Just busy this week, thats all. I’m in the midst of an enormous auction of gun stuff that quite possibly might be putting me into stripped AR lowers cheap enough that I might pass them out as Paratus gifts this year. More details on the auction in a few days.
In the meantime, we are forecasting a bit of heat this weekend, so perhaps after what seems like weeks of rain we will finally have a weekend conducive to yardwork.
I really don’t want to get too far in the weeds with this, but, as I see it, it could be reasonably argued that there is a utility in having an accurate suppressed carbine of some kind for low-signature shooting at ranges not much past 100 yards. And while a suppressed .22 in a quality bolt gun with a good suppressor on the end is a fine, fine instrument…sometimes you need a bit more bullet mass.
So, how would you do that, exactly? A suppressed bolt action rifle would be pretty much ideal…no noise of the action cycling, no special mods to the rifle to allow cycling with subsonic ammo, etc. (A single shot carbine would give the same benefit but follow up shots would be rather slow…on the other hand, this sort of arm is seldom called on for volume-of-fire applications.)
So…a suppressed bolt action out to about 100 yards. One hundred yards isnt a very challenging distance with a scoped carbine, so almost any caliber will do if it can be kept subsonic with relative ease. The first thing that springs to mind is a 9mm or .45 ACP gun. Pistol ammo is easy to load down to subsonic, and .45 AARP is natively subsonic. Problem is, when was the last time you saw a bolt action 9mm of any worth? (Sure, 9mm Destroyer carbines are out there…but those are novelty Spanish guns. Repros of the DeLisle are out there, but I wouldnt call them precision.) My first thought, and still on my radar, is a Ruger 77/357….a bolt-action .357 Mag that would let me use my 9mm suppressors. Loaded with 200 gr. bullets it should be just fine for the relatively short range while providing a good platform with potential for accuracy….bolt action, integral scope mounts, aftermarket trigger availability, etc. Problem is finding one.
So, I did a bit of research and decided that while I am still going to keep an eye open for the threaded 77/357, I was going to pick up a bolt gun in .300 Blackout. This would let me use my .30 suppressor and the exterior ballistics would be an improvement over a pistol bullet. As a bonus, the Ruger version uses AR15 mags for most applications. (Depending on how you load the cartridge, an average Pmag will work fine, but if youre going to seat bullets out a bit further you might want a dedicated purpose-built .300 Blackout AR mag.)
And thus we got this:
Its a Ruger American® Rifle Generation II Ranch in .300 Blackout. I then changed out the stock for a Magpul stock. I threw the Sig SRD762-QD suppressor on there and fired a few rounds just to see how quiet it is. Gotta say, it isn’t “Hollywood quiet” but it isn’t too far away from it. I need to throw a scope on and I’m thinking that since it’s for fairly short ranges, either a variable 1-6x or a fixed 6x would be the way to go. Why the Magpul stock? A couple reasons..first, and I’m not ashamed to say it, it looks cooler. I like the sling attachment options, the subdued color, MLOK points to attach accessories, adjustable cheekpiece and spacers, and the AK-style mag release.
The only drawback to all this, naturally, is that I now have to work the logistics of a new cartridge. I’m not happy about that, and thats one of the reasons I’m still holding out for the Ruger 77/357. But I must say that the .300 Blackout was certainly ear-safe and deceptively quiet at the outdoor range. I need to go with a friend and have them shoot it as I pace off some distances away from them to see at what distance it becomes virtually inaudible.
A good question might be why not use subsonic .308 ammo? Well, I gave that a lot of thought. There’s a lot of merit to using .308 from a logistics point of view, but my experience with large (comparatively) cases with light loads has been that you get erratic performance. Enough inconsistent performance to make a difference at 100 yards? Maybe. But there was also the concern of mixing up subsonic .308 with regular .308. I don’t mind mixing up subsonic 9mm with regular 9mm (or .45) because my pistols will digest either one just fine. But my PTR-91’s may have other ideas about subsonic ammo. I may revisit this and try some subsonic .308 but it seemed that if there were going to be tradeoffs that had to be made, then I might as well do the ones that get me something more in line with what I think my needs were.
