Quality Time

With the issue heater.

I should have grabbed some TMNJ dvds to round out the Saturday morning feel.

Photo of the... month?

All the talk about issue weapons below made me remember I got a decent photo of my current issue zapper.  M4 Carbine, 1 ea.  Manufactured by Colt, Aimpoint Comp M4, and I haven't done much else other than better sling points and the new Magpul hand-stop kit.

'Yote Repellent

They've been getting brave over the years, so it's good to have something handy to scare them off this weekend if we need to.

B-CC with a TLR-1 and XPS should do the trick, stocked with 55gr. HP, just because it's zeroed for it.

Muscle Memory

Winter can be a bitch.  The temptation to stay on the couch covered in furry space heaters can really put a damper on your skills.  Muscles have memory, and like most memories, sometimes they're about as effective as a sieve.

Yesterday was the first solid "Spring is... well... mostly here.  It is Wisconsin dude" day of the year, with record setting high temperatures well into the 70s.  This of course led to the motivation to put on silly looking biking clothes and break out the XC bike.  The one with the clipless pedals.

For those of you not up on your bicycle lingo, "clipless" pedals are the sort that, despite the name, have a mechanism that a cleat on your shoe clips into (the term "clipless" comes from the older style that have straps that your foot slides into, and those straps have been known as "toe-clips" for decades.  The new mechanical ones give you the same advantages (your foot's locked into the pedal) without the toe-clips, so they're "clipless.")

This winter MandaFern and I started up gym memberships at a local gym, and due to Uncle Sam's insistence, throughout the winter, we did many miles on the treadmill.  I never once swapped out the knobby on the back of my bike and put it up on the trainer, meaning I never strapped on my biking shoes and clipped in to my pedals since some point in October.

Clipless pedals have a certain amount of "float" built in to them (about 7 degrees the way I have mine set up) that you can pivot your foot left or right before they release.  This keeps your ankle from getting jacked up and stiff without constantly releasing your cleat and letting your foot come off the pedal.  Yesterday, I must have only gotten the front of my cleat in the pedal, and suddenly felt that I was lacking in this float after about a block.  Right as I started to really hammer on my pedals.  No float = very early release, which leads to my ankle bouncing off the pedal.  Much to my surprise, I don't have a giant purple bruise (sure feels like it though) but it is rather stiff.

Earlier in the day, Cro and I hit up the range (benefits of having your "weekend" in the middle of the week) and spent a good amount of time working on rifle marksmanship.  I had the Anshutz, and Cro was rocking his CZ-452, and we were mainly working on prone and sitting at 100 yards (yes, .22lr open sight, bolt action rifles at 100. It's a challenge, and a fun one.)  

Shooting prone and bike riding suffer the same issue in Wisconsin during the winter, nobody wants to do it.  Proning out in the snow on the frozen ground sucks.  Thankfully bulk 22 is cheap, and my Anshutz works "good enough" with Federal bulk packs (apparently at 100 yards it yields 4-5" groups for the crappy ones.)  It probably took the better part of 100 rounds to actually warm the muscles back up to remembering what they need to do to make a sling loop work right.  By the end I was back to cursing my heartbeat for messing with my sight picture, but there were quite a few called flyers leading up to that (not to mention how small a 600 yard reduced target looks through peeps at 100...)

Thankfully, I'm not planning on racing or going to Camp Perry this year, so I'm not behind the curve.  I'm heading to Afghanistan towards the end of the year, so I've been working on other skills this winter.  Prioritizing is pretty important too.

(To end on a good note, it was a beautiful day, and the route back from the range goes right past the cheese factory... so the grill came out, and the burgers had slices of the freshest Co-jack melted to perfection on top. Those were served up with some of the great offerings from New Glarus to wash them down.)

Grip Therapy - OMG IT SPINS!! Edition

I finally got around to picking up some VZ Grips for the snubby, and I'm glad I did.  I got a set of the Hyena Brown 320s in G10 laminate, because I like that they look like wood. The texture is smooth, but grippy enough, and with the finger grooves and general boot grip shape, they feel nice and secure.

They feel slightly wider than the factory rubber, but the relief behind the cylinder release is a bit deeper, and and the G10 is less grabby than the rubber, so I can actually use HKS and Safariland speedloaders now.  I'm hoping they'll snag on my shirt a lot less now too.

Between these and the Apex kit, I'm really really liking my little J-frame.

Irish Coffee and J-frame

Another "Guns & Coffee" photo.

Got a new Irish Coffee Mug (from the dollar store, and made in the USA!) and new grips on the J-frame.  Half a pan of mint frosted brownies to complete the picture.  It is March after all!  Also a 5 round Tuff Quickstrip.  The new grips work a lot better with traditional Speedloaders, but the strips lay in a pocket a lot better.

