Slow Bloggin'

Just not feeling it today, had a huge stack of comics and we hit the range later in the evening.  Working third shift tonight and heading up to camp for the morning at least to do some rappelling and say hi if nothing else.

On the other hand, checked out a new (to me) range today, has all the standard "the public can't be trusted so here's a bunch of arbitrary" rules, but you can stretch out to 300 yards.  You kinda forget how far that is if you don't shoot it that often...

The Springfield did pretty darn well too.  I managed to keep most of them in the black of a "NRA 50 Meter slow-fire" target as long as I took my time.  Gonna have to get up there more often I think.

Oh, and a couple more mags went through Cro's AR, rubber chunk is still holding up...

Mmm... Coffee...

One of the great things about small locally owned coffee shops.

I'm currently sitting about 10 feet away from the roaster, and it's running.  It sounds really cool when the beans pop (like popcorn... except a five gallon bucket's worth) and the smell is fantastic.

Embody's up to his old tricks again...

It appears that he's suing over getting his carry permit revoked.  Couldn't have happened to a greater guy in my mind.

If you remember back a ways, he's the guy who was detained for a bit after OCing an AK pistol across his back in a local park. Oh yeah, and he had painted the muzzle nut orange to "keep people from hassling him." I don't disagree with the principle of the idea, but that last bit is what throws him clear into Category I Asshat in my book.

(h/t Uncle)

More BattleComp Goodness

Cro shooting it for the first time.  There is a slightly dirty word at the end if you're the kind that get offended by that though, be warned.



I unknowingly stopped recording where the clip ends there (new camera... still figuring things out...) so I missed him saying "it's everything it's advertised to be..."

Sharks

So it's Shark Week on Discovery Channel, and I just heard a bumper between the commercials and Dirty Jobs saying something about "every now and then we hear about a shark mistaking a human for food." and I can't help but think to myself; "I don't think they're really mistaking..."

Rubber Band for a Spring?

So last night I mentioned that Cro busted the extractor spring on his M4gery partway through the day at the range yesterday, well before I got there.  On the upside, he's been running his RRA built gun pretty hard for for tens, if not hundreds of thousand of rounds, since 2005.  It's amazing in its own right that the spring lasted this long.

So I offered to grab on of the spare bolts I've got laying around these days. A little later he sent me a cryptic text message saying that he had "fixed it with a rubber band... two mags, so far so good."  Needless to say my mind was racking with how this is possible all the drive home and back out to the range.

Now a little background on Cro.  He is an Army Engineer officer, and has a good amount of gunsmith training.  He's a smart guy to start with, and if you know anything about Army Engineers, we tend to be the "only one sure way to see if it works!" kind of guys.  So he had a thought and ran with it.  Since I can, find out what exactly happened after the jump.  There's even a video!

FYI

Carlson's Snap Caps in .45acp will not chamber in a Kimber Custom II.  That's $15 well spent...

M&P15-22 KB

Not mine, but I'm sure everybody's heard about the Canuk's "blowing up" on him by now.

If you've been reading my stuff for more than a week, you'll know that I'm a huge fan of the little Smith & Wesson.  It is easily my favorite rimfire gun I own at the moment, and one of the best training tools you can get.  So of course my curiosity peaked when I saw the title of that post.

Well here's my thoughts: Yup, it's a rimfire.  It's almost expected to happen at some point, through a whole variety of causes.  There's a reason the system isn't very common on anything larger than a .22, and really it's only used on the diminutive cartridge simply because the round is too small to squeeze a centerfire priming system into.  And that very firing system is probably the most common cause of out of battery firings on the .22anything rimfire auto-loading system.  The rim is completely unprotected, and the freakin' extractor grabs on to that very rim for the gun to work.  Any chunks of crap that are big enough and hard enough to put a decent size dent in that rim that collect on the bolt face or the breach face have to potential to cause an out of battery detonation.  It's the nature of the beast.

