Off to hopefully dry range

bearcatter

You guys must be sleeping in today.......

I'm off to the range shortly. Weather is a little iffy, calling for isolated showers, getting more numerous late afternoon and evening, with 76*. I'll cross my fingers.

Taking Bearcat and new Guardian. Crossing my fingers on it, too.

moakes58

Have a great day. I don't shoot on the weekends at my great state run ranges, it's just too crowded.

bearcatter

The threatening weather kept my range slow. Two other guys when I got there, and a third as I was packing to leave. There was one, thankfully only ten minute, sprinkle.

I only put 50 rounds through the Guardian. Half a box of Aguila, then half a box of Remington. Overall, it did well.

I had one fail to feed on the 47th shot, and it wedged at an angle. I just had to give the slide a shove to chamber it. No other issues. I noticed with the Remington cartridges, the edge of the case felt kind of sharp. That may have contributed to the misfeed. The Aguila was smoother running a finger across the edge from bullet to case.

The Guardians don't have an ejector, depending on the top round in the mag to pitch the empty. So they can stovepipe on the last empty. Still, I only had it do that twice out of eight full mags. Easy to clear, you just pull the slide a pinch and tilt the gun.

Accuracy was better than I expected for the first session. The sights aren't as bad as they look, but still pretty bad. At 25 feet, I kept most rounds in the 5 inch black of my Caldwell Orange Peel targets. Four or five of each six round mag. Most of the others were still on the paper, about 8 inches. Three of the fifty went wide. At this point, I'd feel safer to "triple-tap" a bad guy. Not sure what distance the sights are made for, but 25 feet seemed about right.

The gun itself recoiled pretty hard, I'd compare it to my SP101 shooting 125 gr .38. I'm that much more happy that I didn't decide on the .380 version. The trigger left my finger print a little sore after fifty rounds. This is not a range fun gun, for sure, but I'm satisfied it's a good carry gun.

The Bearcat came home clean.

44s Rock

Sounds like a good day! Not getting wet was a plus.

Terry_P

Always good to smell the powder burn. Sounds like the new gun ran just fine during the break in. Try practicing the Mozambique drill with a silhouette target. Two to the chest and one to the head, repeat. I would also look for some FMJ flat point type ammo and see how that runs thru it. I use that in my Beretta .380 and it functions just fine. I roll my own ammo so you may have to do some looking to find them if you can. My theory is the FMJ will let it penetrate and the flat point will make a larger wound channel than the round nose.

bearcatter

The .32 ACP is a semi-rimmed cartridge, and subject to rim lock. The rim of the top round can slip behind the rim of the round below and jams the mag. Especially if a cartridge is less than full length, like a HP or a flat nose FMJ. Good idea, just not in a .32 ACP.

Majority online opinion agrees that FMJ is best. When HP does expand, it loses a lot of penetration. Gold Dot is probably the best HP design. I've read that in .32 ACP it expands almost completely, but only penetrates seven inches. The FBI standard is 12-16. Average .32 FMJ penetrates 14 inches.

moakes58

Hornady's 90 grain XTP bullet is excellent in the short barreled .380 auto's, coupled with my favorite short barrel powder, TiteGroup. The newer ammo/bullets for .380's make the round perform well with great penetration.

44s Rock

+1 I like the flat tips for my woods carry guns, hard to find for 9mm but Buffalo Bore has a good line.