Another Blown Up Pistol!

Although ammo shortages have eased a bit, ammo prices generally have not and still create challenges for many shooters. As a result, some shooters are turning away from major brands and buying reloaded ammo from smaller ammo manufacturers. While the quality is acceptable for many, sometimes it is not.

In one of my recent matches, I heard a substantially louder report from the bay next to me. Upon investigation, I discovered that a shooter’s revolver had essentially detonated.

I asked him if he was OK and he said yes. He only had some soot spots in several areas on his hands. The round in the firing chamber (the blue arrow in the picture below) had discharged with enough pressure that gas burned through the adjacent cylinder walls (red arrows in picture) and caused those rounds to fire as well. There was no obstruction in the bore; however, one the adjacent rounds struck the revolver’s frame. The shooter’s brand new S&W Performance Center® Model 327 Jerry Miculek World Record Revolver and its associated optic were toast—a $3500.00 ouch.

I asked if he was using factory ammunition and he said he was; however, when I asked what brand he replied that he didn’t know. He said it was a company in San Antonio that manufactured reloaded ammunition, but he didn’t remember the name.

I strongly suspect that the round that detonated was substantially overcharged. As we see in this incident, an overcharge can destroy your firearm and could cause serious injury depending upon the circumstances.

How do we prevent this? The obvious answer is to limit your purchases to major manufacturers and avoid companies that reload ammunition. However, that is not necessarily the best answer as many smaller companies produce excellent ammunition. Additionally, over the past several years I have seen quality control problems with ammunition from several of the major manufacturers as well.

One way to reduce risk would be to purchase a digital reloading scale and weigh every round. Although this is tedious, it would identify any round that weighs markedly less (undercharge) or greater (overcharge) than the average for that box. One caveat, brass from different manufacturers will have different weights so you will need to separate the rounds by brass manufacturer if the box has mixed brass.

As of this writing, a simple digital reloading scale costs less than $50.00. This is quite a bit less than a $3500.00 custom pistol.

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A Low Light SSD-Academy Short Range Match

Benelli M2 w/ 14-Inch Barrel

We recently completed our first Sensible Self Defense Academy low light Short Range Match for 2025—a good time and a good learning experience for all. For this match, we allowed shooters to use a pistol, shotgun, or pistol caliber carbine (PCC). We had a number of new shooters who, while very well versed in competition and day-time shooting, had never tried to run their firearms under low light conditions. For those who did not have lights on their gun, we provided sufficient light to enable them to engage the targets.

The match had four stages—two were standards stages similar to a Steel Challenge stage and two were home invasion scenario stages. Shooters ran each stage once during daylight and once the sun sets, the shooters ran each stage in low light. The daylight runs allowed shooters to get a feel for the stages and what was required for a successful run. The daylight segment also allowed Safety Officers to identify any shooters who would likely have been out of their depth in low light conditions.

A Daylight Run

Low light environments pose additional challenges. To be successful in low light conditions, you should have solid mastery of your firearm’s manual of arms. At this match, there was no light provided to the shooters for administrative tasks such as making ready, loading, confirming a round was chambered, reloading, etc. This posed a problem for some. Per one of the new shooters: “Did my first ever night match. Went in fully prepared (not) by installing the light in the last minute. It was fun but kind of disorienting with it being so dark out there!” This shooter failed to drop their PCC’s bolt when loading and reloading on several occasions.

One of the Peace Officers attending the match asked if he could practice the tactics he would use on duty during the match. ABSOLUTELY! That is the main goal of the Short Range Match -- I prefer that people use their everyday carry equipment and practice solid tactics rather than gaming the match. The officer used his issued duty equipment which included an older Benelli M2 with a 14-inch barrel that his department purchased in the early 1990’s. It ran fine throughout the match with no hiccups. His department issued shotgun round was the Remington 000 magnum buckshot load. Out of a 14-inch barrel, this load had an impressive muzzle flash under low light conditions (see lead picture above).

A lesson learned: You must practice low light techniques just like any other skill to have any hope of using them under stress as several shooters in the match discovered. Thankfully, you can practice the techniques with live fire during daylight if your range will not allow night shooting.

How do you practice engaging multiple threats with these techniques? If your local range has IDPA matches, shoot the course of fire using your flashlight if the match director will permit it. Your score probably will not win the match; however, you will learn how to shoot and manipulate your light under some stress. Remember to practice turning the light on and off and you move through the stage.

Practicing how to search a structure (like your house when nobody is home) in the dark is important as well. Do this empty handed, with a blue gun, or with an UNLOADED firearm (check it 3 times!). This helps you identify how the various angles and corners in your house make a given technique a better option than the others.

