All You Really Need

Just An Observation...

2011-09-10T16:37:00.002-05:00

When The Bee Gees' "Staying Alive" is playing over the PA system at Home Depot, EVERYONE walks to the beat.

Incremental Update

2011-08-24T00:30:00.004-05:00

It's fairly common knowledge at my workplace that I'm a shooter. From time to time I will get questions from coworkers about guns or shooting, and sometimes even about buying firearms. Last week a coworker expressed interest in going to the range. I'm happy to oblige any new shooter, so we're tentatively going to be heading out this weekend. The forecast calls for 104 degrees, so the plan is to head out early to avoid the heat of the day.

In other news, while Michael works on the custom rig I requested for the LCP, I figured that I really ought to get that pesky recall service thing out of the way. I would have done it sooner, but the LCP is my everywhere gun. If I'm going somewhere where I can't carry, I won't strap on the OWB pancake for the Hi-Power - that setup is nigh-impossible to unload discretely in a parking lot. But the LCP can drop in the pocket with an Uncle Mike's pocket holster (or soon-to-come OWB clipper rig) and get secured in the truck in a matter of a couple seconds. Having nothing to stand in for the LCP in this capacity, I've put off the recall service.

Well, along came someone at work selling a NAA Guardian .380 at a good price, so I jumped on it. I had the opportunity to try one out a few years back, and was quite surprised with the accuracy of such a small gun. The NAA was on my list of prospective pocket guns for a long time until I bought the LCP. What I didn't realize was that NAA produced a version to cater to California's ridiculous regulations, and installed an integral "lock" on those guns. My newly-purchased NAA happened to be one of these.

If you know me, then you're probably aware that I'm not a fan of unnecessary potential points of failure in firearms. Fortunately, this turned out to be a tack-on solution, and was easy enough to remove without affecting the functionality of any other systems. I appear to be the only one in the history of the internet who thought it would be a good idea to put up a guide for this procedure, as my search for such information returned nothing. Look for a guide on removing the Integral Locking System from the NAA Guardian here in the near future. I'll also be putting the pistol through reliability testing and should have a review soon with my general observations and photos.

I haven't done a food post in some time, so I'll be putting one together in the near future. A comment on my last post from Jim (flier389) over at Granddad's Corner got me over to his blog, which got me thinking about foods of years past, and those that remind me of my childhood. I thought it would be a fitting subject for an upcoming post.

Anyhow, there's a preview of things to come. See you then.

New Custom Leather

2011-07-28T00:02:00.008-05:00

Shortly after I started carrying, I switched to the Hi-Power mentioned previously in this blog. I wanted something that made the gun easy to conceal over the bowling/work type shirts I tended to wear. The Galco Combat Master fit that bill - a high-riding OWB holster with a significant cant, meaning the gun tucked up underneath my arm and was easy to draw.

Over the past 4 years, the holster has served me well, but over time it has become more relaxed and floppy, not holding the Hi-Power tightly to my side like it used to. I had resolved to get another holster of the same model to replace it. A little over a year ago I went to a party over at Christina's place up in North Texas, where I met Michael from TheHolsterSite.com and EvylRobot.com. About this time he'd jumped into the entrepreneureal unkown, starting his new business making holsters. He'd brought samples of his wares, which were passed around the party during gun show & tell.

Fast forward 7 months, and Michael's business had really started to pick up. He'd done some interesting custom holsters, with some particularly cool IDPA/IPSC race holsters. My holster budget had expanded a bit, and I started thinking about what could be improved from the Galco. The most prominent area for improvement was stiffness. Just like my boots and pants, I'm not easy on holsters. I'm a pretty solid and big dude, and the things I wear need to be well-made and durable, or they're garbage in short order. I'd read about horsehide leather, with its wear and moisture resistance, and its exceptional stiffness. The problem is, horsehide is not in common use in the United States, and there's no real source for domestic horse hide. Because of this, mass-produced horsehide holsters simply don't exist.

This is where Michael comes in. I'd seen on his site that he deals in some exotics, most notably stingray. So we got to talking in IRC one night, and I ask about the possibility of getting a horsehide holster made for my Hi-Power. He'd not worked with horse leather before, but seemed eager to check his supplier and get me a quote. A few days later, we figured out pricing for a holster and magazine carrier to my specifications, and I gave him the go-ahead. Since he'd never worked with the material before and I wasn't in a hurry, I asked him to take as much time as he needed. Over the weeks, we corresponded back and forth about his impressions of the material and his efforts putting together test items. Along the way, I added on a request for a flashlight scabbard as well.

For the holster itself, my requirements were simple: a high ride and cant, similar to my Galco holster, with beefed up belt slotting (the Galco slots had stretched out over time, I wanted to avoid that). The mag carrier, on the other hand, had to be a completely custom design in order to hold two magazines and ride at the 7:30 position that I needed. He was able to come up with a design that created a back channel for the belt to ride in, while keeping the carrier high and close to the body.

When Phlegmfest started to roll around, we found that we would both be attending and my order would be finished shortly prior. So, a personal handoff it was. I arrived at the party, and Michael handed me my new holster, mag carrier, and flashlight scabbard. To say that I was pleased with the holster would be an understatement. Every request had been met, and my expectations exceeded by a great margin. This was a serious piece of leather. It rode beautifully on my belt, fit the Hi-Power perfectly, and kept the gun snug to my side. It was the most solid holster I'd ever seen. Likewise, the mag carrier was a VAST improvement over the Safariland carrier I'd been using.

Unfortunately, as I started to wear my holster back home, I found that the glue between the layers of leather was starting to come apart. I corresponded with Michael about this, and he was quite disconcerted about this development. I took some photos for him, and upon review he insisted that the problem be made right. I mailed the holster back to him, and he found that the issue appeared to be with the glue itself not correctly bonding to the leather, and that the holster would have to be remade entirely. Without going into too much detail, some testing was done with a different glue more suited for horsehide, and he constructed a new holster for me in short order.

The new holster arrived a few days ago, and I am quite pleased - both with the quality of Michael's leather work, and his commitment to great customer service. I got the mag carrier and flashlight scabbard (both of which I've been using since Phlegmfest) together with the holster for a photo shoot:

Here's a couple more photos of the holster:

If you're looking for some custom leather, drop Michael a line. I can't recommend him enough. Both his quality of workmanship and his customer service are top notch.

Running Through The Paces, Pt. 2

2011-05-01T17:24:00.006-05:00

I got back out to the range on Friday to test out my 3031 rework, as well as to run the new hunting loads through the gun to see if they're performing as expected.

Again, it was terribly windy. Not quite as bad as the last trip, but almost. I did manage to keep the chronograp standing for most of the session. There wasn't much wind this morning, just a small breeze, but by the time I got out to the range around 2pm, it had really picked up.

I'd set out to do a comparison between a few of the .22 rifles - the new Marlin 795, the older full-length Marlin 60, and an even older Romanian 1969 Trainer that I picked up early last year. I wanted to run some side-by-side comparisons of all three guns to see how they compared at 50m. Unfortunately, the venture was a bust, because my bullets were getting blown all over the targets, regardless of the rifle.

I'd only ordered one sling along with the Tech Sights for the 795, but I had what the local surplus shop termed a "Silent Sling" in a 1 1/4" width. Last week, I'd taken the GI sling I'd purchased as a template and managed to reproduce the configuration with a bit of sewing and some standard Uncle Mike's QD sling swivels, and replicated the functionality. I'd found an online guide about how to use a GI web sling around the time I modified the "silent sling", so I figured I'd give it a go. I figured a windy day was a good opportunity to see the difference. Sure enough, I was able to much more easily keep the 795 steady on target using the sling, so at least I got something constructive out of the day with the .22 rifles.

On to testing out the 3031 rework, I'd changed primers from the soft and thin CCI #400 that I'd been using, so I figured I'd redo the load and see if there was any change needed. I did a workup in small increments below, above, and above the 24.8 grain charge I'd landed on last time. This is at the top end of load data for this powder/bullet combo, so I didn't stray too far, and incremented in 0.2 grains, from 24.6 to 25.2 grains. They all shot fine, but I started a small amount of leaks around the edges at the top end loads. I also completely lost one primer in that group - not a great sign. This may be in part due to the fact that I used FC brass for the workup, which I've noticed has looser primer pockets. They're significantly easier to seat than LC brass. I'll remember in the future to reserve FC brass for tamer loads, like the VV135 plinking/accuracy load I tested last post. The velocities and accuracy matched up with the previous #400 load and the primers looked good at 24.8 grains anyway, so it looks like the load is going to stay as is.

Moving on, I switched to the hunting load using TAC and the Speer 70 grain semi-spitzer soft points. I'd already worked these up previously, and results were good at 25.2 grains. I made a small mistake in adjusting my scale, and ended up charging these at 25.1 grains instead. I had a box of 100 loaded up so I could do the same kinds of tests as last session - some at 50m, some at 100m, both on the lead slead and off the bench, unsupported.

I started off with the lead sled at 50m to check out consistency in a group of 10. I had a cotton shop towel set up to deflect brass down onto the bench to more easily recover my empties, since I had so much trouble with the brass catcher last session. I got through 7 shots of the 10, and got a jam that didn't want to clear. The bolt wouldn't seat all the way forward and lock into place. I pulled the rifle apart and played with it a bit and found the problem. A dislodged primer got into the lugging in the barrel adapter, and was getting in the way of the bolt. Dang.

I took a look at some of the brass on the bench, and sure enough - missing primers. I also noticed the numbers on the chronograph were indicating velocities above 2800fps, faster than the 25.2 grain charges I'd worked up previously. Now I was a bit confused. I'm pretty meticulous about weighing each charge individually, particularly with hot loads, so there's very little chance of an overcharge getting through. 25.2 grains is also well within the 5.56 pressure loads from TAC (max listed at 26.2 grains). The chronograph seemed to be getting consistent velocities (I still need to review them more closely), so something else seemed to be wrong.

Once my rifle was clear and everything appeared to be operating properly, I finished out the set of 10. Results were pretty good, and definitely acceptable for hunting purposes:

With the dislodged primer issues I'd had, I should have packed it up then an there or moved on to different loads I'd brought along to play with. But, I didn't. I wanted to have a comparison shooting the 70 grain loads without the lead sled.

On the third round in, the bolt jammed, and stuck hard. There was no getting it free then and there. It was a terrible feeling. Checking the cases, round #2 was missing a primer, so I figured it had jammed up the bolt somewhere in the upper. With my tail between my legs and my heart in my stomach, I packed everything up and headed home.

I got the rifle on the bench and ended up having to pull the buffer tube to get the bolt carrier tapped back in and the upper and lower separated. In the process, I ended up rotating the buttstock tube lock plate into the threads (note to self: use less lok-tite next time) and mangled the rear takedown pin detent spring in the process. I got the upper separated and managed to tap the bolt carrier completely rearward out of the upper (all the time hoping I wasn't ruining the upper). Lo and behold, there it was. A primer lodged in the channel for the bolt cam pin. I thoroughly checked the inside of the receiver and the bolt carrier itself, and didn't find any mangled material, so it appears that everything is still serviceable. It looks like the cam pin was restricted from moving just enough to make things very tight. I got everything assembled (minus the mangled detent spring), and verified that the action operated smoothly and locked up tight.

I've had a couple days to think what happened here, and I think I've got an idea. Sometime around the primer change and making the first full batch of 24.7 grain 70 grain loads, my scale got out of adjustment, reading heavy by a few tenths of a grain. I interpreted this as a loss in velocity due to the new primers with the TAC load, so I worked up a new set of loads, and found a match in performance at 25.2 grains. In reality, I was recalibrating my charges up to 24.7 grains or somewhere thereabout. Between that load workup and my batch of 100 25.1 grain loads, I'd recalibrated my scale, so now I was *actually* loading a hotter load. While this is still within 5.56 NATO load data, there's a reason NATO ammo has crimped primers. This put me over the pressure line where the primers started working loose, causing my problem.

Lessons I've learned from this experience:

Even though my rifle can handle 5.56 NATO pressures, there is a point where uncrimped primers/pockets start to let go.
I need to recalibrate my scale before every session.
If a load is acting funny, stop using it and figure out why.

I've also got 87 rounds of this stuff, and I'm not sure what to do with it. I may use this as an excuse to get one of them fancy bullet puller dies. I'm also considering getting the manual inertial puller out and adjusting OAL (there's plenty of room between 2.165" and max OAL to move the bullet out) to see if that will reduce pressures enough to make the rounds serviceable without having to disassemble them all. I'll have to test those one-by-one, in case they still show leaks or popped primers and avoid this problem from happening again.

Phew. What a learning experience this has been.

Running Through The Paces

2011-04-24T01:19:00.009-05:00

I finally got to get back to the range today, as my weekends have been booked solidly for the past month. As I mentioned, I was very happy with the results I got from the VV135 powder/55 grain combo, getting sub-MOA grouping using a charge of 24.7 grains. I loaded up 150 rounds using this charge so I could test it out at the range in quantity and see how it runs at 100m as well.

It was exceptionally windy at the range today. I'd guess the wind was around 20mph, with frequent and variable gusts of around 40mph. I'd also meant to test out a rework of my 3031 load with the new primers, but the wind was so stiff, the chronograph couldn't stay standing.

So today, I focused on trying out my finalized VV135 plinking load and trying out the new Marlin 795.

I've got the Marlin all set up with Tech Sights and a sling, so she's ready for Appleseed. I ordered a bunch of magazines, once I found a place that had them in stock. It seems that everyone has the sub-standard 7 round magazines, but no one has the standard 10 rounders. Cabelas doesn't even carry them.

Since this was the inaugural range trip, I started with the Marlin. I strapped it in to the lead sled to get it zeroed at 50m. Because of the gusty wind, grouping was not terribly impressive with the subsonic 40-grainers. Surprisingly enough, the newly-installed Tech Sights were quite close. I'd put out 12" targets, but found that that was not necessary, as the sights weren't too far off. A few clicks down and to the left and I got her zeroed with just a few rounds.

I pulled the rifle off the lead sled and gave it a go without a support. I was getting low on my CCI Standard Velocity rounds, so I switched over to Aguila SuperMaximum Solid Point 30-grainers.

---

I'm going to go on a small tangent here, while I think about it. Regarding the CCI SV rounds... Cabela's, why don't you carry CCI ammo in usable quantities? Your selection in .22LR is crap. All of the ammo you carry in anything approximating a brick is terrible. Sure, you carry CCI ammo, but only Stinger/MiniMags in tiny little plastic boxes, or some newfangled "AR" ammo that looks like standard High Velocity rounds put in a smaller and more expensive bulk box. I have to go to Dick's Sporting Goods to get CCI Standard Velocity ammo. As much of a drive it is to get to Buda to get to your store, it pains my very soul to have to go to Dicks in The Domain. Seriously, stop forcing me go there. Stock some decent .22LR ammo.

Also, how is it that you sell a rifle that comes stock with a 10-round magazine, but don't carry any of those magazines? No one wants the overpriced piddly little 7 round magazine that you are selling. That's why you have a pile of them still on the shelf, while everyone goes and orders them from elsewhere on the internet. You had 30-something Marlin 795 rifles in stock at the store the day I purchased mine. You should have a little more forethought.

One more thing, Cabelas. Vihtavuori Powder and Speer bullets. Both major players in their respective component groups, but for some reason you don't carry them. Why??

---

OK, back to shooting the Marlin. One thing I've observed about this rifle is how very light it is. Aside from the barrel and bolt, all parts of this gun are very light. This makes it particularly difficult to keep steady in gusting wind, so the results of my string were less than impressive. I certainly need to start learning sling technique with this gun. As I expected, POI rose, as velocity increased nearly 700fps (1070 vs. 1750 fps). Here are the results:

I ran another few mags through the rifle. It ate it all up and spit out the empties flawlessly throughout, as expected.

Moving on to the AR, in addition to the reloads I brought, there was also a recently-purchased brass catcher. Now, I really had my heart set on a nice catcher from Vector Tactical. Robb got one back in September, and I really wanted to get one for myself once my AR was built. A few weeks after Robb got his, the Vector Tactical site stated that the catches were unavailable for order at that time. Early this month, the domain registration for vectortactical.com expired, and has not yet been renewed.

Midway carries 3 AR brass catches, all of them look identical. I ordered the only one they had in stock at the time, the "Mako GMG Brass Catcher AR-15 Nylon Mesh Black". I'm underwhelmed with the performance of this catcher. It's flimsy. While the bag itself should be able to easily hold 100 or more cases, it becomes unusable once 20 is reached. The catcher begins to sag, causing stovepipes. In the 100 rounds I went through today, I had 4 stovepipes, and one double-feed (caused by a stovepiped case). Also, the cheap nylon mesh is not a high-temperature material, so occasionally a case would melt the bag enough to stick.

I think I'm going to have to come up with a catcher net system instead, because those stovepipes are annoying.

As I moved my Nikon back on the rail a few notches, the AR needed to be zeroed again. This was pretty quick, and I was ready to rock. I ran a test set off the lead sled to get an idea of grouping in larger quantities. Results were not as astounding as with the workup group, but then again it was very windy. Nonetheless, the load performed well:

I moved over to a 100m bench, posted a couple targets, and did a lead sled test there as well. This was my first time running the AR at 100m, as everything I've really done up to this point has been load testing. I switched over to the 1MOA dot, as the 4MOA eclipsed too much of the target for my taste. I put 10 rounds on target and here's what I got:

Not too bad. I figured now that I've established my load is good, I'd get some real shooting in. I put another 10 shots into the second target, seated at the bench, unsupported. The grouping opened up considerably more than I would have liked, but it gives me something to work on:

I was working from a box of 100 rounds, and was down to 30. Since I didn't do a target without the sled at 50m, I figured I could load up a 30 round mag and have at it. I worked on acheiving my shooting zen to steady myself, and got some pretty decent results:

I was actually surprised at how tight the grouping was. It's not much bigger than the run off the lead sled. I guess I am getting better. Next trip, I'll be doing the same kind of thing with my hunting load, since I didn't get around to it today.

I'll also test out my 55 grain/IMR 3031 rework, so I can finalize a high-velocity (somewhere around 3100-3200fps) load for my Appleseed ammo. I've got Friday off, so hopefully I'll be able to do it then and give you an update.

Buy A Gun Day

2011-04-15T18:41:00.004-05:00

As you may already know, today is Buy A Gun Day. As I am out of town for my anniversary, I didn't get to buy a gun today. Instead, I picked one up earlier in the week.

I've been wanting to attend an Appleseed for quite a while now. I finally went for the beginnings of a Liberty Training Rifle. Rather than the more common Ruger 10/22, I opted for the Marlin 795. I already have an older Marlin 60 that I'm quite happy with, so I thought I'd give one of the newer (and more petite) box-fed Marlins a try. Here she is:

I haven't had the chance to get her to the range yet, so no range report for you today. I've got some Tech Sights and a sling on order to complete the setup.

While I had the kitchen counter cleared off for gun photography, I thought I'd get a photo of the AR with bayonet affixed. This one's for you, Jay:

.223 Handloads (Parts 2 & 3)

2011-03-06T23:20:00.014-06:00

I've come along in my development efforts, and have had a couple of workup cycles and subsequent range trips.

I picked up some of the new IMR 8208 XBR powder a few weeks ago, and put together a set of loads using both the Winchester 55gr FMJ-BT bullets I've been working with, as well as Sierra 69gr HPBT Matchkings. I'd run out of Speer 70gr Semi-Spitzer bullets for my hunting load, and apparently no one in town carries them.

