Currently Browsing: Shooting
Feb 26, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Guns, Shooting | 6 comments
People are getting angry at Armalite for refusing to stop selling law enforcement firearms that civilians can’t own. I have a post-ban Armalite M15A4 AR, which I bought back in 2001, and I’ll give you another reason. I’ve always been convinced something has always been slightly out off spec with it. My Bushmaster XM15-E2S (back from Bushy’s Maine days) runs flawlessly with a wide variety of ammo. The Armalite is very picky about ammo. The factory 10 round magazine works flawlessly, but it’s jam-o-matic time with a lot of other magazines that function just fine in my Bushmaster carbine. Now, when 2004 rolled around, I converted the rifle to a “no-ban” configuration by grinding away the muzzle compensator and replace it with a birdcage flash suppressor, and adding a bayonet lug, but the trouble preceded me touching it. My theory has been that perhaps the magazine catch is slightly not where it should be, which causes a lot of the jamming issues when combined with certain kinds of ammo.
One thing I have not tried in the M15A4 are Magpul PMags, but I’ll get to that experiment once I can get over the fact that dumping a few mags of .223 these days is dinner and drinks at the local steakhouse. Even though I didn’t pay that much for that ammo, it’s still in the back of my mind.
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Feb 25, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | 18 comments
I received this via e-mail. If anyone can help these guys out, leave a comment:
By way of introduction, I am a member of the Oregon State University pistol club and a follower of all of your blogs. Since you all strike me as being somewhat connected in the firearms community, I am coming to you with a plea for help. Our club is one of the few remaining collegiate shooting clubs in the nation, and I view it as important to continuing the introduction of shooting sports to young people. However, given the current industry situation, ammunition is difficult to come by (but you already knew that). We might have enough ammunition left to last until the end of the school year in June, if we’re lucky, but that would be the end of all of our supplies. As such, I am coming to you asking if any of you know of people or dealers who have access to bulk .22LR ammunition. I recognize that it is unlikely that anyone does these days, but we’re pretty much desperate. Our club has been in operation pretty much continuously since 1948; I do not want to see it die due to an ammunition shortage. If you can help at all, if you have any information, I would be eternally grateful.
I’ve been very concerned about the effect the current ammo shortages are going to have on the shooting community. If anyone knows where they might find ammo, can you point them in the right direction?
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Feb 23, 2013
Posted by Bitter in Shooting | 4 comments
The Lancaster (Pa.) Sunday News features this 950+ word article on the success of area school rifle teams. The focus is on how these are well-balanced kids who compete in other activities more commonly associated with high school, such as cheerleading, soccer, drama club, swimming, and field hockey. Yet, they use firearms in a safe and lawful manner, and their sport doesn’t get the same kind of cheering and high five response from a crowd when they do well. But they keep doing it because they enjoy it. (h/t @patrickhenry2nd)
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Feb 7, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | 4 comments
I got one a few months ago, and suffer from the same problem as Uncle; there are few bugs around in winter. But I’ve had a few flies. Rumors on the Internet that it doesn’t have decent fly killing power is unfortunately true. If you shoot it at your hand, it smarts a bit, so it’s a testament to how strong a fly’s exoskeleton really is. Thinking some larger shot would help, I decided to try kosher salt instead of regular table salt, and I found that de-winged the fly pretty well, but it still look a few follow up “Die, bastard fly! Die!” shots to finish him off. I have not yet tried it on stink bugs, but I’ve seen none around the house. I need to take it to work, where we have plenty.
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Feb 5, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | 8 comments
Dave Hardy takes a look at the Skeetgate and wonders if Obama was even on the skeet range, comparing a picture of JFK on the range from years ago. It could have been taken next to the skeet range along side the road, but the ground there looks pretty open on satellite. The picture to me looks more like “Hey, I want to try out this shotgun,” rather than shooting skeet. I’m still kind of baffled why the White House even made this an issue, because it’s silly. No one expects Obama is a shooter. The photo is pretty obviously not shooting skeet, and he’s pretty obviously either not a shooter, or a real novice at it. And that would be fine, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was using a, “Hey, I’m one of you,” to pull the wool over people’s eyes so he can successfully divide and conquer.
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Feb 5, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | Comments Off
… for a new shooter.
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Feb 4, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | 6 comments
I’m kind of with SayUncle on Skeetgate. I can’t get too worked up over it. Everyone knows the guy isn’t a shooter. The real problem is that Obama was trying to disingenuously signal that he’s really one of us, which strained credulity even for the sycophantic press corps. Note that the shotgun being fired is compensated, which is a new “evil” feature. It’s not just about flash hiders anymore.
I’ll give John Richardson the last word on Skeetgate, because that’s just funny.
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Jan 22, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | 21 comments
Glenn Reynolds talks about the topic, and the idea that when we had more guns in schools, we had less school shootings. I think the extinction of high school shooting teams has been one of the greatest cultural losses we’ve suffered. Glenn notes:
Reader Gary Robinson emails: “We worry about kids and sex – so we have sex education in school. We educate kids about driver safety, drugs, healthy lifestyles and a host of other things that we have concerns about so kids learn safe practices. If we’re worried about kids and guns, why don’t we teach basic gun safety in schools?”
I would say that the effort by gun-controllers to “denormalize” gun ownership, and to portray it as deviant and dangerous, actually increases the allure of guns to unbalanced minds.
I agree with that. I think long term, we have to get shooting teams back in high schools. It would have been something I absolutely would have taken to as a kid, if it had been available at my school. I was not involved in sports as a kid, but rather was a band geek. I still would have done band, but if a shooting team had been available, I would have done that. It gets kids away from the video games, and gives them something to do that requires a degree of self-discipline to master.
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Jan 5, 2013
Posted by Sebastian in Shooting | 5 comments
I’ve spent little time on the range since my old company closed up shop and I found new employment. A combination of a lack of time, and the fact that shooting isn’t cheap, especially these days. Of course, I must have dreamed my time at my club, because everyone knows the type of rifle on display here has no use other than killing people. My shooting with the AR, first in standing, then prone rapid-fire, was pretty sad. I’ve never been a particularly good rifleman, however. All my competitive shooting, and nearly all of my training has been with pistol.
My primary purpose today was to check myself out on pistol, given that I carry, and haven’t shot pistol in some months. I’m still largely in a 3×5 card at 10 yards firing rapidly with the Glock, so we’re still good there. I do worse with the Ruger LCP at 10 yards, maybe more like the size of a pie plate, firing rapidly. I find the biggest drawback to the LCP is the fact that it’s too hard to find the front sights. My group expansion was more vertical than horizontal, because it’s just too easy to miss the front sights after the pistol recoils and falls back into position.
But either way, it was good to go back out and get re-acquainted with the reason we fight.
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Dec 18, 2012
Posted by Bitter in Shooting | 3 comments
Many gun blogs have been highlighting the fact that NBC Sports has decided to cancel “3-Gun Nation” in light of the Connecticut tragedy. I think that it is most useful to point out this:
Philadelphia-based Comcast Corporation, owner of NBCUniversal and one of the biggest spenders in lobbying money in Washington, has given $206,056 to Mr. Obama and $20,500 to Mr. Romney.
We cut the cord years ago and stopped giving over more than $100/month to support their Democratic donations. That’s just a reminder.
Besides, getting people involved with the shooting sports is much more fun than sitting around and watching them on tv.
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