Shoot a Weimar Red 9 in range
 

Have shot a few full size Red 9s in the past, but never got a chance to fire one of those reworked short barrel Weimar police Red 9. Today tried one instance.

The gun is in excellent shape, but it has no wood stock. From the stock connecting slot on the back of the grip, I doubt it has ever had a stock attaching to it. None of these Weimar Red 9s that I have met got matching stock. So no stock.

Fired exactly 100 rounds Winchester white box 9x19mm 115gr FMJ. It worked perfectly, except jammed once on the 67th round (see pix) -- the cartridge failed feeding. The cartridge's jamming position was high, it horizontally jammed between bolt and chamber. After pulling the bolt, the round dropped out freely. Planned to buy a few snap caps to find how this could happen. Probably due to weak recoil spring..... not sure.

Alvin, did you liberally oil the pistol? Looks dry..Good anyway if only one small malfunction!

This gun was acquired as a collectible, so originally I had no plan to shoot it. But I still have 200 rounds 9mm left, so.... consumed 50% today. The gun had Renaissance wax applied on the surface in the past, and its internal was protected by Rug grease. Before carry it to range, I erased the wax using a little bit Hoppe 9 oil, and then wiped it dry. The steel shell of Mauser protects its internal organs well, after shooting 100 rounds, the grease on the internal lock frame is still in light yellow color, looks clean. Just cleaned the bore and magazine well, wax reapplied, stored it back.

Thought about that instance of feed jamming issue again. The myth was how the round jumped out of the magazine well's mouth and blocked horizontally at such a high position. Somehow, the magazine well's mouth did not hold that round, the cartridge simply jumped out. Not likely being a spring strength issue.

Looking back, I did not clean up the grease inside the magazine well thoroughly before shooting. One possibility was the residue grease melt under higher temperature after certain number of rounds being fired and that cartridge case became very slippery.

Studied the case with snap caps last night. Under no scenario I could reproduce the problem statically in slow motion. The only possibility that I could think of had been mentioned above. Cleaned up residual grease from the magazine well, will try another time again this week to see it's reproducible or not.

Just back from range.

Fired another 100 rounds. Worked flawlessly this time. Lesson learned: clean up the grease and gun oil in magazine well before shooting. This Red 9 shoots so smoothly and accurately, I even thought "this thing could be used for self-defense purpose" while driving home ... Just kidding :)

Just back from range. Fired 200 rounds of PPU from Astra 900.

Round #150 (last round in magazine) did not load, bolt closed, pull the trigger, no bang. Pull the bolt open, saw the round still in magazine well, released the bolt, the round is loaded, fired OK.

After round #180 being fired, the bolt flied back into battery, hold open did not happen. Pull the bolt open, then, it locked. Looks like the magazine well and follower need cleaning. No cleaning was performed after shooting it last time, dirty magazine well slowed the follower down.

Other than those two instance of malfunction, it worked well.

General feeling on shooting those Broomhandles and clones -- the magazine well should be cleaned after shooting, but the magazine well and follower should not be oiled. A little bit oil on bolt is good but excessive oil on bolt is negative during shooting.

Did the Red 9 shoot high without the stock? My experience with 7.63s and one Red 9 has been nothing but tight groups several inches above the point of aim.

No. Not higher. I also heard people saying their Red 9 and 7,63mm shoot high, but I have fired more than a dozen of those, never experienced shooting high issue -- except one Red 9 in 103xxx range shooting a little bit low, about 2" low at 10 yards.

If I might ask, what are the front sight heights of the pistols shooting at point of aim without the stock?

Here is my target paper, it's a square, 12"x12", the diameter of middle black circle is 3" (X, 10, and 9). No matter with stock or without stock, I always try to align the tip of the front sight, the top of the rear sight, and the center 'X' on the target paper (not at the bottom edge of the circle). But that's the intention, in reality, at 15 yards, that black circle is so small, and the small V notch of the rear sight has "light halo" effect (if environment is dim, then has less halo effect, but cannot see the target well. Plus and minus, about same), plus breath, and hand shaking, it hard to control the exact aiming point actually being 'X', but at least, that's the intention.

If I were to paste another 9-10-X above the printed ones and used a 6 o'clock hold on printed black rings, my bullets would strike the center of the pasted on black rings. That's what makes me curious about your guns. I usually shoot 94 gr cast bullets at 1200-1300 fps.

I always use PPU for 7,63m/m (85gr muzzle velocity ~1200fps), and WWB for 9m/m (115gr). The subject 7,63 ASTRA is listed for sale in the trader column. It does not shoot high. Welcome to buy it so you can give it a try :) It's a fancy shooter in range. People saw it in range, came over and asked a question, ..... "Is it a Nambu?"

After firing around 1,500 rounds from the Astra 900, finally, its extractor was broken. Without extractor, the ejection failure increased dramatically, about 20% failures -- the empty case went out of the chamber, but blocked between the bolt and the chamber. Amazingly, 80% of chance, the gun still ejected empty case and loaded next round OK. But obviously, those ejected cartridge cases did not fly high. In the past, one of my concern was hot ejected case flying into my collar and burning my skin (happened frequently, about 1-2% in indoor range). Without extractor, that did not happen at all, quite a few cases simply dropped in front me, lacking energy.