Les Baer wadcutter

Back in February, I ordered a Les Baer wadcutter for bullseye shooting, and it came in Tuesday. I managed to get caught by the bathtub curve -- someone else at the club ordered one about two weeks before I did and had it in 12 weeks. My order took 18 weeks, so I got mine a full two months after he did. I guess they're doing a pretty good business right now.

The one add-on I ordered with the gun was their one-and-a-half inch guarantee (1.5" at 50 yards.) What this means is that the gun is really tight. I took the gun out of the box and tried to rack the slide -- no go, even after cocking the hammer. Doing it from the rear is a bit complicated by the scope mount, so I tried to push it back using the serrations on the front of the slide. It still took a bit just to get it out of battery, but once it was out of battery, it slid pretty well.

I took it to the range Wednesday night before our monthly meeting. The first thing to do was zero it. I put up a 25-yard slowfire target and fired from a sandbag. Okay, up and to the right. I fire another round to see how the accuracy is and look through the scope. Hmm, I only see one hole -- oh, wait, that's two holes. The third hole was definitely distinct, but still close enough to make me happy. (And given that I wasn't using a vice, that very well could have been shooter error.)

I put about 100 rounds through it between zeroing it and shooting a practice 900. I shot an 800 with it, which is certainly not the best I've shot in practice, but for one, I need to get used to the trigger, and for two, I wasn't expecting this gun to make me a master-class shooter. There's a lot of work that needs to happen behind the trigger. And with this gun, it will be painfully obvious where the fault for any failure lies.

One of the things I like about this gun so far is the scope mount. The loaner gun I've been shooting so far has a barrel-mounted red-dot. Because the scope is mounted forward of my wrist, I noticed a lot of wobble. This mount gets the scope a lot farther back, so it's closer to that pivot point. I'm noticing a lot less wobble with this one.