Category: Guns

ExNotes Mentors: Command Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman

By Joe Berk

Command Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman died way too young.  He was 48 when he passed, and that was just a few years after I knew him.  He was a tall, lean man with a salt and pepper crew cut, and like most of the noncommissioned officers I knew, he had a southern accent.  I only knew him for a year and that was more than a half century ago, but during that year he taught me something I value to this day.  Sergeant Major Hickman taught me how to shoot a handgun.

I first met Sergeant Major Hickman shortly after he was assigned to the Rutgers University Reserve Officers Training Corps detachment.   The Army held these kinds of cush assignments out to very senior NCOs as they finished distinguished 30-year careers.  Sergeant Major Hickman earned it:  He served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and he had the rows of ribbons showing that and much more.  As with all Sergeants Major in the US Army, it was always “Sergeant Major,” never “Sergeant” or “Sarge.”  Only a very tiny percentage of NCOs make E-9; addressing such men as “Sergeant Major” conveyed the respect they deserved.   After I knew him, he was promoted to Command Sergeant Major, and just in case you ever encounter someone with that exalted rank, all three words should be used, as I did at the beginning of this blog.

The last half century has been a contest between my marksmanship skills going north and my vision going south, but thanks to the good Sergeant Major and what he taught me, I’m holding my own.  I still sometimes dazzle folks at the range.  What I’d like to do in this blog is talk about the fundamentals, tips, and techniques Sergeant Major Hickman taught me.  I don’t shoot competitively these days, but I can still keep my shots in the black.  If you use the tricks and techniques Sergeant Major Hickman taught me and if you practice a lot, maybe you will be able to do the same.

In 1973 when I picked up my MacManus 1911, my father and I both thought of ourselves as above-average shooters (Dad was a world-class trapshooter, and I did okay with a rifle).  We assumed we could do well with a handgun, too.  That is, until I came home with my 1911.  We tossed a soda can about 20 feet out in our backyard and shot at it (in those days we could do that).  I went first and emptied an entire magazine without hitting the can once.  Dad had a laugh and then he tried.  He didn’t do any better.  We concluded that pistols were just not accurate.

I felt that way until I met Sergeant Major Hickman.  He had heard about my MacManus award and he asked if I’d like to learn how to shoot the 1911.    You know what my answer was.  The Sergeant Major and I spent a lot of time on the Rutgers Campus Police pistol range over the next year.   What follows is what he taught me.

1. Get A Grip

Forget all the Hollywood silliness.  We don’t hold guns sideways like gangbangers, we don’t shoot from the hip, we’re not interested in how fast we can empty a magazine (the video above notwithstanding), and we don’t fire more rounds than the gun holds.

A handgun should nestle in the web of your hand, and it should form a straight line with your forearm.  In this photo, the camera focused on the rear sight, which is not the way to do it.  Focus instead on the front sight.

Back in the day, it was all about bullseye competition, and that involved shooting with iron sights and one hand only.  Sergeant Major Hickman showed me how to stand at about a 30-degree angle to the target, place the pistol firmly in the web of my hand, close my eyes, and bring my arm up to point the pistol at the target.  “When you open your eyes,” he said, “the sights should be on the bullseye.”  He continued by telling me that if I had to twist my body or move my arm to bring the gun to the bullseye, my stance was wrong.  When I could close my eyes, bring the gun up, open my eyes (both eyes), and the sights fell naturally on target, my grip and stance were correct.  The grip should be tight, but not so tight that my hand trembled.

Pachmayr grips are my favorite for a 1911. They fit my hand perfectly.

I like fancy grips, but fancy doesn’t put shots in the black.  Over the years I’ve found the best grips for a 1911 are Pachmayrs.  I have others that are prettier, but the Pachmayrs offer the best control and consistency.  You can still get Pachmayr grips on Amazon.

2. Front Sight Focus

When I fire a round at a target, I don’t see the target.  It’s a Jedi (read: Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman) mind trick.  When my gun fires, all I see is the front sight and the bright orange propellant flash.  When I see the front sight outlined by the muzzle flash, I don’t need to see the target.  I know the bullet is in the black.

Focus should be on the front sight. The target and the rear sight should be blurred. The sights you see here are Millet sights installed by good buddy TJ.

I start by putting the top of the front sight at 6:00 on the target’s black bullseye, but my focus quickly shifts to the front sight and it stays there until the firearm discharges.  The target and the rear sight will be a blur, but the front sight will be sharp as a tack.  It’s where all my concentration is, it’s the only thing I’m interested in, and per Sergeant Major Hickman’s instruction, I will have both eyes open.  I’m not worried about what my other eye sees.  My total focus, my total being, is on that front sight.  That’s the biggest secret in handgun shooting.  Other things are important, too, but not as important as front sight focus.  Front sight only.  It’s hard to do, but when you do it, this single thing will improve your shooting more than anything else.

3. Breath Control

When I’m ready to shoot, I take a deep breath, I let it partly out to what feels like a natural pause point, and then I start squeezing the trigger while continuing to focus on the front sight.  Sergeant Major Hickman told me that’s what it takes.  He went on to tell me that the Soviet marksmanship training unit (the Soviet Army’s pistol team) had researched what made the difference between simply hitting in the 10-ring versus hitting in the x-ring (the x-ring is a smaller circle within the 10-ring used for breaking ties).  The Soviets found that their top target shooters, without realizing it, were actually firing between heartbeats.   They didn’t realize they were doing this, but they were.  That’s info only; we’re interested in holding our breath at a natural exhalation point for the second or two it takes to focus on the front sight and squeeze the trigger.  Speaking of which…

4.  Trigger Control

Point one on the topic of trigger squeeze:  Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

The trigger finger pad should engage the trigger, not the first joint of the trigger finger.

Sergeant Major Hickman taught me that when shooting a single action semi-automatic or a revolver in the single action mode, I should put the pad of my trigger finger (the part of my finger midway between the tip and the first joint) on the trigger. He explained that while I was focused on the front sight, I should start squeezing the trigger, but not think about it.  The front sight will be aligned in the blurry rear sight, but it won’t be possible to make everything freeze on the target.  The front sight will always have some motion on the target.  The Sergeant Major told me not to worry about that.  “The only way to make everything motionless is to be dead,” he said, “and you’re not dead.” Sergeant Major Hickman told me to simply hang on to the front sight and steadily increase trigger pressure.  Just focus on the fundamentals, he said, and the groups will get smaller.  Let the target swim around.  Maintain a good grip.  Hold the right stance.  Focus on the front sight.  Breath control.  Trigger squeeze.

5.  Be Surprised

What you want, the Sergeant Major said, is for the gun to surprise you.  What you don’t want to do is anticipate the shot and then jerk the trigger.  That will cause you to flinch (to jerk the gun in anticipation of the shot), and the gun will be pointed somewhere other than the target when it discharges.  When I did it right, I was (and I still am) surprised when the gun fires.  In fact, when I’m really doing it right and concentrating on the front sight, I do not even hear the gun fire.  When that happens, you know you are on your way.  Sergeant Major Hickman was right:  Seeing the orange flash and not hearing your shots means the bullets are in the black, and that is a good feeling.

6.  Dry Firing

You can’t do this with most guns chambered for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge, but you can dry fire until the cows come home with any centerfire handgun, and I do.  A lot.  I have a small black dot hanging in my office that I use for a target, and I spend a bit of time nearly every night dry firing a handgun at it.   It is one of several tricks Sergeant Major Hickman taught me.  I’m focused on the front sight when I do this, and I’m looking for it to not move when the hammer falls.  I want the front sight to remain motionlessly centered in the rear sight groove (and the top of the front sight to remain even with the top of the rear sight) when the hammer falls.  Doing this on a daily basis improved my shooting significantly some 50 years ago; doing it today on a regular basis keeps me sharp.

7.  A Penny (or more) For My Thoughts

If you can balance a penny on the front sight and it remains in place when the hammer falls, you are making progress.

Here’s another trick the Sergeant Major taught me:  Balance a penny on top of the 1911.  Or a nickel.  Or an empty case.  You want it to stay put when the hammer falls.  When that happens, it indicates that I didn’t jerk the trigger.  When I can do that consistently, I know I’m doing well.

8.  The Bic Trick

A Bic wrapped in masking tape. Read on…this gets interesting.