I was impressed that I got decent sets from each bullet using the 8208 XBR powder. In 55 gr, both 24.7 and 25.3 grains gave me decent grouping. Unfortunately, I loast all of my chronograph data for the day, so I cannot provide numbers. Please note, all targets were shot at a range of 50m.

In the 69gr loads, I got good groups in several of the charges, in both the low and mid ranges of the workup. I got good groups at 21.6, 21.9, 22.5, and 23.1 grains. As you may have noticed, some of the shots on these targets are far off to the right. This is due to a quirk in the operation of the Nikon VSD. I'll have a dedicated post on this topic in the near future.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. I got in on a bulk order with some other folks from Powder Valley a couple of weeks back, and was able to get a bunch of the Speer 70gr Semi-Spitzer bullets, so that I'll be able to finish out my hunting load development, and get a bunch loaded up for sighting and actual hunting. I got a bulk box of 1000 Hornady 55gr FMJ-BT bullets, which will replace the Winchester bullets for my normal range work. Hornady's bullets are nicer anyway, and the box of 1000 makes them cheaper.

I've also switched from using CCI #400 primers to CCI #41. The #400 primers don't seem to be made for .223 and 5.56 pressures. I found that the #400 primers would begin flattening even with moderate loads. The primer cups on the #41 are more stout, and are made specifically for 5.56 loading. Apparently the priming compound charge is different as well. My continuation of the 70gr TAC loads indicated a loss of around 80fps with the new primers.

I started out today's session finishing up the TAC workup, and found that 25.2 grains gave me acceptable results, with a velocity averaging 2740fps. I think I've settled on this as a hunting load. Accuracy is acceptable for hunting purposes at a high enough velocity for terminal effectiveness..

I did another workup using the 70gr using the 8208 XBR powder as well. Accuracy was good, but velocity was a little lower than I'd wanted in a hunting round. I may be able to push the charge a bit to get the velocity I want, I'll have to see. The best groups were at 22.1 and 22.7 grains, with average velocities of 2542 and 2610 fps, respectively.

Finally, I decided to try out Vhitavuori N135 with the 55gr bullets, at the suggestion of TxGunGeek. I ordered this powder along with the afore-mentioned bulk buy. I did a wide range for my workup, since I've never worked with the powder before. TxGunGeek uses a charge of 25.6 grains for his accuracy load, though our rifles are certainly different in configuration. I ran the whole gamut and came across a beautiful gem of a grouping at 24.7 grains of 7/16"! I'm quite impressed with the results using this powder so far.

I didn't get a reading from the chronographfor this string because it was getting dim out and I stopped getting readings about this time. Judging from the readings around this group, I'd say it was moving around 2950 fps. Not too bad for a plinking load. Next session, I'm going to run some of these at 100y and see how they do.

.223 handload workups

2011-01-31T21:14:00.005-06:00

It was a nice day at the range today. A bit windy as usual there, but otherwise it was nice shooting weather.

As mentioned a couple posts ago, I'd worked up loads with a few different powders and a couple of different bullets. I got the chance to take them out to the range today to see how they ran. I got a bunch of 5-target sheets from Midway with my last order. These utilize five 3 15/16" bullseyes on cheap newsprint-quality paper. They're very inexpensive, so are great for testing load workups.

I had two powders I did workups with for the Winchester 55 grain FMJ-BT bullet: IMR 3031 and Hodgdon Benchmark. I was surprised to actually find useful and accurate loads in both powders.

I'd not had a lot of faith in IMR 3031, as the key benefit of the powder when it was sold to me is that it burns clean. That is a nice characteristic, but certainly not the primary factor for me when choosing a powder. Using the Lee manual as a guide, I made a workup from 23.0 to 24.8 grains, in increments of 0.3 grains. The top end of this is a compressed load. I don't understand the dynamics of compressed loads very well, other than the fact that some powders don't work well with compression, while others do. OAL for this set was 2.230".

I had the chronograph out and had my spotting scope handy to see the results of my work. I made my way through the 3031 group, not seeing anything particularly notable as far as grouping size was concerned. I did see that my shots were grouping a little low and left, so made some adjustments just before the last group of the batch. I ended up over-adjusting and pulled the second shot, which hit a little too high and ricocheted off the bottom edge of the top post above my target. This caused all sorts of nasty tearing on the target, and I figured it didn't matter much, considering the performance of the powder up to this point. I finished up the string and moved on.

I brought all my targets home for review, going through the data for each one. I saw that the last string of the IMR 3031 showed a much tighter spread and Standard Deviation than the rest. Average velocity was 3089.05 with a spread of only 53.33 and a SD of 20.17. I went and looked at the target, and in the mess of the ricochet, found the rest of the shots in a 1/2" grouping!

I think I may do a little tuning work with this powder and explore the top end to see what I find. This was definitely a surprise!

The Benchmark workup performed well. I did a workup from 24.0 to 25.5 grains, in increments of 0.3 grains. Data was based on the Hodgdon load, with OAL adjusted to 2.235" from the 2.220 that was listed for a soft point. It looks like the accuracy sweet spot is somewhere around 24.9 grains at an average velocity of 2982.89. Consistency here was good as well, with a spread of only 37.53 and a standard deviation of only 14.59. Grouping was around 1".

Moving on to the hunting load workups, I created workups for both powders mentioned above, as well as with Ramshot TAC, which I've heard good things about in conjunction with the Speer 70 grain Semi-Spitzer.

I started out with the IMR 3031 loads first. This workup was based on the loads from the Hodgon website, and ranged from 19.0 to 21.1 grains with OAL set to 2.150". Grouping was OK, but nothing below 1.5". The best group also had very tight velocities, with an average of 2430.11 fps, a spread of only 9.77 fps and a standard deviation of only 4.35. Looking at the data overall, the powder stayed very consistent throughout the workup. I may work on this powder a bit and see if an adjustment to OAL makes any difference in grouping. They definitely need to be stoked hotter to hit acceptable velocities for hunting - the highest velocity I got out of this workup was 2503 fps.

Next was the Hodgdon Benchmark. This workup went from 20.8 to 22.6 grains, with an OAL of 2.150". I actually got a nice 3/4" group with my starting string, but grouping seemed to progressively open up the higher the velocities got until the last group, where they tightened down a little. The high end of this workup only got up to around 2650 fps. Velocity consistency was actually very similar to the 3031, with extreme spreads generally staying around 25, more or less.

Finally, I tried out the revamped Ramshot TAC loads. While Ramshot only publishes .223 loads (which seem overstated in velocity), they have data for 5.56 NATO spec as well. I found someone who'd put this information up on their site after corresponding with Ramshot, so I gave it a try. The listed range (for 68 grains) starts at 23.5 grains up to a max load of 26.2 grains. I picked up just above where I left off, and started at 24.0 grains, with 0.3 grain increments. I'd run low on these bullets, so only had enough for 20 rounds. Since this were NATO-spec charges, I used Lake City brass instead of the the Prvi Partizan or Federal .223 brass I have been using for most of my loads. Grouping tightened up at the top end of my workup, and I got about 1" at 24.9 grains. OAL was set to 2.155" The 24.9 grain group gave good results for velocity, with an average of 2814.45 fps with a spread of 20.15 fps with a standard deviation of 9.53. Once I get some more bullets ordered, I'm going to do another workup with this powder and increment by 0.2 grains and get a little higher that I did with this set.

It looks like TAC is in good shape for becoming my hunting load powder, so I'll keep you posted here.

I also promised a re-evaluation of the S&B 5.56 ammo that I picked up at Cabela's. I had some extra time at the end of my workup tests, so I figured I'd put 10 more rounds through the rifle to see how it measured up this time around. Results were significantly better, with about 1 1/2" grouping, excluding 1 flyer.

That's all I've got for you now. I'll keep you posted on new development efforts.

Nikon Monarch VSD initial impressions

2011-01-19T23:49:00.001-06:00

For Christmas, my wife got me the Nikon Monarch VSD that I'd been eying since I started the build process for the AR. Unfortunately, Nikon regards the VSD as a special order item, so the sight did not arrive until the weekend before last.

I installed and zeroed it to correlate with the c0-witnessed iron sights. I used a 1/2" Yankee Hill Machine riser, which put the dot just above the front sight. I took it to the range and was quite pleased with the results.

The sight is a relatively standard 1x red dot, with the additional feature of a variable-size dot. Sizes include 1, 4, 6, 8, and 10 MOA. There are 11 brightness settings, suitable for a range from low light to bright sunshine conditions.

A bit of commentary here about the dot sizes: I would have preferred an intermediate dot size between 1 and 4 MOA. I would have preferred dot sizes in 1, 2, 4, 8, and 10 or 1,2,4,6, and 10 MOA, as granularity in the smaller dot sizes is far more useful than with the larger sizes. While the 1MOA dot is suitable in most conditions, it gets difficult to see in very bright sunlight. The 4MOA is just a little big for precision, so a 2MOA would have probably filled the gap there.

Other than the missing 2MOA dot size, I don't have any complaints about the sight. I've put a couple hundred rounds through the gun since mounting it, and it appears to be holding zero nicely. It comes with 2 lens caps bungeed together to protect the optics when not in use. I'm going to see if I can find a set of flip-up caps that will fit it, as they seem more practical.

I'm going to try and get some shots of the reticle next time I'm at the range, so I'll see if I can get something posted soon to give you a good visual of the sight in use.

.223 Range Tests

2011-01-18T19:04:00.010-06:00

In previous posts, I've mentioned that I'd worked up some loads using Hodgdon Varget for the AR. From personal experience and from searching around on the internets, I've come to learn that Varget isn't really the ideal powder for this caliber. Results were OK, but both my 55 grain FMJ-BT and 70 grain Semi-Spitzer Soft Point loads have fallen short of what I'd hoped they would yield. I've read that Varget works relatively well for heavier bullets. The 70 grain loads I developed did perform better than the 55-grainers, but still not nearly as good as I wanted.

So I went and got a few powders to try out. I'd gone to the local gun shop in a rush after work to pick up some Hodgdon Benchmark and Ramshot TAC. Unfortunately, they were out of the former and didn't even carry the latter. At the suggestion of the clerk, I picked up some IMR 3031. He claimed it is good stuff for an AR, and it's "real clean". I grabbed a pound of it and made my way down to the register just before they closed the store.

Availability of load data for 3031 is a little thin, but there are loads in the IMR/Hodgdon/Winchester load data for the powder with both of my bullets, so I had a starting place. Still wanting to get the other two powders, I ran down to Cabela's and picked up a pound of the Benchmark and TAC. Benchmark seems to be made for .223 and similar rounds, and there's plentiful data out there for it. TAC is a little less common, and not all of my books have data for it. I'm primarily interested in TAC for a hunting load paired with the 70 grain Speer bullet, and I've read of others getting very good results with this pairing.

I worked up 55 grain loads for both Benchmark and 3031, and 70 grain loads for all three powders. TAC is supposed to be better for heavier bullets in .223, so I didn't bother with the 55-grainers using that powder.

So, I got everything ready to go to the range on Monday, got out there, and realized I'd left all of my workup loads at home with the exception of the TAC. Dammit.

To assist in my reload testing, I'd gotten a Caldwell Lead Sled Solo. I have also put a Nikon Monarch VSD on my rifle, of which I'll give my initial impressions in a post soon. I also used my Shooting Chrony Gamma Master to check the velocity and consistency of the loads. Once I got used to the lead sled rig, I ran through my TAC workup using 3" black bullseyes at 50y. My test workup used 5 rounds for each charge weight, and grouping was quite good. All groups were within 1.5", with some coming in well under an inch. This is using a 1x red dot, and I think these loads would have given even better grouping had I used magnified optics. I did the workup on the conservative side, and the lower end came in at 2369fps, not the ideal velocity for a hunting round. Ramshot's numbers should indicate that load at more like 2700fps out of a 24" barrel, which is a bit too much loss going out of a 16" barrel to think that barrel length is the only factor. I have a feeling they're taking the Hornady approach and over-stating their loads to keep people from loading too hot. I'm going to redo this workup, shifting to the higher end of their recommended loads to see what that produces, possibly this weekend along with the rest of the workups I forgot at home.

Since I had lots of time and no workups to test, I decided to test some of the factory loads I had on hand.

First up: UltraMax .223 62 grain FMJ. This stuff has been showing up in the gun shops at a very affordable price. It is commercially reloaded ammo using Lake City and WCC 5.56 brass. I took this stuff out to the range last trip as well, and was disappointed at the performance using iron sights and no support. I thought I'd test it out on the lead sled using the red dot to see what I could get out of it. Results were still disappointing. Pictured below is what I got on an 8" Dirty Bird target at 50y. I ran this through the chronograph as well, and quickly found that this was some seriously inconsistent stuff. Extreme Spread was nearly 300fps! At the price, this is good stuff for plinking around at steel in relatively close courses, but definitely not something you want to use if accuracy or consistency is important.

Next up, I tried my Winchester 55 grain FMJ-BT handloads using Varget (since I still have a bunch of them) to see what they gave me. Grouping was OK at around 1.75", but like I said - not good enough for what I want.

My last trip to Cabela's, I noticed they had some S&B 5.56 55 grain "M193" ammo on sale for $8.99. I picked up a few boxes to see how they'd run. While not nearly as spread out, grouping was not much better than the UltraMax mentioned above. Velocity variation and clustering was much better though, so this may have been in part my fault. Right around this time I realized my riser picatinny rail had worked itself loose (DOH! All my fault, really - my home allen bit kit apparently lacks a 7/64" size, so I'd gingerly tightened the bolts on with pliers at home), so that likely had to do something with it. I got vertical grouping of around 3", but horizontal grouping was only around 1.5". I borrowed an allen wrench from someone else and got my rail all tightened up. I'll have to give the ammo another whirl on the lead sled and see what it does.

Next came the surprise of the day, PMC Bronze. This is another 55 grain load in .223 that was on sale at Cabela's for $8.99. I grabbed a few boxes to test out, and figured I'd put them through rifle just to see how they did. Being cheap ammo to start with (it's only $9.99 when not on sale), I didn't expect spectacular results. I was quite surprised to see the target when I peered with the spotting scope. There's one flyer there, but got a 1.25" grouping otherwise. Big surprise! I may be stocking up on this stuff for my non-reload plinking ammo in the future. I'll be interested to see how well the brass works for reloading.

And finally, there's the WWB Q3131A1 mentioned in an earlier post. As expected, this ammo performed quite well. Aside from one flyer, I got sub 1" grouping with these rounds. Excellent stuff, and this affirms my earlier comments that this is one very nice commercial plinking round. The shelves were bare of the stuff (and marked as a "Best Seller!") during my trip to Cabela's, so I'm apparently not the only one that thinks highly of the stuff.

Anyhow, that's all I've got for you right now. Expect an update in the near future with my initial impressions regarding the Nikon Monarch VSD.

GBC Secret Santa 2010

2010-12-21T22:05:00.005-06:00

You may or may not know that we had a Secret Santa gift exchange over at the Gunblogger Conspiracy. We all signed up and got our Secret Santas assigned by pdb, who organized the entire thing.

My Secret Santa's gift arrived today, just in time for the mass (dis)organized opening in IRC. My Secret Santa was ArcticElf, who sent me an Orlite AR magazine especially to induce misfeeds for failure drill purposes, and included 6 .223 snap caps as well. In addition to the magazine, ArcticElf included a MagPul B.A.D. Lever for my AR. This is an extension for the bolt catch release, designed to allow operation using the right hand. Also included was a personal note explaining the magazine and its purpose, with a warning *not* to use it for serious purposes. Behold:

The text reads:

John,

The enclosed AR-16 magazine is quite possibly one of the worst ever produced. On any given day it can be relied upon to cause almost any imaginable malfunction, as a result it makes an excellent training aid for the AR platform and provides plenty of practice clearing various jams and malfunctions. Adding dummy rounds will only make this worse.

Please do not use this magazine for anything serious, I cannot stress its unreliability enough.

Good luck and happy training.

Merry Christmas,

ArcticElf

Thanks to both pdb for organizing the exchange and ArcticElf for the gift. I look forward to doing this again next year!

Awesome New Photo Tool - Hugin

2010-12-16T19:37:00.010-06:00

I was trying to find a solution for a coworker today, getting a wide area of the office into a single photo. This was a daunting task, as the area needed to be covered was around 100 feet wide and only about 40 feet deep. I figured I could perhaps stitch several photos together and make a panorama. As you may know, I do not use Windows or Photoshop. I kicked the Microsoft habit back in 2oo1, and haven't looked back since. I use Linux exclusively as the platform for all of my computing needs, though I will occasionally utilize my wife's OS X desktop for the sake of convenience (it is the only desktop system in the house at present time).

I'd researched photo stitching software a few years back, and only found complex and inadequate guides to sortof putting photos together with The GIMP. I use The GIMP as my primary post-processing and editing program, and am quite happy with its performance. For the uninitiated, it is full-featured photoshop workalike with active development. It is open-source and it is free. Check the link above for more info.

However, this post is not about The GIMP. I took my photos and set about finding a way to stitch them together for my coworker. A short Google search brought me to Hugin. I run Debian Linux, and Hugin is included in the standard repositories. I installed the application with its requisite dependencies and suggested optional related packages. The entire install footprint ended up at a mere 60MB. I ran through the steps presented to me by the program, and waited a few minutes for it to process the images (five 12 megapixel images from my Nikon D90). The results were astounding. This application is so well-developed that I had an incredibly impressive image in TIF format in a matter of 5 minutes, and there was nothing manual about the process.

I got to my usual coffee shop this evening, and thought I'd play a bit with some 30 second time exposures of the outdoor porch area. I wanted to see how Hugin handled this, given the differences in exposure and color temperature in such an environment, as well as knowing that the darker shots were underexposed due to the limitations I imposed on the camera when capturing the images.

Here are the images I started with, scaled down to 1024 pixels wide (if you click on them) for your viewing pleasure:

I simply dumped these photos into Hugin for processing, and out comes this, after about 3 minutes on my single-core not-current-technology laptop:

The photo (if you click it) has been scaled to 2048 pixels wide and converted to png format, but otherwise no post-processing has been done. The resulting TIF image was 5989x2037 pixels.

This is one impressive piece of software. There are many options that I haven't taken a look at yet, but this is what it produces out of the box, choosing the "photometrics" (which I believe evens out the exposure) and "difference" blend mode. Kudos go out to all of the developers of this software. This has got to be one hell of a project to get such a complex piece of software working so elegantly.

Check out the project page at:

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

This is cross-platform software, and there are releases available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and FreeBSD. If you find this software as incredibly useful as I do, consider making a contribution to the project. There is a small link at the bottom of the home page for PayPal donation.

Brief Range Report - Winchester Q3131A1

2010-12-15T22:42:00.008-06:00

A couple of months ago, I bought some Winchester 5.56 ammo at Cabela's to try out in the new rifle. It was on sale for $9.99, so I figured I'd pick up several boxes. I'd kept it in the range bag the first session I took the rifle out.

I decided to see how it performed the next session (in late November), and was pleasantly surprised at the vast improvement in my group sizes from the AE223. I'd shot a couple of targets using the AE223 at the beginning of the session, and was less than impressed at the grouping I got. Shots were all over the target. I certainly could attribute some of this to my ongoing issues with shooting iron sights against black targets, but they still didn't seem to reflect the consistency of my sighting. It was so bad, I didn't bother keeping or taking photos of the targets.

I loaded up some of the Winchester rounds and put 10 rounds through one of the targets that I was shooting with the AE223, and saw an immediate improvement. I loaded up a full mag of 30 and put 3 shots through that same target, then decided to move on to a fresh target, pictured below.

