Miss Bernadelli flunks the course; more fun with P229 .22 slide kit

Another sunny day here in the South and I made it back to Dewitt's range for round two of .22LR fun, sorta.

Plan A was to try out a V. Bernadelli .22 target pistol that I put on layaway at the gun shop where I work. It's probably purt near old as God with serial number 517, but it shows evidence of having been gunsmithed with jeweled parts and a red-fiber-optic front sight. Feels good in the hand and looks cool, so I fell in love with it. Until I shot it.

Miss Bernadelli flunked the course big-time. Maybe out of a dozen magazines I got two or three shots without a misfeed. I tried six or eight different loads, Remington, Winchester, Federal and CCI, and she wouldn't eat any of them without a hiccup.

Back to the shop she goes and I hope to God no customer asks me if she will shoot good. I don't wanta lie so I'd rather not be asked. Plan B is an Austrian-made Glock-wannabe .22 pistol I've had my eye on, the ISSC M22. I'll just transfer the cash I put down on the Bernadelli to start paying off an ISSC .22 pistol.

So then I proceeded on with day two at the range with my new Sig P229 .22LR slide conversion kit. Last Saturday I tried just Federals and the results were not good. So today I used two CCI loads, two Remington loads, two Federal loads and one Winchester Super X. It absolutely hates Winchester so that one is out.

The others were sorta so-so. It would shoot a while, then hit a dud, shoot some more, hit another dud. I was on a roll with CCI standard velocity when I got three duds in a row. And all the duds would fire on the second try.

End result is the best was from CCI Mini-Mags, which is the most expensive .22 ammo I had with me. So it appears she's got expensive tastes.

I did establish that Sig knows what they're saying when they said this slide kit is for the Sig P229R, the rail model. She works pretty good with my P229R and she works pretty terrible with my Sig P229 SAS Gen2 with no rail. All the problems with the P229R were duds. But the P229 had a lot of feed problems, as well as a few duds. So the slide stays on the P229R.

I thought I was going to use my new Caldwell Pistolero pistol rest (first photo) to zero in the sights, but instead spent all my time trying to find a .22 load the slide likes. All told I shot more than 500 rounds of .22 today. At least I didn't go broke doing it, which is the whole point of .22 shooting.

I finally used the Caldwell rest on my Sig P220 with the .45 ACP slide on it to see if I could do as good or better than I did last week standing up. First set of targets, 10 yards on the rest, has 16 holes in target at right and eight in target at left. Last week my best of three mags loads was all eight in the black. Today my best was at left, all eight in the 10 ring and at right with only one out of 16 in the 9 ring ain't too bad. This P220 is so easy to shoot well it makes me look real good. It's definitely a carry gun, even fits my Galco P229 paddle holster.

And since I had my P229R with a mag full of .357 Sig Ranger hollow-points, just in case some yahoo thought it would be smart to rob somebody at the range, I decided to try it from the rest also. The bottom set of targets on the left is 13 rds., one magazine full and one in the pipe. Not as good as the P220, but not too bad either. The post-dot contrast sights on the P229R aren't as exact for me as the three dots of the P220's night sights. Bottom target at right is a scattering of .22 shots with the 229 slide kit.

Teddy Roosevelt said there's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of man. TR probably said the same thing about guns and he'd be right. I left the range as usual with a big smile on my face. See you there next Saturday if I ain't working.

.22, .44, .45 and 9mm Day down on the farm at Dewitt's Range

Bad news is state budget cuts has closed the public range at Millstone 4-H Camp where I've been shooting for the past few years.

Good news is private enterprise is alive and well in Richmond County, NC. I found out a local sporting clays range has expanded from shotguns to rifles and handguns so I visited there today to check it out.

Shot six of my pistols, I'm happy as a pig in deep crap and joined up on the spot.

The range is Dewitt's Game Farm and you will find me there most Saturdays from now on, as long as the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise -- or I have to work Saturdays.

The Sig .22LR slide conversion kit I bought for my two Sig P229 .357 Sig pistols is not an immediate hit. For some stupid reason, I took two different Federal .22 loads to shoot in it, high velocity and hyper velocity, and it didn't like either. Feed problems. But that's stupid because I know Sig .22 pistols like CCI and I didn't try CCI first, then others later. Next week a diet of CCI for the Sig P229 slide, which fits and works equally well or badly on either the rail model or the non-rail model.

