Category Archives: Guns

ATF and the arm brace..now with 100% more WTF

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ATF pens letter on ‘redesigning’ handgun with stabilizing brace
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/01/16/sig-brace-no-go-per-atf/

Short version: ATFE sez it’s an arm brace..until you put it up to your shoulder…then you have magically ‘redesigned’ it into a shoulder stock and you’re treading into NFA country.

So..according to the weasels at ATFE…how you use something can ‘redesign’ it. It’s like ATFE has singlehandedly turned every household item into some sort of Transformer. Car out of gas? You’ve redesigned it into a sculpture. Taking a wiz on a campfire? You’ve redesigned your johnson into a fire extinguisher.

This will be interesting to see play out.

Glockness

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Completely unexpected, completely unwanted, but when a paperless like-new Gen3 Glock comes your way for way below market what can you do?

20150105_203119I’ll sit on it until someone with a 9mm Glock is looking for something to trade. In the meantime, maybe I’ll throw a Streamlight on it and use it as a house gun.

10/22 mag prefs

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If you had to pick one .22 rifle as ‘the survivalists .22 rifle’ it would be highly unlikely that anyone would strongly disagree with the choice of the Ruger 10/22. Having been around for around fifty years, pretty much everyone makes accessories for the gun and if there’s a gun shop out there that doesn’t carry 10/22 rifles or accessories, I haven’t seen it.

Problem is,as with just about any semiauto, some mags are good and some are crap. My experiences have been that there are a handful of good magazines out there and plenty of bad ones.

For an amazing amount of time, Ruger only offered the 10-rd mag for the 10/22. Thats fine, theyre really really good mags. But, they are limited to ten rounds and sometimes you just dont feel like swapping mags all the time. Ruger eventually introduced some 25-round factory mags but, interestingly, they have a mixed reputation….a very rare case of a factory mag not being as good as the aftermarket mag.

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If your needs can be met with a 10-rd mag, the factory Ruger 10/22 mag is pretty much the best and only way to go. These mags are several years old.

For aftermarket Ruger 10/22 mags its pretty hard to go bad with the Butler Creek stuff. Sure, your mileage may vary, but my experience has been almost uniformly positive. The Butler Creek mags come in two flavors: Hot Lips and Steel Lips. The Hot Lips are mags with plastic feed lips and the Steel Lips are the mags with…well, you can figure out.

Back in ’94 I grabbed as many Hot Lip mags as  I could and used them for the next ten years, as Slick Willie’s repulsive ‘Assault Weapons Ban’ made making new mags holding ten rounds a crime (unless, of course, those mags were for the cops or military…in which case they had to be marked as such.)

So, for ten years I had about a dozen Hot Lips mags to use. They held up quite well but they eventually started having problems. But, it was a good opportunity to learn just how much life you could get out of a $15 magazine before it needed replacement. The answer, it seems, is about ten years.

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Ca. pre-1994 Butler Creek Hot Lips mag on left, new Butler Creek Steel Lip mag on right. Note the plastic feedlips on the Hot Lips mag showing wear and fraying from years of use.

The Steel Lips magazines, obviously, were a good bit more durable in the feed lip department than the Hot Lips mags. They charge a bit more for the Steel Lips magazines but I’m of the opinion that it is very much worth it. I still sock away the Hot Lips mags, but if I come across a good deal on the Steel Lips I’ll go ahead and get as many of them as I can.

Now that Ruger has re-introduced their Charger 10/22, and brought out the American Rimfire, both of which take the 10/22 magazine so it’s really not a bad idea to get the most durable mag possible. Ten years of regular usage showed that the plastic Hot Lips mags could serve well, but I think in the future I’ll be socking away the Steel Lips more than the Hot Lips.

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New BC Steel Lip mag (L.), pre-1994 Hot Lips mag on right shows signs of wear and age from being used frequently during 1994-2004. Mag still functions but it best saved for ‘range use’ or non-critical usage. A replacement is about eight bucks….for now.

The only other aftermarket non-BC mag for the 10/22 I’ve found that was any good are the Eagle brand mags. These are also a plastic-lip mag but they can usually be found in bulk at bargain prices…sometimes around $5-6 ea. They’re good for using at the range and otherwise taking the pressure off of your stash of Butler Creek mags…but for packing away a rifle, case of ammo, and a dozen mags, I’ll stick with the Butler Creek mags.

The best sources I’ve found for deals on the BC mags are either CDNN, MGE, or GAS. You 9or your dealer) will have to subscribe for their email specials but usually once or twice a year they’ll have specials on the 10/22 mags. When they do, don’t cheap out and buy five….get as many as you can afford. They’ll always have a good value and if there’s another magazineban they’ll really be worth their weight in silver.

