what are you shooting? (handgun thread)

[thebradleycrew]

Pretty fancy for a plastic gun! Maybe someday, you can get a real one.

Haha, thanks. I'm not a full plastic convert, but I'll tell you what, they run. My Les Baer and Nighthawk 1911's are are still my favorite guns to shoot but they are not suppressor ready (i.e.: don't have threaded barrels). And according to Baer, none of their 1911's are suppressor capable anyway. I'm not sure why. When I get a 2011 (likely a Triarc or Nighthawk) I'll probably look to do a threaded barrel so I can put a suppressor on that too!

 

[user 16756]

Pretty fancy for a plastic gun! Maybe someday, you can get a real one.

it's the lotus philosophy; performance through light weight.

really killer @thebradleycrew ; my cousin's glock 19 was the first handgun I ever shot so I have a lot of love for them. his was definitely not as setup as yours though.

what's the lead time on one of those like?

 

[Kgp]

Haha, thanks. I'm not a full plastic convert, but I'll tell you what, they run. My Les Baer and Nighthawk 1911's are are still my favorite guns to shoot but they are not suppressor ready (i.e.: don't have threaded barrels). And according to Baer, none of their 1911's are suppressor capable anyway. I'm not sure why. When I get a 2011 (likely a Triarc or Nighthawk) I'll probably look to do a threaded barrel so I can put a suppressor on that too!

I’ve shot a few and you’re right. Before I owned any handguns, I did a lot of trap and sporting clays shooting and really got used to short lock times and light trigger pulls. Because of that, I cringe every time I shoot a double action. Most of my handguns are 1911 variants, and all but one are now 9mm due to old age and less recoil.

 

[thebradleycrew]

it's the lotus philosophy; performance through light weight.

really killer @thebradleycrew ; my cousin's glock 19 was the first handgun I ever shot so I have a lot of love for them. his was definitely not as setup as yours though.

what's the lead time on one of those like?

Thanks. It's a bombproof, accurate, and reliable gun. It's fast to draw, easy to carry, and the thing allows me to shoot 0.25 splits all day long. In terms of lead times - yikes, I don't know. Have to be 6-9 months out for any Agency Arms work right now, though they are ramping up production markedly. I highly recommend their work as they make good looking guns and more importantly, more reliable and accurate guns.

@Kgp - I hear you on the .45 versus 9mm recoil debate. Most recently I've moved to 9mm because the new defensive ammo shows defensive results similar to most .45acp and I can both carry more rounds and because I can shoot faster splits. Unsurprisingly I am more accurate with my 1911s, but I'm just not as fast.

 

[TheNewMexican]

It's the smell of gunpowder

There is no single reason that covers the scope of gun owners..........

I shoot rifles for hunting, mostly deer, some cats (hehhe).......I have no interest in participating but will watch the 1000yd shooters occasionally. And there's collectors - a friend collects Garands (military rifle) and has about a dozen at any given time. And he shoots them........

I see a lot of commonality in the above. At the tender age of 5, I picked up a used copy of "Cartridges of the World" at a garage sale and began the process of literally memorizing it cover to cover as I grew up. Have enjoyed precision shooting with bolt guns I built myself at the Trinidad summer gunsmithing classes but also love plinking with rimfire revolvers and lever actions (seems like everybody loves a .22). Pulled targets at Ben Avery for Garand shooters, and as of late I am working towards the instructor rank for Appleseed.

Hunted bear up in Maine, Antelope in Wyoming, Hogs in Oklahoma, Ducks in Colorado and Deer / Elk in New Mexico. All good memories............

I'll respond on a couple of items here, but start with this:
.22LR prices are going nuts currently too. I'm seeing $0.40/round for basic .22LR ammo. If you've got a stockpile great, but just be aware that current .22LR prices are similar to what .45ACP prices should be...

Spent the last four years taking 50 bucks out of every paycheck and going to the local sporting goods / hardware stores and buying CCI mini-mags. The jist is, I've got a couple of milk crates filled with them to keep me busy till things cool off. Not-so "Cheaper than Dirt" is back to gauging people like they did last time with 45 ACP FMJ's going for two bucks a round. They can stick it as far as I'm concerned...........

