I was honored to be invited to travel to "The Pit" in Lapeer, MI on Aug. 8 for some full-auto fun with The Shekel and the owner of Lagniappe the dog and Lagniappes Lair. These two are into full-auto firearms and were very generous in sharing the fun with several of us.
For a full account, click on over to Lagniappes Lair. There's pictures and everything!
I also got to shoot my M1 Carbine a little more, and my Enfield went out for the first time in my hands. I had done a little judicious polishing and bending of the follower in the 10-round magazine I had for the M1, and it performed flawlessly. I shot a full box, so that was five loading/shooting cycles without a jam. We'll see if that continues - hopefully it will.
"The Pit" is maintained by the Michigan DNR, but there are no shooting benches so it's hard to do some serious accuracy checking, so the Enfield No. 4 Mk. 2 got a 20-round box of Igman .303 British 180 grain bullets put through her, to check for function of the magazine and bolt. This gun is a surprisingly soft shooter, probably due to it's weight. I get a much bigger thump in the shoulder with the Mosin-Nagant (7.62x54R) and the Mauser (8mm Mauser) than with the Enfield. I seem to remember reading that the .303 is at the low end of the power scale for the cartridges of the major belligerents of WW2, but I don't know that for sure. I'll have to do a little more research into that.
One thing I do know is that I now have a couple of guns I can shoot at the ID4 match at the Capital City Rifle Club next summer!
2 comments:
1. Your M-1 carbine was a beautiful little rifle. Winchester with early features. Nice. Now get a dozen or so 15-round mags for it and buy some cheap ammo from AIM Surplus.
2. .303 is NOT "light" ammo by any means. Real combat loads are much hotter than that scaled-down SAAMI-spec. commercial stuff and will let you know that you've been shooting a man's gun. (AIM has .303 too!)
3. It was good to have you out with us. Now buy a machinegun, darn it! Yes, I know they are expensive. But you have kids, and each kid has two kidneys and most kids will only ever need one. Pediatric kidneys sell for big $$$. Get the idea? How do you think Aaron affords all that top-tier dive gear?
Actually, all the ammo I was shooting came from AIM! The .303 may well have been SAAMI-spec, however. I got it because it's boxer primed and reloadable. It certainly isn't light! I would consider things like .223Rem or .22-250 or .30 Carbine as being light. I was just saying that if you looked at .30-06 and 8mm Mauser in comparison, it might not be quite as high in the power department. It's nothing to sneeze at however!
As for Aaron financing his full-auto and his dive gear, I figured that he just chased a couple of extra ambulances last month! (Sorry, Aaron. Couldn't resist the gratuitous lawyer bashing. Feel free to respond in-kind with gratuitous techno-geek slams!)
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