Qualification day again.

Friday morning, I made a great breakfast for the family, and saw my kids off to school, and then got my stuff and went to the range under a bluebird sky the likes of which would make one F. Beuller take a day off.

First we shot duty pistols. Since I had a new duty gun, I was interested how the backstrap on the Generation 4 Glock 31 would shoot. It was okay, but I'll try the bigger ones, next.  I did actually have one delayed feeding, which had the earmarks of a hollowpoint catching on a feedramp. This would be unlikely, given that this is a bottlenecked cartridge (.357 Sig). I suspect that the gun just needs a proper first cleaning. As it was in the middle of a timed string, I didn't evaluate it; I just slapped it, got it running, and finished the string of fire. Its predecessor (a Gen 3 Glock) has never in 7.5 years hiccuped.

We switched from Gold Dot to XTP, which is a heavier bullet. I frankly didn't notice any difference.  (It was a Gold Dot round that caught, though.)

My shift partner, who had some problems with his 870 shotgun last time, had none this time. In fact, I took a picture of his target. This is 5 rounds of buckshot and 2 rounds of slug at 10 yards, with three slugs at 25 yards:

That mark just outside of the A zone at 5 o'clock is a wad impact. The right two holes were slug shots at 25. What impressed me, again, was how tightly 5 rounds of double aught buck went into a compact hole at 10 yards. This is a testament to the greatness of the Federal FliteControl Premium buckshot load, of which I have commented before.

Oh, I suppose that I should post mine, too. I took it as a matter of pride that at the whistle I was first on target and first to finish my string, but this meant that my group opened up a tad. But I reiterate: it's a high-brass buckshot load at 10 yards; a mediocre hit is still a pretty good hit.

Well, of course I put all the slugs (two at 10 yards, three at 25 yards) into the head. And never fear: that punch to the right side of the head is just a wad impact; I'm not missing a headshot with my shotgun at a piddlin' 75 feet. We got some Federal low-recoil 1 oz slugs which performed very well. I was very pleased at accuracy and gentle thump to the shoulder. We just started with these, and they beat our old stuff all hollow. 

I shot my S&W 637 Airweight Chief's Special with some UMC 125g +Ps that I had paid too much for at WalMart. Shooting it from the holster, it was gratifying to be first on target, just about every string. But I griped at my fellow officers when, in a fire-five-reload-fire-five-more string, I was first to get rounds on target after the reload (at 7 yards). Everyone else (there were six of us on the line) had auto guns. 

I shot my Kimber Stainless Classic (Series 1) .45. As expected, it gave me the same 100% as I had gotten with the Airweight Chief.  That's not saying much; the off-duty course of fire is LAME.  But there are timed reloads and I turned up the volume with the Kimber. 

For rifle, I turned up the volume a LOT more, and I'm embarrassed to say that I threw one round. There's really no excuse; I was showing off. I hadn't even gone down to check my target, but later found that one just barely missed the neck/shoulder junction, likely when firing rapidly from kneeling at 100 yards. 

After three hours of shooting and running others through strings of fire, I talked guns with the rangemaster, who showed me his pretty new .300 Blackout AR, and I went home. 3 hours of overtime. Half of the ammot that I shot was paid for by the city, and I was paid to shoot all of it. 

Some days at the office are better than others. 

While loading up, I commented to the sergeant that I'd love for us to go from twice a year qualifications to four times a year. He snorted and said that some people would quit if that happened. I'll be honest: I can't understand why. We were paid to go shooting.

Busy month.

--The Sophomore In The House has to raise money for a band trip. I've bought cars on several occasions for less. This means raffles, and fund raisers and volunteering to work at the booster club food booths at football games, and frankly, I'm almost ready to just say "take the damn money."

--I've been going to court a lot, lately. It never fails: work days, and you go a year between trips to wood-paneled rooms presided over by attorneys wearing black gowns. Go to deep nights, and you're suddenly testifying more often the Paul Drake did.

--I did some fire training on Friday night. I started by doing the agility test for new firefighters, while in full bunker gear. I passed it, but damned if I didn't have a lot taken out of me. Then, for the past several days, I've been having a couple of vertebrae out of alignment, probably just from the unequal tightness that I put on my back. I think that I'm going to the chiropractor. That's a shame, too, because I've spent up my Flex Spend medical account with voluntary eye surgery, back in June.  But I can't do much good like this.

--A senior asked the Sophomore In The House out to a school dance, in a pretty cool fashion. My daughter had not planned to go to the dance, but could not turn down such a sweet invitation. Uh huh. Very nice. And that's all the effective persuading that you're going to be doing, sport.

--This weekend promises to be excellent. No clouds. No wind. High of 74. PERFECT. But I have to work it.

--A bunch of work that I've done at work has borne some fruit (that in no way benefitted me, of course).

--Being an effective cop is not without its repercussions.

--I start EMT classes this month.

--I'm rolling my eyes at the sides-taking on the issue of the current government shutdown. The Republicans are saying "We don't need Obamacare! It's still more government on top of the enormous amount of government that WE want!" The Democrats are saying "The obstructionist Republicans have stopped government!" But we Libertarians are saying, "Notice how, when the federal government shuts down, life doesn't end?  Anyone else want to try some more of not paying for what  we apparently can survive without?"

