There’s always a hiccup….
I had a few boxes of mags get returned to me as undeliverable for one reason or another. So, I have a few boxes of the Steel and Hot Lips sitting here if anyone wants a second bite at the apple. Same as before.
Actaully, lets just make this easy..I’m just gona leave a page up on the menu bar.
So I’m up at CostCo, minding my own business, and as I’m walking down the aisle I notice that the wire shelving I like for storage is marked down by about 30%. Well, that’s a pretty good deal, right? So I look at the shelving and the box is different than the one that normally comes with the shelving I’ve previously purchased. Hmmm. Let’s look at things a bit closer.
Take a good look at this unit of shelving:
Compare and contrast with this one:
Notice a difference? There’s no reinforcing rib running along the center underside of the shelf. This is a bad thing. For the amount of weight that you’re going to wind up putting on these things, you very much want that reinforcement. More importantly, if you just noticed the price change and thought “Wow! Discount!” and bought two or three units you’d have wound up with a buncha units that were not as good as the one you already had.
So…no more Costco shelves utill they bring back the good ones. In the meantime I’ll have to hit Lowes or Home Depot or Walmart and see if they carry the ‘good’ ones. So..caveat emptor, baby.
I was visiting with someone at the gun show a few weeks back and, as sometimes often happens when you’re hanging out with like-minded individuals, the conversation turned to gear. As the person I was with was going thruogh their bag I noticed something…
“Is that a BetaLight?”
“Yeah, I got it….”, and I heard how this person came into it.
“Cool. I’ve always wanted one of those but they can be a little tough to get.”
“Here. You can have it.”
“!!!!!!”
Some people are just too generous to describe in a way that does them justice. I try to be as generous with other LMI, but it’s pretty hard to top giving someone a BetaLight. (Although, it can be done….rarely)
So what is a BetaLight? Well, the easiest way to describe it this: you know how those glow-y tritium dots on your pistol are about the size of a pinhead? Imagine if they were the size of a quarter. It provides enough light that, when its dark and your eyes have adjusted to the low light level, provides enough light for close-in tasks. And, since the thing is powered by physics and not batteries, it lasts quite a while.. (12.3 years half life, so it’ll be half as bright in about 12 years.)
Although readily available in the UK, they are a tough thing to get your hands on in the US.
Advantages? No moving parts, no batteries, no electronics, waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, everything-proof. Produces a useful amount of light for close-in tasks without being strong enough to draw attention to you.
Disadvantages? Small amount of light limits utility for anything other than close-in tasks. Cancer if you eat it.
So, naturally, I have to play with it. In a dark room, after your eyes have adjusted to the light, it generates enough dim light to see the walls of the room, and definitely provides enough light to read instructions, check a gun, examine switches, operate combinatin locks, etc.
It’s a cool piece of gear that I’ve always been fascinated by. I am very grateful to the person who gifted it to me, and I hope I can return the favor someday.
Remember a few weeks back I picked up a bargain 590 that needed just a tad of work? Well, one of the things I wanted to do was replace the gimmicky M-4-style stock with a more solid stock suitable for casual abuse and percussive persuasion. My exact words, in fact, were “Need to contact the guys at Choate and see what they have for a replacement stock/forend.” Well, as it turns out, Choate contacted me.
Some background: I’ve been using various Choate stocks since the late 80’s when they were all the rage in the preparedness (called ‘survivalist’ back then) community. I still recall their ads in gun magazines. I had a stock for my Mini-14 (remember those?), and later came across a really wonderful stock for the Thompson Contender carbine. (I was told that those stocks were kind of an oddball from re-utilizing M1 carbine stocks. Regardless it is the best stock for the TC carbine I’ve ever used in terms of weight, durability, and handiness.)
Anyway. Choate made a shotgun stock that I liked for those times when a wooden stock wasn’t tactical enough or resilient enough. After I got the 590 I thought I’d head over to Choate’s website and pick one up. Turns out they aren’t on the website anymore. But, the fine folks (and fellow like-minded individuals) at Choate managed to score me a stock and forend. You know what was really cool though? The forend even came with the little tool you need to remove those stupid forend nut. Very thoughtful.
