Range Report on Sig 220
My Sig 220 blasted its way through the first 8rds without a hickup. I did notice a mini cloud of lint around the gun, and maybe I should rethink some of the shirts I wear to try and prevent or reduce this, but I thought that lint can’t be any worse than dirt and these are combat pistols. I continued to put another 300rds of 45acp 230gr FMJ ammo and had a stopage. I had a friend tell me that the Sig Factory rep he dealt with says that the guns should run wet and that they are dependent on using more lubrication than something like a Glock. Although I’ve never gotten the bug to own a Glock, I guess I’ll have to acknowledge that Glock does have an edge over Sigs in this area. One thing I have considered doing is putting a little grease on all of my pistols, that way it won’t drain off as easily as CLP or similiar types of lubrication. That is something to think about for pistols.
Today was a rare day that I was able to get away from the family life and get out for a day at the range. My Sig 220 was pretty dirty and it hasn’t been cleaned in months. There was lint building up in the firing pin area between the hammer and the firing pin. My initial thougts were to clean it first, but then I thought about the TO HELL AND BACK reliability claims and thought I’d just start blasting. The gun was pretty dry, but this was a test of my standard CCW guns durability. I was normally carrying my Sig 220 45acp in an IWB holster. These Galco Holsters are easy to remove from my belt although I know that clip on holsters have a higher rate of coming off than loop through or other types of holsters.
The blue colar CCW owner is probable the most common gun carrier you may run into. I’m not going to go into a class warfare thing here, but in my opinion, there’s no reason to look down on blue colar workers as opposed to white colar gun owners. The whole blue vs white thing seems to be a made up argument between people that spent $80,000 on a College education that got them absolutely nothing a small business owner already knew. Life is full of invenstment opportunities and we need to take advantage of those opportunities. Getting an education should be viewed in the same manor as buying a house. You spend money on something, you expect a return, and if the return wasn’t worth it, the investment wasn’t worth it.
Along with some of the other things stated in the previous blog entry is that anything not held down, will come loose. We are aware of that when we mount our optics and tighten things down so they won’t come loose and we also use things like loctite to bond it even more. This is something will really make a difference at the range, the folks that don’t use loctite and put 1000rds through a gun in a weekend may find out the hard way. We’ve talked a little about firearm retention, but the next common thing to think about is magazine retention.
When I was at this range and watching students, I saw the gun industry very well represented, everything from Blackhawk, Safariland, Uncle Mikes, military surplus, East German gear, holsters, chest rigs, speed loaders on the students. The military surplus stuff all work and was simple to use, but it wasn’t as fast to use and much of it wasn’t too pretty and very much for the weekend warriors. For serious gear, do some research before you buy and try and find a gun shop or gun show where you can actually feel and wear it before you buy. Many firearms owners have a pile of holsters in their closet for all the ones that really weren’t that comfortable, and blowing a bunch of money on chest rigs and mag holsters, tactical vest ect. that really don’t feel right is going to cost more than many holsters.
I was at yet another Carbine training course last week and while I was originally invited to watch the intstructor teach the class and give him feedback on his tactics and speaking skils, I was always keeping a eye open for how well his students were performing. Like many of the previous classes I sat in on, students showed up with various qualities of keep and shooting skills. To this day it kinda cracks me up to see some guy with an iron sight AK show up and shoot with guys shooting Match grade ARs, but sometimes I’m impressed with their abilities.
The are many ways of concealing a firearm, but when it comes to carrying backup mags, there are far fewer options. I know plenty of people that carry spare mags around in pockets, but I’ve seen too many times that the top round of a loaded mag will eventually pop loose or be out of place which could cause a malfunction. I’d recommend carrying spare ammo along the belt line for 85% of CCW. There are some tactical jackets that are designed for holding magazines, but I also recommend close the pockets and not leaving them open. Elastic retention will help hold a mag from side to side movement, but when it comes to up and down movement, those mags will probable hit the ground when you may be reaching for them.
I remember the days when I was learning how to shoot and always tried to put each round in the same hole at 100yds regardless of which type of rifle I was shooting. My novice approach to shooting exposed my nieve goals of trying to make an SKS rifle a tack driver. Instead of compensating my aiming for eveyr hit, I should have just aimed the center X and tried to get withing 4 inches and then call it a day. Each rifle is capable of shooting a certain group, but sometimes we do exceed a rifles potential and it’s time to move on to something better.
Not everyone needs to think about long deployments in Afghanistan when getting their shooting gear together, but knowing where your guns and gear are can prevent you from making silly mistakes. I’ve heard plenty of stories that sound funny at first, but I know it wasn’t funny when it occurred. The stories are about people getting a day off from the family and driving an hour or more to a gun range and finding out they didn’t pack any rifle magazines, forgot the ammo, forgot to put a gun in a bag ect.
Keeping a scope cover on your objective and being aware of your flash is extremely important. I highly recommend a flash kill cover for any combat optics and also suggest a cover for your flashlight. Even something like a red lense will help avoid giving away too much reflection. Flashlights are probable the biggest giveaway in low light even if you don’t turn them on. Next time your at the range, put your rifle on the bench and walk down range and look again. Keep in mind that even though you may be 50-100yds away and wearing camoflauge, your fancy schmancy M4 has various points of reflection and even moonlight will have an impact.
Trijicon has also diversified their optics for hunting and target shooting. The Accupoint optics are low-variable power optics that give operators some level of magnification, but still have the speed that Trijicon optics are known for. The Accupoint reticles come in red triangle, Amber dot, Green triangle, and green dot. These have started to show up on bolt action rifles and DMR used in the military. They are reasonable priced and all under $1000 dollars.