--I've said it before and I'll say it again: You want to stop the out-of-control spiraling cost of medical care? Mandate that all medical providers and insurance companies give a definitive price of what a procedure or treatment costs before it is done. No more "we'll just have to submit the claim, and find out what the insurance will pay." That's like taking a check in for $10,000 and asking "How much will this buy me?  When you do it that way, it won't buy much.  We have a flawed market that doesn't permit competitive shopping. The market has no incentive to fix itself, at the current rate.

--My friends are worked up about the play of the Texas Rangers Baseball Team and the Dallas Cowboys Football Team. They don't seem to care about the Dallas Stars Hockey Team or the Dallas Mavericks Basketball Team. Loyalty is a fickle thing, dependent upon winning. Each those players make more in a year than I have in the past 10 years of working. I just don't care.

--My wife made the finest gumbo that I've ever eaten, two nights ago. That's impressive, because I've eaten a lot of great gumbo in my life. I could point to the excellent Holmes Andouille sausage, or the chicken, or the homemade chicken stock, or the home-grown vegetables and herbs that went into it, but really, the greatness lay in the roux. My wife's grandmother grew up in New Iberia, LA, and she taught her the importance of a good home made roux to the texture and flavor of a good stew or gumbo.

--Speaking of cooking, I need to pick up a beef brisket next week. I've got to uphold the dignity of Texas barbecue in the presence of out-of-staters. I'd probably better plan on doing it twice. It's been a while.

--Note: The secret is not in the sauce*. It's in the rub, and the smoke and time that you put into it.

--I know that I said it before, but I've been watching a lot of old British Top Gear episodes, lately, and they're great. I have been watching the early episodes of the reboot from back in 2002, and it's fun seeing how the silly stuff evolved. I went to watch the American version of the show, and it really doesn't translate very well. AEPilot got me started on this show, mostly to see what they did a 1988 Toyota Hilux pickup that rests on a plinth in the Top Gear studio.

--I have zero explanation for a mild interest in owning a Ruger 77/357 rifle. I won't even try to justify it.
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*I rarely ever use barbecue sauce of any kind.

Thursday is thirsty.

--After staying up until 4:45 this morning watching Netflix videos to keep myself on my night shift schedule, I got a call at 10:00am from an assistant district attorney, who wanted to discuss a family violence case that I had filed. She was shocked that I had put my cell phone number on the cover sheet, and apologized for waking me. I told her that I would much rather be awakened by an ADA with a question than have the question go unanswered, and have the case suffer. I don't think she fully believed me.

--I woke up with a completely stopped up nose. I took a Zyrtec (well, a store brand cetirizine HCL, anyway), and feel so much better, now. I think that pill cost me a bit less than 50¢. It's good for 24 hours. No side effects. I like living in the future.

--Slate is putting up a graphic depiction of deaths by gunfire since the Sandy Hook shooting. Even though I'm politically opposed to the editor, there. I find the map pretty interesting to look at. Looks like Chicago has a problem.

--Speaking of graphic depictions, check out the weird wind here in north Texas.









Depending upon which end of US Hwy 82 you're on, the wind may be blowing briskly at 20mph from the north in Wichita Falls, or freshly from the south at 10 mph in Gainesville, which is about 80 miles to the east.

--It's really nice outside. I'm going to do some outside work today. To believe the East Coast-obsessed newsies, though, the Only People Who Matter will be buried in a blizzard today.

--This past weekend, my good friend Joe Speer, proprietor of Jackalope Rifle Company, was coming through town, and dropped off my elder daughter's custom Mossberg Chuckster model 620K .22 WMRF single shot bolt rifle. He had done it as a project rifle, starting with a heavily used old rifle, and did some lovely things. The barrel and receiver are reblued, the stock was refinished, a purple heartwood stock end tip was put on, an ebony pistolgrip cap was put on, and a buttpad was installed. He filled the wallowed-out sling swivel holes, and the hole where the tang sight (sadly not to be found!) had been ripped out. You can just see the wood plugs, but you cannot detect them by touch. The inletting is very good. The trigger is quite good. My daughter has something that I'd never had given me: a custom rifle.

Joe and I and my dad all went over to Big City to Cabella's, and found that there not only wasn't a round of .22 WMRF to be had, but due to panic buying, there was almost not a single round of any common caliber. But Joe, a rather strident fan of the .30-'06, happily reported that there were decent stocks left of his favorite caliber, even in the Remington Core Lokt 150g and 165g load-- arguably the single most popular load for that caliber. Smirking, Joe said, "That's because a man with a .30-'06 doesn't panic."

--I need to order a part from Numerich for my daughter's best friend's Ruger Mark II safety. Her dad bought it, took it apart to clean it like the good former Marine he was, and put it back together and couldn't get it to work. He gave to me to fix. Oops. We've got Missing Parts Syndrome. He's a great guy, and his daughter's like family for us, so I'm happy to buy the part for him.

--While we were running around, we let Joe's dog Butcher run around in Mom's back yard. Mom got home and texted me that the dog was gone. We bailed out of Cabella's and began the not-insignificant drive home, slightly panicking. Mom called me back. Butch was sitting on my front porch, patiently watching Joe's vehicle to make sure that he didn't go anywhere without his companion. I called off the search party, and we stopped and got some Whataburger. Apparently, they don't have those everywhere. Odd. Here, they're on every corner, seems like.

--My beloved burr grinder broke. We're getting another. In the meantime, I'm drinking coffee that came pre-ground, out of a big can. Huh. So this is how you people live, is it?

