I wonder...

Just saw a post about some low priced body armor at SSD, and it made me think about a conversation I had with shooting buddy Cro a couple months back.  I tend to run a very minimal vest on my own time (right now I'm favoring a bare bones Tactical Tailor mini-MAV) but he likes to run a full out plate carrier for training, which makes sense, seeing as the most likely time either of us will be engaging active targets is while wearing full IBAs with plates. (He even more so for the next few months... he says the mountains are pretty there though.)

The downside of this is that we're both poor college aged Reserve or Guard soldiers.  While being pretty serious about our weapons training, we plain don't have the scratch to drop on some plates, even the dirt level cheapest ones, to get the fullest effect out of training with that sort of setup on our own time. (And if you think plates don't make that big a difference when you're shooting, you've never shot with plates before.)

So we got to wondering, why aren't there any dirt cheap "plate simulators" out there?  Something made out of a hard material with the same weight at a hard plate, and coated in blue plastic with "FOR TRAINING USE ONLY" or something on there, with no ballistic rating?  That shouldn't be that hard for one of those blue-gun makers to figure out.  Keep them under $50 or whatever and I'm sure all the poorer mall ninjas would pick them up, not to mention a decent amount of part time soldiers who want to push their training to the next level.

Sig 7.62x39 Rifle Announced

Late last week it was revealed that Sig will be coming out with their 556 type rifle chambered in 7.62x39mm, and possibly using standard AK mags (may look like this.)  While I'm not actively looking for something like that (I feel the AK platform does everything I need for that particular cartridge,) it is always good to see new developments and options.

Utilizing the proven and abundant AK mag is also a great idea.  I can't help but think part of the AR's popularity is that there are possibly hundreds of magazine options these days, and having some weird proprietary magazine seldom helps sales. Unless you can produce them in decent numbers and for a great price (S&W M&P15-22 at less than $20 comes to mind, now that they're easier to find.)

Grumblecakes

At some point this weekend the facebook page picked up a couple more "fans," or "likes," or whatever it is this week.  Not a giant crowd like some of the others, but the small victories can be fun.

I hate being away from home during a daylight savings switch.  It never fails that I'll forget to reset my alarm clock, and thankfully this time it meant I was in my car and halfway to school an hour early, not cursing for sleeping through my first class again.  So I diverted my trajectory to the coffee shop and pulled out the netbook, and got a cup of delicious Mexican Chiapas so fresh that I don't know if it will cool down fast enough to drink before I have to actually get to class.

That's about it really, but I thought somebody would get a little laugh at me.