Arming up for the Exotic Animal Apocalypse

I hadn't paid any attention to the exotic animals running loose around Ohio until yesterday afternoon when I walked in the door. My wife, whom I love more than life itself, was watching the news and they were showing the 18 Bengal tigers and at least one African lion that were killed by various police units in the area, which got me thinking about whether or not this incident will spark new dialog in proper weaponry to deal with the next Exotic Animal Apocalypse.

Think about it. Gunnies the world over constantly prepare for the fictional zombie threat -- which really is just a humorous way of preparing for the end of the world -- and bicker and argue about what firearms would be the best tool to have to efficiently dispatch them; in the wake of this exotic animal roundup I can picture such arguments taking place at my local Ganderous Mountainous. Cops may just start keeping a 45-70 Marlin in the trunk next to their AR that they're probably never going to use, and I bet savy armchair warriors are going to start doing the same.

People generally pay a shit-ton for the chance to fly to another continent and hunt these animals. I wonder if the cops that shot them will have the option to keep what they killed; it would be a shame to incinerate them. I'm sure that the techniques and shot placement(s) were not up to Craig Boddington's standards, but there's little to be said about it considering that the police were properly armed for lighter and thinner skinned animals when they were asked to respond without preparation.

And while we're on the subject, good on them for their bravery. Think about being a cop accustomed to responding day after day to domestic violence calls, shoplifters, and a drunk who parked his car at speed into the first floor of a retirement home, and then getting the call to take down dozens of 400 lb lions and tigers armed with a pistol or 5.56mm rifle. Sounds terrifying to me. One cop even killed a black bear with one shot from his issued weapon. Good shooting!

About those gun free zones. . . .

It's nearing the end of October, and police in Alexandria, Virginia are investigating a death that just may be the city's first murder this year. Alexandria isn't as gun friendly as, say, Floyd county, but it isn't a Gun Free Zone. If you want one of those, you can drive just a couple of miles North across the Potomac river and live in a city with 93 murders so far this year.

If you think making it illegal to own and/or carry a firearm will make anyone safe, you should consider this.

Pain is not always weakness leaving the body

This past Monday was day one of me getting back into weight training after almost a year and a half hiatus. Despite me dropping a third off the weight I normally lift and only doing three sets, all I managed to do was hurt myself. Badly.

Tuesday night I woke up and my arms were aching painfully, with my left arm seized up at the elbow from tightness and inflammation. Wednesday night was the same thing with my right arm, and the pain was severe enough to keep me awake for half the night. In the wee hours of the morning the whole week, including this morning, it took substantial effort for me to put my cup of coffee to my my lips; my arms just won't bend. It takes an hour or two of me working them to get them functional enough to drive to work, and I'm downing Motrin to keep the inflammation down.

Lesson learned: take it easy on the weights when you've been out of the game for awhile.

I'm giving myself the weekend also to recover, and hopefully I'll get a do-over on Monday. Military presses will be with the bar only! I've been wanting desperately to do some shooting, and I've been offered to do a review on ammo that I just haven't been able to get to, but since I've been sick for two weeks now and I'm physically unable to scratch my own back at the moment, it looks like I'll have to wait til' next weekend.

Only you can prevent sawzall violence

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Police in Everett, Wash., say a woman is accused of cutting her sleeping husband's neck and shoulder with a power saw.

The story doesn't mention it, but it's apparent that there was no background check conducted on the purchaser of the saw. Anyone can just walk into a Harbor Freight and buy a truckload of these reciprocating saws and slash their husbands. It's best for the children that we enact a law to restrict the purchase of power tools to licensed construction workers so we can avoid this senseless violence forever.

State of the CTone Address: Whatcha been up to?

Ohhh, about 320 lbs., from the looks of it:




As you can tell from my blog content lately, I've been otherwise engaged with things. Cute, needy, and extremely high strung things; they're lots of fun. I've been sick as a dog for over a week now, along with my youngest -- this was a gift that all in my family have shared -- today makes me think that the end of the sickness may be further off than I had thought. It sucks when little kids get sick because they don't understand why they feel terrible.

