Friday, December 3, 2010

Range Day 12-03-2010

You know what they say, A bad day at the range is still better than a good day of work...

We decided to head out this morning at about 8:00. I took my Hi-Point TS995 Carbine and my Olympic Arms Ar-15. I told you yesterday that I wanted to try out the lead 9mm reloads in the Carbine. You know, I was a little worried, but the Hi-Point performed flawlessly. I'm telling you, you cannot make this weapon fail. I was impressed once again.

We fired some copper plated 9mm reloads out of it too. We have been able to find the plated bullets for way cheaper than the regular FMJ. I didn't get to fire enough of either the lead or copper plated to really check if accuracy was affected.

We moved to the Olympic Arms AR-15 and that's when the fun began. First off, my new Magpul PMags worked like a champ. They feed very nice, they eject from the mag well nice. And they are damn fine looking. If you are interested in the PMags at an excellent price, go check out The Outpost Armory, they have them for $11.00 each.

On my third magazine of 5 rounds, I released the bolt to chamber a round and it sounded funny. I looked down and there was a round wedged between the top of the bolt and the inside of the upper. WTF? I have no clue how that happened. I wish I would have gotten some pictures of it. So, we spent the next half hour trying to figure out what to do. We had very limited tools and didn't want to damage the weapon.

We packed up and went to my buddy's house. He is quite the amateur gunsmith and has a nice selection of smithing tools. We (I basically kept the rifle from moving around) took it apart, removed the stock, buffer tube and spring, and were finally able to force the bolt out the rear of the upper. At that point the damaged round fell out. We took the bolt and bolt carrier apart and checked for any damage. Finding everything to be alright we reassembled and tested.

It seems that everything is ok, but I still am just baffled as to how that round got up there in the first place. What a pain in the ass. It's lucky for me that my buddy enjoys taking things apart about as much as he enjoys shooting.

If you are interested, Cabelas has the Hi-Point 995TS Carbine in their ad for $224.99, with the front grip already installed. What a bargain!