Tag Archives: guns

Scoping it out

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Twenty years ago, I picked up a CZ .308 for my ‘long range’ gun. It’s been a wonderful rifle and my best day was a .512″ group at 200 yards. I put an IOR fixed 10x scope on it and have not regretted that choice. Why a fixed power? Honestly, because its just one less thing to go wrong. I figured 10x was about right for the distances I imagined I might need to shoot at.

A few years back, I wanted to bridge the gap between .308 ranges and .50 BMG ranges and decided to get a .338 Lapua. After some thought, I went with the Ruger Precision Rifle in .338 Lapua. And….its been sitting on my gun cabinet for the last several years. Why? Because putting a piece of appropriate glass on the thing was gonna cost as much as the bloody gun…and the gun wasn’t cheap to start with.

Eventually, I had to just bite the bullet and spend the moolah. Theyre a bit of an ‘off the beaten path’ brand, but I’ve been very pleased with my IOR fixed 10x and my IOR M2 4x. So, I decided that for my needs I wanted a fixed power scope again, but with a bit more magnification to go with the .338 Lapua’s extended range over the .308.

Do you know how hard it is to source decent fixed power scopes these days? Everything was either too much magnification (25x and up) or too little (4x, 6x, 10x). And, really, anything below 20x in a fixed power was a toughie. So…back to IOR. They had a 16×56 with the reticle (MP8) that I used on my .308. The 56mm objective is enormous but lets in plenty of light. I figure 16x is about the right magnification to cover the range of distances I’d be shooting the .338 at, so let’s get that puppy ordered. It’s a 35mm tube (light transmission, baby!) so rings aren’t just going to grow on trees…better order up a set of those too.

When it’s all said and done, it cost slightly more than the bloody rifle itself. But, at least I’ll be able to shoot the thing now. Pics when its all put together.

Dot observations

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So after finally getting a red dot sight (RDS) on one of my Glocks, it seemed like an interesting thing to compare it against a regular iron sighted Glock in a series of timed drills using my Mantis dry fire kit.

Before we get into it, let me tell you…guys, you really should have one of these kits. I have it set up in my living room and I can practice my draw-from-concealment-and-fire-one-shot drills. But more importantly, I don’t have to think I’m improving and by how much…there’s metrics – exact numbers – to tell me how if I’m improving. And I can do this in my living room when its -15 degrees outside or 105 degrees outside and I don’t wanna head to the range. This thing is awesome for honing skills and evaluating performance. I wish I’d gotten it years ago. I promise, youre not gonna regret it.

Anyway…..

Doing the ‘draw and shoot’ drills, my time with the RDS was usually a good .35-.50 second faster than with open sights. Accuracy was a little better also.

What I learned rather quickly was that you don’t bring the gun up and look for the dot, rather you bring the gun up and line up the sights and that lets you have the dot right where it needs to be. Still taking some getting used to, but there are measurable positive results.

Still Moar Ruger

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This time, though, not another 9mm.

Something a little different from the run-of-the-mill cataloged pistol…if you know what to look for.

 

ETA: Its a Ruger #1740…stainless GP-100 .357 Mag with full underlug five-inch barrel. I am a firm believer that a 5″ barrel revolver is the ideal length. Not too long and front heavy like a 6″, and not so rear-heavy and stubby as a 4″. As a general-purpose do-it-all length, I find the 5″ to be ideal. Finding holsters however…….

Glock Performance Trigger

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I had decided I was gonna go ahead and tweak out one of my Glocks, and I pretyy much did everything I wanted to it. However, the last item..the final piece…came together today. I didn’t want a ‘match’ trigger for a pistol that is ostensibly for a more informal use. The new Glock Performance Trigger seemed to be getting good reviews, and the fact that it’s made by the people who made the gun itself carries a bit of weight.

So, the trigger arrived today. Took about ten minutes for me to put it in because it has been a while since I did enough of a detail strip on a Glock to have to drive a couple pins. But, its pretty simple…punch out the pins, remove the locking block, remove the slide release, remove the trigger, replace trigger, reassemble. Is the trigger better? Quite. The trigger pull doesn’t feel different, but the way it breaks and moves is much improved. It has far less stacking and creep. It’s rather like a two-stage military trigger…takeup and then break, with greatly reduced travel. I rather like it. Is it worth a hundred bucks? I don’t know… I mean, how good a trigger do you need for minute-of-bad-guy at seven yards? But then again, on the two-way shooting range I’ll take whatever unfair advantage I can  give myself.

