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nice quick trip to the range this morning

676 views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  RexipusRex 
#1 ·
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.
 
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#2 ·
Welp, I spent my lunch hour loading more ammo for the match, emptied out my range bag, threw it into the washing machine and then out in the sun to dry, then lovingly packed my gear up.

Showed up at the range and learned that since Covid-19 they switched to an online reservation system where you have to sign up in advance for a time slot, and they won't accept walk-ons. So I had to drive the 40 minutes back home pretty royally bummed. On the brighter side, though, I registered for next week.
 
#4 ·
I'm actually relatively new to the 1911, period. I only finished my first 1911 shortly before I found out I was being deployed again, so I've done some testing and range shooting and shot just one Bullseye match with it so far (will be shooting it extensively in this upcoming Bullseye season at my club). I just completed this Commander and have about 1000 rounds through it so far, including some function testing while I was finalizing it, and some range trips since then.

I'm quite liking it. As far as cobwebs go, in the last six years I was deployed twice, so including some months prior to leaving and a few months after I got back where I didn't just jump back into shooting, I was only shooting at all during maybe two years of that time. Covid-19 had me cooped up at home so much I finally completed this Commander 1911 and started hitting the range enthusiastically just to give me something out of the house to go do so I wouldn't go crazy.
 
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