Some might ask why we should learn and practice low light techniques. I suppose the answer to this question depends upon your personal circumstances and perhaps where you live. If you live in a large city where it is literally never dark due to streetlights, lighted parking lots, etc., then learning and practicing low light techniques may not worth the time and effort. However, even though I live in San Antonio, Texas, in my neighborhood there are no streetlights and you can easily find yourself effectively in the dark when outside at night if there is little or no moon.

To my knowledge, no data exists concerning private citizen-involved shootings with criminals under low light conditions; however, since a lot of criminal activity occurs after dark we can assume that there is a likely correlation. There are several reasons to use a flashlight: to observe and detect, to illuminate and navigate, to eliminate anonymity, and to identify and engage threats. Used properly, a flashlight lets you see danger before it can affect you and it can encourage the potential danger waiting in the dark to go elsewhere.

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A Jugging We Will Go -- Part I

A Jugging We Will Go

If you have not heard the term “jugging,” you might not be paying close attention to the news. Juggers are criminals that wait in or near parking lots near banks, credit unions, or ATMs and watch for people who have likely withdrawn large amounts of money. Juggers then follow the prospective victim to another location where they either physically assault the victim and take their money or wait until the victim is distracted or moves away from their vehicle and they then break into the vehicle to steal the money.

One of my students was a jugging victim in San Antonio in early 2024. She had entered and conducted business at a credit union and then returned home. When she arrived at her house, she pulled her pickup into the driveway through an open gate. She then exited her vehicle and went to the mailbox (outside the yard’s fenced area) to retrieve her mail.

Video of the front gate area shows a car which was following directly behind her pickup drive past her house and then quickly turn around and pull up to her driveway entrance as she is returning from the mailbox. A thug exits the vehicle’s passenger door and sprints to the pickup’s open driver’s door and dives into the pickup to grab her purse. 

She confronts the thug at the driver’s door; however, he pushes past her and returns to his vehicle, jumps in, and the thugs depart.

As the thug returned to his vehicle, my student (who was armed) considered drawing her pistol; however, she thought better of it and did not draw since she was not facing an imminent deadly threat. She said her training kicked in and she realized that drawing her pistol was not warranted. The thug did not threaten her physically nor did he exhibit a weapon; he only pushed past her as he escaped. A good decision on her part given the totality of the circumstances.

San Antonio Police Officers who were investigating the incident told my student that credit union cameras recorded images of the juggers waiting in the parking lot (presumably looking for a potential victim) and slipping in behind her pickup as she departed. The juggers followed her home which was over ten miles from the credit union--she did not notice the car which was directly behind her.

Jugging is on the rise across the United States. In Austin, Texas for example, in 2022 there were 153 reported jugging incidents where victims lost over $1.3 million dollars or an average of approximately $8500.00 per incident. That same year, the Houston Police Department reported over 700 jugging incidents. I have been unable to find any definitive statistics for 2023 or 2024; however, there is no reason to believe the trend is declining.

As I researched this article, I realized that some of these jugging teams are surprisingly sophisticated. When Dallas, Tx saw a rise jugging incidents in 2016 and 2017, the FBI began investigating. Ultimately the bureau arrested and charged thirteen members of a Houston-based crew with over 30 jugging offenses in the Dallas area--there were likely many more. The FBI concluded that the crew had taken more than $750,000.00 dollars, primarily from small business owners and operators.

In researching numerous incidents, I noted that often there were perpetrators using multiple vehicles in coordinated surveillance efforts to identify and follow victims. This fact hit home when I encountered the report of an incident in Schertz, TX, just north of San Antonio. The victim conducted business at a credit union (which coincidentally is the same one my wife and I use). When he departed the location, juggers followed him to a business in a near-by city and severely beat and robbed the victim who died several days later. The juggers lived in Houston and traveled to the San Antonio area to perpetrate their criminal enterprise.

Credit union surveillance video shows a woman wearing a mask inside the credit union and watching the victim. She exits the credit union and enters a gray Chevrolet Impala before following the victim to another business; surveillance video in that location shows the Impala circling the business parking lot while the victim was inside. As the victim exited the business, a Chevrolet Trailblazer pulled up behind the victim’s car and a passenger wearing a surgical mask exited the Trailblazer, approached the victim from behind and then attacked him and knocked him down. A struggle ensued before the suspect took off with an envelope containing the victim’s money. Cibolo, TX police photos show that at least three perpetrators in multiple cars were involved in this fatal robbery. See picture below.

I came across one incident where a bank employee was working with a jugging crew. The bank teller likely noted a pattern where a woman who owned a gas station and check-cashing business routinely withdrew large amounts of cash.  The day of the incident, police say that the bank teller notified the jugging crew that a woman had made a large withdrawal. The juggers followed the woman to her business where she was attacked and robbed of $75,000.00. The woman and her husband who tried to help her were both severely injured and hospitalized.

