CR123, AA batts, and desert hermit logisitcs

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FriendOfTheBlog(tm), Joel, had himself a bump-in-the-night encounter a few weeks back that I mentioned here. I mentioned it because it underscores the utility of weapon-mounted lights and how, in some circumstances, they are just what the doctor ordered.

What I didn’t mention was that I gifted Joel one of these so that he could light something up without pointing a carbine at it, if he needed to. We all know the rules about not pointing a gun at anything you don’t want to destroy, so I figure that a high-capacity-intensity flashlight would be handy for when you’re not sure that whatever is out in the dark is something you want to be pointing a loaded gun at.

Anyway…

There was a comment in the post Joel made about how, given his hermit location, finding CR123 batteries for this light, in case its rechargeable batteries zonked out, would be a difficulty and he would be better serviced with the dirt-common alkaline AA-batts. I politely disagreed because, in my experience, every Home Depot, hardware store, gun store, and supermarket carries CR123 batts.  But..I’ve been wrong before, so I’m open to the possibility that perhaps my experience in the matter differs from what that experience would be if I lived in Joel’s neighborhood.

But the crux of the matter, really, is this: is a device that runs on CR123 batts a liability over a similar device that runs on AA-batts? In terms of price? In terms of availability?

One of the points brought up in the comment was that AA batts were cheaper than CR123. This is quite true. But, as I pointed out, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. AA alkaline batteries are cheaper than CR123 lithium batteries. But when you compare AA lithium batteries to CR123 lithium batteries, there is a niggling difference in price. A quick perusal of Amazon showed Energizer lithium AA’s and lithium CR123’s being pretty close to each other in bulk price.

The scarcity issue may have some merit, but CR123 batteries are easily ordered in bulk from Amazon during a time of non-apocalypse, and because of their lithium construction they can be stored longer than alkaline batteries with less self-discharge. (And, I am told, lithium batteries tend to puke all over themselves much less than the alkaline batteries do.)

The advantage to the AA-batt is that if you run out of lithium AA’s for your device you can, usually, still use the dirt-common AA alkalines….assuming its not eight years after the apocalypse when they’ve all self-discharged or leaked into a pile of crud.

All of this underscores that for your battery needs you need to think about things like this. I standardized a long time ago on three battery sizes – AA, D, CR123. Almost every device I could possibly need….headlamps, flashlight, gun sight, weaponlight, radio, freezer alarm, etc…can be had running off one of those types of batteries. Some devices, like a high-intensity weapon light, have power requirements that can’t be met with anything except a CR123. While there are weaponlights out there that will run on other battery sizes, it seems like they usually don’t have the same level of brightness intensity unless they make up for their non-CR123 power requirement by using a much larger quantity of batteries. (In other words, instead of using two CR123, it may need six or eight AA’s.)

Then there’s the matter of rechargeable devices. More and more stuff is of the USB-charger variety. The flashlight I sent Joel, for example, has its rechargeable battery charged through USB. I rather like this feature because it means in a pinch I can charge it from anything that would charge a cellphone….a small solar panel, a battery pack, etc, etc. But, as we all know, rechargeable batteries have a limited amount of duty cycled before the battery starts to no longer hold as much of a charge. This is mitigated a bit by the fact that the package I sent Joel has a spare battery and should, I would think, last probably the rest of his life. But even if the batteries died an ignoble death, the light can still run off CR123’s…which brings us back around to a few paragraphs earlier.

The person who commented on there being a disadvantage, in Joels case, to the CR123 batteries has a valid point – resupply is definitely a concern. But, in my opinion, that potential risk or failure point is mitigated by the the CR123 being able to be long-terms stored meaning that a supply of them purchased now should take care of things. Also, for what I was looking for – a compact, handheld light with tremendous brightness – wasn’t as readily available in a non-CR123 version while still meeting the compact requirements.

Anyway, some food for though there.

