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Gun Thread: Mid-July Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the middle of July? Not much going on this week, and definitely no shooting. WW is out of town visiting a friend, so I'm home taking care of my furry little pals. Not that I mind, of course, but I really need to get to the farm!

Tooth Hole Update: Healing nicely! Thanks for asking.

Programming Note: I may be in and out of the comments tonight, so please don't burn the place down, 'kay?

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

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A couple of follow-ups to our conversation last Sunday when our pal VMaximus had a few questions. You may recall:

I love .22's, I have many, a Browning BLR, a Winchester 77, a Nylon 66, a Browning Challenger and a Ruger Mark 4. My first purchase in a dozen years was a Ruger 10/22. It is a standard carbine model. In 2008 I had a heavy hammer forged target barrel. I regret selling it I really liked it. They seem to not make them so I want to recreate the one I had. I am also thinking of a precision .22 I cannot decide between Kidde, Volquartsen, or some other brand, Green Mountain? I am kind of liking Tikka, any thoughts on that?

I have a Springfield Saint M4. I want a flat top version with a sight. A complete upper and a red dot is in the mix, I am unsure of what sight to use. Any thoughts?

Lastly I want a good scope. One of the rifles I sold to get by in 2008 was a Weatherby mark 5 in 300 WBY mag. I bought a Leupold VX3 for it. Wow that was the best scope I ever had. I want the best scope I can find I am leaning to a VX5 or 6, I have heard that there are quality scopes out there for less, Like Tract optics and Vortex, Do you have any experience with the off brands?

First up, our pal lurker responded:

I had some bad experiences with Vortex and my research led me to Leupold. I have two Leupold scopes on Browning Xbolts (6.5CM & 270WSM). I really like both of them for different reasons. The two I have are as follows:

VX-3HD 3.5-10x40 CDS-ZL FireDot Twilight Hunter 30MM 180627
VX-5HD 3-15X44 CDS-ZL2 FireDot Duplex 172368

The VX5 is really clear but slightly heavier. Probably more capable than I need to hunt, but a real asset at the range. The VX3 is much lighter and still excellent. Probably all I ever need to hunt, but not as good at the range.

I bought them thru predatoroptics.com. Great price and excellent, responsive service.

Next, our pal someone who prefers not to be named offered the following:

Kidd, CZ, and Tikka. Consider Clark. Nominally the inventor of the "accurate" 10/22. Always can go old school like Winchester 52 or Remington 40X. Anschutz anything. All depends on money and platform (auto vs bolt).

Kidd just works.

Clark is outstanding

CZ is the go to for many

Tikka is sound, also (son of Sako!)

Anschutz!

Better be prepared to get great and expensive ammo to get the most out of these. If you are back in the area happy to share (I have a couple of modified Ruger 10/22's (Kidd), A Clark, A CZ, and a Winchester 52 (CMP) among others. Still want a full Kidd, maybe someday.

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Also, a late comment from last week by our pal Bruce regarding gun safes and Virginia.

The pic of gun safe made me think to remind any of you that are Virginia residents that if you buy a gun safe you can get a tax credit up to $300 towards the purchase. That's good for 2023 through 2027. And yes you can buy one each year. Posted by: Bruce at July 10, 2023 07:49 AM

That's right! Thanks Bruce!

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Next up, our pal RI Red tells a story from the reloading bench and has a question at the end.

Some IDPA shooters I know prefer to shoot 9 mm with a 147 g. bullet instead of 115 or 124. Big, slower moving round, less recoil, more accurate. I ordered some, but instead of going with the traditional conical round, I ordered the truncated cone flat point from Berry's Bullets, since I'd be able to load .357 Sig with that bullet as well. I looked at two different loading manuals and researched online and determined that Tite Group powder would be appropriate, seated at 1.YYY", about the same as the conical 115 g. round. (For what it's worth, there does not appear to be good pistol caliber carbine loading data out there.) I understood that the 147 would seat deeper than the 115gr, so increased pressure was definitely on my mind. I did the plonk test in one of my Glock 9 mm barrels and it plonked fine, seating without touching the lands. I then shot it out of my S&W FPC carbine, and it shot well, and about 200 fps faster than out of a pistol, due to the increased barrel length. No problem with extraction and ejection, EXCEPT trying to eject a live round. I eventually figured that the bullet was jamming into the lands of the carbine. If you look at the shape of the conical 9mm, the ogive tapers immediately, whereas the flat point does not. Checking again, the S&W failed the plonk test I should have done before, but chamber dimensions should be SAAMI, right?