Excluding the two fliers at 1:00 and 9:00, that is a 1.5" wide and 2" tall grouping. This ammo seems to shoot *very* well in my rifle, certainly better than my ability to keep the rifle steady on target. On that subject, I just purchased a sling for the rifle, which should vastly improve my ability to steady my shots and improve my consistency. Just trying out the sling at home, I can tell a significant improvement in my ability to keep the rifle steady. I look forward to using it at the range this weekend.

I've also been able to work out both the plinking and hunting rounds mentioned in my last post. I've loaded up 200 of the plinking rounds using Winchester 55 grain FMJ-BT bullets, so I can see how well they run in numbers. I've got 50 rounds of the hunting load using the Speer 70 grain semi-spitzer soft point, to get a good feel for the load and its characteristics at different ranges. It looks like I won't get a hog hunt in this year, but an early 2011 hunt is possible. Hopefully, I'll get to put this load to some practical use in the near future.

Hopefully, I'll have something new to write up for you after the weekend.

Rolling My Own...

2010-11-14T22:34:00.004-06:00

I've been meaning to get a reloading post up for almost a year now. I just happened to be working up some .223 loads for the AR, so now seemed as good a time as any.

My reloading journey started 11 months ago, when I was given a Lee 50th Anniversary reloading kit by my mother-in-law as a Christmas Gift. I'd been working towards getting into reloading for some time, but had never got around to getting outfitted yet.

I started my foray into reloading with 9mm, as that's the caliber I get the most range time with. I've since developed several loads, using Blue Dot, Power Pistol, and Titegroup.

With .380 so difficult to find and expensive when you did find it last year, I decided that .380 would be a great way to save some serious money reloading. I've found, using recovered brass, that I can put together a box of 50 rounds of .380 for $5.84 in component cost. It's a great thing to not be held hostage to the poor selection and high prices of factory-loaded .380. If I need .380, I can simply load some up and have it ready whenever I need it. Not only that, but I've been able to tune my loads for accuracy, and am able to make groups I never thought possible out of my Ruger LCP.

Today was my first time reloading rifle cartridges. This is a somewhat more involved process than loading handgun rounds. Case lube is required for resizing, powder is manually funneled into each case in the loading tray (there is no expanding die to put the powder through with rifle rounds), and bullet seating is a little more tricky if you're not using boat-tail bullets.

I managed to get two sets of loads worked up, one as a standard 55 grain FMJ-BT plinking round, where I'm going strictly for accuracy. The other is a hog/deer hunting round, built with the Speer 70 grain Semi-Spitzer. I'll have to see how these run through the AR, as it has a 1:9 twist rate. From my reading on the subject, this may or may not be enough to stabilize a 70 grain bullet. The Speer website claims 1:10 or better is sufficient for stabilizing this bullet, so I think I should be good to go. We'll see when I try them out.

If all goes according to plan, I'm going to hit up the range tomorrow with the chrony in tow and see how these loads run. Hopefully, I'll have an update for you tomorrow night with the results.

AR Build - Range Report

2010-11-01T14:12:00.005-05:00

After successful completeion, I took the AR out for its inaugural range session yesterday. I went to Best of the West Shooting Sports in Liberty Hill, the same range used for the LaRue Tactical range day event earlier in the month. The short-range rifle spots are 50, 100, and 250 yards. I wanted to zero the rifle for 200 yards, and 50 yards is at about the upward trajectory intersection of zero for a 200 yard zero AR, so I decided to run at that range. Unfortunately, all of the 50y target boards were in use, so I hung around and talked to the Range Officer and some other guys having a conversation until some space cleared out.

Finally, space did clear up, and I stapled up 3 8-inch "Dirty Bird" targets in a vertical row. I loaded up some of the American Eagle "Tactical" AE223 55grn FMJ rounds I picked up on sale at Cabela's into one of the PMAGs, and chambered a round.

To be honest, the first shot was quite anti-climactic for me. I went with the heavy barrel for several reasons, one of which was to keep movement and rise to a minimum for faster followup shots. This was much more effective than I anticipated, and my first impression of recoil was more akin to that of my Marlin 60 than any centerfire rifle I'd ever fired. Nonetheless, it was quite satisfying to shoot a gun that I'd put together with my own hands for the first time.

On to zeroing in the rifle, after several shots I finally figured out that I was hitting the dirt about 18 inches both high and right. I adjusted my windage and elevation, and finally started getting my hits on paper. I went through about 70 rounds getting zero and checking consistency. This was compounded by the fact that I was sighting with a flat black front sight against a black target. I'm considering tipping my front sight with bright white or perhaps a flourescent green to solve this problem. Please feel free to give suggestions or advice in your commentary.

Anyhow, I finally got a 2.5" group in my last string of 20 shots on the zero target, so I moved on to a clean target. I'm a bit disappointed in the size of the grouping, but I'm pretty certain this is related to the black-on-black sighting issue. Excluding the flyer outliers at 12:00, 9:00, and 6:00, this is a 3.5" group. I think that once I remedy the sight issue and get more accustomed to AR iron sights, I can easily cut that into less than half.

As an aside, I'd like to make positive mention for the Best of the West Shooting Sports range. This is a great place with a great staff. During my zeroing, my front sight tool broke off all its prongs, and I was stuck. The Range Officer happily offered up his tools for me to use, and I was able to finish my vertical adjustments and finish zeroing the rifle. What's more, is that I went through 100 rounds of .223, but came back with around 350 cases. Not only does this range encourage you to pick up your own brass, they're quite happy if you pick up brass left by other shooters as well. This is in stark contrast to the policies of most ranges who claim your brass as their own as soon as it touches the ground. I've got the cases in the tumbler right now, and hopefully I can crank out a couple of batches of .223 sometime this week. I need to develop some hog-hunting loads using the Speer 70grn semi-spitzer bullet sometime in the next month.

The gun performed well, though I did hit one hiccup in the middle of zeroing. Over the period of about 40 rounds, the trigger pin walked itself to the right side of the receiver, completely detaching from the left. This became evident when a trigger pull did nothing. I cleared the gun and pulled the upper off, and was able to fix the problem quickly. My best guess is that I pushed the pin past the detent during assembly, so that the spring was not able to retain it in place. The problem did not repeat itself for the next 6o rounds, so I think this was a simple assembly fluke. I'll take a closer look at it sometime this week to be sure.

AR Build - Completion!

2010-10-28T22:23:00.005-05:00

My final shipment of parts for the AR built arrived today. It took a couple of weeks of waiting this time around, as RRA did not have my barrel in stock and were waiting on it before shipping out my order. The UPS tracker showed it as delivered to the doorstep this morning, so I came home for lunch to pick it up and bring it inside.

I couldn't help myself, and immediately started assembling the rifle. I didn't have time to completely finish, but did pull off the front sight housing/gas block, removed the unnecessary triangular handguard cap, and replaced the barrel nut with the special one that came with the handguard. The most difficult part of this process was removing the pins for the sight housing/gas block. All of the guides I'd gone though had tapered pins, but RRA uses dowel pins on their equipment. Once I got that figured out, the pins were easy enough to punch out, and then everything slid right off.

I got the barrel on just tight enough to stay put and threaded on the handguard and sight housing/gas block to get a look at it and a feel for it. It was quite satisfying to feel the heft and solidity of the gun, even when not completely assembled. That's all I had time for, so headed back to work and wait for the day to be over.

At the end of the work day, I rushed home and immediately started the rest of the assembly. I started by pulling the upper receiver off and sticking it in the upper action vise block (money well spent) and tightening down the barrel nut. Most sources I've found recommend 30 pounds of torque plus whatever it takes to get the holes in the nut aligned to allow the gas tube through into the receiver. Most sources I've found say 30-40 pounds should be about right, and that about 30 pounds of torque is optimal for best accuracy. The guide that came with my handguard recommends 35 pounds. Unfortunately, the holes don't line up on my barrel nut between 30 and 40 pounds of torque. I found that it was either 12 pounds or 50 to get the holes to line up, so I went with 50. I did a little more googling, and it seems 50 pounds is within acceptable range for the barrel nut, so all is OK.

I then threaded on the handguard, got it aligned, and tightened down the nuts that clamp it in place. Next came one of the more tedious parts of the build: pinning the gas tube into the sight housing/gas block. This is a roll pin, and is quite difficult to get started. I see why Brownells makes a front sight bench block to work on these kinds of things, as keeping the sight housing stationary on a flat surface while tapping in the roll pin is quite challenging. It took me quite a while to get the pin started, but getting it fully seated after that was a cinch.

Once the gas tube was attached, I slid the sight housing/gas block and on and got things aligned. Next up was to re-pin the sight housing/gas block. This was a bit of a challenge, and I ended up setting the upper on the floor and putting the sight housing on top of a 2x4 I had handy, then carefully tapping the dowel pins back in. Again, the front sight bench block from Brownell's would have made this much simpler. Once this was done, I installed the front sight detent/spring and post. This is very straightforward - just put the spring and detent in its little hole, then thread the sight post into its hole. Once the post starts hitting the detent, use a sight tool to screw the post down further until it's flush in the housing.

Next up was the flash hider. This is pretty straightforward to install. Brownell's video on this is quite helpful. I got the flash hider on hand-tight against the crush washer, and then rotated it about 270 degrees until it was aligned correctly. This was by far the easiest part of today's assembly. My AR wrench actually has a slot specifically for this, so no new tools were required.

The last and most tedious part of assembly was the sling swivel. as simple as this sounds like it should be, there's very little room to get a backing on the rivet in order to mushroom it with a punch on the other side. I tried several different methods, and what I ended up doing to get it to work was gingerly place the back of the rivet on the corner of my vise jaw, to give it as solid base. I hammered away at the top end of the rivet, and it mushroomed up nicely. Oddly enough, the Brownell's videos don't specify how they back the rivet, and whatever they use is not shown in the video. I'd be curious to hear how other folks accomplish this.

And so, my rifle is complete! I won't be able to get to the range until Sunday, but that will give me time to get it lubed up and to check it with the headspace gauge.

This has been an exciting process, and I'm very glad that I went the build route for my first AR. I'm quite satisfied with how the gun has turned out, and am itching to get her to the range. I should have a range report for you in the next couple of days.

LaRue Tactical Range Day

2010-10-17T18:03:00.004-05:00

LaRue Tactical, a local (Leander, Texas) AR manufacturer, had a range day at the new Best of The West range in Liberty Hill. LaRue makes very nice and high-quality equipment. I considered them as a supplier for parts for my AR build, but their prices are well above my budget for a rifle.

Anyhow, this was the first time they've put on this event, at the new Best of The West range in Liberty Hill. The range just opened a couple of months ago, and I've heard some overwhelmingly positive reviews about the place.

It is the only range of its kind anywhere near here. They've got 400 acres of land with a 1000yd rifle range, 8 tactical shooting bays of varying sizes for running and gunning drills, 2 skeet fields, 2 trap fields, and a pistol range. They've also got RV hookups and plans for a 3D archery range and courses. The place seems to be made specifically for practical training and competition. It's as if someone finally listened to the shooting community and built a range to fit our needs.

LaRue provided guns, ammo, and food free of charge to the public. There were several shooting stations with different caliber guns and different styles of shooting (prone, standing, supported with a barrier, etc). I ran into some coworkers, so we hung out and shot stations together.

If I had to guess, I'd say something like 2000 people showed up yesterday. The event ran from 10am until 5pm, but I didn't show up until a little after 2pm. Folks I've talked to who went earlier in the day report very long waits (over an hour) for just about everything, including food. By the time I got there, the wait for different shooting stations was 20-30 minutes.

If LaRue makes this a recurring event, they would do well to beef up the stations with more places and have more staff available to ease the wait times. It seems like turnout was far above any expectations, so the LaRue folks were simply overwhelmed with the number of people there. Despite all that, they made the event a great one. I certainly had a great time shooting their guns. My only regret is that I didn't have time to shoot all the stations, especially the prone distance shooting station they had set up.

My favorite gun of the day was the 7.62 OBR with a Trijicon ACOG on top (pictured above). It was a really sweet shooter, and made accurate shots easy. I really dug the caret-shaped ( ^ ) red reticle in the ACOG. Thanks go out to everyone from LaRue who made this event possible. I look forward to attending again if this becomes a recurring event.

AR Build - Handguard

2010-10-06T20:48:00.006-05:00

I've got an incremental update today, as my handguard arrived from Rock River Arms. So to have something to show you between now and the next shipment and completion of the rifle, I loosely threaded on the barrel nut and handguard.

Installation is pretty straightforward. The handguard comes with a special barrel nut that's threaded on the outside. Once the nut ins installed as normal with the barrel, then the handguard threads onto the outside of the nut. Once in position, two allen bolts clamp the handguard in place on the barrel nut threads, and presto!

The barrel assembly, gas tube (and pin), front sight post/spring/detent, sling swivel (and rivet), flash suppressor, and crush washer will be ordered tomorrow. It should all arrive in about a week, as long as everything is in stock. I'm getting close!

AR Build - Upper Receiver/Bolt Carrier Group/Charging Handle/Rear Sight Install

2010-10-01T01:21:00.009-05:00

My upper receiver, bolt carrier group, and charging handle arrived 2 weeks ago, I just never got around to taking photos and making a post about it. I decided to make this post a combination of those items plus the rear sight, which is probably good because a post only about installing a rear sight sounds a bit boring.

I also ordered some tools to aid in the rest of the build, as they're pretty necessary beyond this point, especially for the barrel, handguard, and associated bits . I got a set of vise blocks, for both the upper and lower receivers. In addition, I ordered a front sight tool (the screwdriver handle type), a headspace gauge, a bolt catch punch, and some aluminum black for the small scratches I made at the front of the bolt catch pin channel the first go around. I also stopped by Harbor freight and picked up a clearance sale bench vise for a cool $6.

First order of business was to replace the bolt catch pin. I do realize that it is not absolutely necessary to build an AR, but the lower receiver vise block (in a vise) makes installing the magazine catch (and pretty much any other work on the rifle) immensely easier. I popped out the old mangled pin, started the new one in, lined everything up, and presto! What took me 20 minutes to do improperly the first time took me a brief 2 minutes the second time around, done properly. I swabbed on the pale blue transparent Aluminum Black onto the scratches. The bits of shiny silver turned black before my eyes, and were completely gone within a few minutes. That aluminum black is neat stuff.

The receiver/bolt carrier group/charging handle require very little in the way of assembly. The biggest challenge was getting the charging handle in just right to ride in the channel. After that, the bolt carrier group slides in behind it, and that's it. I'm learning during this process that the AR is a cleverly simple design. Things go in only one way, and retention is as simple as possible.

Once put together, I installed the upper reciever on the hinge pin, lowered it down and closed the takedown pin, and WA-LA! It seems to me that the most difficult part of assembly is installing the barrel and (because it's free-floating) the handguard. The barrel will be a full assembly, but will necessitate a dissassembly due to the fact that (a) the barrel nut has to be changed out, and (b) the handguard requires the removal of the front sight/gas block for installation.

And that brings us to the arrival of my rear sight today. I ordered the Matech 600m BUIS (Back Up Iron Sight) from Botach Tactical, as they've got it on sale for about $50. I'm a fan of small apertures (My Mosin-Nagant 91/30 has aftermarket aperture sights, and I've swapped the aperture inserts for the smallest ones available), so this sight seems well-suited for me.

I installed the sight onto the rearmost slot of the picatinny rail per the instructions. Funny thing about the instructions - they dont' say how to get the sight flipped up from its folded position. I poked, prodded, pushed, and pulled everywhere I knew how. The internet is scarce on instructions of how to do this as well. Doing a Google search, I only got as far as "matech si" before the first option in autocomplete became "matech sight instructions". Apparently, I'm not the only one who has been confused by this. I eventually found a reference to flipping the sight up with your thumb (as opposed to the folks who sell these and call it "one touch operation").

So, for those of you out there finding this page in a desperate search to figure out how to flip up your Matech sight, here it is: just pull up on it. It is held down by some sort of stiff detent, and requires considerable pressure to release. I guess this is good, since you don't want the thing to pop up in the middle of your vision during a firefight. It would be helpful if the manufacturer actually told you how to do this, though. The instructions that came with my sight start off with rail installation and jump directly into zeroing it in.

That's all I've got for you for now. The handguard is on order, and should arrive within a week. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do anything with it until the barrel, gas tube, and associated fiddly bits arrive. I figured it was better this way - if I'd ordered the barrel first, It would drive me nuts knowing that all it needed was the handgaurd.

AR Build - Buttstock/Buffer Install

2010-09-03T19:29:00.009-05:00

The Big Brown Truck Of Happiness arrived today with my latest shipment from Rock River Arms. In addition to the buttstock/buffer, I also ordered a selection of magazines to see what I liked.

I ordered the Milspec Tactical CAR Buttstock, which is simply a standard M4-style collapsable stock. The install was very straightforward and simple. I followed the Brownells instructions, but opted for blue Loctite on the buffer tube threads instead of staking the castle nut. I got to use my AR-15 Armorer's wrench for the first time, and I'm happy that I purchased it.

For the magazines, I ordered 2 of each type RRA offers - PMAG, standard milspec, and Fusil MIG-welded steel.

I am somewhat of a traditionalist, and I don't particularly care for the use of plastic in firearms in general. Even though the PMAGs get rave reviews, I was quite skeptical that they could be as good as steel magazines. After opening up and inspecting the magazines, it became evident to me that the PMAGs are not just a remake of an AR magazine in plastic. No, they are quite an improvement on the original design, and I can see why folks love them. The ridges and channels that guide the follower in the housing make it impossible for the follower to tilt. They are also considerably more solid than I expected them to be. I am looking forward to seeing how these magazines perform once the rifle is built.

When comparing the magazines, the Fusil mags have a nice solid feel to them, as well as a beautiful black finish. The reviews I've read online indicate that they're tough and durable. When compared to the mil-spec mags, they certainly seem to be worth the extra five dollars.

I'm unsure of what I'll be ordering for my next shipment, as the upper will pretty much need to be all there for any further assembly. It will likely include the bolt carrier group, as RRA currently has the chromed option on sale for the standard carrier group price.

AR Build - Lower Parts Install

2010-08-28T01:02:00.004-05:00

After week-long boondoggle of UPS mishandling my package, my lower parts kit finally arrived today.

I ran up to Harbor Freight to get some punches after arriving home. Apparently they do not carry roll pin punches at the North Austin location. I opted for a simple multi-size set of steel punches in black oxide finish (they also don't carry anything but a honking 5/8" punch in brass), along with a nylon/rubber mallet.

I had a hard time coming into this build figuring out exactly what I needed in the way of tools. Certainly there are armorer's sets for building an AR, but those are prohibitively expensive for the first-time builder. Here is what I have learned are the essentials for putting a lower together:

A Bolt Catch Punch
I learned this the hard way today, by ruining my bolt catch roll pin. If you look closely at the photo (you can click it to enlarge), you may be able to see the mangled end of my magazine catch roll pin slightly protruding from the rear of where it's supposed to be. This will have to be replaced with my next order of parts. An ordinary punch WILL NOT fit there, because the shank is centered in the punch, and the handle can't fit against the lower, parallel to the pin. These punches can be found from pretty much anyone who sells AR tools. Both Midway and Brownells have them available. The trigger guard roll pin is also the same diameter, so this punch can be used there as well.

A Nylon mallet
I picked one up from Harbor freight for about five dollars, but you can find them at all kinds of places, including Midway and Brownells. This is useful for using your punches, but also helps you finish off installing the trigger and hammer pins without marring the finish of your receiver and pins.