I didn't get any shooty in this weekend due to sickness, pumpkin patches, the need to have essentials like groceries and diapers (lots and lots of diapers), church, and good friends, but maybe next weekend will be different. In the spring I have high hopes to get into IDPA, and I strongly intend to drag both of my brothers into the mix with me as well. I don't get to spend nearly as much time with my siblings as I want, so that's something I'm going to make time for from now on.

I noticed this weekend the Pocket Carry Competition Association, which seems like an excellent idea, but sadly they don't actually allow drawing from the pocket. Something to do with lawyers or some shit. Because of that I'll have to decline PCCA; but browsing the IDPA rule book hasn't shown any AIWB disqualifiers, so all this time drawing and dry firing with magazine changes at the Huron poster that Mike W. and Nancy gave me will be well spent (no offense to Hurons. I mean well).

I have another Bladetech holster on the way that is better suited for AIWB carry, and also two of each of the Vicker's slide release and Vicker's magazine release so that the Glock 17 and 26 will be the same. My practice sessions have shown that my stupid-high death grip of doom causes me to ride the Glock brand extended slide release with both my strong hand thumb and the palm of my support hand, which makes me have feeding problems and the slide often fails to lock back on an empty mag. The Vicker's parts should remedy that. As far as AIWB carry, it's by far the most concealable way to carry a handgun; and if you have a hankerin' to carry a full sized pistol, you can do that with ease. Try it!

The Mk12 is rarin' to go with some fire formed brass loads that I did up last week; I'll have to do a write up on that sometime as trying to get accuracy from new brass is usually problematic. The 10/22 is ready for action as well, and I'm already on the hook for a range report with pictures when I get that going. With the cost of centerfire ammo being what it is these days, rimfire guns are becoming more and more popular. The potential for lots of affordable shooting in field positions that the 10/22 provides will certainly make me a better shot; with that I often wonder about what would happen if I had the chance to go shot-for-shot with the 12 year old version of myself, and who would win.

I managed to clean out my weight room this weekend, so hopefully the beer gut that I've earned over the last year and a half since I stopped weight training will start to disappear. I'm also looking forward to all the Whey protein shakes with peanut butter that come with lifting! Saaahweeet! With less love-handle hanging over the belt, I'll have more room to hang all sorts of do-good gadgetry and tactical lights for my wife to roll her eyes at me over, and that translates into equipment reviews.

Lastly, I owe some emails and action items to some folks out there. I'm getting to it; please be patient with me!

Free M1 Garands!

They may need a little TLC, but with a great deal of work one of these could be yours!

Now you tell me

Back in June I posted a range report where the 230 grain Winchester Ranger-T +Ps were way too hot for my 1911, and I had an unpleasant shooting session over 70 rounds where I ended up with a sore hand and lots of jams. Well, it turns out that my bitching was warranted, as I came across this thread today from 2009 detailing stoppages and premature wear from the RA45TP in duty weapons; mostly 1911s. To be fair, the commentors with 1911s report that the 230 grain HST +P ammo is too hot as well, which just reinforces my belief that +P ammo in .45 ACP in a 1911 is not needed. Hmmmff!

Ruger 10/22 build

My camera didn't load all the pictures I had, so you won't get to see the barrel bedding part. I'll have to post that another day, but in the meantime I thought I'd show the progress that I have.

The only major component I've added thus far is a barrel made by the hands of Tony Kidd. They come highly recommended on every gun board that I've visited, so I ordered an 18" bead blasted barrel and set about installing it. Here's a picture of the gun with the stock skinny barrel, with the Kidd barrel next to it:



The barrel came in a plastic tube with two rubber grommets on it to keep it centered. One of the first obstacles to overcome is that the stock's barrel channel is cut to fit tight against the skinny barrel, and will have to be relieved to accept the Kidd barrel's .920" girth. I don't have pictures of that, but I used a half-round file and a 1/2" drive socket + extention wrapped in 60 grit sandpaper to open that channel up, and it took considerable effort and several hours to do. It looks good though.

