Tag: Series 70. Series 80

Two .45s and a 9mm

By Joe Berk

All three pistols in this blog are favorites, and all three have been tuned by good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks).  There’s a message there.  He does great work.

Before my back surgery last Friday, I wanted to get to the indoor pistol range.  I enjoy shooting there, and I didn’t know how long it would be before I could do so again.  And I had ammo I wanted to use that I had loaded several years ago.  I don’t think it’s really necessary to rotate my ammo stash, but I do so, anyway.   The plan was to shoot two 1911s and my 9mm Shield, and get a little practice in with all three.  One of the 1911s was the gorgeous MacManus Award Series 70 1911 Government Model you see above; the second was my bright stainless Series 80.  The 9mm was my Shield.  I’ve written about all of these pistols before; you can find those stories here.

185-grain powder coated semi-wadcutter bullets with 5.0 grains of Bullseye. This one of my favorite .45 ACP loads.  In addition to being accurate, this is good-looking ammo.

When I arrived at the range, I sent one of my Alco targets down to the 10-yard line and started shooting at it with my Series 80 1911. It’s the bright stainless version and it’s gorgeous.  TJ added a Les Baer barrel, Millet sights, and a few other touches to this gun, and it is a joy to shoot.

The 5.0-grain Bullseye/185-grain powder coated semi-wadcutter load averaged right around 835 feet per second. The spread was a bit more than I would have thought, but that’s okay.  Or maybe it wasn’t.  Sometimes the Garmin picks up a round from an adjacent lane, and if it caught a 9mm round, that would explain the higher velocity shot above 1000 fps.

I tend to get my money’s worth out of a target, and this one was no exception.  Surprisingly, after firing the 75th round (out of a box of 100 cartridges), the 1911 experienced a failure to eject.  The empty case just sat there, kind of wedged between the barrel hood and the slide.  Hmmm.  I looked in, and the extractor had slid forward.  It broke.  I’ve experienced that before on another 1911 (my RIA Compact), so I wasn’t shocked.  Maybe just surprised a little.  The bright stainless 1911 is the 1911 I shoot the most.  I’ve been sending lead downrange with it since 1986, so having the extractor fail after 40 years of heavy use…well, I’ll live with that.  It was off the TJ’s for fitment with a new extractor.  I should get the gun back sometime early next week.  But I digress. Back to today’s blog.

I sent a fresh target downrange and started firing the same ammo (my .45 ACP reloads) through the MacManus Series 70 1911 (the blue steel 1911 at the top of this blog).    The target you see below?  I put 125 rounds through it.

125 rounds through an Alco target. Like I said, I like to get my money’s worth out of a target.

With that, I had fired 200 rounds of .45 ACP so far that morning, and I had expended all of the reloaded .45 ammo I brought with.  It was time to move on to the 9mm.  I wanted to use another lot of ammo I had reloaded, this time with the 147-grain Hornady full metal jacket bullet in my Smith and Wesson Shield (another pistol tuned by TJ).   The Shield is the firearm I usually carry when I’m carrying, and I like to stay proficient with it.  I like the a full-sized 1911 a lot more than the compact Shield, but the Shield is a much more concealable handgun and it is way easier to carry.

My Smith and Wesson Shield. It’s compact. It’s easy to carry. And I love the hi-viz sights. TJ slicked it up a bit for me.

I mentioned a while back that I have a big bottle of Red Dot propellant, and earlier testing showed that 3.2 grains of this powder with a 147-grain full metal jacket Hornady bullet is one of the Shield’s sweet spots.

The straight scoop on a great 9mm load. This particular combination is extremely reliable and relatively accurate.

I had another one of my Alco silhouette targets (is the guy facing toward me, or away from me?), and I sent 100 rounds downrange toward it, too.

Another target, another 100 shots. My point of aim was at 6:00 on the orange bullseye.

I had a nice morning on the range.  All the ammo I brought with me was old stuff, reloaded with brass that had been reloaded many times.  I didn’t bother collecting it.  I just swept up my area and left it for the range’s recycler. That felt like I was doing something wrong (not picking up the brass), but with back surgery two days away I wasn’t bending too well that morning.  I’ve got plenty of brass.