Punches
Specifically, 1/16, 3/32, and 1/8 inch sizes. While the 1/16 is not strictly necessary, It's nice for lining things up while you're working. The 3/32 is good for the trigger guard release, and the 1/8 can be used to get the mag release completely screwed in to the button.

Now, these are the things I found that were needed for a successful install. Here are the things I wish I'd had today:

A Vise and a Lower Receiver Vise Block
While you can put together your lower without these, there's only so many fingers you can use while holding the lower in your hand. A vise will keep you from making mistakes due to the distraction of holding the receiver. It will also allow more precise work. You can get a vise at any hardware store/mega home improvement mart. Vise blocks appear to be available from pretty much anywhere that sells AR tools, including Midway and Brownells.

A Pivot Pin Installation Tool
Installing the pivot pin spring and detent can be a pain, and one slip can send your detent flying across the room, never to be found again. I was able to avoid this fate with some finagling, but a purpose-built tool for this would have certainly sped things up and lowered the risk. Again, this can be found at places that sell AR tools, including Midway and Brownells.

So there you have it. My lower is mostly assembled, The buttstock (M4-style telescoping carbine) is already on order, and should arrive in about a week. Then, I move on to the expensive stuff. Everything besides the CMMG stripped lower is being assembled with parts ordered from Rock River Arms.

Thanks to aepilotjim and the rest of the folks from the GBC for their assistance in this endeavor. For a good guide to assembling your AR, check out the How To Build An AR-15 videos over at Brownells.

The AR Project Begins

2010-08-02T20:30:00.006-05:00

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Well, not quite a rifle yet, but it's mine. It's a CMMG stripped lower. I had my FFL order it from Midway USA, and it came in this morning. I'm going to be doing this build over a few months, and will document my progress here. Next on order will be the lower parts kit, and then the build process will begin.

My tentative plans are to build an M4-style carbine, with a 16" mid-length barrel/handguard configuration. I look forward to the build and documenting my progress here.

Road trip on the horizon...

2010-07-25T03:12:00.003-05:00

Christina over at Lucrative Pain has graciously invited nearly everyone she knows for a shindig at her place this coming weekend, including several of the bloggers (gunny and otherwise) I've been following for a good couple of years now.

Being a Friday night party and all, most in attendance will be relatively local to her area. Having missed Phlegmmy's Texas Gunblogger meetup early last year (due to lack of employment and therefore discretionary spending money at the time), I've decided I'm going to make this one. I'm told this is not a gunnie-only meetup, but general bloggers and even non-bloggers alike getting together for a party. I also figure it's the neighborly Texan thing to do, seeing as how she's only recently moved to the state. Also, I love road trips, and this will be the first of any significant distance in the truck.

I'm taking off of work midday, and it's something like a 5 hour drive up to her place. It just so happens that Dublin is located along my planned route, so I'll be stopping there to provide some premium Dr. Pepper for the party.

I'm looking forward to it!

Blogger, reloaded.

2010-07-24T02:07:00.003-05:00

I'd start off this post with some sort of apology for my absence, and promises that I'll do better to keep up with a more regular schedule... but I won't. I've been busy with life events and whatnot, and my downtime has been utilized for other purposes.

"What life events?", you ask?

Well, I got married. After 4 1/2 years (or thereabouts) of dating and engagement, we finally made the commitment of marriage to one another. I am glad to have done so.

Since the beginning of the year, I've picked up a couple of new activities to occupy my time.

First is reloading. For Christmas last year, I received a Lee 50th Anniversary Breech Lock Challenger Kit from my now Mother-in-Law. In short, this is a single stage reloading press (including all the fixin's except dies) with some pretty useful features. I started out with 9mm, as it's by far the caliber I shoot the most (and had collected the most brass for). I've since expanded to .380, .38 Special, and 9x18 (Makarov). I hope to add .45 ACP and .223 in the near future, but that depends on my acquisition of firearms in those calibers. An AR build is already in the works, which I'll document here as I go along.

I'll have several posts in the future about my reloading activities and experiences. Expect some to be bullet, powder, or caliber-specific.

Secondly, I've taken up fishing. I'm certainly not very good at it yet, but I've got friends to help me along. I really want a boat to fish in, however that requires storage space that a (non-bachelor) apartment simply doesn't provide. My bride tells me a house is required. I'll have to get cracking on that one. Anyhow, as I mentioned, I'm not terribly good at fishing yet. It's an enjoyable activity, and certainly beats sitting around the house.

I'm sure there's plenty I'm leaving out here, but that will have to wait until later. I'll try to get another post up later in the day.

Stoeger Condor Update

2010-03-14T01:19:00.004-06:00

Better late than never, I promised a followup post about my impressions about the Stoeger Condor.

I didn't get nearly the bird hunting in this season that I did last year, so I've only gotten a moderate amount of trigger time on the Condor. However, my latest experiences with the gun have been positive.

Starting late in the season last year, I switched my dove loads over to Remington ShurShot #7-1/2 shot. I found that this load more reliably takes birds and gives better pattern density than the cheap Winchester Super-X that you see on sale during the run-up to dove season. The biggest difference between these two is the Remington loads use 1 1/8oz of shot, while the Winchester loads only use 7/8 oz. That's nearly a 30% increase in shot when comparing the two. To me, the performance is certainly worth the slightly higher price.

Anyhow, I've had great results with the Condor with the few dove hunts I got in this year. Having only hunted dove with an 18" open cylinder previous to this, It took a bit of work to get myself adjusted to a 26" improved/modified pair of barrels. Later in the season when dove are fly further out and higher, this is certainly an advantage. I'm quite happy with the range I was able to make hits with the Condor. My only negative experience when dove hunting was when the doves were swarming above me just as I was reloading. Ejectors would have speed things up here, and I can certainly see their advantage now.

Most impressive, however, was its performance of the Condor hunting duck. I had the opportunity to go on my first wader hunt for wood ducks in the East Texas Piney Woods, and loved the experience. Range and accuracy was most impressive out of the Condor, shooting Remington ShurShot #2 (1-1/4oz) 3" steel. I was able to make a hit on a fast mover just above the trees, flying perpendicular to me. The steel patterned so well that I hit the neck of the bird and nearly shot it clean off, dropping it DRT.

I wish I had more photos to give you, but hunting in waders doesn't exactly lend to lots of photography. Next season, I'll be sure to have a quality point-and-shoot to bring along.

Opening Day...

2009-09-01T20:38:00.004-05:00

...of dove season, and I've got nowhere to hunt.

My friend and hunting buddy has control of a year-round hunting/fishing lease not far from town, and I've been hounding him about getting on it since last year. It's a great spot for dove, duck and the occasional hog, and has a sizable tank for fishing.

A spot came into question this year after one of the members of the lease hadn't contacted him for renewal. It came down to the wire and was looking good... but I found out today that the last member renewed. So, I'm back to hunting as a guest this year.

It's not all bad, though. My hunting buddy and I are hitting up the lease tomorrow, so we should get some good hunting in before the birds get too skittish. Also, my girlfriend's brother-in-law and sister recently moved back to town, and he's got some family land out east that's got good hunting on it. He has promised a weekend trip out there for some hunting this season. It's unfortunate that I won't be able to reciprocate with local trips.

The new Stoeger is going hunting with me tomorrow, so I should have a report and some photos to post here. I'll also be hitting up the skeet range over the weekend, so I'll have some decent trigger time with the gun before next week.

I finally got around to completing the hunter's education course this past weekend, so I'm now legit to hunt on my own, if I ever get the opportunity. I took the online written course, so only needed to take the 4-hour field course to get my certification. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the instruction. My course was taught by a TPWD volunteer named Sean, and it was obvious that he loved giving his time to help others become responsible hunters and conservationists. My hat's off to you, Sean.

The Stoeger Condor

2009-08-25T21:42:00.012-05:00

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I'd purchased a new shotgun while out of town in San Antonio. As some of you may already know, last year marks the first time in my adult life that I've gone hunting. It started out dove hunting with a coworker, and worked its way into duck hunting and finally a white-tail deer hunt.

While I did have a shotgun of my own for the hunts last year, it is not exactly suited for the purpose. I call this shotgun the EBS (or Evil Black Shotgun), and it's outfitted for a specific purpose: self defense. Sure, it can take a dove (and has, several times), but with no choke and an 18" barrel, it's outfitted for taking down two-legged critters at close range. Those of you who saw my last post will have read about my new shooter Jennifer firing one, with a photo as testament to the event. You will also see it (though somewhat obscured by a posterized inkblot effect) in my "Obamicon" post early on in the blog. I suppose it does need its own post, and I'll have to remember that for the future. However, today we'll be taking a look at my new shotgun.

So, for about the past year I've been wanting to get a proper bird-hunting shotgun. My previous job, as it were, left me very little money to put towards any purchases of significant price. In such a predicament, I made do with what I had and hunted dove with the EBS, or borrowed a shotgun for duck. Once I procured a decent-paying job, the possibilities opened up.

I had a several options jostling around in my skull, and slowly I began to narrow them down. While a pump-action shotgun is certainly economical and a very suitable weapon, I already have a pump-action and I'd prefer something more elegant.

I also crossed out semi-auto guns from my list for a couple of reasons. From my limited hunting experience, semi-auto shotguns are the biggest pain when it comes to stoppages or failures. Aside from short-shucking on pump-action guns (which is really a user error), every failure I've seen in the field (light strikes, hard jams, etc) have all been on semi-auto guns. I've also come to learn that if I don't hit the bird with the first two shots, I'm not going to hit it with the third. Capacity is nice on a defense gun, but I've decided two is all I need for taking out feathered critters.

This narrowed my search down to two options: Over-and-Under (OU) or Side-by-Side (SxS) double-barreled shotguns. Now, we've forayed into an area of the firearms industry that still leaves me wondering.

A little background on me first. I do not consider myself a cheap person. I appreciate quality and fine craftsmanship. I do, however, believe in the right tool for the right job. When that job is dirty, I don't wear my nice, new, expensive clothes to do it. Life is a balance of trade-offs, and luxury is never on my list of needs.

With that said, I'm going to talk about the double-barreled shotgun market - specifically why I don't understand the near-ubiquity of high-dollar guns. I have no problem with finely-crafted firearms and those who buy them. What I do not understand is why it is commonly percieved that a double-barreled shotgun is no good unless it's approaching $1000 or more on the price tag. I know it wasn't always this way. My dad has a 1930's production Stevens 16ga SxS shotgun that he bought when he was a teenager, and teenagers living on farms don't have piles of money to spend on shotguns.

Seriously, a break-open shotgun is the simplest you can get when it comes to a firearm. Why do we not have utilitarian double-barreled shotguns readily available from every manufacturer? In fact, none of the major manufacturers make inexpensive shotguns. Remington imports them from a Russian manufacturer called Baikal, but from my experience you're not going to find them at any major retailer, or even on the Remington website itself without some serious googling. As I said a couple posts ago, it's as if Remington is ashamed to put its name behind these guns.

Anyhow, there's a few options I've found when it comes to a utilitarian double-barreled shotgun, and none of are manufactured in the USA. I decided on an O/U, as that configuration seems to be better-suited for dual duty with skeet and bird hunting. My budget was set at $500 or less.

As mentioned above, Remington imports its Spartan series of guns from Baikal in Russia. I decided to avoid them partially on principle because Remington seems reluctant to put its name behind them, and partially because I wouldn't know where to buy one anyway.

Yildiz shotguns are imported from Turkey, and it appears that Academy Sports & Outdoors is the sole importer of these guns. I've heard relatively good reviews about them. I decided against these guns mostly because there is no dedicated firearms importing company associated with the brand, but rather a large retail box store.

TriStar Sporting Arms, from what I can tell, are also manufactured in Turkey, but do have a dedicated importing company, located in Kansas City, Missouri. I've seen them in a couple different retailers, but seem to be lower quality design and manufacture than I'm comfortable with. Also, the models I see in stores that run in the $300-$400 range seem to be absent from the website, similar to Remington's Spartan offerings.

The final option is Stoeger Industries. Stoeger is actually owned by Benelli, which is an encouraging fact in itself. Also a plus is that it has a nicely put-together website where you can find all the specifics of the guns that you see in the store. Also refreshing is that the company seems very up-front about its offerrings. Searching the website, you will find the specifics of each gun, with highlights on what each series does and does not include. The guns are manufactured in Brazil. I read many reviews on the gun, and they seemed to be mostly positive. The only naysayers I really came across were guys who insisted the guns weren't up to par for serious amounts of skeet shooting - as in the tens of thousands of rounds. Since I'm not buying this gun for competition shooting, I'm OK with that.

As you already know, I went with the Stoeger Condor. More specifically, I purchased the A-grade Condor in 12ga with 28" barrels. This model includes Improved and Modified screw-in choke tubes (one of each) installed. Sighting is done with a single brass bead.

For the $350 price tag, you get a low-frills, but well put-together gun.

The first thing I noticed when I assembled the gun was how very tight it was. Initially, it takes quite a bit of effort to open and close. I gave it a little gun oil, and it loosened up a bit, and I imagine it will become easier with use. Better tight than loose is how I see it. All the surfaces mate up beautifully.

The A-grade models lack ejectors, but rather come with an extractor instead. This means that after firing and opening the action, the shells are pulled out from the barrels far enough to be pulled by hand rather than automatically popping out.

This grade also uses a single-trigger mechanism that I've never seen before. When I first got the gun home and assembled, I tested the trigger in dry fire. The first pin fired just fine, but the trigger wouldn't set to fire the second barrel. Worried that I'd bought a defective gun from a store 100 miles away from home, I hit Google to see if anyone had experienced the same problem. Sure enough - yes. Apparently, the trigger mechanism uses the recoil from the first shot to set the trigger for the second. Weird, but as long as it works, I'm OK with it. Incidentally, you can get the trigger to set for the second barrel in dry fire by cycling the safety.

The Stoeger came along for my range session with Jennifer from the last post, and functioned just fine. I patterned it at 15 yards (see photo above, taken by the lovely Jennifer), and the loads I brought along look perfect for dove.

I'm quite satisfied with my purchase and the performance of the gun so far. If you're looking for an enexpensive O/U for basic shotgunning, I'd call this one a winner. Once I get some trigger time into the gun, I'll post another review on my experience.

New Shooter Range Report

2009-08-20T14:21:00.024-05:00

As promised, I've got a new shooter range report from this past Saturday.

Jennifer is a coworker of my girlfriend, and hadn't fired a gun since her preteen years. She has a nice little Browning Semi-Auto .22 Short given to her by her father when she was 12, and wanted to get back into shooting. My girlfriend referred her to me (apparently the tales of my gun-nuttiness reach far and wide), and we set up a range date. She had an interest in shooting different guns, so we planned on taking a selection of different guns for her to try out.

We met beforehand to go over safety rules and the operation of the different weapons. Unfortunately, she had managed to misplace a retaining spring for her Browning while assembling it at home, so it stayed behind for this trip.

The plan was to make a quick stop by Cabela's on the way to the range, on the off chance they actually had ammo, and failing that hit up Wal-Mart in Lockhart as a last-ditch effort to keep my 9mm stock from completely evaporating. Then, go to the range and have some barbecue in Lockhart afterward.

So we get to Cabela's, and the place is hoppin'. We find ourselves waiting for people to step out of the way to check the shelves. I get to the 9mm shelf and see the usual overpriced carry ammo but nothing else. Lo and behold, Jennifer spots some stacked 50-round boxes 9mm on the shelf behind me.

*INSERT HALLELUJAH CHORUS HERE*

It's Winchester, but a box I've never seen before. Upon closer inspection, it's marked as 9mm NATO. It looks like the Iraq stand-down put some excess 9mm stock on the market, and Winchester is selling it. We grabbed 6 boxes to add to the back of my rotation and also some 9x18 Silver Bear stuff for the PA-63. Still no luck on finding Estate #4B 12ga, though.

As Jennifer had never been to Cabelas, We took a bit of time so I could show her some of the scenery and the fish tanks, then headed out. By this time it was already 11:30, so we decided to head to town first and have lunch at Black's. Delicious.

We arrived at the range, she filled out the requisite first-timer paperwork, and got ready for some fun. The pistol bays were both a little busy, so we started off on the rifle range with the gun most similar to her Browning - the Marlin Model 60.

We went through the fundamentals of posture, sighting, and trigger control shooting 10" paper plates at 50 yards. She did quite well and we went through several magazines of .22LR.

Since I don't have an intermediate caliber rifle (yet), we stepped up to the next rifle - the Mosin-Nagant 91/30. Like every new shooter with a powerful gun, she got to learn about flinch. We worked on consistency and relaxing, and she put 2 magazines through the rifle before she was done with it - much longer than most new shooters will go with that gun.

By now, the pistol bays had mostly cleared out, so we headed over for some work in the moving/shooting and shotgunning bay. While waiting for the last shooter to clear out, we did a little bit of work with the Marlin again, this time at 25 yards. We used Dirty Bird targets, which give much better visual feedback on shots. Once we got the bay to ourselves and could move to handguns, we started out with the Walther P22, again shooting at paper plates from about 5 yards. We talked about stance, grip ergonomics, and bringing the sights to the eyes. She had taken the safety lessons to heart, and paid close attention to muzzle control and keeping the finger off the trigger until she was ready to shoot, as you can see below.

Several magazines later, we decided to try out the Hi-Power. She was quite surprised at the difference in report and recoil, but also found the Hi-Power more natural to shoot. We worked on some more Dirty Bird bullseye targets, improving her consistency and technique.

(Now that is a real Texas woman!)

After putting a couple of mags through the PA-63, we took a short break from handguns and moved on to a little bit of shotgun work. Also, I wanted to try out my new Stoeger, and this was a good excuse to do so. I had explained to her the purpose and function of the Knoxx SpecOps stock on the EBS before we left, but it's not really something you can appreciate until you actually try it out. We loaded up some 2 3/4" #4 Buckshot loads for a practical comparison. Jennifer was quite surprised at the tameness of the recoil on the EBS, and that impression was affirmed when she tried out a round with the Stoeger as a comparison.

We moved back to handguns for a while and tried out the Ruger LCP. This is not a gun I go into a range session expecting a new shooter to put more than a magazine through. It seems like most folks don't like it, with the small grip and significant recoil. Personally, I could shoot all day with it, if I could (1) find and (2) afford the ammo for it. For some reason it fits in my hand like it was made for me. I only know one other person who likes shooting the LCP - an occasional shooting buddy from a gun forum. Well, I now know two - Jennifer actually liked working with the LCP.

We did a little more work with the Hi-Power, and then did clean up, gathering a couple of take-home targets. Unfortunately, I forgot to do my normal new-shooter smiley target photo, so I'll just have to make do with a happy trigger time photo instead.

Hiatus, inturrupted.

2009-08-14T11:36:00.006-05:00

I apologize for the dearth of posts for the past 2 months. After acquiring gainful employment with an awesome company, I've been acclimating to my new work environment and schedule. All of this job searching and orientation has left me with little time for creativity in the way of food, photography, or guns.

More specifically, on the gun front (the biggest focus of this blog), I've been on a tight budget due to prolonged unemployment, not wanting to put myself completely out of money prematurely. Imagine my irritation once I had money again to find that there is no range ammo to be purchased, unless you're shooting 7.62x39, .223, or a more obscure caliber. As I shoot mainly 9mm (and to a lesser extent .380) in my handgunning sessions, I'm out of business.

