All posts tagged NAA Guardian

10rd magazines for 1911s?

This is something I’ve only delved into once and it wasn’t a great experience.   Back in the early 1990’s we had all of that assault weapons ban BS and and aftermarket gun magazines were everywhere.   Some of us that owned certain firearms ended up with unreliable firearms that should have been durable.   $90 Glock magazines were not uncommon and $14.99 for a jamming Mini 14 30rd magazine from USA magazines, which I believe is been long out of existence.   Many people fell back on revolvers and there was a big upsurge back into the 1911 because it was one of those guns that was originally designed for fewer than 10rds which was what the Assault Weapons Ban limited you to.

So some of us messed around with aftermarket 10rd magazines and all of the ones I tried failed pretty quick.   We tried to make the 1911 into it’s highest capacity that we legally could, but the balance pretty much got messed up.   Gun magazines, even a few rounds bigger than standard capacity can make the gun imbalanced or make it harder holster.   There are a lot of reasons to use 10rd magazines like Wilson Combat magazines or Chip McCormick which have a good reputation in competition shooting, but they will protrude considerable.   This may cause snagging on shirts ect if you are considering using one for CCW.   If you’ve ever practiced with you’re gun, which you should have, firing 8rds and reloading is probable a better CCW than thinking a 10rd magazine is going to give you more protection.

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Speed loaders and training courses

I was fortunate to attend a sniper competition a few years ago where I must have learned more about combat than every before.   About 40 students were attending this training competition even and given the rules for attending the match.   Everyone was told to arrive with unloaded firearms, but to keep all of their gear in the cars and attend a safety briefing.    Well, one of the  best events for this competition/training even occurred in the first 30 seconds after the safety briefing.   Everyone was asked if they understood all of the safety rules and when everyone said yes, it began.    The Instructor explained the first stage of the shooting event.   Everyone was told to grab their gear from their car and immediately return to the firing line, unload the gear and engage the targets.   The attendees gave us a big smile while the students/competitors did an “Oh, Shit!”

I sat and watched every student run back to their car which was about 15-30yds behind the firing line, I noticed varying types of rifle cases and rifle bags, some shooters showed up with loaded magazines and others had to manually load the guns, as soon as they were ready to shoot, they engaged the targets.   I believe they had 6 minutes to take down all of the targets from 100-200yds.   The variations in time to engage the enemy targets varied by several minutes.   Anyone that had a M4 Carbine or 30rd magazine that didn’t have loaded gun magazines or didn’t have a speed loader, was the last to engage the targets.   I saw only 2 people out of 40 engage the targets in the first 5 minutes.   Maglula speed loaders are must for anyone serious about using a carbine for self defense, unless  you have the military style loaders.

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Rotate your ammo and rotate your mags

There are various stages of CCW experience, those that have made the mistakes, those that have witnessed the mistakes and those that are doomed to see both.  Although a gun owner may be observing all of the firearm safetey rules there are still many things to keep in consideration when CCW a firearm.   Even though a gun hasn’t been fired, if it is being carried it will fill up lint or the gun can become dry.  I have carried guns through out the summer months and found out that I’ve rusted out screws or pitted firearms.  Clean your CCW guns for reliability sake, but also for protection.

It is extremely important for you to rotate your carry ammo.  Many reloaders know the importance of having the proper bullet crimp to prevent bullet setback, but this is something that is inevitable going to occur if you keep closing the slide on the same bullet.  Even if you are not shooting up your ammo, rotate the ammo in your gun magazines to make sure you are not slamming the same first round.  Defensive ammo can be expensive and I realize that you aren’t going to want to shoot it all up after a couple times of cleaning  your ammo.  If you rotate just an 8rd magazine full of defensive ammo, you should be able to dissassemble and clean the gun safetly about 24 times with the same magazine.

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Ruge 10/22 possible the most fun semi-auto

I’m sure there are plenty of guys out there, or ladies that have a lot of military experience and got to shoot some neat stuff.   Comparing the Ruger 10/22 to being  in fire control on an AC130 Spectre gun ship is comparing apples to oranges.  I will say that I have shot a lot of semi-auto military style weapons and although I have fun shooting them, bringing a wife or friend that lacks the experience or has a fear of recoil can limit the types of firearms you are using.   The first Ruger 10/22 I owned had a pretty long break in period.  I had a lot of issues getting it to reliable cycle, but I had  a lot of  friends that gave me advice on how to tweak these firearms and having a reliable break in period was normal.
A friend suggested that I just fire a lot of ammo through it and eventually it will break in.   Anothe friend said to use some hot ammo like 22lr stingers and it will speed up the process.   I tried both of these, but after about 500rds, I still was annoyed at how many jams I had, I thought it was the gun magazines, but we’ll soon find out.   My other friend suggested I take the gun appart and try to polish it with nylon pads, very similar to what you use to clean dishes.   I took  his advice and spent about 15 minutes polishing the gun, I used a little CLP inside and took it out for another range trip.    I tried shooting some cheap Remington 22LR ammo and the gun functioned almost 100% of the time.   I was probable getting a failure to fire less than every 300rds which for a 22LR rifle, that is not that bad.

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Ruger LCP 238 experiences

Today I got to fire a Ruger LCP along with the LCR revolver.  There seems to be a lot of breha when it comes to getting a .380 pistol these days.  I don’t think I really ever felt the urge to go that small when it comes to calibers, but since CCW is actually more popular now than it was 10yrs ago, and people are finding that small compact semi-autos are far more reliable than previously, people will take the light weight over a larger caliber.   The Ruger LCP can take laser grips from Crimson trace, and I highly suggest that you consider that.  I was never a big fan of putting lasers on handguns until I started thinking about very small and compact firearms that had terrible small sights.   The laser grips will help improve your hits and give confidence.

