I intend to go back and do my club's tuesday night action shooting competition tonight, and it'll be the first time in about 3 years, and the first time using a .45 ACP pistol. When I shot this in the past I always used a Beretta 92fs and shot in the "stock" class.
I'm going to shoot it tonight with my 1911 Commander that I recently built. I've got a good shooting belt rigged up with an OWB holster, and two double mag pouches. I'll start with 8+1 in the gun and four 8-round mags in the mag pouches on my belt. I'll carry an extra couple 8-round mags in my pocket for if it comes to that, but it shouldn't.
Anyhow, decided to warm up a bit and practice my mag changes, so during a 2-hour break from work I drove up to the range and blew through 100 rounds of the same reloads I'll use this evening during the competition.
I would load several rounds into each magazine, plus 8 in the mag in the pistol, and then just shoot till empty, do a rapid reload, continue shooting, until all the mags were empty. I got through the 100 rounds I brought with me inside of one relay on the public range, so it was really a quick trip.
My mag changes weren't earth-shatteringly fast, but I was satisfied, and I'm really happy with the built-in magwell in this Commander. I put a piece of carpet on the concrete for the mags to fall onto, and just dropped each mag with my right thumb while my left hand grabbed the next mag. They went in quickly and easily thanks to the magwell, then with my left thumb I dropped the slide release and continued firing.
I'll take the "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" approach tonight, both since it'll be my first outing to this competition in over three years, and because I'm new to shooting this with a 1911.
The rounds I brought were a 218-grain cast hollow point with Hi-Tek coating, loaded toward the lower end of the appropriate range for the powder I used and a bullet of that weight. Nobody has data for that weight of bullet, so I just interpolated the range using data from 200gr and 230gr lead bullets, and then went toward the low end. They were fine, though I may nudge up another tenth or two to ensure more complete combustion of the powder. After 100 rounds there were some incompletely burnt powder flakes in the gun.
I'm going to shoot it tonight with my 1911 Commander that I recently built. I've got a good shooting belt rigged up with an OWB holster, and two double mag pouches. I'll start with 8+1 in the gun and four 8-round mags in the mag pouches on my belt. I'll carry an extra couple 8-round mags in my pocket for if it comes to that, but it shouldn't.
Anyhow, decided to warm up a bit and practice my mag changes, so during a 2-hour break from work I drove up to the range and blew through 100 rounds of the same reloads I'll use this evening during the competition.
I would load several rounds into each magazine, plus 8 in the mag in the pistol, and then just shoot till empty, do a rapid reload, continue shooting, until all the mags were empty. I got through the 100 rounds I brought with me inside of one relay on the public range, so it was really a quick trip.
My mag changes weren't earth-shatteringly fast, but I was satisfied, and I'm really happy with the built-in magwell in this Commander. I put a piece of carpet on the concrete for the mags to fall onto, and just dropped each mag with my right thumb while my left hand grabbed the next mag. They went in quickly and easily thanks to the magwell, then with my left thumb I dropped the slide release and continued firing.
I'll take the "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" approach tonight, both since it'll be my first outing to this competition in over three years, and because I'm new to shooting this with a 1911.
The rounds I brought were a 218-grain cast hollow point with Hi-Tek coating, loaded toward the lower end of the appropriate range for the powder I used and a bullet of that weight. Nobody has data for that weight of bullet, so I just interpolated the range using data from 200gr and 230gr lead bullets, and then went toward the low end. They were fine, though I may nudge up another tenth or two to ensure more complete combustion of the powder. After 100 rounds there were some incompletely burnt powder flakes in the gun.