Top Shot episode 2

Holy drawn out Blue Team shooting... well at least for Jim.  That just felt like they were milking it for every second they could.  On the other hand, good to see Blue Team dominating once again.  Can't help but cheer for Caleb.  I'm know he's not going to tell anybody, but I'm pretty sure he got pretty far in the contest.  There's been so little of him (heh) off the range that I'm sure they're saving up his airtime for later in the series.

I did like the challenge, everybody shooting the same gun helped to even things up.  If the sights were off they were off for everybody.  Not a fan of the M9, but that's just preference.  They do work, and they are pretty dang accurate if you know what you're doing.  I just don't like the grip, and I have big hands...

The more indepth coaching before the elimination challenge was nice too.  The challenge itself was... interesting.  Finally a scenario where you may get some benefit from Magpul's Aerial Platform Ops dvd?  I'd give it a try though.  Could be fun.

Looks like longbows next week.  I'll probably watch, but I can't get too excited about it.

Gun Laws...

Really don't seem to work.  A look at European gun laws and mass shootings.

H/T SayUncle

BCM Gunfighter

One of the often overlooked problems with the AR platform is the lack-luster GI charging handle.  Way back in the day, the manual of arms would have you operate the handle with your right hand, one finger on each side of the handle.  While this works fine, the in thing these days is keeping your hand on fire controls during weapons manipulations (clearing, reloading, etc.), using your left hand (for a right handed shooter) to grab the latch side of the charging handle.  This keeps you in position to engage targets as quickly as possible after fixing the problem, as well as keeping your eyes downrange and nearer to the sights.

This is where the problems inherent with the GI handle start to show.  It's actually rather flimsy feeling, and I've handled Army issue M4s where I could not even operate that way without the charging handle twisting and binding halfway.  GI handles also have rather small latches that tend to bite your hand, and all the stress during use is funneled through the little roll pin holding the handle in place.  There are a handful of replacement latches available, but this does not fix the rigidity issue.

Enter Bravo Company Manufacturing and their Gunfighter series of charging handles.

What's With Short Frenchmen?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy doesn't want tall bodyguards.  Seriously.  We know the guy is short (5'5"), but from a straight up security standpoint, it's a horrible move.  Tall security guys can see better in a crowd, and tend to be a bit more intimidating.  But leave it to a Frenchman to be so insecure about his hight to compromise security so he doesn't feel too bad.

Testing something...

Here's a picture to make it worthwhile though.

Fair Warning

Blogging may be a bit hit or miss for the next few weeks starting Monday.  Going to be out of town on work related stuff and may or may not have easy internet access.  We'll find out.