Real Guns

It must have been oiled again once or twice during the last 110 years. If you do a little maintenance wood can last literally a millennia in great condition, as we can see in some really old churches, castles and cathedrals here in Europe. Just make sure it does not dry up all the way, and don't bang it around.

I also carefully oiled it once more to do my part. I want to pass the rifle on to someone who appreciates it someday, maybe it will become an Artifact (if it isn't already one) and last hundreds of years in great condition. That would be quite cool.

 

@Michael88 that Mauser Gewehr 98 looks amazing .

 

I thought it was neat until I saw "Remington". This makes me a hater, but I think they more than earned it.

These are the only round shortages I've observed, but to be honest, I haven't shopped ammo in sometime. It makes me wonder though.... I assume the sales are driven up mostly by people feeling the need to defend themselves. Are they buying now because: a) They keep very little ammo on-hand usually? or b) They are preparing themselves for TEOTWAWKI.

Either way, if they are buying now, they are noobs. j/k

 

I thought the same thing when I saw Remington.

 

Don't need no toilet paper if its the end of the world and you have nothing to eat.

Actually, quite a few of my buddies think ammo is going to become ridiculously expensive from the outbreak, as they expect the economy to dwindle dramatically. Luxury goods, and that what ammo is, always skyrocket during/after crisis. I had a talk with customers - who are bosses of multi million dollar companies- and they expect a major breakdown from this. In fact they are quite-panicky.

Oh and BTW, I just got some 7mm bullets for my 7x57 Mauser. Man they are sexy projectiles, look how long and slender they are. 175 grains .284. On the far right a 180 grain .308 for comparison. No wonder the 7x57 is known to penetrate so much.

 

I have two good Remingtons: Bushmaster .308 + 870 Tactical Shotgun. I feel like I dodged a bullet with those though(no pun intended). You've read & heard same things I have about their products. Also my first gun was a Remington 597 .22 rifle & it was garbage out of the box. New magazines for it, as recent as just few years ago, couple of them were unusable(warrantied).

Oh, Michael.... From the other thread, you realize I'm a casual prepper at this point. I have some food. I'll need some TP.

That's probably realistic in Austria, and we may even see it in the U.S. Only time will tell. Me, I stock up on ammo, because you can buy when they are cheap & they last for years. I've mentioned this before, but after Sandy Hook tragedy, I saw how serious ammo shortage & hoarding can affect the price & availability, too. If you have your reserve, you can come out totally unaffected.

 

I just finished my rifle!

That's how it started out, as a bunch of rough unfinished parts:



After putting about 50 hours into it:

 

Yesterday I went to a local outdoor store to purchase ammo for my 3-gun match tomorrow morning. Much to my surprise they were pretty much out of 9mm but there was tons of 40S&W. There was still a decent amount of .223/5.56, 7.62x39 and .308 WIN/7.62x51.

Other than that, I hope all is well for everyone. By the way, has anybody had a chance to shoot the Smith & Wesson M&P 9 M2.0 Compact? If so, how does it compare to the CZ P10C?

 

I was just having some fun, here is my anno 1910 loadout:

 

I didn't get to shoot much at all this winter, and I guess I was able to walk away with some positives in the sense I'm mostly stocked up on ammo.

.40 S&W's on the shelf doesn't surprise me, as this is what I observed after Sandy Hook tragedy. .40 was one of the very last rounds, along with maybe .22 Win Mag to actually disappear off the shelves. What surprised me was that Ammo website sales surge chart stating how .40 saw the biggest sales increase(maybe from a page or two ago in this thread?). Anywho, I did pickup four boxes of .45ACP last week. Only caliber I need more of.

You guys stay safe out there inside!

 

Since I am under total curfew, like the rest of the country, I will use all the extra time to reload a gazillion rounds. I have enough .223 brass, primers and bullets to keep me busy for the next 400 years. Also producing ammo during a crisis eases my mind a little bit.

Stay safe as well!

 

I'm told that guns & ammo are flying off the shelves in the U.S., and lot of people seems to think many of the buyers are new gun owners.

I mentioned picking up four boxes of .45ACP a week or two ago. So glad. I went back yesterday & it was bunch & bunch of .40's & almost no other handgun caliber(I think I saw some .38).

