Why would an American feel the need to carry a gun in Pakistan?

One wonders for such an answer.

Now, you tell me if you would pick up a job working as a US government employee in that torn up country and not carry at least a pistol. That place learns pin the noose on the American in elementary school, so they're no doubt experts at it by the time they've made it to adults.

I pray for the best for Mr. Davis.

Bermuda chooses Ruger

Neat-oh!

Bermuda Soldiers in basic training using Ruger Mini-14s!

Also, a Swedish Carl Gustaf M45 and grand pappy's shotgun spotted amongst the rubble in Afghanistan.

All at MP.net

Close range gunfight

Count me out.

This is video footage with audio from the recent shootout at a Detroit police station.


Yikes!

I would have wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. It puts it into perspective when you consider standing on a static range shooting at paper, and you are putting round after round into the target with great accuracy. From what I can see here in this video, the whole daggone ballgame changes when your paper target comes and finds you at your desk and starts blasting away with a shotgun.

As a rather large and intense Drill Instructor once told me, "when you're being shot at, I promise you that you will be so low to the dirt that your helmet will plow a trench into the earth!"

I think his statement was accurate!

Home up on the range

Twas a beautiful day on the range yesterday. I got some work done too, some bittersweet. I have poured a lot of time into perfecting handloads using IMR 8208 XBR with 155 grain Nosler J4s, and yesterday I proved that those loads shoot accurately, but sadly were too hot. This was confirmed when the ballistics of these rounds at range did not match the speeds advertised by my CED M2 chronograph a month before, and in fact was waaaaaay off.

The CED M2 did not accompany me home in the same condition it was when we arrived, which is no great loss considering it had only given me one realistic reading in five trips to the range. I'm fighting intent to send the remainder of the device back to Competitive Edge Dynamics with a smart ass letter. It's amazing the devastation that seventeen rounds of 230 grain lead round nose will do to shitty plastic.

On to happier things, I had loaded up some Reloder-17 rounds with 175 grain Nosler J4s for a ladder test, as I only had fourteen of those bullets left and I wanted to put them to the best use. At 570 yards I got a perfect reading on where the two nodes were, which confirmed my suspicions almost exactly.

A disclaimer: work up your own rounds for your own gun, and do not rely on what you see on the internet for a starting load. If you do not know what you are doing, get help from someone who does or you may wind up destroying your gun and your face. Reloading is fun and safe when done right, and can be disastrous when done wrong.

With that said, I have already done a great deal of shooting with this combination, and know where I need to be. I started out with two sighters of 47.6 grain charges: one for 100 yards, and one for longer range, which both of them printed where I wanted. You can see the second sighter in the below picture just above and to the left of the 8" bull. For the charged loads of the test, I dropped down 2 MOA from my sighter, and had marked the bullets with colored sharpies to make the impacts readable. The bottom three shot holes are 47.6, 47.8, and 48 grains of Reloder-17 under the 175 grain bullet, grouping nicely on the same horizontal plane. I anticipated the top of the lower node at 48.1 grains, so this is good data to me. After that, the 48.2 and 48.4 grain loads walked up the target, and then the 48.6, 48.8, and 49 grain charges grouped well. At the 570 yards I was shooting, I had 12 1/2 MOA of elevation dialed in on my scope. The top three charges could stand to come down 1/4 of a MOA, which would put my velocity at 2,710 fps. That's awesome from a 20" barrel, and defies the 2,560 - 2,600 fps readings that I got from that shitty CED M2 chrono.



Here is my 100 yard target which I used to zero the 8208 XBR loads. The bottom right shot hole was my first round which jammed the gun. With the DPMS/SR-25 style bolt, the cam pin can be inserted either way through the bolt carrier, and if you dont pay attention during assembly, you will have your brass cases ejecting into the left side of the receiver instead of out the ejection port. The M16 bolt can only be assembled the correct way, so I guess old habits die hard. After that I had a little zeroing and shooting position adjusting to do, evident by the bottom middle target, with the bottom left being a solid five shot group from my rifle, and what I expect from it accuracy wise. At 400 yards I was printing 3" five shot groups, but I had ejector swipe marks on all the case heads and slightly flattened primers, meaning that these loads were too hot. Also, earlier OCW testing over the shitty CED M2 chrono had given me velocities of 2,783 fps with these loads, but actual testing gave me velocities nearing 3,000 fps!!!! Waaaaay too hot!! I may back down to the other load in the near future, but for now I'm going to do some seating depth testing with the Reloder-17 loads. Also, check out the top left group from my little DPMS AR. Not bad for a 7 power scope!



The Mosin Nagant carbine that I picked up awhile ago loves PRVI ammo in the 150 grain loads, but produces some fierce recoil! It certainly beats the corrosive Russian ammo I had been shooting. Here is a three shot group at 100 yards off sandbags:



Here is a three shot 10" group at 400 yards off sandbags, shooting between the visible 3" orange dot on the right and another just outside of the picture on the left. With open sights and a short barrel, I'll take that group any day.



Other than that, I did a little shooting with the old 1911 at 100 yards for fun with my wheel weight handloads. Good stuff. Now I've got some more loading to do to reach my goal of having perfect handloads. Do you think I'll ever get there?

A modest proposal

This week in Washington, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey introduced three very modest gun regulation bills, including one making it more difficult to sell guns to people on the terror watch list.

HMMMmmmmm. . . .lemmee get this straight Ms. Collins, you think it modest to impede millions of Americans purchasing a gun every year by having federal agents screen them against a secret list of names numbering over a million arbitrarily assembled at random by federal employees who cannot be held accountable? Sound about right?