Just dry firing right now, but I’ll take it out this weekend and put it through its paces. So far, though….thumbs up.

ETA: Just occurred to me that this pistol is just a muzzle comp away from being a Roland Special variant.

Article – ‘I feel terrified’: Inventor of ‘Glock switch’ technology says he regrets creation

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When Jorge Leon invented at the age of 22 a small device that turns Glock pistols into fully automatic weapons, he said he intended it to be used for the good of society, to help the military and police in his native country of Venezuela.

But 26 years after being granted a U.S. patent for his “fire selector system,” U.S. law enforcement officials say his creation is flooding the streets of American cities with these outlawed machine guns and many have fallen into the hands of teenage criminals indiscriminately using them to wreak havoc on communities both large and small.

“After seeing and reading about all those deaths, those unnecessary deaths of youngsters, of police officers, of broken families, I don’t feel nice about that, I don’t feel good,” Leon, now 59, told ABC News. “I regret filing that patent because … my technology, which was very well protected at that time, is free for everybody.”

It’s not that I’m a person prone to being suspicious, but rather that I “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.” The article here makes the case that the Glock pistol is inherently flawed in that it is easy to convert it to full-happy by the addition of a simple ‘drop-in’ part. The recourse, the article goes on to say, is to force Glock to re-design it’s product to prevent the easy installation of such devices.

Ok, lets look at that more closely. First step, whip the public into a frenzy over the perceived issue and put out a proposal to solve it. In this case the issue is illegal full auto Glocks and the solution is to force a redesign. Second step, ?????. Third step, neutered 10-shot Glocks.

What I mean by all that is that let’s say that, by some bizarre political or legal machination, they actually force Glock to make a change to all subsequent products to prevent the ‘easy’ conversion to full auto. What happens to the millions of Glocks out there that pre-date that design change? Hmmm. Well, a full-auto gun is fairly useless if it can only hold ten rounds, so a magazine ban seems a ‘reasonable, commonsense’ way to ‘de-fang’ the older ‘readily convertible’ Glocks. Or they get redefined as ‘machine guns’ because of their ‘readily convertible’ nature. Or there’s a national recall to existing guns to have them altered to the new design. Or..or…or.

Point is, if they whip up enough hysteria, which this article seems designed to do, it’ll create the casus belli needed to ‘do something’ about that ‘Glock problem’. You have to demonize something (or someone) in the eyes of the public so that when you do come down hard on it, everyone nods their head and says ‘Well, yes, of course.’ We saw this with the Assault Weapons Ban. Folks were buying AR’s and AK’s for years before the media suddenly made the ‘evil black rifle’ into the new cause celebre for the gun prohibition movement.

But, maybe I’m just seeing boogeymen where none exist. It’s possible…Im often wrong about these things.

 

For All Lawful Purposes

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A while back I posted that ATFE had made it so that a person could, if so inclined, do some paperwork online rather than through the mail. I hate the ATFE with a passion and I see no reason to change that. But, I hate the idea of being in jail even more. So, I filled out the forms, paid the $200 tax each, and waited. I just got the approvals on both in email today:Yep…..I took this guy:
And did the paperwork (and engraving) to add a Choate side-folder (sent to me by the fine like-minded guys at Choate). The results? Here you go:

The one on the left is surprisingly handy…I mean it is really handy. It’s a comfortable length, carries well, has enough barrel length to give the 9mm a little added oomph, and is just a remarkably handy size, weight, and length for any situation I can envision needing it. It just feels…perfect. The one on the right? Less utility but oodles of ‘cool factor’.

A very valid question to ask would be why not just go with the now-legal-again ‘wrist brace’ and save myself $200 and some headache? Well, a couple reasons…first, I’m already on ‘the list’ so..in for a penny, in for a pound. Second, the SBR status lets me throw a VFG on the front of the thing. And finally, I just figured that in this case I may as well skip the half-measures and just go full retard on this.

How long did the paperwork take? Let me check….49 days. I get Form 3’s back in less than a week but the Form 1’s take seven weeks, it seems. Unfortunately this isnt the end of my having to deal with the goons at ATFE. I still need to give my Uzis the same treatment. But, for now, I’m gonna enjoy taking these to the range and getting the envious looks.