 

Dot Glock progress

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I had mentioned a while back that I was going to wind up setting up a Glock with a red dot. One of my biggest questions was do I get an MOS Glock and use the adapter plates to mount an optic, do I buy a third-party slide already cut for an optic, or do I send off my slide to get cut? Tough choice. No one seemed to have anything nice to say about the Glock MOS system, so that was the end of that. Aftermarket slides that were already cut were a bit north of $300. Heck, the whole damn gun didnt cost me that. Someone recommended Wager Machine and after reading more about them I decided to give them a shot. I had them do an RMR cut to my factory slide, cerokote the whole thing, and install the Trijicon suppressor-height sights I sent them. Total cost, soup to nuts, was $145.

Unfortunately, none of my vendors happen to have a Trijicon RCR in stock for me to fit on there to judge the quality of their machining. But, I can say the cerokote looks great and they seem to have installed he sights properly.

Only real thing left to do here is sight in the open sights, get the optic mounted, and perhaps put in a bit of a better trigger.

I don’t usually put this much….bespokeness….into a pistol, but I’d like to have at least one pistol that gives me just about every possible advantage available short of a giggle switch.

I’m very much looking forward to getting the RCR mounted and seeing how it works out.

Czechnology

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A few months ago, one of my vendors was closing out a particualr model of CZ rifle…..the CZ 457 Jaguar. For me, the claim to fame for this gun was the 29″ (thats not a typo) barrel. Between a barrel that is so long that a .22 has burned up all its powder long ago, and the Sparrow suppressor I dropped on the end of this thing (making it almost four-and-a-half feet long) shooting this thing with subsonic Remingtons sounded like a staplegun.

And, unsurprisingly, the gun was, with open sights at 25 yards, stupidly accurate. With the open sights and a solid rest, all shots touched in a group you could cover with a nickel. And, as much as I hate to admit it, my eyes ain’t what they used to be when it comes to open sights. (Hence the Glock upgrade to a red dot…more about that in a few weeks.)

CZ makes good stuff, but if you’re looking for a quality .22 that punches way above its weight class, go with their .22 rifles.

With subsonic HP and the Sparrow on the end, this flagpole is going to be pure murder on gophers if I ever manage to find enough time to spend a day out in the fields. I’m tempted to drop a scope on it, but thats what I have my Savage 93 for….

All in all, a good day at the range. I function tested some guns I’ve been meaning to work with, confirmed the zero on an AR, and had a real blast shooting the CZ 457. Not bad for a dreary rainy day here in western Montana.

Meeting life in a violent new way

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Whenever someone points out how things ‘now’ are different from how things were ‘then’ it raises a question: are things really different or are we just more aware of it than we were before.

Let me give you an example: I want to say ‘it seems like the world today is more violent and unpredictable than it was ten years ago’. So the question arises: is the world more violent and unpredictable today than it was ten years ago or is the world just as violent and unpredictable as its always been and we are just more aware of it now because of increased media about it?

I try to keep a close eye on the news and it is my opinion that the world is more violent and unpredictable now than it was ten years ago. Yes, there’s more news coverage of violence these days than there used to be, so it would seem reasonable to think that the level of violence and crime is really fairly static and we’re just hearing about it more. But…I disagree.

Given the outrageousness of the violence and crimes that seem to be taking place with alarming regularity these days, it would seem likely that even when we didnt have the media coverage we have today we would have heard about these atrocities. So…I think we hear about violence and crime more these days because we are experiencing more violence and crime.

But its not just in the media, I also just look around me and see the same thing. The town I live in has had an exponential increase in homeless people. And, being a college town, we’ve just pandered to them and made things so easy for them that we have become a vacation destination for the state’s homeless. And, naturally, these aren’t just the usual homeless but the crazy, screaming-on-a-street-corner kind of homeless. Now, I’ve lived in this town for thirty years and I know darn well that we did not have this level of dangerous homeless people twenty years ago.

So, as far as I’m concerned, yeah the world is a more dangerous and violent place these days. So what does that mean in the long run? Good question.

