Loaded for the weekend. Note the vintige T/C hat from 13 years ago. T/C is back baby, but more on that after the holiday. (Doug Howlett photo)

The bosses are unlocking the rusty cage in the dark ammo shelter they keep us toiling away in here at TTAG and said we are free to run wild in the watermelon patch an extra day since Monday is one of the very few things the Feds have foisted on us that is actually good…the Labor Day holiday. So with that temporary reprieve, this is just a quick heads up to our TTAG faithful that our usual light weekend posting schedule will extend through Monday as well, Tuesday if sobriety hasn’t kicked in sufficiently by then. We hope everyone gets a chance to get out and enjoy this last “unofficial” weekend of summer cooking out, hanging at the beach or lake, shooting doves as that season opens as well for many of us, reading the arguments in the comments section between Miner49er, .40 cal Booger and Debbie W, or escaping the keyboard Thunderdome and simply just going out to put some rounds through your favorite firearm(s). It’s your day, do what or who you enjoy. As our friends over at Field Ethos like to say, just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean it isn’t a great time to “shoot Monday in the face.” Especially because you can slither back to the nightmare-sweated sheets of your bed or crack open a foamy cold one early with the entire day ahead to stack ’em up. (But, um, just a word to the wise, don’t go shooting if you do the latter.)

Stay safe, have fun, BE NICE (don’t post comments that are going to get you auto-moderated because we’re not going to be here to approve them) and we’ll keep a handful of good and honestly somewhat shocking stories coming (courtesy of scheduling) until we’re back.

Stay crisp…

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Blackpowder rifles and pistols along with lever action on the weekend agenda.

    Blackpowder needs ready for deer season.

    • I wasn’t thinking of shooting my muzzleloader this weekend, but now I might–especially since I found a bullet stability calculator two days ago which reports that my new favorite load and bullet combination way, WAY, WAY overstabilizes the bullet. I seriously want to look into that further.

      For the uninitiated, a bullet that is WAY overstabilized (spinning too fast) is problematic because the bullet’s tip will not point forward for the entire trajectory. Instead the bullet will continue to point in the same direction it was pointing when it left the muzzle, which means that the bullet will start pointing a bit high as its trajectory flattens and pointing way too high as its theoretical trajectory descends. (And if a bullet is not pointing in the direction that it is travelling, it starts to “plow” through the air rather than “slice” through the air and it may even start to skew its trajectory upward.)

      I say all of this because my muzzleloader was a tack-driver–until it wasn’t. My primary centerfire rifle had a problem so I switched to my muzzleloader only to discover that the bullet I have always used typically fails to expand. So, I changed my muzzleloader bullet two days before white-tail deer season. At 50 yards my new bullets were making one ragged hole–as I expected. I adjusted my scope for a zero of 125 yards (according to a ballistic calculator) and called it good. Opening day a 2.5 year old 8-point buck stepped out at 117 yards and I landed a shot basically right where I was aiming. Six weeks later at the end of the season a doe stepped out at 85 yards and my shot landed about 8-inches high even though I know I was aiming on target and did not jerk my shot. (Fortunately the bullet hit near/at spine level and dropped her right there.)

      My only guess is that my bullet is WAY overstabilized thus it starts to “float” high beyond 50 yards until the excess wind resistance of the bullet plowing through the air (with “nose” high) slows the bullet enough to “fall” into my point-of-aim at 125 yards. That would explain why I was 8-inches high on the doe at 85 yards and right-on at 117 yards.

      Anyhow, I have some pre-season work ahead of me.

      • I have been working with round balls of late. I think after much trial and error I have a good load.

        Where is the stability calculator you found?

        • FormerParatrooper,

          I found a stability calculator at this link–which I am posting in such a way as to avoid this site automatically placing this comment in “moderation”. You will have to replace the word “dot” with a period, the word “slash” with a forward slash /, and delete all of the spaces between characters.

          bisonballistics dot com / calculators / stability

  2. Taking out the new Tavor x95 to put it through its paces. Just got it back from IWI (left handed bolt configuration). Been a long wait to get it back. Have owned it for 6 months and still have yet to shoot it. Its bad enough with other guns so i wasnt about to take brass to the face from
    a pup

  3. Labor Day is a socialist holiday. All you need is a maypole and a red flag. I didn’t go to the range today. I did carry a couple of handguns around though. Does that count?

  4. I was told when young that Labor Day was a day when you were supposed to labor. Too old to change now, even though I know better, so I be laboring away on Labor Day. What the hell, it probably won’t hurt me, it is only one day out of the year.

    • It’s only a holiday if you have a job. I’m kinda retired but help out the wife who has a small business. Down in Kankakee,Ill they’re having powerboat racing(revived) on the Kankakee river this weekend!🙄

  5. With all the muggings, sucker punching, random shootings, stabbings and other demoCrap happening just going to the grocery can be a matter of life and death. Nonetheless for our humble LD celebration my orders are to go fetch a bag of Tostitoes bite size rounds and a jar of medium Salsa Con Queso and do not return without them. I also have a motivating $5.00 discount coupon from last week’s adventure to Dollar General.

    And from Fulton Armory to Optics Planet there are the Labor Day Sales bombarding my email. Last week I used my optic bucks and a 12% discount to purchase a Cryptic Coatings .308 Bolt at a giveaway price. So Low Optics raised the price. I also bought their JP .308 ejector kits.

    From the above early morning head banging vid to a funny POTUS Ronald Reagan below enjoy your extended weekend…
    https://youtube.com/shorts/k-ICQ3sn2X4?feature=shared

  7. “…reading the arguments in the comments section between Miner49er, .40 cal Booger and Debbie W, or escaping the keyboard Thunderdome and simply just going out to put some rounds through your favorite firearm(s).”

    🤣

    and I am leaving in just a few minutes to put some rounds down range. The targets have a picture of Miner49er on them.

    • Well that’s really quite kind of you to think of me.

      I’m hoping to find the time to put the EGW recoil spring/guide in my Colt Defender, I’m hoping it won’t need much fitting, they say it’s ‘drop in’. There was a recall on the original recoil guide (‘improper heat treatment’), and indeed mine fragmented.
      Colt sent a replacement no charge, and it seems to work fine but the EGW is well regarded and unlike the Colt it’s machined from a solid piece.

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