Friend of The Blog ™, Tam, over at View From The Porch has a post about the Ruger P-series. I have a few P89DC but my favorite is the P95DC. It’s clunky, bulky, primitive in a pre-picatinny kind of way, with a DA/SA system that leaves a bit to be desired. Why do I love them so much? Because they are utterly unkillable and reliable. For $200 you can’t buy a more reliable and durable gun. Its prolific nature in evidence lockers throughout the US attests to the staggering number made, the low price point, and the abject immortality of it.
The notoriety? That ugly evidence-locker P89 on the cover of the book used to be mine.
Nowadays, the Palmetto Dagger is leaning towards my choice for cheap-and-reliable tertiary level of gun, although I’m not sure about it’s durability. But, compared to a P-series, the only thing more unbreakable is a lump of depleted uranium.
I should pull one of these Daggers off the shelf and send it to Tam for her to bang around.
About a month ago I was at a friends house and saw a small pistol target taped up on their wall. Whats that about, I asked. They said it was for their laser target practice system.
Huh..wha…come again?
My friend had one of these. I’m going to try and explain this, but really the video does a much better job.
You buy this kit and use it in conjunction with your smartphone. You set the smartphone on the included tripod and aim it at the target that youre going to use. You then drop a little laser module into the chamber of your firearm. Each time the firing pin hits the back of the laser it sends a little pulse out the barrel and onto the target. The smartphone, which is scanning the target, logs where the ‘shot’ hit, scores it, tracks your time between shots, and shows the motion of the gun (your follow through).
When it’s -12 outside and the snow is a foot deep, this thing is perfect.
The product is Mantis Laser Academy I got the 9mm version which means that not only can I drop the laser into my Glocks, but I can also drop it into my 9mm carbines and use them as well.
The software that you download to your phone includes shooting drills of all sorts, the kit comes with a dozen different types of targets, and the metrics are quite useful for measuring progress.
For me the practical use of this is it lets me practice drawing, getting a good sight picture, and smoothly pulling the trigger…..critical skills.
I ordered mine from Amazon for around $160 and I feel it is worth every penny.
Because the laser is actuated by the firing pin hitting it, that means you have to cock/reset the striker after each ‘shot’. For what I’m doing, which is practicing my draw and target acquisition, this isn’t a big deal..Im only firing one shot per cycle. However, there are aftermarket Glock triggers/slides that are made specifically for dry fire practice that avoid the whole issue. And, if youre shooting a DA/SA auto, you’ll have no issues.
They also make an AR version which is more money, but it features a replacement bolt carrier that is designed for dry fire exercises. Considering what 9mm and .223 costs are these days, for just practicing gun handling and sight acquisition this is a ridiculously economical way to do things. Plus, there’s that convenience of not having to pack up your gear and head to the range.
Buddy of mine texted this picture to me last night:
Apparently, around 1030p or so, there was a heavy knocking on the door. My buddy checks the door and sees some Indian guy (thats Indian with the casino, not Indian with the 7-11) swaying on his front porch. Thinking this is a bad time of night for someone to be banging on doors, he discreetly grabs his 10mm and holds it behind his leg as he yells through the locked door to ask the guy what he wants. Our mystery man says that his car is stuck and can he please come in and use the phone. My buddy is a retired cop and he’s not the type to give someone the benefit of the doubt at his expense. Stuck car or not, the answer is no. Guy on the porch starts copping an attitude, but finally wanders to his car which is nose down in the barrow pit. My buddy calls the sheriff and says there’s some guy with his car in the ditch, banging on his door, and this guy is either drunk or having a medical situation. Must have been a slow night because three fire trucks and seven deputies show up.
My buddy watches as two guys get out of the car, the cops start their little talk, and then abruptly they scoop up one of them and stuff him in the back of a car. Other guy gets a gentler treatment, but still gets bracelets and a back seat. Turns out door guy gets popped for aggravated DUI. What makes it aggravated? Blowing more than twice the limit. Guy number two had warrants for aggravated burglary and failure to appear. He’s not going anywhere any time soon.
My buddy did everything pretty well. He didn’t open the door and he armed himself. Where he lost points was in not having a gun in a more readily accessible place but, unfortunately, his wife doesn’t like having guns laying about.
I always keep a gun by the front door because you never know whats gonna come to your doorstep. As many people have said, nothing good happens after 11pm. Sometimes, though, trouble doesn’t look at the clock and it can happen anytime. Moral of the story: it never hurts to be cautious.
And T3 was having a sale on plate carriers so I got one of each – this and this.
I already have a couple sets of soft armour, which I believe everyone should have, and I have a carrier and plates next to my AR in the bedroom ‘just in case’. But, I wanted an extra set…perhaps for offsite storage…and I also wanted a low-profile set to keep in the truck. And, lets be real, the prices aren’t going to go down and at some point getting this stuff will no longer be as simple as a webform and a credit card.
And as tempting as it is to buy a set of plates and sock them away, don’t. You need to actually wear them and get used to how they feel and, most importantly, how they affect your ability to function and move while wearing them. I promise you, bringing up a rifle and shouldering it will be a completely different game when youre wearing this stuff. And it isn’t lighweight. The smart survivalist will buy a dirt cheap plate carrier, a set of weighted replica plates, duct tape the crap out of the corners and stress points, and use them for training purposes. Crom forbid, but when Der Tag arrives you really don’t have margin for a learning curve. So, yes, feel like a dork as you’re LARPing around your house in armour….thats part of the familiarization process. Your carrier needs to fit you, and it needs to do it in such a manner that donning it is as familiar and easy as slipping into worn shoes. Wear it…go the range, go for a hike, do a workout, but wear it and move with it and adjust as necessary.