Here’s yet another cool trick Sergeant Major Hickman taught me:  Take a Bic pen and wrap tape around it in two places so that the pen fits snugly but with no resistance inside the barrel.  Put the rear end of the pen all the way into the barrel.   When dry firing, the firing pin smacks the back of the pen and the pen will jump forward.

The tape should be wrapped to a diameter that fits snugly without drag in the barrel.
Loaded and ready to shoot.
My indoor target. The pen will shoot out with surprising velocity. Don’t point it at anyone and use a pad so the pen doesn’t shoot through the paper target.
Look at that…a Bic group!

If you stand like you would when live firing, but with the pen’s tip a couple of inches from a target taped to a wall, the pen’s point will imprint on the target.   Do that a few times and you’ll get a group, just like you would if you were firing live ammo.  Do it a lot.   It will help you to master the fundamentals described above, and your live fire groups will shrink.  Trust me on this: They will shrink a lot.

9. Live Firing

I have never been able to shoot a handgun well without substantial time on the range.  Let me say that again:  I did not get better without substantial live fire practice.   I spend a lot of time on the range, and it helps to keep my skills sharp.  I fire two to three hundred rounds through a handgun every week.  If you don’t have a sponsor or you don’t reload, you better be rich because factory ammo costs are going to roll up pretty quickly.   I don’t have a shooting sponsor, so for me, reloading is the way to go. Here’s a good place to get information on how to get into reloading.

10.  The Surprise Empty Chamber

Here’s another great training approach Sergeant Major Hickman shared with me:  Have a buddy “load” your gun, but without you seeing what he (or she) is doing.  What you want your buddy to do is sometimes load a live round, and at other times, to load no round (or an empty case if the gun has a loaded chamber indicator).  You want to not know if you are dropping the hammer on a live round or an empty chamber.  That’s going to tell you immediately if you are jerking the trigger (or flinching).  If it’s not a live round and the gun twitches when I drop the trigger, I know I still have work to do.  When I can drop the hammer and the gun remains motionless, I know I’m making progress.

11.  Empty Cases at an Empty Head

Empty cases? Yep. They are surprisingly useful training aids for improving concentration, especially when bounced off your noggin.

Sergeant Major Hickman used to stand behind me when I was shooting and throw empty .45 cases at my head.  At first I felt the cases hitting my head and I reacted (the Sergeant Major wasn’t being gentle).  But after I became one with the front sight (I can’t emphasize the front sight enough), I stopped feeling those .45 ACP empties hitting my head.  I’d have little welts afterwards, but I stopped feeling the cases when they whacked me.  I realize this is a trick that’s kind of out there, but it sure helped me hone my concentration.

12.  The Right Load

The last thing I’ll mention is that having a load optimized for your handgun really does make a difference.  If you don’t reload, your options are limited to buying a bunch of different factory offerings and seeing what works.  If you reload, though, you can develop a load tuned to your handgun.  We’ve done a number of blogs on the optimal loads for different guns, and I’d invite you to peruse our Tales of the Gun page to read what we’ve found works best in our guns.  I’ve found that a 230-grain cast roundnose bullet over 5.6 grains of Unique with an overall cartridge length of 1.250 inches is a very accurate load.  Another favorite is a 185-grain cast semiwadcutter bullet over 5.0 grains of Bullseye with that same overall cartridge length of 1.250 inches.  So does 4.2 grains of Bullseye and a 200-grain cast semiwadcutter bullet (and again, the same overall cartridge length).  Be advised, though, that most 1911 handguns won’t feed these last two loads if the gun has not been ramped and polished.  If you need your 1911 ramped and polished, look no further than TJ’s Custom Gunworks (he’s the best there is).

A Half Century (and a ton of lead) Later

So here I am, 50 years later, writing about my 1911 mentor, Sergeant Major Emory Hickman.  I remember that first range session with him like it was yesterday.   After listening to him and practicing what he taught me, my skills improved to the point where I could easily keep all of my shots on paper, with 80 percent of them hitting the black bullseye.  When I got to that point, I asked the Sergeant Major if I should have my 1911 accurized.  In those days, I wasn’t even sure what “accurizing” entailed, but it sounded like the right question to ask.  Sergeant Major Hickman smiled.  “Sir,” he said (I was, after all, a Second Lieutenant), “may I put a few shots downrange?”

I handed the 1911 to Sergeant Major Hickman.  He loaded a magazine, inserted it in the 1911, released the slide to chamber the first round, and became the visual definition of intense and perfect concentration.  Five shots later, there was one ragged hole centered in the bullseye.  That one ragged hole wasn’t much larger than the hole a single .45 bullet would have made.  “Maybe you could get it accurized somewhere down the road, Sir,” he said. “but for now, I think it’s good enough.”

More Tales of the Gun!

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The 1911 featured in this story is a Rock Island Armory Compact 1911.  My Rock Compact 1911 has been extensively upgraded by TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks).  This handgun is 100% reliable with any of the loads listed above (and factory hardball ammo).

The Rimfire Series: Model 69 Winchester

By Rob Morel

After seeing Joe Berk’s article on the .22 bolt action Springfield rifle, I thought about my recent project Model 69 Winchester.  I bought it from my favorite gunstore.  It was in pretty bad shape when I bought it and it was obviously well used. The Winchester had a screw for a bolt handle that did not work well, a homemade peep sight, the rifle was rusty, and it had a dinged-up stock with a lot of miles on it.  I bought the rifle for $150 knowing it would make for a good project.  I wanted to fix and preserve it as a plinker.

The Model 69 Winchester is an old magazine fed rifle made in 1936.  It is an interesting vintage .22.  I believe it was made around 1935 based on the exposed side magazine release and the exposed screw that holds the barrel to the stock (as shown in the above photo).   These two features make it one of the earlier Model 69 rifles Winchester produced.

The finish on the barrel and the receiver had left the building a long time ago.   It exhibited what might be called an authentic patina, but to me it was just rust and I wanted to prevent it from heading further down that road. I sanded it very lightly and used Birchwood Casey cold blue to preserve it. That turned out well eonugh, but it was not as good as a hot blue job would have been. Maybe I will clean it better and redo it someday.  But my cold blue approach had the rifle looking good (I think for now the steel finish is good enough), so I continued fixing other things.

The rifle’s original peep sights had been “fixed” (read:  Bubba’d) by a shade tree gunsmith.  The sights worked, but they looked terrible. Bubba had drilled out the original aperture and tapped it to a larger thread. Then he took and sawed off a length of all thread (all thread is threaded rod) after drilling a small hole way off center.   Maybe he did that to allow for windage by rotating it in the threads…who knows?  Or maybe he was just sloppy.

I machined a nicer-looking knurled retina (see the picture above), but I ended up putting a scope on it, so for now the peeper looks good but is not used.  I’ve seen comparable sights on Ebay for over $225, so I’ve got that going for me.

The old bolt handle was a standard screw from someone’s grandpa’s blacksmith stable. It didn’t work. The handle needs to go through two sleeves to cock the firing pin properly.  It wasn’t too hard to make a new one that works well. I had the little ball end you see above in my tool box for years.  It was waiting for me to use it on something, and it looks like it belongs on this rifle.

The rifle’s wood stock showed its 85-plus years of use, so I sanded it lightly, stained it, and gave it a clear varnish finish.  I similarly cleaned up the buttplate and its screws.  I think it all turned out well.

After doing the above work, it was time to sight the rifle in. Waiting until it was dark, I clamped the rifle in a cleaning rest so it wouldn’t move on the table. With the bolt taken out I could look through the barrel at a distant streetlight.  I then looked through the scope and adjusted the scope’s windage and elevation so it was right on the streetlight several hundred yards away. After making sure the barrel and scope were secure, I tried the rifle on the farm the next day.  The rifle can shoot .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle ammunition.  I could hit dirt clods fairly consistently from 40 to 100 yards away. That’s good enough for now. After shooting it for the first time, I had to go out and celebrated with a Yoo-Hoo and a new box of 50 rounds.  I’ll next shoot at a paper target from a rest to hold it steadier then my 66-year-old arms can.

