I hate this time of year...

It's all of 32 degrees out at the moment, and I'm nice and warm in a coffee house (it's the radiating hatred from the hippies at the gun stickers on my EeePC, I swear) full of delicious coffee and chicken and wild rice soup.  Unfortunately I have to go back outside in a half hour and go to my last class for the day. (Granted, can you really call choir a class?)

Sadly, I know that it's only going to get colder for the next few months, and snow will only be pretty for about a half hour before I remember that it makes lots of my usual pastimes nearly, if not entirely, impossible.  I need to get rich and get a winter home in Arizona...

Browning 1911-22

Browning's apparently coming out with a .22lr chambered 1911 clone.  Cool.

Unfortunately (at least in my mind) is that they've decided to follow the Sig Mosquito and build it to be about 80% of the size of the centerfire equivalent.  Le'sigh, as the French would say.  I don't quite understand the reasoning for building scaled down .22lr clones unless you're going for the novelty approach like the old half-scale Tippman Browning Machine Guns.  Those were cute.

Apex Kit inbound

Finally broke down and ordered the Carry/Duty kit for the M&P9, should be here and maybe installed in time for Thanksgiving break.  In theory it'll lighten it up a little and smooth everything out.  I've heard all sorts of good things about them, so I've got decent hopes.

I guess I should break down and get my hands on a trigger pull gauge if I want to do a good review of it... anybody know who's got them cheap?

She does beat up the brass...

CETME Modelo C, full auto, filmed at 1000 frames per second. Pretty cool.

From Perro over at Military Firearm.

Vickers & DD

Larry Vickers and Daniel Defense have teamed up to provide a training dvd.  Could be a decent alternative for those who can't get past the fan boy feel surrounding the Magpul Dynamics offerings.

Congratulations!

Caleb Giddings Joins The Cheaper Than Dirt! Team

I'm a bit jealous.  One of my life goals is to convince somebody else to pay for my ammo.

Bored....

Schedule change at work has left me with Monday afternoons/evenings off.  Don't know what to do with myself.  Unfortunately it's November, so by the time I'm done with classes there's not enough time to get stuff together and get to the range before it starts getting dark.

Hand Sheaths 0.5

A familiar blogger guest writes a post over the Mechanix Wear blog.

Sharp eyed readers may have noticed the gloves I've been rocking lately, and now I can let the cat out of the bag.  They're a pair of prototype Mechanix Wear 0.5 tacticals, and they are quite the sweetness for light duty shooting gloves.

Hopefully these are Tacticool enough for Tam.  ;)

.22lr SCAR

If you haven't noticed, I like .22lr clones.  I've only got two at the moment, but they're both lots of fun.

The Maddened Fowl has found another one, this time a SCAR from ISSC.  If it's priced right it could be fun.

Movie Guns

Always a fun topic.  Americanrifleman.org has thrown together a list of their 10 favorite ones.

>:P

About 15 minutes ago the slow rain that we had all night subtly changed into snow.   Thankfully it's melting as soon as it makes touchdown.

Ha!

Shortly after finishing their protest at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey of McAlester, a half-dozen protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., headed to their minivan, only to discover that its front and rear passenger-side tires had been slashed.

To make matters worse, as their minivan slowly hobbled away on two flat tires, with a McAlester police car following behind, the protesters were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle, according to police.

Your Daily Awesome

From Oleg.

Huh. Looks like I'm not the only one...

It looks like somebody's producing "training" SAPI plates, something I wondered about recently.  Unfortunately, despite being "training" plates, they're still rated for 5.56 and cost $150+ a piece, plus are restricted to LE/Mil sales.  I guess it's a start...

WisconsinCCW.org

Wisconsin Carry Inc. has joined up with the United States Concealed Carry Association to create WisconsinCCW.org, with the goal being Constitutional Carry in Wisconsin.  The sight's pretty new, but there's already 611 signatures on the petition.

It's hard to tell sometimes...

...if some things are serious, or a joke.  It's even worse when the Taurus Judge is involved.

1911 .22lr Conversions

So I'm contemplating a conversion slide deally for the 1911 to get some good cheap training, and the little Walther just doesn't cut it (controls are all in the wrong place and the gun is tiny.)  Anybody have experience with any of the kits out there?  I'd prefer to keep it under $300 or so, otherwise I'd just attempt to track down a GSG1911, but I have yet to see one offered at my usual places.