And, finally, remember that these things will stop bullets (most of the time) but there’s no free lunch in physics so that energy has to go somewhere and that somewhere is going to be you. Don’t think you’ll have a round of 7.62 bounce off your chest and your gonna keep moving forward like the Terminator. Hollywood makes bullet resistance look like fun and game but it really looks more like cracked/broken ribs/sternum and bruises that make you queasy just looking at them.
BUT….it beats a sucking chest wound any day of the week.
When I was but a wee lad, I bought, for a mere $600 in 1986 money, an HK93A3 with a handful of magazines. It was, hands down, a wonderful little carbine. Utterly reliable and accurate. Unfortunately magazines were a whopping $35 back then and I traded it for a Colt CAR-15. I have never forgiven myself.
PTR, as you know, has been making G3/HK91 copies for a number of years and I own quite a few of them. They eventually branched into MP5/HK94 copies as well and I have a few of those too. But what I have longed for is a .223 from them.
A few years back they cooperated with Century and wound up putting together some partskit guns and those got mostly favorable reviews….and disappeared from the market quickly.
Now, accroding to PTR’s website, they have reimagined the HK93 but with AR mags and a somewhat different lower receiver while keeping the lovely HK operating system. You know, the one that kicks your brass into a low-earth orbit.
(Basically, a take on the HK G41) I really, really want this to work. But the further you stray from the original design, the greater the chances of things not going as planned. (As evidenced by early PTR rifles that had problems with shallower flutes.)
Its going to be difficult, but once these things hit the market I’ll sit on my hands for about a year until the reports come in and the bugs get worked out. But….dang….looks like theres a last shot hold open but that magazine release looks like a bit of a reach. Still…this seems like progress.
Much like how Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 became the paradigm for future planning, this recent event in Israel is going to be the touchstone for quite a while. Finally, someone addressed the ‘safe rooms’ or shelters that have been required in new construction for quite a while. I haven’t checked, but I believe this used to be a requirement of the Swiss as well, although they seem to have relaxed it as the Soviet Union disappeared.
I suppose that, if I had the room, I’d construct something similar but more for providing a secure room for valuables to be protected from fire rather than a hole to hide myself and loved ones in. Frankly, if there’s a situation where hiding from people is necessary then I’d probably be more likely to be standing somewhere inside/outside my house with an AR rather than crouching behind a steel door. And if I was hiding behind a steel door in a fortified room as a ‘last resort’ …well…the first person through that door is in for a bad time.
As for gun policies in Israel. I was always under the impression that in certain regions, along the border for example, the rules were a tad different. I suspect that after this recent development, there may be some rather large changes to the current policies.
Moral of the story, though, is that having your own bunker is never a bad thing.
I’m sorry the couple didn’t survive their encounter, but if you have to die then there’s probably no more noble way to die….fighting alongside your loved one to protect your other loved ones. Tragic and romantic at the same time. Its almost like the finale of “Mr and Mrs Smith” but with kids. Assuming, of course, this story is true. The first casualty of war and all that.
I’m glad to read that there were people in Israel who had weapons of their own and didn’t hesitate to use them. The overwhelming majority of news stories tend to promote the idea that all these people just meekly stood around like sheep waiting for a bullet in the back of the head. I hope its true.
You know, for a nation that makes historical persecution and genocide a very large part of their national identity, you’d think the Israeli’s would be a bit more strident about a gun in every home. Given their history of being at war with their neighbors almost continually since 1948, and the frequent border incursions by solo terrorists and small groups, it would seem that the .gov would be a bit more free with the boomsticks…especially since everyone has to have military training at some point.
But, as we’ve seen in Ukraine, governments attitude on arming the populace can change pretty quickly when that same governments existence is threatened.
The obligatory ‘behind every blade of grass’ story will be trundled out at any moment, I am sure.
I had a freight order dropped off the other day from Mountain House. Its hard to be subtle when the guy unloading the truck is dropping off a four-foot tall pallet of freeze drieds, all marked MOUNTAIN HOUSE in big letters. So, I’m there watchng him lower the liftgate with the pallet jack full of goodies on it.
Him: So thats a lot of backpacking food. What are you doing with it.
Me, no longer even pretending: Paranoid survivalist
Him: Thats not paranoid. I’ve got a garage full of this stuff. Did you see on the news that….
And that is exactly how you meet other like-minded individuals.
I have a friend of mine whome I’ve known for about…mmmmm…ten years or so. When I first met him he was not a survivalist. He worked in an industry that certainly was frequented by my people, but he was not one of them. Over the years we’d chit chat about things like guns, food, precious metals, etc. But he was very much a ‘feet on the ground’ kinda guy. But after years of being exposed to people like me he has become a card-carrying member of the tribe. He texts me to show off when he gets cases of .223 and he has bought freeze-drieds and Magpul mags from me a half dozen times now.
In my world, I don’t really know anyone who isn’t some shade of survivalist.
I have a lot of Filson wool clothing. Every piece is made in Seattle. Filson also makes some non-wool stuff I want but every time I go look at the specs on their website, its manufacture is listed as ‘Imported’. While I love the Filson brand, Im not paying Filson prices for something made in Thailand, Bangladesh or anywhere else in Asia.
I suspect its only a matter of time before Filson moves the production of the magnificent wool coats to somewhere more economical…and probably offshore. Or maybe they’ll just move to California and really make the stuff there rather than ‘making it’ at the Port of San Diego.
I suggest that if ‘Made in America’ matters to you, and you want the genuine Filson product, buying it sooner rather than later might be wise.
On the bright side, if you do buy the genuine Filson the rather high price is borne out over the rather long lifespan these things have. I often meet people wearing a Filson and it used to belong to their dad or grandfather. And a couple times a winter I’ll be out and about and someone will interrupt me and say “Excuse me, is that a Filson?” Great product those wool coats.
