Shooting at the Range & Dinner

[nineteeneleven]

Amit - Many guns will require a couple hundred rounds to "break in" before they function properly. Did u try the stingers ammo? They apparently never jam....

Also it may be a mag related problem.

Good luck...

[mehulkamdar]

penpusher,

When we talk about revolvers we are talking about guns from the muzzleloader era whereas automatic pistols belong to the metallic cartridge era. Hence ther elative antiquity of revolvers compared to automatic pistols. As far as failed designs were concerned, if we were to go to the pepperbox designs for revolvers, then we would be going back to the late eighteenth century, a full hundred years before the first semi auto pistols. All a fascinating history, no doubt!

I went through the argument on the thread that you posted. Gale and Rock MacMillan are among the finest tactical rifle manufacturers in the world and their suggestion that barrel break in is not really required pertains, perhaps, to their own very high quality rifles. I did talk to Amit on the phone today and after cleaning his pistol he has found that it cycles much more smoothly and shoots better. I have no doubts that being a SIG it should work very well with a little use. One cannot expect perfection with the first box of 22s - even a match Hamemrli 208 may not, quite, achieve that.

Thanks for the link to a forum that I had never heard of. I might look in occasionally - when people like Gale and Rock MacMillan post there, there should be information that needs to be looked at.

Cheers!

[HSharief]

Amit, don't go for the expensive ammo yet. Good doesn't always mean expensive for rimfire, I think. Unless, you're competing. Try all the "inexpensive" ones first and then go up from there. The jamming might be because of limp-wristing. You're a strong man (I think) so grab that good sized grip with some extra pressure, not too much that you start shaking. Also, try the higher velocity ammo, that might activate the slide better. For the semi auto, I'd stay away from the "mouse fart" loads. The bulk ammo makers like Remington, CCI and Winchester have plenty of low priced ammo variants, try them all before you move up in cost.

Like I said before, buy small quantities of various ammo and see what your gun likes best. All the best, some day I'll come over to Chicago. I hope you'll let me shoot it a couple of mags.

[Mack The Knife]

Limited experience here but I would stick to standard velocity rounds as mentioned on the other thread instead of high or hyper velocity loads.

None of the range .22lr pistols have any problem cycling standard velocity rounds and from what I have read, CCI Stingers are a hit and miss affair where accuracy is concerned and it has mostly been the latter.

Mack The Knife

[mehulkamdar]

Mack The Knife,

Sharief has a very valid point. Many years ago (early 1980s) at the MRC we found that several of the GSPs that members had imported at the time failed to cycle properly with Eley Pistol Match ammunition and the club got the members to switch to Tenex, following which they worked properly. Subsequently, some International shooters I met in Russia also voiced similar concerns and Eley were forced to redo their pistol match rounds with devastatingly successful results.

That said, we were shooting CCI Blazers and Mini Mags, both of which are fast 22 lrs though the Mini Mags were decidedly bad in their dimensions and often stuck in the chamber while loading. I guess the Hammerli has a tight chamber being more match oriented than other 22 pistols and that made feeding somewhat bad though it was a brand new gun being shot the first time. Not quite the time to expect world class performance. That said, some of the groups that Amit shot with both the Blazers as well as the Mini Mags at 25 and later 50 yards were something to see. The little pistol definitely has the accuracy bit wrapped up. What needs to be done is to shoot it a little and then find the best brand of ammo that works in it.

Cheers!

[Mack The Knife]

The only GSPs I have shot were those kitted out for .32 centrefire and not much of that either considering it's Rs.25 per shot!

What I do have adequate experience with is the venerable Hammeli 208 in .22lr and I find this pistol cycles with the standard velocity rounds mentioned earlier.

I don't quite recall all the reasons for not using high or hyper velocity rounds but Asif did mention knackering the firing pin in his PPK .22lr.

What is the MV for CCI Blazer? I do not see it mentioned on the CCI site.

What size groups did Amit achieve at 25 and 50 yards with the respective rounds?

Mack The Knife

[mehulkamdar]

Mack The Knife,

Many semi autos are not warranteed for use with hyper velocity loads including my own Marlin 60. But, I do not know of ANY that are not warranteed for high vel 22 lr ammunition. For the CCI Blazer - no idea what's on the box as I gave the box I had to Amit as they seemed to work better in his pistol than the Mini Mags that I have and I hope to pick up a few boxes when I go to Wisconsin next week - what I found on the net was velocity figures ranging from averages of 1188 fps in an 18" barrel to 1205 in the Thompson Center Classic which has a longer barrel, though I don't know how much longer. The Blazer has a 40 gr all lead bullet, round nosed.

The 25 yd groups that Amit shot towards the end of the session, offhand, were about 2" in diameter, a really nice group on a first time out with a pistol and without any ammunition testing whatsoever. The 50 yd group - the last magazine shot that evening - was about an inch larger.