Good

Follow up from the flag issue in California I mentioned yesterday- it looks like the school pulled their collective heads out of...... you know, and reversed their decision.

Well that was a let down...

It's always great to drive 30 miles in the rain to find an empty building and a handful of guys standing around going "isn't there supposed to be a gun show here?"  At least I know I'm not crazy since there was at least two other guys in the parking lot, and another guy walked into the nearby gun shop to ask what the heck is up with the gun show a couple minutes after I did.

M4 Upgrades

This is the most logical solution in my mind, and it's good to see the changes coming down the line. Military.com reports:

Upgrades to the M4 include a more resilient barrel, ambidextrous controls and a full-automatic setting. Add better ammunition, and Soldiers will have a more lethal weapon to fight insurgents, according to Program Executive Office Soldier, which introduced the improvements.

The Army says they plan to start issuing them to guys going to A-stan in the near future.

(h/t Uncle)

Yeah... I want one.

Can we get these imported? Please??

More .458 SOCOM

From Oleg Volk.  No pictures this time, but:

In complete darkness (two hours after sunset), the 16" rifle with 300gr SBR ball showed minor red glow entirely contained in the flash hider.

If only ammo wasn't so freakin' expensive...

Eww.

After the better part of a weeks worth of unseasonably warm weather, we're back to a proper Wisconsin November.  Currently 39 massive degrees, dark, grey, and drizzly.  Ick.

Probably go hit up the gun show in the small down down the road and see if I can't cheer myself up.  May be optimistic and keep my eye out for a S&W 442 without a hole in the side or something comparable.  If all else fails, maybe a little Kel-Tec.

250 rounds of Dot Torture...

And all it did was make me feel like I suck.  Seriously, it's possibly the most humbling shooting exercise I've done yet.  If you haven't tried it, print some off and do it.

Maybe I can blame the TulAmmo or the mediocre factory trigger on the Smith.  I was pushing a lot of shots left (me, not the gun, if I took my time and concentrated they were spot on to point of aim) so this may have been the last push for me to place an order with Apex. Then again, maybe I just need to shoot more... A lot more...

Meanwhile in Kalifornia

School Forces Boy to Take Flag Off Bike

Veterans' Day

Thanks to all my fellow service members for all sacrifices, past, present, and future.

.458 SOCOM

Oleg Volk's been pimping the .458 SOCOM cartridge the last couple days, and I like what I've seen.  I've been intrigued by the concept since the inception, and he's got some pretty good arguments for it.  Of course his photos don't hurt either.  If it weren't for ammo costs I'd probably build one up for pure S&G factor alone.

How You Are Seen as a Soldier

From ENDO-

Looks about right.

Petition to Repeal Wisconsin Statute 941.23

To:  The Legislature and Governor of the State of Wisconsin

The people of Wisconsin demand that Wisconsin Statute 941.23 be repealed as it is unconstitutional on its face and in violation of Article I, Section 25 of the Wisconsin Constitution and the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution as was decided in the United States Supreme Court decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008), McDonald v. City of Chicago No. 08-1521 (U.S. June 28, 2010, and most recently in Wisconsin under State v. Donald L. Schultz, 2010 WI App 124 Jon M. Counsell Circuit Court Judge presiding for Clark County. 

The people of Wisconsin demand their constitutional right to keep and bear arms which is a fundamental right, not created by the Second Amendment, but secured or recognized by it. The right to keep and bear arms is therefore not to be abridged by any State law. Wisconsin Statute 941.23 must be repealed under the application of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, the people of Wisconsin demand the right to keep and bear arms for self defense and protection, weather open or consealed and to enjoy that right without imposing any governmental restrictions in doing so. 

Statute 941.23 bans the carry of concealed weapons.

The petition is available to sign here.

False Spring

It got up into the lower 60s today.  Part of me (a large part) deep down hates that.  It's tricking my lesser instincts into thinking we've skipped winter, which would be awesome. It's only going to make the next few months that much worse.

In the mean time, I tried to hurt myself.   Got some decent pictures though.

I'm trying to forget that moments later I failed to clear the box with my back tire and now my headset's messed up...