Jeez, I would hate to see what you consider a radical proposal. Oh yeah, this:

Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, the State Legislature is considering a bill to honor the Browning M1911 pistol by making it the official state firearm.

Gail Collins considers a law that impacts no one in any substantive way at all an absurd idea, yet thinks that a law that would impact Americans for years to come is modest. Pretty backwards if you ask me, but then again, I'm talking about a woman who is confused about the meaning of the word "terror:"

The terror of the National Rifle Association is so pervasive that President Obama did not want to poison the mood of his State of the Union address by suggesting that when somebody on the terror watch list tries to buy a gun, maybe we should do an extra check.

So a group of people who advocate the peaceable ownership of arms are terror[ists]? That puts a qualifier on exactly who she believes should be on a secret government list, no? I guess this prophetic understanding that she has in that branding non-violent people with a dark label and forever restricting or taking away their rights is "extremely mild," while ensuring a dead man who designed a bad-ass nine shot pistol is honored in his state is radical somehow leads us to want to send her nice comments on her shit article telling her about how smart she is.

The rest of the article is disgusting, and one can see right away how partisan she is.

Beretta ARX160 spotted at SHOT

Seen on this thread at MP.net.

Also, the Albanian Special Forces are killing bad guys in Afghanistan with them right now; scroll down for a pic. I don't know how I would feel about wearing a maroon beret in combat, but oh well. I wouldn't mine having the ARX as an issued weapon though. That thing is light and feels good in your hands.

I really dig the exchangeable barrel system, as well as the magazine release options. Can't wait for it to enter civilian sales, because I want to pick one up. After handling it, as well as the SCAR and ACR, I have to give the Beretta the hat tip. It doesn't weigh a metric ton, and it's really well thought out. Let's hope it doesn't cost a bazillion dollars like the ACR though.

Better to be hung by twelve than carried by six?

An American consular employee shot and killed two gunman in Pakistan in blatant self defense, and yet he may still be charged with murder just for the hell of it apparently. The Beretta pistol that he used is alleged to be illegally kept, as Pakistan does not really bless the idea of non Pakistani government types carrying weapons, and that's the only thing I can see him getting hung up on. The question I have is whether or not he would be executed for murder if he's convicted.

Time will tell if the Obama administration will come to his aid in all of this; the SOTU address might not have pandered to the unarmed victim crowd, but it's a safe bet to say that publicly supporting the actions of the consular employee in the shooting would be bad press.

Interesting to me is that the only non-scumbag to be killed/manslaughtered in the incident lost his or her life to the grill of a car. Also, the local savages are beating their poop-smeared war drums and protesting over an American who dared to "violate their sovereignty" (snicker) by carrying a pistol in that violent country, and discard entirely that he carried it in the first place because he was concerned that violent militants may just pull up next to his car on a motorcycle and point rifles at him. It's not like Pakistan is known to be a refuge of peace for Americans or anything, and the article even covers two other attacks on Americans in Pakistan.

I guess Pakistan's economy is doing well enough that we can keep the millions of dollars in monies that we've been pouring into that hellhole, and maybe spend it somewhere where it will be more useful.

The Marine Corps loves 1911s

Says Uncle links to an article saying that Marines are looking at the likes of Springfield Armory and Colt for a decent fighting piece in .45 ACP, presumably in a 1911 as that's what all the cool cats want these days. Some idiot will no doubt offer it in multicam.

I seem to recall seeing a railed Remington 1911 wearing OD green coating at the Modern Day Marine Convention, so they may intend to cast their lot into the the mix as well. Kimber I'm sure will be there also; they have a history of providing 1911s to the Marine Corps.

Slugging it out long range

The Firearm Blog has a video of a man shooting foster style slugs at 230 yards from a smooth bore shotgun offhand using the standard blade sight and compensating by guess. In the video you can see the trace of the slug as it arcs towards the target. You can't tell from the first part of the video, but the second part from the camera at the target shows that he's minute-of-scumbag for sure.

I recently fired some Brenneke slugs from a Mossberg 835 at 100 yards without as much luck, and the experience has piqued my interest. I never knew that slugs were worthy out past 100 yards; now I'll have to give it a shot (pun intended).

The ladies like to shoot too

A thread at Sniper's Hide with real live ladies and their long range rifles. I wouldn't want to piss any of them off!!!

SHOT show p0rn

MP.net has a thread on it that's pretty good, with more digital camo! Lots and lots of pictures of military belt fed goodlyness.

Crenelated bezel on a suppressor? I guess some people want to make tangos comply quietly. I like the offset iron sights that clip onto the rails of your rifle.

And what is it about multicam that makes people so damn crazy? I have some for predator hunting, and it works great, but apparently all you need to complete your cool operator ensemble these days is a pair of boots with multicam soles, and of course you have to have a brace of petite beauties with big bewbies clad in multicam swimwear on your arm. Weird.

Anyways, enjoy the pics!

Only metal detectors can stop gun violence

Unlike a number of suburban police departments, Detroit precincts do not have metal detectors and the front desks are not fitted with Plexiglass-type shields. They do have security cameras.

Which all add up to what, exactly, in regards to stopping a lunatic with a shotgun from walking in a-la Matrix style and shooting cops?

What is it with you media people having to pin some sort of explanation or qualifier on everything, no matter how stupid? About the only thing that would have stopped this attack before it happened is if the gunman was hit by a bus crossing the street towards the precinct. Thankfully, this attack punctuated the argument that hard targets are better at stopping violence once it starts, as the idea of a lone gunman throwing down against multiple armed and armored folk ending in favor of the more numerous is generally thought to be sound.

I bet Chesty is laughing his ass off

Just like I am.

