BAG Day

BAG Day stands for Buy A Gun Day. Everybody buys a gun on BAG day. It's the 15th of April so you can remember the government your tax dollars support, and maybe have a refund to help fund it, or at least know what your budget is if you have to cut a check this time of year. And despite my swearing up and down I was through with Marlin...

I bought a Marlin. ~sigh~

Isn't that pretty? Decent walnut figure. I'm a sucker for walnut.

It's the 1894c I said I was gonna put on hold because I was disappointed with Marlin's latest offerings, quality wise. This is a well cared for used one. It was either this or 3 times the money for the M1A on the top of my list. So this does better things to my wallet, and the M1A can wait till January 2009.

I don't have it yet, as it has to be shipped to my FFL dealer first, but it's on the way. I have a tracking number and everything.

Here's a plus, it was made before 1984, so there is better manufacturing quality, and more importantly, the loathed crossbolt safety is absent. And that was my preference already.

Corky got his Mosquito .22 for HIS BAG day:

Chuckles got a Browning Buckmark for his. But no scope on it like this one:

Frozen got a couple. An SKS, and an M44 Mosin. Here's the Mosin. Inexpensive Russian bolt action firing 7.62x54. He's happy.

MBtGe got a VERY expensive shotgun. Merkel over and under. He wanted a 'pretty' gun. Pretty pricy at $8 grand! He had to sneak it into the house because he used a pile of money no one knows about. Don't tell his missus...

All these BAG guns are from my influence, sparking interest in Frozen, Chuckles, and Corky. MBtGE got ME interested in shooting, but got HIM interested in pretty guns. I still can't believe he went that route, but, I'm not gonna criticise him, certainly. His wife may well kill me as well as him when she learns, sadly, so if I stop posting suddenly for a few months it means I got dead. At her hands. So Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Don't snitch on him.

memes

24

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Created by OnePlusYou


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Collectors Firearms

Drooooooooooooool...

Collectors Firearms.

If I was a collector

AND I had the wherewithal…. I’d collect every firearm Browning ever designed. Decent versions of each type, and as close to the patent date as possible.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has thought of this. I bet there are more than a few Browning collections out there.

Collector can love a finite and defined subset to put boundries on their obscession. Sure there are stamp collectors that know it is impossible to get them all, but there are other collectors that appreciate the limits. For example: The Stanley Rule and Level Company of Bridgeport Connecticut made and developed tools for the workman, and numbered them. They did this from the 1860s until a little after WWII when other tools and machines took over from their hand powered types. You can pick a tool types, like hand planes or rulers, and collect one of each. I know some of the handplane collectors. The numbers go from 1 to 444, with one or two duplicates and some gaps in the upper numbers. But the planes are well documented. You CAN get them all. And after you do you can STILL collect by getting a nicer version of each. It’d take more than a lifetime of looking and pretty deep pockets to get a hardware store new version of each tool.

For boomsticks with an open ended collector pit to fall down, better to get a milsurp rifle from all major countries thoughout time. Aaaargh has done a good job down this path. They are like Stamp collecting. You’ll never get them all. Dang Philatelists. So obscene.

The thing about collectors… the acquisition becomes as important as the object. And you don’t want to FINISH. If you do you’ll have to figure out something else to collect. That’s a danger in collecting Browning stuff. With enough money to afford em, you can FINISH pretty quick. Then you risk losing interest in the tool stuff (or shooty stuff) and you switch over to bottle caps or comic books or steam powered farm equipment.

Better to get a milsurp rifle from all major countries throughout time. Aaaargh has done a good job down this path.

I like looking at these tool collections, but I don’t want to collect myself. I have a few handtools and like the tool’s function, and futz with them in the shop a bit, but I don’t need a $2500 version of a common woodworking tool. Even if I had money to spare.

But if I had money to spare I WOULD want an armory with one of each of Brownings’s work. I don’t know why. The gun collection is much more expensive than a tool collection. There is almost zero chance I will even work down that collector’s road, seriously. Maybe that’s why I’d like to collect Browning weapons, because I know I will never have to.

And yes I’d collect the machine guns too. This is all assuming I win Powerball or a Goerge Soros turns out to be my long lost Uncle and wills all his money to me before he has a chance to give every dime to the Democrat National Committee. Since the Browning designed M2 Machine gun alone is north of $50,000, I'll need that kind of scratch

I’d have to have shooting/functioning versions of each, but some Browning firearms are more fun to shoot than others, so some in the collection will be played with more than others.