Overall, resurrecting the Model 69 Winchester has been a fun and satisfying project.  It didn’t cost very much and gave life back to this 85-year-old firearm that is a hoot to shoot.  It would be great for a youth rifle and for teaching kids to shoot.  The rifle is small and light, and it can be taken apart for cleaning and reassembling quickly.

Meet our newest contributor:  Rob Morel

Rob Morel is a good guy…a considerate, literate, and motorific kind of man.  I first met Rob on the Western America Adventure Ride, when guys who owned Zongshen RX3 motorcycles joined Joe Gresh, a group of Chinese riders, a couple of guys from Colombia, and yours truly for our 5,000-mile romp around the US.  Rob joined us in Idaho, and I knew I was going to like him the minute I saw the guy seated by the side of the road, waiting for us, somewhere before we crossed into Hells Canyon.  It said a lot about Rob:  He would be ready, he wouldn’t hold the rest of the group up, and he put others ahead of himself.  Like I said, I liked him instantly.  Rob has ridden with us a number of times…on that first Western America Adventure Ride, in Baja, on another ride through the Southwest, and more.  He’s a machinist, a motorcyclist, a shooter, and a writer.  This is Rob’s first piece as an ExNotes contributor.  Welcome aboard, Rob, and thanks for this story!

– Joe Berk

More stories in the Rimfire Series are here.

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A Tale of Two Rugers

By Joe Berk

Rifles, that is…two Ruger rifles.  I’ve written about them before, but it’s been a while since I shot either one and with the stream crossing to the West End Gun Club almost manageable these days (more on that later), I thought I would take them out to the 100-yard range.  I shoot handguns regularly (at least a couple of times a week) on the indoor 50-foot pistol range closer to home, but there are times when the high-powered-rifle-on-a-football-field-length-range itch needs to be scratched.

The two Ruger rifles in this article are two of my favorites:  A Davidson’s Circassian-stocked Mini 14 (the one in the photo above) and the Ruger GSR (GSR stands for Gunsite Scout Rifle).  The Davidson’s Mini 14 1was a 2009 offering with (as the name implies) a Circassian walnut stock.  Back then the Circassian Mini’s $700 price seemed high, but I’ve been at this for a while and I know that when a gun’s price seems high it only means I’m buying too soon.  The price will always catch up with the calendar, and that’s certainly been the case with this rifle.  It originally came with two 30-round mags and a flash suppressor.  California being what it is meant I couldn’t own the rifle as Ruger built it.  I had to leave the 30-round mags with the out-of-state dealer, and because of the flash suppressor, it had to ship to the Class III dealer here in La La Land.

Circassian walnut from the port side. It sure looks good.
The California-legal muzzle brake. I wonder what the California legislators were smoking when they passed that law.

The California Class III dealer replaced the flash suppressor with a muzzle brake (which I think looks even more intimidating and I had to buy a 10-round La-La-Land-legal magazine for my Mini.

Circassian walnut from starboard side. This is the fanciest Mini 14 I’ve ever seen.

You might be wondering:  Where can I get a Mini with a stock like this one?
The short answer is:  You can’t.  I watched the gun sale websites for months looking for a Davidson’s Circassian Mini 14 until I found one with nice wood (most had straight-grained, broomstick grade wood).  When I saw the one you see here, I pounded (and I’m glad I did).    You just don’t see Mini 14 rifles with wood like this one.  It’s all mostly black plastic stuff on the range these days, which is almost a crime against nature.

The Techsites rear sight on my Mini 14. It has a slightly smaller aperture and better adjustability than the stock Mini 14 rear site.

I’ve done a few mods to my Mini 14 to improve its accuracy, and I’ve detailed this in prior blogs (I’ve provide a link at the end of this article).  The Reader’s Digest version is I’ve added a Techsites rear aperture sight to replace the Ruger sight, I’ve glass-bedded the action, and I’ve done a fair amount of experimentation to find the right load.

So how does the Circassian Mini 14 shoot?  It does very well.  I grabbed two loads:  A full metal jacketed load with Hornady’s 62-grain bullet, and another with Hornady’s 55-grain V-Max bullets.  You can see the results below.

A bunch of shots at 100 yards with one of my favorite loads:  The 62-grain Hornady full metal jacket boattail bullet and 25.0 grains of XBR 8208 propellant.   This ammo was necked sized only, which usually is more accurate in my Mini 14.  I held at 6:00 on all targets shown here.
Another 100-yard Mini 14 target with two different loads, both using the 55-grain Hornady VMax bullet and 24.5 grains of ARComp propellant.  The very tight 5-shot group was shot with bullets that were not crimped.  The larger group was the same load, but the bullets were crimped.   Surprisingly, both loads were full length resized.  As mentioned in the photo above, neck-sizing usually provides better accuracy in this rifle.

The second rifle in this Tale of Two Rugers story is the Ruger GSR in .308 Winchester.   This is an amazing (and amazingly accurate) rifle, but it didn’t start out that way.

How I purchased this rifle is kind of a funny story.  I had oral surgery to start the process of installing two fake teeth, and the doc knocked me out with anesthetics.   They warned me I would be in no shape to drive home, so good buddy Jim Wile volunteered to do the driving.  Jim’s gone on to his reward (RIP, Jim).  On the ride home, in a drugged but conscious state, I told Jim about this new GSR rifle Ruger had introduced, and we somehow managed to convince ourselves we each needed one.  They say you should not buy guns when you’re under the influence.   Like Hunter Biden, though, I didn’t heed that advice and Jim followed my lead.

The Ruger GSR on the range at the West End Gun Club.

The GSR is Ruger’s interpretation of the Scout rifle concept first put forth by a gun writer named Jeff Cooper.  Cooper’s concept was a short-barreled rifle that would hold a scope in a forward location and make for a sort of do-anything long gun.  Steyr built the first commercially available Cooper-inspired Scout rifle, and then about a decade later Ruger followed suit.  Mossberg has one now, too (good buddy Johnny G has one).  The Steyr is crazy expensive, the Ruger started out at a reasonable price but has since gone kind of crazy (along with everything else), and (in my opinion) the Mossberg is the best value (it’s a fine rifle and one I’ll probably own some day).

The left side of the Ruger GSR. Note the laminated stock, which provides a very stable bed for the barreled action.
The GSR as seen from the right.
A Ruger .308 selfie.
The Ruger’s aperture rear sight. It’s similar to the original Mini 14 site. Techsites doesn’t offer a replacement rear site for the GSR; if they did, I would have a Techsites rear sight on this rifle.
The Ruger GSR flash suppressor. It’s the same type that originally came on the Mini 14. On a bolt action rifle, it’s legal in Calilornia; on a semi-auto, it is not.

When I first took delivery of the GSR, it was a real disappointment.  As had been the case with half the guns I bought in the last couple of decades, it had to go back to the manufacturer.  The problem was that the rifle printed way to the right, and there wasn’t enough adjustment in the rear aperture to get it back to the point of aim.   I returned it to Ruger, they greatly relieved the stock around the barrel, and I had it back in about a week.  When I took it out to the range the same week it was returned, I was astonished by its accuracy.

A target I shot a few years ago. The GSR can be amazingly accurate. The difference between the two groups is probably due to how I held the rifle. The upper group is one of the best I’ve ever shot with open sights.

But that group above was then and this is now.  I had not fired the GSR in a few years.  I grabbed two loads for this rifle (a load I had developed for my M1A Springfield, and a box of Federal factory ammo with full metal jacket 150-grain bullets).

Federal American Eagle .308 ammo. I bought a bunch of this a few years ago for the brass; this ammo was about the same price as .308 brass.
My reloaded ammo. This load shoots extremely well in my Springfield Armory M1A.

I only fired a couple of 5-shot groups at 100 yards with the GSR.  It was getting late in the day, I was getting tired, I had not fired the rifle in a long time (shooting is a perishable skill), and I realized I wasn’t giving the rifle a fair shake.

With the same rear sight adjustment used for the previous GSR target shown a couple of paragraphs above, the Federal factory 150 grain load shot high and to the left.  The group is considerably larger than the load with 180-grain Noslers and Varget propellant.
Another 5-shot group, this time with 168-grain Sierra hollowpoint bullets and IMR 4064 propellant (the accuracy load for my Springfield M1A).   The load doesn’t perform as well in my GSR as it does in the M1A, but it’s still substantially better than the Federal factory ammo.   It’s why I reload.

