Free 9mm Ammo for Shooting Mentors

I received a heads up about this from the guys at AmmoToGo.com. Seems like a great idea, especially with all the gun regulation talk that's circling around right now. Not sure if they timed it that way or not but it's just about perfect.

Magtech and AmmunitionToGo.com are giving away 9mm ammo to shooters who take a new shooter to the range and show them how to safely fire a gun. If you download a target off the AmmoToGo.com's 9mm page, take a photo of the new shooter with the target, then upload it back they'll send you a couple boxes of 9mm 115 grain ammunition.

Seems like a good idea. I know it's not always easy finding someone who isn't familiar with guns that wants to shoot but I like what they're trying to do here. I'm curious how many people will be able to round somebody up. They claim to have 100,000 rounds of 9mm
ammo available as part of the program. That's enough for 1,000 new shooters if my math is correct. Pretty good - but just a drop in the bucket of what we'll need if the gun-grabbing public continues on with the momentum that they seem to be building.

I'm not sure who I'm going to take to the range but I wanted to post since they reached out and I think it's a worthy topic. Have you heard about it? Planning to take advantage of the offer?

Dropping the case

The Marine Corps and Army are developing new caseless and case-telescoped ammunition that, when partnered with a new light machine gun also in development, could significantly cut the burden on troops in combat. And perhaps more significant than that, in the coming years this revolutionary ammo could drive production of the Corps’ next service rifle.

With modern technology, caseless cartridges don't look like they're far off.  Unfortunately, in order to get the Service buck$ to fully develop it, they have to run the gauntlet and survive the slayer of programs: a.k.a. the Acquisition Wall Chart.  Folks can whine all they want to about the cost of weapons systems, defense spending, and how icky contractors are pissing away US dollars, but it's my firm opinion that the atrocious wallchart of death is to blame for the inefficiencies, and it was created in a university and has been lovingly nurtured ever since into a dollar-eating leviathan.  The wallchart of doom is a mire of acronyms and techno-terminology that nobody can possibly understand, but they all act like they do just the same, and it swallows programs whole.  I hope new small arms programs survive the beast and grow into something beautiful.  I really do.

Back to the story though, the concept of caseless ammo is not new, and the challenges associated with it are well known.  First thing to understand is that when a brass cased cartridge (or plastic shotgun hull) is fired inside of a chamber, it seals off the expanding gasses at the chamber end which aids in velocity of the projectile down and out the muzzle.  Caseless ammo has to overcome this hurdle.  Secondly, when the case is ejected, it takes heat with it -- which it's good to expel the heat and all, but it also is mechanically complicated to have an ejection system in the first place, which is a major cause of malfunctions.  So that part is a double edged sword.  You may have heat problems (almost certainly), but you should have a huge boost in reliability since there's no expended case to eject, and less moving parts in the system.  The remedy for the heat issue may be in the use of a modern propellant, and I have no idea on how they would tackle the gass-sealing issue.

The main reason though for caseless ammo consideration is a reduction in weight.  This also is a double edged sword because, as veterans will attest, a reduction in weight in one area translates to an increase in weight in another.  Guaranteed.  You read it in articles all the time about "reducing combat weight for the poor overburdened Soldier," but that's all just a bunch of bullshit in reality.  Somewhere, in a secretive and non-descript room in a huge five-sided building, some heartless yayhoo with an evil laugh has a magic number bayoneted to the wall that shows the total average weight an 18 to 20ish American male in good physical condition can carry for four days without dying from exhaustion, and they approve a certain amount of weight above that number.  The upside is that you get to tell the Warrior that the reduction in weight will be filled with a corresponding increase in killing potential -- that will go over well, or at least much better than telling him or her that the weight will be made up for with sandbags or some other equipment -- batteries -- that won't be as useful for slaying enemies.

I'm all about caseless cartridges.  In fact, I'd kinda like to try my hand at reloading them, considering my addiction and all.  Instead of resizing brass cases until my fingers bleed, I could be molding my own rounds out of putty-like propellant on a miniature pottery wheel. . . . like in Ghost!  It would definitely be better for my nails!

