Range Day

Today, we went to the range. It’s a private outdoor range, with a 100-yard rifle range, a 10-yard pistol range and a 10- and 30-yard general range. It’s a fun place, one where I like to go with friends to socialize, train and make holes in paper targets. Train, you ask? Of course. Safe, proficient firearms handling is very much a perishable skill and it takes commitment to maintain that skill, more to improve it.

Much hay has been made in the USA and across the globe about weapons and access to them. In a lot of ways, access to and the application of weaponry has defined the human experience, and many governments have sought to control force. Roman society, and eventually emperors, famously banned the carriage of weapons in Rome and later across the empire for all but purposes of self-defense or hunting. Here’s a fascinating discussion about it. Ancient Chinese and Japanese laws and society barred peasants from possessing any sort of weapons in general- a peasant with a knife or a spear was a threat to the established order, a sword was ludicrously impossible to even dream of. Family lore says that a distant ancestor was once awarded the privilege of carrying a stave in feudal Japan. In feudal Europe, similar restrictions applied. Britons variously had their arms rights restricted and limited based on class, type of arm, size of arm and plenty of other arbitrary criteria; French restrictions were as varied as the local lords. Eastern European regulations were often more capricious, but suffice to say that the concept of weapon ownership was not welcome in general for most European or Western-government precursors. The same generally holds true today; accessibility of weapons for the British, Norwegian or French tourists visiting the range today is nothing like the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. Likewise, some of our states heavily restrict access to firearms and specific weapons; it is no exaggeration to point out that some of my completely-legal civilian firearms in my home state would prompt felony “assault-weapon” charges in states like New York or Massachusetts. With that being said, I don’t live on one of those Democrat states, and I don’t have to care about the irrational fears and whims of silly politicians and celebrities.

We started out with some classic lever-action carbines- a vintage Winchester 1894, a Marlin 336C, and a new-production Henry carbine. All three are chambered in 30/30 Winchester, a classic centerfire cartridge that is quite probably the single most prolific hunting cartridge in American history. All three of these rifles have essentially the same design and profile- they are hammer-fired with an external hammer, feature a single-action trigger and a loop (lever) for the firing hand, and have a magazine tube under the barrel that holds 6-7 rounds. Wooden handguards and stocks protect the hands and allow for a good, stable grip. The Winchester and the Henry do not have external safeties, the Marlin has an unobtrusive push-button hammer-block safety. All three have identical manuals of arms and operations.

My Winchester is a truly vintage rifle- it was manufactured in 1902, 123 years ago- and has not a drop of plastic in it. A straight walnut stock and curved steel buttplate speak to a hardier time, where ergonomics meant that your hunting rifle was going to last and could double as a club. The sights are similarly solid- the front blade has a tiny golden dot, the rear leaves are blocky and marked with a simple faded-white diamond to center the bead over. Efficient, reasonable, lethal. Everything about that rifle speaks to an era and ethos where the rifle was more than an artifact, it was a tool, one that you could carry into the frontier and fight with. Everything is carbon steel and springs and walnut. Loading is slow, fighting a tight magazine spring to push rounds in tandem, and the loading gate requires staging to find the center of the feet path for the magazine. For all that steel, though, it’s a remarkably trim and lightweight weapon. The balance point is essentially in the middle of the receiver, and with a 20″ barrel, it is quick to shoulder and point. Aiming is instinctive, with a line of sight right down the barrel. The curved steel buttplate doesn’t lend itself to comfortable shooting on the range from a seated position, but when standing, it ain’t terrible at all. However, that light weight and unyielding steel buttplate seems to amplify the recoil impulse of the 30/30 cartridge. It’s not a hefty punch, but it is certainly a different blow compared to the lighter .223 Remington. As long as you establish a proper grip and firmly position the stock, it’s easy to work with.

Accuracy is pretty solid; in that I can’t complain about a 123-year old rifle with iron sights and a steel butt plate. Grouping was interesting with the recoil and my overall lack of familiarity with the rifle, but even my glasses-enhanced lame-vision self was able to put rounds in the center of mass on a man-sized target at 100 yards. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s got like 7-inch groupings in my hands, so mostly OK. There’s not really a way or reason to add an optic to this, but it’s an antique legacy rifle- why would you? This rifle was meant to carry into the unknown, and if you want to hit stuff more reliably, suck less I guess, because it’ll do its part. At 50 yards, I was able to group it at about 4 inches, so that’s something. It’ll do.

