Pretty Brass; No Stench

You don’t get too many perks as a blogger. I remember when the Joss Whedon movie Serenity came out. I was invited to go to a special media sneak preview. Exciting! Then I read the fine print. They expected me to show up and wait in line, and if there were enough seats, they would let me see the movie.

Suddenly LESS exciting.

I’ve also received a couple of books for review. I turn those down now. I really don’t want to spend ten hours reading about Ivanka Trump’s tough road to success. I don’t want to wade through Pat Buchanan’s latest defense of Hitler. Saving money on a book you never wanted to buy in the first place is not a great blessing.

Not all blogger goodies are crap. A while back, I got a really decent offer. The folks at Lucky Gunner sent me an email and asked if I wanted to review free ammunition.

WHAT???

I guess you could say I was not totally opposed to the idea.

They asked me to name a few calibers I shot, and then they fired off two boxes of .38 Super, which is an expensive caliber. Not bad.

I got to shoot it last weekend, so here is my report.

The stuff they sent is made by Magtech. Here is a link, in case you want to buy a big pile of it: Magtech .38 Super +P at Luckygunner.com. It’s made in Brazil. I have never heard any negative things about the brand.

The brass looked nice, although I stupidly forgot to save it after I shot.

My friends and I went through 100 rounds of the ammunition. It seems perfectly fine. It doesn’t have the Russian stink, the casings are brass, and it fires reliably. The sad thing about an ammunition review is that you’re not likely to have much to say if it works well.

I did have two rounds which failed to eject. I am wondering if the rim is on the small side. For some reason, the ejector didn’t get a grip. But the other 98 worked fine. I was shooting a Colt .38 Super (government model) in bright stainless. I don’t know if these guns have ejector issues, but I tend to doubt it, since Colt is pretty much the iconic 1911.

I didn’t test it with a rest. I shoot to learn, not to see what the gun can do.

My shooting was not great. I don’t blame the ammunition. A long layoff, plus distracting conversation, led to problems with my trigger pull. Still, anyone coming within a hundred feet of me would have been in the zone of certain death, barring an ejection problem.

I shot a photo of the target, before I started wandering all over it with Mozambique drills.

That’s from seven yards. In my defense, I will say that the air conditioning made the target flap, but not enough to explain everything.

Kudos to Lucky Gunner, for having the class to send pricey .38 Super instead of a cheesy box of Brown Bear 9mm with cardboard casings.

Okay, they’re not really cardboard. I like Russian ammo just fine, but it’s nice to have real brass without that funky post-Soviet smell.