossberg with some good pictures of the cracks and said that considering how new the gun is, I think a replacement stock is a fair request. They reviewed the pictures, agreed with my assessment of them, and promptly shipped out a replacement stock for free. Quite a good experience from their customer service department. Can’t ask for more than that.

Shot my first sub MOA group with iron sights. 3 shots, carry handle sight and pinned front sight post, 20” chrome line FN barrel. Shots were from 100 yards off a bench with a Maxim polymer rest. I hope I can repeat it, but I’m willing to concede it was just luck. This barrel HATES the 75 grain Hornady match bullets so this was shot with the real deal 77 grain Sierra Match Kings over CFE 223 powder in Frontier 5.56 once fired brass. When I say HATES I mean it. It shoots 55 grain FMJ better.

Nice, I don’t know that I’ve ever shot a sub-MOA group with irons before. Just haven’t shot much of anything with iron sights. Right now I’m hovering around 1.5 to 2 with my 1895 .270 Winchester.

It’s interesting that the rifle doesn’t like those 75 grain Hornady bullets, I’d like to find out why. It’s a curious thing. But on some level it doesn’t matter much because those Sierra bullets are really excellent too.

Have you tried using any soft points in that cartridge yet? Something like Sierra’s 65 grain Gameking would be a highly effective all-around bullet for hunting and defense.

I loaded some 55 grain soft points for the 20” barrel. I want a muzzle velocity above 3000 FPS but I don’t have a way to measure it so who knows if I’m even close. The main upside to the Hornady projectile is it’s 30% cheaper. The 75s shoot extremely well out of the 16” barrel. The 77 SMKs shoot well out of both. I need to test the 55 grain soft points in the 16” barrel. Going from the 20” to the 16” seems loads are still good. I’ve only tried one that was set for the 16” and it doesn’t work in the 20”.

I’ve been shooting mostly iron sights since the beginning of this year. That’s been the most entertaining for me lately. I’ll try to replicate it tomorrow but I don’t have high hopes. This load was getting 1.5 MOA out to 150 yards so I was pretty pleased with that. I put a new 2 stage trigger in that rifle and either that made the difference (and I sucked with the standard trigger) or I just got lucky. I’ll know by tomorrow afternoon in any case.

A trigger is a huge part of the practical/real accuracy of a rifle. It really makes a massive difference to go from, say, a heavy and slightly creepy trigger like the one on my 1895 to the TriggerTech I have in my M700 that has literally no perceptible creep or overtravel and breaks at 1.5lbs. Mechanically speaking the gun and ammo is what it is, but in terms of the ability of the shooter to shoot it well, the trigger really is a massive factor.



Here’s an interesting question I did some pondering on this afternoon:

If I can hit a standard B-29 police silhouette target (14”x22”) with all 9 of the rounds from my G27 at 65 yards (laser verified), standing, offhand, slow-fire shooting, what exactly would I get out of a larger pistol?

There’s gotta be several ways to answer this, I mean several things that would make the larger pistol advantageous despite not necessarily needing any increase in practical accuracy. Magazine capacity, grip size being easier to securely use under stress, while running, with gloves, etc. And perhaps a push of the silhouette test out to, say, 80 or 90 yards if the gun and ammo is up to it and I can shoot it well enough.

I’m kinda trying to talk myself into an HK45 or USP 45, so I’ve been doing some thinking while shooting the .44 Mag and the G27 to try to figure out what I could do with the big H&K combat .45’s that I can’t do with my current pair of guns.

In terms of power, running .45 Super in one of the H&K’s would put it on level ground with my .44 Mag snubbie. They’d have a slight edge in magazine capacity over the G27 and a major one over the 629. They’d be bulkier than either of my current guns. And while I’m confident that both the Glock and the S&W will have long service lives without needing parts replaced, especially the S&W, neither one is likely to be able to match the extreme durability and reliability of the HK45. So maybe I need to pick up an HK45 along with a whole bunch of ammo and a shoulder holster.

I am of the opinion this if one carries a pistol or keeps one for use at home, then one needs to be able to hit with it as far as they can. Civilians in a defensive posture, as they are legally bound to be, rarely get to choose the engagement distance.