Ok, you're gun blew up, some of the parts may have been lost or broken, and that's never a fun thing.  But you've walked away with nary a scratch, and then you mumble something about legal actions against the manufacturer!?  I know there have been enough comments about the retardation of that idea that he's second guessing it, but wow.  Really?  He also has voiced concerns about the lack of a recall since this is apparently "a common problem."  I guess I don't hang out on the right forums, but I haven't seen or heard about enough similar problems to really feel that's really that big of a deal that they'd order a recall.  He also mentions about how he fears that somebody may have bought one for a child, and he'd feel really sorry if that happened to the kid and they received an eye injury.  I'd feel bad for the kid for not having a parent smart enough to pick up a pair of shooting glasses and earplugs to go with the gun.  I'm pretty sure there's a big safety notice in the manual about wearing eye and ear pro when shooting, oh, just about any gun made since well before the kid was born.

Just had to vent I guess.  I just can't stand people with that much of a lack of common sense or moral ethics.

Inception guns

Kit-up has a screen capture showing that the gun in question is in fact a SCAR-L.  I could have sworn it was a black one though.

Quick Range Trip

So how do I relax after a weekend of weapons qualification for the Army?  Go to the range of course!

Pics were taken with the new camera, it's not too bad, nowhere near the quality of a good SLR, but hey, for a little tough as nails point-and-shoot, not too bad.

I may or may not have had to remove some of the envy-green from my face in that pic.  First time shooting with an ACOG, and I have to say, I want one. Bad.

What you can't see in the pictures is the fact that Cro busted his extractor spring a couple hours earlier and came up with an ingenious field repair.  Let's just say it involves a rubber band and the mind of an Army Engineer.  More on it tomorrow.

Also, got a Wilson Combat ETM, ran it through the gun a couple times, seems to have cleared things up.  Looks like I'll be ordering a couple more.

Bleg

There's a pretty good handful of things I'd like to blog about, but it's a "hurry up and wait" point in time... Check back Sunday night probably, Monday by the very least.

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DA Fox does more than just talk

Jackson County (WI) District Attorney Gerald Fox has dropped the charges against a man who admitted to carrying a switch-blade.

You may remember Mr. Fox is the DA who wrote a memo in the wake of the McDonald decision stating he would no longer enforce certain state weapons laws.  Thankfully it looks like he's willing to follow through with it.

New Camera - slight update after jump

I wanted to pick up something small and handy, yet durable enough that it's going to withstand some harassment in the field.  I was looking at the Olympus Tough 8010, but the number of complaints about the shutter lag and excess noise despite the 14mp rating, I looked around a bit more, and ended up going with the Casio Exilim EX-G1.  Still nice and shockproof (an unfortunate pothole/rifle butt claimed my first digital camera in Afghanistan) and the waterproof rating is a nice bonus.  Plus it's a good chunk cheaper.  I got the camera and a 16gig micro-SD card for a little under $200.  (my only complaint so far is that it uses micro-SD cards... I'll have to pick up a cheap one with an adapter so I can use them in the reader slots on my computers.)

The body is stainless steel with strategic polycarbonate sections, so it's a bit heavy for it's size (5.4oz according to Casio) but it's surprisingly small, only slightly larger than my phone, super thin too.  It came with two "bumpers" that screw into the side nearest the display and lens, which definitely seem like a good idea in my experience.

(.45 shown for scale, not included with camera)

The battery's charging, so I haven't been able to mess with it much yet, but I'll be at Ft. McCoy all weekend doing army stuff, so we'll so how it goes.

"Fat" not "Obese"

NHS Should use term fat instead of obese, says minister (BBC) 

Anne Milton told the BBC the term fat was more likely to motivate them into losing weight.

Makes sense.  I hate political correctness for the most part.  Stupid concept really.

Hooray for Wednesdays

That's the day when the new comic books come out, and having my comic shop and coffee house well within biking distance are things of pure beauty.

Hopefully do some worthwhile blogging in a bit.

Bikes...

Went for a quick night ride, was kind of hoping I'd get caught in the edge of the approaching storm (hey, my single speed needs a wash and I'm lazy.)  Two things learned: I need at least one bright headlight, my little single led Knog Frog is nice for quick trips down well lite streets, but venturing out into the boonies gets a little sketchy.  Secondly, around flat ol' Central Wisconsin, single speeds rock.  My road set-up has a retarded gear ratio (54 tooth ring and a 16 tooth cog on back...) and it's great here.  I can pretty easily just cruise at 20mph down any smooth flat road.  Plus it's super quiet and super low maintenance.  Air up the tires and lube the chain occasionally, that's pretty much it.

