I finally got my butt in gear and went to a local indoor range to shoot my Ruger Mark IV pistol that I've had for quite the while now without hooting it. As opposed to sticking to my norm of being THE Great Procrastinator, I got around to it quicker than usual for me; it only was sitting around at my place unfired since I received it during the week of August 16th. Hmm not bad. Then again I was a veritable speed demon with my Glock 19 Gen5 that I purchased at a local gun store only three days ago and also took to the range today. My third pistol today was my Beretta 84B and the fourth was my Beretta 1934.
The first one up was the Ruger Mark IV. It was a pleasure to shoot, much the same as my Ruger Mark II. The big difference that I anticipate is that taking down and assembling the Mark IV will be a breeze compared to the PITA of doing the same with the Mark II. I only shot it at 15 yards, but was pleased with the results right out of the box with some CCI & Armscor ammo. Surprisingly the 5 rounds of Armscor ammo that I had in a partial box gave me and almost one hole group at 15 yards!
The CCI was not all over the place but its grouping was nowhere as close in as was the Armscor - go figure. Of course, sometimes it seems that each 22 LR pistol shoots differently than even the ones that were immediately on either side of it on the production line.Thus the results with various brands of ammo differ from one to the next. I need to try several other brands and types within brands to see which it likes best. Yet, the first shots were satisfactory.
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| First 10 shots at 15 yards with the Ruger Mark IV on a B-27S target. |
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| Terrible blurry shot but you can see the five shots with CCI (lower ones) |
After a total of 40 shots with the Ruger, I switched over to the Glock 19. To say I was a bit happy, not so much with the pistol, but that I shot as well as I did would be an understatement. I know it's not Annie Okaley marksmanship but it was pretty good. I just used the same target I had used for the Ruger.
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| Seven shots in the X ring & 14 in the 10 ring with one in the 9 ring. |
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| Glock 19- 45 shots at 15 yards (the small holes are from the 22LR). |
As you can see, I shot rounds from both the Ruger and the Glock a bit high and to the left. Me thinks I need to adjust where I have my finger on the trigger. As for the triggers, the Glock 19 is the typical 5.5 pound trigger pull of Glock renown. It is pretty crisp and has very little creep and only requires slight forward movement to reset. As for the Ruger, it had a bit more creep than I recall in the Mark II but I will have to bring both to the range some day to compare them. Still though, it is a fairly smooth trigger.
The Beretta 1934 was okay, shot well to point of aim. A nice older gun I've added to my collection. Failed to fire a couple or few times as the trigger when engaged did not drop the hammer. Seems I have fixed that after the fact though and pulling the trigger activates the hammer each time as of late.
The Beretta 84B, is an exceptionally nice gun. It shot on point at 5 yards but at 10 yards was shooting high and I certainly was not heeling it. The sights are relatively small so I kept it closer in than the other two. I like it and would carry it if need be as a pocket gun bit on the big side for that but still okay). It had the smoothest trigger of all of them but I could not get as nice a group as with the Glock 19. Still though, nothing too shabby.
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| Beretta 84B - 26 shots at 10 yards. |
I spent a nice hour at the Texarkana Gun Barn range. Will be spending more time at this place for sure; it's a nice, new, clean and modern range with an excellent & friendly staff. I highly recommend it if you somehow ever find yourself in or around Texarkana (heaven only knows why you'd travel to this town though).
Glenn B
