Mailbag

I received two new magazines for Grand-dad's High Standard yesterday, cycling ammo through it without actually firing suggests that they should work just as well as the original. I also got two 555 round boxes of .22LR to go along with them, for which I was glad to pay the once-outrageous price of 15.5 cents per round, shipped.

My loading bench efforts netted me 100 rounds of 115gr JHP 9x19 over 6.3 grains of PowerPistol powder, now I need to take them to the range and see how they compare with factory loads. I was not able to load any .223 because I don't have small rifle primers, but I did find 15 new pieces of 6.5x50 and fifteen 129 grain Hornady SST projectiles to go along with them, so I now have fifteen loads using 36 grains of IMR 4064 powder. I'm curious to see how it stacks up against the old H380 loads.

I have a range session scheduled for next month, so I should be able to take the new toys out to exercise them fully and get a good idea of what I want to do as far as loads in the future. I need to load some more 6.5x50 though because the only projectiles I was able to find this time were 123 grain instead of my customary 129 grain, so I need to see how they do.

Most of my brass is clean and deprimed, so I have that to play with next session. I need to get back out to the MoD and get some .223 cartridge boxes and small magnum rifle primers, and while I'm there I might just eyeball one of those 7mm Magnum deerslayers again...and then I may need another set of dies.

They also have pretty good deals going on M-4geries now that the panic is over, and there was that 7.62 Saiga for a pretty decent price as well, so maybe there would be room for another Evil Black Rifle, too. Of course with the Saiga I'd have to get all the pieces parts to move the trigger, but having done it once it should go OK a second time. It would then need a dogleg rail, a collapsible stock with pistol grip, a new set of foregrips...maybe I could duplicate the 4 rail system that's on the .223...and then I'd have to start looking for a Saiga-12 to go along with the collection...

I'm regretting not getting a bigger safe now, though, I'm beginning to run out of room for ammo.