As far as the PPK is concerned, I have used them a bit along with the TPH in 25 and have found them to jam in both 32 as well as 380. Reading up on them, I have found that my experience does not happen to be untypical. The Brits stopped issuing them to their police especially after some jamming problems in the late 1980s and tests that they carried out subsequently. There was a time when the PPK and the Mauser HSc (which I certainly like and have shot a fair bit as well) were the only DA compact pistols around. These days there are vastly more modern choices though the current choices would not help shooters in India.

Cheers!

[Mack The Knife]

Mehul,

You could be right. Perhaps what I had read refered to hyper velocity rounds only and not high velocity rounds.

Superb shooting, Amit. Do you recall what ammo was used for the respective ranges?

Mack The Knife

[Satpal_S]

Blunt and short answer:

The days of a pistol being moody are gone!
After paying good money on a good brand.
Standard velocity, high velocity, hyper velocity rounds mix and match them and load in magazines.

With a properly broken in gun 100+ rounds, clean it nicely.

Then fire the mixed rounds, anything less than 100% reliability under range conditions, send the gun back to manufacturer for repairs/exchange. It's the manufacturers job to figure out what is wrong, not yours.

Period!

Modern guns should only malfunction when dirty in field conditions. Not in air-conditioned ranges and when they are clean.

Satpal

PS:One more incidence in support of my principle to buy a used gun only after shooting it at range for less than 60% of new gun cost.

[eljefe]

Well, Herr Glock set the standard...I did have problems with my Deutsch PPK/s , obviously with Indian ammo, Tenex worked great , as did blazer and Yellowjackets. Guess I must attribute a broken firing pin to the hi-vels,cant think of many reasons-absolutely NO dry firing!
Some suggestions-
1.Sharief is right about the limp wristing-often times seen in pure blow back pistols
2.Remove the mainspring, squirt some plain jane lube OIL on the slide/frame rails and work it a hundred times.Sure, barrel will take a few or more rounds to settle in, Gun/ammo idiosyncracy is well known and your Trailside should perform with any ammo-seeing its pedigree, however, it will prefer to peform better with certain brands, as compared to others-take your time, check it out and enjoy-Again, Great buy!
Best
Axx

[mehulkamdar]

Asif,

John Moses Browning set the standard in 1911 and followed it up with another in 1935. Gaston Glock was a latecomer to this business of designing autopistols. Incidentally, Linus Aruliah, one of the top scorers on the Glock challenge, is a childhood buddy of mine and my classmate from grade school - he shoots a SIG.

The Yellow Jackets are hyper vel loads for a 22 lr. They are what may have damaged your firing pin. Blazers would not and Tenex, of course, is still THE definitive 22 lr ammunition as far as accuracy is concerned. Bloody expensive, but then you get what you pay for. When my Model 69A target is ready - a full reblue and stock finish pending at the moment, Tenex is what I am first going to shoot through her. Hope to post pics as she is restored. Hopefully, MArk would also post pics of the shotgun that he bought for his eldest son from the same source at the same time.

Cheers!

[eljefe]

OOPS!
Mehul, should have said-redefined....
Yup, tend to think the yellow jacket route for the broken firing pin! Flawless feed though.
This one wont handle alternate Indian and imported ammo in the mag-sure shot stovepipe with the KF.
Best
Axx

[HSharief]

I want to agree with Satpal, its 2007 and we can't get a pistol that will shoot all ammo equally well. But .22 is so small the cheapo bulk ammo manufacturing can't be good quality and consistent, and good quality doesn't come cheap.

Mehul/Amit, if the ammo is sticking going into the chamber, break-in seems to be the only solution. Also try diff bullet weights. Maybe it'll like one better than the other.

Didn't this gun come with a test target telling you which ammo it was shot with. Apples and Oranges here but my Anschutz had came with a target shot with 5 or ten, can't remember Tenex rounds in less than dime sized group. Lucky for me, I could match that with my second pick, el-cheapo Remington Thunderbolts.

[mehulkamdar]

Sharief,

Something was definitely wrong witht he Mini Mags. They caused feeding problems in my Marlin as well and the only ammo my rifle doesn't like are hollowpoints of any kind. The cheaper Blazers functioned perfectly. I hope to take a micrometer and check the rim and case dimensions on the Mini Mags sometime later next week and shall post the results here. The cheapo Blazers worked beautifully - I posted about the 2" groups offhand at 25 yards on the very first day out with the pistol.

Tenex would work perfectly but I am not sure it is worth spending that much money on ammunition that is going to be burned up in plinking. If Amit needs to use match ammunition I would certainly recomment the CCI Selects. That said, with proper break in the little gun should work perfectly.

BTW you have an Anschutz bolt pistol? I thought you had a 64 rifle? Sure the test target from Hammerli would be very tight. They use 5 shot groups from a cold barrel at 25 yds as a specimen. Only, we were not using Tenex on that day as you know.

[conty1]

Thanks for the responses guys! At the moment, my gun is cleaned and ready to go shooting again. I sort of have an idea about what ammo to purchase, I'll keep you updated as to how it does.

I ended up buying a red dot scope for it on Ebay afterall.

Sharief, of course you can shoot it man. Come on... plan a trip. Maybe we can do the long awaited trap shoot too while you are here.

Amit