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After having spinal surgery a couple of weeks ago, I figured I'd recovered enough to at least take my new Caracal C out to the range for the first time. I had a blast, although I wasn't hoping for much in terms of my own shooting. When they essentially cut through the muscles from your hairline to your shoulders and then retract and stretch them to either side far enough to expose your spine (my apologies to the squeamish), one of the things that happens is you lose a lot of strength in terms of how long you can keep your arms out in a shooting position and how steady they are when they're extended. I'd been dry firing it with snap caps once the pain let me do that, and I noticed a small but clear tremor when I had my arms out holding the pistol.
That was still slightly at play when I was at the range. So I wasn't shooting for accuracy. I figured I'd just load two 15-round mags at a time, then just try to see how well the pistol did with minimal sighting, just point, quick sight picture, shoot and run the mags out at about one shot per second or so for ten mags worth, 150 rounds. I was shooting my reloads, 124 gr Berry's hollowbase flatpoint plated bullets over 4.2 grains of Titegroup using Federal brass and CCI primers with COL of 1.065. The target was a standard sized half-a-man profile target at 50 feet.
I learned five things. 1) The Caracal C I got was flawless out of the box, with no FTFs or no FTEs with bullets that some semi-autos just don't like and brass that I'm sure has some minor rim erosion. 2) The low bore axis and the forward positioning of the grip results in a very light recoiling pistol with minimal barrel flip. 3) It shoots point of aim, not six o'clock. 4) The sights are ok, but not great. I have the single dot over single dot standard sights, not the odd milled in, short radius QuickSights. 5) With this pistol you pretty much don't need the sights anyway. It points and shoots instinctively like an extension of yourself.
Here's the target, after a two mag 30-round warmup on another target, just massing all the rounds (120) onto one target, rate of fire approximately one round per second (one mississippi, two mississippi, etc). The good sized round collection on the lower portion was early on, with the remainder of the target hits made after I could see I was hitting low and adjusted a tad. This pistol is a steal for a gun that runs in the mid $400. My new favorite. I'll take it out again once I feel a bit more stable to see how it shoots for accuracy.
That was still slightly at play when I was at the range. So I wasn't shooting for accuracy. I figured I'd just load two 15-round mags at a time, then just try to see how well the pistol did with minimal sighting, just point, quick sight picture, shoot and run the mags out at about one shot per second or so for ten mags worth, 150 rounds. I was shooting my reloads, 124 gr Berry's hollowbase flatpoint plated bullets over 4.2 grains of Titegroup using Federal brass and CCI primers with COL of 1.065. The target was a standard sized half-a-man profile target at 50 feet.
I learned five things. 1) The Caracal C I got was flawless out of the box, with no FTFs or no FTEs with bullets that some semi-autos just don't like and brass that I'm sure has some minor rim erosion. 2) The low bore axis and the forward positioning of the grip results in a very light recoiling pistol with minimal barrel flip. 3) It shoots point of aim, not six o'clock. 4) The sights are ok, but not great. I have the single dot over single dot standard sights, not the odd milled in, short radius QuickSights. 5) With this pistol you pretty much don't need the sights anyway. It points and shoots instinctively like an extension of yourself.
Here's the target, after a two mag 30-round warmup on another target, just massing all the rounds (120) onto one target, rate of fire approximately one round per second (one mississippi, two mississippi, etc). The good sized round collection on the lower portion was early on, with the remainder of the target hits made after I could see I was hitting low and adjusted a tad. This pistol is a steal for a gun that runs in the mid $400. My new favorite. I'll take it out again once I feel a bit more stable to see how it shoots for accuracy.