That stream crossing I mentioned at the start of this blog?  Lytle Creek flows across the dirt road going into Meyers Canyon, and it can be a real challenge at times.   With all the rain and snow we’ve had this past winter, the reservoirs are full and the snow up in the San Gabriels is still melting.  You may remember the blog I wrote about the time I high sided my Subie attempting a crossing.   The stream is down a scosh since then, but it’s still not an easy crossing.  Here’s a video I made on the way out on this trip after visiting the range with the Mini 14 and the Ruger GSR.

I’ll be shooting the GSR more in the coming weeks now that I’m back into the swing of shooting a .308 off the bench, so watch for more stories on it.  I think I can do better than the groups you see above.

More stories on good times at the West End Gun Club are here.

Springfield Armory’s New .22 Bolt Action Rifle

By Joe Berk

Springfield Armory has a new .22 bolt action rifle.  It looks interesting from several perspectives.  One, it’s a bolt action rimfire, so that has my attention immediately (I love bolt action rifles and I love rimfires).  And two, it is being offered in both a composite stocked (read:  Tupperware) competition version (something in which I have negative interest) and any of several grades of walnut.  Fancy walnut…that works for me.

The Springfield Armory 2020 rimfire rifle stocked in what they call AAA walnut. It comes with a Picatinny rail for mounting a scope, or you can remove the rail and use conventional scope mounts.
A view from the right. If that’s AAA walnut, I’m the Pope.
Another shot of the Springfield 2020 rifle with fancier walnut and a Leupold scope.  It is a good-looking rifle.

It’s the last part about the fancy walnut that has my attention.  Springfield’s graded walnut runs from standard (they call it satin select) all the way up to AAA (or finely figured) walnut.  That’s cool, as most manufacturers don’t give you a choice on the quality of the walnut figure.  Judging by the photos on the Springfield website, I’d say they are grading their lumber way too generously; what they show as AAA walnut I would classify A grade stuff, but hey, it’s a start, and it’s a move in the right direction.

A Springfield 2020 rimfire rifle with satin select (or plain) walnut.As mentioned above, Springfield is also offering their new rifle with two versions of a composite stock.  One is black, the other is a speckled charcoal affair.

The Springfield .22 with a black composite stock.  These are on Gunbroker for as low as $389.

 

The Springfield 2020 .22 rifle wearing a sage wtih black webbing stock (their description, not mine).

I’ll be watching the Gunbroker.com and Gunsamerica.com listings.  These rifles are already up on Gunbroker.  When the listings that include photos of the actual rifles (and not just a standard print media photo) are up, I’ll pay attention.  The gunshops will show the wood if it’s really good, and if it is, it’s likely I’ll pull the trigger (pardon the pun).   If that happens, I’ll write about it here.

High end rimfire rifles appeal to me, and I own two or three that have exceptional wood.  You can read about them here.

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Ruger No. 1 XXX Walnut

By Joe Berk

I promised a story on the Ruger No. 1 photo I shared a little while ago and this is it.   It’s on my Ruger No. 1 chambered in .257 Weatherby.  I’ll try to keep it short, but there’s a lot to this story.  The bottom line up front:  Ruger’s customer service is among the best in the business.  They are one of two companies that all others should emulate (Leupold is the other).  Ruger’s No. 1 single shot rifles are the most elegant rifles in the world.  That’s a strong statement and you might disagree, but hey, it’s a free country and if you want to disagree, it’s okay by me.  Go ahead and be wrong.   I know that after seeing the photo at the top of this blog, you have to be wondering if the stock looks as good from the other side.  The answer is yes.

The .257 Weatherby No. 1 from the starboard side. Red ped, exotic walnut, and a fabulous cartridge with a laser-like trajectory.

Back to the tale:  Ruger has essentially discontinued the No. 1, but that’s okay.  Inexpensive and tasteless rifles with black Tupperware stocks are all the rage now and if they float your boat, more power to you.  But it’s not me.  I own a few Ruger No. 1 rifles and their value has increased tenfold since I started collecting back in the 1970s.  Not that I’m interested in selling; that’s not going to happen.  I mention the No. 1 rifles’ appreciation just because…well, I’m not sure why.  It makes me feel good, and that’s enough.

The .257 Weatherby cartridge. The parent cartridge was the .300 H&H Magnum. Roy Weatherby blew out the case with a rounded bottleneck, trimmed it back a bit, and voila, 4,000 feet per second.  The cartridge is also known as the .257 Roy, to honor its creator, Roy Weatherby.  Weatherby felt the .257 Weatherby cartridge was his finest creation.
Solids made by Barnes work best in the .257 Weatherby. Jacketed bullets can distintegrate in flight due to velocity, aerodynamic heating, and rotational inertia, as evidenced by the tell-tale molten lead spiral seen on this 100-yard target.

The .257 Weatherby cartridge is brilliant.  It’s one of the fastest in the world at around 4,000 feet per second, which creates a unique problem:  If you do not load with the right projectiles, the bullets travel so fast they tend to disintegrate in flight.  The Ruger No. 1 in .257 Roy has a 28-inch barrel (two inches longer than the original Weatherby Mk V rifles in which it debuted back in the 1950s), and that extra two inches bumps the velocity up even more than the fabled round was achieving in its namesake Weatherby rifles (they have 26-inch barrels).   The bottom line here is that you almost have to use monolithic (and expensive) Barnes bullets (they are solid copper, not lead sheathed in a copper jacket) to push the bullets at their max velocity without the bullets coming apart in flight.  There’s something appealing about that.  I like it.

The original Circassian walnut on the Ruger No. 1 wasn’t bad, but it cracked during load development. I wanted something as good on the replacement lumber. The first set didn’t answer the mail for me.
Another view of the rifle’s original stock. It looked good. I still have this stock, with a small crack in the wrist.

So, back to the main story.  When Ruger first announced their limited run of the No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, I started watching the ads on Gunbroker.com for one with nice wood.  It took a little while, but I found one and I pounced.  I encountered the bullet disintegration problems mentioned above, I got some good advice from a guy I met on Facebook, and I got the rifle to group under an inch using Barnes monolithic copper bullets.  Then while at the range one day I noticed the stock had cracked.  My heart was as broken as the Circassian walnut stock, and the rifle went back to Ruger.  I told them the story about wanting good wood, and they did their best to oblige.  I also told them to make sure the stock was relieved behind the tang, as the first stock (the one that cracked) was not and that was what had caused the stock to split.

When the rifle came back, the stock had been relieved but the inletting and the gap between the receiver and the stock was excessive.  The wood was not as good the original set, but it was not bad.  The inletting was the real disappointment.  I shot it a bit and the rifle grouped well, but it looked ridiculous with the gap around the receiver.  I put the gun in the safe and it remained there for a year.  Then one night I had a few beers and I wrote an email to Ruger.  I wasn’t too complimentary.  I told them the story.  The beer helped get it all out.

I had an email from Ruger the next morning, and at their request I returned the rifle to them again.  A few days later I received an email from a guy in Ruger’s No. 1 shop.  He sent a photo of a matched stock and fore end that had just come in, he said. and he told me it was probably the last they would ever receive of this quality.  Did I want it?  Hell yes, I said. That was followed by another email:  What color pad did I want?  Red is the more collectible of the two colors (the older Ruger No. 1s had red pads; they switched to a black pad back in the 1980s.  Red it would be.

When the restocked Ruger arrived (this rifle had now worn three sets of lumber), I was totally blown away.  The wood is exquisite on both sides of the stock and the fore end.  I’m pleased with the photos you see here, but trust me on this, they don’t do the wood justice.  The fore end matches the stock on both sides.  The figure is what stockmakers would grade as XXX and the rifle is just stunning.  If there’s such a thing as rifle porn, this is it.  And it’s XXX rated.

The Ruger No. 1 fore end on the right side. The fore end and the stock almost certainly came from the same tree.
The fore end from the left side.
The entire rifle from the right.
The entire rifle from the left side.  This model is called a No. 1B.  It has a standard weight barrel and a beavertail fore end.

So there you have it:  Two promises fulfilled.  When you buy a Ruger, if you’re not pleased they will make it right.  I promised you the story on this amazing set of walnut furniture.   And if you are wondering, the answer is no.  The rifle is not for sale.

