Indians For Guns

As promised in another thread, here are the pictures of the fun event we had today. First we went to Gander in Joliet to pick up my new Hammerli Trailside and then went to the Megasports Range to see how it shot. Mehul and Praveen bought their guns along and we had a lot of fun shooting our own and each other's guns.

After that, joined the ladies for dinner. Worked out to be a very nice evening.

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure612.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure608.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure607.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure606.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure604.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure603.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure602.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure601.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure600.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure599.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure598.jpg
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p274 ... ure597.jpg

Enjoy....
Amit!

Gr8888 guys...Look like you had blast of a time...

Amit, That pistol look awesome, Congrats once again buddy.

-Inder

Look at all the smiles. I'm very glad that you guys had a good time. Congrats again.

Amit, what ammo did your Trailside like best ? I hear finding the right ammo is 80% of the accuracy battle. Also, any plans to add a scope or any other optics to that trailside, or will you leave it as a simple plinking gun ? In any case, you'll have fun.

For a moment I thought you shot the dinner also.Nice photos.I know which one Asif is going to like

penpusher

PS-Is that a scoped rifle a .22 semi auto?

Dinner in style ! Very nice photos.

Amit are you and Mehul shooting the HW97 ?

Thanks everyone for the good wishes. It was a pre planned evening and Amit and Praveen decided on the range as I was not familiar with shooting ranges in the Joliet vicinity. Since the range allows only pistols and pistol calibre carbines, I could only take my Marlin 60 along. Mark had mounted a scope on it and bore sighted it and I needed to get it zeroed with it's favourite diet of CCI Blazers. Praveen brought along his favourite Dan Wesson custom 1911 in 10mm and his Smith and Wesson 7 shot 357 Mag. Amit had his brand new Trailside which he rushed with straight from the Gander Mountain showroom to the range with, to try her out.

We must have shot several hundred rounds from all the guns until our better halves started calling and threatening to have dinner without us if we did not stop. They were obviously uncomfortable at the idea that we were having too much fun. So after about 2 hours of shooting, off we went to Red Robin and had a fantastic dinner and then it was back a long way home for us. Amit and Praveen, of course, stay very close to the range. Lucky guys!

I particularly enjoyed shooting the Smith and Wesson. I am old fashioned and the big revolver was superb to shoot. The Dan Wesson 1911 was also lovely but my old fashioned tastes lead me to incline towards revolvers. Amit is going to have to buy a slightly lower rear sight for his Trailside today to compensate for how it sits in his hand though he was able to shoot some superb offhand groups all the way out to 50 yards with the little gun. If that is not superb shooting with a lovely little pistol, I don't know what is.

My Marlin shot nice offhand groups at the 9 O' clock position on the 25 m slow fire pistol target and I adjusted it to bring the rounds into the centre though I did not fiddle too much as there was no bench and it was uncomfortable kneeling on the floor and trying to steady the rifle on the little shelf as in the pictures. I know what the little rifle is capable of and shall wring it out either when I go to Appleton this week or when I go to Mark's place next. Thank you very much, Mark! That was superb.

We hope to do this more frequently in the future and hope that Inder would join us. At the moment he is the Non Resident Chicagoite in our group. Of course, all other members who visit are most welcome. DO plan on travelling soon if Chicago is on your agenda.

Cheers!

Nice pistol that SIG, absolutely needs a click adjustable sight/scope to get decent accuracy.

Right time to see people eating too. Will need to get the grill fired today. Italian Sausage, Grilled Steaks, Fajita fries washed down with Heineken should do the trick. Canoli will be just right for dessert afterwards.

Have fun folks,

Satpal

Nice guns guys..congrats..all the best

Rgds

I agree about the ammo Sharief. I tried 2 versions of CCI and today tried Elley and Winchester (I forget what exactly the names were), but the guy at GAT Guns told me I needed some cleaning. Disappointing because the gun is practically brand new. The problem today was jamming as against to being off target yesterday! Anyway just to make sure I can 100% blame the ammo, I have cleaned the gun inside-out... literally. I followed the directions in the manual verbatim. The next time I go to the range, I am definitely trying some 'good quality' ammo. Any suggestions folks???

Thanks,
Amit

Amit,

New rifle barrels sometimes need to be broken in as the tooling marks in the barrels need to be smoothed out by firing a few rounds of ammunition through them. Just shoot a few rounds, clean the barrel, then shoot a few more and so on. By the time you run a couple of hundred rounds through your pistol - not a problem with a 22 at all - it should be fine. The accuracy testing could come after that. Nothing to worry about IMO. Just a somewhat more laborious process than starting with a new shotgun.

Cheers!

Read this interesting discussion on barrel break in http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/sho ... adid=12582

penpusher

particularly enjoyed shooting the Smith and Wesson. I am old fashioned and the big revolver was superb to shoot. The Dan Wesson 1911 was also lovely but my old fashioned tastes lead me to incline towards revolvers.

I think pistols are not all that new.Any idea as to which was the first ever self loading/semi-auto pistol?

penpusher

penpusher,

The first semi auto was the Borchardt, put together in the last years of the 19th century. Revolvers came in much earlier with the single action design attributed to Sam Colt and the double action to Adams in the UK.

A leading Belgian collector who has one of the world's largest private collections of guns (6000 plus when I last checked in the late 90's) actually found a Borchardt for his collection in India. The Borchardt was the design refined into the famous Luger Parabellum and thence into the less known Lahti. All were available with long barrels and detachable stocks for use as carbines.

Cheers!

Good show Amit-Congrats on your trailside, good selection of a hand gun.
penpusher, you know I'm more than partial to the 1911-Praveen-you're a lucky guy to have two good handguns...
Mehul, hope you're zeroing down
Keep on doin it guys!
best
Axx

Mehul,

Thanks for the info.Had read an article about German semi auto pistol's including the Borchardt in a gun magazine some years back(will try to find the article).I think that the Borchardt was the first pistol to be produced in some quantity.That would mean that there were earlier designs that perhaps were not as successful.So even a semi-auto pistol is something that is at least 100 years old.

penpusher