Month: August 2008

SayUncle liked the Para LDA 1911 too.  In fact, all of the Glock guys did.  Joe reported there’s a way to get the gun locked up, to the point where you have to “reboot” (rack the slide).  I agree that this should be fixed by Para, either by removing the manual safety entirely (it’s superfulous on a DAO gun) or re-engineering the trigger to remove the bug.

Since I am not used to having to deal with manual safeties, as with SayUncle, I did not use it.  I did experience a failure where I ended up flicking the safety on while shooting, but that was because I wasn’t used to gripping a 1911.  Quick adjustment in my grip solved that problem.  I’ve found myself a few steel plate matches and an IPSC club in my area (sadly, it’s in New Jersey, which complicates things) and once I buy the gun I used from ParaUSA, I plan to start shooting competitively with it.

UPDATE: Ahab offers a pretty good review of the Para LTC 9mm 1911.  I might see if Kerby has any extras of those they are looking to get rid of too, and buy that for Bitter.

International Cartridge Corporation provided us with all of our ammunition.  It was frangible .45 ACP and 9mm.  I had heard bad things about frangible ammunition, but this stuff was pretty tip top.  No failures to chamber, no misfires, and it shot just as well as you would expect any good quality commercial ball ammo.  As a silhouette shooter who’s been stung by a few bits of jacket flying back from ball ammo, I would never think about blasting away at a steel plate from 5 feet away, but we did, repeatedly and fast  The bullets just turns to dust when it comes into contact with hardened steel.  Since they are non-toxic, lead free ammunition, this isn’t really a problem.  My club stopped doing Bowling Pin shooting because of ricochet fears, but I’m thinking this ammunition could be the solution to the problem of ricochet off bowling pins.  The bullet is made from a copper/tin mixture.  The only unfortunate thing is they don’t sell bullets for reloaders, since they said a normal reloading press will tend to crack the bullets.

Dan also brought us some .223 ball ammo, which I was told is not a catalog item, but since ICC’s law enforcement customers often have a hard time getting a hold of quality .223 ammo, and they have the equipment to make it, they will do runs of standard .223 to help out their law enforcement customers.  The brass they use looks to be pretty high quality stuff, so after we were done shooting the Para TTR I ran around and collected up all the brass to reload it (yay for free once fired brass!).  I might have to get some ICC .223 frangible, since it’s a great home defense round, and after seeing Dan’s ammo shoot, I would be willing to bet my life on it.

By the way, International Cartridge is a Pennsylvania company, located in Western Pennsylvania a few miles north of Punxsutawney.  But we definitely appreciate Dan Smith of ICC coming out to keep our guns well fed.  Anyone who brings down a whole truckload of ammo (literally) is OK with us.  Dan was a pretty good shooter too, but you know, I’d probably be a pretty good shooter too if I had my own ammo company.  I might have to see about visiting ICC’s facility one day, and writing more about them, since they are a Pennsylvania company.  They are making a pretty good product that could solve a lot of problems for the shooting community, especially for those of us being encroached upon by development, and under increasing pressure to deal with lead and minimize the risk of ricochet.

UPDATE: Looks like Dave Hardy thought pretty highly of the ammunition too.

Para and Todd Jarrett demonstrated the new TTR system, short for Tactical Target Rifle, slated for release in 2009.  Quite simply, it is made of awesome.  For an op-rod driven AR, the thing has no recoil.  It’s literally like shooting an airsoft gun.  Recoil on a 10/22 is greater.  An AR that shoots well that doesn’t get as dirty?  Where do I sign up?

The other really nice thing about this system is you don’t get the annoying jack-in-the-box sound in your ear every time you pull the trigger.   I shot it, and I kid you not, there’s virtually no muzzle climb on the system.  I was hitting the reactive gongs out at 100 yards from standing with not too much trouble.  Here’s Todd explaining how the system works:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrFu67eW4Oo[/youtube]

Looks like it’ll be a little harder to take apart than a normal AR-15, but hey, you should hardly have to clean it without the DI gas system blowing gunk back into the bolt and bolt carrier.