Now, you may wonder why I prefer the non-pistol-grip stock in this case. Well, it’s really an ergonomic thing – the tang safety on the Mossberg is a breeze to operate with a ‘traditional’ stock, but with a pistol-grip stock your hand has to do more gymnastics to get to the safety. On the Remington, the safety is easily manipulated with either type of stock, not so on the Mossberg.
By the way, I have no idea what the story is with the coated green barrel. It’s not spraypaint, it’s actually a tiny houndstooth pattern of two shades of green very professionally applied. I’m guessing the barrel was a takeoff from a different gun. I really don’t care, it’s just a little odd looking.
So I disassembled the 590 and slipped on the new stock and forend. Gone was the gimmicky M4 stock and cheesy corncob forend (that still had velcro from where bubba had mounted some NCStar ‘tactical’ Chinese crap) and in its place was some very nice, very durable, very black, and very brutal furniture from our friends at Choate.
Now, thats a happy enough ending to a long story about a Mossberg 590, but the folks at Choate didn’t stop there. You know they make other molded products too, right? Like these ice scrapers. Yeah..ice scrapers. Ok. :::wink wink:::
And then this….monster….
I would like to have been in the office at Choate the day the guys from design came in and said “Hey boss..you know those ice scrapers we make? Well, me and the boys were thinking….”. This baby is definitely going in the pocket of the vehicle door. Yeah, a $3 ice scraper from the plastic bowl next to the register at the local QwikeeMart will scrape ice too, but this BAMF takes it to a whole new level. And…it’s a multitasker. For very particular tasks. How can you not admire that sort of creativity?
Anyway, big thanks to Choate for coming to the rescue on the Mossberg 590.
ETA: Yes, I do..and yes, it is.
The MegaMagMania deal on 10/22 mags ends tomorrow at round 9am Mountain time. If you email me for mags after the countdown timer reaches zero, I’ll probably just ignore your email. So….you’ve got a little under 24 hours. After that , the page comes down, previous references get scrubbed, and the leftover inventory goes into my personal stash. Also, if you received an invoice for mags and haven’t paid it yet….those invoices will be cancelled after three days, so don’t forget.
Overall, the response was quite good…meaning either I underpriced these things tremendously, or readership has increased since the last one of these sales. Either way, its been an enormous amount of mags going out the door. I cannot tell you how many trips to the post office it’s been.
For those of you who took advantage of the deal (and several of you came back for seconds and thirds) I congratulate you on your long-range thinking.
Twenty-two hours and then it’s done.
Two days and then the rest of the 10/22 mags go into the Deep Sleep. Get some!
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This is embarrassing…. I’ve been so wrapped up in things around here that I completely forgot that Paratus is next month…and was reminded by ,Rawles mentioning it over at SurvivalBlog.
So..yes…Paratus is coming! It’s September 21’st this year. If you’re unfamiliar with Paratus, the somewhat-semi-official holiday of preparedness, you can read the Paratus FAQ.
Don’t forget – there’s a survival-related gift-giving component to the holiday and nothing fits in the holiday backpack like a couple 10/22 mags that you got a screaming deal on. (And that deal ends in about two days so…chop chop!)
MegaMagMania runs for two more days… would you like to know more?
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Saw this, and a couple other similarly themed t-shirts and couldn’t help myself.
Starship Troopers is one of those rare books that gets the ol’ wheels turning. “Atlas Shrugged” was probably the one book that changed my way of thinking about a lot of things, but Troopers specifically gave me some thoughts about the nature of duty and obligation that I’d never really explored. (And for the love of Crom, read the book rather than see the movies.) It’s a book that clearly is more geared towards military folks, but it’s explorations about the nature of individual duties to the state, the states duties to the individual, and that sort of thing were quite interesting. It’s been labelled as fascist or racist, but that’s usually by people who think everyone without a certain melanin count is automatically a racist.
This being a college town, I look forward to seeing if anyone gets the reference.
Four days on the his-prices-are-insane 10/22 mag sale. Four days. After that the page gets taken down. Stocking stuffers, investment, grandkids, secret squirrel cache, whatever….. there’s always a reason to sock a dozen or so mags away. Get some.