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Into Weatherby?  We are, too!

Everyone but me…

By Joe Berk

It seems I am the only one of your ExNotes writers not on the road.  Joe Gresh rode his resurrected Kawasaki ZRX to Laguna Seca (where he is camping and spectating this weekend), Bobbie Surber rode her Triumph Tiger up to Canada for a Horizons Unlimited event, and Mike Huber is rolling around the Pacific Northwest on his recently repaired BMW GS (presumably headed for the same event as Bobbie in Canada).  I need to get out on my Enfield.  Soon, my friends, soon.

Me?  I’m home, continuing to play with things that go bang.   That big photo up above?  It’s a Ruger No. 1 in .257 Weatherby, with the best piece of wood I’ve ever seen.  Keep an eye on the ExNotes blog; we’ll have a story on how my .257 Roy No. 1 came to wear such exquisite lumber.

Stay tuned; there’s good scribblings coming from all of us.

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The Rimfire Series: French Walnut 10/22

By Joe Berk

Nearly 15 years ago, TALO (a firearms distributor) offered a unique version of Ruger’s 10/22.  It was a model with a French walnut stock.  As a guy who appreciates good wood and a long time 10/22 fan, I knew I wanted one.  The rifles were offered initially at $419, but I knew the price would only go.  It’s hard to go wrong with a Ruger 10/22, especially if it is a limited edition.

I contacted an executive with Turner’s (a sporting goods chain) and told them I and several of my friends wanted to buy these, and asked if they would consider buying a group of them and allowing us to select the ones we wanted before they went on the shelves.  Turner’s went along with my nutty idea, and I and my friends each bought one.

TALO’s French walnut 10/22 on the bench at the West End Gun Club.
I’m pretty sure Ruger and TALO subcontracted the 10/22 French walnut stocks to Altamont. The checkering, fit, and finish is flawless.
The French walnut 10/22 starboard side view.

The French walnut 10/22s were flawless, and I actually bought two.  I gifted one to a friend who steered a big chunk of consulting work way my way, and I kept the one you see here.  I tried several different brands of .22 ammo to find the one it liked best (it was Aguila Target ammo), and I bought a bunch of that shortly after I finished my testing.

I already knew that I liked the Mueller 4.5×14 scope on a .22, so I bought one and mounted it on the rifle.   It’s a great scope, sharp, clear, and with several features I like.

The 4.5×14 Mueller scope.
The Mueller scope incorporates a parallax adjustment feature on the objective end. I dialed it down to 50 feet.
The Mueller scope cranked all the way up to 14-power magnification.

Most recently, I had the French walnut 10/22 out at the range.  As always, it performed brilliantly.  I’ve competed with this rifle in the WEGC metalllic silhouette matches, and I sometimes bring it to the range just to plink.  It’s a fabulous rifle.

The famous Ruger 10/22 rotary magazine in the rifle. It holds 10 rounds. I load only five at a time.
Cartridges in the 10/22 rotary magazine.

I took the 10/22 with me on the same day I shot my old Winchester Model 62, using the same three types of ammo on a 50-foot NRA target.

I’m nearing the end of this old box of Federal high velocity ammo. It was good while it lasted.
CCI standard velocity .22 ammo. This is good stuff.
Aguila .22 Long Rifle target ammo. I found this to be very accurate in my .22 rifles.

The 10/22 did a fine job.  As usual, the Aguila ammo turned in good results.  The Federal high velocity and CCI ammo did a surprisingly good job, too.

The results on a paper target with Federal, CCI, and Aguila ammunition. The distance was 50 feet.

If you are looking for a good .22 firearm, the 10/22 is hard to beat.  At more than 7 milli0n produced, the 10/22 has sold more rifles commercially than any other firearm (there are military rifles that have higher production numbers, like the Mosin Nagant and the AK-47, but in terms of commercially available .22s, the 10/22 is it).  There’s a huge aftermarket in 10/22 parts, too.  You just can’t go wrong with a 10/22.  I’ve owned several over the years and I still have three, including an older 10/22 Mannlicher  with exceptional walnut and a 200th year 10/22 Deluxe model (Ruger roll marked “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” on every rifle they manufactured in 1976).  Sometime in the near future I’ll dig out the 200th year 10/22 and post a blog on it.

More articles in The Rimfire Series are here.

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The Rimfire Series: Winchester Model 62

By Joe Berk

The gun that has been in my family the longest is a Model 62 Winchester chambered in .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle.  I remember it being in the gun cabinet when I was a little boy and being told never to play with it (you can guess how well I listened to that advice).

I could go into a bunch of technical details about the Model 62, and I’ll provide a little bit of that below, but that’s not my intent with this article.  I decided to instead focus on the rifle, how it shoots and handles, a little bit of its history, and what it means to me.

The starboard side of my Winchester Model 62 rifle. It’s a sleek and lightweight .pump-action 22.
A port side view of the Model 62 on the range at the West End Gun Club.

When Dad had the rifle up until the time I went into the Army (and that would be in 1973), the rifle’s metalwork was flawless.  Then I disappeared from the scene for about 10 years (the Army, work, and other things).  I guess during that time my father stopped paying attention to the rifle.  Dad passed in 1982, and when I came home for the funeral, the metal parts had taken on the patina you see here.  New Jersey is a unforgiving and humid place; if you don’t keep your toys oiled, they corrode quickly.  But the Model 62 still looks good and it shoots well.

Shooting in RAW (the camera, that is), a macro lens, and even lighting bring out the inherent beauty of this fine old rifle.

I like the Model 62 Winchester’s straight grip stock.  It felt right to me when I was a kid and it influenced my future preferences in firearms.  I have more than a few rifles with that same straight grip stock now…a Winchester 1886 .45 70 clone made by Chiappa in Italy, several Ruger No. 3 rifles, and a few Marlin lever guns.

The Model 62 is what we call a “takedown” rifle.  A single thumb screw secures the stock and trigger group to the rest of the gun.  It’s a cool approach.

The Model 62 taken down. The stock and the trigger group detach from the barreled action with a single thumbscrew on the left side of the receiver.
I rotated the photo 90 degrees clockwise to provide a better look at the rifle after take down.
A macro view of the aft portion of the Model 62 after it has been taken down. The large thumbscrew in the center of this photo allows disassembly.
The Model 62’s barreled action after take down.

The sights on the Model 62 are old school.  They’re Lyman front and rear.  Nothing fancy, but they work well.  A simple gold bead up front, and a drift adjustable rear with a stepped ramp for adjusting elevation.  But I’ve never had to adjust them.   Either they came zeroed from the factory, or the guy who owned the rifle before Dad adjusted the sights, or Dad adjusted them.

Winchester used Lyman sights front and rear back in the 1930s. This front sight has a brass bead. It tarnished enough so that it looks black when I align the sights, and that works for me. Bright brass beads reflect light and pull the shots to one side.
The Model 62 rear sight. Simple, elegant, and traditional.

I think my Nikon 810 and the Sigma 50mm 2.8 macro lens do a good job in bringing out the rifle’s vintage beauty.  You can see it in the next few photos.

The Model 62’s bolt lifts up and slides to the rear when the pump is actuated. The spent brass ejects upward.
Another shot of the retracted bolt, showing the mechanism that ejects the spent brass case.
Rollmarks on the right side of the barrel: “Made in U.S.A. Winchester Repeating Arms Co. New Haven, Conn. Patents Pending.” Cool stuff.
The receiver from the left side. Patina, they call it. I could have it reblued, but then it wouldn’t be original, and like they say, it’s only original once.
The pump action forearm with its distinctive pre-war oval shape. Post-war forearms were straight. This one is much classier.

When I was a kid and my parents weren’t home, I sometimes snuck out of the house with the Model 62 and a box of .22 ammo.  We had a couple of acres in New Jersey that ran into the woods with a stream behind the house (the stream fed Farrington Lake, which emptied into Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean).   You might think having a couple of acres in central Jersey with property bordered by a stream was a sign of wealth, but it wasn’t.  It’s what people did in the 1950s: You bought a couple of acres and built a house, and that’s what my Dad did.  He didn’t pay somebody else to build a house; he actually built our house.  Today you’d have to be rich to own those two acres.  Back then it was the path you took if you didn’t have money.