Fit-testing your ammo

In an update at Mike's Spot on his Citadel 1911, Mike casually notes something of much importance that many folks may not have ever tried before -- fit-testing your ammo.  I'll admit to not always doing this with defensive ammo, but curiously will do it with reloads for plinking, which is backwards.  Having a jacked up round not fire on the range isn't as big of a deal as hearing a "click" when you need a "bang" in a moment of great need, and so checking each and every round that you would potentially stake your life on is a good idea.  In Mike's case, he even found out that his barrel was out of specification and needed the attention of the manufacturer's machinery to make it right, which would be a catastrophe to find out in a gunfight.

To fit-test your ammo, field strip your pistol like you would for cleaning and while you have everything clean and pretty, take your barrel and drop each round of your defensive ammo into the chamber and see if the cartridge seats well; what you're looking for is the case head (bottom of the round, for the layman) is even-steven with the barrel hood.  I really need to snap a few pictures of this to give you a visual.  While you're handling each round, check to make sure the primers are seated properly and that the round looks serviceable.  I've found jacked up rounds before in both target ammo and premium self defense ammo.  Stuff happens with massed produced things and it's your responsibility to make sure your weapon is compatable with the ammo.

Testing. . . Testing

I finally managed to test some self defense loads through the Kahr PM9 this weekend. I've taken it to the range a half dozen times or so with that intent, but never got around to it. I tested the same four loads as I did for the P30.

Despite the little blaster's 10 yard accuracy, it is not for self defense at ranges of 25 yards or more; my five shot groups (if you can call them that) were tough to keep on a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper with all of those loads, fired slowly off sandbags. I shot five of each, except the HSTs of which I fired ten. That is the load for that gun, which conveniently is the one for the Glock 26 as well. Perfect.

Here's a rundown on velocities out of the PM9's 3" barrel:

124 grain Speer Gold Dot +P
- 1,145
- 1,115
- 1,135
- 1,149
- 1,122
- Ave 1,133 fps

124 grain Remington Golden Saber Bonded +P
- 1,082
- 1,069
- 1,059
- 1,051
- 1,053
- Ave 1,062 fps

147 grain Winchester Ranger-T
- 942
- 934
- 928
- 916
- 910
- Ave 926 fps

147 grain Federal HST +P
- 1,001
- 969
- 966
- 987
- 968
- 982
- 967
- 971
- 960
- 977
- Ave 974 fps

There were no stoppages. All of these rounds were unpleasant to shoot from such a little gun, with the Ranger-Ts being the less painful. None of them were any more accurate than the other, and none of them hit right to point of aim, so I should have fired them at 15 yards for that. Too bad. One day I'll put night sights on the gun, and then I'll check those loads and hopefully some other ones for accuracy at 15 yards and post my results.

Don't re-chamber your self defense loads

Me personally, if I empty my pistol for whatever reason, the round I eject gets stacked at the very bottom of the magazine so that it will only ever be chambered twice. If I'm at all uncertain I have a drawer where I put them for range use. I don't re-chamber rounds over and over again.

Reason I bring this up is because there's a discussion at Pistol-Forum.com on how to cycle duty ammo, and the constant re-chambering came up. Here's a story from that thread that I think may influence people to be more careful:

THE FOLLOWING TRAINING ADVISORY WAS FORWARDED FROM GWINETT COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT - LAWRENCEVILLE, GA

In September of this year a GCPD officer was involved in a situation which quickly became a use of deadly force incident. When the officer made the decision to use deadly force, the chambered round in his duty pistol did not fire. Fortunately, the officer used good tactics, remembered his training and cleared the malfunction, successfully ending the encounter.

The misfired round, which had a full firing pin strike, was collected and was later sent to the manufacturer for analysis. Their analysis showed the following: "...the cause of the misfire was determined to be from the primer mix being knocked out of the primer when the round was cycled through the firearm multiple times". We also sent an additional 2,000 rounds of the Winchester 9mm duty ammunition to the manufacturer. All 2,000 rounds were successfully fired.

In discussions with the officer, we discovered that since he has small children at home, he unloads his duty weapon daily. His routine is to eject the chambered round to store the weapon. Prior to returning to duty he chambers the top round in his primary magazine, then takes the previously ejected round and puts in back in the magazine. Those two rounds were repeatedly cycled and had been since duty ammunition was issued in February or March of 2011, resulting in as many as 100 chambering and extracting cycles. This caused an internal failure of the primer, not discernible by external inspection.