 

Kicking and screaming into the 21st century

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Remember that a while back I decided I was going to tweak out one of my Glocks? Swapped out for a threaded barrel, sent it offer some cerocoating and an RMR cut? Any of that ringing a bell?

Well today I finally got the RCR optic. So…we go from this:To this:

Still remaining, I need to put a nice not-too-light-not-too-creepy trigger in it. (Any suggestions, Tam?) And then…just shoot it until I’m happy with my proficiency. And my Safariland holster fits it, with optic and light, just perfectly….

By the by, if anyone is as big a gear queer as me and is curious, its a Viking Tactics Skirmish Belt with Cobra Belt. IFAK/TQ pouch is by Warrior Poet Supply. And the dual mag pouches are High Speed Gear Double Decker Tacos. Thats it…I didn’t want to clutter things up. This isn’t an end-of-the-world type of setup. I just wanted something for investigating the odd bump in the night or “‘who’s truck is that in the driveway?’ at 130am” sort of rig. Pistol, FAK, and 2 spare AR/Glock mags. Just need to add a flashlight pouch and I’d call it good.

I have almost no experience shooting red dots on pistol, so there’s going to be a bit of a learning curve but I’m optimistic that the benefits will be worth it. Specifically, shooting faster and with better accuracy at those speeds.

 

77/357

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So that happened….

The 77/357 handles and feels like a .22 rifle. It is very light and just feels good. Accuracy with open sights at 50 yards was excellent. It fed everything I put into int including .38 WC and sharp-shouldered Keith bullets in .357. Since it shoots a small pistol cartridge like the .38/357 it should prove to be a pretty economical gun to shoot. And, of course, I plan on spending some time with the heavy bullets at subsonic speeds to see how well this thing will work with a suppressor.
This particular gun is a somewhat limited offering from Ruger and it was difficult to find. The .44 versions were abundant but I scoured all the usual sources and this was literally the only one I could find.
But I really enjoyed ringing the steel with it at 50 yards with the open sights and can see it’s probably going to become a favorite rifle.

Wrist brace decision

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Bad Person gets caught shoplifting. They pay the fine and move on. They then go back to the same store, not having learned their lesson, and engage in the same behaviour, get caught, and get punished. Now taking it personally, they go back to the store at 2am and burn it to the ground for having the audicity to challenge Bad Person’s activities.

I suspect this is going to be ATFE’s reaction to their most recent oopsie. Specifically, after the SCOTUS smackdown on bump stocks, another court has vacated the wrist brace issue.

ATFE is a group of vengeful law-enforcement pariahs who are very focused on their image. To get taken to the woodshed twice in a few weeks is going to do nothing except encourage them to re-assert their dominance. Whats that gonna look like? Beats me…a magazine ban? Increased wait times? A very legalistic and detailed look at exactly what they do have the authority to do and then them doing that dialed up to 11? FFL dealer audits with the intensity of a colonoscopy for everyone?  Beats me. But I know that often times when you make a bully look bad, he gets mad-bull enraged and doesn’t care what its going to cost for him to avenge his hurt ego.

And yet, even though I know ATFE will come up with some sort of revenge plan, much like Nazis executing 100 civilians for each Nazi killed by a partisan, I still smile warmly to myself at the notion of ATFE getting their hand slapped. I just hope Im not one of those 100 civilians marched out into the woods.

News – Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era federal ban on bump stocks

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The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a “bump stock” attachment does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a “machine gun,” which is prohibited under federal law. The 6-3 vote aligned with the conservative supermajority’s previous decisions in gun cases, such as its 2022 decision to expand gun rights.

The court found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives overstepped its authority by enacting the ban on bump stocks, when it determined that the devices were classified as machine guns. Civilians now have access to bump stocks again.

Personally, I have no use for a bump stock. I imagine that if the time comes I ever need a machine gun, there will be plenty of them laying around. However, I am always a fan of ATFE getting cleat marks in their wedding tackle.

ATFE has been overstepping their bounds and creating ‘laws’ out of whole cloth when, in actuality, they can only enforce…not create…regulations.

I will say that while I have no interest in the bump stock for my own use, I think this decision will be an important one in regards to the ‘wrist brace’ issue. We shall see. I do have an interest in the ‘wrist brace’ issue since I’d rather avoid the whole NFA $200 registration nonsense if I can.