Per the original thread, mostly shooting a Smith and Wesson model 18 in .22 as of late.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

For myself I like them more than kitchen knives, my Porsche the Cobra.....etc. I also daily carry and unfortunately have had to draw more than once and discharge twice. I shudder to think where I would be now without. I also carry for one of my jobs. Some people haven't had the culture of firearms and that's fine. Some people don't understand knives or driving, that's also fine. But your....not actually you but those who infringe... ignorance of my rights is not permission to push a different belief in my unwanted.

If you own a Porsche & a Cobra. You need a gun just to keep them from being stolen

 

[Dendrobatez]

Haven't had a chance to shoot either yet but I'm sure they will both be fun.

 

[panda]

View attachment 121480

Haven't had a chance to shoot either yet but I'm sure they will both be fun.

murcaaaa

 

[Travis petosa]

Been shooting more rifles than pistols lately, after I finished my build and got a new blaster.
Ghetto blaster is now sporting an mro and cloud defensive rein. The thing is super fun to shoot.
KAC is the new go to rifle in general now, running suppressed the gas that I usually get to the face from other rifles is sooo much better.
Still waiting on 2 cans to get through jailtime. Trash panda and a cgs Hyperion k to finish these builds off.

 

[Towerguy]

Wilson Combat CQB Elite, Springfield Armory TRP with extensive gunsmith work.

 

[ArkaikMystic]

Jeeze, well here I go:
-Springfield 1911 Range officer elite target
-FN 509 tactical w/ holosun red dot and apex trigger
-Smith&Wesson shield 9mm
-2 built AR-15's (built myself)
-Stevens by savage arms 12 gauge shotgun
-Rock Island m30 m5 nickel plated 12 gauge shotgun
-Remington 700L with magpul hunter stock
-Ruger 10/22 classic wood stock

I suggest brass ammo 100% it's fairly cheap (comparative) and is reliable. No aluminum cased ammo as it will wear at your firearm MUCH faster than any other. If your looking for the best for home defense get nickel cased ammo. You can always do your own searches on Google and weigh the pros and cons of each to see what would best suit your needs. As all ammo has its strengths and weaknesses.

Another bit of advice, go to the range and use it. Familiarize yourself with the firearm and its use. I try to go out and shoot as often as possible, but thats gotten to be less and less so now that everyone and their grandma is buying up all the ammo and making it more sought after and a hell of a lot more expensive. I mean my local gun shop increased the price on most of their rounds by 2x as much as they were just back in December. .556 rounds were going for 7.95 for a pack of 20 now it's 13.95 for a pack of 20.

Enjoy your new firearm and I wish you the best of luck on your search for ammo.

 

[ArkaikMystic]

i never even thought to practice via dry fire, thanks i will definitely do that.

Be careful with dry firing, some guns are more fragile then others and should not be dry fired as it wears on the gun mechanisms. Just a heads up. Dry firing a rimfire firearm, striker based firearms or guns with angled firing pins (such as revolvers with hammer-mounted firing pins or older shotguns) can damage the gun.

 

[Travis petosa]

Be careful with dry firing, some guns are more fragile then others and should not be dry fired as it wears on the gun mechanisms. Just a heads up. Dry firing a rimfire firearm, striker based firearms or guns with angled firing pins (such as revolvers with hammer-mounted firing pins or older shotguns) can damage the gun.

snap caps are recommended for most dry fire sessions.
Fwiw, I’ve got multiple thousands of dry fire on my glocks and cz’s without them and they’ve been just fine. I did have an issue on my m&p where the tip of the firing pin snapped off when dry firing. I would be lying if I said I always dry fire with snap caps, but I try and do it more often than not.
I dry fire every day btw with my carry gun while I’m making my coffee in the morning.

 

[ArkaikMystic]

snap caps are recommended for most dry fire sessions.
Fwiw, I’ve got multiple thousands of dry fire on my glocks and cz’s without them and they’ve been just fine. I did have an issue on my m&p where the tip of the firing pin snapped off when dry firing. I would be lying if I said I always dry fire with snap caps, but I try and do it more often than not.
I dry fire every day btw with my carry gun while I’m making my coffee in the morning.

You are correct, there are ways to do it safely. But that was not discussed and this person being a new gun owner should know the dangers it could cause to any firearm. Cuz as you said about your m&p was damaged in the process. I use dummy rounds myself when dry firing, but NEVER dry fire without them (Ar-15 excluded as I plan on getting better triggers soon, hopefully a binary trigger). Just giving my .02 cents so he is aware of all probabilities.

