I decided to grab the old gun from the lockup and stage it with the old target for the above photo (my apologies for the bad basement lighting and my poor photography) as I pondered details for a range session.
The old makeshift travel kit for the P90 contained 47-rounds of Federal 230-grain Hydra-Shok hollowpoints as follows:
a) 4 x magazines each containing 7-rounds
b) a plastic ammo-wallet containing 18-rounds
c) 1 loose round
To make the range time shakedown more blog-worthy I scrounged together an additional 45-rounds of S&B 230-grain FMJ ball ammo from some partially used boxes on the shelves.
I was curious about a few things. Would the aforementioned Shooter's Choice space age gun grease be congealed into a waxy sludge after 15-years? How would the magazines perform after sitting with the springs fully compressed for 15-years? One of those magazines is as old as the P90 and likely fed half of all rounds ever fired from this pistol ... the "newest" mag probably is over 16-years-old. All of these magazines have original factory springs.
(I never purchased any of the 8-round mags Ruger produced for this pistol ... I don't recall ever reading a convincing review about reliability. If my 7-round mags ever need new springs and followers I may be stuck ... I doubt anything exactly matching Ruger OEM springs and followers exists. Ruger no longer produces the P90; it is an orphan. Hereafter I'll be storing the mags empty.)
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Target #1 was set at 30-feet (10-yards)
After chambering a round (and then topping off the magazine with the sole loose round) the shooting commenced with the Hydra-Shok ammunition. Things went swimmingly well until the very last round of the last of the preloaded magazines. Yep, there was a feed jam on the final round of the 4th magazine (round #29). I relegated that mag to just feeding ball ammo during the balance of this range visit. I inspected the cleared Hydra-Shok cartridge and deemed its condition to be "shoot worthy" and used it on the next target.
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Target #2 was set at 45-feet (15-yards)
The remaining 19-rounds of Hydra-Shok and the 45-rounds of S&B FMJ cycled through the pistol and magazines without incident.92-rounds total for this session. Good fun and my arthritic hands held up okay.
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I'm of the mind nowadays that CLP is all that I need for my lightweight shooting habits. However, if I ever get a wild ass hankering to beat up on a pistol by firing 2000-rounds in between cleanings then that space age red grease will likely be my choice.
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/JZ