I'm glad someone pointed out how downright silly some Marine Corps traditions can be. That one always grated on me.

Why not a study I can get behind

This short article explains that based on a recent study, DC is tied with Chicago on the worst traffic congestion in the nation, but I'm pretty sure the 70 hour figure is an extreme lowball number. To get at some truth, one has to scroll down and read the comments from the people who live here and drive this nightmare every day.

There does seem to be little interest in widening the I-95 corridor from Fredericksburg to DC, unless of course there's a way to bilk money from people by building a special lane for hippies and 18 passenger vans. Then you can only imagine the possibilities.

I learned about cause and effect in like 6th grade, and even then I could have told you that if you build thousands of homes every year and attract tens of thousands of people and families into an area in a short amount of time, you will have a horrendous spectacle of a roadway system unless you address it first. Fucking duh!

So now we have smarty pants people who presumably come to work wearing a white labcoat with pocket protector telling us that they're pissing away public funds studying the effects of piss poor infrastructure management, and then comparing notes to see which major city sux the most.

Well, thank you very much! I can take all that information that you just gave me and do exactly nothing with it, because I've sat in NYC, LA, DC, and Houston traffic, and can tell you without a single bit of doubt that the city management fumbled the fuckin ball bigtime there, and the locals are the ones paying with their time and funds! Super job!

Now, why don't you smarty pants types do us all a favor and do a study to find out the names of the people responsible for mismanaging the roadway systems so we can write them a nasty-gram, or kick them out or kick their ass for making all of us sit in traffic for days out of our lives while they pocket the money from letting greedy developers make a sport of cutting down all of our trees to make shitty homes! I can do something with that information!

Emotion makes for a baseless argument

Reading this Washington Post hit piece about how Colin Goddard is influencing lawmakers to enact gun control, one has to wonder why the author doesn't talk about the flip side of it all.

As you can read in the story, Goddard survived the gunman's attack at Virginia Tech, and the point is pushed that he carries more weight in the gun control argument because he knows first hand what it's like to be shot by an armed lunatic while at school, and the rest of us don't. There is no mention at all about why Goddard also carries weight to the argument that packing thousands of unarmed people in a small area with minimal security attracts armed lunatics of all types, and the outcome of an event like that will be the same despite whatever law gets passed to prevent it.

Again, for those who don't know:

The most fatal school massacre in US history was committed with a bomb.

The most fatal act of terrorism in the US was committed with commercial airliners hijacked using boxcutters.

The most fatal act of domestic terrorism in US history was committed with a bomb.

The second most fatal spree killing in modern world history was committed using a shotgun, a sword, and an axe, the first was committed with a rifle and grenades.

None of this is addressed in the article, nor is there any mention of potential unintended consequences. It seems that the sum of the story is that Goddard has an edge because he's been the unarmed victim getting bullets pumped into him while he lies defenseless on the ground, and that should be the best policy. He's also a fudd, so there's that too.

Arguments based entirely on emotion don't get much pull with me. How about putting some facts in there somewhere for the people who aren't so naive.

This is gonna be good!!!

In case you are not aware, every once and awhile someone will request a photoshop of a picture on ARFCOM, which never ends up like it's supposed to but always entertains.

This one is going to be epic. You don't want to miss it!

Precision rifles

Love em'!

Here is a sexy LWRC REPR, which is almost the same thing as my 308, but way cooler.

Here are some Accuracy International pictures.

64 pages of precision goodness.

Dropping acid should be a crime

Obviously what Prince George's county needs these days is some statutes making attacks like this a felony. Maryland is under siege by angry hoodlums; there have been fourteen homicides in nineteen days, so something has to be done. Disregard what the ignorant and tone deaf anonymous commenter wrote in the second article erroneously suggesting that the populace -- not a lack of laws known to effectively regulate malicious human behavior -- is to blame for the scourge of violence. It is Mary-land after all, where everyone is perfectly happy, including disenchanted drug smoking former girlfriends of your recently paroled lover who buy up Assault Solutions (sounds like a cool name for a gun shop) with such wild abandon and use them to bend people to their will.

It's clear that Easy access to dangerous chemicals with no background checks or rectal exams means that any terrorist can get their hands on some and maim or kill. If we could ban a third of the shit that is sold at Wal-Mart, we could end this senseless violence once and for all.

Good grief, what a cesspool PG county has become. The feds have stepped in to help the local cops, who are asking the helpless community to chip in, all the while the cops are increasing their presence in a "show of force". Is that even going to help? Something tells me that knocking on doors, pulling over 1,500 cars, and handing out 100 misdemeanor citations is not going to bring the scumbags to their knees. Just like South East DC, I think it would take a biblical intervention to straighten that whole area out.

There is a way though for PG residents to find real safety from the violent people among them, and it doesn't involve massive police effort or baseless promises from a clueless mayor:

Move.

Pack your shit and move 3 miles West, across the Potomac River, and there you will find a nice place to raise your kids where your chances of getting shot, stabbed, or having your face melted off are slim to none. Be advised though, Alexandria is under a crime wave too, and the police have suggested turning your house light on at night to deal with it, so you can spend your money on good light bulbs instead of kevlar. If you happen to be one of the scumbags causing so much problems in Maryland or DC, know that unlike most of the folks in those areas, Virginia natives are perfectly capable of helping the cops quell community violence, and don't be surprised to see VCDL presence there.

Undead ahead

Zombie sighting in Hampton, Virginia.

Thinking about buying a 1911?

Head over to Mike's Spot for some very helpful commentary on your choices. Did I mention that there's pictures?!!

A gun buy-back program actually worked!