And collectors always like a spare or two in case one item breaks or fails. Spares means you can shoot the less valuable gun and preserve the pristine one, and have a source of parts for repairs.

I guess I HAVE started this collection though. Very informal. It just turns out that the practical functional firearms I want to play with are available in a pretty nigh-ideal form. And they just happen to be browning designs.


Here is a list of Browning designs from wikipedia, and I already have a version of the ones with ~~~, the ones with *** I REALLY kinda covet:



M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun
Colt Model 1897
FN Browning M1899/M1900
Colt Model 1900
Colt Model 1902
Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer (.38 ACP)
~~~Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (.32 ACP)
Colt Model 1905, the first .45 ACP
Remington Model 8 (1906), a long recoil semi-automatic rifle
Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless (.380 ACP)
FN Model 1910
~~~U.S. Model 1911, the first .45 ACP military handgun
Winchester Model 1886 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun
Winchester Model 1890 slide-action repeating rifle (.22)
Winchester Model 1892 lever-action repeating rifle
***Winchester Model 1894 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1895 lever-action repeating rifle
Winchester Model 1897 pump-action repeating shotgun
~~~Browning Auto-5 long recoil semi-automatic shotgun
U.S. Model 1917 water-cooled machine gun
Model 1919 air-cooled machine gun
Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) of 1917
Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun of 1921
***The Browning Hi-Power, the last pistol that John Browning developed
The Superposed over/under shotgun was designed by John Browning in 1922 and entered production in 1931

If I was a collector, I'd need as antique-y minty versions as I can get of all of them.

50 Year Old Pulp

David Codrea links to this whenever it comes up, but I love these old magazine issues so much I want to be sure my own loyal readers (both of them) see the link as well. A .pdf of Guns Magazine from 1958.

I can almost smell the musty, damp-paper, basement magazine smell wafting off the screen when I read it. I love that smell. It reminds me of my father's old Popular Mechanics form the 1960s. Magazines I read in the 80s. And the smell of my grand parents house, which, because it was on the water, had a mustiness acceleration factor. And THAT house was where I learned to drive and to shoot, back during the Reagan administration.

socialism

For you young whippersnappers that don't remember the Berlin Wall:

Socialism doesn't work! STOP voting for Socialists.

thank you.

Scout Conzept

I’ve read somewhere (sorry, I’ve forgotten where, dangit) that the Steyr company doesn’t make the Scout rifle anymore. Not enough sales.

The Scout concept came about through the efforts of Jeff Cooper in an attempt to design the perfect rifle. I’ve talked about it before. Basically, it is a lightweight (less than 7 pounds) magazine fed bolt-action rifle with a decent caliber (.308) with a forward of the receiver, long eye-relief scope.
I totally bought into this concept, but as I learn more about shooting, the more I hedge. I just don’t know.

Oh it’s still a great concept I respect, I just don’t know if it is ALL for me. And clearly it wasn’t for everyone else, or they’d still be making them to keep up with the demand.

I am drifting away from finding the perfect bolt action rifle for me (lefty, naturally) and settling on the next big rifle I get for a LONG time to be the M1A with a 10x NON-scout scope. And if I DID get a bolt action rifle, I’d get a 10x scope for that too. Not a scout scope at a mere 2.5x. So the scout concept isn’t realized here.

I like the scout scope I have mounted on my Garand, (I need to test it out a lot more, shooting) but that’s a Garand. Heavy, semi-auto rifle, only the scope and the basic reliability are features it shares with a true scout. But I am striking out on my own a little bit. I’m not willing to discard many, or ANY, of Colonel Cooper’s ideas, permanantly. That would foolish, as he was a wealth of info. But I’m not in lock-step, certainly. A scout style bolt action is furthest from my gun-acquisition mind, now though. But would I have a scout scope mounted on a Garand without Cooper’s prodding? No. The jury is still out on how I’ll like that setup.


So see? I adopt from Cooper what works for me and file away his ideas, just in case.

Where is my mind drifting now that diverges from Cooper opinion? Well, some of the modern optics intrigue. Red-Dot scope combinations, and the like. Night vision stuff, too. Cooper wasn’t impressed with them, as he heard of supply line troubles providing batteries to the troops, and when you run out Duracell juice, you are out of the fight. The market is addressing this deficiency, with 10,000 hour battery life, and swing-away scopes and the new buzz term "co-witness" with iron sights. Some optics work in daylight with no batteries, as you can see a permanent reticle. So coopers concerns are being addressed there. I am unaware of advances in night-vision scopes and helmet mounted night vision and the little gun mounted laser that goes with them that can only be seen (I think) with night-vision, but I am sure someone is trying to extend battery life there, too.

