Both Linda and Aeryn (our house-guest) said, “You’ve been under a lot of stress- go shooting!” Yeah, twist my arm why don’t you… The obvious guns to shoot were the .22 Derringer and .45 Derringer since both had been modified to increase their reliability. The .22 target pistol needed to go too since I modified the front sight. So, testing… what else needs testing?  The Helwan is pretty new and hasn’t had gobs of ammo through it yet, so that for sure. I also took the Shopkeeper’s Special and the M&P .38 Hand Ejector just because they are a delight to shoot.

First up was the TD22 derringer. This had abysmal reliability in the first outing owing to the firing pin striking both light and too much towards the center of the base. With a new spring with better leverage and the firing pin adjusted to strike the rim it was reliable even with the crappy Remington Bulk ammo- only one round needed two strikes to ignite. The target below was shot at 3 yards. It is not an easy gun to shoot accurately, even at 3 yards but by the end I was learning to point-shoot it fairly well. It’s fun because it’s difficult.

Next was the TD45 derringer, shooting Freedom Munitions 230-grain copper-plated hollow points. These have a ‘jacket’ of thick copper plating that completely covers the lead core. Recoil was predictably snappy but not painful… until it wore a hole in my hand after about 25 shots. 100% reliable, BTW. The target was shot at 5 yards. I borrowed a band-aid and soldiered on.

The Helwan functioned flawlessly with Freedom Munitions 115gr. Hollow-Points- basically the 9mm version of the .45 hollow points described above. Freedom Munitions XTP self-defense loads also ran without a hiccup. So far this gun has been 100% malfunction-free with ball and three types of 115grain HPs through both magazines. Accurate, mild recoil with a decent trigger and good rapid-fire groups at 7 yards; I am really enjoying this gun.

The .22 Target Pistol shot good ten-yard groups- still unfortunately high. Didn’t do a lot of shooting with it as it was having head-space issues; the barrel was slipping forward against the set-screws which resulted in unreliable ignition. A thorough cleaning and some lock-tight will hopefully solve the problem.

The Shopkeepers Special shot pleasing palm-sized rapid-fire groups at ten yards with Freedom Munitions 158 grain HPs- Fully plated like the 9mm and .45 loads. I also shot these out of the .38 M&P hand-ejector, producing this five-shot rapid-fire group at ten yards. Yes, the hole on the left is actually from three bullets. A twenty-five yard rapid-fire target produced two five-shot groups about twice as large as this one with two flyers about 5 inches low. Oops.

In the course of things one of the rangemasters recognized me from the internet and we had a pleasant chat. He tried out the TD45 (one shot was sufficient, thanks) and the two .38s. He remarked on the trigger of the M&P; it really is light and exceptionally smooth. The century-old workhorse did herself proud tonight! He also let me try out his 1911A1- an old-school IPSC comp-gun with a double-chamber compensator, full-length guide-rod etc. Delightful gun, very accurate. I ached to do double-taps with it, but sadly that’s against the range’s rules. Damn.

Finished things u at home cleaning all the guns while catching up on NCIS:LA with my Sweety and a good, strong cup of coffee. All in all a great evening.