It means that you’re not being paranoid, you’re not being delusional, you’re not being anti-social, and you’re not being crazy by elevating your personal level of situational awareness and taking precautions. Maybe nowadays you carry an extra magazine of ammo that you didnt normally carry before. Maybe you stop and take a hard look at your surroundings before you get out of your car at the WalMart parking lot. Maybe you walk around your house and double-check the doors are locked before you go to bed at night. Maybe avoid crowds and do’t let anyone you don’t know get within arms reach of you. Whatever you do to increase your awareness of the possble threats around/to you, know that you’re not being overly dramatic. The world really is getting more impolite and only the foolish ignore it.

P89DC

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I like the Ruger P95DC for its rugged end-of-the-world durability. Rental ranges confirm that these things virtually never break. Then again, no one probably has any interest in shooting them so perhaps thats the reason. But…even more robust in Ruger’s “Ignore ergonomics, just make it a tank” style, we have today’s guest…a Ruger P89DC. An outgrowth of the P85 (and P85II) series, this was a somewhat improved version of the P85 series of military contract wannabes.

I genuinely believe this gun is unkillable. With shipping, this ugly duckling (ca.1993) set me back a hair over two hundred bucks. Whats really fascinating is that someone thought highly enough of this gun to put a set of Crimson Trace laser grips on it. Ruger retired the P89 in 2009, but they turn up in evidence lockers and gun ‘buybacks’ everywhere. I’ve never seen a broken one. I’ve seen them with pitting, rust, gouges, scratches, missing sights, and all sortsa staining…..but I’ve never seen one that didn’t work.

Friend Of The Blog(tm), Tam, did a 2000-rd endurance test and other than the cringe-worthy ergonomics, it chugged along without a hitch. That isn’t necessarily a difficult accomplishment. Tam’s 2000-rd tests prove that any well-made pistol from a major brand shooting quality ammunition will usually give that kind of performance. The pistol Tam used for her test, and which has apparently gone on to be a prop for a book cover, was a very worn, very well used pistol that, when I got it, still had the evidence tag wired to the front of the triggerguard. (You can see the wear from the wire on the front of the triggerguard in her photos.)

The P95DC is a lighter, handier gun…but thats like saying a patio paver is a lighter handier brick than a cinder block – its true, but that doesnt take away the fact its a brick.  Since they both use the same magazine, and the price was right, and you can never have too many ‘disposable’ handguns to stuff under the seat of your truck, the floorboards of your cabin, or into an ammo can buried in a national forest somewhere, it seemed like a good purchase at the time.

Im still fascinated that someone went through the time and expense to slap a laser sight on it.

Glowie

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I mentioned a few posts back that I have a glow-in-the-dark (which I am just gonna simplify to ‘glowie’) tray that I keep my bedside gun on so I can find it in the dark. It’s a fairly simple thing…you have the lights on in the bedroom and when you turn off the light to go to bed, the glowie tray has absorbed enough light to glow gently through the night. As you know, most glowie stuff loses its brightness as the night wears on…thats fine because as the night goes on your night vision becomes better. As a result, a faintly glowing object is plenty bright to your just-woke-up-at-3am eyes. TPIWWP, so:

I got mine from the always interesting CountyComm website. I’ve been quite tickled with it and find it to be an excellent way to keep my important bump-in-the-night stuff in one place where I can find it easily.

Turning money into not-noise

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The .45 AARP, I mean .45 ACP, is an okay cartridge. Dogmatic chest-pounders will shrilly clamor about ‘back to back world wars’ and make some comment about “…beginning with .4” Comparing apples to apples…..FMJ to FMJ….JHP to JHP….there’s not more than a couple points of delta between the two in terms of ‘stopping power’. Everyone has anecdotes about the guy shot in the head nine times with a 9mm and the guy kept coming, but some other baddood caught an FMJ pumpkin in his thigh and his head ‘sploded right off his body. Have a quality pistol, be proficient with it, have the mindset to use it well, and you’ll be just fine regardless of caliber.