This led me to inventory my ammo last night & I was so glad to have found I'm good for at least a year. Three calibers I shoot the most are 9mm, .45ACP & .223/5.56. I had more 9mm & .45 than I expected & I found around this much of the 556:





Thanks(?) to the panic, I was finally able to unload the remaining Blackout ammo also. I "bumped" the ad on the local gun classifieds, right before finding out about the ammo scarcity, so I actually managed to lose money on them, but I've been trying to unload them for like a year, so it is what it is. How are you guys doing on ammo?

We got memo at work that we are "essential service" & will not shutdown, even if the State mandates a lockdown. I was really hoping, keeping my fingers crossed for couple weeks to play PS4.

 

Since I am a member of the most holy handloader master race and not a dirty gun owner peasant empty ammo shelves are a non-issue for me. *adjusts monocle and sucks on cigar*

Online shelves are full with projectiles and brass, and I have so much of my own I can make ammo throughout the entire crisis. THATS one of the reason why I have become a handloader, I'm unaffected by ammo hoarding sprees.

Only thing is, I cant leave my home and the range is gonna be closed for a long time. Heck, I don't even want to go to the range for fear of contracting the virus, I probably wont go shoot any of my guns for a year or so, since that is the expected time experts expect herd immunity to develop to a point it is no longer dangerous. A year without shooting.....

 

My ammo supply has not increased or decreased in some time. I would like to have more, but I am okay for the time being, especially since I have not been to the range in way too long. My biggest problem is having nothing zeroed.

 

If you zero looking through the bore of your rifle you will be on target at 100yds, and probably in the center at 50, without having fired one shot.

I always do that at home, before I go zero a gun at the range, saves me a lot of time on the range. When I got my AR the first thing I did was dissemble it and put the upper on a rest, looking through the bore I carefully aimed at my neighbors mailbox that is approx 100yds away, then I checked where the reticle of the scope was pointing. A few clicks later reticle and bore aimed at the same spot.
At the shooting range I shot the rifle at 50yds and I was already in the black, just 2'' or so away from the center, which was no surprise since I always get it well on target that way.

 

Good enough…

 

Saw on local forum: He's shooting Glock 19(9mm) at the range, this one round fails to fire. Slide didn't lock forward completely, he's unable to move it. After some recommendations, I think he used a punch to force the slide back(). This is what he saw(factory Remington):


As you guys know, I don't touch Remington anymore, but I've been reading their factory ammo are fine. This is a weird defect, and I assume that's what it is. Just wanted to share it, as I know some of you would be interested.

Not gonna lie, when I asked the question, I almost added "except @Michael88", because of your reloading ways.

That is a bummer. While I initially liked how much ammo I had on hand, I couldn't average more than 100 rounds of 9mm a month without nearly running out of it in a year, so I have to really watch how much I shoot this year. Very glad I shot like mother in 2019, learning to shoot the Glock. Got that out of the way, but it still sucks to have to conserve so much.

At least it's easier to sight them in than finding ammo for sale right now.

I'd want at least two shots, but it is nice to at least have something like that in the house, isn't it? America is wild.

 

Oh yeah, bullet seated WAY out, making the OAL too big to chamber it. But that's still a lucky defect, the other way around it would have blown his gun to bits, meaning if the bullet was seated too far in. In such a tiny case seating the bullet a little further in increases pressure DRAMATICALLY.

I have heard of such cases, but the bullet wasn't seated to deeply in the case, instead the bullet was seated rather loosely and when the gun cycled and the bullet hit the feeding ramp it was pushed all the way in only stopped by the powder charge. Not good.

That's also a good reason not to take live ammunition and chamber & eject it a million times, the bullet seating depth will increase and pressure will rise.

 

Poster said that he pulled the trigger, but I think he said it was mushy & didn't go bang(obviously). Not exactly sure how it didn't fire, whether it was by safety design, or luck. If it did fire, it would blow the case open you think? God, you just never know when you might become the unlucky winner.

 

Ammo wise I'm doing well. However, if the shelves continue to remain empty, I won't be going shooting for the remainder of the year. I refuse to shoot through my reserves. Most people out here go for 9mm, maybe I'll be able to find some spare 40S&W to shoot. Fortunately, I have seen birdshot ammo on shelves so I may be doing a lot of Skeet and Trap shooting for the remainder of the year.