The next thing to do is to add some sort of metal bedding block for the receiver to rest on. From the factory, there is a brass escutcheon with a bolt that rides through it that connects the barreled action to the stock, but the problem with that is that the action rests on wood, and over time the wood gets compressed in that area. Adding a metal block that ties into the escutcheon and floats the receiver above the stock will help in accuracy. I went to the hardware section of Lowes and picked up this furnature T-nut:



It literally matched my measurements within a few thousandths of an inch, so there was little work for me to do to make it fit. You can see in the photo (click to make bigger) the brass escutcheon and takedown screw.

Before installing the T-nut, I trued up the surface of it on a belt grinder before carefully taking off the .030" from the bottom for a perfect fit:



I then had to drill out the takedown hole in the stock a bit so that the T-nut would fit:



I don't recall the bit size, but I used a piece of 120 grit sandpaper wrapped around a brass punch to slowly and carefully open the hole bigger than the T-nut to make room for the JB Weld that I used to permanently glue it in. I counter sank the T-nut about .020" using a 5/8" forster bit, and noticed that despite my leveling the stock in the drill press, the stock wasn't completely true. To counter that, I skimmed the JB Weld under the head of the T-nut to make it true, but it still didn't matter; once I placed the receiver down into the stock, it was only resting on a small portion of the T-nut, and would rock back and forth on it even when I tightened the takedown screw. I took a small piece of 120 grit sandpaper and started taking down the high sections on the top of the T-nut to make the action sit flat, and would occasionally use shoe polish to witness where the contact points were:



I found out that part of the problem was the glob of dried black factory paint on the underside of the receiver, so I sanded that off and made it flat. It was a pain in the ass to keep mounting the receiver in the stock to check for a fit, but I only wanted to do it once, so I was careful.

Once that was done, I bedded the barrel using JB Weld. There are better products to do bedding with, but I had the JB Weld sitting around already. I found the balance point on the barrel and made the bedding 2 1/2" long, using Kiwi shoe polish as a release agent. It worked great, and when I place the barreled action in the stock, it rests solid on the steel T-nut and the bedding.

A glamour pic:



The scope on the beasty is the Burris 2-7x35 Fulfield II Tactical that I took off the AR-from-DPMS, and the rings are Brownell's low aluminum rings. That's the second pair of Brownell's rings that I've ordered -- the first pair were steel -- and I have to say that they are of excellent quality. I can't remember off the top of my head who makes the aluminum 1913 rail. The next step is to buy a trigger for it. As far as stock 10/22 triggers go, this one is among the best that I've tried, but nowhere near where I want it to be. I'll have to post the barrel bedding pictures when I do a range report; hopefully sooner than later.

Reality check

So you and your wife are walking back from charity work at the local homeless shelter one night and a thuggish looking scumbag with "FELON" tattooed on his forehead in Arial Bold font jumps out from an alley way 15 yards away, full stop, holding a knife in one hand and a box of condoms in the other. He yells "This is a stickup and a rape and a murder! Give me your wife, your money, and your car keys or I'll kill you both dead with this here bowie knife!!". . . .allowing you ample time to think and draw your sidearm and get into that Isosceles stance you learned about on the range. Scumbag takes a single step offering you the chance to blow him away with your fang-face patriot-ninja-warrior ammo and save the day.

Sadly, lethal force encounters don't usually look like that as far as I can tell. Here is a real example of a lethal force encounter that fortunately resulted in not only no fatalities, but justice served as the scumbag in question went back to prison for the rest of his life ***Warning: Graphic pictures near the end of the thread*** -- My CCW Shooting AAR.

The victim was maimed forever from the encounter, and the scumbag was dumb enough to leave a prominent blood trail from the crime scene to his bed, complete with bloody weapon containing empty shell casings. All in all, though, it could have been a lot worse. The victim was never charged with any crime, got his weapon and personal belongings back (after two years! Yikes!), and mostly recovered. Some of the things that stand out from this story to me are that this is a specific example of a grip safety causing a defensive weapon not to fire at the precise moment it needs to, and also that appendix carry would have not only allowed a more covert draw by the victim, but also may have prevented the scumbag from discovering the empty holster, thus arousing suspicion. Also, even though it wasn't needed in this fight, a spare loaded magazine is definitely something that you should carry.

