Tag Archives: guns

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.

Takes money to make money

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Just busy this week, thats all. I’m in the midst of an enormous auction of gun stuff that quite possibly might be putting me into stripped AR lowers cheap enough that I might pass them out as Paratus gifts this year. More details on the auction in a few days.

In the meantime, we are forecasting a bit of heat this weekend, so perhaps after what seems like weeks of rain we will finally have a weekend conducive to yardwork.

 

Be vewy vewy quiet….

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I really don’t want to get too far in the weeds with this, but, as I see it, it could be reasonably argued that there is a utility in having an accurate suppressed carbine of some kind for low-signature shooting at ranges not much past 100 yards. And while a suppressed .22 in a quality bolt gun with a good suppressor on the end is a fine, fine instrument…sometimes you need a bit more bullet mass.

So, how would you do that, exactly? A suppressed bolt action rifle would be pretty much ideal…no noise of the action cycling, no special mods to the rifle to allow cycling with subsonic ammo, etc. (A single shot carbine would give the same benefit but follow up shots would be rather slow…on the other hand, this sort of arm is seldom called on for volume-of-fire applications.)

So…a suppressed bolt action out to about 100 yards. One hundred yards isnt a very challenging distance with a scoped carbine, so almost any caliber will do if it can be kept subsonic with relative ease. The first thing that springs to mind is a 9mm or .45 ACP gun. Pistol ammo is easy to load down to subsonic, and .45 AARP is natively subsonic. Problem is, when was the last time you saw a bolt action 9mm of any worth? (Sure, 9mm Destroyer carbines are out there…but those are novelty Spanish guns. Repros of the DeLisle are out there, but I wouldnt call them precision.) My first thought, and still on my radar, is a Ruger 77/357….a bolt-action .357 Mag that would let me use my 9mm suppressors. Loaded with 200 gr. bullets it should be just fine for the relatively short range while providing a good platform with potential for accuracy….bolt action, integral scope mounts, aftermarket trigger availability, etc. Problem is finding one.

So, I did a bit of research and decided that while I am still going to keep an eye open for the threaded 77/357, I was going to pick up a bolt gun in .300 Blackout. This would let me use my .30 suppressor and the exterior ballistics would be an improvement over a pistol bullet. As a bonus, the Ruger version uses AR15 mags for most applications. (Depending on how you load the cartridge, an average Pmag will work fine, but if youre going to seat bullets out a bit further you might want a dedicated purpose-built .300 Blackout AR mag.)

And thus we got this:

Its a Ruger American® Rifle Generation II Ranch in .300 Blackout. I then changed out the stock for a Magpul stock. I threw the Sig SRD762-QD suppressor on there and fired a few rounds just to see how quiet it is. Gotta say, it isn’t “Hollywood quiet” but it isn’t too far away from it. I need to throw a scope on and I’m thinking that since it’s for fairly short ranges, either a variable 1-6x or a fixed 6x would be the way to go. Why the Magpul stock? A couple reasons..first, and I’m not ashamed to say it, it looks cooler. I like the sling attachment options, the subdued color, MLOK points to attach accessories, adjustable cheekpiece and spacers, and the AK-style mag release.

The only drawback to all this, naturally, is that I now have to work the logistics of a new cartridge. I’m not happy about that, and thats one of the reasons I’m still holding out for the Ruger 77/357. But I must say that the .300 Blackout was certainly ear-safe and deceptively quiet at the outdoor range. I need to go with a friend and have them shoot it as I pace off some distances away from them to see at what distance it becomes virtually inaudible.

A good question might be why not use subsonic .308 ammo? Well, I gave that a lot of thought. There’s a lot of merit to using .308 from a logistics point of view, but my experience with large (comparatively) cases with light loads has been that you get erratic performance. Enough inconsistent performance to make a difference at 100 yards? Maybe. But there was also the concern of mixing up subsonic .308 with regular .308. I don’t mind mixing up subsonic 9mm with regular 9mm (or .45) because my pistols will digest either one just fine. But my PTR-91’s may have other ideas about subsonic ammo. I may revisit this and try some subsonic .308 but it seemed that if there were going to be tradeoffs that had to be made, then I might as well do the ones that get me something more in line with what I think my needs were.

So…theres the weekend.

 

Turning money into not-noise

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Sooooo…..that happened:I’d like to thank the /wallstreetbets autists who made this purchase possible by driving up AMC and and putting my ten 5$ calls through the roof. Got out just as it started to slide back. Better to be lucky than good.

The part that drives me nuts is that I cannot order up a 10″ barrel for the Uzi until the SBR paperwork goes through…and this suppressor will not work with anything except a 10″ barrel. So….gotta wait. But, that’ll give me time to hunt down some subsonic 9mm.

Logistics

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Well, if you’re gonna have an Uzi (or two), you’re gonna need mags….right?

Fifty oughtta be a good start. And I’ve a few other accessories for the new acquisition that have started trickling in.

This was a 50-mag package from Atlantic Firearms. These are 25-rd mags and, thoguh used, they appear to be in pretty good shape. I need to thoroughly examine each one closely, but so far they all look good.

 

Uzi does it

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There’s a nationally famous gun collector who lives a couple miles from me…Hayes Otoupalik. Hayes has stuff that when you look it up in a reference book it will say “Twelve known to exist” and Hayes will have four of them…he’s that kind of level of collector. Once, a million years ago, I asked him how he manages to find such good deals. He said something that always stuck with me. He said, “When you’ve been doing this long enough, you dont have to go looking for the deals…the good deals come looking for you.” And he was 100% correct.

Todays deal that I wasn’t looking for but came looking or me:

It’s a Vector Uzi with mag purse, a dozen magazines, sight tool, mag loader, wooden stock, sling, extra foregrip, and a few other bells and whistles. Previous owner cerokoted it desert tan. The punchline: $1000.

Last Uzi Ii got was a genuine Action Arms B model and I paid, I think $900 for it. And that was with only one mag and no other goodies. And that was fifteen years ago.

The Uzi is a heavy gun. In a world of polymer 9mm PCC’s this thing is a chunkyboy. But….its a proven design that is, literally, bomb-proof. This package of goodies could get stuffed in a 40mm ammo can, tucked away for twenty years, and when it finally sees the light of day again it would still be a somewhat viable choice for running-and-gunning through a zombie apocalypse.

Very tempted to do the paperwork and SBR it. Might just have to go that route. That 16″ barrel is just ten shades of derp.

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.