![]() I’ve had the rear sight on a 1911 bumped over in the dovetail enough to throw shots. If you’re using metallic sights, check to see if they’ve been knocked out of alignment, either windage or elevation. It has happened to me, and it can have disastrous consequences. Handgun scope mounts can loosen under repeated recoil, same as mounts on large-caliber rifles. ![]() For the rest of this month, focus on that one issue and you won’t be sorry. In the final analysis, whether you use factory ammunition or brew your own, it is essential to know where your bullet will strike, regardless what gun you’re shooting. So, in addition to a good gun and good bullets, and the right conditions, along with eyes that were 25 years younger than they are now, a little luck never hurts! ![]() In years hence, I’ve tried to repeat the performance with varying results (mostly negative!). At 200 yards, with my pal sitting to my right, my shots connected with a steel plate, which was a little larger than a robust human torso. 357 Magnum handloads pushing 125-grain JHPs ahead of, as I recall, a pretty stout load of then-Hercules 2400. Maybe just for the sake of having tried it, I hauled out my 6-inch Colt Python and, off a sandbag rest using a two-hand hold, I cut loose with a cylinder-full of. It was a gun I was testing for a magazine article, topped with a good long eye relief pistol scope, and it was pleasingly accurate with some rounds, less so with others, depending upon the bullet weight. 223 Remington, hitting targets consistently with factory ammunition. On a mid-spring afternoon in 1997, I took a visiting pal to the range and we took turns firing a scoped Thompson/Center Contender in. Use your prep time to solve or prevent a problem! It’s not projectile dysfunction it’s just a variation of components. A rifle might shoot to a different point of impact with factory loads using different weight and type of bullets than handloads. Other times, it just might be the ammunition. Sometimes it’s you and sometimes it’s the gun. About two months later on a hunt in southeast Wyoming, I used that rifle to conk a 4×5-point mule deer buck at a paced-off 250 yards. A session of light sanding solved the problem. Slipping a dollar bill under the barrel, it got about halfway down the barrel channel and stopped. Then it occurred to me to check if the barrel was somehow making contact with the stock. The powder charges had been individually weighed and the brass was all the same brand. I double-checked the loads, went back to weigh the bullets and they all scaled within 0.10-grain of one another. One evening I took a recently re-stocked rifle to check the zero, and my rounds were all over the paper. September is the right time to get this sorted out because in October or November, if you’re a hunter and a buck or bull wanders into your line of sight, you’ll be making a cold bore shot in less than ideal conditions. This is what range time and patience are for. So, if my groups (or yours) open up like spilled marbles, clearly something has gone wrong. Measured loads, consistent bullet weights (yeah, I actually do weigh my rifle bullets, and recently started doing the same with cast lead handgun bullets), good brass and the right propellant all play a role. It’s not necessarily rocket science, but it is science of a sort. ![]() Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of hours at the loading bench, cranking out everything from. However, there is much more to it than just sending bullets downrange. I’ve shot deer with handguns and rifles, and a couple of them were moving, so it is incumbent on anybody planning to stop live game to know where his/her bullet is going, and where it will punch a hole when it gets there. With Labor Day weekend approaching, serious hunters are heading to the gun range to make sure their hunting handgun or rifle is properly sighted - which is no small undertaking for some folks.
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