For carrying magazines, there’s a couple outfits that make single-pouch mags that ride on your belt and, if you don’t mind looking a little like Carl Spackler, there are some chest rigs out there as well. When the gophers are about to overrun your position, and the haze is too thick for air support, a rig like that might save you from being pounded into the dust by thousands of tiny feet.

“License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit – ever. They’re like the Viet Cong – Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote…” -Carl Spackler

So, just my two cents worth, but if you’re gonna go with the 10/22 for most of your .22 rifle needs you’d be doing the smart thing to go heavy on the Butler Creek mags.

Savage stock options

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Earlier this year I finally got my .22 suppressor. I had a few ideas about what i wanted to mount it on and wound up getting a Savage that really impressed me. The Savage had the AccuTrigger, a fluted heavy barrel, threaded muzzle, picatinny rail and a very nice price. But it had the most useless stock you could imagine. Whats the point of spending the money on a suppressor and a fairly decent rifle if the stock is so screwed up you cant even get a cheek weld. Here’s a crappy picture of the rifle with the ugly stock:

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See, the problem is the comb of the stock is so low that once you slap an optic on that rail your face isnt even going to be touching the stock. So….what to replace it with. Well, I was rather fond of the greenish laminate that came on my Ruger Scout Rifle:

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So I decided to get something similar. A lot of stuff I read said that the Boyd’s Tacticool gunstock was the way to go. Headed over there and was dismayed to learn that the Tacticool was no longer available. Bummer. A quick call to customer service (more about them later) revealed that the Tacticool was now called the Pro Varminter. Whatever, dude…just put one in a box and get it here.

Now comes the interesting parts. Originally I screwed up the order. I went online and ordered the stock and I thought I ordered the forest camo laminate. Turns out I selected the wrong part number and specified the painted green stock. When the confirmation email came I found my mistake and tried calling them. Closed for the day. Ok, call the next day. The woman at customer service says that its not too llate to fix the error. Sweet! A week later I get the box, open it and theres my stock….in green paint.

*sigh*

Ok, box it up and send it back to Boyds. And wait. And wait. Finally I call customer service again three weeks after UPS shows them getting the stock back. I ask what the story is. The customer service rep tells me that, yes the stock was received, no we havent written up a new order for you yet. Seriously? I paid for this thing five weeks ago, you got the stock back three weeks ago, and you still havent thought to send me a new one? So she promises to get on it and a week later (so it took a month to get them to rewrite and ship the order!) I get the UPS tracking numnber. Stock arrived today. Behold a thing of beauty:

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Is that not gorgeous? And once it was installed, it looked like this:

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Wow, those cellphone pics are pretty crappy, aren’t they? Well, either way, gun looks awesome. That scop eis just something I threw on there for looks (IOR M2 w/ ARMS rings/mount)…Im actually looking at this for an optic. But I am supremely glad to be rid of that worthless cheesey stock.

Ii rather like this stock enough that when Ruger finally makes a ‘tactical’ version of their American Rimfire model I’ll wind up doing the same stock swap.

So…thumbs up on the Boyd’s stock, but a thumbs down on their handling of the order. I accept blame for getting the wrong stock the first time, but once they got back the stock it shouldnt have taken a phone call and three weeks before someone thought “Hey, maybe we should get that guy the stock he paid for.”

Things left to do: decent sling and a stubby little Harris bipod.

Gun show

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There was gun show this weekend just down the road so…why not?

It looks like the shortages and shortage-induced prices have mostly stopped…..with the notable exception of .22lr ammo which seems to still be hanging in there around ten cents per round.

AR’s were in good supply and mags were everywhere. Quality name-brand ammo for .223 was still in the forty-to-fifty cent range.

Highlight of the show was a .303 Martini that had been remade into a pistol in some Peshawar garage. Amusing to look at…. And interesting to think about since that sorta thing might turn some heads with that whole ‘making a pistol out of a rifle’ issue. Might explain why the guy wouldn’t lemme take a picture of it.

Didn’t see anything that really jumped out at me. I bought some reloading dies, Two boxes of old Dominion/CIL .43 Mauser ammo, and that was about it. Anytime I get out of a gun show without spending $100 I’m happy.

Just as we’ll….gift-giving season approaches and I’ll need the cash.

Non-Commie caliber = non-Commie manufacturer, Commie caliber=Commie Manufacturer….

