11/13/2022 - BLOG COMMENTS are again allowed and are moderated to exclude only the bots, advertisements, racial / ethnic pejoratives, and embedded links. I'll attempt to honor Chicago's historical "Bughouse Square" concept of free-speech and open debate --- spanning the curve from the far-left to the far-right. /JZ
Blogging to you from the Northeastern Badlands of The County of Lake, in the state currently known as Fatmanistan, DEEP DEEP DEEP DEEP DEEP inside the heartland of the Banana Republic formerly known as the USA, WELCOME TO THE NEXT CHAPTER! WARNING! ALL FORMS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ARE ADDICTIVE; EXCESSIVE USE MAY LEAD TO MENTAL HEALTH DISORDERS, REDUCED JOB PRODUCTIVITY, INSOMNIA, SOCIAL ALIENATION, GENITAL ULCERS, BLINDNESS, POLITICAL EROTICISM, AND / OR DEVIANT FUNAMBULISM. NOTICE: NO GUNS OR AMMUNITION ARE FOR SALE VIA THIS BLOG. (No, I will not trade my Colt Python for some lubricious adventures with your trophy wife and a future first-round draft pick.) CAVEAT: This blog is not suitable for viewing while at work, while inside a public library, while inside any public or private school, or while inside any public or private restroom. Do not view this blog while driving a motor vehicle or while piloting an aircraft. Viewing this blog may be illegal inside the EU, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, and other parts of the Third World. THIS BLOG CONTAINS (albeit often very childish) ADULT-CONTENT. DISCLAIMER: This blog is a hobby, it is not a livelihood. Even though much of what I blog about relates to firearms collecting and recreational shooting, I am not an expert (by any measure) on any facet of guns, shooting, hunting, or personal defense. Entries at this blog are akin to good old-fashioned campfire chats or post hunt bourbon-fueled barroom-bluster; I offer no opinion on what you should or should not purchase, or what you should be using or doing. What does or does not work for me could be rugged-country-miles away from your tastes and your needs. All products, places, and miscellany that I review for this blog are purchased / rented / leased at retail price by me. I do not accept payment, gifts, discounts, freebies, products on loan, distilled spirits, recreational pharmaceuticals, plea-bargains, probation, parole, Papal Blessings, Presidential Pardons, or sexual favors for doing any review or blog post. TRACKING COOKIES: Google et al stick tracking cookies on everybody. If you are online, you are being spied on via one method or another, for one reason or another; 'nuff said. You may be able to minimize your online DNA residue by using Tor and Duck Duck Go. Vive la liberté! Vive all y'all! Ante omnia armari. To each of you, thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

I am running just a bit LOW ON .45 ACP AMMO


Above is my "working" .45 ACP shelf; this is the mix of stuff I choose ammo from before going to the range with a 1911 pattern .45 pistol. I'm down to just over 550-rounds of 230 grain ball ammo, and that's it for probably a good long time because of the current ammo-buying-panic.  The rest of what you see is a mix of different hollowpoint weights and brands.

I now have far more .45 ACP hollow point ammo than I do ball ammo.



During an inventory of my ammo cache I was surprised to find that I still had 200-rounds of 230-grain Black Talon ammo.  Years ago I found that it fed in all of the 1911 pattern .45s that I owned; I was sorry to see it removed from the store shelves back in the day. 



I'm down to 800-rounds of 230-grain Federal Hydra Shok, split between this full ammo can and what I have left on the working shelf.  This hollow point ammo has a good reputation for decisively ending threats BUT I have only one 1911 pattern pistol that can feed them consistently; that pistol is an old(er) Wilson Combat CQB (circa year 2000; the WC0 serial# prefix spans 1996 -2005 IIRC).  If I was down to using my Colts and my generic .45 ACP 1911 pattern pistols for personal defense I would probably chamber a Hydra Shok for use as a first shot and follow it with ball ammo from the magazine(s). Playing .45 ACP hardball for self defense is full of peril due to the danger of over-penetration; that heavy round nose slug may sail through the torso of the bad guy and whack into an innocent.  The 45 ACP was created for war. Wartime gunfighting is somewhat different than is urban / suburban self-defense (so I've been told, I have no experience in either).  

Once upon a time (just before my retirement) I boasted of having over 5,000-rounds of ball and hollow point .45 ACP ammo. I was preparing for frequent fun times at the shooting range, not a damn civil war. Over the years since I retired I've fired off a lot of .45 ACP (because it's GREAT FUN and good practice) but I bought very little. 
 
My grand total inventory of .45 ACP ammo now stands at around 1,700 2,300-rounds total (see addendum below).  That's not as comfortable a margin as I would like but it is what it is; if I run the .45 ACP inventory down to a total of ~1,000 rounds I'd likely quit taking pistols of that caliber to the range until the ammo shortage was over.  The .45 ACP is not my primary personal defense choice but it is what I would work down to if I ran low (or out) of 9MM, .38 Super, .38 Special, and .357 Magnum.


10/23/2020 EDITED TO ADD THE FOLLOWING:
Yep, I found some more .45 ACP ball that I had stashed.  I vaguely remember firing off the contents of one can of this stuff (600-rounds) circa 1990 and setting this can aside.  IIRC, it looked to be brass MILSPEC ball (reputedly Korean era) and it was very functional in my pistols but seemed overly smoky; that made the antiquated local indoor range back then very unhappy with me so I quit using it. I'll have to request a demo session with my current fave indoor range to see if the modern air-handling system there can handle it.


10/24/2020 EDITED TO ADD THE FOLLOWING:
Hell, I figured that I better open the spam can mentioned above to see exactly what was in it; it has been many years since I used up the first can.  According to the interwebz, the T1F01A marking is a Taiwan ammo code.



50 rounds to a box, 12 boxes inside the can = 600 rounds; it's nice to know the round count for certain.



I'll assume the 70 denotes the year of manufacturing as being 1970.



I tried all kinds of magnets on it and found no trace of steel.  Other than I remember it being a bit smoky, this ammo should be suitable for indoor range use.  We shall see ...


😎
"My advice to you is to get yourself a gun and learn how to use it.”

------------------------------
---------------


*AGGREGATOR* -NEWS-WEATHER-SPORTS-OPINION-SCIENCE-TECH-RELIGION-POLITICS-GUNS-HUMOR-ENTERTAINMENT-

This Blog's most viewed posts during the past week

This Blog's most viewed posts during the past month

This Blog's most viewed posts during the past year

This Blog's Most Popular Posts of All Time


Be they Republican, Democrat, third party, fourth party or beyond, make each candidate earn it. Vote NO MORE GUN LAWS!

'We the Politicians of the United States, in Order to avoid a more perfect Union, manipulate Justice, destroy domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common offense, promote general Warfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Progeny, do blaspheme and eviscerate this Constitution of the United States of America." ("Zack," circa 1966 -1970)
Please consider RECURRING UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS of ALL FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL POLITICIANS (including but not limited to school records, acquaintances, employment history, Social Media, financial, drug, and psychiatric screenings). Please consider TERM LIMITS; political power corrupts.