A former bank teller and the jugging team she tipped off

 

How can we prevent ourselves from becoming a jugging victim? My original intent when I started researching jugging robberies was to write a relatively short article. However, as I researched these incidents and the jugger’s tactics, I realized that since sophisticated teams were perpetrating many of these crimes, the article would need to deal with counter surveillance and other tactics as well. In Part II will discuss how you can avoid becoming a jugging victim.

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Its Back! A 20 Gauge Load with FLITECONTROL®

Federal has begun manufacturing its Federal Premium 20 gauge #2 buckshot load once again. This premium load has a velocity of 1345 feet per second (fps). As of this writing it is the only commercial load available for the 20 gauge with the FLITECONTROL® wad.

I obtained some to test in January 2025 and was pleased with the results (note: I only fired four rounds at each distance—still too difficult to get in quantity). I used a Mossberg 590 20-gauge that had a Vang Comp Systems modified barrel installed and an unmodified Mossberg 590 20-gauge pump shotgun for the test. 

I did not zero the shotguns due to the quantity of ammunition available. As a result, some patterns are not centered on the target; however, I superimposed an eight-inch circle centered on the pattern for reference. 

I started at 10 yards and both guns patterned the 20 gauge #2 buckshot FLITECONTROL® loads with a very tight pattern for all ten pellets at that distance. However, both guns did throw two pellets slightly outside the main pattern which I thought was interesting.

I then moved back to fifteen yards and both 590s patterned the FLITECONTROL® loads within an acceptable eight inches (see below).

Moving back to 20 yards, the pattern with the Vang Comp Mossberg 590 opened to twelve inches with one flyer while the standard 590 threw three pellets slightly out of the eight-inch circle.

We then moved back to 25 yards with the standard 590 and fired two shots. One shot placed all pellets within the eight-inch circle while the other threw a pattern with fliers more than twelve inches from the point of aim. 

As you can see from these results, you must test each load you are considering for your home defense shotgun in your gun. Ideally, shoot five shots at each distance until you determine the maximum acceptable range for your shotgun using that load. With the 20 gauge, I started at ten yards because previous testing with other 20 gauge loads demonstrated failures at that distance. If you see a failure at a given distance, you do not need to test at greater distances. I consider the Vang Comp 590's maximum acceptable range with this load to be fifteen yards while the standard 590's to be twenty yards. (Note: The Vang Comp system is designed to work with standard wads and generally do not do as well with the FLITECONTROL® wad.) 

Overall, I think that Federal's Premium 20 gauge load with a FLITECONTROL® wad lived up to its bigger brother’s reputation and performed well out to fifteen yards. Is that range a limitation? It is not for me, my maximum potential engagement difference in my house is twelve yards. Obviously, your circumstances may vary. Federal's Premium 20 gauge #2 buckshot load will now be the go to round for my 20 gauge home defense shotguns. 

Why chose a shotgun for home defense? 

The shotgun with modern low-recoil ammunition is the most effective short-range weapon available to private citizens and is a superb home defense weapon. The shotgun possesses several advantages over single projectile weapons such as pistols or rifles including: 

-- A solid upper chest hit with a suitable buckshot load has a high potential to end the fight immediately and encourages any of the bad guy’s surviving buddies to seek elsewhere for their entertainment. 

-- Shotguns can be customized relatively easily through adding after-market accessories. 

-- Shotguns are usually very reliable if the shooter is trained in its operation and the gun is mechanically sound. 

-- Even less expensive shotguns can be very effective with modern ammunition. 

-- Shotguns are often seen as sporting firearms and juries may look upon using one to defend yourself more favorably than a AR15-style rifle or a pistol. 

-- In urban areas, the shotgun firing buckshot rounds offers the clear advantage of a significantly reduced down-range danger zone. A shotgun’s maximum range ("maximum range" refers to the furthest distance a projectile will travel when fired from a gun) is much shorter than other firearms suitable for home defense. Buckshot’s maximum range is 748 yards compared to that of a 9mm which is 2130 yds, a .45 ACP at 1840 yards, a .38 Special at 1739 yds, a .357 Magnum at 2398, and the 5.56 rifle round at 3843 yds. (source: Gun Safety: Ammunition Maximum Range; by the NRA Staff; November 7, 2019) 

Is There a Disadvantage to Using a Shotgun for Home Defense? 

Not really. People who recommend firearms other than the shotgun for home defense often point to the shotgun’s limited ammunition capacity. A shotgun set up for home defense will typically hold up to seven shells with each shell holding eight to ten buckshot pellets. If you think about it, an extremely fast shooter with a pistol can deliver six, possibly seven rounds per second with a 9mm pistol. A shotgun with a suitable buckshot load delivers eight to ten pellets traveling over 1,100 feet per second in a millisecond.

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