It’s also necessary to **vigorously** cycle the action. Done properly, the spent casing rockets out of the chamber with authority and shoots straight up, away from the shooter and guaranteeing a clear path. Short-stroking it, or cycling it slowly and gently, causes the rifle to go out of time with regards to the feed ramp because that robust spring keeps pushing the cartridge backwards onto the ramp but the ramp is ascending instead of completing its motion downwards. Incomplete ejection, a hyper-angulated new round and a jam will occur. My friend somehow managed to short-stroke it to the point that he caused a round to backflip under the feed rails; it took about five minutes and a pair of forceps to clear. Even with that jam, however, the rifle was still quite operational- in extremis, I could have single-loaded the chamber and gotten at least one round off and the steel was none the worse for wear after the offending cartridge was removed. One of the weird things about the Winchester is that its lever articulation pulls the bottom plate down out of the receiver, which gives the cartridge feed ramps more room to feed the next round without increasing the size and weight of the receiver. I don’t love the articulation, but it’s not particularly troublesome either. I’m completely certain that I could literally wash mud, blood or snow out of the action in a burbling mountain stream or piss on it and it would still function as well as it ever has.

The Marlin dates back to 1989, and was inherited from my grandfather. It was the first gun I ever fired, at the age of 7, when he took me to line up at a tree on a “hunting” trip. I dropped it because most seven-year-olds aren’t terribly ready for an adult-sized 30/30, and I definitely didn’t hit the tree, but I did crack the stock cap. 29 years later, it’s still cracked. The Marlin is a lot smoother in its firing and action than the Winchester, and its stock is ergonomically better- a flat rubber buttpad, a pistol grip, and a slightly longer length of pull make it an easier rifle to aim and fire, and the front sights are a bit easier to differentiate than the Winchester. The rear sights (buckhorns) suck in comparison to the notches of the Winchester, but overall, they’re pretty similar. The Marlin also has a flat-top receiver that can take scope mounts or the 21st Century’s best-ever innovation, the Picantilly rail system. A rail allows essentially-unlimited scope and optic mounting options, and this rifle screams LVPO or red dot to me. I could also put an XS-sight on it, but in all honesty, I think a scope makes more sense. Still, with irons, it slaps- my blind ass put up a 4 MOA 5-shot group at 100 yards, with a bit of Kentucky windage to put it center-mass. Adjusting the buckhorns is a pain in the ass, so I decided to leave them alone- but as mentioned, the red dot would neatly solve this entirely. Handling was every bit the same as the Winchester even though the receiver is longer, with the exception of the lever shape and semi-pistol grip being easier to grasp on the Marlin. I also liked how the receiver remains sealed and the bolt rotates into place- it’s a different, longer feel and cycle, but weirdly feels like a shorter throw of the lever to me. The rifle fed, fired and cycled entirely reliably, with the caveat that it too needed to be cycled with authority. Six rounds of 30/30 is a pretty authoritative load, and with the Marlin, it cycles and fires that faster and with authority. If I had to grab a rifle to go hunting with right now, it would be Grandpa’s Marlin. I have complete confidence that it’s a capable fighting rifle too.

The Henry wasn’t terribly different than the Marlin. It’s nearly new and has laser-cut checkering, good finish and a nice Vortex 8X scope on it. Recoil was pretty similar to the Marlin, as was handling and cycling. With the scope, it was pretty easy to put in 2-inch groups at the 100-yard target in slow fire. I suppose the magazine tube could be easier to top off thanks to the rimfire-inspired cutout at the end, but I don’t think that’s much of a feature- I’d rather use the side loading gate. The Henry is a fine rifle, but it’s plagued by modernity- it doesn’t really speak to me when its older brothers are in the room. Perhaps if they’d been able to clone something a little different like a Savage Model 99, it’d be more interesting, but it just didn’t light my fires. Speaking of a Savage 99, I’d love to try one (in a caliber that exists today of course)…but that’ll have to wait.

The lever actions were a lot of fun, but they’re also practical. Ballistically, 30/30 is pretty much the perfect bullet for woodland deer hunting, practical out to around 400 yards with a working knowledge of ranging and hold-over, and 300 with far greater confidence. Certainly it wouldn’t be my preference to be engaging targets at that range, but it’s possible and the cartridge is still carrying a lot of energy at that range. Inside 200 yards or so, 30/30 is a definitive deer-slaying round, and it’s roughly equivalent to the Soviet 7.62×39 round in terms of terminal performance and range. No one’s ever volunteered to stand downrange of a spraying Kalashnikov, right? Six quick rounds of high-powered .30 caliber ammunition is reasonable for most fighting scenarios I could dream up.

