Clausing!

I just got back from the gun range.

Aaron’s trap-shooting exploits made me want to take the Sweet Sixteen, but I had other things to do today, so I let it drop. I focused on two jobs that had to be done. I needed to test the laser with the Vz 58, and I needed to see how well my new Hornady .45 bullets worked.

The Vz seems to be working out. I didn’t shoot much, but with the iron sights and no rest, I made a group as big as a baseball at 75 feet. Good enough. Sooner or later I have to get proficient with iron sights, but this is not the gun to do it with, since it’s very hard to use a rest. At burglar distances, you can’t miss with this gun, so I’m not worried.

The laser was worthless. Two reasons. First, in bright sun, it takes a while to pick it up at 75 feet. If you’re shooting from ambush (not too likely in a self-defense situation) I suppose that’s okay, but when you’re popping a bad guy in a hurry, it’s no good. At dusk or later, however, it would be fantastic. The other reason it was a waste of time today is that the mount loosened while I shot. Looks like another job for Loc-Tite. When I realized the mount was sliding around, I put the gun away and moved to the pistol side of the range.

The Hornady XTC bullets gave me great results. Tighter than Laser-Cast, but that’s almost certainly because I shot last week and benefitted from the practice. The recoil seems a bit sharp. Maybe that’s the additional powder. Anyway, nothing blew up, and the bullets fed perfectly, so I guess the bullets are fine.

I did have one failure to fire. However, I think I can rule out the bullets as the cause. Because it happened after took the magazine out, reloaded it, and began shooting…without reinserting the magazine. A bullet is very unlikely to fire when it’s two feet from the firing pin.

I’m considering making up 50 bullets, all with powder charges that are identical to within 0.1 grains. Right now, even with the pistol micrometer thing on the press, the charges vary within about a 0.2-grain range. I’m sure some charges are even farther out of spec. Maybe Unique’s coarseness makes it hard to meter. Whatever the story is, I suspect it is stupid to expect the Lock-N-Load to give you really accurate charges. You probably have to size the cartridges, prime them, take them out, fill them in a tray, and then run them through again to seat the bullets.

I’d like to take the XTC bullets and make up 50 “perfect” rounds and see if it makes any difference. I would estimate that apart from a couple of flyers, I shot within a 5/8″-3/4″ radius at 7 yards today, and I know my trigger pull and sight picture are far from perfect, so I very much doubt that uniform charges will matter at all. But it would still be fun, and fun is crucial.

I am not quite totally done dithering about the lathe. Today for a few minutes I seriously considered getting a 7 x 12 Grizzly lathe so I could learn how to use it and then approach big-lathe shopping with some degree of knowledge.

I wish I could justify getting the Clausing. It may be in wonderful shape, and however good a Grizzly may be, getting a used Clausing in good shape is like getting a used Rolls-Royce in good shape. I think that’s literally true. The quality of older American machine tools is so far above the quality of new Chicoms, it’s probably fair to say it’s like comparing a Rolls to a Ford. Even if the performance is the same, the love and care that went into the assembly of the old production lathe will surely show. And the Clausing already has variable speed, which would be a $300 upgrade to the Grizzly.

Insert One-Hour Pause Here

Okay, call me crazy, but I decided to try the Clausing. I kept thinking about it, and I finally decided that the pluses were too big to ignore. I lose the gap bed. But I get variable speed, lower RPMs on the bottom, higher RPMs on the top, better potential for precision, all-around better parts and construction, and a much cooler machine.

Now let’s pray it doesn’t fall off a truck.