If you consider that to actually "buy back" a gun, the police department dispensing the government funds would have had to successfully purchase a firearm that once belonged to them. That finally happened.

Taiwan police women choose Colt

Well, at one time they did by the looks of these lovely ladies masterfully handling Colt Troopers. Who knows what they use nowadays.

Back to work gun p0rn

Navy SEAL edition.

I spy a McMillan TAC-50; a suppressed AIAW in .308 Winchester; a suppressed SCAR-16 with thermal sight, ELCAN optic with Dr Optic reflex; a Sig P239; a Smith and Wesson 686, among other things.

My personal favorite is the suppressed EBR M-14 with Nightforce scope, with the reflex sight mounted behind the elevation turret making it completely useless. Either someone has a sense of humor, or perhaps there needs to be some remedial training. Also, there's a pic of a SEAL holding an H&K MP5. And how cool is that S&W!!!


OOOoooooh, ooooohh!! I also found some evidence that the 1911 is still serving the Marines, as well as a solid confirmation that Marine VBSS teams (now NMIOTC, or whatever complicated term with acronym some eccentric commander comes up with this month) are now using Steyr TMPs for ship boarding. Too friggin' cool!

More Steyr TMP and 1911 goodness, with some Glock usage in there for good measure. Seems that the Greeks are putting them up to this.

Gun bills in Virginia

The VCDL's blog, The Sentinel, has the latest on gun legislation in the Commonwealth.

See here for the Castle Doctrine bill, a bill to make it a violent felony to get caught with a gun on school property, and another to make it OK for cops and lawyers to be under the influence while carrying.

See here for a Virginia Supreme Court gun ruling, as well as about half a dozen new gun bills.

See here for eight more bills; two of them are Castle Doctrine and one of them is for Constitutional carry (no permit needed for CCW).

See here for a local media look into these proposed laws. I got a kick out of this from the second page:

Among the bills the group opposes, Goddard finds particularly onerous a bill from Del. Bill

Carrico that would exempt any firearms manufactured in Virginia, that remain in Virginia, from federal regulations.

Goddard called the bill "an absolutely, utterly stupid thing," and said there's no way Virginia could ensure that firearms made here don't leave the state.

And? Is there any way to ensure it right now? Has there ever been? Seems to me that if a scumbag in Virginia wanted to build a sheet metal Sten clone that's fully automatic for the sole purpose of gunning down lots of people in Nebraska, then there's no way a law or lack of one is going to make one bit of difference.

Not a good example of gun control

Letting a small furry critter that you just wounded get ahold of ol' betsy and put a round in you is not the ideal way to assert yourself as being at the top of the food chain.

How do you screw up putting an animal down that you just shot?

Ammo restrictions

I never thought of it this way.

Tam:

"So by saying you're in favor of magazines that hold no more than X rounds, you're publicly stating that it's only X+1 bodies that bother you. If that's not what you mean to say, then come out and state your real intentions."

Yikes! No matter how anyone tries to answer that challenge, it's not going to end well for them!

Wading into the current gun control debate with expert commentary

My-oh-my has this country come a long way in such a short period of time. In the wake of the Tucson shooting, all of the predictable cries by the usual suspects for more gun control have been largely met with shoulder shrugs and silence from the majority of lawmakers.

This, and all of the media lies that circulate regarding guns, makes it notable that for once gun owners aren't the ones that will have to bear the blame for some psychopath's rampage.

"Loughner, for one, reportedly used an extended magazine carrying 31 rounds. (Congress outlawed such magazines in 1994, but let the ban lapse in 2004.)"

Aaaahhnnnggt!! Wrong answer sport. Congress temporarily stopped the new manufacture of magazines like the one scumbag-shooty-guy from AZ used; they didn't ban them. Don't worry though, I expected y'all media types to expend yet more of your credibility (isn't it in the red these days) buhleeeet buhleeeet buhleeeting about what you know nothing of in order to push your agenda. It's what you do, and I love pointing it out and doing my small part to make you all look like jackasses.

As for bearing the blame, I'm happy to see that the bulk of its weight rests so well on such petite shoulders, despite it being a juvenile accusation. Not that I'm saying it's right, mind you; I'm just happy that it's not placed on all of us; and something also tells me that there's an unintended consequence of the Palin haters throwing this mess at her, there being no such thing as bad press and all.

Now for the fun stuff.

Back to this article, do yourself a favor and scroll down to the video and watch it. We have the National Urban League's Marc Morial saying, and I quote:

"With respect to gun control, there is no doubt. . .ah. . .that. . .ah. . .the Assault Weapon Ban and the repeal of the Assault Weapon ban was probably a mistake for the nation."

Hmmmmmm, you see. . . .about that. . . . I don't see how such a presumably smart man can say in the same sentence that it's "no doubt" that "probably" something is bad. Mr. Morial, would you also say that there's no doubt that syphilis is probably bad for tigers? Is it your position that ninjas are no doubt, probably bad news for the samurai? That's awesome! I feel the same way too! - (about the tigers, ninja, and samurai, not the Assault Thingie Ban)

I do support his position though that a knee jerk reaction by lawmakers to strip rights from an already agitated populace - who are flocking to buy firearms at the moment - in the wake of a violent shooting is probably no doubt a bad thing to do, especially considering that a great deal of the people buying the guns are doing it not so much in the interest of one day stopping a spree shooter, but because they don't trust lawmakers.

Now go to this link and scroll down to watch the video about the popularity of Glock pistols. This one, for me, defines how utterly stupid newscreatures are. Witness the raw footage of a bona fide dumb ass attack:

Chris Jansing, to guest Jose Diaz-Balart - " I know that in your years of reporting you've had alot of years of experience with all different types of weaponry."