And I am thinking about those long battery life red-dot. We’ll see. Maybe just a simple EOTech type one on something like a Camp Carbine .45. I’ll have to see what I want for the M1A after I get it, but long-range scope and iron sights backup is what I hope for.

Cooper wouldn’t disapprove. He was conservative in his doctrines, but was always willing to change those doctrines if something demonstrably better came along. His problem was that very few ‘better’ things came along. He’d grab onto the good like a gold nugget washing past in a stream.

CRISIS IN THE HEARTLANDS!!!!!!!

McCain will unveil
plan to help homeowners who have 'burdensome' mortgages
During a business roundtable today in Brooklyn, Republican presidential candidate John McCain will propose what he calls a HOME plan that would give "every deserving American family or homeowner the opportunity to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects the market value of their home."

Heh, I have a 30 year fixed mortgage at 5.25% on a house I bought 10 years ago.

I've watched it triple in price to the peak last year. It's gone down a little bit, but it's still close to triple

I pay income taxes.

Payments are 1/7th my income, and I made half what I do now when I bought it.

Still... that payment is burdensome! It's a BIG check to write. 8 times bigger than my car payment, and my house doesn't even MOVE. I want free gov't money! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Why punish me with no free money when I did everything right? I should be rewarded! Gimme!

And Senator McCain (D-Arizona) can't tell me I don't deserve it. He doesn't know me! He can't dictate my needs. And I NEED a new flat screen HD TV, maid service, a garden shed, a Springfield M1A, and a few other items and gov't should have to pay for. The gov't should give ME what I want for once, instead of everyone else.

A manageable loan would be at 2% I think. No closing costs or fees. I have GREAT credit.

Why is it, when I did everything right I get punished by taking my money away and giving it to someone that did everything wrong and bought more house than they could afford? Why can't we just agree that I leave them alone and they leave me alone on most stuff? Why does gov't gotta always stick their nose in it?

And it's not just McCain. The other presidential contenders, the Congress, my Governor, all want to take my money and give it to some idjit that thinks he's entitled to it and shouldn't have to be responsible for himself. I pick on McCain because I naively think he's better than that. It may be a forlorn hope.

How come whenever there is a 'problem' the first thought people have is, "Well we can fix THIS with some Socialism!!!" It's almost like they had the solution ready to go and were just hunting around for a problem. Got bug spray killing all the robins and chickadees? Here's some Socialism! Too many people on the planet? Voila, Socialism. Ice Age a comin'? SOCIALISM! Hot age a comin'? Rub some Socialism on that, it'll clear right up. Smoot Hawley tariff killed imports/exports? Instead of opening up trade how bout we fix that with some Socialism? Everyone has access to healthcare but some people don't have the prestige of health INSURANCE? That's a problem this here Socialism can fix. And use some good ol' Socialism to pay for mortgages of the people that couldn't afford mortgages.

Where's that flat screen TV you people owe me? And that's just the start.

Sheesh.

{gun content... that M1A reference up there. I NEED it.}

8 Year Old Girl? Bad Crime Deterrent

From Reuters:

FL Lawmakers pass "take your guns to work" law

By Michael Peltier
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Most Florida residents would be allowed to take guns to work under a measure passed by Florida lawmakers on Wednesday.

The bill, allowing workers to keep guns in their cars for self-protection, was approved by the Florida Senate by a vote of 26-13. It now goes to Republican Gov. Charlie Crist to sign into law.

Backed by the National Rifle Association and some labor unions, the so-called "take-your-guns-to-work" measure would prohibit business owners from banning guns kept locked in motor vehicles on their private property.

Which is great, because people that did the "Take your daughter to work Day" were finding out that their daughter was HORRIBLE at protecting them from muggers and carjackers. At least compared to a defensive sidearm combined with good training.

Tamara and the 17th

Tamara has posted on a subject near and dear to my heart... repealing the 17th amendment. She wrote the essay I wish I had enough talent to write myself. Luckily, SHE does, so now I don't have to attempt it in my own fumbling manner.