The whole reason for the Blackhawk is to shoot it beyond 50 yards and preferably beyond 100. A standard silhouette is a rather large target if hits anywhere count, and they do. Between the improved accuracy of the revolver action, the ability to tailor ammo via hand loading, and the trigger improvement over a striker fired pistol, my intent is to keep a full cylinder inside an 8” target to 100 yards. Can I do that now? From a rest, maybe, but doubtful. But with practice, some hand load tinkering, and likely some glasses, I hope to reach the point where it’s possible.

All that said, if you can do it at 65 yards, and you’re interested enough to keep trying, pushing to 100 may require an equipment change, or an equipment change may be a more efficient way to get there than the hours of practice it would otherwise require. Bullseye competition still has a 50 yard slow fire stage shot with one hand, off-hand, standing. Few people know how hard that is until they try it. Fewer know how much effort and skill it takes to put 10/10 in the 10-ring consistently. Admittedly that’s a world championship level shooter, but it’s possible. I reserve the right to revise all this after I’ve tried it a few times. Did I say 8”? I meant 18”.

I did a little trick shooting session yesterday with my Victory and Shield. I blew a shot and cut the top of the ranges target stand in half with the Blackhawk so I had to redeem myself. I don’t want to jinx myself but I might be getting the hang of the Shield finally. I was shooting at Q-tips and trying to cut business cards edge wise at 5 yards. I hit the edge of the cards 2 for 2 with the Shield, but didn’t cut them completely. They were warped so a straight path wouldn’t split them unless it was dead on.

Nice, I’ve never quite tried any kind of intentional trick shooting like that.


I think it was a mistake to avoid owning the N-Frame S&W before just recently. The more I shoot, reload, and handle the gun, the more I realize that this large revolver frame is extremely well-suited to the size of my hand. Other revolvers in the past have felt quite cramped, especially with regards to trigger reach and accessing the cylinder unlock latch, but this N-Frame is almost perfect. It’s really a great match ergonomically.

Try it some time. It’s refreshing to try some reactive targets and if you miss you don’t feel too bad. That’s what was supposed to happen. I want to try some sidewalk chalk bits to see what happens but I don’t think the range I go to will allow them. They’d be a load of fun though.

I loaded up and tested an array of charge weights with the 357 Blackhawk and some Hornady 148 grain hollow base wadcutter bullets. Those worked exceptionally well for a target/fun load. The powder charge was low, only 3.4 grains at maximum. Basically no recoil other than the gun moving. Velocity is probably in the 700 FPS range for the best load, though the upper charge range has a noticeable increase in noise and jump. If I can find a higher velocity load that shoots equally well this will fill my long range pistol slot perfectly. It actually outshot my Victory 22 at 25 yards off a rest, which is remarkable. That has been my standard for pistol accuracy since I started shooting a couple of years ago.

Particularly if you reload, it’s hard to beat a revolver for shooting fun. For my purposes a 44 Mag is a bit much but a Ruger Super Blackhawk was what started me thinking about a single action. Designers try to make autos flat for concealment but some ergonomic features just don’t go with that shape.

The wadcutter load is a good one for small game also, it could easily take the place of a .22LR as a survival tool for getting food. Hits significantly harder than any .22 would, but it’s still not as damaging to the meat as you might think. It just makes caliber-sized holes in critters. And there’s enough weight to the bullet to also easily handle larger varmints like raccoons, opossums, coyote, etc.

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As for the ergonomics, it’s not so much the flatness but just the overall size of the grip and location of the controls.

For clarification on the size of my dominant hand, my thumb measures 5.25 inches from the base of the first joint at the base of the hand to the tip of the thumb, and the length of my hand from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger is 8.2 inches.

I’m not sure exactly how large that is compared to the average person but I would suspect it holds to about the same ratio as my height of 6’2”. There are people who are taller than me, no doubt, but it’s generally the case that I’m taller than a significant majority of people present when I’m out in public. As a rough approximation I would say I’m taller than 80% to 90% of the rest of the people. And it’s probably the same case with my hand size.

For a long time now I’ve been of the opinion that the 5.56x45mm/.223 cartridge is underpowered and overrated as a combat/utility rifle cartridge.

