Tag: Ammunition

June 15, 2023 – Learn Your Variables

June 15, 2023 /

We all have heard the saying that ‘ignorance is bliss’. There is also a point where you can know enough about something that there is conflicting information. What I am talking about today should not be the case.

As a trap coach, I have literally observed thousands of rounds of ammunition shot in a season. I see different equipment and I see different brands of ammunition used weekly. Traditionally, our team secures an ammunition grant which we provide to the team for practice and games. Each shooter needs to provide their own ammunition for the scored rounds.

As such, the ammunition that we use for practice we have a periodic failure to fire. I am not sure what the problem actually is. But, it has happened with nearly every shooter. We could say that there is some variable with that particular brand that is a problem.

In the great ammunition shortage that we have been in for the last couple of seasons, it has been difficult to consistently obtain shotgun shells. I participated in a bulk buy of some Italian ammunition that my kids have been shooting through. Two of the three shotguns that we have been using have shot it just fine. One was having misfires every three rounds.

This particular shotgun is what I would call my ‘back-up’. It is one that was fitted for my son on his first season as a 8th grader. He shot all fall and some into the spring with no problems. He decided to purchase his own shotgun by the end of the season and so I put it away.

Meanwhile, I bought an adjustable stock for my primary shotgun so that my younger son could shoot in the fall. I only brought out my backup because I was having problems keeping the adjustable stock tight. This is when the problems started happening with the Italian ammunition.

One coach was saying the firing pin spring, so I took it all apart. I saw nothing wrong, but I cleaned and lubricated everything and went to try again. I had the same problem. I watched some videos and again saw nothing wrong. But when I was reading problems on forums, I saw something that caught my eye, an out of tolerance chamber.

For those that don’t know, a chamber belongs to a barrel. I purchased this barrel for my backup shotgun because my shotgun only came with a fixed choke, 18″ barrel. It was not suitable for trap. And, not only that but this was an aftermarket barrel that I only paid $70 new. A factory replacement is $250, nearly the price of a new shotgun.

I surmised that the problem was this ammunition with this barrel. I took it to the range last weekend with the original barrel on it and fired five different brands of ammunition without fail. It is definitely the chamber. It seems to fire fine with certain brands of ammunition but not the stuff that I have cases of. So, now, I am not really sure what I want to do.

Clearly the best resolution would be to get a factory replacement barrel and move on. Do I really need to do this? What if I just stuck to brands of ammunition that worked consistently? And, this is a back-up shotgun, do I even need to do anything? For now, the season is mostly over and I am going to do nothing at the moment.

End Your Programming Routine: The reason that I bring this up is that you need to know the limitations of your equipment. Failures in the trap field are frustrating and embarrassing. Failures when you life is on the line are deadly. I only gained the knowledge that I did by being around a lot of different variables frequently. To solve problems, you have to start eliminating variables in a controlled manner. I feel confident that this shotgun is reliable, just not for trap with the ammunition I have and the barrel that I have.

September 15, 2022 – ‘Taticool’ Thursday

September 15, 2022 /

I finally made it to the range last weekend. It has been a long time, too long. I decided that I was going to measure some of my reloads now that I have a chronograph. The truth is, I have withheld doing any further reloading due to lack of data. I didn’t think that it made any sense to keep plowing through and loading blindly. I did get some really valuable information that I will share that next week as I have a lot of data to crunch.

Today is just going to be a grab bag of random range anecdotes. I was shooting a batch of .357 Magnum loads that I made at different powder levels through my Rossi 92 rifle. I thought that I would also bring a box of .38 specials to compare. Since I have started reloading, my inventory strategy has been to reload range ammunition and replace what I have shot with higher performance ammunition, like personal defense loads.

I also try to shoot the oldest stuff first. Realistically, I only have a few boxes of factory loaded range ammunition left (in 38 special). This was one of the boxes I had. You will notice that it is stamped from the store I purchased from.

This tells me that I bought this around 2011. If you remember the first Obama ammunition scare in 2010, things were starting to get back to normal in 2011. The store was marking ammunition to cut down on resale markups. For a while and before e-commerce really was working well, people would buy ammunition at stores and then re-sell it at gun shows and other want ad type venues. Today, people are just going to pay inflated prices online or break cases.

It was a lovely day at the range, aren’t they all? It was supposed to be 98 degrees that day but the whole world around us was on fire. That meant that there was smoke in the air and the temperatures were not nearly as hot as they were forecasted because the smoke blocks the sun like clouds do. This was the moon when I got home.

Friday night we had red flag warnings, forced evacuations and local road closures. By Sunday we had our first measurable rainfall. A sure sign that the seasons are changing. This wasn’t before the fire season made it’s presence felt.

That transition usually means that the rifle range is super busy. People are getting ready for hunting season. On this day, the range was hosting it’s ‘sight-in days’. A public fundraiser where people can get help sighting in their rifles. I haven’t ever done this, but if it like any other Saturday it would be hopping busy. I decided to go late in the afternoon, usually the slowest time of the day. I was actually surprised to see that the entire range was a ghost town. I got to pick my bay of choice. That was nice.