Diaz-Balart - "Sure"

Jansing - "Help us understand the popularity of this type of gun because I think if you're not part of the gun culture for a lot of people this is a weapon that is used to kill people. . ."

Diaz-Balart - "yes"

Jansing - ". . .we've heard it's used to kill people."

Injecting myself into the discussion here, what the hell does this chic mean by "for a lot of people this is a weapon that is used to kill people"? Is that something like "tell me now Rosie, for a lot of people, mayonnaise is a product used to fatten people. . . .we've heard it's used to fatten people." Or, "tell me Chuck, for a lot of people, ninjas are weapons used to kill people. . . .we've heard they're used to kill people." Is that what she's talking about? You can see that I've used Rosie [O'Donnell] and Chuck [Norris] there as an example because they are, presumably, because of their vaguely associated credentials, known as being part of the fat and ninja culture, respectively. Rosie more so considering that she is known to be the size of a barge, so she might be a little more authoritative.

Diaz-Balart, being a journalist and all and highly trained in the art of the gun culture, is no doubt probably the best bet to be on a national news network chatting with a fellow journalist about something he knows so much about. I mean he knows two people who have Glocks - one a law enforcement officer, and another a friendly gun collector - and these two individuals know without a doubt why Glocks are probably popular, because one of them dropped theirs down some stairs and the other dropped his out the window of a car at 60 miles per hour.

That makes Diaz-Balart a fucking Glock savant!

I guess that since I dropped my Glock yesterday, that qualifies me to say that both of these retards wouldn't make a pimple on a gun owners ass (don't ask, it's not my saying), and I offer to you more evidence to support my claim:

Diaz-Balart - ". . . .there's a number of different millimeters available in weapon sizes. . ."

Looking at the handy chart on Gaston's website, I direct you to the "models" tab, and ask you if they are listed by caliber, or are they listed by millimeters? It must be a hidden language no doubt that can only probably be decoded by gun culture experts well skilled in the art:

Standard model? Lots of millimeters.
Compact model? Not so many millimeters.
Subcompact model? A few millimeters.
Competition model? Huge number of millimeters, like totally a bunch of them n' stuff.

Man though, all this talk about Glocks, heatahs, and millimeatahs makes me want to take a ride to the range and bust me some caps, after I throw my Glock 17 out the window of my truck and make myself a gun culture jedi knight, of course.

And the hits keep on comin'

Diaz-Balart - ". . .it's [Glocks] a natural pistol to get if you're not an expert on weapons."

And again, he later backs that claim up by offering his law enforcement buddy's experience tossing them down stairs and all; you can't claim to be an expert unless you drop the thing down some flights of stairs, and to be able to master this feat, you have to have Glock perfection. It's that simple. So if you've never handled a gun before, and consider yourself to not be an expert, you need to get a Glock first, and then drop it to become a master. Taking what he says literally, one can only deduct that the reason 65% of law enforcement choses Glock is because cops suck with firearms.

I'll have to ask my friends in law enforcement if they learned Glock dropping at the academy. One of them is issued a Sig, a fore-tay millimeter I hear, so he must suck - I don't think they drop test those - but I did personally witness him shoot expert with a rifle once on an Army range, so who knows.

Diaz-Balart goes on to say that the reason for 30 round "clips" (magazines) are popular for the non-gun tossing/dropping/mass murdering population is so that at the shooting range, you don't have to reload as much. That's probably an accurate statement, no doubt, but I would also add that people keep 30 round magazines for their nightstands, glove boxes, and also for competition. I'm an expert, remember, so I know. Of note though is that he says to reload the gun with regular clips, you have to take the clip out of the gun and manually load it with "bullets" using your thumb, and doesn't mention that most shooters have many of these clips, and that they can be used to charge the gun with "bullets" very rapidly. Like this guy:



Fast, huh!!

Ultimately, these two MSNBC people are trying to be honest in that they are doing their best to tell the world why Glock pistols are not the choice of crazies, but are in fact popular to cops and every one else. They would have been better served though giving this task of explaining these truths to someone of more experience than a journalist, but it no doubt would have probably been less entertaining. Admit it!

So a guy walks into a doctors office. . . . .

. . . . with three small sick children, snot running down their red little noses, and when the nurse opens the door and calls out his name, down came a Glock 26 wrapped in a Comp-Tac Infidel holster made of kydex, bouncing off of his thigh and clattering onto the floor of the waiting room.

True story.

Thankfully the waiting room was completely empty, and neither the nurse at the door or the one at the desk was the wiser. The problem I see is that it's possible to bump the bottom of the holster and knock the belt clip over the belt, and with the Glock 26 being so short, it tumbles right out of the waist line. Handling a three, two, and almost one year old with all the gear that's needed to sustain them, things like a pistol clipped inside the waistband are easy to get knocked around.

Well, I've always wanted to try a Summer Special!

*Edit: I can't remember who said it; I think it was Michael Bane but I'm not sure, who said that this is the same reason why he avoids using yaqui style holsters, as the muzzle of the gun can be bumped upwards and the pistol can come out. Same concept.

Don't feed the critters

It's pretty bad when a 50 lb coyote thinks that a grown-ass man is dinner. Hopefully the beast hasn't gotten it through his head that stupid people like this guy might be cream filled and try to eat somebody's five year old.

Idiot:



In the states, coyotes are generally a little more wary of humans, as they are used to getting hit with flying copper when they get too close. When I used to spend a lot of time in the woods, seeing a potentially dangerous or predatory critter with sharp teeth show me that it's not afraid to approach would have made up my mind that it needs to be put down. I don't want to read about a kid killed by a feral dog in my paper and know that I somehow helped it overcome the natural tendancy to fear mankind.

