Another early evening trip to Champion Arms shooting range in Kent, WA. A bit of test shooting, some practice and drills. A good time overall, but not without issues…
Issue number one, I used the bullseye targets they print on-site, and I don’t know if they’ve changed the paper they’re using, but this time they were tearable. No, that’s not a typo; the targets had a marked tendency to tear when the bullets hit them. A pretty minor quibble; if the problem persists I’ll mention it to them.
Southern Comfort, my Frankengun .38 Sort Colt cartridge conversion, had an issue with punching holes in the primers. I replaced the firing pin and that fixed that. So of course now there’s an issue with the hand spring; the gun has decided to only rotate the cylinder if I point the muzzle up. Bugger. The good news it it has turned out to be surprisingly accurate!
Next up was the Colt Detective Special .32. I did some drills at seven yards and noticed a couple of keyholed hits. Not a good thing… and it got worse. I ran the target out a bit further and accuracy was out the window, and practically every bullet that didn’t keyhole exhibited yawing. These bullets don’t normally do this, but the most recent box has shown this tendency. I’ve contacted the manufacturer.
The Old Dog- a Model 1902 .38 Special- was in fine form, and liking the mid-range 125gr. loads.
I tried something different this evening too- the Panic Shot drill. It’s simple- target at three yards, gun in a single-hand grip pointed downward. Point the gun (without raising it to eye level) and get a shot off as fast as you can, alternating strong and weak hand. If you have a partner have them signal you when to fire. It can be very revealing.
Aside from the minor issue with Southern Comfort’s hand-spring and the keyholing bullets it was an enjoyable and productive session. I’ll get the hand-spring fixed, dead easy really, and get some different .32 bullets.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 3 January 2020
Oh, and Happy New Year!