Wanting to get a range session in a couple of weeks ago, I searched my local big stores (Wal-Mart, Academy, Cabelas) without success. I finally broke down and went to the range with the 2 boxes of 9mm I had remaining. I couldn't bring myself to deplete my stock further, and grudgingly paid the $20 for a single box of Blazer Brass at the range. I rotated it into my stock and used a box of Monarch instead. I also tried some .22LR rounds from the one bulk box I was able to find, in a brand I've never tried and will be writing a review in the next several days.

As you may know from previous posts, 50 rounds is simply not enough to get back up to speed when I haven't put in range time in months. My range therapy didn't go so well that day. To add to my disappointments, my range has implemented a new rule that folks can no longer pick up spent brass. It seems that there were people abusing brass-pick-up policy and culling large amounts of brass they didn't shoot, so now no one is permitted to pick up spent brass. The only way to police your brass now is to put down a blanket/sheet or employ a brass-catcher of some sort. Neither are practical options when it comes to moving and shooting sessions, so I'm screwed out of my brass until I can figure out some other arrangement.

Things aren't all bad, though. I've been out of town for work, and visited a Bass Pro Shops for the first time. My first impression was that the place was exactly like Cabelas, down to the lanterns indicating a checkout lane is open. After walking around the store, I noticed a couple of key differences. First, there is a better selection of goods. As an example, when compared to the Cabelas in Buda, there's about quadruple the number of duck calls availble. Secondly, Bass Pro Shops is cheaper - and from what I can tell, this is pretty much across the board.

As hunting season is coming up, I've decided that it is time for me to purchase a proper bird shotgun. While the EBS will work, it's certainly not purposed for hunting - what with the lack of a choke and having to deal with that silly foot-long plug. So... I'm off to Bass Pro on my way back to Austin to buy a Stoeger Condor. I realize that my choice may disappoint some of you die-hard shotgunners. I honestly cannot understand why the common belief is that an Over/Under shotgun, one of the simplest designs possible, needs to command a price tag of over $1000. Hey, I can certainly understand and appreciate the quality of a finely-crafted firearm. What I can't understand is the reluctance of manufacturers to produce utilitarian-grade O/U shotguns. Were I a competition shotgunner or a prolific hunter, a $1000+ price tag would certainly be understandable. But I'm not. I shoot skeet a few times a year and go bird hunting only a bit more frequently than that.

Remington has actually put its name on a line of inexpensive shotguns and rifles (including an O/U) called Spartan, but it seems almost as if they're ashamed of it. They import them from a Russian manufacturer, and you won't find any detail or pricing info for the line on the Remington website; It took a Google search for me to even find them, as they're not listed in the normal product navigation menus. So... inexpensive O/U shotguns are currently made by a small niche of companies, Remington (who is afraid to really own the line), Yildiz (Turkish guns who seem to only exist at Academy), and Stoeger - which is owned by Benelli. All things taken into consideration, the Stoeger Condor appears to be the best choice for me.

Also in good news, I've got a range session with a coworker of my girlfriend. She's got an old Browning .22 Short that her father gave her when she was a child, and hasn't been shooting since those days. I'll be bringing a sampling of rifles, handguns, and shotguns for her to try as well. I'll have a range report to follow.

And with that, I'm off to go purchase my new Stoeger.

UNIX Humor

2009-05-20T18:17:00.004-05:00

WARNING: GEEKY HUMOR AHEAD. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I don't show it a lot here, but I am a geek. I do UNIX systems administration work, and if you don't know it yet, those who work with UNIX have a special humor when it comes to their work. You can find evidence of this in the source code comments of just about any independently-developed open source software project. Running a grep -Ri [enter your choice of colorful word here] * in the Linux kernel source tree for example, will present you with a long list of interesting and exciting commentary on the code or hardware the programmer was working with. This will provide hours of entertainment for the right kind of geek. My personal favorite was a comment, probably typed out of frustration, by whomever was writing kernel code for the Sparc platform eons ago. Sadly, that part of the kernel appears to have gone away in the more recent 2.6 versions. I actually went and downloaded a 2.4 kernel just now to find it. I won't post it here verbatim, to keep the blog family-friendly, but it involves tender intimate relations with a chainsaw. For those of you geeky enough and curious, it's located in arch/sparc/kernel/ptrace.c of the 2.4 source tree.

Anyhow, some of this humor will occasionally spill over into error messages seen by sysadmins like yours truly. I came across one today that had me laughing out loud. Part of my duties of recent involve getting some of the servers to keep proper time, implementing ntpd to accomplish the task. The internal clock on the particular server I was working on had drifted forward a bit since it was last synchronized, so I ran ntpdate to get it current. Some software isn't written to handle a backwards time shift, and I soon found out that this was the case with our ssl-enabled POP and IMAP daemon. It had crashed when I changed the time, and since I wasn't yet very familiar with the server, I had to go and figure out which daemon I needed to restart. A quick check of the logs informed me that it was dovecot, so I went and started the service up again. Now, the nice developers of dovecot added the handy feature that if the service crashed previously, the error message indicating the likely cause will be printed out for you when you start it back up again. I also found that the dovecot developers have a sense of humor. And apparently, dovecot is emo.

Behold:

[root@mail ~]# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/dovecot start
Starting dovecot.
Warning: Last died with error (see error log for more information): Time just moved backwards by 418 seconds. This might cause a lot of problems, so I'll just kill myself now. http://wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards

I'll leave you with that. :)

Search Engine Shenanigans

2009-05-19T22:24:00.004-05:00

Taking a cue from Marko over at The Munchkin Wrangler, I thought it would be fun to compile some of the interesting search terms that lead people to my blog. I can't fathom the amount of traffic Marko gets in order to compile such an awesome list of search terms WEEKLY, as it has taken me since January to get what I have below. Even with all that time, my search engine hits can't compare to the awesomeness he gets. This will definitely not be a weekly thing - more like every few months. It is fun, though.

overheard in austin

This is the most popular search result in my logs. People who got to my blog via this search end up at this post. The origins of the "overheard in" sites come from the blog titled "Overheard in New York", a collection of funny, interesting, and disturbing quotations overheard and submitted by folks going about their daily lives in New York City. It has produced a number of copycat sites featuring various cities, but I'm unaware of a site specifically dedicated to conversations "Overheard In Austin", rather there seem to be only smatterings of blog entries on the subject, such as mine.

"open carry california!"

Being that you can only open carry an unloaded gun, the magical buffer zones surrounding the areas that are "protected" from such an activity are ridiculously large, and the fact that California has some of the more ridiculous gun laws in the country, I'd say it's more trouble than it's worth. Then again, pretty soon the state won't have the money to pay for police to arrest you for doing so anyway, so perhaps it won't matter. I'm not going to knock anyone that wants to do it, I just don't see the point.

Actually, I'm aware that this is actually the name of someone's blog. I have no idea how a google search for that term landed someone over here. I don't recall ever discussing open carry or California.

against gun control

Yup.

all i really need you in my life

This sounds like either a gospel song, or an emo cry for help. I haven't decided which it's more likely to be yet.

blackhawk shotgun cheek rest pad shell holder reviews

If you're referring to the BLACKHAWK! PowerPak made specifically for the SpecOps Stock... It functions well. I have no need for the high pad, as I don't have optics or rifle sights mounted to my shotgun. The low pad is really just some thin plastic over the top of the stock (like a saddle) that holds everything else on. It is the perfect height for using bead sights with the SpecOps, much better than the stock that came with the 870. The PowerPak includes a 5-shell saddle and a small cylindrical watertight container on the opposite side, supposedly for spare batteries for your mounted light or something. I have no real need for the little compartment, and haven't found a use for it yet. If I ever want to keep something quite small from getting wet while toting my shotgun, then I'm ready.

browning hi power argentina matte finish

Yeah, that's pretty much the only finish they come in.

clothing that i really need blog

Well, that's not really what this blog is about, but I would suggest checking out 5.11 Tactical's line. I heartily recommend the Holster Shirt and the Tactical Shirt. Both are great for concealed carry, and the Tactical Shirt has many nice features, such as secret pockets and multiple places to stash a pen.

fm hi-power grip removal

It's the same as with any other Hi-Power. There are two screws about halfway up rear portion of the grip. Take those out, and it comes right off.

is that a pistol in your pocket

Yes. Yes it is.

liberals in austin

They are many, but they are not necessarily like those in the Northeast or West Coast. See the link in the first item on this list for more details.

model 444 ultralite 44 magnum revolver

The first gun I ever considered buying. I was cured of the urge by a good friend who directed me to something more sensible. Unless you have a very specific need for it or would like to bruise your hands and develop a serious flinch, you probably don't want to get one.

pachmayrs that fit feg pa-63

I'm not sure such a thing exists. Honestly, I'd take the money and put it towards getting a better gun. I love my PA-63 and all, but they aren't the most comfortable guns to shoot, and the slide bite tends to draw blood after a while, unless you have small hands. If it's all you've got, work on adjusting your grip, which helped me considerably.

what are the negatives with knoxx specops shotgun stock?

Compared to a normal shotgun stock, any pistol gripp long gun stock is going to be slower to shoulder from a normal carrying position. Many folks experience a loosening of the bolt that holds the stock to the receiver, though I'd venture to say that these folks probably didn't use the recommended blue locktite mentioned in the installation instructions. Beyond these two things, I can't think of anything negative about the stock. I absolutely love the thing.

who are you really?conclusion

Just a guy in Texas.

New Shooter Range Report

2009-05-10T20:52:00.007-05:00

I mentioned yesterday morning that I was heading out to the range with a young lady who has been a friend of the family for over two decades. We'd not talked much in the last couple of years, so when she said that we should do something together, I naturally suggested going to the range. She accepted, and told me about her only previous shooting experience with her then-boyfriend. It was reminiscent of some of the "What NOT to do" posts I've been reading recently. From her descriptions, he'd set her up with some sort of .40 S&W handgun, gave her no proper instruction, and let the recoil do the rest.

So we set a range date for Saturday morning, with barbecue to commence afterwards in nearby Lockhart (the barbecue capital of Texas). Saturday came, and I arrived at her family's house. We reviewed the Four Rules together again, and I with started a familiarity lesson in the use of the firearms I brought along for the day. A good hour and a half later, we prepared to head out.

She hadn't expected us to spend anywhere near the time we did working on safety and operation lessons, and as it was nearing noon by the time we approached Lockhart, we opted for lunch first. We picked Smitty's Market, and had a nice meal of brisket and pork ribs, topped off with cones of Blue Bell ice cream for dessert.

Once we were sufficiently stuffed full of meaty goodness, we headed to the range. We started out with the Walther P22 at a range of 5 yards, using paper plates as targets. Going into this, she'd let me know that she was afraid of guns mainly due to inexperience, and that her previous experience had not helped. Knowing that the best way to remedy such a problem was to provide a safe and fun shooting experience, I looked for a more secluded part of the range for better personal interaction.

Much to our benefit, it was a somewhat hot day and range traffic was sparse. We happened to come up just as the last CHL shooting qualification test let out, and got the entire bay to ourselves. We started at a relaxed pace, and assured her that I would be there to help her with anything and to answer whatever questions she had. We got our targets stapled to the boards and placed, and she took her first shot. The first piece of brass came back and hit her in the chest, reaffirming why I recommended not wearing an open-top shirt to the range. I'm glad I remembered that little piece of advice. She was obviously nervous, so we spent time discussing specifics of the guns and ammo, and what they do and do not do. Apparently the myth that guns just "explode" is alive and well. I explained what conditions would cause such a thing to happen, and than it is almost entirely an ammunition problem, most often associated with improperly loaded handloads or squibs. As time went on, she got a little more relaxed.

We moved on to shooting a Marlin Model 60 .22LR rifle at 10 yards. She found immediately that she liked the rifle much more than the pistol. Aim was much more natural (as I would expect), and her consistency improved the more she shot. We worked a bit with grip and stance, and moved on to working with the Browning Hi-Power. While the loud report and recoil was a bit daunting at first, she found that the larger and more complete grip made it easier and much more fun to shoot. After she was comfortable with the gun, I grabbed the camera and got some great shots with brass in the air, such as the one below.

Time flew by, and before we realized it, the time was nearing 5:00. It's a ways back to Austin, and it was election day for the local mayoral and city council elections (I needed to be back before the polls closed at 7:00), so I put up a couple of Dirty Bird targets to give her something to take home. She shot her favorite gun - the Marlin Model 60 - again from 10 yards, and got all 17 shots inside the 9 ring. We wrapped it up and headed back. She thanked me profusely for taking her out and having the patience to help her work through everything. It was definitely my pleasure. She had a great time and is already wanting to go out again, even arranging to bring her brother and sister along for the next trip.

Heading to the range.

2009-05-09T04:21:00.006-05:00

I've got some range time arranged with a family friend today. I've seen several posts in the past couple of weeks about guys who think it's funny to take their girlfriend to the range for the first time with little or no instruction, give her some hand cannon and let her beat herself up with the gun. My friend is one of these unfortunate ladies. What's worse, is that he knew full well that she was afraid of guns in the first place.

Fortunately, she's no longer involved with that bastard, and has the courage and will to take steps to overcome her fears. We're going to have a proper safety briefing and familiarization with all the weapons she will be potentially operating before heading out today. I've already tasked her with memorizing the Four Rules as her homework, so we've got a good start already.

We'll be starting out with the Walther P22 and Marlin 60, and move on from there if she's comfortable doing so. I took note of JayG's methods and went out and bought a package of paper plates - 80 for $2,59. Sure beats targets for cost. I am bringing along some "Dirty Bird" splatter targets, so she has something to take home and/or show off, but we'll start off with the plates first, for simplicity's sake.

I'll post a range day report this evening.

Blast from the recent past.

2009-05-07T13:40:00.003-05:00

A friend posted this 2003 IBM commercial recently. It's kind of creepy/eerie , especially the personification of Linux as a child. One of the things that might be immediately concerning are the somewhat socialist undertones.

There is, however, a distinct difference between the open source software movement and political socialism. Specifically, participation in OSS development is completely voluntary with the goal of creating something for the sake of meeting a need, or within capitalist structures - namely companies like IBM who benefit financially from its development on the whole. Open Source Software by its very nature is transparent, and anyone who wishes may modify it to fit a specific need or preference. Linux is a beautiful example of what can be created when a large community gets together with the aim to create something to fill a need without a corporate or government bureaucracy handing down edicts to benefit its own narrow goals of obtaining money and power.

Here's the video.

Status update and blogroll additions.

2009-05-05T15:35:00.006-05:00

I apologize for the lack of original posts as of late. I have been attending to the business of securing new employment, and simply haven't had time to do much here. The discussion in the preceding posts hasn't really progressed, simply because I haven't had time to pay attention to it. I may get back around to it eventually, but not right now. Too much to do. I have secured gainful employment once again, so once I normalize my routine, I'll get back to the serious business of writing new entries.

I've been collecting new blogs for a blogroll addition over the past couple of weeks, so I'm going to go ahead and post them here.

Confessions of a Gun Toting Seagull is the writings of a private charter pilot and fellow gunblogger conspirator, aepilotjim. I've been meaning to add him for a while, but the notion has always escaped me when I did blogroll addions in the past. Now that's remedied.

Brillianter.com has a lot of practical tips for self-defense and use of force. Good reading when you're thinking of "what if" scenarios.

Sipsey Street Irregulars - lots of good political commentary, gun-related and otherwise.

Shangrila Towers - a geeky fellow whose writings are interspersed between technical gadgetry, movies, music, and guns. Sitemeter informed me of my addition to his blogroll, and I was flattered at his description of my blog: "He posts less frequently than I do, but the posts are much longer and more detailed - nice for grabbing a mug of coffee and pondering.". Welcome to the blogroll, Mulliga.

ricketyclick is a good mix of political and gun-related content and interesting oddball entertainment pieces. Whee!

Ballistic Deanimation - an almost exclusively gun-related blog, with the occasional saddening or funny story regarding the state of society. Appears to have BOFH tendencies, which makes my SysAdmin self giggle.

Followup commentary on my last post

2009-04-29T17:36:00.005-05:00

There has been some extended discussion over in the comments section at Aunt B's blog. Dolphin has replied to my commentary, so I have posted a response there. I'm posting his response and my followup below, for your reading pleasure.

UPDATE: dolphin has once again responded, and so have I. Additional entries added below.

dolphin wrote:

John the Texaner,

For not wanting to make a partisan argument, you sure are trying your best to do just that.

You ask why there are no Texan cities on the list? Good question, why not any New York cities, or Maine, or Virginia, or Illionois, or Maryland? The reason is simple. Because it’s a list of 15. There are over 10,000 cities in the US (according to the 2000 Census, a little outdated I know), so it’s obvious that ALOT more will be left off the list than included on it.

I think you’re dismissing the very logical conclusion of higher population = higher crime rate, while jumping to embrace conclusions that are far more dubious. You can’t simply dismiss the correlation between population and crime on the basis that the 6th highest population missed the list. I’m not suggesting that high population is THE factor that causes higher crime rates. I’m suggesting that it is a major one that interacts with a near infinity of other factors.

If a person who is willing to rob my house is walking down the street in the city and sees a 50″ HDtV sitting in my living room through my window, I’m likely to get robbed. On the other hand, if the exact same person is walking down my street in the country, they are far less likely to walk an acre and a half to my house just to see if there might be something inside they want to steal. I don’t think they care whether I am “dependent on government assistance in their everyday lives,” it’s a matter of convenience.

Then of course the question is whether that person would be walking down my street in the first time. If, for math simplicity, we assume that 10% of the population are potential criminals, then in a town of 1000, there are only 100 people who I’d have to worry about, where as I’d have to worry about 10,000 in a city of 100,000. And because of population density, I’d be even more likely to come in direct contact with 1 or more of those 100,000 in the city.

All of these make far more logical sense in explaining higher crime rates than wild speculation on people’s political views or attitudes towards the government.

--------------------------

John The Texaner wrote:

dolphin.

As I noted at the beginning of my post, I was exploring Jim's suggestion that the violent cities were democratic-leaning. They were. I left that argument where it ended.

I do admit that I didn't look at all the specific reasons for why Forbes listed the cities as "most violent", and it's likely an over crime/accident indicator they're looking at. Reviewing it now, the list includes both violent crimes and property crimes such as theft and larceny - which don't seem to me to be an accurate indicator of "danger" as applicable in this discussion.

As a note, you will never find Chicago on any of these lists. The reason for this is that Chicago does not report rape to the FBI, making it impossible to calculate a comparison to other US cities with regards to violent crime.

If we want to get more specific, we can look at murder rates per 100,000 as an indicator. Forbes has another list of most Murderous Cities, and it is a top 10 list. You can find the article here, and get a rundown of each city by clicking the "In Pictures: America's Most Murderous Cities" link.

Detriot (47.3) still tops the list by far, followed by Baltimore (43.3), New Orleans (37.6), Newark (37.4), St. Louis (37.2), Oakland (36.4), Washington (29.1), Cincinnati (28.8), Philadelphia (27.7), and Buffalo (26.4).

Still no Texas cities in there, but only one in the "South", being New Orleans.

I'm not dismissing that large cities tend to have higher rates of crime. In fact, I said that I do agree that it is a factor. I should have phrased it better. Correlation does not equal causation, and that was the specific point I was trying to make. While crime is higher in larger cities, there are plenty of large cities that lack the level of violent crime of smaller cities, so it is obvious that other factors come into play. I believe societal attitudes towards crime are a significant factor, and this was the point I was trying to make.

As for your HD TV example, you missed my point. In a society where criminals have little fear of resistance to the commission of crime, crime will flourish. If conditions exist that make a burglar or robber more likely to meet armed resistance, logically the risks to the criminal are higher and the criminal will be less likely to commit a high-risk crime.