So…theres the weekend.
Sooooo…..that happened:
I’d like to thank the /wallstreetbets autists who made this purchase possible by driving up AMC and and putting my ten 5$ calls through the roof. Got out just as it started to slide back. Better to be lucky than good.
The part that drives me nuts is that I cannot order up a 10″ barrel for the Uzi until the SBR paperwork goes through…and this suppressor will not work with anything except a 10″ barrel. So….gotta wait. But, that’ll give me time to hunt down some subsonic 9mm.
Well, if you’re gonna have an Uzi (or two), you’re gonna need mags….right?
Fifty oughtta be a good start. And I’ve a few other accessories for the new acquisition that have started trickling in.
This was a 50-mag package from Atlantic Firearms. These are 25-rd mags and, thoguh used, they appear to be in pretty good shape. I need to thoroughly examine each one closely, but so far they all look good.
There’s a nationally famous gun collector who lives a couple miles from me…Hayes Otoupalik. Hayes has stuff that when you look it up in a reference book it will say “Twelve known to exist” and Hayes will have four of them…he’s that kind of level of collector. Once, a million years ago, I asked him how he manages to find such good deals. He said something that always stuck with me. He said, “When you’ve been doing this long enough, you dont have to go looking for the deals…the good deals come looking for you.” And he was 100% correct.
Todays deal that I wasn’t looking for but came looking or me:
It’s a Vector Uzi with mag purse, a dozen magazines, sight tool, mag loader, wooden stock, sling, extra foregrip, and a few other bells and whistles. Previous owner cerokoted it desert tan. The punchline: $1000.
Last Uzi Ii got was a genuine Action Arms B model and I paid, I think $900 for it. And that was with only one mag and no other goodies. And that was fifteen years ago.
The Uzi is a heavy gun. In a world of polymer 9mm PCC’s this thing is a chunkyboy. But….its a proven design that is, literally, bomb-proof. This package of goodies could get stuffed in a 40mm ammo can, tucked away for twenty years, and when it finally sees the light of day again it would still be a somewhat viable choice for running-and-gunning through a zombie apocalypse.
Very tempted to do the paperwork and SBR it. Might just have to go that route. That 16″ barrel is just ten shades of derp.
I had mentioned a while back that I was going to wind up setting up a Glock with a red dot. One of my biggest questions was do I get an MOS Glock and use the adapter plates to mount an optic, do I buy a third-party slide already cut for an optic, or do I send off my slide to get cut? Tough choice. No one seemed to have anything nice to say about the Glock MOS system, so that was the end of that. Aftermarket slides that were already cut were a bit north of $300. Heck, the whole damn gun didnt cost me that. Someone recommended Wager Machine and after reading more about them I decided to give them a shot. I had them do an RMR cut to my factory slide, cerokote the whole thing, and install the Trijicon suppressor-height sights I sent them. Total cost, soup to nuts, was $145.
Unfortunately, none of my vendors happen to have a Trijicon RCR in stock for me to fit on there to judge the quality of their machining. But, I can say the cerokote looks great and they seem to have installed he sights properly.
Only real thing left to do here is sight in the open sights, get the optic mounted, and perhaps put in a bit of a better trigger.
I don’t usually put this much….bespokeness….into a pistol, but I’d like to have at least one pistol that gives me just about every possible advantage available short of a giggle switch.
I’m very much looking forward to getting the RCR mounted and seeing how it works out.
A few months ago, one of my vendors was closing out a particualr model of CZ rifle…..the CZ 457 Jaguar. For me, the claim to fame for this gun was the 29″ (thats not a typo) barrel. Between a barrel that is so long that a .22 has burned up all its powder long ago, and the Sparrow suppressor I dropped on the end of this thing (making it almost four-and-a-half feet long) shooting this thing with subsonic Remingtons sounded like a staplegun.
And, unsurprisingly, the gun was, with open sights at 25 yards, stupidly accurate. With the open sights and a solid rest, all shots touched in a group you could cover with a nickel. And, as much as I hate to admit it, my eyes ain’t what they used to be when it comes to open sights. (Hence the Glock upgrade to a red dot…more about that in a few weeks.)