This advisory is to inform all sworn personnel that repeated cycling of duty rounds is to be avoided. As a reminder, when loading the weapon, load from the magazine and do not drop the round directly into the chamber. If an officer's only method of safe home storage is to unload the weapon, the Firearms Training Unit suggests that you unload an entire magazine and rotate those rounds. In addition, you should also rotate through all 3 duty magazines, so that all 52 duty rounds are cycled, not just a few rounds. A more practical method of home storage is probably to use a trigger lock or a locked storage box.

FURTHER GUIDANCE:
The primer compound separation is a risk of repeatedly chambering the same round. The more common issue is bullet setback, which increases the chamber pressures often resulting in more negative effects.

RECOMMENDATION:
In addition to following the guidance provided above of constantly rotating duty ammunition that is removed during the unloading/reloading of the weapon, training ammunition utilized during firearm sustainment and weapon manipulation drills, should also be discarded if it has been inserted into the chamber more than twice. This practice lessens the likelihood of a failure to fire or more catastrophic results.

Of note about the above advisory is that if you do use a trigger lock, do not use it if the weapon is loaded. That's bad.

It's not just the primer that's effected by re-chambering; the seating depth is also effected, which is more critical in handgun cartridges because small movements of a thousandth of an inch can be all it takes to overpressure the load when fired, blowing your gun to smithereens. This is even more so with +P loads that are already running hot. If you're as safety minded as I am, it's not worth the $.50 in savings to keep reusing that Gold Dot, so stick in a range-fodder box after you eject it.

Hornady Critical Duty

Huh huh huh. . . . .'duty'. . . .huh huh huh huh.

Yes, I'm a child.

I saw this stuff this weekend on Guns & Ammo TV where Patrick Sweeney and Dave Emary from Hornady's engineering department ran them through the FBI's test protocol. It's pretty impressive. A major hangup for some folks regarding the Critical Defense lineup is that it's not designed to pass these tests, but the Critical Duty lineup looks good to go. It does remedy the problem of hollow point ammo clogging up with denim or other materials and failing to expand because it has the Flexlock tip in the nose just like Critical Defense ammo. It's also not a bonded bullet; the core is mechanically locked to the jacket using a deep groove, which is the same concept of the non-bonded Remington Golden Saber bullet, but better executed. From what I saw on the show, the expansion is not as dramatic as some of the other defensive ammo on the market, which is probably why it was so uniform with penetration.

It is being tauted as "Law Enforcement Ammo", but at least it's not emblazoned on the box, not that I can tell anyways. For 9mm, there's a standard pressure and +P offering in 135 grains, with both of them being more towards the hot side. The 175 grain 40 S&W load seems to be rather warm as well.

Here's more from Shooting Illustrated.

***ETA -- Hornady has some additional information on their website where they compare Critical Defense and Critical Duty. I note this:

Critical DUTY™ handgun ammunition is built to meet the needs and requirements of LAW ENFORCEMENT and TACTICAL PROFESSIONALS, as well as those law abiding citizens who prefer a full-size handgun for their personal protection and demand superior barrier penetration and subsequent terminal performance.*

On self defense ammo

I was wondering yesterday morning about why some ammunition manufacturers put "Law Enforcement Ammunition" on the front of some of their self defense ammo. To me, it could potentially offer some litigation in a shooting, but not in the way that's normally discussed.



One box of ammo in that picture -- Federal Gold Medal Match -- is not branded with a law enforcement logo despite it being a common choice amongst police who use rifles. That specific load is perhaps the most used round by police snipers. Both the Federal HST and Winchester Ranger-T are labeled "Law Enforcement Ammunition," while the Speer Gold Dot is labeled "The Choice for Law Enforcement" - a little less damning. I note that there's no federal law that I'm aware of that prohibits the use of this ammo to non-law enforcement. It's only company policy.