I post this story because there are armed folks out there -- good people, mind you -- that it seems can't wait to get into a situation where they take out the bad guy and save the day, going home victorious knowing they did the world a service. There are those also who are cluelessly armed and under prepared. This story is a stark reminder of why I try my best to live a life of avoidance, de-escalation, and deterrence in order to not end up in a situation like this one, but if trouble does find me, that I'm prepared and focused.

. . .and that's just a little bit more than the law would allow

Good grief. There's so much fail in this short tragic story that I'm just shaking my head.

As Bittinger approached the front porch of the home, the suspect fired an arrow into his chest. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The shootee had a "weapon;" the type is not made clear in the article. I'm under the assumption that if the shootee had a weapon and made threats, and/or became a deadly threat, then perhaps deadly force via bow and arrow was appropriate. Just because the shooter didn't use Paw Paw's shotgun hanging over the mantle doesn't mean that deadly force wasn't justified. The Dukes were quite fond of primitive tackle, and as we know they were just some good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm.

This part of the story was interesting:

The coroner says Bittinger died when the arrow punctured his lung and blood filled his heart.

Blood filled his heart?!?! You can die from that? Oh, shit, I have blood in my heart right now! I'mma fixin to call me the rescue squad, right fast! Maaaama! Maaama heeeeelp!! Bloods done filled my heart!!!!

My take on this is that the coroner meant blood filled his lung, or maybe the coroner imbibed a little too much moonshine, or even his sweat stained Realtree hat is on just a little too tight. We'll never know for sure. The hits just keep on coming, though:

A compound bow has a system of pulleys that provide more force with less pull. It’s normally used for hunting.

Or killing babies. You know, because anything that provides more force should be brought into the light for some much needed obfuscation, and then hopefully some legislating. Because this wasn't a killing with a "bow," but a "compound bow," meaning that we should ponder the shit out of what this actually means. It means the deadliness of the instrument is compounded, and commands less effort to wield, so logically we should point this out to the masses considering that a good 99.99% of professional journalists don't have a clue as to what to make of this. Being that the weapon is obviously compounded, it should only be allowed in the hands of law enforcement and professional hunters who have met the compounded training needed to handle all that compounded power that comes from a system of pulleys. Idiot.

Lastly, we have this comment that makes me weep for the people of this country:

Lynne Le

I don’t believe Tony threatened the suspect,
the suspect murder him and blame him, he’s death he can’t defense him self.

Lynne Le needs an intervention to get him/her off whatever substance he/she has been abusing. That person needs help, right quick now! Get Betty Sue and Jimmy John in a room with em' to talk some sayance in to em'!

Range Report

Unfortunately, the last place in my AO that I have to shoot is infested by outsiders. I passed on a chance to shoot Friday due to shenanigans; on Saturday I got some quality time to shoot, and today a friend and I arrived to fire off some rounds for two hours and found a guy on a combine cutting and bailing hay on the adjacent property in the line of fire -- nobody has done that for over a decade, so I was pissed. Go the fuck back to New Jersey or wherever the hell you came from; this frontier is the last place on the planet that I can conveniently shoot, like I've done since I was a boy. Where do you people keep coming from? There's not enough room! Go away!!

Anyhow, yesterday I couldn't help myself so I had to shoot the 10/22 -- I just finished putting a steel bedding block in it and mounted an 18" Kidd barrel, but hadn't bedded the barrel yet. I did that today and it's curing right now; pictures and range report of the whole process are in the works when it's done. It still shot awesome, and that was with Mini-Mags, not match ammo; shooting off of a yoga mat because I forgot my sandbags; and I didn't even tighten the takedown screw.

Yesterday and today, though, I put about 150 rounds of 147 grain Winchester Ranger-T through the Glock 17 and it performed flawlessly. Shooting exactly to point of aim at 10 yards and 3" high at 31, I got an average speed of 1,023 fps with an extreme spread of 26 fps over ten rounds. I'm now going to buy a case of it to ensure reliability, as well as shoot it in the baby Glock and the Kahr so we have a common load amongst the Europellet guns.



