Okay. I took my Taurus Millennium Pro PT111 9mm to Precision Firearms & Indoor Range (in Baton Rouge) yesterday. My wife and I (mostly me) shot 148 rounds of ammunition through it over the course of about an hour. The gun wasn’t problem-free, but I’m beginning to think that the problem is mainly dependent on the particular ammo used. I used three different brands of ammo and nearly all of the misfires occurred with one particular brand.

As I mentioned before, the first ammo I fired through the gun was Monarch 115 GR FMJ. That’s a cheap Russian brand. At that time, 3 shots out of 24 stovepiped.

This time I started off with Speer Lawman 115 GR FMJ rounds, which was only a little more expensive than the Russian crap. I shot two full mags (24 rounds) without incident. Next, I fired off 25 rounds of the new Hornady TAP FPD 124 GR. (Thanks to Dick for bringing this brand to my attention.) This is the really expensive stuff, about $20 per box of 25 vs. about $7 for the Monarch (box of 50) and $10 for the Speer Lawman (box of 50). Again, two full mags (plus 1) went off without a misfire. There was one little problem when firing the Hornady ammo (a problem repeated, I think, once or twice with the Monarch ammo) and that was that the slide didn’t lock back when the mag ran empty. I don’t know if this is because of the ammo or the gun. But at least there was no misfire.

After I used up the Hornady ammo, I then started rotating two mags each of Speer Lawman and Monarch. It was then that I started having misfires. If I remember correctly, the Speer Lawman failed to extract or feed fully three or four times. However, I think all but one of those times was when my wife was shooting, so that might have had something to do with it. She was scared of the gun, closing her eyes and jerking the gun when she pulled the trigger, but she’ll grow more comfortable with it over time I hope. Still, three or four misfires out of 73 rounds of Speer Lawman isn’t too bad.

By far the bulk of the misfires occurred with the crappy Russian Monarch brand. It started out every few shots but by the end was almost every shot or every other shot. The problems ranged from stovepiping to not even extracting the casing from the barrel. In the latter case, which happened two or three times toward the end, I had to yank hard on the slide to get it to move back and eject the spent casing; it felt almost stuck. I don’t remember exactly, but most or all of the misfires with the Speer Lawman ammo may have come after firing a couple of mags of Monarch through the gun. I talked to some guys in the shop afterward and they said the Russian stuff was extremely dirty. I remember seeing rather large muzzle flashes with it. At present I wouldn’t recommend the Monarch ammo even for target practice. It isn’t worth the aggravation, unless, as one of them remarked, you want to practice clearing your weapon.

So, as I said, I’m beginning to think that the problem is not with the gun so much as with the ammo (although it would be nice to have a gun wasn’t so picky). Here’s a brief summary and breakdown of the ammo I used:

Hornady TAP FPD: 25 rounds; no misfires. I’ll probably be using this, at least for the time being. The slide not locking back after the mag empties is a bit worrisome though. This has happened once or twice with the Monarch ammo, but not I think with the Speer Lawman, so is it just the ammo or is it the gun? In any case, should I use ammo for personal and home defense, however reliable it otherwise is, that results in the slide not locking back after the mag empties?

Speer Lawman: 73 rounds; three or four misfires. This stuff was decent and the bulk of the misfires may have been caused by the Russian crap dirtying up my gun. However, I’ve read in several forums comments by many people that they like to use Winchester white box (WWB) ammo for range practice and it seems many of them get it at their local Wal-Mart really cheap – about $11 for a 100 round box. I’ll have to look for it.

Monarch: 50 rounds yesterday, 74 rounds total; too many misfires to count. I’m not buying this crap again.

I’m going to clean the gun today and go back to the range sometime in the next week or two to try it out again. This next time I’ll avoid using the Monarch ammo and we’ll see what happens. I may go to the expense of firing off another box of Hornady too to see if the slide problem persists and make sure it continues to otherwise function flawlessly.

By the way, I’ve found the PT111 to be pretty easy to break down, clean, and put back together again; and I’ve never cleaned a pistol before owning this one. Its compact size, despite being a 9mm with a 12 rd mag, makes it ideal for concealed carry. As far as shooting it, it feels good in the hand and the recoil is not bad. It shoots low and the sights are fixed :o(, so I may try to find some better adjustable sights for it. Hopefully, the misfire and slide problems are just with the ammo but if the problems persist I may have to send it to Taurus to have them fix it. Any thoughts or advice?

[Update (5:30pm): WWB is $15.72 per 100 round box at one of my local Wal-Marts. Neither of my local Wal-Marts sells real guns any longer. The one closest to my house used to several years ago before it moved and became a Super Wal-Mart. I wonder if there is some kind of anti-gun sentiment among the managers of the local Wal-Marts. I’m also starting to wonder if ammo in Baton Rouge is more expensive than many other places. For instance, the Hornady ammo mentioned above is about $17 on some gun store websites but costs about $2o-21 in local gun stores. On the other hand, this website has 50 round WWBs for $10.79, so my local Wal-Mart beats this price by quite a bit. Maybe my memory is faulty and it was the 50 round WWBs that I had seen referred to as $11 at Wal-Marts. ::shrug::]

This one comes highly recommended for home and self-defense. Less recoil than a 12-gauge, so it will be easier for my wife to use. Personal Security Zone.com has it for $305.15. Any thoughts or advice?

Today I saw the USPS truck making its rounds down my street. I’ve been expecting a package to be delivered soon, if not today. When I went down to my mailbox to check my mail, what did I find but a “sorry we missed you” delivery attempt notice. I didn’t hear a knock on my door and I didn’t have the tv or radio on, so I can only assume that the postal worker was too lazy to walk up the stairs to my apartment and give it to me. Either that or he/she made a very weak and perfunctory attempt at knocking.

To make matters worse, the USPS doesn’t even automatically attempt to redeliver the next day as UPS and other private services do, much less for up to three attempts like UPS. One has to contact them to request it. And since I am flying out of state for several days tomorrow, I’ll have to stop by the local post office early in the morning to pick up my package. [sarcasm] Thanks for the inconvenience, Uncle Sam. [/sarcasm]

From Taipei Times:

Enraged mobs from one of India’s myriad lower castes blocked roads with fiery barricades, stoned police and battled rival castes across a wide swath of northern India for a week to make a single, simple point: They want to be even lower.

With 25 people dead, the unrest spread to the fringes of the capital before the Gujjars — a class of farmers and shepherds — called off their protests.

They did so only after officials agreed to consider their demand to be officially shunted to the lowest rung of India’s complex hereditary caste system, so they can get government jobs and university spots reserved for such groups….

Discrimination under the system was outlawed soon after independence from Britain in 1947, but its influence remains powerful and the government has sought to redress discrimination against those on the lower rungs by setting up quotas for government jobs and university spots.

But instead of weakening caste affiliations, the result has been a fracturing of politics along caste lines, with each of the lower groups vying for its share of the quotas….

“Nowhere in the world do castes queue up to be branded as backward,” [the Indian Supreme Court] said. “Nowhere in the world is there a competition to become backward.”

Oh, they’re already backward all right. They just want to make it official and gain more special privileges. Can’t say I’m surprised, given the perverse incentives offered by the Indian government’s affirmative action programs.

Hat tip to David Bernstein of The Vololkh Conspiracy.

If you thought saving the cheerleader to save the world sounded too exhausting and dangerous, or just too campy, there’s a new method for saving the world from global warming that may just be right up your alley.

Check out this comic strip.

And here are a couple more that I thought were funny too.