Range Report
Took my little "Baby" to the range last night with an OLD box of Remington 50gr FMJ shells. My real main objective was to shoot off the old box plus a new box, and end with another new box to take home.
(BTW, I know probably everyone has a few old boxes of ammo laying around. IMO, with the state of world events, we all should be getting out and not only practicing, but freshening our supply!)
But I also wanted to find out if I could hit anything with this little nipper. I proceeded with a standard police TQ-15 target at 7 yards. A friend of mine said that was too far out, which I tend to agree is probably beyond the effective range for this type of weapon, but oh well. I doubt anyone would consider this a HD type of weapon - at best it's a 2nd CCW or maybe the only one in a case of extreme concealment, like at church or something.
I'm from TX originally, and we used to call this a "boot" gun. I personally have never carried it as such, but if I did carry it I'd probably do so in an ankle holster.
So anyway, from ~20ft., I squeezed off a few singles just to get the feel. Let me say at this point that the sights on this little dude are a complete joke, they should have just left them off or maybe only had a front sight. It's like trying to line up a half a toothpick between two needles or something! Also, my hands are fairly large, and you have to be very careful not to let a stray finger get around in front of the muzzle. With your finger on the trigger, you're really only gripping with the middle and 3rd fingers, not with your whole hand. Which makes using a two-hand stance essential.
I kept shooting doubles from there. I managed to put everything in the KZ out of the first box, except for a couple, which were still in the body. The main prob. was after the first 30 or so rounds, I did get about 3 failures to feed on the last round in the clip.
Every one of the old Rems did fire and eject properly, although I noticed a tendency for them to pull to the left.
The second box of brand new PMC 50gr FMJs was decidedly better. Unfortunately, so much gunk had built up that I was getting a feed hangup on the last round of about every clip. I did also manage to get off a quick five rounds to the head, of which 3 were dead on, 2 missed by inches.
This thing's never going to be used for heavy range action, and needs some cleaning every 30-40 rounds in my estimation to maintain any degree of reliability. I broke it down last night and gave it a good cleaning and oiling (thanks branrot for instructs!!) which I should've done before I even took it out.
Having said all of this, I won't get rid of this little guy. My dad gave it to me, so that alone is a reason for keeping it. If I were buying today, a Beretta 950 Jetfire would be a better bet, but they run around $280. 25 Auto is also pretty expensive considering the punch or lack thereof. It's got a nice little pop, better than any rimfire. But if I were going to shell out that kind of doe I'd prob. just as soon go with a 32. Now I have seen a couple of these Bauers over on gunbroker.com for around $180-200, and they may well be worth that, if you really feel a need for this type of gun. If I saw one at a gun show, I'd maybe pay more like 150 for it. It is a very well-constructed little gun. "Little" being the key.