The 95 grain Winchester Ranger-T in .380 ACP did not fare as well. I picked up a box at a funshow a bit ago and decided to see how they did in a Kel-Tec P3AT. Seven rounds averaged 870 fps with an extreme spread of 33 fps, grouping in at 2" for the best five rounds at 13 yards. Add in the other two out of the seven and the group was about 4" -- I didn't measure with a tape. I fired one round through a gallon jug of water and into a two liter bottle set on its side, and it stopped 2" into the two liter. The bullet didn't expand very much:



Water jugs usually make a bullet expand as much as it possibly can; if it won't expand in water, it won't expand in flesh. It also gives up five grains of weight and 161 fps over my standard carry load, the Buffalo Bore 100 grain Hard Cast. I'll stick with Buffalo Bore for now. There were no feeding problems from the Ranger-Ts within the 40 rounds that I fired, but if I'm going to carry a load that I know won't expand, it better have a flat meplat and be going as fast as possible.

I've been doing draws from the Dale Fricke Zack holster for Glock for some time now, and it's still my daily carry holster. When the gun heats up from a few magazines of fire, it can sting a bit when you stuff that hot pistol down the front of your britches, but damn it's fast to draw from. My drawing accuracy with a Glock pistol is also tightening up; enough so already that I dare say rivals my 1911 accuracy. I now have 100% confidence in my Glock 17 at appendix carry, and I also trust the RA9T load enough that that's what is in it right now. AIWB is the way to go for now and forever more, but I really want one of the CCC Shaggy holsters to try out. The Zack is super comfortable and forgiving, and I highly recommend it.

Modern Day Marine 2011

I skipped over the stuff that I've already covered from the last several years, as I'm not able to post 50+ pictures anymore due to time constraints, and that I'm still using my phone's camera instead of something more suitable.

Walking in the door, I encountered the FN USA booth in all its SCAR glory. I snapped a picture of this prototype bolt action rifle that looks like it's made to compete with the Remington XM2010 ESR:





With the lighting in the buildings the way they are, it's tricky to get a good picture. I didn't get any information on the gun, just the pictures; although I do note that this rifle is impossibly heavy. Many of the firearms at the convention are waaaaay too heavy, as if the manufacturers could care less about weight at all while they mill out receivers from massive steel and aluminum billets. Marines are accustomed to carrying too much stuff, so I guess it's all good.

The next thing I saw was this weapon sight for the M2 BMG "Ma Duece:"



It's a 6x48 Trijicon ACOG Machine Gun Optic with a Reflex on top for when there are so many bearded bad men coming at you, you can't take them all out at 1,500 yards and have to resort to close range work. I like it! It's about time somebody took advantage of the M2's 2,000+ yard range and skipped over the irons for something more video game-like.

I got a pic of an XM25 model, with a 25x40mm round for scale on how big of a round it fires:



I've heard that the XM25 is a fight stopper, and most of the Soldiers carrying it opt out of carrying an M4 also, with just an M9 on their hip. As the rep at the booth told me, operators of this weapon note that insurgents don't mind the snap of 5.56 rounds overhead at distance that much, but when stuff starts blowing up behind the rocks they're hiding behind, and eardrums start bursting, they decide that they've had enough. He also said that there have been clear reports of enemy killed with it.

Advanced Armament Corp had a booth at the event, and I got a picture of this 5.56 suppressor that they purposely ran about 40 rounds of 7.62 through to see what it does. That's 28 bullets lodged in the baffles and it was still working:


Wouldn't want to be the test guy shooting that one!

AAC is making them smaller and smaller, too:



For those interested, Steiner has a 1-4x24mm riflescope that looks awesome and feels solid:




The scope has an illuminated reticule, with a stop in between each level of brightness so you don't have to click all the way through to be at the brightness that you want. Also on display was one of their 4-16x50mm scopes mounted on a new varient of the Sako TRG:



Again, the rifle is sweet looking and I'm sure it's a shooter, but it weighs a ton!