THAT is a Jacobin amendment. It is impossible to repeal the 2nd (it's just one of a list of inalienable rights that can never be rightly taken, only taken via oppression), but THAT 17th one can be repealed in a second, as it is mere tinkering with the gov't structure parts of the Constitution.

Hooray Federalism.

Sadly, it is too obscure an issue to get any traction in a repeal effort. Only History geeks know about it and have an opinion about its efficacy.

Tam and I have the same opinion. And it isn't "repeal the 17th please." It's: "REPEAL THE GULDURN 17TH YESTERDAY, YOU INCOMPETENT MORON CHOWDERHEADS!!!"

6 Word Meme

DANGIT! JayG pegged me with this meme. I was dreading this possibility.

Anyhoo, here were the conditions.

1. Write your own six word memoire.


2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.


3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.


4. Tag at least five more blogs with links.


5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play....

Now I have no problem with the 6 word memoire. Here are a few:

N00b jerked trigger, shot low, right!

N00b can't find butt with Leupold!

N00b no write Englisch gud? Unpossible!

N00b amazes with shooting skill, modesty!

And here is a picture that covers most all of them:

But tagging bloggers? THAT's hard. Very few people love me.

RobertaX already did one. Can't give it to her.

Tam? I dunno if she likes me. She never responded to an offline email I sent with a question about a 1911 torture test. And she may be feeling too low for meme foolishness. I bet her answer would be GOOD and snarky. And RobertX would have tagged her, certainly. So I'll leave her alone.

I guess I can send it to MBtGE Sooper Seekrit blog.

The Chied, Sailor Curt alread got pinged.

I don't think Breda has been hit up with it yet. [UPDATE: She HAS. It was a good one too. ]

I'll send it to my fellow Marylander, Armed Canadian.

.... and I'm gonna have to call for volunteers now. To make my quota.

Oooo, forgot the Firearm Blog!

And maybe Denise of the Ten Ring

Know It All

Isn't this great? I know next to nothing about guns, yet I have stretched that lack of knowledge to over 200 blog entries. I sure can slice the baloney thin.

I hope I have done a good job on topic choices and keeping it relatively focused to my original "follow this n00bie on a voyage of discovery. with guns." The thing about all blogs, they are not really about the stated subject so much. At least half of the material is about the internet. And that subject pit is bottomless. Expound away!

And I do repeat myself. Often for emphasis. On important stuff. It's a good thing to be repetitive about safety and practicing to increase your skills. Don't you think?

I'm not really a know-it-all on guns. That's just an affectation I put on to entertain you.

Safety Review

As I become more familiar and comfortable with guns, I have to be ever vigilant about firearm safety. I mustn't get too cavalier.

Gun shops are the worst, for cavalier attitude. There are too many people there and too many of them are inspecting a firearm for possible purchase. And they are talking to a salesman on the other side of the counter. There really is no place to point that muzzle safely. Now the chances of a display gun being loaded are remote, but so what? That doesn't excuse breaking rule #2 "Never point the barrel at anything you don't intend to destroy."

And then there are people bringing guns IN to the shop, for repair or evaluation or just to consult to find out where some fun rifle may have come from. And a rifle goes on the counter pointing directly to one side. And no one opens the action half the time. A strange gun belonging to just some guy, and people are just handling it like it was nothing. And pointing it at me. A violation of Rule #2 and Rule #1 "All guns are ALWAYS loaded." The gunstore sales people always open an action before handing you a weapon to inspect. But people can forget.

Same with your finger resting on the trigger. It's the easiest rule to forget. The finger just WANTS to go there. Though I have seen a rash of people instinctively following good finger on trigger discipline. That's good.

For me personally a situation exists that I have to always stay on top of. When I convert my .45 to .22 I have to field strip it. It's important to TRIPLE check that the magazine is out and the chamber empty, because when field stripping you are gonna have that barrel pointing at SOMETHING you'd rather not shoot, and mostly me. "But I dropped the mag and worked the slide 4 times to be sure there was no round in the chamber and it still went off!" Someone might say. Well what if the extractor was broken and couldn't yank that last live round out of the chamber? I never want to be that "someone". I jam my pinky down the empty cylinder after looking at it. I see it is empty and I feel it is empty.