 

[Lycanit]

The dry fire mythology is from old large caliber rimfire guns. The hammer/firing pin would, with dry firing, impact the actual chamber. This would eventually lead to a case failure and a bad day.. there isn't a firearm made in the last several decades that have any issues with dry firing. Several of my handguns have literally hundreds of hours of dry fire. Both DA/SA. Sig, Ruger, Para ordinance, S&W, never had any parts needing replacement even with full disassembly. I do use snap cap cartridges but only for failure drill clearance.

 

[ArkaikMystic]

The dry fire mythology is from old large caliber rimfire guns. The hammer/firing pin would, with dry firing, impact the actual chamber. This would eventually lead to a case failure and a bad day.. there isn't a firearm made in the last several decades that have any issues with dry firing. Several of my handguns have literally hundreds of hours of dry fire. Both DA/SA. Sig, Ruger, Para ordinance, S&W, never had any parts needing replacement even with full disassembly. I do use snap cap cartridges but only for failure drill clearance.

Use the Google search bar and you'll find out your dead wrong. Lol I literally just got my chl last year and the professional who taught the class says otherwise. Sorry, but I'm gonna trust his 38 years of firearms experience over yours. No offense meant, but experience doesn't lie. And Google results agree with him. Cant say it's ever happened to me, even before i got my chl, but just because it hasn't doesn't mean it won't and that it can't. Glad you haven't experienced a failure yet though, that's pretty awesome.

 

[Sdo]

 

[Lycanit]

Agreed.. I've been shooting over 48 years in competition and other firearm use, teaching for over 30 myself, so I speak from first hand...not google... if you have a failure in a part dry firing then it was a faulty part from the beginning... I take no offense as I don't know you. As for the hundreds of people I have trained with and shot with I have only heard of two revolvers with pin issues. Both were found to have stress risers from machining when magnafluxed.
Personally I would rather find a broken part from the comfort of my home than hear the "click" in a life and death situation. Each person will do whatever they feel is best. As a old man I know I won't change any minds here, I also know how wrong the opinion of don't dry fire is. My 1911 and p226 have literally been dry fired thousands of times. The 1911 has had 2hours a week, for 32 years.

 

[ArkaikMystic]

Agreed.. I've been shooting over 48 years in competition and other firearm use, teaching for over 30 myself, so I speak from first hand...not google... if you have a failure in a part dry firing then it was a faulty part from the beginning... I take no offense as I don't know you. As for the hundreds of people I have trained with and shot with I have only heard of two revolvers with pin issues. Both were found to have stress risers from machining when magnafluxed.
Personally I would rather find a broken part from the comfort of my home than hear the "click" in a life and death situation. Each person will do whatever they feel is best. As a old man I know I won't change any minds here, I also know how wrong the opinion of don't dry fire is. My 1911 and p226 have literally been dry fired thousands of times. The 1911 has had 2hours a week, for 32 years.

You should come to Oregon then, here they look at you like a bumbling idiot if you dry fire a striker pistol. Ask me how I know. only malfunction I have ever had was on a firing range with a .223 wylde about 2 and a half years ago, it blew up in my face on the second shot sending shrapnel into my arm. Guess what? I dry fired that thing at least 150 times before going to the range. Found out it was a faulty BCG. Luckily walked away virtually unharmed. Not that these things are at all related ad I expect it was faulty manufacturing in this case 100%. I have about 5 years of firearms experience under my belt, with about a year of it being solid. And I never experienced an issue with dry fire myself nor seen it happen. I've just been going off what the shops and my chl trainer told me.

 

[Barmoley]

Agreed.. I've been shooting over 48 years in competition and other firearm use, teaching for over 30 myself, so I speak from first hand...not google... if you have a failure in a part dry firing then it was a faulty part from the beginning... I take no offense as I don't know you. As for the hundreds of people I have trained with and shot with I have only heard of two revolvers with pin issues. Both were found to have stress risers from machining when magnafluxed.
Personally I would rather find a broken part from the comfort of my home than hear the "click" in a life and death situation. Each person will do whatever they feel is best. As a old man I know I won't change any minds here, I also know how wrong the opinion of don't dry fire is. My 1911 and p226 have literally been dry fired thousands of times. The 1911 has had 2hours a week, for 32 years.

I absolutely agree with this and have similar experience with dry firing. Modern center fired pistols and rifles should not be damaged by dry firing, there really is no reason for it if you look at the designs. If the failure happens the part was faulty and would fail anyway, possibly sooner.