The argument goes that if the common man shoots a home intruder or violent scumbag using such ammo, that a prosecutor has an angle against the shooter because he used ammo that's designed for cops. I think that line of thought doesn't hold water because most police agencies chose ammo -- handgun ammo in particular, which is what I'm talking about in this post -- because it consistently meets a variety of criteria: meets the FBI requirement for handgun ammo; feeds reliably in the department's duty weapons; doesn't induce premature wear in duty weapons, and is accurate enough to be serviceable. Does any of that sound like what you would want in a handgun load for your personal defense weapon? It does to me.

Notice that nothing in there has anything at all with being more effective at killing people. It's agreed by the FBI, who's testing is considered the gold standard, that in order to "protect. . the life. . and the life of others, [and] to prevent serious physical harm [when applying deadly force to a human being]" -- "it is done with the explicit intention of immediately incapacitating that subject in order to stop whatever threat to life or physical safety is posed by the subject. Immediate incapacitation is defined as the sudden physical or mental inability to pose any further risk or injury to others." Emphasis mine.

Nothing in the preface of the FBI's standards for handgun ammunition, or anywhere in it for that matter, have anything to do with killing. The death of a subject of a police shooting is a side effect; one that is unintentional and unplanned: "The concept of immediate incapacitation is the only goal of any law enforcement shooting" -- and this is the only goal I would have if I were involved in a shooting as well, and should be for anyone who defends their life from another person.

In order to satisfy the FBI's minimum 12" penetration requirement in ballistics gelatin, in the many different barriers that are often encountered in shootings, simulated barriers are shot through into the gelatin. This is done for consistency and testing purposes. The barriers are: heavy clothing; auto glass; wallboard; plywood, and steel. Notice that in the linked ballistics information for Winchester Ranger-T, there's nothing there about killing potential. That's because there is none. Can you think of any scenario where you would want your ammo to perform against those barriers if you had to shoot someone to protect yourself, your family, or an innocent life? I can.

A common argument advocating for the common man to carry law enforcement ammo in a personal arm is that the ammo has been tested to perform in a reliable and predictable manner, and those virtues are something that one would want. If you had to gun down an attacker at a gas station, wouldn't you want to be using a load that has been tested to the highest standard? As I pointed out, cops aren't issued ammunition because it has a higher killing potential; their ammo is designed to feed in their weapon, and be accurate and predictable. Those are the same reasonable requirements that I want.

The reason I think that these ammunition manufacturers are walking a dangerous line with their "Law Enforcement Ammo" label is that it can be claimed that the ammo is somehow more dangerous or deadly, and because of this it can't be trusted to the common man - only police. Again, while it's obvious that police don't use this ammo because of killing potential, a police agency may still have to prove in court that their chosen fang-face-patriot-ninja-death ammo wasn't in the best interest of the deceased subject who was gunned down by one of their employees. So then my question is: what reason does a manufacturer have to make such a stark and divisive statement for their ammo? They could advertise that their ammo has met law enforcement standards, which would be far more defensible than branding it LEO only. I think that making that statement can be misconstrued, and that they would do well to ditch it in favor of something less damning.

Range Report

Unfortunately, the last place in my AO that I have to shoot is infested by outsiders. I passed on a chance to shoot Friday due to shenanigans; on Saturday I got some quality time to shoot, and today a friend and I arrived to fire off some rounds for two hours and found a guy on a combine cutting and bailing hay on the adjacent property in the line of fire -- nobody has done that for over a decade, so I was pissed. Go the fuck back to New Jersey or wherever the hell you came from; this frontier is the last place on the planet that I can conveniently shoot, like I've done since I was a boy. Where do you people keep coming from? There's not enough room! Go away!!

Anyhow, yesterday I couldn't help myself so I had to shoot the 10/22 -- I just finished putting a steel bedding block in it and mounted an 18" Kidd barrel, but hadn't bedded the barrel yet. I did that today and it's curing right now; pictures and range report of the whole process are in the works when it's done. It still shot awesome, and that was with Mini-Mags, not match ammo; shooting off of a yoga mat because I forgot my sandbags; and I didn't even tighten the takedown screw.