Taking this instance of robbery as an example and the two cities I cited earlier - Houston and Philadelphia, let's compare statistics. I'm pulling these stats from the FBI crime statistics for 2007, which can be conveniently found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate. Numbers are again per 100.000 in population.

Houston is a city of 2,169,544, with an instance of robbery of 529.

Philadelphia is a city of 1,435,533, with an instance of robbery of 715.

Despite its greater size and a significant influx of crime post-Katrina, Houston still comes in considerably lower than Philadelphia in robbery statistics.

I find it significant that a violent crime against a person is less likely in an environment where the possession of firearms for self-defense is considered the norm, as opposed to Philadelphia, where it is actively condemned by local authorities. The essence of my point here is not the guns, but the accepted societal norm of defending one's self, family, and home.

Guns are simply the best tools for accomplishing these aims when faced with criminal deadly force. They are tools of last resort, and an equalizer when push comes to shove in a life-threatening encounter.

As for your static example of 10% of the population to be flawed. While there is certainly a portion of the population that will be inclined to commit crimes, you completely ignore the social influence on the choice of an individual to pursue a life of crime. Where the personal risk and consequences of committing a crime are more severe, an individual would be less likely to pursue those paths. Were risk is low to an individual, the rewards may outweigh the possible risks involved, making criminal acts more attractive. If we want to talk in degrees of severity, one may find the low risk involved in petty theft more attractive than the high-risk robbery or burglary. When a population has been conditioned to offer no resistance to a criminal involved in a severe or violent crime, the low risk versus high reward in such an act transcends that of petty theft, and a criminal would be more inclined to commit the act.

To use recent international events as an example, we have a situation off the coast of Somalia where the violent act of piracy has gone almost completely unchecked. The risk in such a venture has become nearly zero, while the rewards of the crime are incredibly high. We have an environment where shipping companies and entire nations have written off the payment of huge ransoms as a part of doing business, and effectively encouraged Somali criminals to engage in acts of violent and organized crime. In the absence of risk and the presence of great reward, the crime of piracy has flourished.

--------------------------

dolphin wrote:

John, unless I’m severely misunderstanding you, you’re still basing your entire argument on speculation about people’s motivations, which you have no way of knowing. That and the fact that Houston doesn’t happen to appear on a few lists of 10-15 of 10,000+ cities.

Here’s your (apparent) assertions that I’d either outright dispute or at the very least argue that we need much more information before we could argue the validity of them:
1. Guns are the only way (or even the most effective way) one can defend oneself against a criminal.
2. There are a higher proportion of people who choose to pursue criminal activity in the city than in the country.
3. That there are a lower proportion of people willing to defend themselves in the city than in the country.
4. The notion that widespread gun ownership has a deterrent effect on crime.

And here’s the thing, I’m not a gun control proponent. Own all the guns you want, I’m just opposed to drawing really shakey conclusions on not enough information just because those conclusions might fit into your preconceived notions and agenda.

--------------------------

dolphin,

I'm basing nothing on motivations. I'm talking about social influence. I'll give you a very simple example:

A person may be motivated to break into my house and commit robbery or other heinous crimes against me and my loved ones. When I meet him with my shotgun ready to defend my family, I act to influence him to choose another path or pay the consequences of his choice to persist against me.

I chose Houston as an example because it is similar in size to Philadelphia, and provides a contrast in violent crime trends. I also chose it to provide a conservative example, knowing full well that Houston has a crime problem.. If I had wanted to make a drastic example with a closer population number, I would choose San Antonio instead. Here is a comparison of statistics between San Antonio and Philadelphia, with data taken from the FBI 2007 statistics that I referenced in my previous post.

Population:
San Antonio: 1,316,882
Philadelphia: 1,435,533

Murder (per 100.000):
San Antonio: 9
Philadelphia: 27

Robbery:
San Antonio: 186
Philadelphia: 715

I was being generous with my Houston comparison. Other large cities in Texas fare as well or better.

I'll address the assertions you claim I make individually.

1. As I have already stated above, my assertion is not that guns are the issue. The issue is when governmental restriction serves to influence public perception on the social acceptability of defensive force, deadly or otherwise. What I did say is that the gun is the absolute best and most efficient tool in a specific set of violent encounters where other options are unavailable or ineffective. When the government disarms law-abiding citizens, it sends a message that we cannot be trusted to protect ourselves against crime and must rely on the police (who have no duty to protect us).

2. If we are to go by your HDTV example in your earlier comment, then rural living provides less opportunity, less likely reward for effort, and less frequent incidence in crime. And yes, I am saying that both violent and property crime rates are higher in urban areas. The U.S. Burea of Justice agrees with me.

To quote specifically:
"Urban residents had the highest violent victimization rates, followed by suburban resident rates. Rural residents had the lowest rates."
and
"Urban households have historically been and continue to be the most vulnerable to property crime, burglary, motor vehicle theft and theft in the United States."

You can find the report I pulled that from at http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/cvict_c.htm

3. That really depends on your city. If you want to go with your 10% criminal rule, obviously the cities with lower crime rates have fewer citizens who are willing to be victims. To more specifically address the assertion, it is not so much a matter of will than it is ability. As I've stated previously, rural populations are more self-sufficient by nature. The need for self-protection is a much more distinct reality, as police assistance is often immediately unavailable. City-dwellers (again, this varies depending on the city) have been conditioned to rely more exclusively on police response against crime - they are generally not as mentally prepared for the reality of a self-defense situation.

4. Yes, that is a correct assessment. The only modifier here is that owning a gun is not on its own an effective deterrent. To be truly effective, the gun owner needs to be proficient with the weapon and be willing and ready to use that weapon if the need arises.

For all your claims that my opinions are shaky conclusions and speculations, your own arguments in this thread have been based completely on supposition. You have yet to point out a single piece of data or study to support your position. Essentially, your side of the conversation has been "you're wrong, you make bad assumptions".

In effort to address your concerns, I've provided you with statistical data and my own observations as to why I think that data is significant. While these may be conclusions to fit into my preconceived notions, you've countered with your own conclusions with no data or even anecdotal evidence to back them up.

An agenda would imply that I have some specific goal in mind. I have no goal other than to live my life with liberty and in the pursuit of happiness. I'm flattered that you believe I have some sort of agenda, but in reality I'm just a guy in Texas who values his civil rights.

A liberal comes out against gun control.

2009-04-28T13:17:00.004-05:00

SayUncle linked to a post by Aunt B about the recent addition of two Tennessee cities to Forbes' list of the top 15 Most Dangerous Cities. Her take on it was unexpected, and refreshingly she comes out against gun control. It is good to see a self-described liberal looking at the issue rationally. Of course, I am no stranger to this phenomenon, as famously liberal Austin is full of liberals (and even a self-described socialist friend of mine) who see the sense in firearms used for self-defense. Here is one personally-observed example I've noted in the past.

I posted a reply to her post and some of the commentary, but it seems to have gotten caught in a spam filter or is awaiting approval - I'm not sure which. I'm going to post it here in the meantime for your reading enjoyment, and hopefully it will show up there.

Aunt B: If the comments are moderated for approval, sorry for the double-comment post. I thought perhaps that it had not gone through. Not seeing any notation that comments were moderated, I attempted to post again.

Jim made the statement that the democratic-leaning counties are the ones where violence is worst, and said he may look it up later.

I took it upon myself to research the entire Forbes list you linked, and compared it against the recent 2008 election results by county. Red represented a majority of Republican votes, Blue represents Democrat votes. Want to guess what I found? Every single one of them went to Obama. Here's the list. I used the NY Times map as my source, and you're welcome to go look it up.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

1. Detroit, MI Blue
2. Memphis, TN Blue
3. Miami, FL Blue
4. Las Vegas, NV Blue
5. Stockton, CA (San Joaquin County) Blue
6. Orlando, FL Blue
7. Little Rock, AR Blue
8. Charleston, SC Blue
9. Nashville, TN Blue
10. Baltimore, MD Blue
11. New Orleans, LA Blue
12. Baton Rouge, LA Blue
13. West Palm Beach, FL Blue
14. Charlotte, NC Blue
15. Philadelphia, PA Blue

Now, far be it for me to make a partisan argument out of this. I don't identify myself with either the Republicans or the Democrats. I consider the pros and cons of each candidate in each election. It is nearly always an issue of who is the least despicable of the candidates. Both parties enjoy the lion's share of corruption and self-servitude. Gun control has been, however, a pet issue of our President and the current Democratic leadership in Congress, so for the purposes of this discussion, the data is corollary. After all, the only point Jim made was that the violent places are all Democrat-majority.

And please do not lump California in with the South. That is an insult to southerners. Also, Las Vegas would be considered "West", not South.

In response to dolphin's comment, why are there no Texas cities on this list. Last I checked, Houston is the 6th largest city in the U.S., but somehow it didn't make the cut. While it does have its share of crime, especially post-Katrina, it still pales in comparison to the other much smaller cities on the list. I agree that crime does tend to increase with population, but it's not directly corollary.

An interesting side note, Houston is another blue city in an otherwise red state, comparable to Philadelphia. Texas has preemption laws governing the the regulation of firearms, where Pennsylvania allows its cities to create local ordinances banning possession and carry of arms. Somehow Philadelphia with its strict gun laws beats out Houston in this most dangerous places list.

Beyond the gun issue, I believe this reaches much further into the perceived role of government in the daily lives of citizens.

If the issue were proliferation of gun ownership, then it would seem logical that the most dangerous places to live would be more rural areas where gun ownership is highest. On the contrary, people living in rural areas are inherently more independent and self-sustaining - less likely to be dependent on government assistance in their everyday lives. Rather than turning to the police as a talisman against crime, these people have a personal interest in self-preservation against criminal acts, knowing full well that they are responsible for their own safety.

By contrast, city-dwellers have been lulled into the notion that crime against one's person is to only be dealt with by the police, and are largely mentally powerless against a criminal. This is only pushed further when conditioned by laws that prohibit citizens from possessing the most efficient tools for self-defense, making not only self-preservation difficult and often times illegal, but actions of self-defense themselves socially taboo as well. How many times have we heard public officials claim that if we just "give the person what he wants, no one will get hurt"? In practice, that doesn't work out so well, and we're slowly becoming a nation of victims with social convention running counter to our inherent instincts for self-preservation.

Aunt B, I appreciate your willingness to look at facts on this issue. Your post was quite refreshing.

[UPDATE]: My comment was indeed caught in the spam filters, and Aunt B. has graciously fished it out for me. Hats off to her for the quick response!

Superb addition to the blogroll...

2009-04-23T20:12:00.006-05:00

...and an incredible source of information!

Clayton Cramer and David Burnett's Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog. They have gone and documented over 4000 accounts of civilians defending themselves with guns, starting in late 2003. The number continues to climb daily. Incredible.

Everyone needs to go read this stuff.

Thanks to Robb Allen over at Sharp As A Marble for linking to this.

Another addition to the blogroll

2009-04-20T05:35:00.003-05:00

Via ASM826 over at Random Acts of Patriotism, I have been made aware of CmdrFenix. A hearty salute and welcome to the blogroll!

Where I've Been and Some Commentary

2009-04-20T03:51:00.004-05:00

Via several folks on my blogroll, I have this nifty "where I've been" map generator.

First: States in the U.S.:

visited 34 states (68%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or jurisdische veraling duits?

And secondlly, Where I've been in the world:

visited 6 states (2.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Best time to visit Nakano

... Not nearly as extensive as my travels in the U.S., with the Asian countries from my early years growing up as an Air Force brat. Canada, however, was done via an extended road trip on a shoestring budget during my early 20s. Lots of great experiences during that trip, and much of the western US states from the first map were covered during that trip.

Some places I'd like to go:

Germany - The homeland of my ancestors. I can trace my family back to the 1790's in the Oldenburg area - the generation that left the Old Country. It appears that most folks with my family name in Germany still reside in that general vicinity. With some genealogy work, I'm hoping to find some very distant relatives and meet them. Fortunately, my last name is relatively rare. Every person I've encountered with it in the U.S. can trace their roots back to the same family in the midwest that I come from. Hopefully, the same is true in Germany. Acquiring a working knowledge of German is one of the things I want to do before this trip.

Switzerland - Renowned for its rifle shooting and marksmanship among the common population. Yes, I know they have skiing and good food, but the shooting is what draws me. My wish is to visit a hundreds-of-years-old rifle range, and do some target practice with a K31 (the first rifle I ever fired).

Thailand - This one is for the food, beautiful landscape, and culture. I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I'm a Capsaicin nut. Spicy food is the cat's meow for me. Thai Chiles are among my favorite peppers - lots of heat and good flavor. Thailand has beautiful mountains, monestaries, and people. I have no desire to visit the tourist trap areas along the coast. When I travel, I seek a route where I will encounter people as they really are, not a manufactured image for me to consume. A bicycle tour is a possibility here.

Belize - At one point long ago, I made preliminary plans for a road trip to Belize via Mexico. Now, such a plan would be foolish, to say the least. Mexico has become a very dangerous place to be a foreigner these days, especially away from resort towns. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of visiting Belize, but I fear there's no place to go anymore where I wouldn't get the tourist treatment. Still, it remains on the list, in case an opportunity falls in my lap some day.

Iceland - Its stark beauty and wilderness have been a draw to me for a long time. The prospect of backpacking through that kind of country has an entrancing quality about it.

Alaska - Yes, it's on my map of places I've been. My time there was limited to passing through as a toddler on the way stateside from Asia. There is a stamp on my old passport to prove it, but I have no memory of it. Alaska draws me for a variety of reasons. It is perhaps the only place that surpasses Texas in the qualities I value for living. Rugged self-reliance, a frontier spirit, and respect for the liberties and rights of men. The gun laws (or lack of) are icing on the cake. As I have alluded to in previous posts, I have made preliminary plans for a backpacking trip through the Alaskan wilderness. Specifically, it's my desire to travel across a large portion of the state, backpacking through Gates of The Arctic National Park and rafting the entire length of the Noatak River within the Noatak National Preserve. The Alaskan wilderness has the same kind of draw for me as Iceland. Being in a place where very few bother to venture is a desire that is simply part of my being. Visiting a remote corner of the world where people simply do not go to on a whim has some sort of profound value for me which I cannot explain - and the state is full of those kinds of places. Alaska is also a place I would be proud to call home.

Antarctica - Again, the remote, seldom-traveled road holds its appeal for me here. At one point in my life, I considered applying to work at McMurdo station in a technical capacity. The place is desolate and beautiful. Few people ever make the journey to Antarctica. Other life priorities prevented me from sending in the applications and making a serious run at it, so Antarctica will probably never be on my "Where I've Been" list. I'd still like to go if the opportunity ever presented itself.

While there's still a few minutes left in the day...

2009-04-16T23:53:00.003-05:00

Happy National Librarian Day to Breda!

To the the rest of you librarians out there, I salute you!

Austin's Tea Parties

2009-04-16T14:43:00.006-05:00

The Austin Gun Rights Examiner has a review of yesterday's Austin Tea Party events, and it isn't overwhelmingly positive. Sadly, I'll have to agree with the bulk of Mr. Nemerov's sentiments.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it out to the event at city hall where the Governor spoke, but did make it to the Capitol for the demonstration at 4:00. This may have been a good thing - if the first protest was anything like the last one, I may not have bothered with the Capitol event. It wasn't all bad, so I'll start with the good.

A lot of people showed up. I heard the number to be estimated between 5,000 and 7,000, which seemed to be right from what I saw. I was surprised at the number of folks who made it. I got there a little before 4:00, and was able to get a parking spot at 14th & Guadalupe about 5 blocks away. I had intended to bring the Nikon along to get some photos for this post, but forgot it on the way out and didn't realize I had left it until I was halfway there.

There were a lot of flags flying, with the Gadsden Flag being the most prominent. There were a few Gonzales Flags as well, a US Marines Flag, and a few US Flags of different versions. A couple of other oddball flags few as well, including the Bonnie Blue Flag, perhaps meant to approximate The Burnet Flag.

Overall, the event was relatively disorganized. There was a semblance of a schedule, but none of the speakers or performers were visible to anyone beyond the first couple of rows in the crowd. There was a speaker system set up at the Capitol for the event, and that worked pretty well.

There was a disappointing partisan vibe that permeated throughout the Capitol grounds part of the event. This was reflected in the speeches as well, and it was evident that these folks were treating the Tea Party as a Republican rally, rather than the grassroots single-issue event that it was supposed to be. I'm sure I'm far from the only one to have noticed this, as I observed that when the talking points became increasingly partisan, crowd participation and cheers died off significantly. Given the Republican Party's recent departure from its core beliefs on spending with the Bush administration, it was a big mistake to turn focus towards the GOP during a protest against runaway government spending.

U.S. Representative Michael McCaul was probably the biggest speaker at the event, and reinforced this partisan rhetoric. In his introduction, he threw bone of a welcome to the Libertarians, a hearty welcome to the Republicans, and then went on to jokingly welcome Democrats, if there just happened to be any in the crowd. While his speech was good, it seemed to be more of a set of talking points to save his own hide - pointing out that he didn't vote for any of the pork "stimulus" bills. He went on to make some more partisan rallying points about taking back the congress "for the party". This is not what I came expecting to hear.

There was another speaker whose name I never caught after McCaul. The speech was well-delivered, though it strayed into the standard Conservative (and mainly Republican) talking points on a wide range of issues not related to government spending. It was mainly a "God and Guns" speech, with minor points on government spending. I'm in general support for the points made, but that's not what a Tea Party was supposed to be about.

In general observation of the crowd, the posters and banners and whatnot were generally on-topic. From what I could tell, there were a lot of folks geniunely interested in making a stand against runaway government spending. This made it all the more disappointing that the event played out like a Republican political rally. I could tell by the reactions (or lack of reactions) of several of the more independant/centrist-looking folks in the crowd that they shared my disappointment in the tone of the event.

In attendance were some of the more extreme right-wingers. I noted a spattering of "Vote From The Rooftops" shirts and other similar slogans. Apparently some of the black helicoptor conspiracy theorists thought it would be a good venue to try and have their voices heard, as we were treated to shouts of "9/11 was an inside job!" during the march procession.

The crowd was in significant enough size to warrant blocking off Congress avenue, and APD did an admirable job of facilitating the march. It was quite impressive to see the size of the procession. We walked a mile down Congress Avenue to 1st Street (aka Cesar Chavez), headed west, and went south on the South First Street bridge across the lake and ended up on Auditorium Shores. This is where things pretty much fell apart. No one seemed to know what to do once we got there. There had been mention of a dumping of symbolic tea crates from boats into the Town Lake (aka Lady Bird Lake), but no one knew when or how this was going to happen. People stood around, with the Veteran flagbearers occcasionally leading in a song, like the US Marine Corp hymn or the Army hymn. We all stood around for a good 30 minutes until the last of the procession made its way into the park. The veterans with the flags wandered over to the numerous news vans and made some news-worthy chants and cheers for the cameras.

The crowd was wandering and dwindling at this point, for lack of guidance or closure. After a while, people started leaving the park on the pedestrian portion of the South First Street bridge. I figured it was over, so joined them. It was on the bridge that we saw the tea crate demonstration going on in the water (no one seemed to ever announce that it was happening). Essentially, the demonstration consisted of the throwing floating boxes in the water from covered tourist boats, with some other folks manning canoes picking them up 30 feet away.

In the end, the event was anti-climactic and I left somewhat disappointed. Most disappointing, though, was the fact that a rather universal event was turned into a partisan Republican preaching pulpit. It could have been so much more.