I am quite happy with the 9mm cartridge in my pistols. I like capacity. Modern hollowpoints seem to do a good job of getting the task done, so I carry a Glock of some flavor (usually a 17, rarely a 19, and only in my John Woo LARPing do I carry a 34) in 9mm. But, I’ve started to add suppressors to my collection of toys and 9mm is supersonic. I can buy subsonic 9mm, of course, but .45 AARP is native subsonic. So, I’m currently putting together a nice Glock 21 to go with the Gemtech that I have on the way. Which leads me to these:

Police trade-in G21’s w/ night sights and two magazines. Price? $299 each. Considering I’m going to have to buy new threaded barrels, and new suppressor-height night sights, it didn’t make sense to buy one brand new. Fourtunately the /gundeals section on Reddit pointed me to a vendor with these.

A good question might be ‘why do I need a suppressed .45 pistol’ and the answer is … well, I suppose its not about need but about want. And  because I can. Also at some point I will live somewhere where I can just step out the door of my abode and do some shooting and it would be nice to not telegraph my activities to the neighbors, even if they are half a mile away.

Anyway, thats the next little gun project I’m working on. Also doing the same in 9mm.

Patriots Day

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That stupid annual quandry I always get: is it Patriot’s, Patriots, or Patriots’?

Regardless, today is the day the more historically orthodox of us observe the start of the American Revolution and ponder it’s implications.

Heinlein said that “the price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness.” How do you do that? As a wise man once said, “with heart, faith, and skill.” But it also helps to have a good rifle, the skill to wield it effectively, and the mindset necessary to know when.

I’m trapped in an office today, so no range time today. But, definitely this weekend.

Remember, guys – this nation was founded by a buncha guys with guns who didn’t like paying taxes and being pushed around by .gov. It’s in your national DNA to dig in your heels and say BFYTW. Accept it, embrace it, live it.

Bumping back

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FriendOfTheBlog(tm), Joel over at The Ultimate Answer To Kings, had a bump-in-the-night episode the other evening. If you haven’t read Joels blog, the TL;DR background is that he’s a one-legged older gentleman who lives by himself in a small cabin in the desert. Lotsa empty lonely space and police response time is measured with a calendar. A prudent man, he carries a pistol when he’s out roaming his desert home. But, one night, some noises called for an investigation and the tool of choice for the job was a light-equipped carbine. You can go read the post and see what the situtaion was, but what’s important to takeaway from the episode is that you never know if That Scary Moment is going to happen in the light or in the dark.

All of my ‘just in case’ guns stashed around the house are equipped with blindingly bright lights. Additionally, sometimes you’d prefer not to light things up by pointing a loaded rifle at them…so a handheld flashlight is in order.

I’ve long believed that the most odds-on likely scenario for needing a ‘house gun’ would occur at night. Probably the middle of the night. When it’s dark. (Although fate has a way of beating the odds.) What do I keep handy for those bumps in the night? Well, there’s an AR with a Surefire light, an 870 with a Surefire forend, and my trusty nightstand gun…a Glock 19 with an Olight Valkyrie PL Pro (I love that light), Trijicon HD sights, and a whole buncha Gold Dots. The pistol, my flashlight, and an extra pair of glasses, all sit on this wonderful glow-in-the-dark tray so I can find them instantly at night.

If I hear something go wonky, like Joel did, my first response, after determining what the threat is, is to buzz the fuzz and watch my tax dollars at work. I will, of course, be watching from a safe vantage point with some boomtoy in my grasp…because you never know what will happen.

In Joel’s case, living in BFE, alone, there’s certainly a reasonable sense of caution when it comes to stranger danger. Someday I’ll have my nice little quiet chunk of Montna with my tastefull, yet tactically appointed cabin. And you can be utterly certain it will have a ‘ready rack’ by the door. (As well as several warning systems and countermeasure systems.)

Anyway, I bring up Joel’s experience as a shining example (seewhat I did there?) of the utility and necessity of having lights on your ‘bump in the night’ stuff.