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Anything of note going on these days? Doesn’t seem like it. Summer is usually the time to test some gear and take advantage of the usual summer slump in metals prices. Other than that, not much going on.
I’m pretty busy these days with ‘normal’ stuff, but there’s always that little voice in the back of the head that says “Hey…stay frosty, man. Today could be The Day.” It’s really easy to get lax when there’s electricity, hot water, and a fridge full of food at hand. All of that can change like that (:::snaps fingers:::) But, still, it’s hard to stay focused sometimes.
I’ve been cleaning up the ‘extra’ guns and getting them ready for the Deep Sleep. Basically it’s a very detailed cleaning, a generous amount of lubrication, and seal it up in a Pelican case with some dessicant. Handguns are easier…clean and oil, and then stuff them in a nice new ammo can with some ammo, a holster, and some other odds and ends. A package like that can get tucked behind some drywall and be perfectly serviceable in fifty or a hundred years.
Happens from time to time, y’know. I remember reading about a guy in Illinois that found a fully functional Tommy gun and mags, with the receipt from the hardware store, hidden in the wall of his house. And, of course, in Europe you never know what you’ll find when you pull up a floor or tear up a roof on an old house.
Here in Montana, you sometimes find guns where you least expect them…. someone loss a rifle in the woods, old cabins have a hidden cubby with a rifle in it, that sort of thing. I’ve never found an old gun that way but I know people who have. (I suppose the Watergun might count.)
Guns are a tremendously durable good….as the saying goes, their only natural enemies are rust and politicians. Same goes for magazines, too.
About six days left on the 10//22 mag deal. A hundred bucks gets you either ten (10) Steel Lips, or fourteen (14) Hot Lips. Letting this deal slide by would be doubleplusunwise.
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A few weeks back I came into a marginally bubba’d Mossberg 590A1. Thought it was a good deal except that the magazine tube had a drooling problem. Sent off to Mossberg and the replacement parts arrived today. While I was on their website I picked up a couple extra parts like an ejector and a few other things.
Mossberg makes workhorse shotguns. They aren’t terribly noteworthy for anything other than their affordability and their (usually) reputation for durability. When settling on a pump shotgun I went with the Remington 870 simply for logistics reasons. However, the Mossberg is a more than suitable secondary standard for me. In fact, the really are virtually identical in terms of function and reliability. I’d guess that about 95% of the pumpgun market is covered by these two brands with only the Chinese and Turkish copies filling in the gap. (And, dude, if all you can afford is a Chinese copy of an 870 you relly need to re-evaluate your career path since it only takes less than about $200 to buy a used Mossberg at any gun show or pawn shop.
Punched out the receiver pin, dropped out the trigger group, swapped the parts, popped the trigger group back in, popped the pin back in, and it was all done. Took maybe two minutes, tops. Gotta give Mossberg credit for a grunt-proof design.
So…a quick trip to the range to confirm that everything works and this little guy will replace the 500 sitting in the closet, and the 500 will get relegated to tertiary duty as a beanbag gun or something.
Man, that is just too much like real work…
I’ve packaged and shipped, in the last week, hundreds and hundreds of magazines. And while I appreciate that there is a certain amount of effort that must be expended to achieve a certain amount of reward, it’s a surprisingly large time sink. We all know that a little hard work never killed anyone…but why take chances?
So…
I’m going to go ahead and put a countdown timer up on the page that has the magazines listed. Lets say ..mmm…a week from this morning. After that, this deal is over, finito, ended, history, bring the car around we’re done.
So..if you’ve got some friends who need 10/22 mags, or if you just want to stockpile for the inevitable local/federal ban that seems to always be just one election away, you’ve got until this time next week to hop on the bandwagon.
FYI, the Steel Lips mags are outselling the Hot Lips mags at something like 5:1, which surprises me since the Hot Lips is an excellent value (40% more mags at the same price). If you’re the type to think strategically, the Hot Lips are an excellent choice for tucking away to sell to some poor slob if another ban comes through.
