The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Handguns => Topic started by: Dirty Bob on December 07, 2020, 02:33:54 PM
-
With 9mm being harder and harder to find, I'm carefully hoarding my precious little stash of Federal 9BP, plus some odds and ends I've been able to find. I have some ball, and I can handload some practice ammo. Even if this lasts a year or two, I'll probably be OK. I'm worse off in .38, with a few speedloaders holding mis-matched self-defense ammo. It looks funny, but it'll work.
But let's imagine I only had one box of ammo in 9mm. When that was gone, I'd be switching to .44 Special and my Rossi 720. It's a good caliber, and I have enough to last me for a while, including a small amount for practice.
I can also reload .44 Spl. There was a day when almost no one would consider carrying handloads, but it may come to that (though I hope not). If it does, a wadcutter from a .44 Spl. is likely to settle a confrontation quickly, and it's accurate.
Years ago, Ross Seyfried wrote a fantastic article entitled "When It Matters," about making the most perfect handloads possible for hunting, or competition or carry. He limited his batches to something like 10 or 20 rounds, carefully inspected each case, including the flash hole, and fully sized them. He used a magnifier to see that each primer had an anvil and priming compound, then used a hand priming tool and checked for high primers on a hard surface. He used powder he'd used with success before (not opening a new canister), and measured the powder and visually inspected all cases with a bright light to make sure that the same amount of powder was in each, before seating each bullet and crimping. Then he inspected each round carefully, and stood each on a digital scale to make sure there was powder in each round. He then made sure each round would fit the chamber of the firearm. I think he may have fired a few to test, as well.
Probably not gonna happen, but maybe some of you got caught off guard. Are you switching to something you were able to find, before everything disappeared? I'm still seeing some oddball calibers, like .22 TCM, for sale, but none of the popular cartridges. For a while around here, I kept seeing .44 Spl. and .45 Colt, but no more.
Just askin'
Dirty Bob
-
Normal CCW is 9mm and I have Critical Defense set aside for that. At this point, I practice with my Shield using only Winchester brown box service ammo. No intention to change calibers at this point.
I do notice that 10mm,and 32S&W seem to be available, along with a few other odd calibers.
I have cut back on my revolver competition shooting, because I have way more CCI primers than Federal. Believe it or not I have a good stash of 9mm before this all happened. So I'll be in CCP & SSP in IDPA and Production in USPSA until things change. Saving all my .38spl for ICORE matches which don't start up until April anyway.
-
I go from 38 super, 45 acp and 10mm daily. Depends on which 1911 I want to carry
-
still have a bucket of 9mm brass and some Precision Delta JHPs that duplicate the profile of my carry ammo... I'm shooting pretty much only .22lr for competition in Steel Challenge
my reload mags are topped off with FMJ flat nosed anyway
-
I am usually with 9MM and when not I carry 45ACP for the most part. My 10MM's are a D&D Bren Ten and a 1911 platform in Kimber so both are a bit heavy to carry everyday. No need for the 40 S&W with the full power 10's.
That's pretty much it for me. I don't do revolvers....although the FN 5.7 is something I have but don't shoot that much....I may add the new Ruger next year in the same caliber as the FN trigger is really poor.
I'm sticking with a carry in ammo I can get if SHTF so that would be 9MM or 45 ACP.
-
I found a used ruger sp101 in .327 federal magnum. It’s really go my attention because I can find .327 and .32 H&R mag quite easily. It’s seems no one around here is interested in this caliber. I might just buy the sp101 for that reason
-
I have just been dry firing more.
-
When I got my Witness 10mm last Spring I started carrying that on the theory that people were not the only things needing shooting.
Bears in dumpsters are an issue around here.
10 mm I've got a bit, and still see it once in a while so I never bothered going back to 9mm, which I'm also OK on.
Minimal target shooting though. :-[
-
When they passed the (Un)SAFE act here in NY I started carrying my 1911 again, but the weight on my hips caused my back to act up, when they threw out the 7 round max part of the law I switched to a Ruger SR9c loaded with 9mm 115 JHP +P+ ammo,with 2 spare mags I have 31 rounds of potent fight stoppers and it's much easier to carry.