Ammo Review – CCI 9mm Shotshells

On August 11, 2011July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Review4 Comments

At the suggestion of a Twitter follower, @EnBloc, I set out to perform a scientific test of CCI 9mm shotshells, for protection against snakes and other small varmints in the woods. I planned to measure shot patterns at normal snake distances, and, as a final test, to shoot a tube sock filled with sand to show its real power.

That is, until a three foot long Canebrake Rattlesnake surprised us the other day at the range.

So, I decided to use another scientifically rigorous method. I shot that snake in the face.

Video courtesy of @RKBArms

As you can see, the shotshell was quite effective. In my opinion, one shot would have sufficed, but a follow-up shot was administered, just to be sure.

The 9mm CCI Shotshell contains number 12 shot, and claims to shoot at 1450 feet per second. However, at only 298 foot-pounds, the recoil from the round was not enough to cycle my Glock 17, so I had to cycle the slide myself. This is important to know in case the first shot is not as effective as this one was.

I had always wondered if these loads were effective. Now I know.

A Day at the Range

On August 10, 2011July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Bruce, Bucky, Captain America, Lee

There are trips to the range, and then there are Trips To The Range. Today’s trip was the latter.

My son Joey and I took my brother-in-law Mike to the range for his first shooting outing, and we met a fellow Twitter feller, Michael, a.k.a. @RKBArms.

It was a first for a lot of things: Mike’s first time shooting; Joey’s first time shooting an AR-15; the first time we shot the reincarnated version of my Ruger 10/22, Captain America; and my first time to meet and shoot with Michael. It would not be a boring day.

Captain America

What can I say? The gun is sweet. With the heavy barrel, there is almost no recoil. I was able to get the scope set on the side to side axis in my shop, so it was just a matter of dialing in the elevation at the range, and soon it was shooting just about spot on at 100 yards, or whatever distance it was to the dirt berm at the end of the range. There were several tin cans, pieces of cardboard, and clay pigeons on the berm, and we made them dance at will all day.

I wasn’t able to shoot it for a group measurement, since I found it hard to keep steady when I supported it by the foregrip. I need to add a bipod, or bring a chair and a sand bag.

Bucky

Complementing the 10/22, I brought the Buck Mark pistol, outfitted with my Tasco Red Dot sight. A couple of turns at it was spot on at the berm, too. My brother-in-law fell in love with Bucky, and I think he’s going to get one.

AR-15

Back when I went to the Blogger Shoot, I had borrowed a friend’s AR-15, which lasted all of 4 rounds before it TARFU’d on me. I finally bought the parts to fix it, and took it to the range with us.

I got to shoot about 10 rounds from it. My son then commandeered it and shot all the rest of the ammo. He wants one, bad. Okay, time for Project 3, I suppose.

Shotgun

I also took my newly refinished Mossberg 500 along, and shot about 10 rounds through it. I like the recoil pad that Hogue included with the overmolded stock. I’m going to try to go shoot some trap this week with it, so look for another report.

I also shot Michael’s shotgun, a Maverick 88 with an 18 inch barrel. Nice.

Here’s Michael with his shotgun.

Pistols

I also took Bruce my Glock 17 and the Duke, my Glock 21, and shot quite a bit through them. It was a good demonstration for my brother-in-law, to compare them to the .22LR of the Buck Mark.

My son shot a lot with the Glock 17, and I took the opportunity to try to talk him into his first competition, the GSSF Match at Conyers in September. We’ll see.

Michael also compared my Glock 17 to his Glock 19.

Other Stuff

In the middle of our shooting, up walks a small flock of 6 wild turkeys. They were completely -unfazed by all the shooting, but when my brother-in-law tried to call them over, the ran off into the woods.

We also saw a cheap semi-auto pistol whose slide completed cracked, all the way around, about an inch in front of the ejection port. The person shooting it said he had borrowed it from a friend, and that it was cheap, cheap. I guess so.

Ammo Test

Look for another blog post soon about this, with video.

All in all, a very nice trip to the range for us all.

From Steve Rogers to Captain America

On August 9, 2011August 16, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn 10/22, Captain America, Projects

A few years back, I won $200 in a sales contest right before Christmas, and I used it to buy a bare bones 10/22 on Christmas Eve. At the time, I named the gun Paul after my boss. Earlier this year, I bought a Browning Buck Mark .22LR pistol that I named Bucky, and it just made sense to start calling the 10/22 Captain America.

The problem was, Captain America wasn’t special. It was still bare bones. Yes, it was fun to shoot, and I had proved that about 2,000 times. But it wasn’t an Avenger by any stretch.

In fact, it was more like 90 pound Steve Rogers.

So, I decided to start my own Super Soldier program*.

I started by disassembling the 10/22. This can be done with a screwdriver and a punch. In fact, my Glock Armorer tool just worked just fine. For my modifications, I needed the receiver, the trigger group, the bolt assembly, and the bolt handle, guide rod, and recoil spring assembly.

Actually, this photo is a little deceiving, as it shows the parts after about 20 minutes of cleaning. I had shot about 2,300 rounds through the gun without cleaning the bolt or the receiver. The bolt assembly was completely black.

For my first modification I swapped out the factory extractor with a Power Custom Sharp Claw Titanium Extractor. The factory extractor is a stamped metal piece, and I could see the Power Custom replacement has a sharper profile and a cleaner face. This new piece should eliminate the periodic failures to extract that I have seen.