Part II: Semi-Automatic

I’ve got a long and tumultuous history with semi-automatic rifles. I own a few, and have fired many more. Some of them, like the 10-22, are extremely unobtrusive. Others, like the M4 I was issued in the Army, simply became extensions of myself, and the Garand and M-1 Carbine were inspired by watching Band of Brothers. With that being said, I’m picky about my rifles, and it’s hard to get really excited about them.

Maybe it’s my inner old man, but I really enjoy the Garand and its derivatives. In 2022, I had the privilege of visiting the Springfield Armory museum in Massachusetts, and learning the history of the rifle really cemented its place in my mind as the penultimate battle rifle. Yes, the M-1A and FAL and G3 are technologically superior and the AR-10 is far simpler and generally more capable, but there’s something just American and right about the Garand. Eight rounds of .30 caliber, 1906 Specification can be a bit of a pain in the thumb to load, but there’s something excellent about dark walnut, Parkerized steel and BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM PING!!! in a world of loud snapping bangs and black plastic rifles. The U.S. Rifle, .30 Cal, M1 is still a damned fine rifle, and with its iron sights, even my mediocre shooting can put rounds on-target repeatedly on a normal target. Mostly because 30-06 ammunition is expensive, though, I’ve also got a Mini-14, and I took it out today. My friend brought his ARs.

Ruger Mini-14 vs AR-15 (For Me)

Back in the late 1960s, Bill Ruger and his team had an idea- to copy the M-14 Rifle and the Garand action, but downsized, and put it in a platform of similar proportions and operation to the M-1 Carbine, but chambered in .223 Remington. The idea was sound, in that the Garand action is fundamentally very reliable in a wildly wide range of environments and literally cannot double-feed or jam due to its open receiver; Ruger himself reportedly lamented that the Mini would have been chosen as the military’s next service rifle if it had been introduced a few years earlier. It feeds from a Ruger-specific detachable box magazine (5/10/20 rounds), has a fixed birch stock, and is fundamentally pretty similar to the Garand in terms of its operation with a gas-driven mechanical piston that articulates the bolt via an operating rod. It’s got a reciprocating charging handle and ejects up, right and forward. My example is a Government Barrel model from the late 1980s, with a somewhat-modified ghost ring aperture in the rear sight instead of the tiny Ruger hole that I can pick up far more clearly. It neatly encapsulates the entire M16-like front sight assembly in the ghost ring with the front sight post at the middle of the target. With this rifle and sight combination, I was shooting a four-inch group in good light from a bench, without a rest. The Mini doesn’t have a lot of recoil, and its muzzle report is basically the same as the AR-15. If it only had better sights, or a receiver-mounted red dot, it’d be way better.

My friend’s ARs are both bog-standard generic M4gery copycat clone rifles. One is by Palmetto State Armory, the other is by some other assembler. They’re both carbine-length direct-impingement gas systems, 14.5″ rifle + 1.25″ muzzle extension barrels, and both are topped with generic variable-power scopes. Both of them twang pretty aggressively when fired, probably due to an imbalance between their gas blocks and buffer springs. Neither of these rifles is better than the Mini or the Garand in terms of build quality, and despite an OK magazine, both rifles struggled with slowed bolt function, jams and incomplete extrication and feeding. Both of these rifles were dry and dirty and both were improved by liberal sprays of oil, but neither was as reliable as the Mini-14. However, both of these rifles really benefitted from their optics. Even with generic cheap LVPOs, they were punching 2-inch groups at 100 yards. Reliable function, if it could be achieved, would move the AR into a superior objective role as a fighting rifle. And of course, I know that reliability can be achieved, with maintenance and cleaning and an eye towards good magazines and well-balanced parts. I’ve owned two ARs in the past, and although neither of them really did much for me, nostalgia pangs pull pretty hard at me. For a pure fighting rifle, I really can’t think of a single thing that the AR-15 platform doesn’t do well enough to excel, and I can think of a lot of things that the AR does better and more easily than the Mini-14 or Garand. Shooting them against one another with these two particular examples might have given the perception of victory to the Mini, but the AR properly executed is a better rifle in general. This wasn’t really a surprise for me. Like I said, I know the AR platform really well. There’s no fumbling, no hesitation, no uncertainty. It just fits, in its soulless mass-produced generic cloned way, and it does it better than the wood-and-metal rifles we wish it was. If I had to grab one of these rifles right now, I’d reluctantly take the Mini, but a reliable AR with a red dot sight would be preferable…and with that being said, it’s the next one on my list. I think I’ll trade something for it.