--I watched Shooter last night on NetFlix. It's almost unrecognizable as an adaptation of Stephen Hunter's great thriller Point Of Impact. I'm still amazed at how Hollywood flouts the rules, and lets a violent felon like Wahlberg handle every gun that they've got in their inventory. I'm amazed that BATFEIEIO gives him special dispensation to do so. But it's okay; he's on the side of the angels now*.  I could stand to see that Kate Mara chick a bit more, though. As learned in Starship Troopers, if you're going to completely stray from the book which the movie is based upon, you might as well put some hawt chicks in the flick.

--Speaking of the Robert A Heinlein novel Starship Troopers, someone has put up the unabridged audio book of it on YouTube, and it's a guilty pleasure to listen to while tending to other things around the house or while driving.  It won't last very long; someone will cry copyright violation**.

--It was getting kind of late last night when my wife and I decided upon pork loin for dinner. We thawed the three-pound hunk of meat in about 13 minutes, split it sagitally, dusted it with salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder, and coated it with olive oil. Then we put it into the oven at 350 for an hour, and programmed the oven to turn itself off. Then we went to the store. We returned to a fantastic dinner, with which we prepared mushroom gravy and peas and carrots. Total prep time for everything couldn't have broken 20 minutes. Again-- the future? She is tasty.

--When I learned that a DWI Third Or More case that I had filed got a conviction, I was pleased. When I saw that the driver got several years of prison time, I was impressed. The driver had been represented by a very good attorney, and the evidence, while solid, was circumstantial. This was a first felony DWI for the driver, and no one saw the driver actually driving. However, the investigator did a fine job. :) I sent an email congratulating the prosecutorial team for excellent work. I don't know if it makes their day to hear praise from a lowly street cop, but it makes my day to get positive feedback from them. Believe it or not, I don't believe that most of those people are in it for the money, nor the power.

--My wife and the girls have infected me with an earworm. Those Walk Off The Earth people, who got internet fame for doing a superb version of Somebody That I Used To Know using five band members and one acoustic guitar, have put up a new song. It's one-take live acapella dubstep version*** of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble".  I have never taken anything remotely beatbox to be a serious artistic style, but dang if their visiting artist ("KRNFX") doesn't actually kinda impress me as having a talent.

I stress that this normally would not be my cup of tea. Uh, it's just something the kids had on. :rolleyes:

_________________________________________
*By which we mean to say, he wants to ban all guns.

**And well they should. The people who produced and published that audiobook deserve to get paid for their work. I'm a fan of defending intellectual property rights. But, yeah, I listened to the audiobook all the way through. Does that make me a hypocrite?

***Does that even make sense?

Hunting prep.

While at Blogorado, new friend Joe mentioned hunting in Nebraska. As a guy who likes to see the world but has seen but little of it, I speculated that it was probably mostly beanfield hunting out there. He smiled and explained that in fact, there's some serious broken ground hunting out where he hunts, and while the deer are in fact corn fed (the farmers desperately want their numbers reduced) and heavy, they spend a lot of time in drainage woodlots, and the best way to hunt them is to walk them up.

Long story short, I begged an invitation, and have gratefully accepted that which I sought when it was proffered.

According to Joe, a 100 yard shot would be long, and somewhat unusual. So it was that this week, days before leaving to go to Nebraska to hunt, I found myself needing to check the zero on my stalking rifle-- a Springfield 1903 re barrelled to .35 Whelen. It's been awhile since I loaded for it, and frankly, I didn't recall where the zero was with the loads that I had on hand. And I was VERY short of hunting ammo.

This morning, I checked some handloads today (250g Hornady softpoint spitzer over about 53g of Reloader 15, if memory serves), and found that it was centered a couple of inches high, and maybe just right of, dead center, from 100 yards. I didn't cover myself with glory with my shooting today, and that was a shame, because I didn't have much ammo to practice, and still go hunting. I shot a group of factory 250g Remington, and was irritated to see that I shot it better. I'll carry the Remington loads, probably.

Every hunt needs a backup rifle, so I checked my 1953 vintage M7o .243 with our handloads. The first two shots put my 100g Nosler SP Spitzer into a 1/2 at 3" high.
Screw it. I wasn't going to waste more ammo. Hold dead-on out to about 300, which probably wouldn't be a problem (this is still blowing my stereotype of Nebraska.).

I checked the old cut-down Super Blackhawk and found that, as comfortable as Dad's 240g SWC Special loads are, I was frankly shooting the factory Remington 240g JSPs into a tighter group. Call it 3" at 25yds. With full Magnums, that tiny trigger guard, and that short (4 1/2") barrel, I'll take that. The group was about 2" right of where I want it, and about 4" high at 25. Something to remember. The sights will NOT come down any further, and I didn't have a screwdriver anyway.

Of humorous note-- in changing from my work clothes to run out with Dad to go sight in this morning, I somehow, um, sort of... forgot to put a gun on. Well, except for the Super Blackhawk that I had in the Thad Rybka holster on my belt. I got into Dad's car, realized that I had no carry gun on me, and shrugged and loaded it with 5 Magnum rounds. (It's an old model Flat Top). Let's all say it together, class: Load One, Skip One, Load Four, Cock and lower the hammer. I may have been a little slow on the draw, but I was not poorly armed. I had to run into the PD to pick up something that I had forgotten there, and I know my chief was mildly curious, but he just smiled and didn't ask. I let the mystery be.

Friday morning, I'll be in Omaha.

Practicing like we play (?)

