Chantry

I've known a couple of people who shot competition with Glocks (and probably other striker fired pistols) who trained & practiced enough that they could take advantage of the fact that the Glock trigger would reset before it returned fully forward. Not much different from the very best SASS shooters, if you find something that saves a 1/10 of a second per shot and shoot 100 rounds, you save 10 seconds on your overall match time.

I just looked at the Hodgdon website, 4.7 grs of Titegroup with a 240 grn bullet leaves the muzzle at 801 fps. I doubt that extra tenth of a grain is adding a lot to your muzzle velocity. To put it another way your load is pretty close to factory .45 ACP. When I was shooting non SASS falling plate matches I would occasionally shoot a hot loaded .44 magnum with a 200 grain JHP bullet that was chronographed at 1770 fps. It never dimpled the plates even though sometimes I would break the welds that held the plate to the stem on the rack. It seems that there are 2 things going on at that club: the steel targets are not hard enough and most shooters are shooting light loads

I use 6.0 grains of Trail boss with either 200 gr or 240 gr bullets at matches with no problems, most of our plates are AR500 steel. If that load is denting your target, the metal isn't hard enough.

Early model P-51A Mustangs (w/o the bubble canopy) were used by the maniacs of the 1st Air Commando in Burma who supported the second Chindit Long Range Penetration expedition in early 1944.

Even if it wasn't as advertised, it was probably still better then the bully beef, hard biscuits and soya link sausages that the British troops got. You know British rations are bad when they consider K rations a significant improvement.

Best I managed was the Ft. McClellan post Command Sergeant Major giving me a challenge coin during OSUT* for shooting expert either during rifle qualification or pistol qualification * Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Station_Unit_Training

You evil, evil person!

There are a number of companies making lead free frangible ammunition . The big question is how many are making ammo in cowboy calibers (probably only 38 Special) and how much does it cost. From what little I have read, frangible bullets are not sold to the public for reloading purposes,

Hopefully it will be overturned in a court case because I have little doubt that it will pass in the CA Legislature

It will depend on how the law is written. If they write the law in such a manner that no lead bullet or any other bullet exposed lead is banned, there may still be the option of polymer coated bullets. Otherwise hope it can be overturned in a court case. On edit: I have already started to transition to polymer coated bullets for cowboy shooting and will switch over to polymer coated bullets as I run out of the lead bullets I currently have for handguns. The only center fire rifle caliber I have that used lead bullets is the 45-70 and I have not explored what option, if any, there are for polymer coated 45-70 bullets

Sellier and Bellot is quality ammo, the only issue I have had is that the primer pockets are just a fraction smaller then American primers and the primers don't always reload well.

Unfortunately this happened to a great many British and other Commonwealth regiments that saw combat in France and Gallipoli. Other theaters of war that saw extensive trench warfare probably had similar casualty rates. Similar losses among British and other Commonwealth regiments also happened in WWII Burma and probably North Africa & Italy.

Back in the late 1990's I used to shoot a lot of bowling pin matches at a local club and two classes were Pump shotguns and Semi Auto shotguns. It got to the point where we had to use a shot timer to record the times. With five pins at about 15 yards using buckshot, the best semi-auto times were running around 1.90 - 1.93 seconds. These times were usually with a recoil or inertia operated action, Benelli's and the Beretta 1201 FP were the most popular choices. I don't remember anyone running a Remington 1100 or 11-87 or any other gas operated gun breaking the 2 second mark. I think my best time with a pump was about 3.5 seconds using a 97. I heard one young shooter managed to get below 3 seconds with a pump gun. The semi auto shotguns with recoil or inertia operated actions could be finicky with anything other than full powered ammo and for me, I found it hard to keep the muzzle from climbing by the third shot. The pump shotguns would run just about any ammo with the exception of the very short 1 3/4 Aguila mini shells, some guns would run them, some wouldn't.

Years ago I fired a friend's AR-15 pistol and personally I found it an interesting range toy, but not something I wanted. It was too big and awkward to aim well compared to a conventional handgun. Below is a link that goes into the ballistics of the .223/.556 in a short barrel. I question whether the bullet will even expand or tumble at the lower velocities, something the round needs to do to be an effective self defense weapon. Link: http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/223rifle.html On edit: As an aside, comparing the .25 ACP to the .22 LR using a 2" barrel, the .25 ACP generates as much or more muzzle energy then the .22 LR and as designed, will be more reliable as well.

The shortages are nationwide and you aren't likely to find factory cowboy .38 Special often enough (if at all) to warrant the expenditure of money to acquire 3 more guns. You would be better served by putting that money aside to buy primers, powder & bullets when the prices return to normal.