Those were good days and good times.   One time a kid from my junior high came home with me (Bob Dixon, if you’re reading this, drop us a line).  Mom and Dad weren’t home yet, so Bob and I grabbed the Model 62 and headed into the woods.  There was an old cellar door laying in the mud next to the stream and Bob thought it would be a good idea to flip it over.  “You know, there might be a snake or something under there…”

A New Jersey water snake. This one was about five feet long. We used to think these were water moccasins.

We did, and what we saw shocked the hell out of both of us: A monstrous, scaly, and scary reptile.  Being kids, we were convinced it was a water moccasin.  Today, I realize it was probably a water snake.  But it was huge and we did the only thing any kid would have done in similar circumstances, and that was to put the Model 62 to good use.  Call me Bwana.  (On a recent trip back to New Jersey’s Farrington Lake, I saw another one of those frighteningly large snakes and I wrote about it here.)

Loading the Model 62 is pretty straightforward.  The rifle has a tubular magazine that holds a ton of ammo.  As you see from the rollmarks above, it will shoot .22 Long Rifle, .22 Long, and .22 Short.  I don’t know how many rounds of each it will hold, but it is a lot.  I only load five rounds at a time, so it’s kind of a moot point to me.  Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I saw .22 Long or .22 Short ammo anywhere.  It’s all .22 Long Rifle these days.

The tubular magazine below the barrel. The arrow points to the knurled knob that opens the magazine.
A macro shot of the tubular magazine’s knurled knob and its bayonet lock. Twist the knob and the plunger can be pulled forward for loading.
When the magazine’s inner plunger is pulled forward, the loading port can receive ammo.
A Federal .22 Long Rifle being loaded into the Model 62.

So how accurate is this nearly 80-year-old pump action .22?  I’m glad you asked.  I had not shot it in three or four years, so I grabbed three different kinds of .22 ammunition I had in my ammo locker:  Older Federal copper washed high velocity ammo, CCI standard velocity ammo good buddy Greg gave me a few years ago, and Aguila standard velocity target ammo I bought from a local sporting goods chain when it was on sale.

I’m just about to the end of this box of .22 Long Rifle Federal ammo. Look at the price!
The accuracy load: CCI standard velocity .22 Long Rifle ammo. This is good stuff.
Aguila .22 Long Rifle target loads. Previous testing at 50 yards showed this worked best in my Ruger 10/22 (a Rimfire Series blog on that rifle will follow in the near future).

My U-boat Subie and I braved the Meyers Canyon water crossing to get to the West End Gun Club, I went to the .22 range and set up a table, and I tested the Model 62’s accuracy at 50 feet from a bench rest.  I fired three 5-shot groups at an old 50-foot rimfire target I found in my stash.   Here’s how it went:

Test results at 50 feet. The top right target was the first target of the day, and it was predicably the largest group (the bore was unfouled, and I was not yet in form). The Model 62 did best with CCI standard velocity ammo. This is not too shabby with open sights on an 85-year-old rifle.

A bit more info on the Model 62 Winchester:  This Model 62 carries the serial number 94XXX, which puts its date of manufacture at 1939.  My father bought the rifle when he was a kid; he would have been 13 years old in 1939.  Winchester manufactured 409,000 Model 62 rifles from 1932 to 1958, with a two-year break during World War II.   In 1939, production switched over to the Model 62A.  The Model 62A incorporated engineering changes to reduce production cost (mine is the original Model 62, not the 62A).  When Winchester introduced the Model 62 in 1932, the rifle’s suggested retail price was $17.85.  Presumably, the price had climbed a bit by 1939.  Family lore has it that Dad paid $8 for the rifle.  Sales of recently completed auctions on Gunbroker.com show the price for a Model 62 today ranges from $300 to $3000.   That’s quite a spread, but to me it’s irrelevant.  This rifle is not for sale at any price; one day it will go to one of my grandsons.

Model 62 Winchesters show up for sale on Gunbroker.com pretty much all the time, so if you want one they are available.  More good news is that the Model 62 is legal here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia.

The Rossi Model 62.

More good news is that Rossi, a Brazilian firearms manufacturer, offered their Model 62 (a fairly faithful reproduction of the Winchester Model 62) from 1970 to 1998 and the Rossi rifles can still be found.   Rossi discontinued the Model 62 when they were acquired by Taurus, but the Rossi rifles still show up on the auction site gunboards. Sometimes you see one in a pawnshop or a gunstore’s used gun rack. I’ve never handled or fired the Rossi so I can’t say anything about them, but if I came across one at a reasonable price I would jump on it.  You might consider doing the same.

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Check out our other Tales of the Gun Rimfire Series articles here.

The Rimfire Series: GSG 1911

By Joe Berk

A few years ago I was in a local Turner’s sporting goods store (Turner’s is a big sporting goods chain in the southwestern US) and they had a sale on GSG .22 LR 1911s.  I think I paid $229 for it and I’ll admit it:  The GSG was an impulse buy.  I didn’t need it, but for $229 I thought any kind of 1911 would not be a mistake (I just checked the Turner’s website and they are now $379.99; that’s still not bad).  I put the gun in the safe when I bought it and pretty much forgot about it.

The GSG .22 1911. All the controls are the same as a real 1911. Note the competition/target-style hammer, the extended beavertail grip safety, the target-style trigger, and the Patridge-style front sight.

I had owned the GSG .22 for several years and I hadn’t fired it.  Then, one fine recent morning when I was putting my 9mm 1911 in the range bag, I realized it was dumb not to shoot the little .22.  It’s not like it’s ever going to be a collectible, so I thought I might have some fun and enjoy it.  The GSG went into the bag, too, for its first firing session.

To my surprise, the GSG is surprisingly accurate and it is fun to shoot.  The feel is just like a real 1911 except it’s a bit lighter (as near as I can tell, the exterior dimensions are identical to a full-sized 1911). The trigger is a little on the heavy side (especially after shooting my TJ-modified 9mm Springfield Armory 1911 with its 2 1/2-pound trigger), but the GSG trigger is creep free.

As you can see on the target above (at the top of this blog), the GSG shot slightly to the left.  I could see on the slide that the rear sight it was not centered.  I fixed that.  The rear sight is drift adjustable (it’s held in place with a setscrew), so I moved it a scosh to the right.

The GSG has decent whitish/yellowish (almost aged ivory in color) dot sights front and rear.  About that target above:  It’s a box of 50 Aguila .22 target loads at 10 yards, with a two-hand hold, firing offhand.  I have no excuse for the two outside the 10-ring.

The front sight. I’m sure it’s plastic, but the dot has the appearance of aged ivory. It’s dovetail mounted, and it appears to have a set screw retainer.
The rear sight, with the same faux ivory dots. The sights are good. As delivered (and as you can see in this photo) the rear sight is biased slightly to the left. The GSG shot a little to the left for me. I may move the sight over to the right a little bit.
The business end. I haven’t taken the gun apart to clean it yet. There appears to be zero bore leading after firing that first box of 50 rounds.
The boiler room after 50 rounds. There were no extraction failures. I had one stovepipe, but the gun is brand new. I hadn’t even oiled it before taking the little GSG to the range.
The grips appear to be some kind of plastic. That’s okay; I have a brand new set of diamond-checkered Springfield Armory 1911 Cocobolo grips I’ll use as replacements.

There’s a fair amount of plastic on this gun and I think the finish is some kind of paint, but the gun looks and feels good.  The GSG is not a Wilson or a Les Baer 1911, but it doesn’t cost $3500, either.

I don’t know how the GSG takes down or what it looks like inside.  I suppose it’s time to read the instructions, and I need to do that so I can clean it.  Watch for more on this fun little 1911.  You’ll see it right here on our Rimfire Series of blogs.  Don’t forget to check out our other gun and reloading articles, which are indexed for your convenience on our Tales of the Gun page.

A quick edit:  I took the grips that split on my Springfield Armory 9mm 1911, superglued them back together, and installed them on the GSG .22 (I had to relieve the safety cutout on the right grip to get them to fit).   The Springfield grips look good, and they feel better than the injection molded plastic grips than came on the GSG.  I had the GSG on the range a couple of days ago and I sent a quick 100 rounds downrange.