Thing is, I'm a XC mountain biker at heart, and I saw this one on Trek's website the other day... As a 6'4+ biker, the concept of 29" wheels has a certain allure, and the lower approach angle with those big hoops lends itself well to my preference for slightly more technical trails (not like trials riding or anything, but I do enjoy a good log stack every now and then.)

Multiple hobbies suck... my wallet hates me.

Huh... would have guessed more...

You are 8% hippie.

Ok, you conservative soul. Do you even believe in global warming? Loosen that necktie a little, and try some organic food. It actually does taste better. And go to a farmer's market--they're fun.

Are you a hippie?
Take More Quizzes

I do think it's a little biased.  I mean, yeah, I drink soy milk, but that's for medical reasons, not for moral reasons.

Although I'm not even half the hippy Breda is!

Still can't polish a turd...

I mean the photography is fantastic... but it's still a Hi-point.

A cousin-in-law asked me where he could get "clips" for his Hi-point last weekend.  I had to work extra hard to simply shrug and say "the internets..." and not blurt out something about just getting a real gun.

I do need to dig out the 9mm carbine project from a few years back.  Here's the only severely crappy pic I could find (still from a video actually...)

I think I at least put a semi-gloss sheen on it, at least if you catch it in the right light....

(h/t Caleb)

I always did like the Gurkhas...

Just picture the scene as a soldier returns from hunting an arch-enemy. Commanding officer: 'Did you get him?' Soldier: 'Yes, sir.' Commanding officer: 'Are you sure?' Soldier: 'Yes, sir.' Soldier reaches into rucksack and places severed head on table.

Apparently the powers-that-be were less than pleased with his actions.  No doubt a digital camera could have provided ample evidence of the target's demise, but where's the fun in that?

Mag Grumbles

So the Kimber was being a pain today.  Wouldn't get through a single mag without a fail to feed of some sort, until I downloaded the mags by 1 (two 8 round and a 7 round Kimber mags.)  Guess Wilson Combat may be seeing some of my hard-earned moneys in the near future.

On the other hand, the M&P 15-22 is running strong, other than a handful of mag/mediocre ammo feeding issues (maybe every-other mag;) I've put about 700 rounds through it in the last couple days without even as much as a squirt of CLP through it.  My 10/22 rarely goes 50 rounds without needing some attention.  Although when switching between the irons and the red-dot, it's important to put the optic back on the correct rail, otherwise you get slightly frustrated when it suddenly start putting the rounds six inches high and right.......

Take 2

Same box...

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Always Check Your Ammo

That's all for now. Back to shooting.

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Mud + Single Track

= nothing but more fun.  That's all for today.

Gun Safety

The Brady Campaign will be glad to know the Nerf Maverick's trigger pull is too heavy for my 2 year old nephew to actually fire.  With a little bit of his uncle's help he did manage to get one shot to stick to the TV, so it wasn't a total loss.

Nice Pair

Although I do intend on picking up a GSG-1911 in the near future... but for now the P22 makes a decent match for the M&P15-22.

Huh... that was fast...

The one downside of having an M&P15-22 and a decent amount of mags is that a 333 round box of Winchester .22lr disappears awful fast.  I don't think I was at the range more than 45 minutes before my box was empty.

But, weapons qual coming up for Uncle Sam, so we'll turn around and do it all over again at the next chance. And again... and again...

Super-light SAW

Kit-up has three new posts talking about a new concept SAW style weapon that fires a telescopic lightweight 5.56 round (essentially a polymer case with the propellant surrounding the projectile.)  Removing the brass from the equation creates a pretty decent reduction in the overall weight of the ammo.

They're also talking about a traditional carbine setup using the system (possibly a modified M4.)  The shape and size of the round allow it to use a 40 round straight magazine (not curved like the standard AR/M16 mag) that is not much bigger than the current M16 mag.  The operating system also lets them squeeze a few more inches of barrel into the same overall length package, which is never a bad thing.

From what I understand, the tech has been around since the '70s, but it sounds like the Army is hoping to actually start seriously looking into it, with field tests slatted for next summer.

So ugly it's beautiful.

A nice little perspective look at my very most favorite aircraft.

(h/t to the Jeffersonian)

Pic for today

Workin'. Check back later.

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For the Realz?

Again, the SCAR program is apparently cancelled.  How long till FN tries to deny it again?