Wicked Grips

[Big Frank]

The chamber of the .22 adaptor is so loose the pellets will fall right through it. Instead of keeping the gun pointed up I decided to use a bit of toilet paper in front of the pellet. But when I went to shoot it, my toilet paper was packed away somewhere in the back of the truck, so I tore little bits off an old surgical mask that was in the console. I rolled it into a loose ball and poked it partway in with a metal rod/tool. Then I put a pellet in and rammed it home with a blank as I chambered it. I only shot it 6 or 7 times because the head of the case was missing when I ejected the last one.   I didn't know it until today but the brass was flowing into the centerfire firing pin hole to some degree on every shot. It ranged from nearly invisible, to a hole blown through the center of one, and the whole rim missing on the last one. There was a scorch mark on the upper left of the barrel face at the breech end. I don't know yet if there's brass jammed inside the action somewhere.

Since I couldn't shoot that anymore, I spent the rest of the time shooting "Spike", the .45 with the brass spike recoil spring plug. The 20-round mags worked well enough with ball ammo and CorBon Pow'RBall ammo that has a plastic ball in the tip like the Glaser Safety Slugs in the 4th pic. I had one Pow'Rball round that I pulled the ball out of last year. It hit so low on the feed ramp it had no chance of feeding and just set there. Triton Quik-Shok Hyper-Stressed bullets that split into 3 pieces were completely hopeless. So was Super Vel ammo, that's also shaped like a truncated cone with a large hollow point like the Quik-Shok. The 5th pic is of Super Vel ammo, and the last one shows manufacturing stages of a Quik-Shok bullet. The Quik-Shok ammo wored in my 15 round mags and deliver 572 ft./lbs at the muzzle. Super Vel is actually 100 fps slower and has 544 ft/lbs ME. That's a 165 grain bullet at 1,150 fps, and the other is the same weight at 1,250 fps.

http://www.45super.com/Triton%20quik-shok.html

https://supervelammunition.com/

[Big Frank]

It's a good thing I bought a new helmet last year. This one has holes in it.   A few from .22 caliber pellets, 17 grains at God only knows what velocity. The rest were from +p Super Vel, +P Quik-Shok, +P Pow'RBall, 185 grain Speer Gold Dots, 185 grain +P Remington Ultimate Defense (Golden Saber BJHP), 230 grain FMJ-FP DoubleTap, 185 grain Taurus Hex Bullets (99.95% pure copper), G9 Defense +P 165 grain Woodsman and +P 117 grain External Hollow Points (1480 fps) , 230 grain ball Aguilla, and 185 grain BEB (Brass Enclosed Base) Winchester white box.

I saved enough DoubleTaps to fill 2 mags after shooting 10 rounds, one magful of each type of G9 ammo after shooting 5 rounds of each, and 10 rounds of Remington ammo after firing half a box. I think I only had 10 Quik-Shoks, 10 Hex Bullets and 10 Gold Dots in a plastic bag after shooting the other half some other time. I shot however many rounds of Aguilla were left in a 50 round box. I think it was 80% full but don't really know. I have 10 rounds of the WWB left because I didn't feel like filling another mag 2/3 full just to get rid of them. That, the Gold Dots, and Aguila ammo were only 18 years old. The Pow''RBalls and hex bullets are 3 years older than those, and the Quik-Shok is 3 years older than them (Y2K). I don't know what happened to the Super Vel box but it was probably close to 24 years old. The DoublTap is maybe a year old, and the G9 and Remington are new. A few rounds of various ammo fed most of the way but needed a little push on the back of the slide to nudge them in. But most of it worked in the 3 15-round mags.

The 20 pound recoil spring isn't really necessary, and the 18.5 pound spring I had before seemed to be a little more reliable overall. But 20 pounds works well with the +P ammo I shoot a lot. If I shot mainly ball ammo I'd go back to the 18.5 pound spring recommended by Para when I bought the kit 36 years ago. I run a Shok-Buff in it and wish I knew about them sooner. Maybe it wouldn't sound like a maraca when I shake the gun. Aluminum frames can't handle the beating they get from +P ammo and no Shok-Buff as well as steel does. When I was shooting and noticed how the recoil was I think I finally realized why so many people buy 9mm pistols. But I don't see myself switching to a .35 instead of a .45 because of the kick.

[Big Frank]

Looking at the emty boxes again before I throw them in the trash, I think the Aguilla ammo was all 50 rounds n the box, but it was loose ammo, not in a plastic tray. I think I dumped it in the box last year or the year before. It also could have been 45 rounds, 3 mags full, and I dumped it in after unloading them.

[Big Frank]

On the picture below I marked with yellow arrows where the rim is cut out almost even with the extractor groove. That's to help get the .22 brass out of the .223 adaptor. The whole area I marked with red arrows is where a piece of the rim has a piece missing that's even shallower than that. It looks like half the thickness of the rim roughly 30%of the way around is gone. The rear face of the barrel on the opposite side has a carbon deposit on it from about the 8 o'clock to 11 o'clock position. Between that and the pierced cases, I think the ramset blanks have a higher chamber pressure than a .22 Long Rifle cartridge. The pellets I was shooting weigh less than a nail, and the wadding I used wasn't a tight fit in the barrel. Even if it was, it was right up against the pellet, which was up against the end of the blank. It wasn't like a bore obstruction in the middle of the barrel or anything like that. The only thing I can think of is that the wad and pellet should have been slightly farther ahead, to where the end of the case will be when it opens up, to give it more room to open up with no interference from the pellet.

[Majer]

Frank, the nail set blanks are much stronger than loaded .22LR, I seem to remember a warning on some I had that specifically said not to fire them in a firearm as it could cause damage.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

Thanks, Majer. I saw someone else online shooting pellets in a .22 rifle with ramset blanks or regular blanks, I can't recall which, and he didn't have any problem. Maybe I wouldn't either if I used the lowest power blanks instead of the highest. I could buy some level 2 blanks and find out.