Post-Birthday Range Trip

To celebrate MandaFern catching up to me in the birthday count, we hit up the range.  Here's a few pics... more as the weekend goes by and I get around to editing.

Doc says the range is safe.

Doc also brought his M&P9c for the two of us to try out.
Consensus, need one with safeties for me, one without for her.

Manda also stepped it up in the recoil department.  She braved the 20ga,
and stepped it up with the 12ga 930 (sadly the camera battery died by then...)
I'm very proud of her stepping up and pushing past her trepidation with the
noise and thump of the shotties.

I decided to beat the crap out of my hands and put 40 rounds of fmj through
the J-frame.  It was enough for today.

Cowboy up!

Credit

Caleb has a good post about using other people's stuff.  It's a good read (so go read it.)

I tend to think of my blog as being somewhat image driven (even if I've been slacking on that lately...) and I'm cool with others using my images.  As long as you link back to the post that the image is from, go for it.

Oh, speaking of images, here's picture of Simon Cat.  If only he'd stay that way...

Egyptian Contract FN-49

G&C contributor, range buddy, and all around cool guy Cro picked up an Egyptian Contract FN-49 and was kind enough to trust me with it for a week or so to take some photos.

It really is a gorgeous looking gun.

The FN-49 began life just prior to WWII, and the designer, Dieudonne Saive, fled to England when the Nazis invaded Belgium.  Saive took the plans with him to prevent them from falling into the Germans' hands, and finished the project after Belgium was liberated and FN got back on its feet.

The rifle is a gas-operated semi-auto battle rifle, with a long operating rod and the system is adjustable to compensate for varying loads.  The rifle was originally chambered in 7x57 Mauser, and was eventually produced in 30-06, 7.65x53 Argentine, and 8mm Mauser (as pictured in this article.)

Take-down is pretty simple, and the rifle can be field stripped without the use of tools (a small screwdriver is required to remove the handguard as shown below.)


The fit and finish on this example are quite good, with some wear on the bluing present, however no rust or pitting that I noticed.

The safety is interesting, at least to Cro and myself, as it slides in a machined groove in the side of the trigger itself.














The magazine is a 10 round fixed box magazine, and the feed lips are machined into the receiver rather than the magazine. 

This being an Egyptian Contract rifle, many of the markings are in Arabic, including the serial number and range markings on the rear sight assembly.

On the range, the rifle handles well.  It balances where a rifle should, and looks good doing it.

Recoil is not as bad as I'd expected, no doubt due to the long operating rod and the system being adjusted for the particular ammunition we were shooting (Romanian surplus.)  It was a bit hazy out, and the smoke was lingering.

I fired a few groups from the bench to get a feel for accuracy...

...but we quickly realized we needed to back off to 50 yards to figure out where the rounds were going.  After moving to the shorter range, we found the rifle to be shooting about a foot low at 50 yards on it's lowest setting, and a bit left.  We adjusted a little for windage, and brought the rear up a few notches and moved back over to 100.



 Not the prettiest group, and one still managed to slip between the two sheets, but pretty typical of what we were getting most of the day.  I'm certain the gun is capable of much better groups if you had the right ammo, a better zero, and better range conditions.  I think next time some warmup time on the 10/22 and a little less coffee (heresy!!!) may be in order.

All in all, I'd say it's a pretty nice addition to Cro's collection.

Happy Halloween!!

Dragons!!

Are meaner than lions.

10/22

You know... October 22nd.  And a repeat of a photo... cause I can.

M&P Americano

Took this one back in July... then forgot about it.  So here it is.

Daily Photo

Therapy Edition.

Had a math exam yesterday, so I came home and put an AR lower together to feel better.  Only took about a half hour though.  Now I just need the other 2/3 of the rifle...

Daily Photo

Underfolders look cool, but are less than comfy...

This shot really demonstrates how the slant-brake works by directing some of the gasses up and right, driving the muzzle end down into your support arm.

Daily Photo

Cro trying out the 20ga 870

The short stock and minimum length barrel make for a great little gun to run quite aggressively, especially with the lighter recoiling 20ga chambering.  I need to spend more time with the little thing.

Daily Photo

Light rain, hot gun. (P64)

Daily Photo

Cro with the M&P9.
Brass in the air, pistol already on target.  Sweetness.

Belated Caturday

Got a fisheye adapter for the camera.  While these photos don't really show the effect off, they're still pretty good.

Simon enjoyed himself.

I'm Helping!

Photo "assistant" Lila hard at work.