I have several Ruger factory gun magazines for my LCP, but I decided to pick up a few Promag magazines.   Promag had a good reputation in the 1990s for magazines that weren’t as pricey as factory magazines, but were still considered reliable.   I have several magazines for my Beretta 92FS, and although I did have a jam on one hollow point round, it has never jammed on ball ammo.   I would consider these to be excellent range magazines, but I would do a lot of testing to make sure you are sure the gun feeds reliable with an defensive ammo.   Some magazines may need to be tweaked a little and if you have problems be sure to call a factory rep.   Most gun magazine manufacturers will replace a magazine if it does not work properly.

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Keep your range mags and your primaries separate

Gun magazines have various levels of quality.   Some gun magazines are meant as throw aways i.e. 1911 magazines made in Tawain.   I have several 1911 GI magazines that were pretty good range mags, but when they jammed up on me, and I could blame it on the gun springs, it was time to toss them.   Buying Wolff gun springs that cost about $8 for an $8 magazine isn’t really worth my time, plus I’ve found that many of these have worn out followers and it’s really not worth the headach to tweak them, plus I’d consider them to not be worth using for self defense.   Wilson Combat and Chip McCormick make very good gun magazines and both of them should help get your 1911 to be more tolerant of various types of ammunition.

The one thing I have learned over the years is that no matter how much money I spent on a firearm, I’m still going to have something break.  When you put thousands of rounds through a firearm the you will eventually have to learn some level of gunsmithing.   After taking some of my guns to gunsmiths and having to wait for months to get simple things done, it’s good to pick up an AGI video and do the changes yourself.   The same goes for gun magazines.   Parts on a gun magazine can wear out and depending on how much you spent on the magazine, you may want to just toss it in the trash.  For some magazines, you will only have to replace the springs to get it back to reliable functionality.

 

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CCW and thinking ahead

The Boy Scout motto is BE PREPARED.   When we accept our responsibilities in carrying a firearm, one thing we have to be aware of is making sure that we are concealing our weapons and not overdoing it.    There are a few placed in the Country where you may be fined if anyone spots your concealed firearm, and although I think the vast majority of criminals aren’t looking for citizens with guns, it’s best to not advertise it.   I’ve found that over the years of carrying duty size weapons on the job and CCW are different for me.   I’m not too comfortable carrying double stack spare magazines around all day.

Something to consider while carrying a CCW gun is, it is good to always have a backup magazine available, but don’t go overboard in carrying gun magazines.   Statistics show that most gun fights occur with shots fired being in the single digits.   Knowing how to retreat from a gun fight is more important than carrying tons of ammo and expecting to stand your ground.

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Range mags and carry mags

pistol magazinesThe Mini 14 was hands down the gun that was  hit the hardest by the AWB in the 1990’s.   Ruger is now making 20rd and 30rd magazines available to the public and those magazines were going for close to $100 at one point in the later 1990s’.    There is nothing wrong with having magazines for firearms that are not the best, sometimes it’s better to rotate through cheap magazines and practice malfunction drills or just toss them when they were out.   You don’t want to use  your carry mags all the time because if you are shooting through hundreds of rounds of ammo using the same mags that you use for your daily carry, you may find out at the wrong time that the springs need to be replaced.   I picked up a good supply of Mil-Spec 1911 7rd magazines that I rotate through my guns and save the Wilsons Combat Magazines for the serious shooting.   When the mil-spec mags start jamming too much, I just toss them.

I’m not so sure there is as much of an issue in the gun industry as there once was concerning factory mags vs. aftermarket.   Most gun manufacturers can legally get their products to the civillian market without major legal issues.   Back in the 1990’s trying to get “Standard Capacity” magazines meant paying 4-5 times what they should have cost.   I remember avoiding certain firearms just because I knew that the magazines would cost $50-$100 and that just didn’t seem like a good investment at the time.   I noticed sales of the Beretta 92FS were very common back then because they were one of the few firearms that has resonable priced pistol magazines.   Finding good deals on used Glock magazines was a whole other issue, but if you weren’t buying guns back then, you probable have a hard time understanding how complicated the situation was.

 

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How many mags do i need for a handgun?

pistol magazinesBack when the 1994 assault weapons ban was into effect there were more headaches in the gun world due to the fact that factory handgun magazines were so expensive.   People cut corners with other brands and had issues.    When it comes to owning a handgun, especially an auto, I highly recommend having atleast 3 magazines.    Not only can guns malfunction,  but magazines do wear out and break at some points and its always good to have some extra comfort if one goes down.    Most of the time it’s the floor plates that come loose and a loaded mag will just dump rounds on the ground.   I’ve seen it happen with rifles and handguns.    If you ever run a Carbine course, you’re defanitely going to want to have atleast 3 mags for your pistol, too.

It’s very rare these days that I work as a firearms instructor but I still work with a lot of people that are just getting into carrying firearms for the first time. I must admit that I made a lot of the novice mistakes in buying holsters and accessories when i first started carrying, and sometimes its nice to give first hand accounts of what NOT to do.    I’ve seen a lot of people pick up a good quality handgun and then completely ruin the firearms reputation by using 3rd rate pistol magazines that jammed the gun  up.   The 2nd most common thing I see are people shooting with cheap ammo.   I don’t get the whole Wolf handgun ammo thing.   I own and shoot many Com-block rifles and the Wolf ammo works flawlessly, but I have never had good experiences with their handgun ammo.

 

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