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As everyone knows, a gun without ammo is just a very inefficient club. Unless you’re on fire, there’s really no such thing as too much ammo.

Personally, I’ve been pulling triggers for just less than thirty years. I’ve shot some really broad varieties of ammo, from lotsa different countries, and from lotsa different eras. When I go to buy ammo I want the most reliable, consistent, affordable, quality-made, ammo I  can find.

American manufacturers:

Rattle of the big brands off the top of your head – Federal, Winchester, Remington, Hornady, Speer… if you buy this stuff you are pretty much guaranteed to be getting good ammo. Sure they have recalls once in a while, but I would take a box of Win White Box 9mm or Federal American Eagle 9mm over a box of Wolf any day of the week. The ammo from the large American companies is usually exactly what Im looking for.

Now, there are, of course, smaller manufacturers and some who are actually reloaders rather than manufacturers. Outfits like MagTech, Black Hills, etc. I used to shoot Black Hills ammo way back in the day…remember those 50-round American Flag boxes? It was usually ‘good enough’ ammo but accuracy was sometimes not as good as one might expect. Pricing, however, was good so if the weekend called for a day of busting rocks that was the ammo du jour.

Locally, we have the old Hunting Shack (HSM) ammo and BVAC (Bitterroot Valley Ammo Company). The nicest thing I can say about Hunting Shack ammo is that usually it goes ‘bang’ every time you pull the trigger. They had the local contract for practice ammo and results were…uninspiring. BVAC, which has/had an interesting pedigree as an offshoot of HSM, is slightly better but the company has had some fluctuations in QC and I’m just not willing to stockpile ammo I don’t trust.

Summary: Buy ammo from one of the big US makers and be confident you got good stuff.

European manufacturers:

I’ve been pleased with Sellier & Bellot, Fiocchi, Norma, Lapua, and Hirtenberger. Lapua is probably the best ammo in the world but expect to pay for that. S&B has been very good and reasonably priced. I use them for my 12 ga. needs. A couple drawbacks to these brands is that they just aren’t represented very well. Find something you like and its very possible it may be unavailable at a later date.

The Russians:

Ammo of last resort. If I’m shooting a Commie gun (AK, Makarov, Tokarov, SKS, 91/30) then I go with the spam cans of ‘surplus’ ammo. The guns are designed around those steel cases. Although they now offer other calibers like 9mm, .308, .223, .45 ACP, etc, they are all steel cased and, in my opinion, usually pretty dirty to shoot. You can point me to all the FAQ’s on arfcom but I am not running steel cases out of my AR…or any of my other non-Commie-caliber guns. The only exception I have is I wouldn’t hesitate to run steel .223 out of a Mini-14.

Wolf has tried, with some success, to clean up their image these days but, to quote Big Bang Theory, you’re trusting the technology of a country that couldn’t catch Rocky and Bullwinkle. When the apocalypse comes and I’m down to my last mag of M855 I’ll grab the packet of Wolf steel cased .223 thats offered to me…but I’ll have misgivings the whole time. On the other hand, if I’m using my AK then I’ll take the Wolf 7.62×39 and feel just fine.

The Chinese:

You don’t see much of this anymore since Slick Willie banned it from import, but it isnt hard to figure that it’s a grey-market product that probably turns up in the US. The Chinese move it to the Russians or other Eastern Block countries, they repackage it as their own, and move it to the US. FIlthy, inconsistent, unreliable stuff in any caliber other than 7.62×39…..then its just inconsistent and filthy. I recall one particular batch of ammo (and ‘gunpowder’) that came into the US that was loaded with what was essentially fireworks powder.

The Koreans:

PMC is actually, in my experience, pretty good stuff and I have no qualms using it. When youre just a short-range missle-launch away from North Korea you take your ammo making fairly seriously.

Misc. Surplus:

Used to be you could get South African, W. German, and other surplus ammo in good quantity at decent prices. (I’ve a dozen battle packs of .308 S. African that I paid something like $20 ea.) It turns up rarely, but when it does I have no problem with it if it’s from a country whose national airline you’d feel safe flying on. I’ll take South African .308 ball over Pakistani .308 every time.

These are all personal preferences. Im sure there are folks who’ll tell me they regularly compete and win in their IDPA division using steel cased .38 Super from Glorious People’s Tractor Factory #54 in China but that’s between them and their guns.

For my AR’s and PTR’s, Glocks and Rugers, its brassed case commercial ammo made in non-Commie countries. For my SKS and AK’s, its Russian or Chinese 7.62×39. If I were to check the stockpiles in the bunker right now it’d be Chinese and Russian 7.62×39, Federal .223, S&B and Rem. 12 ga, Federal .22, South African and PMC .308, Win. 9mm, and a hodgepodge of .357, .38 and .45 ACP (but American manufacturers).