Chuckles thinks I am over-cautious. Better over cautious than over-dead, I figure. Keep the blood on the inside of me and the air on the outside of me. Chuckles poo-poos the Four Rules. "Sometime the gun IS unloaded, duh! How can you NOT point the gun at something you don't want to shoot unless you buy and mount it permanently at a stand at the range and never move it?" Chuckles is a FIRM believer in the "no finger on the trigger." And as long as he adheres to that he is safe enough. You have to violate more than one rule to hurt someone, after all. If you have your finger on the trigger and negligently discharge, but you were obeying the other 3 rules, then the barrel won't be pointing at anyone in the room or in line with the barrel through to other rooms.

It seems all negligent discharge cases start with "I became complacent." That's why I am typing this now. To keep myself from being complacent.

Here are some people that regret their complacency. The infamous "This is a Glock .40 and I am the ONLY ONE trained enough to ~KABLAM!~ Ow! My leg! I just had a negligent discharge!" Guy.

There are a couple of other shooters that want to make their mistake a learning example for others, so that maybe someone else won't do as they did. This guy and this one.

One final thing I need to repeat. When you hear in the news that a "gun went off" or it was "an accident." 9,999 out of 10,000 that is not accurate. The gun went off because of negligence by the user. Very few 'accidental discharges' are accidental discharges.

Heston

Oh no!

Detective Robert Thorn, the discoverer that Soylent Green is made of 'people,' has died. AKA George Taylor:

Friend to gunnies, longest serving President of the NRA, portrayer of Moses, and all around bad ass, Charlton Heston:

Vaya con Dios, Mr. Heston.

Proofread

I've been re-reading old posts of mine. I need to proofread better. The words are often spelled correctly, but aren't pluralized when they should be. I even let my fingers type properly spelled words but in usages that my brain knows better. Their/they're/there mixups. Stupid fingers!

UPDATE: For instance, on a forum I just typed "sing" when I meant to type "since." It's a perfectly good word my finger typed, just not the right one.

Literally

I read this in a blog a few months ago, and have noticed the trend ever since. But I don't remember where.

People say "Literally" a lot, lately. It's everywhere. Literally.

M1A Decision

I've decided. When I get the M1A it is going to be my long range rifle, and I won't be getting a short carbine version with short range optics.

And I'll probably hold off on any bolt action left handed .30 caliber rifle for a while. I'll use the Garand for hunting with its low power scope, and I'll play with the M1A for any long range 300-yard-plus target shooting. I think I can do worse to limit myself to those 2 rifles.

Why? The rifles I will have from my primary and secondary list will fill most rolls without too much overlap. I don't need all that many more when I haven't beaten all the fun I can out of the guns I have/will-have.

And I am sure I won't be in a hurry to get a nice aftermarket stock, like the above. Just getting a decent scope rail mount on the bare bones generic stock that comes with the bare bones M1A adds $300 to the cost. The stock above with iron sight is well over $1000. Extra. On top of an expensive rifle.

So what do I do if I need to roll out of moving vehicles ready to start shooting zombies and Jacobins and NEED a short range major caliber carbine? I guess I'll just have to make do with a long rifle now won't I? I'll put red dot optics on a Camp Carbine if I ever find one.

That reminds me. Yeah. The 1894 named Gummint Cheez just might not happen with the Tax Rebate Stimulus check. I'm demoting it to Second Tier status. Oh, I'll get it. The poor factory quality means I am holding off for a good one. Maybe used.

Ever the Optimist

Ever the optimist, lets suppose ‘our’ side wins Heller, and wins by a decent margin. We'll celebrate that evening by drinking heavily and shooting our AK’s into the air as we always do, naturally, but what NEXT? We’ll have positive momentum on rolling back oppressive gun restrictions, but it’d be a good idea to concentrate our effort on the achievable and focus on one thing. One onerous law to rollback at the federal level.

Some want the big bite of the apple and want to roll back the machine gun bans, and others beside me have chimed on how the ‘straights’ aren’t ready for this big a step. AND, people forget, there are machine gun collectors that don’t want restrictions on machine guns lifted. A lot of them treat their collection as a monetary investment, if you repeal the 1986 Hughes Amendment, even, then machine guns made after 1986 would be available for sale, and the prices on the pre-restriction guns would plummet, destroying their investment.