However, with the relatively recent introduction of the ~75 grain hollow points and other similar bullets, in combination with the undeniable advantages of ammo availability, many rifles to choose from, and the generally adequate accuracy of the AR15 platform, I’m now of a mind that as a DMR-type rifle, a 200 yard and under precision/sniping/marksman rifle, the cartridge and rifle presents some quite strong arguments in its favor.

In a lot of ways I’m still leaning towards something with more power like the 6.8mm SPC, .308, .224 Valkyrie, etc. But with heavy bullets and the realistic range limitation of 200 or perhaps 300 yards at the most, the 5.56x45mm is still capable of lethal single hits, if less emphatic in terminal performance than a larger cartridge.

I’m currently looking for a varmint-style or SPR-style AR. Something with enough barrel length to send those heavy bullets flying at a minimum of 2,750 FPS and a good trigger to enable me to land hits on target with ease out to 200 yards in up to a 10mph crosswind with no need for holdover or Kentucky windage. If I can zero the rifle at 75 yards and simply point-and-shoot out to 200 yards, with no more than about 3” of either vertical or horizontal shift from drop or wind, I’d be happy. It looks like 20” to 24” barrels would be necessary for that, 18” might work but it’ll be louder and a little borderline with regards to velocity and trajectory. A 24” stainless varmint contour barrel would be very fast, quiet, and extremely stable if taking multiple shots. But they’re heavy, the rifle would be at least 10 pounds with a scope.

Right now it’s quite difficult to find anything but your typical 16” carbine AR locally, but with careful searching online I can find something that will fit the bill. I’ll top it off with my Leupold FX-II 4x32mm German #4 reticle scope, which is extremely good in low light and has enough magnification for engaging silhouette targets out to 200+ yards. If the stock trigger is a basic Mil-Spec unit then I’ll replace it with a TriggerTech 2-stage competition unit, not cheap but they’re very good quality.

At the moment, depending on what’s in stock when I actually order it, I’m looking at either Stag Arms or Rock River Arms. Both are excellent quality rifles and not overly expensive for what they are.

The RRA’s come with an excellent trigger out the box but the Stag SPR will need a new one, although the Stag Varmint model has an excellent one out the box, like the RRA’s. We’ll see what’s what when it comes time to actually order one. I’ll get a pile of 20 round Duramags also, no big 30 round banana mags, they protrude too far from the rifle and 20 is more than enough capacity for a DMR rifle.

I have a few questions before I offer any suggestions. What is the smallest target you want to be able to consistently hit out to 300 yards without holdover or windage correction? What is the minimum acceptable accuracy for the rifle? Do you plan to hand load for the cartridge or shoot factory ammo? How critical is ammo availability vs cost vs effectiveness?

Now a couple suggestions. If you’re willing to lug around a 10+ pound rifle I suggest considering a 308 based cartridge/rifle. My 308 weighs 10.6 pounds with scope and no magazine. The down side is recoil is considerably more and you may have to settle for 10 round magazines as the ammo is much heavier. Mine has a 20” barrel so you could drop to an 18” and save some more weight. I might also suggest an 18” barrel in 223. The difference between an 18” and 20” isn’t much. If you’re going for a 24”, see above. There is no question about the effectiveness of the 308 family of cartridges. My 20” and 16” 223s shoot very well out to 200 but they are finicky about ammo. I think spending more will reduce that pickiness but that’s no guarantee. I would also suggest Schmidt triggers. I have 3 of their nickel boron 2-stage triggers and they work well and are not as expensive as many others.

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me2
What is the smallest target you want to be able to consistently hit out to 300 yards without holdover or windage correction?

An 8” circle. I don’t want more than about 3 inches of either drop or drift out to 200 yards. A 3 inch circle from the ballistics, adding in the actual accuracy of the rifle itself, and my ability to shoot it, should mean that as long as there’s no more than 3 inches of drop or drift out to 200, I can land hits on that 8 inch circle no problem. At that point a miss would be my fault and not the rifle’s.

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me2
What is the minimum acceptable accuracy for the rifle?

It should shoot around 1 inch or better at 100 yards. That might seem excessive but see the above reasoning. If groups open up to 2 inches or more, I’d be likely to miss out long in anything but optimal conditions.

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me2
Do you plan to hand load for the cartridge or shoot factory ammo?

Buy factory ammo.