I shot the local law enforcement pistol/carbine match this weekend. This is held at a small-ish outdoor range, and when each shooter shoots a stage of the match, he is the sole shooter. Shooting my P.D. carbine, I went to a stage where I was to run hard to a square, fire three shots from weak hand, move up to another square and do it again, and move to another square and do it again. I got to the second square, and found that my cheap oversized ear muffs were interfering with my cheek weld with my stock, so that I couldn't see my carbine sights. This stage allowed no "make-up" shots for misses, and misses were 5 seconds apiece. The clock was ticking. I angrily knocked off the muffs so that they clattered to the ground, and fired... "Cease fire! Cease fire!" yelled the range officer. I complied, and made the Colt M4 safe. I had gotten one shot off before he hollered. "No shooting without ear protection at this range." "Am I DQ'd for this stage?" I asked. "Yes. You can shoot the next stage, with ear protection. But you are disqualified from this stage," he said. "Okay," I said. You don't argue with the range master. It's his range. But I've got to admit, it seemed pretty danged silly to punish me so for failing to be muffed against the outdoor report from my suppressed carbine, which was so quiet that on the previous stage the timer hadn't heard my shots. I'm going to start keeping cheapy yellow foam plugs in my carbine kit, from now on.

Rule Four.

When Dad got back from Gunsight, Rule Four (the last rule added to the Four Rules Of Gun Safety) had been: "Keep Your Finger Off The Trigger Until Your Sights Are On The Target." While at the range and training, my father and I could simply quietly mention a Rule 4 violation, and both knew to watch for fingers in trigger guards when they shouldn't have been. Nowadays, Rule Three and Rule Four seem to have been transposed.

So it would seem that a certain fellow out of Benbrook, TX did violate Rule Four when he fired off a round that didn't stay to his intended backstop:

RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET
Know what it is, what is in line with it, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything you have not positively identified. Be aware of your surroundings, whether on the range or in a fight. Do not assume anything. Know what you are doing.

Another way of looking at it is a Rule Two violation, which has always been:

RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY.

With a .50 Browning, that item that you wish not to destroy might be some miles off. Here is a case in which the old "laser rule" (or really, doctrine) doesn't work. To be wary of what is miles down range, one must take into account bullet drop. And wind. And maybe Coriolis force effect.

Look, I've said it before: Nobody's MAKING you possess, handle, and shoot a firearm. You're the one who took on the responsibility. If you can't handle the responsibility, I would invite you to stop handling firearms, post haste. There are plenty of other hobbies, past times, and pursuits for you to go about. With all due respect, if keeping up with Four Simple Rules is too hard, then we of the general shooting community don't want you.

No offense intended, but go away, okay?

Want!

New takes on the DeLisle: Suppressed SMLE .45acp rifle.

Since when is learning to use a tool a bad thing?

I don't know much about the Appleseed project, beyond what I've read on Breda's site, and a couple of comments elsewhere. I gather, through remarks made in (and out of) context, that there seems to be some sort of criticism of the project.

I'm a bit confused about all of this. The concept, so far as I can see, is to teach rifle-owners the basics of riflery, so that they may present themselves as competent, able riflemen. (yes, it's a sexist term, but it's hundreds of years old, and what's a person to do?)

I had a fair amount of luck-- my father was taught riflery, and insisted that I know about it. When I asked about slings on rifles in my Boy Scout trips to the range a quarter-century ago, I was smirked at: "Why do you need some device to hold the rifle for you?" Even at 11 years of age, I already knew that those "instructors" had missed something valuable.

When I went to U.T. Austin, I joined the rifle team mostly as an opportunity to get to shoot on campus, with all the .22 ammo I wanted to burn for a measly $20 a semester. I ended up shooting one match against Texas A&M, where I got my arse handed to me. When Dad came down for my birthday, he presented me with a copy of the military guide to riflery.

I've got a long way to go yet, to consider myself a true master rifleman. I've also gotten to a stage in my life where I feel my muscles, nerves, and eyesight declining. If I want to stake my prowess at a high point, I'd better get busy learning, and practicing. I realize that I'll never make Olympic class (give up coffee? Are you frickin' kidding me?!?), but I'd like to know that a breadbox at 500 yards is within my abilities to hit while standing. (Think you can do it? Have you actually tried it?)

One of the features of being a good rifleman that I have found is the ability to give up one's ego, and assess honestly what one's capabilities are. Don Gwinn can do it, but he's an exceptional person. As a hunter, I know what I can and can't do, and have turned down surprisingly short shots because the light, sights, and movement of the game simply didn't synch up to provide me with a sure hit at that range. As a cop, I've found myself looking through the sights of my rifle and knowing that I "owned" a doorway 80 yards distant, behind which a felon held a hostage. Knowing that I had the skills to absolutely guarantee a head shot at that distance gave me a lot of peace, which would have (had things gone badly) reduced the stress and allowed me to shoot to my potential. That comes from more than just qualification, or "famfire;" it comes from honest self-assessment. If I'd been forty yards further out, with that light and those sights, I would have probably disqualified myself as being capable of consistently being able to make a head shot. (As it was, things went well, with no further harm to human life.)

What I do know is that we learn by repetition, and that committing one's self to a weekend-long seminar on shooting a rifle will absolutely burn in some skills, if they are taught correctly. If the training is done correctly, it will teach students how to practice on their own, to improve themselves on their own.

How could anyone criticize such a project? Look, even if you're a hopeless hoplophobe, wouldn't you want those scary gun-owners to understand how to shoot safely, and competently? That's a whole lot better than the alternative, don'tcha think?

Just thinking out loud, here.

Use this pink AR-15 to fight breast cancer.