From the movie Jurassic Park:
Dieter: "It gives me the creeps, like it's not scared."
Dr. Robert Burke: "There haven't been any visitors on this island. There's no reason for it to fear man."
[Dieter touches a cattle prod to the dinosaur's head, causing it to flee]
Dieter: "Now it does."

Yup!

Found in discussion at AR15.com

Home defense in Prince George's county

Marking the 12th person killed in the county in as many days, it's refreshing to hear that it wasn't some poor sap who got it by the hand of a scumbag.

What do the French think about the Beretta ARX160?

I dunno, you have to ask them. I hope you speak speak French.

I can't understand what they're saying, but they do show what's up the ARX's skirt in detail. Notice the ambidextrous reciprocating charging handle and overall short length. To be fair though, the barrel on that thing looks to be about 10", while the AR they compare it to is a 16".

Ring around the Ruger

I cannot wait for Ruger to finally announce the commercial availability of the shit that they're smoking at this year's SHOT show. I want to live in their world for a spell just to see what it's like to be absolutely off your rocker crazy high on drugs.

While I do not own a single Ruger product, know that I am not bashing them. It's just that I've noticed a trend among that organization for building stuff that makes zero sense, and apparently I'm not the only one.

So my Bro-in-law has a newly acquired Horus Hawk scope given to him by some magnificent individual that he had proposed putting on a Ruger M77 in 220 Swift, and I attempted to procure the rings necessary to mount it for him. The problem I ran into is that the guys who designed the M77 receiver wanted to ensure that proper mounting of glass upon the blued carbon steel would be not only very proprietary, but complicated as well. The only picture of this phenomenon that I could glean off the internets can be seen here, if you do not know of what I speak.

The Ruger-only mount milled directly into the receiver is not at the same height, as if machining an even plane onto metal was too difficult. Either that or the engineer that thought of this idea was stoned out of his mind. It means your scope rings are two different heights to attenuate this ridiculousness, which severely limits your choices. If you don't subscribe to the belief in a mounting system that's stupid, you can always by bases from Leupold or Weaver, but you can forget getting a one piece. The only clear option is to order weird scope rings from Leupold and hope they are perfect for your application, as you will not find the rings on shelves in any store. It would be different if the Ruger mount is mechanically better or stronger than anyone elses, but it's not; it's built to be overly stupid.

What in the world grips the minds of those folks at Ruger? They must show up to work drunk, snort a line of metal shavings from the lathe, and top it off with a shot of cutting oil before fabricating their wild-assed ideas like $90 box magazines for short barrelled niche rifles with flash hiders. Why can't you folks just be normal?

Prince George's county is lawless

One man is dead and another injured after being stabbed in Adelphi, Md., Monday evening, according to Prince George’s County Police.

That's now 10 homicides in the county in the first 10 days of the new year.

You would think that with all the stringent weapon laws in Maryland violence like this would be a thing of the past. It's like the wild West, only in the East.

Too bad that it has to be that way; with the exception of Baltimore, Annapolis, and the surrounding towns around DC, Maryland is exactly like Virginia.

I didn't know that

WASHINGTON – The Senate's sergeant-at-arms says he's against members of Congress arming themselves to increase their safety in the wake of the shooting rampage in Arizona.

Of course he is; if his peeps whom he's charged with protecting under arms also have guns, then he wouldn't be so very special, now would he? And how am I just finding out that the Senate has a Sergeant-at-Arms?

I don't see how he thinks protecting oneself would be unhelpful; he can't be there with his duty piece to thwart hooligans for every Senator and Congresscritter. Perhaps he should just keep up the good work polishing the Senate's gavel and minding the door and stuff and let the adults take care of themselves for awhile.

Looking for a chronograph? Here's some helpful tips:

Buy a cheap one.

Having started out with a Shooting Chrony F1 model, and then stepping up to a Competition Electronics ProChrono Digital, and now to a Competitive Edge Dynamics M2, I can tell you that you most definitely DO NOT get what you pay for. In fact, from the research that I have recently done, it seems that chronographs are all basically built from the same cheaply made bargain bin parts and sensors, and that spending more money on one may give you more flashy features, but not reliability.

I was duped into buying the CED M2 because of the manufacturer claims of being more reliable than the rest, and less prone to errors due to light issues, but I see now that I ended up with the least reliable chronograph on the market. Looking back, the Shooting Chrony gave me about the same level of errors as the M2, maybe a little less, but in that I knew nothing of the limitations of these devices, so one could say that errors would be expected. It was only when I bought the CE ProChrono that I read up on the fact that light makes them very fickle; to operate reliably, they need bright sunlight.

If you are having problems getting your chrono to read, make sure you set it up where it will have either full sunlight or full shade or, in the case of the CED M2, don't bother setting it up at all because it won't work regardless. Make sure that there are no shadows across the sensors, and if there are, put up something to completely shade them. If you are shooting rifles, set your chrono up at 12 to 15 feet from the muzzle, and maintain that distance for each shooting session.

If you have the CED M2 chrono, and don't feel like heeding my warning about not bothering with it, make sure to place the display device on a separate table several feet away from the gun or you will get crazy errors. I found out this weekend that you can shake the display on the M2 and get a reading from it despite the fact that the sensors were 15' away. On previous shooting sessions with the M2, I often got two readings for one shot, on an interval of about 1 in 10 shots. Very frustrating. If there are others shooting near you, make 20 feet or more of space in between the chrono and them, as well as the display or the M2 will read their shots too. Also, you will get readings when the wind gusts, so keep that in mind as the display will make all kinds of cool calculations for you, which don't mean squat when you have six velocity readings of 112 fps from the wind queering your shot string. Something else of note is that when I failed to get a reading from my third shot yesterday, I picked up the display and the numbers on it faded in and out, prompting me to install a brand new battery, with the same results. Not what you would expect from a $200 device advertised as being super fancy pants reliable and better than the competition.