Your milieage may vary, of course, but if someone was to ask me which to get, Federal or Winchester 9mm versus Wolf or Armscor 9mm…..well, you’ll get less of the Federal for your money than you would of the Wolf but I’d feel more confident with the Federal. Or, put another way, when you’re standing in front of your family-owned jewelry store in Ferguson MO and the cops are nowhere in sight will you be thinking “Wow, Im glad I saved nine cents a round on this steel cased Russian 9mm ammo”? Don’t underestimate the value of having faith and confidence in your ammo.

 

 

Stripped lower deals

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Well, the Black Friday deals are coming in. As tempted as I am to buy, I figure the really good deals will come on actual Black Friday. So far, the most interesting one I’ve come across is one of my vendors offering stripped AR lowers for $35 in bulk. Personally, while I feel that having stripped AR lowers is a form of insurance against future restrictions on AR’s, they are not a cost effective way to put a gun together…in my opinion. Parts kit, stock, complete upper receiver, and youre pretty much into the cost of a quality-name AR (at dealer price). Im sure someone will chime in and say “Yeah, but I can get a lower parts kit from Steves Plumbing and Gun Parts for $25, a made-in-China stock and buffer for $40, a complete upper for $300 from NoNameGunParts.com, and I can put it all together on my table using a video I found on YouTube.” May be, but I think I’d feel more comfortable with a gun put together by the guys at Stag or S&W for $699 versus a gun put together by someone in their kitchen for $599. But thats me.
To me, the attraction to the stripped lowers is similar to the value addition stripped machine gun receivers got back in ’86.
Other deals I’m kinda looking for will be complete lowers at bargain prices. Last year one of my vendors (I can’t remember who) had complete lowers with stocks for around $140. That was a great deal.

The Walking Dead…finally some nice guns

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Man, I dunno where the guys in the gun wrangling department at The Walking Dead are getting their ideas from, but I gotta say it was interesting to see one of these whipped out of a holster:

I could be wrong about that, but S&W only has a couple light-rail revolvers out there in this barrel length.
Trivia: The idea behind ‘hi-cap’ revolver with a light rail came from the NYPD. They had guys who would lead the raiding party carrying ballistic shields. Problem was, they would reach around the shield with their gun arm to hold their pistol in front of the shield so they could fire. The slides on the Glocks would strike the shield during the cycling process, creating problems. So they dreamed up a ‘high capacity’ revolver with an accessory rail for the shield guys to carry.
I must say, the guys at The Walking Dead have been getting much nicer guns.
I remember in the first season you hardly saw an AR or AK…now everyone has them.
The one real peeve I have in this show is the way Rick holds his revolver with that ‘broken wrist’ stance….he holds his gun arm out at eye-height and then extends his wrist downward. I mean, I know he’s British so he probably thinks guns are ‘icky’ but you’d think if he can nail down his accent enough to call his son “coral’, he’d be able to master holding a handgun properly..

That long, quiet nap that guns take…………

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There was a time in my life when I had very few guns to my name. I can recall some money-tight college days where my personal collection was whittled down to three or four guns. Nowadays, its a different story. I’m not going to say how many because telling folks how many guns you own is a lot like bragging about the size of your johnson – unless youre ready to show it off to disbelievers, shut up.

Anyway, I’ve hit the point where I’m getting too much gun clutter around the house. Quite a few of these guns are ‘just in case’ guns. Tertiary-(or more)-level copies of things I already have. As such, there is the very high likelihood that once they get an initial once-over and range trip to verify function they will probably not be handled again for many years. So, really, it’s time to put some of these things away in deep storage.

My usual choice fo packing away things long term are Hardigg and Pelican cases. For handguns, I rather like the Pelican 1170 case for holding a handgun and a couple magazines. Theyre about $40 and worth every penny. But if you’re going to salt away a large quantity of handguns, it can add up in a hurry. As I was diddybopping around the internet, I found this..pre-cut foam inserts that turn a .30 or .50 caliber ammo can into a gun case. Since ammo cans are still pretty reasonable, this shaves the cost down and they stack nicely.

Here’s a couple of reviews elsewhere..here and here.

For my intended purpose, which is sealing up a pistol, some mags, and maybe a little ammo, sticking it on a shelf in my basement and forgetting about it for a decade….this should be perfect. For those of us who may need to sock away a pistol for some long term planning, these may be a good choice.