New Ruger GP 100 review

I've had my Ruger GP 100 revolver for about 6 months now, and finally felt like it was time to write up a review. See it the review over at stoppingpower.info. Let me know if you have any additional questions, and I'll try to get them answered.


Ruger GP 100 review

Jobs board added

I've added a new jobs board that may be of interesting to StoppingPower.Info readers. It's powered off of Simply Hired's Job-o-Matic application. Their application allows anyone (including me) to stick a job board up on their web site, link to it, and have the ability to accept new job postings for $X dollars for Y days.

Given all that, I threw up a job board that's filled with "hunting fishing gun" related search terms, so that StoppingPower.Info readers might find a new job if they're looking for one. Given the limited searches I've done on the job board, it sure does seem like Cabela's is really on a hiring binge.


StoppingPower.Info Jobs board

Added a news section to StoppingPower.Info

I installed pligg this weekend, and started a news section on the site. Take a look at it on:

http://stoppingpower.info/index.php/News

We'll keep track of news that is related to StoppingPower.Info's goal of becoming a shooting almanac site.

New Target - Pistol Training Cube

Like most shooters, eventually you run into a day where you’re lacking in pop cans, tired of paper, and have shot most of the other destroyable items in the household. One of our cohort decided this was the perfect time (combined with his new Mini-14) to try out one of Just Shoot Me Products, Inc. pistol training cubes.

The basic cube is only $50 (there’s a couple of targets that are cheaper, but most are more than $50). The cost didn’t really bother me assuming the company’s claims of holding up to “thousands of rounds” held up, especially given the additional safety margin these targets offer your standard metal plate.

Results:

The .45 ACP and Mini-14 videos are the longest. These were the first set of firearms we tried out on the cube, so we spent the most time capturing video on these shots. The cube took the worst beating of the day on the .223 rounds pushed out by the Mini-14. You can see severe gouges that the round inflicted in the “plastic”. However, it should be noted that this cube is rated for pistol rounds, and we were obviously way outside the envelope with the .223 round. I wonder if the rifle cubes are made from a different compound, or are just thicker and able to take more punishment...

The cube actually caught one of the .45 ACP rounds as you can see in the video. We actually couldn’t pry that round out of the cube it was in there so tight. However, subsequent shots caused that bullet to fall out, with no sign that it had been there (I guess the plastic is “self healing”).

I’d like to make a minor note on the .22 rounds. I’m sure some of you are thinking “it’d be a better video if you had hit it more,” but this was our “introduce a friend to shooting day” so those shots are by a complete beginner. Not bad really, given she’d been shooting for about 30 minutes, and it was the first time she’d been shooting – ever!

I’ll post again as we inflict more damage on the pistol cube and let you know how it holds up. If anyone else has some information on these cubes, let me know.

Meanwhile, you can also take a look a the review that Jon wrote up on StoppingPower.Info.

- Frank

New Target Writeup - Frying pan

The same day we did the Car door videos, we also went ahead with a frying pan. “Why a frying pan?” you might ask (much like my Dad did). Well, it’s a bit complicated.

I took the family back home to Kansas in June and did the whole “sweat in the humidity thing” for a week. Kansas is great, but if you’re from there, you know the summer humidity saps your spirit and calls for showers several times a day. While my son was down for a nap one afternoon, I took the opportunity to user my in-laws broadband (yeah, they have the Internet in Kansas, despite what you might hear on the coasts), and checked up on the site.

I firmly subscribe to the “measure what you value” school of thought, and consequently use a couple of analytics packages (Google Analytics and Clicky) to see web site stats and keep up with its “health”. On that particular day, the number of hits had gone up a fair bit, and as I dug into it, it became apparent that a number of them were coming in from Italy. Apparently, a group of guys were debating various pistol stopping powers, and had referenced the site in their conversation/debate.

My first thought was “Italy?”




But given a bit to think about it, it’s really not very surprising. Beretta, Rossi, and Benelli are common enough names in the firearms world. Realistically a lot of their arms are made all over the world (of the various components). Naturally, I was interested, but I don’t speak Italian. Google Translate only goes so far, but I ran the page through it, and finally got down to the important question they seemed to have of “I wish they’d shoot something harder.” Of course, we aim to please, so I posted my reply (via Google Translate again) asking what targets they’d like to see. And we finally get to the punch line, because they requested:

A frying pan

(Of course they also requested an iron, but I wasn’t too sure I wanted to shoot one of those, as there’s a fair bit of metal in them. Comment on this if you want). Anyway, we returned to sunny New Mexico, and my wife hit up the local Goodwill and got a couple of frying pans. The first (and the only one we’ve shot so far) was a standard, garden variety frying pan. Not terribly thick, but a good representative of the kind you’d get at Wal-Mart. The other was a cast-iron pan, and we haven’t taken a crack at that one yet, because we’re still debating the necessary safety issues involved in that one.

Results:

While stout, the frying pan didn’t hold up all that well to most of the pistol rounds. The diminutive.22 LR round caused a dent, but didn’t penetrate as most of us expected. The .38 Special also didn’t penetrate when shot out of the Ruger GP100 (pistol). If you watch fairly closely, you can in fact see the bullet break up on impact. The same round out of a Winchester 1894 penetrated with no problem however. A number of factors could have led to the different outcomes.

1. It could be that the shots were in different enough spots on the frying pan, that it isn’t really an apple to apple comparison.
2. There’s much less velocity for the round coming out of the 6” pistol barrel vs the 16” rifle barrel.
3. Other?

The other two pistol rounds we tested (.40 and .45 ACP) didn’t have a problem with it either. And in the theory of completeness, we tested the .223 from a Mini-14, and got the expected nice little puncture hole expected from a rifle round.

Let me know if you have any questions.

- Frank