There were two unqualified successes of the day. First was the .45 ACP slide I just got for my Sig P220 Rimfire Classic. Shoots like a dream, witness the .45 holes in the target. It's easy to see which are .45 and .22 aside from the size. The .45 holes, all eight of them, are in the black from 10 yards standing, while the .22 holes are mostly high as I fiddled with the sights until I gave up on misfeeds.

Second unqualified success is what I did with the extra bucks leftover from the sale of my Glock 20 10mm after buying the P220 .45 ACP caliber exchange kit. I'd had my eye on a Hy Hunter Six Shooter .44 Magnum single-action pistol for some time, a copy of the Colt Single Action Army with a 6" barrel and genuine fake pearl grips. I even took it out for a test run some time ago and found it to be a great shooter (one of the benefits of working in a gun shop, shoot before you buy with used guns).

So I finally had some money for a fun gun and brought the Hy Hunter home the same day the P220 slide kit arrived. I did a bit of research on it and found out it was made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn in West Germany in the 1980s before the Iron Curtain collapsed. Sauer later merged with the Swiss pistol company Sig and became what we know today as Sig Sauer. So you could technically say I shot not three but four Sauer pistols today. Three Sig Sauer semi-auto pistols and one Sauer single-action revolver.

I also shot my Dan Wesson .22 revolver a bit and ran a few mags through my S&W 469 9mm pistol. They're both new-to-me so they need the work and so do I.

It was fun and as Bogey said, this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship: me, my pistols and rifles and Dewitt's Game Farm. See you there next Saturday.

Glock 10mm is gone and Sig P220 .45 ACP kit is on the way here

The big Glock 10mm is gone and my Sig P220 .22LR Rimfire is soon gonna be sporting a .45 ACP slide conversion kit.

I boxed up my Glock 20 10mm/9x25mm last week with all accessories and shipped it off to the gun show at Concord for the weekend.

One of my cellmates at the gun shop was looking at it in the booth at the gun show, thinking about buying it himself, when a guy walks up, does a double-take and sez "What is that!?"

It's a made in Austria full-size G20 with an extra Lone Wolf 9x25mm extended ported barrel, three 15-rd. mags and three 17-rd. mags with +2 extenders, Ghost 3.5-lb. trigger, stainless-steel guide rod and captured-recoil-spring assembly, with all standard Glock parts in the factory box with papers, plus 120 rds. of Double Tap Gold Dot JHP ammo.

Try saying that fast three times without taking a breath.

Anyway, my buddy Wes told the guy about it and he bought it on the spot.

So when the Sig P220 .45 ACP caliber conversion kit I ordered from Sig comes in, now I got the cash to pay for it.

This also means I now have only one 10mm pistol in my small arsenal, a customized G29 subcompact.

When the P220 conversion kit arrives, it will become my 4th .45 ACP pistol, one Sig, two Para-Ords, compact P12 and full-size P14; and one Llama IX-C wide-frame full-size.

I also have four .357 Sig pistols (two Sig P229s and two S&W M&Ps, compact and commander-size) and three 9mm pistols (one CZ P07, one Steyr M9A1, one Kel-Tec PF-9) to round out my carry choices. Plus of course, a few revolvers, one Charter .327 Magnum, one S&W .44 Magnum, one Charter .44 Special and two .357 Magnums (one S&W and one Taurus). I shouldn't say it out loud, much less put it in writing, but I'm pretty well set for carry guns now.

That does not mean I'll stop buying guns. I'll just start buying something other than carry pieces.

There's a .44 Magnum Colt-Single-Action-Army-clone at the shop I've had my eye on for some time, plus a dandy stainless Marlin 1894 .357 Magnum lever-action rifle that would make a nice pair with my .44 Magnum stainless Marlin 1894. Choices, choices...

Sig P250 9mm Compact Nickel Slide is tempting deal

Dang, just when I figure I'm gonna lay low for a while on purchasing handguns (before my wife kills me) the gun shop where I work gets this great deal on Sig P250 9mm compact pistols with a nickel-plated slide.

I guess free enterprise is at work here as the price has dropped significantly on the P250 since it was first released. Prices started out well above $700 but have been dropping since.

We have this same model listed on gunbroker with a camo polymer frame for $675 and now we're competing with ourselves with this great deal on the nickel slide model for only $485.