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me2
How critical is ammo availability vs cost vs effectiveness?

The ammo availability is really critical because of the current situation. 5.56/.223 is easily the most prevalent rifle cartridge I’ve seen around, with .308 in second place. But it’s gotta be something more substantial than a measly little FMJ. Even the .308 is weaksauce with FMJs.

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me2
If you’re willing to lug around a 10+ pound rifle I suggest considering a 308 based cartridge/rifle.

That’s the only thing that gives me pause with a 24” varmint rig. For the weight I could have quite a bit more power with a .308. The upside is that the 5.56 from a 24” barrel is relatively quiet with little flash, and also has so little recoil that the rifle could be used to keep someone from breaking from cover by continuous fire at quite a long range. The .308 has a bit too much buck for that.


The .308 though, firing Hornady’s A-Max/ELD-M or Sierra’s TMK, even from a 16” barrel, will put a serious hole in whatever the target is at these ranges and well beyond. It’s in a totally different class of damage from the 5.56x45mm.

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Ryan Nafe
But it’s gotta be something more substantial than a measly little FMJ. Even the .308 is weaksauce with FMJs.

To substantiate that a little bit, the .308 with the typical M80 ball ammo people use for plinking or (please don’t) defense/combat, the wounding is typically less severe than you’d get from a basic handgun JHP. It’s pathetic, caliber-sized holes with some bruising around the holes. That’s pretty bad considering the size of the cartridge and rifle.

Also, in re-reading a few sections of Nathan’s book, it would appear that the 60 grain V-Max from a 16” carbine would be perfectly acceptable out to 200 yards, the only downside would be that it’s not very lethal after barriers are encountered. So something like a Windham or Rock River 1/9 twist carbine, launching the 60 grain V-Max, would be an option too. As long as the accuracy is good enough.

I have both my 20” and 16” set up to hit a 6” target out to maximum point blank range of about 270 yards. The 20” is set with iron sights/carry handle style elevation drum sights and the 16” is with a scope. That leaves me with a couple inches of SWAG to keep in an 8” circle. Projectiles start 3” below the line of sight, pass through it somewhere around 45 or 50 yards, peak at 3” above POA @ 150 yards & drop through POA at 235 on the way to -3” @ 270. The 308 is set the same but the ranges are a little less as the 175 grain SMK is slower than the 77 grain SMK from a 223. It’s about a 3 yard difference. Do the 308 match bullets behave the same way as the FMJ terminally?

Your accuracy requirement is pretty high. An off the shelf rifle with factory ammo holding 1 MOA is a pretty tall order. Under those conditions none of mine will do that. They’re 2 or 3 MOA unless I can find match ammo and even then the 223 goes to about 1.5 MOA. The 308 will but it has to be Federal Gold Medal Match. With factory ammo out to 200 yards my 16” barrel will group between 4 and 5 inches consistently. That has a lot of qualifiers though. My rifle, known distance, off a rest, factory ammo, mil-spec trigger, max magnification in the scope (9x) etc.

To meet that requirement I have to hand load for both calibers and even then it’s no guarantee. The attached photo is the same rifle at 100 yards. The group on the left is Hornady 75 grain HPBT and the right is Sierra 77 grain SMK. Each projectile was propelled by different powders. Hornady was IMR 4064 and the Sierra was CFE 223.

The Speer gold dot projectiles heavier than 55 grains have started showing up again. Those seem like a good option provided the barrels like them. My 16” barrel has a great distaste for Hornady 60-68 grain bullets. 75 shots great, 55 shots great, but that mid range is right out. Both my 223s have 1/7 twists.

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me2
Do the 308 match bullets behave the same way as the FMJ terminally?

It depends on impact velocity and how much, if any, bone or equipment is hit. At closer ranges and when heavy bone is hit, they can produce wounds up to about 3” wide. At longer ranges when no bone is hit, they’re just caliber-sized like the FMJ would be. In the middle of that, with light bone and moderate impact velocity, wounds will be around one inch in diameter. This is information from Nathan’s pretty extensive testing of that kind of ammo, actually killing animals with it, not ballistic gel.