Colt is now showing off their 7.62 rifles in MARPAT desert, just for the Marines:



Sorry about all the blury pictures, but I have to include Colt's monolithic rifle:



A cadet was groping it at the time, and I got the picture that I got. Many cadets ruined many pictures while I was there, and they roamed about in massive, isle clogging droves, asking questions and such at every booth.

At H&Ks booth I fondled a MP7A1 while nervously waiting on the two reps there to berate me for daring to touch their wares while not being a uniformed operator:



I closed my eyes and pictured riding around the mountains of Afghanistan on quads shooting terrorists, just Dusty and I with our trusty MP7A1s, before dragging out the suppressed Barret and helping out some SEALs in close contact on another mountain. . . . and then I snapped back to reality and walked over to CRKTs booth. They have a new lineup that takes assisted opening knives to another level.

The thumstud on the knife is kind of like a safety of sorts, and when you press it in towards the blade and give it a nudge it snaps open like an auto. Assisted openers normally require you to manually open the blade like 30% or so before the spring takes over and finishes opening it up, but the new system from CRKT takes a bump once you click that thumb stud:


They had several different models to look at, but I only got to handle the one.

Again with the blurry pics because of a cadet wanting to handle what I was taking a picture of, I give you a US made, multicam clad, fully functional RPG-7:




Notice the 1913 rail with folding sights.

There are some other crappy cell phone pictures in this folder if you're so inclined, such as the Daniel Defense rifle that Larry Vickers torture tested on video a month or two ago. Click on any of them to make them bigger and search my Photobucket folder.

Better keep your receipt

A serious discussion and decision of a guy to mail order a second wife -- no, not a replacement for his current wife; he will have two living and breathing wives living with him very soon. Something tells me that there's going to be mayhem in his world in the near future. I find the thread to be entertaining, but I don't agree with his decision.

Of course, that's easy for me to say considering I have an awesome wife with no equal!

Reloaders are so creative

Check out the video on hydro-forming cases at 6.5 Grendel Forums. Traditionally, handloaders will fire form the cases in their gun, but hydro-forming is a lot quieter and doesn't cost you primers, powder, or Cream of Wheat.

The fact that you can take 7.62x39mm Russian cases and turn them into 6.5 Grendel/.264 LBC-AR was a driving reason I went with the cartridge. If the supply of Grendel cases dried up tomorrow, there would still be usable brass for me for decades.

In life you must have choices

Which weapon would you chose? -- I'm a big fan of this theme at theBrigade. Numbers 9 and 25 look too dangerous for battlefield use, but I'm all about number 6.

With bated breath

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is turning up the heat on Eric Holder, demanding the attorney general “come forward and at least admit” he knew about Operation Fast and Furious long before he told Congress he learned about the gun program.

The truth is coming. . . .aaaaaaaaany day now.

Alexander Arms releases Grendel Trademark

From the 6.5 Grendel Forum on the Big 3 meeting:

New Announcements from the Big 3 meetings in Kansas!
David Fortier reports:

Well, today Alexander Arms announced a few things at the Big 3 writers event.

1. The Grendel has been accepted by SAAMI
2. They have released their trademark on the Grendel
3. They showed off steel cased Grendel produced by Wolf
4. They hired a very well respected gentleman named Wayne Holt to handle PR.

So, now ANYONE can make a Grendel. The steel cased ammo is being produced by Barnaul for Wolf Performance ARMS and Ammunition. Note Wolf now has a firearms division and is working with Izhmash and Molot. They are looking into Vepr and Saiga rifles in Grendel. Currently testing is being done on the Wolf steel cases to verify they are good to go. Wolf is claiming production ammo for 1st quarter of this coming year. They said now that they switched this from Tula to Barnaul things are progressing nicely. I think its very positive as Barnaul's quality is well known for being a notch above Tulas. The steel cases look sexy....

Wayne Holt was the #2 man at Hornady for many years and was with Glock prior to this. This is big move on Alexander Arms part. Should be very interesting to see how things go.

Wolf was at the event and they are very firmly behind the Grendel, and have some very interesting things regarding AK rifles.

I would ask "Now was that so hard?", but after almost a decade I already know the answer. The shenanigans that have been going on behind the scenes in the Grendel world may never be discovered, but oh well, time to move on.