The GSG now shoots very slightly to the right, but I’m going to leave it alone until I try the next batch of ammo (I ran out of the Federal ammo you see above). The GSG is 100% reliable with high velocity .22 ammo; it experiences an occasional failure to fully cycle with standard velocity ammo.

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The 9mm Sudden Unintended Disassembly: Concluding Thoughts

By Joe Berk

This is an update on my 9mm 1911 sudden unintended disassembly saga.  I will address four topics:

      • Zeroing in on the cause.
      • Rework of the ammo I had loaded on my Lee turret press.
      • My reconstituted 9mm 1911.
      • Preventing a recurrence.

Let’s get into it.

Zeroing In On The Cause

I’m down to thinking the 1911 event was due to either of two causes: A double propellant charge, or bullet setback (i.e., the bullet slid deeply into the case as the round was being chambered, thereby raising the chamber pressure).

My burst 9mm cartridge case. It was a Remington case, not that it makes any difference. Any case would likely have burst.  Photo by TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks.  Compare this to the photo of the double-charged case at the end of the video below.
A Double Charge

I did a Google search on double-charged cartridges, and what do you know, there’s actually someone out there who did the same thing I did.  He caught it on video and posted it with a photo of the case.  His burst cartridge case sure looks a lot like mine.

If you compare the photo at the end of the above video to the case stuck in my chamber, they are identical.  I’ve convinced myself that this is the most likely of the two scenarios, but I’ll describe the other scenario (bullet setback) as well.

Bullet Setback

What has me thinking deep thoughts about the second failure mode (pushing the bullet deeper into the case during chambering) is that I think it is relatively easy to screw up while reloading and induce this failure, and from what I’ve read, 1911s are more prone to do this than are other semi-autos.

This is what bullet setback would look like. The bullet is seated much deeper in the case than it is supposed to be, which would raise chamber pressure. This example did not occur in the gun; I loaded dummy case and pushed the bullet in much deeper using my reloading press.  Theoretically, it can be induced by the gun if the bullet is not crimped sufficiently.

Let’s discuss screwing up the reloading process in a manner that could induce bullet setback.   On my Lee Classic turret press, bullet seating and crimping occur in two separate operations (seating refers to pushing the bullet into the case; crimping refers to locking the bullet in place by crimping the cartridge case mouth).  The third (of the four) dies seats (but does not crimp) the bullet; the fourth die applies a taper crimp to the bullet.  Here’s the screwup:  I’ve had at least a couple of instances where I took the cartridge out of the press after seating the bullet (but before crimping it).   I know; you’re thinking that’s stupid, and I can’t argue with that conclusion.  I don’t know why I did it (too eager to see the completed round, maybe?).  I caught myself, returned the cartridge the press, and crimped it.  But it’s possible I missed the crimping step on a cartridge.

I think setback is the less likely of the two failure modes discussed here.  I tested the crimp by tapping on the bullet with a rubber mallet and it didn’t move.  Failure to crimp or a weak crimp may have caused setback, but on properly crimped bullet, I don’t think setback will occur.  Also, when I made the cartridge shown in the photo above on my RCBS Rockchucker press, it took more effort than I thought it would to seat the bullet as deeply as you see in the photo (and the case had not been crimped).  I doubt that simply chambering the round would drive the bullet in that deeply (even without a crimp).  If you think otherwise, please leave a comment below.

Gun Design and Bullet Setback

As mentioned above, bullet setback is more likely to occur on a 1911 than it is on other semi-auto handguns.  It has to do with cartridge location in the magazine, and how it feeds into the chamber.  On more modern handguns, the top round in the magazine sits higher in the gun than it does on older design guns.   When the slide shoves the round forward, cartridges in more modern handguns have a straighter path into the chamber.  On a 1911, the top round in the magazine sits lower in the gun.  When the slide pushed it forward, the bullet impacts the ramp, it has to stay situated in the cartridge case without experiencing setback, and the cartridge has to rotate up and then into the chamber.  Because of this, a 1911 is more likely to experience bullet setback than is, say, a gun like the S&W Shield.

A 9mm cartridge waiting to be chambered in a 1911.  It’s a little hard to see in this photo (I did the best I could), but the bullet nose will hit the ramp head on and then slide up the ramp and into the chamber. The potential for bullet setback is a little higher here than on most other modern 9mm semi-auto handguns.
A 9mm cartridge waiting to be chambered in the S&W Shield. Notice how the round is nearly aligned with the chamber as it sits in the magazine.

That’s not to say the Smith and Wesson Shield is a better design or that it’s all sunshine and rainbows.  There’s a tradeoff the engineers made on the Shield.  Yep, the Shield’s higher cartridge position makes for a straighter path into the chamber.  It also allows for higher capacity in a smaller gun (my little Shield holds 8 in the magazine and one in the chamber).  But the higher cartridge position can induce another issue:  Failure to extract and eject.

A cartridge case in the S&W Shield caught during extraction on the mouth of the case immediately below it.

During extraction, the round being extracted has to drive the magazine’s top cartridge down into the magazine as it is being extracted.  it does so by using the next cartridge’s bullet as a cam surface.  The rear edge of the cartridge being extracted bumps into the mag’s top cartridge, and then it has to drive it down so the case can exit the gun after firing.  As it uses the bullet of the mag’s top round for that cam surface, the rear of the cartridge case rim encounters the case mouth of the mag’s top cartridge, and that can cause a failure to extract and eject.  It’s happened to me.  I’ve found the Shield is sensitive to ammo brand, bullet configuration, and crimp.  Too much crimp, and the cartridge goes too deep into the Shield’s chamber and the firing pin won’t light the round off.  Too little crimp and it jams in the manner described above.  Too little crimp and it might experience bullet setback.  Like most things in life, the design is a tradeoff.

Again, I don’t think bullet setback is what happened in my 9mm 1911.  I’m including it here simply because it is interesting and relevant to this discussion.

Ammo Rework

One of the personally dismaying and embarrassing things about blowing up my 9mm 1911 is that it immediately threw into question the approximately 1500 rounds of 9mm and .45 ACP ammo I had reloaded on the Lee turret press.

I thought I could use weighing the rounds as a way to screen for double loads, but on both the 9mm and the .45 cartridges, the weight variation exceeds the weight of the powder charge.  That means I could have a double charge and if it was in a lighter round, it would be within the variability for the loaded cartridge.  So weight was not a way to screen.  I know there will be keyboard commandos with advice to stick to one case manufacturer (or to segregate cases by brand), but the same variability problem exists even when cases are segregated (I’ve checked).  I wish the self-styled “experts” on Facebook would slither back under their rocks (or at least refrain from commenting when they just don’t know what they are talking about, which is most of the time).

The RCBS collet bullet puller. You put your cartridge into the press shell holder, raise it into the collet (the gizmo on the right, which fits inside the gizmo on the left), tighten the crank, and lower the press ram. Voila, the bullet is pulled. Most of the time.  Sometimes it doesn’t work.
An impact bullet pullerr. You put a loaded cartridge into the cap on the hammer head, whack the opposite end against a hard surface a few times, and inertia drives the bullet out of the case. It is a lot of work.
The Grip-N-Pull. It works occasionally. I tried a few cartridges and gave up on it.

I’ve disassembled and reassembled the 800 9mm rounds I loaded on the Lee turret press.  I did not find a single one with a double charge.  I used my buddy Greg’s RCBS collet bullet puller for this on my 9mm ammo and it worked like a champ with minimal or no bullet damage.  Surprisingly, with all brands of brass, after pulling the 9mm bullets from crimped cartridges I did not have to expand the case mouths again to reseat the bullets.  They slid right in.  I just seated them to the right depth and crimped them again.  Reusing the bullets didn’t seem to affect accuracy, either.

The RCBS collet bullet puller did not work on my .45 ACP ammo.  The .45 collet couldn’t get a good enough grip on powder coated 230-grain roundnose bullets or on my 185-grain cast semi wadcutters.  I tried one of those Grip-N-Pull devices and that didn’t work, either.  The bullets slid right out of it.  To disassemble the .45 cartridges, I had to use an impact bullet puller, and that was tough sledding.  It takes forever.  I don’t like impact bullet pullers, but hey, it is what it is.  And what it is, well, is a lot of labor.  I’m working it a little at time, at a rate of about a box per week.  Three or four months and the rework will be in the rearview mirror.