The A-Max or ELD-M bullets are completely different, they have very thin and soft jackets combined with a polymer tip that cause them to fragment on impact, even at velocities down around 1,600 to 1,800 FPS. They’re completely devastating, imagine the same kind of terminal performance as a 60 grain varmint bullet but everything is scaled up, wider and deeper wounds of the same explosive nature. With those kind of bullets, any hit anywhere on the torso of a combatant would be immediately lethal. The world’s best trauma surgeon couldn’t save the person even with immediate access to them, let alone a battlefield medic. And that performance, especially with either 168 or 178 grain bullets, will be maintained after barriers like car doors or glass because of the mass of the bullet.

For certain hunting applications (long ranges or short barrels), for self defense, and for actual combat in a warzone, the tipped match bullets from Hornady are the most effective you can get. Unequivocally. The Sierra TMK bullets are very similar but just slightly more hard and thick jackets that cause them to be a little less explosive on impact.

Side note: The 60 grain V-Max (and other bullets of similar construction and weight) in the .223 are also in the same category of lethality. In the sense that, if a combatant is hit in the torso, the wounding is so severe that no trauma surgeon could save them. A frontal hit to the upper torso would, for example, completely destroy a lung, heart, liver, whatever organ it happens to hit. The difference is that the smaller .223 bullets don’t do so well through barriers, equipment, or heavy bone, and the wounding is of course less broad and less deep, but you’re still talking about fist-sized holes in vital organs and virtually certain death.

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me2
Your accuracy requirement is pretty high. An off the shelf rifle with factory ammo holding 1 MOA is a pretty tall order.

Yeah it’s certainly better than the average M4-style rifle will produce, and that’s why I’m mostly looking at varmint/hunting rifles. Many of them come with accuracy guarantees and will easily group under (sometimes way under) one inch at 100 yards with the ammo the rifle likes.

RRA, for example, offers either a 1 or a 3/4 MOA guarantee on pretty much all their rifles, the varmint models having the 3/4 spec. On their 6.8 SPC and .450 Bushmaster rifles they open that up to 1.5 MOA, still quite good.

Well that certainly encourages me to finish my Amax load development. They shot about .75 in preliminary testing but I want to try a different powder. The first one would require a gas adjustment that would likely prevent the other loads from running. I’m working with service rifle loads just to avoid that sort of thing.

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me2
The Speer gold dot projectiles heavier than 55 grains have started showing up again. Those seem like a good option provided the barrels like them.

Yeah the bonded bullets in .223 are a pretty solid option, even the relatively light 55 grain ones. More damage than a typical FMJ but more penetration than a varmint bullet like the V-Max. They strike a nice balance in performance. The homogeneous copper bullets like the Barnes or Hornady’s GMX are good up close and through barriers but they really don’t do well below impact speeds of about 2,500 FPS. Narrow wounds below those speeds, not much better than an FMJ.

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me2
My 16” barrel has a great distaste for Hornady 60-68 grain bullets. 75 shots great, 55 shots great, but that mid range is right out. Both my 223s have 1/7 twists.

This kind of thing is something I find interesting about the 5.56/.223 AR rifles. It’s just so much different than other rifle cartridges I’m used to, typically there’s only one or maybe two twist rates and the rifles do alright with basically all bullet weights commonly available, there’s not nearly so much variety in specs and performance.

Here’s an idea I’ve been mulling over lately for a survival gun: A 4” or 6” barrel .22 Mag revolver. Leaning towards the 6” barrel for the extra velocity and sight radius.

Ballistically you get equal or better power than a .22LR rifle, in a much more compact handgun. It can easily handle small game animals for food of course, could take larger animals like deer at close range with head/neck shots, and while not overly powerful it can still be used for defense from people if necessary.

To me it makes a lot of sense. .22 Mag ammo, while still more expensive and scarce than it used to be, is also much cheaper than many other cartridges right now and I see it around fairly frequently. It’s also similar to .22LR in that you could carry hundreds of rounds on your person without much weight and bulk. A couple 50 round boxes can easily fit in a coat pocket, for example, where the same amount of ammo for a larger cartridge would be much more bulky and heavy.

What do you guys think?

I have no experience with 22 magnum but it sounds feasible. I’ll say after trying with my Blackhawk and Victory, shooting a handgun past 50 yards requires a lot of practice. If you’d limit realistic ranges to 25 yards I think that’s way more workable.