Online pal Larry Correia watched his mother in-law go through the treatment for the cancer. Cancer of the breast.

Guys, think about how unhappy you would be if a certain symbol of your manhood were in danger of being removed. Now picture how unhappy you'd be if that was an outwardly visible (in shape) symbol of your masculinity, and it were threatened. Over half a million people a year die from breast cancer, and a whole lot more are cut on or poisoned to survive it.

So Larry, good guy that he is, says, "I have to do something." So he commissioned this very nice rifle to be built. It's a Stag 15, and if Larry says the work is good, then it's good.

Larry and his guys are auctioning this pretty off for $5 a ticket. $5 clams. 499 pennies plus the one you snag from the Give-A-Penny-Take-A-Penny tray at the grocery store. A sawbuck. 1/4 of the most typical denomination given you by the ATM. Well under the price of a McNastyburger Meal with large fries and large coke.

If you don't have an AR, you should buy a raffle ticket.

If you don't have a pink AR, you should buy a raffle ticket.

If you have a pink AR, but you know someone in your life who really needs a pink AR, then you should buy a raffle ticket.

If you HATE GUNS, and believe that no one should have an AR of any kind, then you should buy a LOT of raffle tickets, to take this Evil Pink Rifle Of Death out of the hands of those who would willingly... uh, shoot it or sumpin'.

As a matter of fact, without regard to your gun situation, you really need to buy several raffle tickets, because it goes toward breast cancer research. And it will. Larry is the type of man who will donate everything, and then empty his pockets to add more. And he'll send it all in.

Go HERE to find out more.

The raffle winner will be announced in October, but don't, don't, DON'T let it go 'til then, because it will be too late. And you won't get your pink rifle, and will miss your funnest chance to Nip Breast Cancer In The Bud.*

_______________________________

*(I really should be writing tag lines.)

Not to leave the elder daughter out, she went shooting, too.

I took my elder daughter out shooting last Sunday, with .22 rifle.

We're still just having fun, not being serious about anything except safety, but I'm slowly slipping in some lessons on position, and sights.

She shot a lot with my old Remington bolt rifle, which is scoped nowadays. She enjoyed using a scoped firearm for the first time. After she had loaded and unloaded about 50 rounds through it, shooting metal pipes and steel swinging targets, I pressed her for time, telling her to bolt it and fire a little faster. Then I gave her my late grandfather's tired old Marlin, with the open iron sights. As I've said, those aren't the best sights in the world, but she was surprised (and I was not) that she was able, when pressed to shoot faster, to make hits faster and more reliably with the iron sighted rifle.

On the way home, we picked flowers for her mother. (It was Mother's day.)

Holy crap! Tamara remembered...!

...that she has a second (as opposed to her third) blog.

Our newest Hoosier Mama has been neglectful of her superb Gun Room blog, just because she's just about run out of S&W resolvers to put in the Sunday Smith collumn. But she makes up for it nicely with her very, very nice article on the MAS 49/56 French battle rifle. Photos by the great Oleg Volk.

Interesting idea... but not for me.

Remington has come up with their new Model 7615 "tactical rifle."

It's got some very strong points: Pump action to salve the fears of a city council that might be afraid of giving "machine guns" to their officers. Ammunition and magazine compatibility with officers carrying AR15/M4/M16 rifles. Handy light weight, reliable action. It comes with sling swivels, which is good.

Some would say that the adjustable stock is a big plus.

I'm going to say.... not so much.

If I were to get one of these rifles, the very FIRST things I would do to it would be to put a standard old oil-finish wood buttstock and fore end on it, and change out those horrible short-radius sights for a receiver peep sight that probably would cowitness with a quality glass sight.

The beauty of a good pump-action repeater with a wood stock on it is that it looks to the citizenry like Andy Griffith just pulled it off the wall behind his desk. It doesn't look "tactical," which is a plus. A man with a well-sighted in 7600 or 7400 is not giving up much of anything to a man with an "assault rifle," but he has the advantage of stealth. That's worth a lot, when you're trying to get along with your community, rather than cow them into living under your boot.

And what's the point of a pistol grip on it anyway? It can't be fired one-handed with a pistol-grip. It's not necessary to help attenuate the recoil of the "mighty" .223 cartridge.

I'd like them to make one of these in the 7400 platform (semi-auto), again with wood stock.

So, if you're listening, Remington: Good idea with the magazine compatibility, but it needs better sights and a less "tactical" stock. Oh, and let's make sure it has decent accuracy, okay?

That is all.

If anybody knows...

...of a company making and selling subcaliber insert adaptors to make 9mm, .38Spl/.357, or .357 Sig shoot through a .35 Whelen, then I'm interested.

Why don't they make...

...a little adaptor kit for SMLE's to shoot 7.62 X 39? It would only take a little "Navy block" type chamber insert, and a replacement boltface for a bolt that was explicitly designed to have the boltfaces replaced.

For better than a decade, I've been waiting for someone to make one.

[Shrug]

Skunked.

I didn't shoot a hog this weekend.

Heck, I never even SAW a hog. I saw plenty of fresh sign, and must have done some decent stalking, because I got to within 30 feet of a pair of coyotes, and within a few dozen yards, crosswind, of some skittish whitetails and mule deer.

The local weatherman David Finfrock described the weather thusly: "In my 32 years of doing this, I have only once or twice before seen comparable dust storms." With the local humidity below 15%, the wind drove up to 50 and 60 mph gusts for over 18 hours on Saturday. The already fine red dust of the Panhandle blew southeast and on into the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Saturday hunting was shot. We stayed in the travel trailer and drank coffee, cleaned guns, and swapped stories all day... and that was probably my favorite day.