There is a much better chance that the restriction on suppressors could be lifted. Ahh, the evil silencer! Criminals LOVE them, right? Oh, come ON. What criminal, already willing to commit murder and risk being caught for that, is dissuaded by the fact someone may HEAR him? The plethora of sneaky assassins plying their trade with 9mm pistol that sounds like a mouse sneeze is a Hollywood illusion. What isn’t an illusion is hearing loss. If you take the negative, and illusory, connotation away from suppressors maybe we can protect law enforcement and save the taxpayer some money by not having to prematurely medically retire police officers because of hearing loss. I’d love to plink a .22 at my buddy’s farm without disturbing the neighbors, and without having to wear clunky mickey-mouse cans to protect my hearing.

That’d be nice, but what I’d prefer, personally, is lifting restrictions on surplus ammo sales. The word is "That dang Clinton and the UN passed rules that make the US military destroy all surplus ammo.” But that’s just 'the word'. 'The word' says black helicopters are coming to round up everybody aligned politically right of Ted Kennedy and take them to concentration camps in South Dakota, so I don’t know how good that Word is.

What I DO know is you can’t get US Military surplus ammo. Here’s a halfway decent word from Uncle on a single instance of surplus destruction, but it is anecdotal rather than comprehensive. More anecdotal evidence is from former soldiers like Chuckles and Corky being given the chore of burning through ammo, just to get rid of it. I’m still looking for links to an actual government policy regarding domestic military ammo. What ISN’T anecdotal is the dearth of domestic surplus ammo supply. Why? There is plenty to go around. The military won’t keep ammo after a certain age, but that doesn’t mean that ammo is bad. Ammo keeps a long time. Why is the Military destroying ammo that we paid for, instead of trying to defray costs by selling it to the civilian market? Someone made a rule that it was a bad idea to sell surplus ammo to civilians, and I bet their reasoning is as flawed and hoplophobic as any other anti-gun ordnance. And as ineffective as any other anti-gun rule at achieving it’s stated purpose.

Anyway, THAT’s what I’d like to concentrate on next, if I had my druthers. I think reasonable Americans would be on our side on it. It could be a vector to help out the CMP and get THEM more funding, and that would be good for the shooting sports for the increase in target shooting interest. And THAT would hopefully lead to more rifle ranges to compete at and practice at and expend all this ammo at. And to leave preposition at the end of sentences at.

I don't know if my druthers will match up to future reality as much as I'd like. But an optimist can hope.

Social Life

I occasionally try to expand my social horizons beyond overweight middle aged men that like the smell of cordite and Break Free gun cleaning fluid. I usually attempt to mingle with member of the distaff sex, when I can, in hopes of establish some sort of mutually companionable setup. Call me crazy, but, Girls are neato.

When you meet a new girl, sometimes a man, like me, has to hide some of his geekier habits. Not to deceive, but to introduce at the proper time. Militant stamp collectors with a sideline in a 2 room DC Comic Book collection can sometimes weird out a young lassy. Now I don't collect comic books, and I am no philatelist. I am a gun geek. Duh. That's what this blog is all about. I am geeky in other areas, but those areas are JUST geeky, and don't have the political baggage attached to them that firearms do.

So when I meet a new girl, half the time you get a "I've never shot a gun before" out of her, but no outright hostility to shooting.

So, thanks to the internet I know what I have to do next. I have to get a .50 caliber Desert Eagle, a .500 Smith and Wesson, or one of the Swiss .600 Nitro Express revolvers, and take the new schmoopie down to the range and pressure her to fire the hand-held artillery. This forever changing her neutral stance to downright hostility towards everything gun related. Here is a picture of a gun that's great for small stature first- time shooters







They really need to put something in that picture more common so you can see the scale. A beer can, a quarter, a book of matches, a .38 snub nose, SOMETHING. That revolver is truly huge.

What?

Ok, ok. That's not how I'd do it. I don't have a .22 pistol, yet, but I do have the conversion kit for 1911 that's pretty fun. That's how I'd start off someone that had never been shooting before. (For the record, I'd not shoot that .600 Nitro Express revolver on a BET!) And I wouldn't hesitate going from that to the .380 or fire .38 Special in my revolver. If she took to that, I'd demonstrate with a mixed cylinder of .357 and .38 to show the difference, and offer to let her try that after seeing the difference.

Unless she takes to it. Plenty of women go right to the .45 without passing go. Corky's missus, for one. Her only complaint about the .45 is the ergonomics of the grip, not the BOOM! She likes the BOOM.

This is all IF she expressed interest in going to the range at all. Pressuring to go to shoot .22 when she doesn't wanna is almost as bad as giving her a .44 magnum to fire first thing.

