Category: Gun/Ammo Tests

I’ve kinda had the hots for this little gun since it first came on the market, so when I had a chance to exchange one of my “spare” guns for the LC a week ago, I jumped at it, and went to pop a few rounds off at the range yesterday, you know, just to make my acquaintance  I even bought a couple boxes of 230gr FMJ for the occasion, and two spare mags.

There are a lot of things to like about the LC:  the chambering (.45 ACP, ’nuff said), the compact size, the Glock 21 12-round* mags it uses, and of course the Ruger quality and reliability.  And yeah, it has all that.  I also found the trigger acceptable — about a 5-lb break but very crisp, and the gun was acceptably consistent in terms of grouping (given my shitty eyesight):  the bullets struck dead center off a sandbag at 25 yards.  (It also shot 4″ low out of the box, but with the front-sight adjustment tool I got that right.)

And it fed reliably — not a single jam or malfunction with either the FMJ or the various hollowpoint cartridges I tested it with.  Clockwork, brass ejected firmly etc. etc.

Mechanically, therefore, it was fine;  and on that basis I’d take it to war, so to speak, without a qualm.

But the “ergonomics” (as Mae calls the feel of a gun)?  Not so fine.

The recoil is excessive, even considering that it’s shooting the John Moses Browning .45 ACP cartridge and not a proper rifle cartridge.  That straight-though stock (more on that in a moment) slams the stock straight into the shoulder with considerable force.  Even when I popped an extra recoil pad on the butt, it wasn’t pleasant.

And here’s something I’ve noticed when shooting these kinds of guns (e.g. the AR-15 and others of the “chassis” gun type) while wearing hearing protection “lids”:  you can’t get a decent stock weld with your cheek to get the sights to fall naturally into your sight line.  That’s because unlike a regular rifle, there is no drop of the stock below the barrel line, so your ear protection (we used to call them “pots”) get in the way of your hold.

Now on my AR, you can see that my cheek does not need to come down onto the stock because I’m using a high-elevation red-dot sight.  But the low position of the pop-up iron sights on the LC makes life difficult, in that you have to re-position your head after every shot.

So basically, I’m going to have to put a high-rise red-dot sight on the LC, which I did not want to do because the aperture (Garand- or Marble type) is plenty accurate for me and to be frank, that’s one of the reasons for owning a short-range pistol-caliber carbine (PCC) in the first place.  Like a fork, you pick it up and it works.

I’m starting to regret selling my M1 Carbine, now.

Does this mean that the LC is going to be used only in the open air, when I don’t have to wear pots and just rely on earplugs — i.e. when I go over to TDSA twice a year?

Frankly, I’m disappointed because I was looking for a good answer to the question, “Do I really need an AR-15 ‘pistol’ for those social occasions?”

And the Ruger LC Carbine doesn’t seem to be it.  In my hands, it’s about a 50% solution, and I don’t like those.

Right now, of the two carbines I prefer to shoot the AR — and I don’t especially like shooting the AR.

Also, that “flared mag well” caused me to pop a blood blister on the heel of my right hand (for the first time in about forty-odd years) when I slammed a mag home.  Ouch.

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*Glock calls them 13-round mags;  I call them 12 because it’s impossible to load that 13th round without that loading tool thingy.

From the comments at GarandThumb (shooting the 5.56mm poodleshooter at 25 yards and 125 yards into ballistic gel):

“Slow motion videos of gel blocks being shot NEVER stops being entertaining.“

Amen.

Also:  that’s some impressive cavitation, right there.

You might assume that since I first started shooting .22 ammo at age 7 or 8, over the following 60-odd years I have sent quite a few rounds thereof downrange — “range” being our backyard, any open piece of land I happened upon, and so on all the way to indoor ranges here in northwest Texas.

And your assumption would be correct.  The other day I was organizing Ye Olde Ammoe Locquere, and at a rough count I had on hand about 30,000 rounds of the lovely stuff*.

When I broke it out and tried to sort it out by type, I discovered that about two-thirds of that was 40-grain bullets, and the rest 36-grain.  And that puzzles me because for some reason, I’ve only ever had consistent accuracy with the heavier bullets, regardless of the gun used;  so why do I have so much of the lighter stuff?

I think it has mostly to do with price, as exemplified by the latest offering to arrive in my emailbox from Lucky Gunner:

It is rather tempting, I will admit:  that five cents per pull is very alluring, but for the fact that over time I’ve found the 555 brand rather spotty in terms of consistency, in terms of both accuracy and ignition.  (If there’s anything more irritating than hearing a click rather than a bang after squeezing the trigger, I’m not aware of it.  And my go-to CCI Mini-Mag ammo is astoundingly reliable:  I cannot remember a non-fire with that brand, ever.)

As far as I can recall, however, I don’t believe I’ve ever shot anything with a pulse using the lighter bullet, so I can’t testify as to its effectiveness.  For some reason, I’ve always preferred to use 40-grain ammo out in the bush, for reasons I just can’t explain;  “bigger is better”, maybe?  And what price those extra four grains?

Given that the likely target is going to be small game of the rodent variety, I’m not sure that the hollow-pointed 36-grain stuff is that much more effective than the solid 40-grainers.

But I’m willing to entertain war stories from others on this topic because as the Krauts say, immer werder lernen.

Anyway, all this talk of rimfire has got my digit tingling, so if you’ll excuse me…

…this may take a while.

 

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*I later discovered another thousand or so rounds (all 40-grain solids) in the hall closet and range bag, not to mention a few dozen secreted in the gun bags I typically carry the rimfire guns in.  There may also be a box or two hidden away in the car, I dunno;  it wouldn’t be the first time.

You may want to sit down for this one.

Not long ago, I spent some time with Doc Russia and Combat Controller — both, as Longtime Readers know full well, among my dearest and most longtime friends.  While our initial friendship was sparked by our love of guns, over time we’ve become drinking buddies as well, and many’s the night of company well spent in riotous merrymaking of the liquor-abusing kind, wherein we swap tall tales, tell old lies and slag each other off endlessly.

Anyway, on this particular occasion they ganged up on me and derided my love of Old Things Wot Go Bang, and in fact suggested in no uncertain terms that if ever there was a need for gunplay of the social (okay, anti-social) kind, I would not be a welcome companion because… my choice of SHTF firearm (guess) could not share ammo with their anti-personnel platforms.

I should point out that Doc is a former U.S. Marine, and Combat Controller — as his nickname indicates —  was one of those snake-eater AF types called upon to bring in death from the skies from a friendly air force.  So you know what gun they prefer, right?

Ugh.  Anyway, after a while they told me that they could whip together a gun for me just from parts they each had lying around the place, with maybe just a few additions.  In other words, a new gun at almost no cost to me.

I can only plead semi-drunkenness and (the promiscuous, as it turns out) gun love for agreeing to this stupid idea — with the result that I am now the owner of this thing:

…it being classified as an AR-15-style “pistol”, with a 10.5″ barrel and a “brace” — right.  (Who do we think we’re kidding?)  The red dot sight is the same as the one I have mounted on the Buckmark.

Anyway, I took FrankenGun to the range yesterday to see what all the fuss was about.  (I’ve fired several ARs in my life, but never one built like this.)

First impressions:

• Holy shit, this thing is LOUD.
• There’s some recoil but nothing to write home about — about the level of a lever-action shooting .38 Special, if my memory serves me.
• The trigger is outstanding (for those who want details, it’s supposedly a good one:  Geissele).
• I spent more time getting the red-dot scope right than playing with the gun.  Also, I only had 40 rounds (two 20-round Pmags).

“Yeah, yeah, but how does it shoot, Kim?”

(for some reason I loaded only four rounds for the second string instead of my customary five)

And in looking at the pics, I mis-typed:  the distance was 20 yards and not 25.

Then I got a little more businesslike:

Hold was center (where the quarter’s been placed).  I was too busy working the scope’s elevation to worry too much about left-right.  And ammo was running short, so I took a deep breath and got really serious:

Okay, I couldn’t get those kind of groups at that distance with any of my other handguns.  So I can’t fault the accuracy.

Also, the FrankenGun ran like clockwork:  no failures of any kind, no bits fell off, nada.  No problems there.

So I’m left with a BIG question, because I’m still undecided whether I like the thing.  It checks a lot of boxes, to be sure.  But I’m still not convinced of the effectiveness of the 5.56x45mm poodleshooter ammo (a long-held reservation, as Longtime Readers will know about me all too well).

Would it be fit for purpose in some kind of self-defense situation?  Not inside the house — not my house, anyway, because I would have serious issues (i.e. permanent deafness) if I touched off the thing there.

Outside the house — and we all know what I mean here — and assuming I was aiming for a target (or targets) at distances longer than 50 yards (way beyond where I would consider using a 1911, for example), would it work for me under those circumstances?

Here’s the crunch question:  would it work better than a pump shotgun loaded with buckshot?  (I know, you only get a few rounds with a pump, whereas with an AR, you get lots more.)

Or, to change the question around a bit, would it work better for me or would I feel better about it if I swapped out the barrel for something more substantial, like the .300 Blackout (.300 BLK) with its more severe recoil?

Like I said earlier, I’m undecided.  Sure, it’s fun to shoot and ammo is cheap (unlike the Blackout, which costs nearly double).  But I don’t know whether my hesitancy is because at the end of the day, I just don’t feel right about the cartridge.  For fun shooting, I have all my .22 guns, and we all know that the .223 is a lot more of a cartridge than that.  But is it serious enough for me as a SHTF round?

I’m going to have a dozen or so more range sessions to get comfortable with FrankenGun, and I’ll let y’all know then whether I’m going to keep it or not.

Even if Doc and CC would hate me for getting rid of it.

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As always, all comments and suggestions are welcome… once you’ve recovered from the shock of Kim With AR-15.

One of the Newtonian principles is that of the mass : velocity equilibrium (if I may call it that).  Simply explained in gun terms, it’s that compromise that one has to make between bullet weight and velocity (and eventually, terminal velocity and impact).

The simplest example is a comparison between a .22 bullet and .45-70 Government:  the first zips along with a muzzle velocity in excess of 3,000 feet per second, while (relatively speaking) the huge .45-70 struggles to leave the barrel altogether.  Yet as fast as the .22 may be, its diminutive 40gr weight arrives without much authority, so to speak, at (say) 100 yards distance, while the .45-70’s 300gr lump of lead will crush everything in its path when it eventually gets there.

Which is all very well and good, because the difference between the two bullets is vast.

But what if there’s little difference in bullet weight between two (or three) bullets, the only difference being the amount of powder driving them?

Here’s a fun video of just such a test, made by shooting the .22 LR, .22 Mag (WMR), and the .17 Hornady Magnum.  (By the way, I love the fact that Our Hero eschews the appallingly-expensive ballistic gelatin, using instead large cubes of pottery clay to make his point.  It’s as valid a medium as any other, I think, when making comparisons of this sort.)  Go ahead and watch the thing (it’s just over 10 minutes long), and then come back here for my thoughts.

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