This is the long version:
My friend, who is a good 20 years older than me and also my reloading mentor took me to his favorite shooting range recently so I could finally shoot his M1 Garand. I have wanted to shoot one since my first G.I. Joe came with one. Well, we made a day of it. First things first, top priority, the M1 Garand. Put 16 rounds down range 100 yards with open sights (one stove pipe) shooting at a paper plate with a 1 inch circle in the center. I could tell you a big lie but with the 1940 peep sight I had three peppered around the 1 inch bulls eye and the rest were peppered around and just off the plate. For the grand finale I shot the leg off the target stand! Funny but true. The next thing my buddy pulled out was a Savage Model 12 bolt action 223 with bull barrel and a Bushnell 6500 Elite scope, which looked about like a spotting scope sitting there on the gun. In addition to the scope the Savage had the accu-tigger set up that is hard to explain. The basics are this. There is a point where this trigger is set off with what feels like ounces instead of pounds. The scope took some getting used to because the slightest movement front and back or side to side and you would lose the sight picture. Very touchy. At 100 yards off the rest my goal was 5 shots in the 1 inch circles. I had 5 targets with 5 shots each for a total of 25 rounds. First try I was able to do it.....sort of. One of the 5 shots was slightly visible outside the quarter. The other 4 attempts of 5 shots were as good or better IF i could have one mulligan. Try as I might I would always manage to yank one outside the quarter sized bullseye. My buddy who is better rifle shot than I am (and it was his gun) was attempting to put 5 under a dime. He also got very close to his goal but was not able to do it. He was also cursed with one flier per target. Now, in this case a flier was maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch outside of his dime sized target. The gun and my friend are shooters for sure.
Next it was pistol time. He was shooting his Ruger Mark II and I was shooting my Sig Sauer 1911 22lr. To be honest the Mark II is a little more accurate but not as much fun IMO as the 1911. We took turns shooting each others 22's and before we knew it we had burned up 500 rounds of Remington Thunderbolt and Winchester Wildcat ammo shooting at paper targets, golf balls, asprin bottles, and two troll dolls. That the Mark II was slightly more accurate was not a surprise. What was a surprise was that he woud have a failure to fire on about every 3rd magazine with the Mark II and the Sig 1911 did not have a single hiccup the whole time. The last time I shot it, which was the first time I shot it, it was a little picky on what it would shoot and had a few stovepipes and a few failures to fire. This time it just made every single round go bang. By now we were running out of time and I still had the new LC9 to shoot and the SR1911. I needed to pick one and I went back and forth on which one to shoot. OK...that is a lie. The LC9 never left the truck. Out came the SR1911. 50 rounds of my own hand loads and 7 rounds of Remington Ultimate Home Defense later we were loading up and going home. We had a blast and plan to do it again when time permits. Sorry for the length!
Oh yeah, one more thing. The Caldwell Low Profile ear protectors are a must. If you don't have them. Get em.
My friend, who is a good 20 years older than me and also my reloading mentor took me to his favorite shooting range recently so I could finally shoot his M1 Garand. I have wanted to shoot one since my first G.I. Joe came with one. Well, we made a day of it. First things first, top priority, the M1 Garand. Put 16 rounds down range 100 yards with open sights (one stove pipe) shooting at a paper plate with a 1 inch circle in the center. I could tell you a big lie but with the 1940 peep sight I had three peppered around the 1 inch bulls eye and the rest were peppered around and just off the plate. For the grand finale I shot the leg off the target stand! Funny but true. The next thing my buddy pulled out was a Savage Model 12 bolt action 223 with bull barrel and a Bushnell 6500 Elite scope, which looked about like a spotting scope sitting there on the gun. In addition to the scope the Savage had the accu-tigger set up that is hard to explain. The basics are this. There is a point where this trigger is set off with what feels like ounces instead of pounds. The scope took some getting used to because the slightest movement front and back or side to side and you would lose the sight picture. Very touchy. At 100 yards off the rest my goal was 5 shots in the 1 inch circles. I had 5 targets with 5 shots each for a total of 25 rounds. First try I was able to do it.....sort of. One of the 5 shots was slightly visible outside the quarter. The other 4 attempts of 5 shots were as good or better IF i could have one mulligan. Try as I might I would always manage to yank one outside the quarter sized bullseye. My buddy who is better rifle shot than I am (and it was his gun) was attempting to put 5 under a dime. He also got very close to his goal but was not able to do it. He was also cursed with one flier per target. Now, in this case a flier was maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch outside of his dime sized target. The gun and my friend are shooters for sure.
Next it was pistol time. He was shooting his Ruger Mark II and I was shooting my Sig Sauer 1911 22lr. To be honest the Mark II is a little more accurate but not as much fun IMO as the 1911. We took turns shooting each others 22's and before we knew it we had burned up 500 rounds of Remington Thunderbolt and Winchester Wildcat ammo shooting at paper targets, golf balls, asprin bottles, and two troll dolls. That the Mark II was slightly more accurate was not a surprise. What was a surprise was that he woud have a failure to fire on about every 3rd magazine with the Mark II and the Sig 1911 did not have a single hiccup the whole time. The last time I shot it, which was the first time I shot it, it was a little picky on what it would shoot and had a few stovepipes and a few failures to fire. This time it just made every single round go bang. By now we were running out of time and I still had the new LC9 to shoot and the SR1911. I needed to pick one and I went back and forth on which one to shoot. OK...that is a lie. The LC9 never left the truck. Out came the SR1911. 50 rounds of my own hand loads and 7 rounds of Remington Ultimate Home Defense later we were loading up and going home. We had a blast and plan to do it again when time permits. Sorry for the length!
Oh yeah, one more thing. The Caldwell Low Profile ear protectors are a must. If you don't have them. Get em.