Finally, they say that shooting sports are for everyone. You don’t have to tell her twice.

I was picking up my targets to get ready to leave and there was a doe standing on top of the berm that I had been shooting at. She was directly above my target but I had left my phone on the bench. So, by the time I went back to get it, she moved over to the left. I was trying to get a picture that included the deer and the target in it.

End Your Programming Routine: Summer time is a great time to go to the range. It is not always fun holding onto cold steel or having your shoes caked with mud. Not to mention as the light quickly dwindles, the practical hours at the range are cut down. Maybe this will be the year that I spend time gathering data instead of focusing on hitting the target. In which case, I can pretty much setup anywhere on the range.

July 8, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

July 8, 2021 /

If you are like me then you have kind of given up on looking for ammunition. After over a year of nothing on the shelves, the entire pursuit has dropped off my radar. I wrote about the struggles to buy enough to participate in the trap season. Luck was on our side with that.

I have heard via radio and other sources that it is starting to come back. I thought that I would take a look for myself. To be fully transparent, I heard that it was always available online but my searches were pretty spotty. For instance when looking for trap, I did find cases available at $16/box (3-4 times what it cost the previous year) and sold out within hours. I hesitated as I was working multiple other deals and watched the inventory disappear on the screen.

I checked a few of sources in the last couple of days. What I have seen is some of the most common choices were on the shelf. The options were limited and the prices are elevated, I would say that this is far from over. In quasi-reporter style, this is what I have seen consistently in the last three months

  • 7.62×39 FMJ
  • 28 gauge target
  • 20 gauge turkey loads

In my check over the last couple of days I saw

  • 7.62×51 FMJ
  • 223 FMJ
  • 9mm FMJ and HP
  • 30-06 hunting
  • 10 gauge hunting
  • 12 gauge target and hunting

I know there aren’t many people like me (that don’t own a 9mm and don’t really care) but that is a bellwether indicator that ammunition is on the shelf. Industry insider’s public statements indicate that it is going to be at least a year and a half before a return to normal. I give that a hard maybe because that presupposes that everything including politics stay status quo. However, it does seem as this years news cycle is much more calm then last years. It only takes one event to change everything again.

End Your Programming Routine: If you are looking for ammunition, now might be a time to start. I know that I have scaled my shooting down quite a bit from the the previous years so I am still sitting in a good spot other than trap. At some point, this will have to change. The market will market.

October 8, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

October 8, 2020 /

“Shoot or don’t shoot”. No, I am not talking tactics, I am talking the price and availability of ammunition at the moment.

These magazines have been loaded since March. It was my plan to do this next range trip before all the pandemic hullabaloo, before the six month remodeling project and before ammunition disappeared and the price skyrocketed. In fact, I bought the Sig Sauer ammunition pictured in March.

I have been periodically checking local stores for inventory of ammunition. There are shotgun shells, most typical hunting calibers and 17HMR rimfire ammunition available. What is not available is any handgun ammunition except some really weird ones like 50AE and no rifle ammunition that fits semi-automatics and no 22 rimfire.

On a whim, I checked an online source for 5.56×45 and a case (of 1000) was available at $724. That is $0.72/round and that in a bulk price. For the individual packages, it is running from $0.80-1.00/ round. The last time I bought any I paid $0.33/round. So, I guess on the one hand it is available just maybe it is not at the price I want to pay.

My grand plan was to rely on reloading as my ammunition source. During the last run (2012-2015) primers were impossible to find. Good news for me is that I have plenty of primers but not bullets. I do have some powder but it definitely depends on what I am reloading. I think I could reload 30-06 for the rest of my life but I have almost no powder for .223 Remington.

What I really am weighing here is should I shoot some of the ammunition I have given it’s scarcity and my scarcity of money? Don’t get me wrong, I am not empty in either case but it is preparedness mindset. Well, I have decided that I am going to and here are my reasons.

One – I have owned this rifle since 2015 and only fired it once. This was kind of an impulse purchase. To tell you the truth, I was convinced that the Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidential election and that I would lose the opportunity to make this kind of purchase in the future. It turns out that I can get caught up in ‘tin foil hat-ness’ too.

Two – it has an optic on it that has never been sighted in. Having a tool that isn’t calibrated or has unknown accuracy is not reliable or useful for the intended purpose. I thought that it might be useful to start my son out hunting on because of the low recoil and adjustability. It turns out, he can shoot my old rifle that I started on just fine and it is sighted in well. Nevertheless, I want to have some confidence that I can hit where I am aiming.

Three – Despite the fact that I have only shot this rifle once, I have made some modifications and changes. At this point, I do not know if it is functional or reliable as a result. This is the biggest reason that I want to take it out now. Swapping out parts can have some pretty negative consequences. It is best to find out before you really want to use it.

I do feel like I have some compelling reasons to shoot up some of my hard to acquire at this time ammunition. Throughout all of the shortages, it seems like shotgun ammunition has always been consistently available. Probably a good time to focus on trap, skeet and sporting clays (as well as hunting).