To me, plentiful and affordable steel cased ammo is the signal that an AR or AK cartridge is completely accepted into the shooting world. I bet the 6.8 SPC boys are pretty pissed right now, but they shouldn't be. Hopefully that cartridge goes steel cased as well; the shooting community can always use another tool in the toolbox.

Kids say the darndest things: Bedtime Edition

I'm about as smart-assed as they come. I mean, I have to hold my breath and struggle to remain serious about everything, and not crack stupid redundant jokes in every single conversation.

--Wife: "I'm gonna jump in the shower."
--Me: "You shouldn't jump in the shower; it's dangerous."
--Wife: "That wasn't even funny five years ago. Does that ever get old?"

Not really.

So it's bedtime for my kids, and I suggest to my firstborn son (almost 3 years old) that he set up his bag of Cracker Barrel pirate figures in his bedroom and make the black pirates fight the red ones.

--Son: "But I caaaan't. It's dark in there and I'm scared of monsters."
--Me: "Your scared of what? Lobsters?"
--Son: "No. Monsters."
--Me: "Mobsters?!?" You're scared of Mobsters?"
--Son: "No. Monsters. And I'm scared of gween bwobs."
--Me: "I'm totally putting that on the internet!"

A couple of months ago he ran up to me enthusiastically and told me he saw a "wizard," which I knew through my Divine, daddy translation skills meant "lizard," but I just couldn't resist:

--Me: "You saw a Wizard! Cooool! Did he have a long beard?"
--Son: "No daddy. I said wizard!"
--Me: "Was the Wizard's name Gandalf?"
--Son: "No, daddy!! I said Wizard!! Not Wizard!!"

Kids can be endless entertainment! And yes, I can be a dick.

Foreign badassery

Canadian snipers doing Canadian snipery things.

The smaller rifle is a PGW Defense Timberwolf Tactical in .338 Lapua (fun word to say over and over again - Lah-PuuAAAAHHH!!) and the bigger bigger bigger one is a McMillan TAC-50, which if you read down on that link it will tell you that the world record for killing a human was set using this rifle by one of Canada's finest at a range of 2,657 yards.

I think their digital woodland camo is good to go, from the looks of it. I've seen their desert cammies up close in its natural habitat, and it's equally as effective. The Canucks don't fart around with their gear, and are a top shelf military.

You can't handle the truth!

The battle rages on about what in the hell is going on at Alexander Arms, and why the strangeness surrounding the 6.5 Grendel cartridge continues to go on with no questions answered. The non responses are coming straight from the top, so I don't understand why the clouding of the issue. Just answer the questions.

It's well known that there are licensing issues surrounding the Grendel name; barrel makers and tooling shops that make reamers have dropped, discontinued, and refused to chamber products in that cartridge, and only a handful of people seem to know why. Absent any real facts -- and not because the questions haven't been asked -- folks have muddied the water even further by speculation.

When I was shopping for a barrel for the MK12 Mod 0, I intended to chamber it in 6.5 Grendel, but couldn't get anyone to do it. I talked to Shilen, who won't chamber in that round; and from my research there aren't many gunsmiths who will touch it either. The only cut rifling barrel maker that held a license to make a barrel in that caliber ceased communications with me suddenly, and then announced days later that they were dropping their Grendel barrel lineup. There wasn't a concise answer as to why, and I wasn't happy to have wasted over a month for nothing. In the end, I picked a very similar cartridge that is made by Les Baer, and it took one phone call.

So what happened? Why is there such negativity from the firearms making community over a cartridge as special as the 6.5 Grendel? Why are there so many clones of the Grendel round that differ by only a fraction, or just enough to avoid a lawsuit? Why are there barrel makers who refuse to chamber in that round? It can't be coincidence, and dodging the questions folks have been sincerely asking or calling them "trolls" or deflecting to "ooooh, lookee, we're going to announce something special" adds up to a whole bunch of nothing. I mean, if my wife walked in the door and said "Honey, did you hit something with the car last night?" the answer that she would be expecting to get would certainly not be "Uuuuuhh, I've got something awesome to show you next week! It's going to be SUPER!!"