Other than that I hope all is well with everyone. This pandemic has brought forth a wave of new gun owners, so it will be interesting to see how things go several months from now.

@a6m5 what happened to that guy on your local forum is very unfortunate, just glad it wasn't worst.

 

Man. Our keyword for the 2020 Coronapocalypse is: "Ration" Ration ammo, ration hand sanitizer, ration TP.

Yeah, I don't want to get anywhere near touching the reserves either. While I was doing better than I thought on 5.56, I was lower then expected on .22LR(3700~4000).

Unlike right after the Sandyhook tragedy, I'm sure the ammunition makers are also slowed down by the pandemic, so combine that with the new people coming into guns, it'll be scary how long the drought may last this time around. Darn.

Yeah, I think he was lucky. His Glock came out a lot better than my USP(kaboom).

 

I've just been loading some 7x57 Mauser cartridges. I got to say, from all the calibers I ever loaded, the 7x57 is the prettiest. 175 grain FMJ's at about 2400 fp/s and 140 grain softpoints at 2750fps.

 

I think I have never shown you guys my Belgian double barrel 12 gauge hammer shotgun, so here you go:

 

It's amazing to see the elegance of firearms like this. It's work of art. Obviously I'm a fanboy of modern firearms & love the styling & designs that go into them, but it's almost like with the cars. Vintage styling's so classy & beautiful.

 

I'm a fan of both worlds. I appreciate the capabilities of like say an AR, I absolutely adore my AR as it allows me to shoot 30 rounds in rapid succession into a group of 1MOA at 100 yds, with very little recoil. Boy, that's about as much fun as you can legally have! And I love how it looks, I totally tricked it out and its just plain freaking cool.

But then, I can totally appreciate the lines of a vintage rifle, the exotic beautiful wood in combination with blued and case hardened steel and a strong action. I love the fit and finish and the work that went into that gun, you can see and feel it. It gives me a hint of a bygone era where quality and elegance was paramount and the world was very different.

I love both worlds!

 

Lol, I was hearing about people buying ammo like toilet paper. Went to cabelas and saw some pretty scarce shelves, then I looked around Walmart and they had some small boxes, although very standard.

-

I’ve been looking at a .22lr something, something.

@Michael88 beautiful work

 

I was able to find 12 gauge birdshot, so it looks like I'm going to do some Skeet and/or Trap shooting this weekend.

@phillkillv2 I was hoping we wouldn't end up in the predicament with .22LR .

 

My work is staying open thru lockdown in Oregon, but they couldn't supply me with disinfectant spray, so I hit three stores on the way home today. Finally at the third store I found the disinfectant spray. If you go on Walmart or Target website & they tell you how you couldn't order from that page, but show you the local inventory.... yep. It's crap. Not one of the stores had what they showed. Just got lucky with comparable disinfectant spray at the last store(last one, put away wrong ).

Anywho, for the first time since this ammo hoarding thing started, I looked at ammo & handgun calibers were all gone at Walmart. Some little bit of .22's were left, but they were kinda busy so I had to go right to the last two boxes of .308 they had in there. Another guy was telling the staff he didn't see any buckshot, was going to settle for I think birdshot. I found the buckshot hiding in the corner & he was thankful I found them.

I stopped shopping at Walmart since last September when their CEO voiced concerns over semi-auto rifles last year?(they branded them "assault weapons") Unfortunately, Coronavirus got me desperate enough to visit two of their stores today.

 

Does anybody here own a crossbow?

Been thinking about buying a crossbow since the shooting range is gonna be closed for the better part of the year. My property is big enough to allow me to shoot 25-30yds, but I can't blast away with my arsenal since I have neighbors - and its generally a bad idea in Europe.
So maybe with a crossbow I can practice shooting a rifle standing unsupported and stay in the game so to speak.

I thought about air rifles, but I don't like them very much. Not enough power, and those that ARE powerful not only cost fortune, they are also loud as normal firearms.

 

I don't really like this guy's videos but something like this might be an option for you? It's basically an airsoft rifle on steroids.