That double charge sure turned out be one expensive mistake, both in terms of damage to the 1911 and the need to rework a lot of ammo.  Live and learn, I guess.

The Reconstituted 1911

TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) worked his magic on my 9mm 1911.  As mentioned in a previous blog, in addition to addressing the damage from the burst cartridge, he polished the barrel and ramp, refit an extractor that actually works (shame on you, Springfield Armory, for letting this one get out of the factory with an extractor that didn’t even contact the cartridge case), he recontoured the slide release and the slide release pin (shame on you again, Springfield Armory, for a slide release that was extremely difficult to install), he fit a one-piece guide rod (which is what I asked him to do), and he did one of his magnificent trigger jobs (this 1911 has a “breaking glass” 2 1/2 pound trigger now, with zero creep and no discernible takeup).  This 1911 is a pure joy to shoot.  I loved it before and I love it even more now.  That target at the top of this blog?  It’s a full box of  my reloaded 9mm ammo (50 rounds) fired without resting the gun on anything.  No failures to feed, no failures to eject, no misfires, and every bullet hit in the 10 ring.

50 rounds shooting offhand with the 9mm Springfield Armory 1911.  Custom work by TJ’s Custom Gunworks.

Preventing a Recurrence

Wow.  Where to begin.

I am implementing a number of changes in my reloading to prevent this from occurring again:

      • I’m slowing down and paying more attention.  Duh.  I’m no longer complacent.  Duh again.
      • I’m installing better lighting on my press.
      • I’m standing up so I can see into the cartridge case.
      • I’m switching to a bulkier powder so that a double charge, if it ever occurs again, will spill over the case mouth and make a big, impossible-to-ignore mess.

I don’t mind sharing with you that when this first occurred, my thought was to abandon the Lee Classic turret press and return to loading on my single stage RCBS Rockchucker press.  Double charging a case using a single stage press is (in my opinion) a much less likely thing to happen, and in 50 years of reloading on the Rockchucker, I’ve never had it happen.

When you load on a single stage press, it’s easier to view all of the charged cartridge cases. If any have been double charged, they will stand out.

I have a friend who works for Colt in their customer service department, and he tells me that when he sees a blown up gun sent in, there’s usually a progressive or a turret press somewhere in the story.  But good buddy Paul told me to think about it a while longer and I did.  I’m back to using the Lee turret press, but I’m a little older and a lot wiser now.  The older part wasn’t really necessary, but the wiser part is and hopefully, readers can benefit from my screwup.

Slowing Down and Paying Attention

You know, when I worked in the munitions industry I participated in two fatality investigations where inadvertent detonations were involved.  Multiple human errors caused those inadvertent detonations, and one of the key human errors was complacency.  That’s what I had become using the Lee Classic turret press:  Complacent.  I’d been reloading for so long I became entranced with the turret press’s speed, and I started reveling in the thousands of rounds I was cranking out (and it was, literally, thousands of rounds).  I always knew that double charges or skipped steps (like crimping) were really, really bad, but I just never thought I’d be the guy making either mistake.  I wasn’t taking the time I needed to and I became complacent.  That’s changed.  I’ve slowed the pace, and you can bet I’m looking into every case immediately before I place a bullet on top to make sure I haven’t double charged it.  You can also bet that I’m making sure I hit the crimping step on every round.   I’ve actually posted a sign on my reloading bench with the best advice I’ve ever given myself:  Slow down.

Better Lighting

Good buddy Duane (who is both smarter and better looking than me) also reloads with the Lee Classic turret press.  Duane mounted a light above his press to allow better visibility into the charged case.  I’m going to do the same.

Standing Up

I used to sit at the reloading station.  My bench, though, is higher than a standard work table (it’s how I had it built 50+ years ago).  When I’m seated, it’s not as easy to see into the case.  I reload standing up now, and that allows seeing directy into the case.

Bulkier Propellant

My last change concerns the propellant.  One of the things I investigated shortly after my 9mm hand grenade episode was if it was possible to get a double charge into a 9mm case.  With the load I was using (5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5), the answer was yeah, you could.  It even had a little room left over.  My thinking at the time was that I needed to go to a propellant that would overflow the case if I double charged it.  In the past, I’ve found 4.8 to 5.0 grains of Unique with the 125 grain bullet is a marvelous 9mm load.  Doubling that (i.e., 9.6 grains of Unique will overflow a 9mm case) and if that happens when loading, that’s a good visual indicator that something’s wrong.  So, from here on out when using the Lee turret press, my load will be 4.8 grains of Unique.  That only works for 9mm, though.  Other cartridges (the .45 ACP, for example) will handily swallow a double charge.  There, it’s back to paying serious attention (which we need to do on everything when we reload; it’s just using a propellant that will spill over with a double charge adds an additional indicator if things aren’t done correctly).

A double charge in the case on the left. My load was 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5. I loaded both cases with this charge, and then took the propellant from the case on the right and poured it into the case on the left. A 9mm can easily swallow a double charge of Accurate No. 5.
A single (correct) charge: 5.0 grains of Unique in a 9mm case.
The most Unique I could load into a 9mm case was 7.9 grains. A double charge would spill over the top of the case and be immediately noticeable (at least in 9mm; the .45 ACP case will take a double charge of Unique without a spillover).

Incidentally, when this happened, I wrote to Lee and asked them if they offered any accessories to prevent a double charge (my Star reloader has a mechanical feature that prevents this from occurring).  The answer was no, but Lee advised using a propellant that, well, read the above again and you’ll know.  I checked the literature that came with the Lee Classic turret press kit, and sure enough, Lee has a recommendation in there to do exactly what I describe here.

Hornady’s Powder Cop

When I posted earlier blogs on Facebook, a few people mentioned a reloading cop.  In 50 years of reloading, I’d never heard of such a thing, but I found it on Amazon.  Hornady’s Powder Cop die is a die with a pushrod indicator.  You add it to a vacant station on the reloading turret after the propellant charging station and when the charged round goes into it, if the case is double charged the rod will go higher than it normally does.

Hornady’s Powder Cop. The idea is that a double-charged case will lift the rod another 3/16 of an inch or so.

I don’t think the Powder Cop is the answer for several reasons.  The Lee Classic turret press doesn’t have an empty station in its turret (all four stations are taken by the Lee 4-die set), you would have to notice that the pushrod indicator rose marginally higher than it was supposed to, and I believe that if a double charge was present, the pushrod might just push into the powder and not rise enough to indicate the double-charge condition.  The Powder Cop might be right for some people, but my equipment can’t use it and I don’t think it’s an effective check.  If you missed the double charge, you would probably miss the rod extending upward a bit further, too.

The RCBS Lockout Die

RCBS offers their lockout die which is, in my opinion, the best option for preventing a double charge on a reloading press, if the press that has an open station.  If the case has an overcharge or an undercharge (or no charge), the lockout die locks the press, which positively lets you know that something isn’t right.  It’s a clever mechanical device that detects either and overcharge or an undercharge and then stops the process.

The RCBS lockout die. If the case has an undercharge or an overcharge, this device stops the reloading process.

Unlike Hornady’s powder cop die, the RCBS lockout die isn’t just a rod moving up and down.  The lockout die stops the show and forces you to check the cartridge that has locked up press movement.  I think it’s a much better approach.  The problem, though, is that you need that extra station on either a turret or a progressive press, and I don’t have that on the Lee Classic turret press (so for me it’s a nonstarter).  What it says to me is that if I were to buy a new press, I would want one that has an extra station.  I think the lockout die is a stellar idea; I just don’t have the real estate for it on my press.

The Bottom Line

I’m convinced that I had a double charge in the round that burst in my 1911.  I’m also convinced that it’s on my to prevent it from happening again.  As explained above, here’s what I’m doing:

      • I’m slowing down and paying attention to what I do.  There is no place for complacency in the reloading world.
      • I will continue to use my Lee Classic turret press, but I’m installing better lighting and standing up so I can see into the cartridge case.
      • I’m switching to a bulkier powder so that a double charge, if it ever occurs again, will spill over the case mouth and make a big, impossible-to-ignore mess.

So there you have it.  If you have any thoughts on any of the above, I’d sure like to hear them.

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