I also changed out the bolt release with a Volquartsen Automatic Bolt Release. One of the things found annoying about the 10/22 was that to release the bolt, you had to press up on the bottom of the bolt release, while pulling back on the bolt handle, and holding your mouth a certain way, and reciting a Druid chant. Okay, the last two weren’t really necessary, but they didn’t seem to hurt.

This Volquartsen piece is designed so that you just pull back on the bolt handle, let it go, and the bolt releases. Just like a regular rifle. Gee.

Next, I removed the factory barrel. The barrel is held in place by a barrel retainer and two hex head screws. Removing the screws, the barrel slides out. Actually, since my gun had 2,300 rounds through it, I had to put the barrel in a vise (protecting it with a rubber insert) and pound the receiver with a rubber mallet to get it to let go.

I then scrubber out the receiver and made sure it was ready for a new barrel.

Then, out came the new hardware.

The barrel I chose was a Shooter’s Ridge bull barrel, that I bought at the gun show last weekend, and a Tapco T-6 stock I bought off of Amazon.

The barrel is installed in the reverse of how the old one was removed, but without the pounding and cussing. Slide the barrel into the receiver and line up the ridge for retainer with the retainer lip. Much easier.

Install the retainer using the two hex head bolts.

Install the bolt, then the trigger group.

The Tapco stock takes a little assembly. The pistol grip is bolted on, and the stock is installed using two screws and bolts. Tapco includes two stock tubes, one slanted if your’re planning to use iron sights, and one straight if you’re going to use optics. I used the straight one.

Finally the barrel and receiver are installed using the take down screw from the original stock.

A hand guard is installed over the barrel, too.

It’s important to know that the barrel for a Ruger 10/22 should not be free floated, but should be supported on the stock per the manufacturer’s instructions. This has to do with barrel harmonics of the .22LR, and a free floated barrel will not be as accurate on a 10/22 as it would on a larger caliber rifle.

Finally, I installed a 2-6 x 28mm scope I had from a previous project, using some Weaver rings I had.

The final rifle is considerably heavier than the original, but is well balanced. The stock angle makes for an easy pointing gun, and set at 2x, the scope should do well even for close-in work.

Having said that, I am contemplating installing a 45 degree offset Weaver rail on the front rails, and installing a reflex or red dot sight for close-in shooting.

But, even without the red dot, at last, Captain America is ready to go fight the Nazis, or zombies, or whatever comes our way.

Tomorrow, the range!

* I’m not going to explain the history of Captain America. If none of these things – Bucky, Steve Rogers, the Super Soldier program – make sense to you, do some research.

Be Prepared, Part 7 – First Aid for the Range

On August 5, 2011 By Tom LindsayIn Uncategorized

I am taking a week of vacation next week, staying around the house to get some projects done, and planning a couple of range days. This got me thinking about the things in my range bag, and naturally, my First Aid Kit came to mind.

One of the best things I learned in Boy Scouts was First Aid. After taking countless first aid, CPR, and first responder training courses in my 26 years in the chemical industry, I have come to realize how really good the Boy Scout first aid training was.

Early in my career as an engineer, I was a little frustrated at how shallow the first aid training at our plant was. We learned nothing about splints, or tourniquets, or treating shock. But I soon came to realize the reason for the depth of training. In Boy Scouts, injured victims are extremely vulnerable out in the wilderness. There, your job in a medical emergency is to keep the victim alive until you can get back to civilization, and then to the hospital. In industry, all you have to do is keep the victim alive until the paramedics arrive. The time difference is extreme.

An injury at the shooting range is closer to the first situation than the second. Unless you’re at an indoor range in the city, chances are you are way out in the boonies, where it would take a paramedic crew a half hour to get to you, provided you could call them. I don’t know about you, but I don’t get a cell signal at the WMA where I take my son and the Posse to shoot for $5 a carload.

This means you need to be able to keep an injured person alive for at least 30 minutes, maybe longer, and for that, the normal car first aid kit won’t do. You need some kind of trauma kit that, at the least, helps you deal with a gunshot wound.

Fortunately, the state of the art in emergency medical care has advanced a lot since the Spanish American War when I was in the Boy Scouts. Compression bandages, clotting compound, and tactical tourniquets have all been developed since then, and you should have them in your bag.

Now, I’m not going to go into all that you should have in your bag. Bob Owens of Shooting Illustrated did an excellent job of that recently, and I can’t improve on his report. What I can do is tell you – have a first aid kit in your range bag.

In my bag, in addition to what Bob lists, though, I also have some regular adhesive bandages and a roll of first aid tape, because not all the injuries will be gunshot wounds. Fortunately, in my years shooting I’ve had to treat a lot of cuts and blisters, but no bullet holes.

Once you get a kit, get training. If nothing else, take the Red Cross Basic First Aid course, and make sure and ask the instructor to cover how to treat gun shot wounds at the gun range. While you’re at it, take a CPR course, and stay certified. You can find the American Red Cross in your phone book, or (if you’re like me and you throw that useless thing in the recycle bin as soon as it hits your driveway) you can look them up online.

The clotting agent and compression bandage makers all have videos on their websites, too. Watch them often, and know how to use them.

Above all, be prepared. Preparation means you stay cool, if and when an emergency happens.