You should come to Oregon then, here they look at you like a bumbling idiot if you dry fire a striker pistol. Ask me how I know. only malfunction I have ever had was on a firing range with a .223 wylde about 2 and a half years ago, it blew up in my face on the second shot sending shrapnel into my arm. Guess what? I dry fired that thing at least 150 times before going to the range. Found out it was a faulty BCG. Luckily walked away virtually unharmed. Not that these things are at all related ad I expect it was faulty manufacturing in this case 100%. I have about 5 years of firearms experience under my belt, with about a year of it being solid. And I never experienced an issue with dry fire myself nor seen it happen. I've just been going off what the shops and my chl trainer told me.

Oregon is a weird placeI am kidding, mostly. Consider though that glock which is a striker fired pistol needs to be dry fired to disassemble, not only glock either. Sure you don’t disassemble as often as dry fire potentially, but still. It is pretty clear that it will not be harmed by dry firing.

 

[Lycanit]

Glad you got out of that with only that injury. Eye and ear pro!!!!!
We had a bolt in a BCG found to be machined backwards.. it fired and had a bolt over... weird....ok. looking it over no biggie...he fired again...bolt over...whoa...that's not realistic. Looked closely and the extractor wasn't there... Pulled it down and the extractor was on the opposite side.. it had no button ejector.
2012 a blue buy S&W AR officer model buy was brought to me feeling" scratchy" he said. In my mind I thought dry.... Nope partially machined BCG was literally digging into the races on the upper.im betting it would have fired but would have hated to be holding it.. he was dry firing it to check it out and

 

[Travis petosa]

Sold my xc and picked up this c2 to replace it. It’s pretty much taken over edc duty from my p10c.
It’s a great shooter, more accurate than I and it just wants to go fast. The dot literally just sits there, recoil is so manageable. Have about 1500 through it so far.

 

[thebradleycrew]

I would have picked up your XC!!!

 

[Travis petosa]

Sorry! The XC didn't even make it to any websites, my buddy I shoot with picked it up off me. So I still get to **** around with it whenever he brings it to the range.

I will say this about both staccato's if anyone is considering them, between the two I've had since they switched from sti to Staccato. I've got about 5k rounds through them and several classes where they would get 500+ rounds through them in a day and I have yet to have a single malfunction.

 

[thebradleycrew]

Sorry! The XC didn't even make it to any websites, my buddy I shoot with picked it up off me. So I still get to **** around with it whenever he brings it to the range.

I will say this about both staccato's if anyone is considering them, between the two I've had since they switched from sti to Staccato. I've got about 5k rounds through them and several classes where they would get 500+ rounds through them in a day and I have yet to have a single malfunction.

Not surprised. Those XC's are awesome. That's awesome to hear. So no degradation in quality in your view post-switch from STI to Staccato?

 

[Travis petosa]

I would honestly say they are more reliable since the switch. My Costa carry was very finicky when it came to magazines and some ammunition.

The tolerances on the new guns isn't QUITE what they used to be but for a more duty use gun I actually understand why they did that. It still feels like it's on rails though when compared to most other guns though.

 

[coxhaus]

I grew up shooting guns. I was deer hunting when I was 7 or 8. It was expected in Texas. I shot pistol competition toward the end of high school and in college. I continued to shoot in a city league as I working. Target pistols are a lot different than carry weapons. I shot 2700 competition which is a three-pistol class. You had 45 cal class, center fire class, and 22 cal class. You could shoot your 45 in the center fire class but you would be at a disadvantage.

I suggest you buy a pistol that you like and feels good then learn to shoot it. Practice when you can.

 

[Bodine]

Love seeing other enthusiasts on this forum.
Ya'll own some nice pieces, practice hard, and be a mentor to someone younger than yourself.

 

[Towerguy]

Haha, thanks. I'm not a full plastic convert, but I'll tell you what, they run. My Les Baer and Nighthawk 1911's are are still my favorite guns to shoot but they are not suppressor ready (i.e.: don't have threaded barrels). And according to Baer, none of their 1911's are suppressor capable anyway. I'm not sure why. When I get a 2011 (likely a Triarc or Nighthawk) I'll probably look to do a threaded barrel so I can put a suppressor on that too!

Curious why you need a suppressed handgun?

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Ammo prices have gone up quite a bit in a short period of time. Try doing home repair or construction you wouldn't believe lumber prices. That's the case here.

Firing lots of rounds target shooting can get expensive.

Have a pellet pistol non lethal has come in handy a few times