CZ makes good stuff, but if you’re looking for a quality .22 that punches way above its weight class, go with their .22 rifles.
With subsonic HP and the Sparrow on the end, this flagpole is going to be pure murder on gophers if I ever manage to find enough time to spend a day out in the fields. I’m tempted to drop a scope on it, but thats what I have my Savage 93 for….
All in all, a good day at the range. I function tested some guns I’ve been meaning to work with, confirmed the zero on an AR, and had a real blast shooting the CZ 457. Not bad for a dreary rainy day here in western Montana.
I like the Ruger P95DC for its rugged end-of-the-world durability. Rental ranges confirm that these things virtually never break. Then again, no one probably has any interest in shooting them so perhaps thats the reason. But…even more robust in Ruger’s “Ignore ergonomics, just make it a tank” style, we have today’s guest…a Ruger P89DC. An outgrowth of the P85 (and P85II) series, this was a somewhat improved version of the P85 series of military contract wannabes.
I genuinely believe this gun is unkillable. With shipping, this ugly duckling (ca.1993) set me back a hair over two hundred bucks. Whats really fascinating is that someone thought highly enough of this gun to put a set of Crimson Trace laser grips on it. Ruger retired the P89 in 2009, but they turn up in evidence lockers and gun ‘buybacks’ everywhere. I’ve never seen a broken one. I’ve seen them with pitting, rust, gouges, scratches, missing sights, and all sortsa staining…..but I’ve never seen one that didn’t work.
Friend Of The Blog(tm), Tam, did a 2000-rd endurance test and other than the cringe-worthy ergonomics, it chugged along without a hitch. That isn’t necessarily a difficult accomplishment. Tam’s 2000-rd tests prove that any well-made pistol from a major brand shooting quality ammunition will usually give that kind of performance. The pistol Tam used for her test, and which has apparently gone on to be a prop for a book cover, was a very worn, very well used pistol that, when I got it, still had the evidence tag wired to the front of the triggerguard. (You can see the wear from the wire on the front of the triggerguard in her photos.)
The P95DC is a lighter, handier gun…but thats like saying a patio paver is a lighter handier brick than a cinder block – its true, but that doesnt take away the fact its a brick. Since they both use the same magazine, and the price was right, and you can never have too many ‘disposable’ handguns to stuff under the seat of your truck, the floorboards of your cabin, or into an ammo can buried in a national forest somewhere, it seemed like a good purchase at the time.
Im still fascinated that someone went through the time and expense to slap a laser sight on it.
Sooo….that happened:
Nice day at the range today. Was shooting with a friend and we were using our .22 conversion kits in our AR’s to practice fast sight pictures and shots. She wound up having a .22 case do a double feed that was stuck in the receiver quite solidly. I was about to use my pocket knife to try and pry it out when she stopped me and told me that she had a tool in her bag for prying out stuck cases in AR’s. Now, there are all sorts of tools out there for that sort of thing. Heck, Gerber even sells a multitool that incorporates such a tool as one of its features. But, apparently for about a buck at any paint store you can get one of these:
And…it was darn near the perfect tool for the job. Live and learn.
Spent about four hours at the range doing drills with the .22 Glock and the Ruger MPR with the .22 kit. Also sighted in the new dot scope I put on a Ruger takedown. And I function tested a P95DC that I picked up a few weeks ago.
Most interesting was some kids (and I mean kids…like college age kids) showed up on the same range with a host of dot-sighted Glocks. This gave me a chance to get some opinions about Glock MOS vs third-party milled slide, RMR vs Holosun vs Acro, etc, etc. The short version is that it looks like optimum result will be achieved by getting the RMR on a slide that has been milled out specifically for it rather than using Glocks MOS and plates. I need to research it more, but I think that’ll be the direction I’m going…at least until I get some more research done that points me in a different direction.
All in all, a fun and productive day at the range. Getting into the habit of doing a bit of gun workout every week seems to be paying off in terms of enjoyment.