The P250 is a double-action-only pistol, unlike the classic Sig pistols which are all double-action/single-action. And the response from the buying public has been a bit lukewarm up until now. But with a price drop like this, I imagine demand will rise quickly.

One of my co-workers at the gun shop bought one of the camo models and likes it a lot. And it's a great concept, buy one any size or caliber and then change the polymer grip frame, slide and barrel to a zillion different combinations in 9mm, .40S&W, .357 Sig or .45 ACP in subcompact, compact or full-size.

At prices like this, even the old die-hard Sig classic lovers like me may have to come across. I've got several DAO pistols already, two Glock 10mm, G20 and G29; two S&W M&P .357 Sigs, commander size and compact; and a Steyr M9A1. So the DAO Sig P250 isn't off-putting to me.

It's just that I really love the Sig traditional double-actions. My two P229 .357 Sigs are my absolute favorite pistols and my next acquisition will be a Sig P220 .22LR I tried out over the weekend. Converting it to a .45 ACP Single-Action-Only Sig P220 is the follow-on plan.

After that, a P250 with nickel slide may be next.

What's better than a Sig Pistol? Three Sig pistols!

One of my favorite gun writers, Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch, says if you have a gun you really like, get another one just like it.

Well, I can't afford to get another Sig Sauer P229 .357 Sig SAS Gen 2, which is both my most expensive handgun and my favorite. But when the gun shop where I work bought a used Sig P229R .357 Sig at a recent gun show, that was close enough for me. The R stands for rail, which my SAS Gen 2 does not have, being strictly a concealed-carry pistol. And the P229R also has a couple of features the SAS doesn't have, a stainless-steel barrel and guide rod.

You'd think on such an expensive pistol as the SAS models, Sig would at least give you a staineless-steel guide rod instead of plastic. And the SAS barrel is Nitron-black finish, though it is stainless steel under the black.

Anyway, that's the P229R in the top photo and the SAS Gen 2 in the second. It does have lots of bells and whistles the P229R is lacking, night sights, stainless slide, fancy P229 Elite wood grips, Short Reset Trigger and of course the Sig Anti-Snag SAS treatment on the slide and frame, smoothing out all the sharp edges.

But there ain't nothing wrong with the new-to-me P229R, which has quickly become my second-favorite Sig pistol. It's what Sig calls a CPO, Certified Previously Owned, meaning it was a law-enforcement trade in that was completely refurbished by Sig.

• Before receiving its Factory Certified Pre-Owned status each pistol is stripped, refinished, refitted with original factory parts where needed, cleaned and lubricated, function tested and hand-inspected by a certified SIG SAUER armourer.

If it can pass the Sig factory armorer's inspection, that's more than good enough for me.

And the third photo is very likely destined to become my third favorite Sig pistol. It's a gently used Sig P220R .22LR pistol which some idiot traded in at the gun store.

It's one of a new series of pistol Sig calls their Classic .22s. Buy a Classic .22 Rimfire and you get a $400 coupon to buy the full-caliber slide, barrel and recoil system plus a magazine to covert the .22 into whatever caliber the frame is designed for. In this case, it's a P220 Single-Action-Only .45 ACP which comes with no decocker and ambi safeties. Which is just exactly perfect for a lefty like me. So I get a great .22LR pistol for training and plinking and also what is perhaps the best .45 ACP pistol on the planet, IMHO, including custom 1911s that cost multi-thousands.

All three of these Sig pistols went to the range with me and a shooting buddy on Saturday and we burned up a bunch of ammo and had a bunch of fun. I also took along my customized Glock subcompact G29 10mm (fourth photo) because my shooting buddy has a full-size G20 10mm and wanted to see how the G29 shoots. He loved it.

But this was also his first experience shooting .357 Sig pistols and guess what? This former "Gotta be .45 or 10mm or I won't have it!" guy has decided there is another caliber he loves.

Finally the last photo is my Sig P229R after I got her all cleaned up following the range trip and installed a set of Hogue Pau Ferro grips on her. She dresses up real nice, don't she?

(P.S. The unnamed shooting buddy referred to demands photo credits. OK, he took the first four photos. With my excellent digital camera. Set on "Auto" which makes it foolproof, even for this fool. And I'm leaving him unnamed because I outshot him so bad it would be embarrassing to name him. But I'll give you a hint: His first name is Jerry and his last name is Andrews.)