I shot a lot of very, VERY heavy loads through some highly customized revolvers that Ashley had with him. Included were plenty of Garret .44 Hammerheads through Hamilton Bowen and John Gallagher custom revolvers, as well as Ashley's own handloads through his Freedom Arms Premier Grade .454 Casull which I carried to hunt with. I'd previously shot one of these about 10 years ago while visiting then Sheriff Jim Wilson in Ozona, TX with my father. At that time, Freedom Arms were just about the only folks making the .454 Casull. I had been impressed with his then, and was again impressed with Ashley's now. Swinging the dinger at 50 yards with a 300 grain lead bullet at about 1600 fps is not really any trick with this 7.5" barreled pistol. I was highly impressed with the tolerances, which included a barrel-cylinder gap that was almost impossible to perceive in a dark room against a strong light. My guess would be 1/1000th or thereabouts.

Rich brought his highly modified NEF HandiRifle in .45-70. This had an enormous moonscope on it with target knobs, a trigger that had been lightened to an amazing weight, and a highly modified stock with a higher comb, black crinkle finish, and widened butt for a recoil pad that made the Buffalo Bore heavy loads seem like nothing much. On the side of the stock was a chart showing the come-ups in minutes to adjust the scope out to 400 yards. We found a target rock that needed killing at 440 yards, and extrapolated the drop. I hit it on the third shot, after doping the wind. Consider: this is a quarter mile shot at a rock about the size of a 19" computer monitor, with a cartridge created in the 1870s, during a rather windy day.

Rich's other .45-70 was the sweetest David Clay takedown rifle you've ever seen. While it may have started life in part as a Marlin 1895, it now breaks quickly into two components of about 15", to go into its custom-built, dust/waterproof box. Very cool, and Rich has taken 3 cape buffalo with it. Nifty feature-- the tubular magazine can be stored loaded, by virtue of the cutoff switch in it.

Due to the need to recover from recent eye surgery, Dad had to carry reduced recoil armament, and borrowed my 1953 vintage Winchester Featherweight M70 in .243, with Federal 100g loads. While he too was skunked, I am happy to report that Dad smacked the aforementioned target rock with his first shot. Nice.

Mostly, I just enjoyed hunting with my friends and my father. I never regret going, and hope to do so for many years to come.

Dad, in the rough country, seems to've gone native. Note the Afghani shemaugh sent to Dad by John Shirley. (See the 14 December 2006 post on John's Afghanistan service memoir blog.) With the British smock, it harkens back a bit to an imperial time, eh?

So we ate good food and saw good country and shot good guns and laughed so hard that there were tears that belied our failure to consume strong drink. Kinda like what Tamara said a month or so ago: You could tell me that you had as much fun as I did this weekend, but I don't think I'd believe you.

I'm actually kind of impressed by Remington.

By now most of y'all have heard the tale of Zumbo. Briefly, a hunting writer for Outdoor Life wrote a divisive criticism of military-style semi-automatic rifles for field use, and called them "terrorist rifles." If he had just stated that he found hunting with AR-15s and AKs to be distasteful to him, he would have been on pretty solid ground. To be honest, I don't take 'em out in the hunting field myself, finding a certain class to slower, more traditional styles of hunting firearms. Nope, I'm not criticizing those who do it so long as they conduct themselves ethically in the field (and unethical hunting can be conducted with anything from machine guns to speers-- it ain't the kitchen-- it's the cook.). I just personally --for my own self-- don't care to take 'em hunting. If Zumbo had just stoppe there, he probably would have rankled the feathers of a few folks who are very defensive about their hunting with 'em, but that's about it.

But he didn't. He called 'em terrorist rifles, and called for their outright ban in the hunting field.

[Here's why this is a problem. This guy calls himself a friend to the sportsman, and a friend to the gun owner. But he is afraid of a simple tool. Not the misuse of the tool, but rather, the tool itself. He made clear that some guns, in and of themselves, are evil. "No honest man" would need one, and all that. That way lies the slipperyist of slopes. When you declare the "assault rifles" off limits, then why not all semi auto rifles? Heck, why not pump actions? Lever actions? Repeaters at all? And ban those sniper rifles (you know-- all scoped bolt action rifles). Where does it stop? As others have pointed out more eloquently than I, the Second Amendment actually doesn't recognize a right to keep and bear sporting weapons-- it is specifically there for military arms. (See Miller.)]

Within minutes, the word spread. (That thread at The High Road has received 669 replies and 27,672 views, as of this writing.)

Within hours, the opposition to his statement had turned into a movement. Within a day, he'd posted a retraction.

Emails poured in to Outdoor Life and to his sponsors. The angry writers of these emails stated that they would retaliate to any further sponsorship of Mr. Zumbo's writing by boycotting the sponsors' products.

Before the weekend was over, Remington had cut Mr. Zumbo loose.

Now here's what's impressive about it: Remington really wasn't on the receiving end of any of Zumbo's criticisms. Beyond ammunition, Remington is heavily invested in the shotgun market, selling quality pump and semi-auto shotguns that are favored for hunting use and for defensive use. Remington also makes a find line of rifles, the most famous of which is the M. 700, which is pretty much an American standard as an accurate bolt action. While it's an economical and accurate rifle that is commonly found in a tactical variation in tactical armaments, it is most popular with sportsmen. There are other products, but that's the bread and butter for Remington. Sporting long arms, and some police and self defense longarms. VERY little of Remington's line or of their market share would be "tactical."