Yesterday and today, though, I put about 150 rounds of 147 grain Winchester Ranger-T through the Glock 17 and it performed flawlessly. Shooting exactly to point of aim at 10 yards and 3" high at 31, I got an average speed of 1,023 fps with an extreme spread of 26 fps over ten rounds. I'm now going to buy a case of it to ensure reliability, as well as shoot it in the baby Glock and the Kahr so we have a common load amongst the Europellet guns.



The 95 grain Winchester Ranger-T in .380 ACP did not fare as well. I picked up a box at a funshow a bit ago and decided to see how they did in a Kel-Tec P3AT. Seven rounds averaged 870 fps with an extreme spread of 33 fps, grouping in at 2" for the best five rounds at 13 yards. Add in the other two out of the seven and the group was about 4" -- I didn't measure with a tape. I fired one round through a gallon jug of water and into a two liter bottle set on its side, and it stopped 2" into the two liter. The bullet didn't expand very much:



Water jugs usually make a bullet expand as much as it possibly can; if it won't expand in water, it won't expand in flesh. It also gives up five grains of weight and 161 fps over my standard carry load, the Buffalo Bore 100 grain Hard Cast. I'll stick with Buffalo Bore for now. There were no feeding problems from the Ranger-Ts within the 40 rounds that I fired, but if I'm going to carry a load that I know won't expand, it better have a flat meplat and be going as fast as possible.

I've been doing draws from the Dale Fricke Zack holster for Glock for some time now, and it's still my daily carry holster. When the gun heats up from a few magazines of fire, it can sting a bit when you stuff that hot pistol down the front of your britches, but damn it's fast to draw from. My drawing accuracy with a Glock pistol is also tightening up; enough so already that I dare say rivals my 1911 accuracy. I now have 100% confidence in my Glock 17 at appendix carry, and I also trust the RA9T load enough that that's what is in it right now. AIWB is the way to go for now and forever more, but I really want one of the CCC Shaggy holsters to try out. The Zack is super comfortable and forgiving, and I highly recommend it.

Alexander Arms releases Grendel Trademark

From the 6.5 Grendel Forum on the Big 3 meeting:

New Announcements from the Big 3 meetings in Kansas!
David Fortier reports:

Well, today Alexander Arms announced a few things at the Big 3 writers event.

1. The Grendel has been accepted by SAAMI
2. They have released their trademark on the Grendel
3. They showed off steel cased Grendel produced by Wolf
4. They hired a very well respected gentleman named Wayne Holt to handle PR.

So, now ANYONE can make a Grendel. The steel cased ammo is being produced by Barnaul for Wolf Performance ARMS and Ammunition. Note Wolf now has a firearms division and is working with Izhmash and Molot. They are looking into Vepr and Saiga rifles in Grendel. Currently testing is being done on the Wolf steel cases to verify they are good to go. Wolf is claiming production ammo for 1st quarter of this coming year. They said now that they switched this from Tula to Barnaul things are progressing nicely. I think its very positive as Barnaul's quality is well known for being a notch above Tulas. The steel cases look sexy....

Wayne Holt was the #2 man at Hornady for many years and was with Glock prior to this. This is big move on Alexander Arms part. Should be very interesting to see how things go.

Wolf was at the event and they are very firmly behind the Grendel, and have some very interesting things regarding AK rifles.

I would ask "Now was that so hard?", but after almost a decade I already know the answer. The shenanigans that have been going on behind the scenes in the Grendel world may never be discovered, but oh well, time to move on.

To me, plentiful and affordable steel cased ammo is the signal that an AR or AK cartridge is completely accepted into the shooting world. I bet the 6.8 SPC boys are pretty pissed right now, but they shouldn't be. Hopefully that cartridge goes steel cased as well; the shooting community can always use another tool in the toolbox.

Zombie Ammo from Hornady

Hornady ZMAX is the official ammo for the Apocalypse.

For the 10mm lovers

Wilson Combat has 10mm ammo that's not the watered down stuff that you see in Gander Mountain. Three different weights available: 140 grain, 155 grain, and 180 grain ammo.

I don't have a 10mm any more -- something I intend to remedy in the future -- but if I did I would be trying this ammo for self defense.