A Discussion on Home Defense Firearms

2009-04-14T14:41:00.006-05:00

I started this post as a comment to Hsoi's post over on Stuff From Hsoi. I soon realized that the comment rivaled the original post in length, so it warranted a post of my own. You should probably read it first to get a context of the discussion.

For what Hsoi posted, I'll agree for the most part - with the stipulation that this deals with new shooters. Honestly, an optimal solution would be to make sure the new shooter gets enough range time and shooting experience to make a logical personal choice on his/her own. This not being an ideal world, we end up in a lot of discussions as to what weapon would be best for these new and inexperienced folks.

I've got a Remington 870 18" 6+1 shotgun as my primary home defense gun. I practice with it frequently, to the point where I am quite confident that I can put all my shots squarely on multiple targets while moving and shooting.

The rub of the shotgun for the uninitiated is the recoil, and practicing enough for its operation to assimilate it into muscle memory. Not long after I got mine, I took my girlfriend to the range so that she would know how to operate it if the need were to arise. Unfortunately, the only range option that day was Red's. As those familiar with the range know, Red's has the usual restrictive rules of typical indoor ranges, and I was informed that we could only shoot slugs. This does not make for a happy introduction to the shotgun for most first-timers. She only put a couple of rounds through it and decided that was enough. Not good when you want someone to be intimately familiar with a defensive weapon.

To deal with this problem, I later replaced the rear stock with a Knoxx SpecOps stock. The difference it makes in felt recoil is amazing. This particular stock provides an M4-type 5-position adjustable/collapsable stock with a pistol grip. Additionally, it has two sets of recoil compensators that take all the bite out of shotgun recoil. I tested it out at the range and found that 3" Magnum slugs approximate felt recoil of a 2 3/4" bird hunting load. It's really that spectacular of a difference. What's more, follow-up shot delay is shortened to however long it takes you to rack the slide - the normal muzzle rise and operator movement experienced with heavy defensive loads is marginalized to the point where the sights remain on target after recoil.

In addition, Blackhawk makes an add-on shell-holder/cheekpad kit that provides on-gun storage for an additional 5 rounds. The "low" cheek pad provides the perfect cheek weld height for shooting with the bead sight (the "high" pad is made for rifle-type sights or optics). My girlfriend has picked up on my enthusiasm for the recoil-reducing capabilities of the stock, and has promised to give it another try the next time I can get her to the range.

I've taken it skeet shooting, and found that quick sighting on moving clays to be very natural and effective. This was only my third time shooting skeet, and I managed to get a score of 14, shooting doubles.

As for the "racking the slide" deterrent discussion, I bought into this initially. After thinking about it logically, I came to the conclusion that this was tactically unsound. Any element of surprise I can get on an intruder benefits me and my loved ones. The shotgun lives with one in the pipe these days, and the only sound it's going to make is a little "click" from the safety disengaging.

I agree with Hsoi on semi-auto vs. revolver. Practically, the issue comes down to what a person is willing to shoot with. My girlfriend is much more comfortable with the idea of a revolver as a personal defense weapon, and has favored them at the range when trying them out. For her, the operation is straigtforward and easy to understand, so she's simply more confident with them. That's the most critical part of the equation - whatever your choice in defensive weapon, you have to be confident, willing, and ready to use it.

Personally, I agree that more rounds available is better. I do, however think that the devistating effect of 9-12 (depending on your load of choice) simultaneous 00 buckshot pellets in a defensive 12ga makes the shotgun my #1 pick for home defense. I am confident of this because I've put in the time and effort to practice with it in varying scenarios. I do keep a high-capacity semi-auto as backup, should circumstance warrant it.

As for new shooters, it really depends on the individual. Generally, I will recommend a shotgun for a few reasons.

Long guns in general are easier to be accurate with, and my experience has shown me that muscle memory learned on a long gun (and shotguns in particular) is retained far longer than with a handgun. This is helpful for the individual who wants a weapon for self-defense but doesn't go to the range all that often.

Secondly, shotguns are cheap and require relatively low maintenance. Ammunition is relatively easy to find, especially given the recent run on handgun and common rifle ammo. This means that a defensive shotgun and ammunition can be acquired quickly and more readily on a tight budget. These days, that's an increasingly important factor.

Lastly, there is the firepower factor. A shotgun is simply unmatched when considering how much damage it can inflict in a close-quarters defensive scenario with a single pull of the trigger.

I'm no expert, and just about any choice a person can make for a defensive firearm is better than nothing. Again, the weapon you're willing and able to use is what you should go with. If you think revolvers are the bee's knees, then by all means go with that. The universal suggestion I give anyone asking about a self-defense weapon is to practice with it, and know it well.

[UPDATE]

Hsoi has updated his post with a couple of points in response, and I'll address those here.

Just to clarify, the above mentioned range trip with the girlfriend wasn't her introduction to shooting. We had made her introduction something like a year prior, with a good friend and experienced shooter doing the instruction. For her first range trip, we started her on a Ruger Mk II (.22) pistol. She worked her way up to some revolvers and semi-autos in .38 and 9mm. We also touched on rifles with a nice little .22 he had. She'd also been to the range another time before the trip to Red's. As you noted, starting off with something light and easy to shoot is critical with new shooters, and this is my standard practice. I have a Walther P22 and a Marlin Model 60 that I purchased specifically for this purpose.

I also agree that indoor ranges are a bad place to introduce someone to shooting. I never have and will not take a new shooter to an indoor range for the reasons Hsoi listed. Also, they're no fun because of lane restrictions (which make it difficult to instruct), the noise, and time constraints due to hourly rates common at most indoor ranges. In fact, the only time I'll go to an indoor range is if I'm meeting up with another experienced shooter who can't make the long trip out to the outdoor range.

This trip was, however, her introduction to shotguns, and I was unaware of the restrictions on shotgun ammo in place. I'd brought along plenty of light #4 Buck loads for use on our trip, and ended up unable to use any of it. Being on a time constraint, I tried to make the best use I could from the situation. The result was negative, and I've learned from the experience. Put in the same situation today, I simply would not have gone to Red's at all and scheduled a trip to the outdoor range for another day.

As for our disagreements on what's best for a new shooter, I'm cool with that. As posted above, the weapon you are comfortable with and will practice with is what you should use. If someone is more inclined to get a revolver, pistol, or rifle over a shotgun, that's fine by me. I'll point out the strengths and weaknesses of any weapons system so that person is able to better make an independant and educated personal decision. As an example, while a M4-style rifle (as Hsoi suggests) is appropriate for some people, others who have apartment neighbors to consider might find that a rifle presents too high a risk of third-party injury or death; Handguns allow one-handed operation, so the weapon is at ready when opening doors or for defensive hand strikes at extremely close range, but are more difficult to make quick and accurate shots with under stress.

As Hsoi also noted, a plan is essential for effictively defending your home and loved ones. Evaluate your options, know where your line of fire will be in relation to where your family members and neighbors are. Come up with plans for as many possibilities as you can. I take these factors into consideration when running drills at the range. This can mean taking kneeling or crouched shots against an intruder, shooting from your weak side, shooting one-handed, transitioning to backup weapons, reloading, drawing and shooting from a seated position, failure drills, etc. The more you know and have trained for, the more options available to you under the stress of a life-threatening situation.

Thanks for the response, Hsoi.

Solving the Pirate Problem

2009-04-12T14:32:00.004-05:00

So it looks like the Navy bucked up and did the deed. Finally. Unfortunately, the hemming and hawing for the past few days isn't going give other pirates the impression that we're serious. Were it the clear and resolute policy of the United States to use overwhelming and devastating force against pirates whenever they are encountered, this problem would be resolved quite quickly.

Our government will tell you that there's too much international law and whatever else they worry about to adopt a policy like this. Stingray over at Atomic Nerds has a simple solution, and it only requires a letter.

Quite irritated.

2009-04-10T23:31:00.021-05:00

I just wasted an hour of my life watching ABC News pimp the Brady Bunch and their drivel with their 20/20 "If I Only Had A Gun" special.

One of the more infuriating segments to watch was the "scenarios" played out, headed by a willing police trainer stacking the deck in a lop-sided argument. Here's how it went:

20/20 took some college-age kids, mostly unskilled with handguns, NONE of which had defensive handgun training, and set them up for a force-on-force scenario. They were given simunition glocks and some rudimentary training, then thrown into an unexpected force-on-force scenario. In this scenario, the student is planted in a "class" with nothing but unidentified police officers as other "students" in on the ruse. The student is given a Glock in a holster - supposedly for later use - and told to conceal it under a t-shirt in a holster. In the middle of the class, the plain-clothes police officer in street clothes bursts in and starts firing to test the response of the student. There are multiple flaws that set up these students to be the patsies of this lop-sided piece of propaganda. I'll list a few here.

(1) This was the most obvious to me. The officer immediately targets the student with a gun before the student gives any indication he is armed, because he knows who this person is already. This isn't how it happens in the real world.

(2) The officer immediately opens fire in a rapid fashion. If we have learned anything from school shootings (which this is supposed to emulate), mass murderers in these scenarios don't spray bullets. They take aimed shots and execute their victims one-by-one, usually starting with the closest person and continuing along at a calculated pace.

(3) When faced with armed resistance, the first things these murdurers inevitably do are either run or kill themselves (or both). This has happened at every mass shooting I can think of - both those that play out until the police arrive, and those where the shooter is met with an armed civilian. The officer running this program does exactly the opposite in these manufactured scenarios by continuing and prolonging a shootout against armed resistance. I doubt the officer would be so confident about not being hit and continuing the assault had that been a real gun he was facing.

(4) Regardless of how realistic they are trying to make this, these students still know that these guns aren't real. These students are untrained in any kind of self defense techniques, are not intimately familiar with their weapons, and their issued cover garments look to be specifically intended to cause a hang-up during a draw. While considering all of that, these students are also forced to make sense of a situation that they've been put in, delaying reaction time. They know they have training guns, they know the officer is using a training gun, and they have to think about what they're supposed to do in reaction to all this in the context of this "training" class. All of this before they're unrealistically singled out before even drawing.

The answer ABC News gives us? You shouldn't have a gun. The police trainer in this video comes off quite smugly as one of "the only ones". Us little people aren't fit to carry weapons because we don't train all the time like the police (even though everyone I know who carries gets more range time in than the average cop). No, the answer isn't to know your weapon and get training in self-defense techniques. The answer is to die while you wait for the police to arrive and barricade themselves outside while you and your classmates are slaughtered. Thanks for clearing that up, ABC!

I'd invite these same people to set up this same scenario with a shooter possessing gun-handling skills similar to the garden-variety mass-murderer (see very little), and do not let him know who is armed. Then put in an average CHL holder who has bothered to get defense training in the classroom seat, with equipment he or she practices with and carries daily. The outcome is quite likely to look very different from what these shills gave us. But we all know that's not going to happen.

Really telling were the defense success stories that were glossed over. They ran tape from a convenience store robbery where the clerk was armed. The only point made was that 14 rounds were fired by both sides (clerk and 2 robbers), and not one person was hit. Ya know what? THE CLERK LIVED, DIDN'T HE?

There was another video all of us in the gun blogosphere have seen. A thug walks into a motel lobby wielding a shotgun. The clerk responds by tactfully drawing at the right opportunity and shooting the guy multiple times, center-of-mass, without missing a single shot. But all of this was glossed over because there was a lady with a baby in the room, and they were in close proximity. What they FAILED TO MENTION was that the motel clerk was a very well-trained handgun instructor. Know what else? He didnt' hit the baby. HAD THEY SHOWN THE ENTIRE VIDEO, we would have seen that he didn't simply draw and fire, but positioned himself in a calculated manner to minimize risk to any of the innocent individuals present.

HEY ABC! DO YOU KNOW WHY NO ONE WATCHES 20/20 ANYMORE? IT'S THIS UTTER SHIT YOU FOIST UPON YOUR VIEWERS! Pre-determing your conclusions before you set out to make the story isn't journalism, it's PROPAGANDA. You made absolutely no effort to show even a single interviewee on the pro-gun side of the argument. You are shills, the lot of you.

[EDIT]

Adding a link to Eseell's play-by-play analysis over at Found: One Troll: http://blog.knotclan.com/2009/04/11/if-i-only-had-a-gun/. Eseell has also been added to the blogroll.

Caleb over at Gun Nuts Media (the Blog formerly known as "Call Me Ahab") has his own take as well: http://gunnuts.net/2009/04/11/set-up-to-fail/.

Additional commentary from the Virginia Shooting Sports Association here: http://virginiashootingsportsassociation.blogspot.com/2009/04/abcs-if-i-only-had-gun.html

Sebastian from Snowflakes In Hell expands upon the VSSA's commentary: http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2009/04/11/abc-2020-hatchet-job/

Another good review over at Sensibly Progressive in Politically Correct America: http://sensiblyprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/04/abc-anti-gun-hatchet-job-on-2020.html. Another good blog added to the blogroll.

SUNDAY UPDATE:

The Denver Gun Rights Examiner has an article here: http://www.examiner.com/x-2944-Denver-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d11-ABCs-2020--isnt-seeing-clearly

The LA Gun Rights Examiner has an article here: http://www.examiner.com/x-2323-LA-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d11-If-I-Only-Had-A-Gun-misfires-for-2020-when-they-cannot-stay-on-topic

[MORE STUFF ADDED]

Women of Caliber has another detailed review: http://womenofcaliber.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/2020-shoots-blanks/

Taking New Shooters To The Range

2009-04-10T12:33:00.006-05:00

Think of it as planting seeds.

One of the greatest things an individual can do to counter the irrational hatred of guns in this country is to take someone new to the gun range. Most of the anti-gun sentiment is rooted in ignorance. We have been conditioned by TV, movies, and the mainstream media to believe a gun is an object of evil which somehow turns an ordinary person into a killer. We are subjected to a constant barrage of this propaganda, reaffirming a fact that we only know because it is something we have been told over and over again.

The only way to effectively counter this brainwashing is with an ample dose of reality. As with anything else, a gun is only a tool. What is done with that tool is up to the individual, not the gun itself.

As an example, take the automobile - a device much more readily employed as a lethal weapon than a gun. Incredible numbers of people are killed each year by cars in this country. A car is easily purchased at a moment's notice and can be used to mow down large crowds of people at once by a determined killer. Given the potential for incredible destruction and loss of life, why is there no uproar calling for car control and "smart" vehicles that require some sort of biometric pairing so that only the owner of the vehicle can operate it? After all, cars are used as tools of robbery, burglary, murder, kidnapping, and just about any other crime you can think of.

The difference is that most people own one and can see its usefulness in everyday life. And this is where the ignorance about guns must be fought. It is easy to ban or legislate crippling restrictions on an object that you've never used and see no use for.

To make this more personal, I'll use myself as an example. Roughly two and a half years ago, I saw no practical purpose in owning a gun. My only exposure to them was during my childhood, when I went bird hunting with relatives. I saw no reason to own a gun, and when asked if I ever thought about owning one, I'd answer that maybe I'd one day get a shotgun for hunting, but didn't see a reason to get anything else. Look at that statement for a minute. I saw shotguns as reasonable because I'd had personal experience that showed me that they were useful.

Around this time, I was interested in taking a backbacking trip through the Alaskan wilderness. I'd been doing my research on what I would need for such a trip, and found that everyone with knowledge on the subject said you need a gun for bear defense, should the need arise. I was completely ignorant on the subject, so I started looking for something suitable. Because this was a backpacking trip, I looked for something light and powerful, and landed on the Taurus 444 Ultralite .44 Magnum Revolver.

I was at my usual coffee shop hangout, browsing the Taurus site and looking at the details page for this particular handgun, when a friend asked what I was looking at. I mentioned my plans and that I was looking at getting one of these guns in connection with my trip. I knew well enough that i'd need to practice and become proficient enough with my firearm of choice and told him so. He immediately said "that's not what you want". It just so happened that my friend was a shooter and used to own a gun shop and range. He explained to me that a gun that light and powerful is going to be terrible to shoot and practice with, and told me what I really needed was a rifle. I wasn't terribly rich at the time, so he suggested that I start out with some sort of milsurp rifle - as they were cheap and a good way to get started at developing shooting skills without spending a lot of money. He suggested I take a look at the AIM Surplus website, as they had a pretty large selection at the time.

I got to researching, and asked all sorts of newby questions of my friend. Sometime during all of this, he invited me to the range. We set a range date and met up at his place. He reintroduced me to the 4 rules of gun safety (I had learned them from my family during my childhood hunting days, but had long since forgotten them) and proper range etiquette and made sure I knew them. We headed out to the range and started out with a Ruger MkII and some close-range targets. We shot a couple more revolvers after this, and then moved on to rifles. We'd brought a couple of different rifles - a Marlin 60 and a Swiss K31. He'd let me know what we were bringing beforehand, and I'd gone to a gun shop and bought a couple of boxes of 7.5 Swiss for the occasion. By the time we'd made our range trip plans, I'd already decided on ordering a Mosin-Nagant rifle, so I was excited to shoot something similar on our range trip. I'm proud to say that the first rifle I ever shot was that Swiss K31. What a beautiful piece of precision engineering it was. I went through all the ammo I'd bought and absolutely loved it. I also learned something new and quite unexpected that day - shooting is an incredibly relaxing and therapeutic activity.

As can be surmised, I'd found a love for guns and shooting - all because a friend took the time and effort to take me to the range once. That was all that was required to show me that guns have a number of useful purposes, and cure me of my ignorance on the subject. I've taken new shooters to the range from time to time myself, and it's always a rewarding experience. There's always the universal Grin That Cannot Be Removed (see the photo to your left) on the face of my new shooter - something that no amount of propaganda or fear-mongering can subdue. Even the self-described anti-gunner Anthony Bourdain took pause on his position when the venerable Ted Nugent made the effort to take him shooting. Even Mr. Bourdain couldn't stifle the big grin on his face.

Sprucing things up a bit.

2009-04-03T05:21:00.005-05:00

I finally got an idea of what to do for my title banner photo, so there you have it. I incorporated items related to all three topics of the blog. I tried to go with a whisk instead of the kitchen knife, but it just seemed too large and obtuse to really fit properly. Plus, it's a nice knife and framed the bottom of the photo pretty well.

While I refuse to purchase Canon products any longer for reasons of principle (you can read specifically why here), The AE-1 Program was my first serious camera, so it gets a special place - despite the sins of its manufacturer.

I'm still trying to figure out something good enough to put as a profile picture. Any suggestions are welcome. I don't want to just use a picture of my face. [EDIT: put up the "photographer behind a camera" generic photo for the time being]

That is all for now. I'm still trying to decide which topic mulling around in my head I should pursue as my next post.

Finally back at the range.

2009-03-26T16:25:00.017-05:00

After I posted a picture of my Hi-Power a month ago, I was gently prodded by Brigid to make a range report. Life, such at it is, has prevented me from making the trek out to the range for quite some time. I finally motivated myself to make it out today.

First, an introduction to the gun.

It is a Fabricaciones Militares (FM of Argentina) FM-90 Hi-Power. While these guns are sometimes mislabeled as clones, Argentina has licensed the design and tooling from FN-Herstal in Belgium for domestic production - making the FM guns true Browning Hi-Powers. The FM-90 is Argentina's MkII version. An interesting distinction of Argentina's Hi-Powers is that the MkII and later models lack the slide beveling seen in the FN guns. This is sometimes known as a "Colt-style" slide, as it gives the gun a more 1911-like appearance.

