What I did when the annual gathering of Gun Nutz 'R' Us came to N.C.

So what did I do when the biggest national organization of Gun Nutz 'R' Us (AKA the NRA) held its annual meeting in my state? I had plans to go to Charlotte to become one of the 100,000 or so at that celebration of our Second Amendment rights.

But then my daughter called and said let's go shooting. So that's what we did, her, my grandson, shown shooting my S&W 22A-1, my son's father-in-law Steve and me, having fun in my son's backyard shooting into the woods. My son was at a ballgame with my other two grandsons. That's Steve in the red shirt holding his Kimber CDP II Ultra .45 ACP and me in my shorts and Crocs, watching my grandson shoot. Big dude burned up about 200 rds. of .22LR ammo and I loved every minute of it. Loaded his own magazines and every now and then announced he needed another box of ammo. Warms the cockles of a grandfather's heart to see another gun nut growing up in the family.

I hate I missed the big NRA doings, but actually shooting with friends and family is way better than just looking at guns and stuff and talking about it. Maybe the next time the NRA is in driving distance I'll go.

Anyway, a fun time was had by all.

My daughter was interested in a home-defense handgun to go with her S&W 638 .38 Special with Crimson Trace Laser Grips, so she tried out my Taurus 65 .357 Magnum and liked it. It's been slicked up by some unknown gunsmith with a bobbed hammer, a very slick trigger job, custom wood grips and a ported barrel. The porting certainly helps with recoil and she tried it out with some Hornady Critical Defense 125-gr. .357 Magnums and declared it about the same in recoil and manageability as her S&W 638.

So she's happy and I'm happy that the Taurus has now changed homes and hopefully will get the job done if something ever goes bump in the night at her house.

And I finally got the chance to try out my new Sig P220 Compact Elite, which I picked up almost a month ago and couldn't find the time to shoot it.

The P220 Compact is a special Single-Action-Only limited edition that I got from CDNN with  ambi safety for this lefty, Elite high beavertail frame, night sights, aluminum grips and perhaps the Sig Short Reset Trigger. I wasn't sure about the SRT until I shot it because Sig's labels on their factory boxes are pretty short. If a pistol has more than one or two extras, it doesn't print on the label, it just runs off the end unseen.

But now that I've shot it, there is no doubt whatsover, this Compact P220 definitely has the SRT. I fired a few double taps and a fast string and that trigger can reset way faster than I can shoot it. Yowza!

I even compared it to what I previously have said is the best compact .45 ACP I've ever shot, Steve's Kimber Ultra CDP II. I shot them both back to back and honest to God, I'd hate to have to live on the difference between the two. They're both the very best of compact .45s on the planet, IMHO.

And the P220 Compact shoots with typical Sig accuracy with 230-grain loads, for which the sights are dead-on. At one point in slow fire, I put two .45 slugs overlapping the same hole in the red bull of an 8" target at 10 yards. Woulda took a photo but I left my camera at home.

As usual, it ran without a hiccup and even passed my ultimate test for an auto-loader, an 8-rd. magazine of four different hollow-point loads mixed up. Like Sig says, reliability to hell and back, it ate the whole magazine without a stutter. I have yet to have a jam with any of the four Sig pistols I've owned thus far (not counting the .22LR slide conversions). It's hard to complain about a record like that.

I put about 75 rds. of hardball and about 25 rds. of mixed hollowpoints through it and I pronounce it now ready for carry duty. I suspect it's gonna be first on the duty list henceforth when I load up for work.

I only have one complaint. Those 6-rd. magazines for the Compact P220 are just way too short. And same for the 8-rd. magazines. I take a shot or two or three and all of a sudden that darn slide is locked again. Is that six already? Or eight?

I gotta get me some of those Sig 10-rd. P220 magazines.

Charter Arms Southpaw gets a carry load: Federal HydraShok +Ps

Spent some more quality time at DeWitt's outdoor range today with the main objective being determining a carry load for my new Charter Arms Southpaw .38 Special.

It's a lightweight 5-shot J-frame size revolver so I was expecting what American Rifleman's review termed "stout recoil" with +P loads.

But contrary to their terminology, I found the +P loads to be a bit stiff but not unpleasant at all, certainly quite manageable. I tried three different loads, Hornady Critical Defense .38 Spl. 110 gr. FTX and two +P loads, CCI 125 gr. TMJ and Federal Premium 129 gr. HydraShok JHP.