Whammo ammo

This weekend I made a point to go out and do some handgunnery considering I have neglected my mental health for a good while now. I had some ammo given to me by a coworker who somehow or another ended up with it, but doesn't own any firearms to shoot it with. Among the free stuff was 120 or so 200 grain semi wadcutters that were handloaded with W231, as well as a box of 185 grain Hornady HP and 200 grain Gold Dots, all in .45 ACP of course.

Shooting the handloads while doing draws was a lot of fun. With a government sized 1911, a Kimber TLE RLII, I could click off rounds very fast, getting quick follow up shots rapidly as there was not a whole lot of recoil. The slide chugga chugged along slowly making things easy on the gun. Later on that night, my brother put a bug in my head about upgrading my carry ammo - 230 grain standard pressure Remington Golden Sabers.

There's nothing wrong with Golden Sabers; they've been around for a long time now and have a proven pedigree, but the bullet design is a bit dated, and they are known for core/jacket separation. I have personally witnessed this from shooting them into 5 gallon buckets full of moist dirt. About two out of every ten will have the jacket come off, but the hollow point bullet does expand every time, which I rate second to reliable cycling in my gun. I've run a couple of hundred Golden Sabers without a hiccup through my blaster, and they hit to point-of-aim and are damned accurate.

Once I find a load that works, I'm generally reluctant to change as the cost of one to two hundred rounds for function testing is not in my budget, but I have thought about trying some new loads for the hell of it. I'm not the only one to think about updating my trusted Golden Sabers - Tam came to the same conclusion about the same time I did, and my brother convinced me to check out some modern CCW fodder in the way of Federal HST and/or Winchester Ranger Ts. To further that, the details from a shooting at a gas station in Dayton, Ohio have come to light, and it got me thinking that I needed to be using the best ammo that I can.

In the Ohio shooting incident, two drunk and high scumbags attacked a man at the gas pump and tried to drag him from his vehicle to do who knows what. The victim pulled a Glock 36 and fired two rounds into the guts of one scumbag, the first round being a 230 grain FMJ, and the second being 165 grain Cor-Bon Powerball. The shootee immediately ceased his attack and took up the fetal position on the deck, while the other scumbag poked at him probably saying something along the lines of "you ok bruh?" The shooter took off and dialed 911. Despite all the talk of the incident and the things that went wrong, the ammo did its job and stopped the attack cold. The shootee did survive the two rounds to the center of his abdomen, which has generated some talk about ammo effectiveness.

With all this in mind, I hit the local funshow this weekend looking for some of that Federal HST. I didn't find it, but I did see a whole lot of the Winchester Ranger Ts in 230 grain +P, which use the "Black Talon" design bullet of doom, without the black lubaloy coating. Taking it as divine encouragement, I picked up three boxes of it for function checking in the Kimber. As it turns out, my gun does not like the ammo at all, and I don't blame it.

The recoil was tremendous from my gun. I have shot a great deal of .44 magnum in my time, as well as 10mm, and none of those were as unpleasant as this stuff. The web of my hand was swollen afterwords where the beavertail grip was smashing into it. From a rest, I did manage a 2" 25 yard group minus the first round, which went low, but firing off pairs was a disaster in the making, as there was no way to manage the recoil effectively. I couldn't keep a pair of shots on a paper plate at 15 yards unless I slowed down considerably. In the 70 rounds I fired, I had six or seven malfunctions, four of them being when the slidestop became partially engaged. That could have been from my thumbs hitting it inadvertently, which doesn't happen when I use ammo that doesn't go off like a hand grenade in the chamber. The other malfunction was a nosedive type feeding issue where the round is still in the magazine and the bullet nose is jammed against the barrel hood. Years ago I swore that I would not shoot +P ammo in a 1911, as I don't think it's warranted for the cartridge, and yesterday I relearned that lesson. None of these malfunctions gave me confidence in the ammo, so I am back to the Golden Sabers for the time being.

All in all, I would be better served shooting the 200 grain wadcutters over the Ranger Ts. The Ranger Ts do come in a standard pressure loading, so I'll look for those. I don't know if the Federal HSTs come in standard pressure, but I'm going to look for those as well. I've looked at the Gold Dots and various loadings from Cor-Bon, but I don't see me taking out a loan to buy one box of ammo, so those are out. I'll be studying ammo pretty hard for the next week or so, and maybe next payday I'll find something that works.