I hope this information helps somebody. I was hugely let down this weekend as I had new loads for the 308 from my recently acquired IMR 8208 XBR powder that I believe will end my temperature and consistency problems, and the M2 chrono decided it didn't feel like working that day. Having a working chronograph for load development is a must, and I expected more from the M2 than I got. I din't get a single reading from it, so instead of ruining my test by continuing to fire the rounds, I called it a day.

That's not exactly true; I threw a great big fit about it and hurled the M2 display into the woods at a shown 324 feet per second, but at least I didn't shoot it. For some background, the Shooting Chrony met it's fate on the edge of darkness two years ago when it was not recording shots from my AR15 while shooting offhand. I started shooting closer and closer to the sensors in order to get a reading as the sun was going down until I was shooting a half inch above the unit, and the inevitable happened when I put a 55 grain round right through the display. That was an accident though. The exact same thing happened to my CE ProChrono a couple of months ago when I skipped a round off the top of the display, ruining my OCW test, which prompted me to immediately toss a C-Products magazine in the general direction of the chrono that - as fate would have it - smashed in the display screen with a perfect shot. I had no other choice at that point but to finish it off humanely with a magazine of 100 grain hardcast rounds from my Kel-Tec.

Doesn't someone out there make a chronograph that doesn't suck? I mean, damn, we can send people to the moon; we can replace a human being's heart; we can split atoms and use that technology in a bomb to end the world, and yet there's no one out there that has mastered building a device that can clock the speed of a bullet. Really?

Sheesh!

Now comes my dilemma. CED makes an infra red light kit for the fancy pants M2 that is reported to end the problem of light sensitivity. Thinking about it though, the M2 is reported to end the light sensitivity problems without the IR kit, so I have my doubts, and there's also the issue of the display fading in and out, so their overall quality is in question. I could shell out the $90 on the IR kit and maybe have a working chrono, or I could spend the same amount on another Shooting Chrono F1 and have one that at least works some of the time, which would also allow me to take my M2 and set it on fire in the yard and dance around it in a loin cloth while screaming profane gibberish. I really like that idea. For what it's worth, when my F1 chrony took a round to the face, it still worked, except to say that the bullet hit both sensors and ruined them. So it's at least tough.

I think a nasty letter to the manufacturer is in order, and I have already left a review on the Sinclair International website where I bought the CED M2, which as of this morning hasn't posted yet. I'll keep checking that though.

If you come across this post, which I'm going to go ahead and call a Competitive Edge Dynamics M2 Chronograph review, my advice to you is Caveat Emptor. Don't bother wasting your dollar on "advanced software and digital circuitry" that was put together from Radio Shack seconds and packaged in a cool looking plastic package. Buy the cheapest chronograph you can find as they are all made from the same 1950's technology, and maybe the recent breakthroughs in IR technology will bear some fruit and make these things not suck.

*Update* I found this post on Sniper's Hide about folks building their own IR light source as the kit from CED doesn't sound all that reliable.

Thought provoking images

I found this thread at AR15.com. ****Warning. Some graphic images in here****

There are several pictures in there that literally took my breath away. The picture of the brother hugging his brother in uniform and then later kissing his brother's casket - it took everything I had to not loose it when I saw that one. You don't even know.

Not all of them are sad, but the ones that are will get you.

Great balls of fire!!!

This weekend I came into a Mosin-Nagant M38 carbine in fantastic shape with a properly pitted bore from many years of shooting corrosive commie ammo. The previous owner is a friend of mine who needed the extra bucks to go in on a Remington M700 chambered in 25-06, and knew of my want for a short and light Mosin-Nagant. As an added bonus, my Fairy god ninja delivered to me an 8 lb. jug of IMR 8208 XBR, so I am committing to that powder my 308 which will hopefully end the temerature sensitivity woes.

Last evening I had the ten minute opportunity to shoot the beast with one of my brothers, and with a cardboard box set at 100 yards I proceeded to miss the thing entirely with five rounds. No worries though; I have no idea what grain the ammo is that I'm shooting, nor do I know if the sights are set up for it, so we moved up to 25 yards and fired off some more rounds with success.

Shooting a short barreled Mosin with horrible ammo on the edge of darkness is a wonderful experience; if this were on a battlefield somewhere I am sure I would invite a volley of hot metal from anyone within a one mile radius:



That's no KABOOM!!; the rifle is supposed to do that. It reminds me of another gun that I used to have that produced amazing fireballs.

You can see the white edge of the box on the left there in the first picture. Being proper Hicks, we stapled a blaze orange hunting license sleeve on the middle of the box as an aiming point and shot off hand. The ammo was grouping nicely at the upper left of the box, so there was no way we were going to get hits at 100 yards. It also didn't help that I had the rear sight set to 200 yards, or that the front sight post was painted with dull orange fingernail polish.

My plan is to shoot the hell out of this gun when I get some brass cased ammo for it that won't eat away any more of the bore. For some odd reason considering the economical availability of these rifles, the market for 7.62x54R is awash in the shittiest possible loadings, as nobody seems to give enough of a damn to make non-corrosive cartridges that may have the potential of being accurate.

Just about every major ammo manufacturer has a budget line of cartridges that have perfectly acceptable accuracy, so why don't they make any of this stuff? The only casings that you can buy for it is made by Norma, and it must be stamped from metal retrieved from some alien temple on Neptune as it costs a fortune. I really don't even think that Norma produces as much as they just advertise it to see if anyone is stupid enough to try and order it.