But Remington gets it-- customers are not happy with the guy that their company had chosen to endorse. Remington doesn't want alienate all those customers.

As Tamara puts it: "'An army of Davids'"... "that's how it works."

Go buy something in a green and yellow box today.

Gun stuff to bore you with.

Day before last, I went to Cabellas, and bought a pound of RL-15, and two packages of .410 slugs.

.410 bore stuff:
I'll confess that I bought the cheapest slugs, and even then had to pay a lot for them. A box of five .410 slugs costs the same as a box of premium 12 gauge slugs. In this case, I paid $4 each for boxes of Winchester slugs (1850 fps, they claim. Zowie.) that were smaller than a dump pouch for six rounds of .38 Special. Consider that this is rough the same price as a box of twenty-five field loads for dove hunting, in 12 gauge! So it's not about the shipping, or the packaging, or the costs of materials. It's about economies of scale. Tons more (literally) 12 gauge are shot each season than .410 bore. And why not? They've got better knockdown, on a wider variety of game, and at longer distances, effectively.

So here's this .410 shell, putting out around a fifth to a quarter of the shot payload of a 12 gauge shell, making it harder to hit, and harder to kill game. When you're as crappy a winghooter as I am, that's a major consideration.

Paying $4.00 to $5.00 for a box of 12 gauge slugs is pricey, but at least you walk away with something substantial. Most 12 gauge slugs are one ounce slugs, with some going even higher. There are a few reduced recoil slugs out there that weigh in a tad less, but usually they're an ounce each, or twice as much as a bullet from my .45 acp. So a box contains five ounces of projectile alone. Add in primers, wads, powder, hulls, case heads and box, and you get nearly half a pound of substance for your $4.00 or so.

But I honestly believe that one could forget that a box of .410 slugs was in his pocket. I'll have to be careful not to launder them. So why would one get a .410 shotgun at all?

As for myself, I've never owned one. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that I've actually ever even fired a .410 shotgun. I'm just doing an experiment with this insert adaptor thing.

One's accuracy is said to improve when one uses a .410. Necessity: it's a mother. I don't know that .410s are any quieter-- in my experience they seem to have quite a crack to them. But they may be a little quieter than a large bore shotgun. But the main thing is that shotguns that handle .410 are usually light and handy, without the recoil that one would get from a large bore in a light gun.

Last year, a friend bought one of those cute little Winchester M9410's. I never got to shoot it, but I did handle it, and it was just as nifty as hell. If you're not familiar with them, they're a Winchester M94 lever action rifle or carbine, which has been fitted with a smoothbore .410 barrel. They are a true shotgun, but in that classic Johne Wayne style. They have a set of shallow open sights that are even more coarse than the standard M94 rifles, but which are probably pretty appropriate for a shotgun that will be wing-shooting. Now, do I really have a use for one? Damned if I can think of one. Believe me, I tried! I still think it looks like fun. But if I did, I'd have to factor in the cost of a reloading setup, because it would KILL me to pay more for .410 shells than for 12 gauge. The reloader experiences nice savings with .410, though.

Reloader 15 Powder.
I bought the RL-15 for reloading .35 Whelen, .45-70, and (drum roll) .375 H&H. Dad and I are going hog hunting the end of this month. Dad'll likely bring that 1895GS .45-70 that I gave him a few years back on his 60th birthday. I'll be bringing my M1903 Springfield sporter .35 Whelen that I rebarreled a few years ago due to bad pitting in the .30 bore. Dad and I've carried these rifles hunting quite a few times, but never got to connect with 'em. (Well, I did shoot a deer with the Springfield when it was a .30-06, but that was a different rifle, back then.) Then there's this safe queen, a Remington M700 .375, that we haven't actually shot yet. Maybe this is the time. Seems that Reloader 15 is a common powder for all three, and while we did have some on hand, these calibers gobble a lot of it. Shoot, the Whelen round is the real miser of the three, with loads only calling for 50 something grains. (Such a great caliber.)

Also, what with my latest messing around with my '06, I've got 40 fresh, once-fired .30-'06 cases all ready to be loaded with .35 Whelen loads. One of the real beautiful properties of the .35 Whelen is that you can load unprepped .30-'06 cases, and skip a step. Attend me: Usually, with rifle cases, even just once-fired, you need to trim the length down to parameters, due to the slight stretching that takes place during firing. It's not a huge task, but it involves chocking up each case in a jig of some kind, and using either hand or motor to run a small trimmer along the mouth of th case to shave off a few thousandths of brass. Then you have to chamfer the case mouth, inside and out, with a deburring tool. For good accuracy, you should do this every time. But when you run the expanding taper down the mouth and neck of the .30-'06 case during case sizing, two things occur: the case mouth and neck are expanded from .308" to .358", and the neck shrinks, just a tad. Not much, but it gets a few thousandts shorter as it gets wider. Just as if I had trimmed the case. When I first rebarreled my Springfield back when, I worried that it was going to be a pain to convert .30-'06 cases to .35 Whelen. I had no idea (until the first time I tried it) that it was not just as easy; it was actually easier than reloading the case to the same caliber.

