I was recently doing some testing for a customer gun before shipping it out. The shop’s normal test ammo is Winchester “white box” variety that you can pick up from big box stores. This is used because it is what most of our customer base is likely to pick up. If a gun runs well with this, we have a good chance that it will run well with most other factory ammo (handloaded ammo is an issue unto itself).
I had shot a good number of 38 special and 357 mag through this particular gun and was really enjoying my day at the range. I don’t like recoil, but I find the recoil of the “white box” ammo to be very negligible in 357. I also had some Remington ammo with me so I decided to try it out as well. What a difference! Not only did I notice an substantial difference in recoil, I also had a failure to fire.
The gun was actually wearing a red spot in the web of my hand, but because of the failure to fire I decided to run some more through it. I ended up leaving with a sore spot, and some more gun work to do.
I remind all of you to check your ammo. Make sure the ammo that you run in any gun you have is 100% rock solid. If not, get to a load that will work, or adjust the gun to be 100% reliable. This is the problem with spring kits. Often times people have them installed only to find out they are too light. If the gun is a target gun, take it down light and enjoy. However, if you are going to be trusting your life to it, a little extra pull weight goes a long way. It’s also good to remember that recoil will be different with different makers and loads. Find one that you can shoot without flinching. The atomic load that will stop an elephant is no good if you flinch so badly you can’t hit anything. All Ammo is Not Created Equal.