Hopefully the boxer primed ammo that I'm looking at buying will hold decent groups. This rifle is going to get some use.

Facsimile Free Zone

“To think that they can carry any kind of facsimile weapon to school is absurd, but they see it on TV and they want to show off that they’ve got something similar. It’s an uphill battle for us and it’s good when the students help us out.”

Hey, at least they haven't kicked him out of school for the rest of the year. Or so we hope.

Pellet gun fun in slow-motion

I love YouTube!



Also, if firing makeshift projectiles at random stuff is your idea of fun, take a look at this slow-mo video of an air cannon firing 4 foot long flourescent light bulbs at mannequin heads!


The internets rule!

Help us lock up felons and anyone else

That's what I'm getting from this proposal from Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

"Baltimore can be a safer city, and with the help of the Maryland General Assembly, we can pass tougher penalties on illegal gun possession and we can continue to reducing gun violence to historic lows," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

And who wouldn't want to reduce illegal gun possession, right? Wait though, what exactly is her definition of illegal gun possession?

She doesn't enlighten us on that, but her proposal gives you an indication:

The bills the mayor will push are for up to 15 years in prison for felons in possession of a gun and a mandatory 18 months in prison for anyone carrying an illegal and loaded weapon.

Let's break it down: Felons in possession of a gun. The Mayor starts off right out of the gate about repeat gun offenders who are dangerous bad guys, and that is what she would lead you to believe she is after, but she is not suggesting 15 years for a violent gun offense; she is saying that possession of a gun contrary to written code is grounds for 15 years off your life, regardless of intent. If an individual served a two year sentence forty years ago for possession of marijuana, that individual can get a 15 year sentence if they live in a residence with someone who owns a Marlin .22 rifle. Same individual in a car pool van that gets pulled over, and one of the passengers has a legal .25 auto in their pocket: does that count as a "felon in possession of a gun?" I would bet that it does.

Now, to the issue of anyone carrying an illegal and loaded weapon: carrying an unloaded weapon is useless unless you are carrying it to the range, and again, I've never seen that qualified. Usually laws are written in an attempt to cover the person who sticks their unloaded gun in the trunk of the car and goes to the shooting range, but even that gets hemmed up as in the case of Brian Aitken. And if you make guns as illegal as possible for anyone to own, you end up with a handy tool to make anyone a criminal. So really the law is aimed at anyone who has a gun and ammunition on or about their person, and there's a lot of grey in their for the legal minions to work with.

But what about the dangerous criminals who repeatedly get caught using a gun in the commission of a violent felony? How do we ensure that they go to prison for a long long time? If you have to ask that question to somebody, you're a retard. I mean that.

Fisking this tired mantra about strengthening gun laws as a means to put criminals behind bars is getting old. It has nothing at all to do with the criminals and everything to do with control of the general population, as they are the ones who are most likely to get hung up in this mess, and there are money making ventures in that.

If a violent scumbag repeatedly gets caught hurting people, then you already have the Nature and Cause to lock them up for eternity. A gun law is an inappropriate and unnecessary tool to that end. If there are gangbangers who won't stop shooting up the streets of Baltimore, than the next time you catch them committing a violent act, that is your chance to keep them out of society by using the laws against hurting people that have existed since Exodus. It ain't any harder than that.

So this whole "we can't stop them unless you pass this law" is a bunch of bullshit that needs to be called out.

Stun gun violence

If you believe hollywood, a stun gun will knock you unconscious so that your attacker can conveniently rob you of your goodies. In the really real world, using a stun gun on your victim will probably just piss off your attacker, who may then be inclined to use a more proven weapon platform to ventilate your abdomen and send you running away with piss soaked pants.

One of the men opened the driver’s side door and hit the victim with a stun gun several times while demanding money, Perok said.

The victim, a Woodbridge man, then pulled out a handgun and fired towards the men, he told police.

The clerk, a concealed weapons permit holder, said the men were no more than a foot away from him when he shot at them.

“I’m sure I hit one with at least one shot,” he said a few days later.

He did better than that! I am glad that he survived the attack with minimal injury, and that he doesn't have the burden of killing someone on his conscience or reputation. A win win in my book.

December in Afghanistan

A photo essay from Boston.com of some pictures of Afghanistan. There's some heart wrenching photos in there, so be forewarned.

Also, pic number fourteen shows a Taliban fighter with a loaded FN M240B machine gun. I would love to hear the backstory on how he got that.

Found at MilitaryPhotos.net.

DC murders down

According to the Washington Times, there were 131 homicides in the District in 2010, down nine percent from last year. It’s the lowest number of slayings since 1963.

While I'm reluctant to give quarter to DC's Police Chief or her insane crime lowering ideas, her reasoning on the tip line and community intel seem logical. Until there's some bona fide evidence that gunshot detectors do anything but cost a fortune, I'll dismiss the technology part on its face, and note that Chief Lanier made no mention of the hard work and long hours that DC cops put in to lower that homicide number. Shame on her.

The Times reports that it is the second straight year that homicides have declined in the city and the seventh time in 10 years that the nation’s capital has recorded fewer than 200 homicides.

Hold the phones!! Did that just say the second straight year? As if homicides have declined in two years instead of jumping up? I could have sworn I heard predictions about all the shootings, blood in the streets, and mass chaos that would surely stem from the Heller decision.

Who would have known that ordinary human beings could behave themselves?

Well, maybe not these guys; but it seems that the general population doesn't strike the notion to go out on a killing spree that day just because they have a Mossberg in the closet.