New to Me Carry Gun

So with my little PF9 off to the factory for repair, I've been carrying my full size pistol.  A full size Ruger 9mm is not a very comfortable carry gun when you've gotten used to the small light, disappear in your pants PF9.  So I was very happy when I found a used PF9 at my local pawn shop.  I went to the bank to grab some cash and when I got back, it had been sold.  :(

The next morning I got a call from the broker, the buyer had been denied on his background check.  Bad luck for him, great news for me.

The gun was in perfect mechanical shape, I'd say less than 100 rounds down the barrel.  No frame rail wear, the are still tool marks inside the barrel.  It did have a lot of holster wear.  I'd say that 90% of the bluing was gone.  An afternoon with some cold blue has that all taken care of and tomorrow it's going to the range.  If this gun is a shooter, I'll be happy to carry it until my primary gun comes home.

PF9 going back to the factory

Saturday was not the best day.  It started beautifully.  Wide open time line, plenty of ammo, some new loads to test, and great weather.  Things were going really well until I pulled out the pocket pistol.

I had just fired it's first five round string of the day and the take down pin broke.  Not a good deal, but not a major problem either.  The problem showed up when I started examining the frame.  It appears that I have a crack where the assembly pin mates with the right side of the frame.  Most likely the head of the pin sheared off do to some unseen defect and the crack happened as the pin began walking out of the hole.  So, the whole gun went back to Kel-Tec today.  I'll report back when it comes home.

Reloading

I sure have enjoyed the reloading game.  Each round is a work of art.  With a single stage press, hand primer, and a liquid cleaning solution, I can load about 100 rounds an hour spread over two days.  Day one is deprime, clean and size.  Day two is prime, load, and seat.  Now that I've got a chrono (PACT Mark IV), it's easy to find loads that shoot very accurately.

For my 7.62 NATO, I've standardized on 168 grain loads.  43grains of Varget makes for an awesome mid-power load (2588fps) that makes one 7.62 hole over a 5 round group.

For 5.56 NATO, I'm still in the hunt, but a 55gr bullet over 21 grains of H322 is bringing in great accuracy, but mediocre velocity (2550fps).  24grs of H322 isn't bringing great accuracy, but has the velocity I'm looking for (2800fps).

For 9mm, I'm not super thrilled with my accuracy, but I've found that 5.6grs of Unique under any 115gr bullet delivers 1100 fps very reliably.