Does this sound condescending? Dangit! Ok, how to take a new boyfriend to the range who has never fired a gun before and is curious to try it out. Sadly, males can be a hazard. Some might consider it an affront to their manhood to be taught how to shoot by anybody, but especially a girl. What might help for anyone, but particularly for a guy, is a familiarization session in private before hitting the range. I'm all thumbs myself when trying out a new gun with an unfamiliar action. To fumble in public in a range where everyone knows what they are doing is embarrassing. Even a revolver can do this. How? Well pulling the trigger is simple enough, but to reload you have to get the cylinder out, and you push THIS here with a Smith, pull THAT there with a Colt, swing out THAT gate there with a Ruger Single Six, etc.

A few dry fires at home, and calmly going over the 4 rules won't hurt. The private familiarization, showing how to check to see if the firearm needs to be loaded, learning the trigger feel, how to align the sights and operate the safety and how to squeeeeeze the trigger, all of that is much nicer when you don't have to have hearing protection or the prying eyes of strangers about. This works not only for new-shooter men, but women too.

That's all I'd do at a familiarization session. Make some holes in paper with light calibers, and make it all about the new shooter. I'd recommend a silhouhette target. Easier to hit a spot that the shooter KNOWS would be effective in the real world. Nothing is more confidence-building than successfully hitting what you are aiming at.

Anyway, these are things I am thinking about after a first date. I don't know why I bother since I am socially inept enough to worry about a second date. Maybe I should work on my pick-up lines. "If you struggle you will only make it harder!" done in an Austrian accent doesn't pull in the willing babes like it used to. And it's been an even longer interval since, "would you like to look at my etchings" worked. Here's some fresher lines I'm tempted to try out:

"Baby, you must be a parking ticket, cuz you got FINE written all over you."

"How YOU doin?"

"What does this smell like to you?"

"You're just like algebra? In that I can study YOU all day long? No. In that you are a total mystery to me and I will soon cast you aside in utter frustration and insist I'd never need you in life anyway but knowing that I probably do."

Sad News

So I got a new grip safety for my 1911 and was stopping by my gun-dealer after work to see if his gunsmith could help me fit it when I learned some sad news.

He is going out of business. Apparently he is just tired of the hassle. Not just regulatory stuff, but just the day to day stuff running a retail establishment. It's a shame, but. there is a silver lining:

"EVERYTHING must go!"

He sold me the M1A I've been drooling on for only $500. He threw in some aftermarket 20 round mags for free.

He let me have ALL the South African battle packs he had left. Six sealed ammo pouched filled with 140 round of 7.62 ammo. How much? $25 each!

I went ahead and bought TWO SKSs'. Yugoslavian type. I now need to get all this cosmoline off of them. Why two? They were only $75 each. Why not?

I got a Reminton pump shotgun, 870, for $180. It even has the tactical peep sights I wanted.

I mentioned the 1911 he had there? It had no grips and the finish was gone, but it was really cool with the patent dates and a manufacture date of 1914. After $300, I figure I can come to his house to pick it up in 7 days if the store is shuttered. It was silly purchase, as I won't fire it or carry it much. I'm a sucker for history. And this is a bonafide WWI era gun. Fortunately it's been a month since I got my last handgun, as Maryland is a One-A-Month State.

There was an M1 Carbine, made by IBM with matching serial numbers on the parts. The stock isn't pristine, but it's a good gun, and original. And only $250. I'd prefer Rock-Ola, but, beggars can't be choosers. Especially for a halfway decent price like that.

He had sold the really cool Ruger Mini-14 with a folding stock before I got there. It was old style with a Ruger stock, not after-market. I didn't ask how low the price tag was. Just as well, the credit card is SMOKING I used it so much.

I bought $300 worth of other ammo types and the surplus ammo cans to carry it all were only $1 each. Filled 4 cans with .38 Special, .45 ACP, M1 Carbine .30, and .357.

I think I did pretty good, getting 6 guns I already wanted for less than $2000 and LOTS of ammo. Now I gotta figure out where to PUT all this stuff. I'd have gotten more, and I might check back later. It's still a shame, but there isn't THAT much more stuff I'd ever want. I can get ammo in the future at Wal Mart or something. Bass Pro. Instead of here, but I will need to get a new 'place' to be my gunstore. The only thing left on my List, really, is a .22 revolver and carbines for .45 and .357.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow.