A Day at the Range and Some Helpful Tips

by Jack

Since it was the first decent dry day we’ve had for weeks, I had to bring out a few toys and head for the shooting range (Rabe Road in Oroville, CA) It’s a 25 mile drive, but its worth the trip, a very nice public range with restrooms, gravel parking area and even a pistol section with three benches. The benches are large enough for two shooters to share. Note: The target on the left depicts .223 holes in green and 8 mm holes in red.

By the time I arrived the late afternoon sun was at my back, perfect! There were only two other shooters (ten concrete shooting tables available). By the time I was finished removing the weapons from my trunk to the bench one of the shooters called for a cease fire. This allowed me time to set up cardboard box to hold my small target (see upper left), a hand drawn circle with the black dot being about 1.25 in dia.

I wanted to try out some .40 cal cast lead bullets I just reloaded. These were medium warm (formula to follow). I cranked off a couple of clips worth or about 20 rounds just to see how they would feed. Hey, not one jam! The accuracy was very acceptable. From the factory a Glock (see pic on right) only has a 5 lb pull, but this one was smoothed out even more to around 3.2 lbs. A Glock is always a real treat to shoot, no matter what caliber or model and this one was no exception. It really lived up to its reputation. Take another look at the Glock picture, is that a good looking, streamlined handgun or what?

I reload all my own ammo, saves a lot of money and when you have a small budget its s a necessity! I think its fun to shoot your own loads; most dedicated shooters reload for economy, accuracy and again, just for plain old fun. Anyway. . . I shot hardened cast round nose 180 gr bullets, that’s a real big slug for you non-shooters, and it was backed by 7.3 grs. of Hodgdon HS-6 powder (available at CVS in Chico for $22 a lb).

This is a nice compromise load for plinking. It’s just hot enough to get you some decent distance with a fairly flat trajectory out to 50 yards. Yet its not too hot to cause lead fouling in the barrel. Recoil is very manageable.

Running a box of lead cast reloads through a precision Glock “35” can’t really be justified, it’s like filling up your Ferrari with regular. This weapon is designed to be shot with precision ammo, not plinking with my hand loads. Glock says they honor the warranty if you use reloads. But, what the heck, my rounds worked fine and besides, I didn’t run that many rounds through it.

Next up was a World War 2 K98 Mauser aka “Karbiner Kurz” (short carbine – see pic on left); this one was made in 1944. It was well handled and there was a lot bad dings on the stock, but the metal was pretty decent. I would say almost 90% of the bluing was still there, which was surprising for this bargain basement special. It just needed some TLC to look like a good shooter should.

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When I got this big guy home I cleaned it up and it came out at least a 7 on a 1 to 10 scale.

Skip this next part unless you have an old beater you want to clean up. #1 I stripped the gun down to its basic parts, wood and metal. #2 I removed the old varnish and a lot of storage grime and who knows what from the wood. For this part I used Formby’s finish remover followed by a good scrubbing with #3 Comet cleanser in hot water. The comet bleached the wood back to near original color and got the last bits of varnish off too. Note: The hot water lifts out the smaller dents, dings and scratches, just don’t over do it or you could warp the wood. #4 After it was dry I applied 4-5 generous coats of Danish wood oil and let it sink in for 48 hours. #5 The final touch, Johnson’s floor wax. You think I’m kidding? No way, this makes an excellent utility finish. It has a nice sheen to it when its done right. Don’t do this to a quality collectible!

The last weapon to be tested today and sighted-in was an M4 replica in .223 cal (AR 15). This was a kit weapon I finished building about a week ago. It was done in the original military A2 version (solid set carry handle on top). The A3’s have the flat top receiver. This AR was ordered with the 5.56 chamber and a chrome lined, heavy barrel with a 1 in 8 twist. The twist rate is perfect for 55 gr bullets.

The beefed up mil spec chamber can easily handle the higher pressure army ammo (basically the same as .223, just a little more punch) and it has the standard mil spec peep sights. The butt stock is a smooth, rattle free five point adjustable. There is a non-military Houge brand finger-formed rubber pistol grip and an over-sized charging handle. Nothing real fancy here, but to the eye of an experience AR shooter it has all the little things to make it fairly impressive. Best part, its simple, rugged and accurate, no laser, no bi-pod, no scope, just a basic reliable shooter.

Sometimes you can get lucky when putting one of these AR’s together and the factory set sights will be fairly close on at 100 yards and these sure were! Only I wasn’t shooting 100 yards, I was shooting at 60. So the rounds tended to be high (2-3 inches). Hey, close enough, I wouldn’t change the setting. Having it zeroed in at 100 yards is exactly what you want. From that starting point you merely compensate a few inches up or down depending where your target might be.

Shooting a rifle accurately at 60 yards is not a big challenge for most shooters, but consider the grouping you see represented by the green dots in the target above, that is with peep sights – right out of the box. I’ll take that any day and be real happy. Imagine what this weapon could do with a scope!

The larger red dots on the target are bullet holes from the old WW II Mauser. The hole sizes shown are proportionate, note how much larger the hole is for that 8mm compared to a .223. That 8mm sends a lot lead down range. It’s an awesome cartridge, very close to a 30.06. I should note that my first shot with the Mauser missed the target and went high by over 8 inches. I could not drop the elevation anymore so I had to compensate and guess-ta-mate which made my pattern a little looser than it should.

The Mauser sights are a blade in front and leaf in the rear. The rear

leaf covers up a lot of the target and the sharp tip blade is hard for me to see and yet place it in the center of small rear sight notch. Makes you appreciate what the German soldiers had to deal with, especially when they were up against a good ol country boy with an 06 Garand ( shown on the right). You don’t mess with a Garand shooter and come out on top. The Mauser bolt actions was past their prime when WWII broke, same can be said for the Brits bolt action, the Lee Enfield in .303. They were all powerful enough, but bolt actions lacked the rapid firepower of semi-autos, and to some extent the extra range in the case of a 30.06.

That Garand was one fine weapon in its day and even now. I’ll have to do an article soon on the Garand. What a great weapon on so many levels.

I also plinked with a .22 Ruger target model semi-auto pistol and .357 S&W match revolver, left over from my old competition shooting days. They were all a lot of fun too.

I spent the better part of two hours at the range and had a great time, by the end I had the place all to myself. What did it cost? Let me put it this way, I probably spent more on gasoline to get there and back than it cost me in ammo. As a bonus I picked up about $5 in brass shell cases (.300 win-mag, .38, .223 and 40’s) and I found 6 nearly new 40 cal. and .223 ammo boxes to hold my reloads. It was a good day.

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Oh, and one last little bit of prudent advice, if anyone reading this should ever even remotely consider burglarizing my place looking for guns, please consider this: Big safe – 1000 lbs anchored in concrete and time locked.

My home is my castle – I protect it accordingly, silent alarm, hidden video cams, angry pitbulls and an assortment of booby traps just for fun. Heck, PG&E won’t even come over to read my meter anymore, they said they would rather just take my word for it. So, your chances of survival would be far better if you tried to stick up a cop’s bar.