I seated the bullet down further, still above SAAMI spec, and it plonked without jamming into the lands and it did live round ejections without fail. The 9 mm is notoriously sensitive to seating depth, with pressure building up fast. Understanding this, I donned my protective gear and fired just two rounds. The first clocked at 1560 fps (way too fast!), the second slightly slower and blowing out the side of the case head. Bad decision to try it and I knew better. Better decision, I did a powder ladder with the same seating depth starting super-slow, and one grain at a time. Bottom of the ladder ran at 544 fps and still cycled the bolt. The best, most accurate and least scary loads turned out to be with velocity just under 1000 fps, which is great (and subsonic) for a heavy 9 mm bullet.

Question: why would the longer seating be fine out of a pistol and not out of the carbine? Is the chamber shorter in the S&W carbine, or are the tolerances greater in the pistol barrel? Inquiring minds want to know, but without bodily injury.

Red, sounds to me like you might find an interior ballistics software package useful. I use the product QuickLOAD for new load development, which does a very good job modeling potential over-pressure conditions, among other things. Very powerful and worth the price.

As for an answer to your particular question, let's see what our experts have to say!

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More Colt 1911
Our pal Gunblue490 shows what the Colt Gold Match can do besides look good.

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Uncle Jer
Uncle Jer demonstrates the quick draw.

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Next, our pal WTM sends us the following without comment. Granny WTM, perhaps? I keed! I Keed!

Not sure who the fella is with the blunderbuss (Wiki), but in a few more years my beard might look like that!

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Gatling Gun
Well, this is interesting!

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Musical Interlude
Here is Joe Bonamassa with Eric Clapton at RAH performing Further On Up the Road. Amazing.

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Gun Basics 101
New video from the She Equips Herself gal! This week's video is on all sorts of home security stuff.

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Armed Attorneys
Click bait? Something to think about I suppose, but keep training!

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Cigar of the Week

This week our pal Diogenes scores again with this excellent review of the Macanudo Cafe

When it comes to a big-name cigar, my relationship with Macanudo continues and it is a love/hate relationship. I love to hate them. OK, that is a bit harsh but I can honestly say it is a rare thing when I have a Macanudo and I enjoy it. This last week was typical. The Macanudo Cafe I fired up was a hard cigar. Hard to the touch, hard to light and hard to draw. But, once it got going it was an OK smoke, nothing exciting, with an even ash. The web site calls it "The cigar that started it all."

OK. Sure. Here's what else they say:

"Macanudo Cafe has spent decades as one of, if not the best-selling premium cigars of all time. Cafe is distinctive, smooth and delicious to smoke, garnering numerous 90+ ratings by industry reviews. The mellow profile makes it approachable and enjoyable for beginners and it's flavor and complexity yield a premium smoking experience for aficionados, making it the perfect cigar. Yeah, well that is marketing and it's always over the top. The Cafe has a Connecticut Shade wrapper, it uses Mexican San Andrean as the binder with Mexican and Dominican filler."

It is a mellow cigar but no real spike in the flavor at all. And it just feels off to me like holding a fat pencil. I don't like a hard draw and so I call this one a wash. I give it two matchsticks.

Excellent, Diogenes! Thank you very much!

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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.

Cigarsinternational.com
Cigarpage.com
Famous-smoke.com
Cigarsdaily.com
Neptunecigar.com
Smallbatchcigar.com
Bobalu Cigar Company
Cigarbid.com

A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid

Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!

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Ammo Link-O-Rama
I'm really very seriously not kidding around anymore. Buy Ammo
AmmoSeek - online ammo search tool
GunBot - online ammo search tool
SG Ammo
Palmetto State Armory
Georgia Arms
AmmoMan
Target Sports USA
Bud's Gun Shop
American Elite Ammo NEW!

***Mail Bag***

This week's mailbag entry is from our pal WTM. True!

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Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!

That's it for this week - have you been to the range?