The gun shop is out of the Critical Defense +P loads so I will try those when they're back in stock. The regular .38 Critical Defense loads are the five holes low and left in the first target on the left. The next five in that target, three in the black and two in the bull, are the CCI +P 125 gr., obviously more to point of aim of the iron sights, standing at 10 yards.

So I changed over to the Federal HydraShoks for the target at the right, 10 rds. same distance. Five in the black and five close by. Viola! We have a carry load.

It's gonna take a while for me to get used to a lefty-friendly revolver with the cylinder lock on the right instead of the left. But I like it. A lot.

Then I moved on to my Dan Wesson .22LR revolver, shooting from a rest to zero its sights. I've had the Dan Wesson way too long to just now getting around to zeroing the sights, but I've been pretty busy. That's my Sig P220 next to the DW, ready for testing of Winchester Ranger T .230 gr. JHPs.

First target on the left is testing and adjusting the sights of the DW. Like a fool I fiddled with the up-down adjustment while trying to get the left-right fixed. Finally figured out you have to hold the flathead screw while tightening the Allen screw. Who knew?

Then I shot a magazine of Ranger T's at the target on the right, standing 10 yards. Shot too fast but the test was mainly to see if they would cycle. Yes.

Then I fired three magazines of MagTech 230 gr. FMJs at the next target on the left, 10 yards rapid fire standing, just because.

I seemed to be shooting a bit low today so I slow-fired the target at the right with Ranger Ts. Some in the black, but most a bit low. Close enough for government work.

The gun shop has a pretty good supply of Ranger T ammo, 50 rds. of quality JHPs for only $34 a box, so I'll be stocking up on them. Anytime you can get quality hollow-points for less than a buck a round, buy 'em. And if they're Ranger Ts, well duh. That's one of the best law-enforcement rounds ever manufactured.

I only have one complaint about the Sig P220. It goes into slide-lock way too fast, as in "Damn! Is that eight rounds already?" It's one of only two single-stack pistols I own, the other being my itty bitty Kel-Tec PF-9 and when you're shooting +Ps in it, you're glad when it goes to slide-lock.

I like high-capacity pistols but this Sig P220 is making me take a second look at single-stacks.

Trust but verify, P220 ready for carry, P229 .22 slide still picky

Taught my monthly N.C. Concealed Carry Handgun class today and after the students got through shooting at the indoor range at the N.G. Armory in Wadesboro, I got a chance to make a few holes myself.

My main objective was to run a few .45 ACP hollowpoints through my Sig P220 to see first if it would feed OK and second to see if the point of aim and point of impact remained the same as previously established with 230-grain FMJs.

Yes and yes. I fired three different brands, all 230-grain, two Winchester hollow points, Personal Protection and Bonded PDX1, and a magazine load of Remington Golden Sabers. All fed fine and all shot to point of aim. It ain't as pretty a group as I shot outdoors two weeks ago, but not too shabby for an old nearly blind guy indoors.

I hereby pronounce the P220 ready for carry.

I would have been shocked speechless if the outcome had been any other as I have yet to have a Sig pistol jam with any load and I have never seen different loads of the same grain weight shoot to different points of impact.

But as President Reagan said about the Russians, trust but verify. It won the Cold War didn't it? And I now pronounce my P220 ready for hot war.

My second objective was to put a few more .22LR rounds through my P229R, at left in the third photo.

I established beyond doubt at the last outing that the .22LR slide kit I bought works very well with the P229R and not very well at all with the nonrail P229 SAS Gen2, at right.

And I also discovered at the last outing that the Sig P229R .22LR slide is the pickiest about .22 ammo of any Sig in my somewhat limited experience, being only two. The other is the .22 slide for my P220, which works just fine with anything I've fed it so far.

But the P229R slide likes CCI Mini-Mags, the hottest non-Stinger load CCI makes for .22s. I ran several other high velocity brands through it, Federal, Winchester, Remington and CCI, and the Mini-Mags are the only load it consistently fires. With the others I got a lot of clicks, sometimes even on the second or third try after nonignition.

But today I fed it Mini-Mags and not a single dud. The six holes at the top of the target are from my Dan Wesson .22 revolver. I discovered the indoor lighting does not agree with its sights and my ancient eyes. But I could see the Sig's 3-white-dot sights just fine. The holes in the bull and around it are all from the P229.