Part III: Pistols

With our long gun fixes sated, we moved over to the pistol ranges. I’ve got somewhat retro tastes in handguns- I really like steel frames, hammers and accuracy. I’m big enough to be able to carry a full-sized handgun relatively easily and I live in a pretty permissive area. With that being said, I usually gravitate towards a revolver for my daily carry. I’ve got a brace of .38 Special revolvers, a .357 Magnum, and a few semi-automatics. Today, I had the chance to fire off my Colt 1911 full-size against a S&W Model 19 K-frame and a Model 64 K-frame, and I must admit, I was torn between the two.

The 1911 is one of the classic firearms of the world. Two world wars, countless police uses and millions of carriers can’t be wrong. My Colt is quite possibly my favorite handgun, in that it does everything well and few things poorly, and for some reason, I shoot it really accurately. Colt’s sights are bigger than the original military nubs, but better for it, and capping off today’s fun with four consecutive head shots at 30 yards was pretty inspiring. The heavy steel frame soaks up quite a bit of the recoil, but it does let you know that you’ve been shooting. Throwing 230-grain .45 rounds out is pretty big medicine if you can put them where they’re needed, and I feel like I can do that well with the 1911. Seven- and eight-round magazines are plenty enough for me, and after some initial hesitation, carrying in Condition One with a good holster is comfortable for me. Objectively, I think that it’s still safer than the striker-fired polymer handguns, in that it’s got three separate safeties that all function to keep it from going off, whereas a striker-fired “the trigger is the safety” is going to go off if the trigger gets pulled. It’s pretty great. But…there’s competition.

The Smith & Wesson Model 19 is a 1960s-era answer to the question of what a police officer would want to carry. Bill Jordan, a famous old-time border patrol agent and gunfighter and gun influencer, had lobbied S&W for years to build something easier to carry than the N-frame Model 27. They listened and built a K-frame revolver in .357, leveraging improved metallurgy and greater consistency in ammunition to do what they couldn’t 20 years previously. This was my first time shooting this revolver, and I loved it. I’ve previously had a Model 27 (foolishly traded) and that was a soft-shooting pistol, but this 19 has some very nice custom hardwood stocks, and although my -19 is lighter and two inches shorter (4″ vs 6″) than the -27, it’s actually just as easy to shoot with .38s, in that the gun just doesn’t move. Seriously, it felt like a .22LR, and between the weight and the stocks, I felt like I could hit exactly where I was aiming. Magnums were spicier, but hardly excessive- the recoil impulse was very similar to the .45. Same with the .38 Special Model 64- with Hogue stocks, the pistol just stayed planted in my grip, and the rounds just went where they were supposed to on the front sight post. That degree of accuracy is hard to overlook. I’m also halfway convinced that a revolver has a certain panache that many semi-automatics don’t.

The biggest takeaway from this day though isn’t hardware or even performance or even my opinions. It’s that the biggest aspect of bearing arms is the perceptions associated with them, be they ours or those of other people. The Mini and AR share ammunition, have functionally-identical performance, and only the Mini will take a bayonet…but the AR is going to draw way more attention than the Mini, even if it’s the most common thing on the shelf or the range. All of the lever-action rifles pack enough rapid-fire power into light, controllable packages to put multiple .30-caliber rounds into a man-sized target just as readily as those ARs, with far more kinetic energy delivered, yet they are viewed wholly differently than the ballistically-identical Kalashnikov rounds. Even my revolvers, launching rounds with equivalent energy to the Glocks and whatnots on the other lanes at the same targets, have different perceptions in everyone’s minds…be that obsolescence, nostalgic familiarity or a simple perception of trust from people conditioned to be afraid of ‘black scary guns’ but who don’t recognize a wooden revolver stock in the same light. Those perceptions ultimately affect our laws and our society, and we have vested interests in keeping those laws fairly lax. After all, when has a government ever given more freedom?