Now, if I were shooting a scoped rifle and trying to achieve intense high accuracy, I would still trim those cases to a uniform length. Heck, I'd even neck turn the cases to achieve perfect uniformity. But this is an iron-sighted rifle with a ghost peep and a post front sight, with which I cannot achieve better than 2 minute of angle groups on mine and its best day. I'm loading it with either 225g or 250g bullets to a moderate (2300 to 2400 fps) velocity, for smacking hogs out to, oh, about 150 yards. Maybe 200, if I have the sun at my back, a good rest, and a still target. So the slight imperfection in the accuracy bothers me not. While I normally weigh each charge for scoped rifle handloads, I just throw these charges, weighing perhaps every fifth charge or so. What's the point in loading a match-accuracy round for a non-match rifle? One mustn't get overly involved in the process.

Dad's got a bunch of Remington 400g (or were they 405g?) JSP .458 bullets that we'll load up in the Marlin Guide Gun. We load 'em to about 1500 or 1600 fps. Doesn't sound like much, but this is out of a handy little carbine, and the sectional density is very nice. The carbine has Ashley Outdoors/XS peep sights on it, which is amusing, because we're hunting with Ashley himself. Ashley is a hunter and innovator. He's got skills with guns and machinery. He's madeningly adept with both, and sort of knows it. Cockiness is not so hard to take when the guy can back his claims. (Damn him.) I hunted with Ashley a couple of year ago, and liked the heck out of him.

I think that we'll load the .375 up with 270g bullets. The rifle's Dad's, so it's his call. (We sort of use the "communal armory" concept.) The late Jeff Cooper (RIP) said that the 270 was the proper weight for the .375 caliber, when he was damning Hornady for only making 210s for the .376 round for the Scout Dragoon. Who am I to argue? Zipping a 270g bullet along at 2700fps makes for a genuine magnum, fit to take anywhere on the planet. Overkill for hog? Sure, probably. But the cape buff are a little scarce here in Texas.

For what it's worth, I eat my wild hogs when I shoot 'em. Without exception, my experience has shown them to provide lean, sweet meat, fit for roasts or just grinding into sausage. I have a grinder, and recipes for sausage, and it's a snap-- actually easier than individually butchering the meat into parcels for the freezer. I just grind it and stuff it into vegetable casings, and toss it into the freezer. It's good. Hog are a serious menace to the land around here, so I shoot 'em whenever I can.

Rifles

Things warp when they change temperature.
Things like, say, rifle barrels, which warp at different rates than wooden stocks.

When it's cold out (like, say-- 38 degrees), the difference between the inside of a rifle barrel and the outside (except where the barrel is shrouded in wood) is more pronounced.

This interferes with accuracy.

This REALLY interferes with accuracy when the barrel in question is extremely lightweight, and the temperature rises quickly.

From, say, a significant centerfire cartridge like the .30-'06.

Now-- let's say that you pick up the rifle for the first time in years, and go to qualify with it, and discover that it's 2.5" left and an inch lower than you wanted at 100 yards? Why, you'd take the extra cartridges that you brought, and sight it in, wouldn't you?

First two shots-- cover with a dime. Next shots-- cover with a quarter. At 6 shots-- cover with a silver dollar. At 10 shots-- cover with, oh... a dollar bill. Gawd.

While waiting for the too-hot-to-touch barrel to cool, the rangemaster said to me: "I gotta close up in 15 minutes."

So I qualified with 20 rounds in 15 minutes. It wasn't pretty. 10 rounds at 100 yards, and 10 rounds from 50. Even with a superb rest or a rock-solid prone, my rounds at this point weren't going too terribly closely to where I wanted them to. Sure, the Ruger M77 super lightweight contour barreled rifle topped with an older Redfield scope may not be the choice of snipers everywhere, but this one is actually capable of some pretty decent cold-barrel groups. Unfortunately, that requires a degree of slow fire that I just didn't have the luxury to enjoy today.

The targets were various tombstones of 2 to 4 inches in height. Should have been a snap. I think I missed black on 4 or 5. I've got it in the car, enshrouded in shame. I'm not sure I can bring myself to turn it in.

Oh, the shame!

And what IS it about the Stevens Model 56 .22 LR Rifle?!?

I continue to be amazed at how the number one single hit for referrals to my blog is for "Stevens Model 56," "M56 Stevens," and ".22 Stevens 56."
Well, look here:
You oughta see how rough the milling is on this receiver.
You oughta see how simple and crummy the trigger is.
You oughta see the rough bolt on this thing.

But then again...
Well, the sights on my specimen are just really, really nice:
Diopter rear sight.

Pinhole front sight.
Maybe this thing's older than I thought. I'm not even finding a serial number on it. All I have are the roll markings:

Cheater rifle

The old Stevens model 56 squirrel rifle that I won a turkey (the smallest whole frozen turkey that I’d ever seen!) with last year is the one I popped the golf ball with at 50 yards during yesterday's range session. Not that hitting a 1.25” target at 150 feet is that impressive of a shot (especially from prone), but the part that made me feel good about it was the fact that I had utter confidence that I could do it, even with the wind. Why? Well, it’s certainly not because of the trigger, that’s for sure. But while a good trigger sure makes it easier to shoot well, I find that great sights make it even easier. Dig the wonderful old diopter sights on this rifle:

Note the front sight, with its aperture post. The correct sight picture is to place the target inside the aperture.



Now check out the diopter style rear sight.

See that itty-bitty hole in the middle? That’s the small aperture. The other two holes are the next two sized aperture. The dimple to the right of the small aperture settles into dimples in the disc as the aperture plate is slid up or down to the desired setting. This rear sight is about 30 inches behind the front sight, for serious sight radius.