Today, we took our .45 caliber pistols - Damsel’s Warthog and my Glock 30. We shot both guns last weekend at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, but didn’t clean them afterward. We also only shot just a few rounds then since we were having fun going from place to place checking out the other interesting guns.

So, today, we brought our allotment of rounds we didn’t shoot last week and another 50 rounds of .45. We also brought Damsel’s S&W686 revolver and put 50 rounds of .38 special through that.

As usual, we brought shotguns and 25 rounds (each) of 12 and 20 gauge shells. The video shows some teamwork in chopping a silhouette target in half. Prior to the video, we teamed up to slice it down the middle and then Damsel took off the right side of the target. I then took off the left side. I’m sure this drill has no practical value, but it is fun and makes us laugh.

For Damsel, last week’s outdoor range time was a first for her. DirtCrashr called us over and offered to let us shoot his rifle, also a first for Damsel. Click image to enlarge.

We just got back from our road trip today and not back to the routine just yet. We’ll blog more about GBR-IV in the days to come.

We went to the Washoe County Regional Shooting Facility with the gun Bloggers today. What a blast! I took a lot of pictures, but this one with Sebastian’s suspended brass seemed worthy of posting today. Click to enlarge.

Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun doing what they love. We had a chance to shoot some of the many interesting guns the group brought to the range. We will be blogging about this event for weeks to come.

We only took four firearms to the range today: Damsel’s Para Ordinance Warthog .45ACP, my Glock 30 .45ACP, Damsel’s Remington 870 “Junior” 20 gauge shotgun and our Remington 870 Express Magnum Security 12 gauge shotgun. We left the .357 magnum guns at home since we did not have as much reserve .38 special or .357 ammo as we did .45. So, we grabbed a hundred rounds of .45ACP plus 25 rounds each of 12 and 20 gauge sport loads and headed to the range.

This video shows Damsel doing what she loves to do. The four clips in the video show her shooting, in turn, all of the firearms we brought today - the Warthog, the Glock 30, the 20 gauge Junior and the 12 gauge Security gun.

I got an inquiry from reader drjim, about how I record and publish the videos on our site. I use a Canon A710IS in the movie mode. It produces an AVI file which I then edit with Windows Movie Maker to crop and to add titles. Then, I use a flash tool to convert to the Flash® format. It’s a little work but produces a video compatible with most browsers. It’s all home grown and does not use You Tube or any other social networking parasites. I like it that way. What you see here generally comes from here. Once in a great while, we will link to one of those sites, but only if it’s *very* important and as a last resort.

Sunday’s target practice went well. We took our 9mm pistols (my Glock 26 and Damsel’s S&W 908s) and Damsel’s S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver. We also took a couple of our shotguns, the 12 and 20 gauge Remington 870s.

We have been having warm weather this week and Sunday was no exception. The target shooting was fun and all, but the indoor range was a bit too warm. We toughed it out, though, and shot 50 rounds of .38 special, 100 rounds of 9mm and 50 rounds of shot shells.

In the video here, I’m following up on Damsel’s handy work by finishing shooting the target in half and then shooting off the left side (stage right) of the dangling silhouette target. After that series of shots, we exited the range to enjoy the cooler temperatures in the gun shop.

After a two-week absence due to vacation and other business, we were back at home on the range today. We missed our weekly shootout, so we packed up the handguns, shotguns and ammo and showed up raring to go.

I brought my S&W 686 and 50 rounds of .38 special. I also brought my Glock 30 and 50 rounds of .45 ACP. Damsel brought her Para Warthog and 50 rounds of .45. We each brought shotguns - our Remington 870 12 gauge security shotgun and Damsel’s 20 gauge Remington 870 Junior.

I captured a frame from one of the videos Damsel shot of me firing the security gun. There were a couple of fairly nice muzzle flashes in the video and that is one of them in the photo above.

We took turns firing the .38 special rounds. The revolver’s cylinder holds seven rounds, so after seven turns shooting, there is always one round left in the 50 round box of ammo. Damsel stuffed the remaining round into the cylinder and sent the last bullet downrange. We have been saving the .38 and .357 brass thinking that *one of these days* we will take up reloading.

We shot the .45s without incident except at one point the slide on the Warthog jammed with a live round still chambered (or nearly so). Damsel couldn’t move the slide at all, so she kept the muzzle downrange and handed it to me. I gripped the slide and worked it back and forth for about 15 seconds and it broke loose. Close examination of the open chamber and ramp showed no reason why this should have happened. Damsel also inspected the round that had been stuck and could find no nicks or other deformity. She put it back into the magazine, slammed it into the gun, racked and fired the rest of the rounds in the magazine - all normal.

We won’t be able to go to the range next week because the management is going to refurbish all lanes with new baffles, traps and other equipment as necessary. It has been thirty years since this range has been upgraded - we will report on the new range in a couple of weeks.

After watching an all-day “Mail Call” marathon, tonight we’re watching R. Lee Ermey’s Lock ‘N’ Load on the History Channel. This is the premier of Ermey’s new show and the first episode is all about MACHINE GUNS! The second is all about Artillery . . .

First Episode: Gunny checks out the rapid fire, lead spitting destruction of the machine gun. From an authentic hand cranking 1890’s Gatling Gun to one of the fastest machine guns on the planet today–the Mini Gun–Gunny rat a tat tats his way through machine gun history while high-speed photography captures the exploding targets in incredible slow motion.

Second Episode: Gunny takes a journey through the history of cannons and field artillery and shoots off everything from Revolutionary War-era cannonballs to the futuristic shells of NLOS-C — a fully automated piece of artillery that’s so new the Army’s still testing it. Other featured artillery includes Civil War cannons and the Pack 75 Howitzer, a World War II cannon used in the Battle of the Bulge.

We saw Gunny at the NRA in April but didn’t get to speak with him. Next time, we will.

We’re both happy that the Gunny has a new show. So far (at 50 minutes into the second hour) we’ve been highly entertained by Lock ‘N’ Load.

Glenn B from Ballseye’s Boomers asked if there was any way I could post the video from which I extracted the “Burnin’ Ring of Fire” image posted here a few days ago. The short answer is yes, but with the caveat that, by bandwidth necessity, the picture size has to be reduced resulting in half the resolution.

Regardless of the reduction, the video shows several of the muzzle flashes captured during the seven-rounds that Damsel fired on target. No two are the same, and I can’t tell you exactly which was the flash we posted here last week. It’s one of the two prominent rings near the middle of the sequence, I assume.

I use SWiSHVideo, which is a tool to convert most video formats into Flash™ animation format. I wrote my own set of on-line tools to seamlessly embed the animations into our webpages and posts. We hope everyone enjoys them.

Here is the muzzle of the .357 Magnum S&W 686 before and after cleaning. I guess you could reverse the photos and say before and after shooting. I showed a “During” picture yesterday of Damsel firing this gun at the range. From that picture, you can appreciate how all the residue generated during target practice can foul up the gun, inside and out.

Not to worry - Damsel takes some Strike Hold CLP and transforms the dirty to the clean in just a few minutes. She took the before and after cleaning photos and I scaled and merged them into this composite image. Click for the close-up.

This video frame of Damsel firing her S&W 686 .357 magnum revolver captured what I believe is the overpressure wave punching a hole in the primary muzzle flash.

Whatever it is, it reminds me of the good old Johnny Cash tune.