The stock magazine utilizes a metal follower unique to Argentine Hi-Powers, which increases magazine capacity to 14 rounds from the normal 13-round capacity of FN magazines. Mec-Gar, the OEM manufacturer of FN Hi-Power mags, produces a flush-fit 15-round magazine for the Hi-Power utilizing a special plastic follower. I have found them to be utterly reliable, and have transitioned to these as my primary magazines.

The FM-90 also comes standard with Pachmayr-type wraparound grips with finger grooves on the frontstrap. I absolutely love these grips, as they provide a very positive grip surface for shooting stability.

While later model FN Hi-Powers come standard with spur hammers, FM production guns are equipped with a commander hammer from the factory. I greatly prefer this configuration for concealed-carry purposes.

I purchased my Hi-Power new in the box from the good friend who first introduced me to shooting. Dissatisfied with the FEG PA-63 that was my first handgun, I was looking for something more tasked for concealed carry. Despite being a full-sized double-stack service pistol, the Hi-Power is quite slender. This makes it well-suited for concealment. Many decades of service have proven the reliability of the Hi-Power, John Moses Browning's final handgun design.

All these characteristics make the FM Hi-Power an ideal everyday carry for me. Its matte-black finish aids in concealment. Single-action carry in Condition 1 appeals to my sense of efficiency for rapid deployment. Perhaps it is my German heritage, but polymer-framed guns have never really appealed to me. A solidly-built metal-framed pistol just has a certain aesthetic attraction that plastic can't match.

On to the range report.

It's been about 3 months since I last visited the range, and it showed. I found myself re-training myself to keep my aim steady. I remembered something in someone's blog about "squeezing the gun 20% tighter!". Quite a difference that squeeze makes. It didn't help that my internal clock is all out of whack. To try and remedy this, I decided to reset my sleep schedule by skipping a night with the aid of coffee. Sleep deprivation + caffeine does not a steady hand make. After about 150 rounds, I finally got myself straightened out. Oof.

As mentioned above, the Hi-Power is a single action pistol. Without going into excessive detail, the functional advantages of this kind of action (for me) are that trigger pull is relatively light - making a steady grip during trigger pull generally easier to attain than with a double-action pistol. When compared to a double-action/single-action pistol, trigger pull requires the same effort every time, making shot placement more consistent. Speed and ease of deployment are important to me, and I have found that a single-action pistol meets my needs best. Practice has made deactivation of the safety an intrinsic part of my drawing action - something I can do at speed without specific conscious effort.

The Hi-Power manual-of-arms is essentially identical to that of the 1911. Internal workings are somewhat different in the trigger and safety mechanisms, but overall mechanical operation is essentially the same. The Hi-Power lacks the grip safety feature of the 1911, while the Hi-Power design includes a magazine disconnect "feature" that disables the trigger mechanism when a magazine is not inserted. This feature is widely regarded as a detractor in that the trigger pull is less smooth than its 1911 counterpart, and that it impedes a magazine from falling freely from the gun when released. Many people remove this feature from their guns to eliminate these problems. Were I concerned with competition performance, I might be compelled to remove the disconnect from my gun, but for a defensive pistol I don't believe it to be necessary.

From my own experience, the Hi-Power is well-balanced and lends itself to instinctive "point" shooting. In practice drills, I find that my instinctive aim matches up well to sighted aim at speed, meaning that rapid-transition multiple target drills are natural for me. Balance is a beneficial contributing factor here also, as I have found sight picture reset is quick for me when compared to other pistols in my experience - even guns in the 1911 platform.

It was rainy and windy (and therefore muddy) today, so I didn't do much moving and shooting. While I did not run any multiple target transition drills, I did to some rapid-fire follow-up shot drills to practice sight picture reset. The target to your left (or above, depending on how your screen renders) is from one of these drills - 10 shots of controlled rapid fire at a range of 7 yards. You can click the image to enlarge.

All-in-all it was a good range trip. It started out rough, but as always, range time becomes an exercise in self-control and mental discipline. Going to the range is always like that for me. I can always count on a good range session to clear my head and soothe my mind and body of the accumulated stresses of life. Once I do my part, I know my gun will do its own.

Not a surprise

2009-03-11T14:30:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the meme. Too much to do right now. I'll get something substantive up soon. I blame Breda.

You are a
Social Liberal
(68% permissive)

and an...
Economic Conservative
(65% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Libertarian

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

And now for something completely different.

2009-03-09T02:28:00.009-05:00

Due to a the daylight savings change, a change in job status, and various other variables, I find myself up late at a coffee shop, browsing the internets and rummaging though thought tangents. Something crossed my mind from last week, so I figured I'd post it. It is not related to guns, food, or photography (unless you consider that a movie is a set of moving photographs).

Anyhoo, my girlfriend and I were flipping channels on the idiot box the other day, and came across National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation. This particular scene had our usual characters arguing over what to do in a hotel courtyard, with the daughter all dressed up to go out on town separate from the family. I had never seen the movie and was unfamiliar with it. Judging from the clothing, I pegged it as something quite recent. I was wrong. Apparently the film was released in 1997 - twelve years ago! Did the National Lampoon folks have some eerie insight into future fasion? Almost.

Most of my estimation was derived from the clothing of the daughter character. She was wearing clothing typical of what you would see worn in modern times by famous actresses and pseudo-celebrities like Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and the like. My girlfriend pointed out that the clothing in the movie was meant to portray, shall we say, someone of questionable morals. A slut on the town, in other words. I found myself wrapping my mind around the notion that 1997 "slut" garb is acceptable everyday fashion for 2009.

Quite a ways we've journied in a little over a decade. It makes me wonder what fashion will bring us in 2021.

(I tried and tried to find an image on the internets of this scene, but was unable to locate one.)

EDIT: I just realized I got on this train of thought while reading phlegmfatale's post about Africans and donated clothes. Heh.

Just checking in...

2009-02-25T09:27:00.004-06:00

For the handful of people who have been kind enough to follow my blog, I apologize for the lack of posts. Work has been a bit crazy, and then I was stricken with the cold for a good 5 days. I have a few ideas for posts in the works, so I'll try and get something up soon.

In the meantime...

For your viewing pleasure I have a photo of my FM Hi-Power, taken in the very professional environment of my kitchen counter top - the closest thing I have to a seamless background at the moment. Oh, how I miss having a studio to work in.

(click to enlarge)

A Most Delicious Game

2009-02-11T21:36:00.009-06:00

Talking on #gunblogger_conspiracy the other day, we got on the topic of venison recipes. I mentioned that I had some great success with chicken fried venison. I figured this to be a relatively simple recipe and not really outstanding. Judging from the remarks in the channel, apparently no one was familiar with the preparation process I use.

I actually learned the basics of my hand breading techniques during my short stint in the fast food industry, and have refined my process through my years of bachelor cooking. This particular recipe was an instant hit with my girlfriend, who is quite the picky eater, and was put off by the thought of eating game meat before she knew me.

I use whatever pieces of meat I have on-hand. The prep for this post was done with shoulder and front leg meat. The reason this recipe is a good for these pieces of meat is because you can work with small parts. These parts of the deer tend to have a lot of tendon and connective tissues that need to be stripped out of the meat for cooking. Keep in mind that the finished product will be around 3 times the length and width of the original piece of meat (and much thicker). My fryer is relatively small, so I can't make the Texas-sized pieces I'd like to.

This recipe should work for pan-frying as well, though you may have to adjust cooking time a bit.

Chicken Fried Venison

Ingredients:

1/2 pound of venison, divided into pieces.
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 generous pinch of rubbed sage

Preparation:

Heat your fryer to 350 degrees Farenheit.

Before starting, it is important to wash your hands and clean your fingernails well. This breading method is improved by getting the coating on your hands and then rubbing off the stuck batter back into the flour mix as you work. This will create more "crispies".

Venison pieces should be around 3-4 inches in diameter, though this can be adjusted more or less, depending on how big you want to make your steaks. Tenderize the venison pieces thin and flat with a tenderizing mallet.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the milk and egg using a fork or whisk.

In another medium-large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, pepper, and sage - mixed loosely to make sure spices are spread throughout the flour.

Take a tenderized steak and coat it thoroughly in eggwash. Transfer it to the flour coating bowl and place it in the center. Pile flour from around it on top, and push the flour downward into the steak with your fist or heel of your hand. Flip and press flour in again. Repeat the eggwash/flour process.

Place the steak in the fryer for around 5 minutes, turning over after 3 minutes. The steaks should be lightly browned when ready. Remove steak and drain oil off, then place on a napkin-covered plate to remove excess oil.

Serve with cream gravy and your choice of vegetables.
Recipe serves 3-4.

Random Hilarity

2009-02-10T14:27:00.005-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, gunny or otherwise. I'm cooking up a game recipe post to put up in the next day or two. I've also got an extensive gun-related post in the works.

I am sure by now everyone has seen the YouTube video of the little kid in the back seat of a car drugged up after a visit to the dentist. If you haven't, you've been living under a rock. For those of you rock-dwellers, below is the video. Watch it and then continue. Everyone else, skip on to the next part.

Someone thought it fitting to make a parody of the above video. This time, it's Darth Vader who is coming home from the dentist. I nearly shot coffee out of my nose watching it. Here's the video:

[EDIT] If you watch both videos at the same time, giving the Vader clip a 5 second head start, you get an extra dose of synchronous hilarity!

Overheard in Austin

2009-01-30T17:21:00.005-06:00

Texas conservatives and gunnies often like to comment (generally in a derogatory way) on the political and social climate of my hometown, Austin. A bastion of liberal hedonism, replete with the lack of personal responsibility and respect for the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is often called.

Funny thing about that. I came into my love for guns in this town, surrounded by folks who would be immediately pegged as through-and-through modern liberals by those residing in the rest of the state. My first experience with rifles and pistols was under the guidance of a local friend who frequents the same coffee shop as I do. I've gone to the range with "liberals" who'd get no respect if they wandered into a Republican fundraising event.

The assumption that Austin is a place that simply going to hate guns and the RKBA is simply proving itself untrue the more of my gun-owning life I live here.

I was sitting at a table at my favorite local coffee house with a friend, tapping away at my laptop. A young lady acquaintance of my friend shows up and they start a conversation. The subject matter turns to recent local criminal activity, with references to particular predatory and violent crimes against persons in the neighborhood area of our location as of late.

What caught my interest was a statement from the young lady:

"It's gotten to the point where I got a gun, and I carry it with me."

I'm sure a little smile planted itself on my face. The only response I could give was "good".

Folks, when the coffee-swilling liberals in Austin coffee houses are recognizing the fundamental need to go about armed for personal protection, things are looking up. There's been a lot of defeatist chatter on the gun blogosphere and forums about the inevitable gun bans coming from Obama and Congress and how the country is going to hell in a handbasket. I think they watch too much TV.

There are a lot more of us out there than most folks realize.

Obamicon

2009-01-28T22:53:00.004-06:00

I've seen several people posting their own creations on the Obama propaganda art theme, so I though I'd make one of my own.

I think I may revise the graphics to match the fonts used in the original propaganda, but here's my first attempt.

You can check out the propaganda generator over at Obamicon.me.

Is that a pistol in your pocket...

2009-01-26T23:42:00.005-06:00

Taking a cue from Brigid, I'm not sufficiently inspired (and lack the time anyway) for a proper post, but am making a (yet another) quick meme post. As Brigid put it, "Empty Your Pockets". So... here's a picture of exactly what sits in my pockets during the day.

Everything is pretty self-explanatory. That black thing at the right is a portable knife sharpener that goes with me everywhere I go. This actually caught me on a light day - I will usually have a sharpie, usb flash drive, and some other assorted items with me. There's, of course, the point-and-shoot which generally travels with me, but was taking the picture. Now, what's in your pockets?

A Photographer's Taste In Art

2009-01-22T17:05:00.005-06:00

At risk of becoming a meme-poster, I read Bayou Renaissance Man's recent What Your Taste In Art Says About You quiz results post and decided to take the quiz myself. The results are somewhat expected, and as a photographer - the ideals of impressionism in reflecting reality in one's art are kindred to the visual nature of most photographic work.

There are exceptions in more abstract photography techniques, but even those are generally extrapolations of visual reality. One such technique is called Camera Tossing, a movement headed up by my good friend Ryan Gallagher, which involves capturing the natural physical motion of a tossed camera during flight. You can view much of his own work at Kinetic Photography. Go ahead, click the links - it's quite beautiful and intriguing stuff. I'll make a more extensive post devoted to the technique and my own camera toss work soon.

Anyhow, here's my results:

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

7 Impressionist, -4 Islamic, 3 Ukiyo-e, -25 Cubist, -19 Abstract and 7 Renaissance!

Impressionism is a movement in French painting, sometimes called optical realism because of its almost scientific interest in the actual visual experience and effect of light and movement on appearance of objects. Impressionist paintings are balanced, use colored shadows, use pure color, broken brushstrokes, thick paint, and scenes from everyday life or nature.

People that like Impressionist paintings may not alway be what is deemed socially acceptable. They tend to move on their own path without always worrying that it may be offensive to others. They value friendships but because they also value honesty tend to have a few really good friends. They do not, however, like people that are rude and do not appreciate the ideas of others. They are secure enough in themselves that they can listen to the ideas of other people without it affecting their own final decisions. The world for them is not black and white but more in shades of grey and muted colors. They like things to be aestically pleasing, not stark and sharp. There are many ways to view things, and the impresssionist personality views the world from many different aspects. They enjoy life and try to keep a realistic viewpoint of things, but are not very open to new experiences. If they are content in their live they will be more than likely pleased to keep things just the way they are.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

The Lowly Milsurp Rifle

2009-01-21T17:26:00.008-06:00

Military Surplus Rifles. For some, they are collectors items; relics of wars past that remind us of the struggles and conflicts of wars gone by. For others, they make the purchase of a rifle affordable, especially for the first-time buyer. Many are examples of the innovations in technology fueled by the need for a better weapon. Others are examples of utilitarian simplicity and ruggedness. They have been tools in the movements of oppression and liberty for centuries past. These rifles are a reminder of the spirit and struggles so many men have made in the pursuit of life and liberty.

The first rifle I fired was a Schmidt-Rubin K31, offered to me by the good friend who first got me into firearms. It was a beautiful specimen of Swiss engineering, six decades old. I was quite impressed.

I was still very new to firearms in general, and decided I wanted to purchase my own. I researched and found a surplus dealer online, and decided to buy my first gun. Actually, I bought two: The Mosin-Nagant 91/30 and Mosin-Nagant M44. Both were WWII production guns, and the sense of history was appealing. The fact that surplus ammunition could be found for around 11 cents/round at the time made them affordable shooters. I ordered them, picked them up at a local FFL, and became a gun owner for the first time in my life.

The 91/30 became my first love, and remains my favorite firearm to this day. It has stayed as it came to me, with the exception of a change in sights from the old blade-and-notch to a set of drop-in dual-aperture "SnapSights" from Mojo Sighting Systems. These sights give a more defined sight picture with quicker target acquisition, resulting in more accurate shots. The gun has excellent balance, and I practice with it almost every visit to the gun range. It has been with me on my continuing journey as a gun-owning American. I expect it to stay with me for the duration of my life.

Most recently, it accompanied me on my first large game hunt: a walking deer hunt with two of my new hunting buddies on the last day of White-Tail Deer season here in Central Texas. Most hunters will balk at walking around hunting deer with an 8 1/2 pound gun and iron sights, but my familiarity with the gun gives me the confidence to make my shots with accuracy. Most of the hunt had been fruitless, with nothing more than a rabbit or two spotted up until that point. The light was close to fading, so we decided to try flushing the deer out into the open, where I waited crouched in some brush. Sure enough, after a bit of a wait - a string of deer came crashing through the trees, jumped a fence, and ran around in front of me into the clearing where we had expected them to go. I took my shot on a doe close to the end of the group, as they ran perpendicular to me at a range of about 40 yards. She had made it just to the tree line when I heard her stumbling and crashing though brush. My bullet had hit its mark. It was getting dark, so I waited for the others to catch up. We followed the blood trail, and found that she had made it just 20 feet past the tree line before she dropped for good. We discovered I had hit the back of the lungs, although I barely managed to make a dreaded "gut shot" at the very front of the stomach. It turned out to not be much of an issue when it came to cleaning the deer, as the hit to the stomach was minor. Not bad for a first-timer in low light with iron sights on a running deer, I was told. I can certainly say that I would not have been able to make that shot with a scoped "deer rifle" under those conditions. The 91/30 had served me well.

The milsurp rifle is often under-appreciated in the general shooting community. It serves a great purpose by introducing new shooters to the love of firearms, and remains a utilitarian tool for many.

First Post

2009-01-17T02:58:00.001-06:00

With the encouragement of some folks over on Gunblogger Conspiracy, I've decided to start a gun blog of my own.

I've found myself wanting to document my experiences and opinions on a few subjects recently, and discussed the prospect of a gun blog with my girlfriend over dinner at the new burger joint in town last night. We talked about the kinds of things I wanted to write about - namely guns, food, and photography. I then came to the realization that a great many of the gun blogs cover this same set of subjects - The Lawdog Files and Home On The Range being a couple of prime examples. I asked my girlfriend why she thought this was, and her response was simply, "...because that's all you really need". And so I had a name for my blog.

And now, a brief bit of background about myself:

I'm a man in his early 30s living in Austin, Texas. I am by no means a firearms expert - in fact I have only owned guns for the past two years of my life. In that time, however, I have come to have a great respect and appreciation for firearms and the people who excersize the rights and responsibilites of keeping and bearing arms.

I enjoy good food and cooking, and am currently exploring game recipes.

Photography is a subject I formally studied and for five years, and a skill I utilize for the occasional odd job and for the simple pleasure of seeking out, capturing, and creating a beautiful image for others to enjoy.

I've got a duck hunt to make in a few hours, so this concludes my first post.

All You Really Need

Just An Observation...

Incremental Update

New Custom Leather

Running Through The Paces, Pt. 2

Running Through The Paces

Buy A Gun Day

.223 Handloads (Parts 2 & 3)

.223 handload workups

Nikon Monarch VSD initial impressions

.223 Range Tests

GBC Secret Santa 2010

Awesome New Photo Tool - Hugin

Brief Range Report - Winchester Q3131A1

Rolling My Own...

AR Build - Range Report

AR Build - Completion!

LaRue Tactical Range Day

AR Build - Handguard

AR Build - Upper Receiver/Bolt Carrier Group/Charging Handle/Rear Sight Install

AR Build - Buttstock/Buffer Install

AR Build - Lower Parts Install

The AR Project Begins

Road trip on the horizon...

Blogger, reloaded.

Stoeger Condor Update

Opening Day...

The Stoeger Condor

New Shooter Range Report

Hiatus, inturrupted.

Blogroll updates and meh.

UNIX Humor

Search Engine Shenanigans

New Shooter Range Report

Heading to the range.

Blast from the recent past.

Status update and blogroll additions.

Followup commentary on my last post

A liberal comes out against gun control.

Superb addition to the blogroll...

More blogroll additions for your reading pleasure.

Another addition to the blogroll

Where I've Been and Some Commentary

While there's still a few minutes left in the day...

Austin's Tea Parties

A Discussion on Home Defense Firearms

Blogroll Additions.

Solving the Pirate Problem

Quite irritated.

Taking New Shooters To The Range

Sprucing things up a bit.

Finally back at the range.

Not a surprise

And now for something completely different.

Just checking in...

A Most Delicious Game

Random Hilarity

Overheard in Austin

Obamicon

Is that a pistol in your pocket...

A Photographer's Taste In Art

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

The Lowly Milsurp Rifle

First Post