Guns, Cars, and Tech

Author: oddball

  • Food for thought…

    Part of the conventional wisdom for selecting a 9mm as your carry or even bug out gun is that 9mm is the most common round out there and you’ll always be able to find it.

    So…. what was one of the first calibers to start to disappear from the shelves and is currently being rationed at many stores (when they have it)?  Looks like when the chips are down, everyone will be scrambling for the most common rounds.  It looks like the local gun shops are starting to recover their ammo stores, but only in the less popular rounds.  Of the popular handgun ammo, I noticed 9mm and .22 were the first to go, then .40, and .45 lasted a bit longer.  The local Academy had still had a few boxes of 10mm when just about everything else was gone.

    Granted, this was “what can I legally buy,” not “what can I scrounge off of dead bodies and salvage from houses,” because that scenario hasn’t happened yet (and I pray it never does), but it does give me pause to rethink the idea.  I’m not saying that the argument isn’t still valid, just not as powerful as an argument as we’ve thought.  The advantage of having a less popular round is that less people will be fighting you over it.  I still wouldn’t recommend some random wildcat round that only 3 guns were ever made for, but my non-9mm pistols have become more attractive as of late because I can find ammo for them.

  • Interesting…

    Looks like a good number of the folks that are rushing out to buy guns are learning how to use them.  I’ve seen a serious up tick in the number of folks at the local ranges (to the point that I haven’t been able to try out a couple of guns I need to write reviews for), and now it comes out that people are applying for their carry licenses in droves.  Or at least according to a store that does the fingerprinting that a local news station interviewed.

    For those that don’t know, to get a carry permit in this state, you have to take a class, go down to the DMV, fill out a form and pay your money, then go to a place to have your fingers printed (because apparently that’s too hard for DMV workers), then return to the DMV to turn in some paperwork, and finally wait for them to mail you your permit.  For whatever reason, the oddly named store Goin’ Postal is the only place in Williamson county (which holds a couple upper-class suburbs of Nashville) to get the finger printing done (for a small fee, of course).

    According to the story, they normally do 5 or 6 a day this time of year.  Lately they’ve been doing upwards of 50… a *day*.  Interestingly enough, they are seeing a lot of young women (I’m guessing he meant 20-something when he said 20 and 21 year olds since you have to be 21 to get a permit).

    This tells me two things:  1. the message that firearms aren’t just for good ol’ boys hunting is definitely alive and well around here.  A lot of women are getting into it, and not because they want to go hunt Bambi.  And 2. the idea that it’s folks that already own guns that are the only ones buying them is a complete lie (of course, we already knew that).

    Hopefully our representatives in Washington will get that message as well.

  • Watch out… I’m plotting something

    So… after talking about things on #GBC, there’s been a few of us that have decided that there needs to be a blogger shoot in the South East.  My town seems a convenient middle ground for folks, so I’m looking around for venues and such.

    One issue is I need to get an idea on how many folks would be interested.  This is still very much in the early development phases, so I don’t have any details yet (including if it’s actually going to happen), but if I’m scheduling it, it will be scheduled around the scifi cons I’m going to.

    So… who’d be interested?

  • This Just In! There Is No National Gun Database!

    The Tennessean has just learned the shocking fact that there is no national gun database.  This news was so shocking to the paper, that it was on the front page of today’s newspaper.  Not the center spread, but above the fold.

    Of course, this being the purely non-biased pinnacle of reporting that is the local rag, they talked about how this hampers police departments because they have to ask the ATF to ask the manufacturer where it was initially sold, then follow the trail of bound books, yada yada yada.  Of course, there’s the usual jab to the NRA for helping stop the government from creating a database.  They did throw in a throw away line about how some lawmakers “feel that the act of amassing those records would in essence go a step toward creating an artificial registration system.”  Um… no.  That would essentially be a registry.

    By the way, my thoughts that there’s not database? “Good.”

    Hmmm… maybe now that the local newspaper has run this story, my mom will stop asking me if it’s expensive to register all my guns… probably not.

  • Full fledge police state coming to a town near you!

    It’s been tried in some of the big cities (most notably New York City), and now it’s happening in Arkansas.  The town of Paragould has decided that the best way to fight their recent uptick in crime is to start deploying cops in SWAT gear, checking your papers, and asking for a good reason for you to have the nerve to be walking the streets.

    According to Salon.com (I know, I know, but it was the first source a buddy of mine showed me), the town has cancelled two town meetings after the first one where this action was discussed due “public safety concerns,” and that the program was supposed to start sometime this month, but no one’s seen them wandering around.  The mayor may have wised up (or talked to a lawyer… any lawyer) and decided this was a bad idea, but it’s frightening that anyone in any place of power in the USA could possibly think that a wandering goon squad is a good idea and it didn’t get squashed until the public announcement.

    Of course, as that article points out, this sort of thing has actually happened in US cities before.  They cite when Fresno did it, and New York has the men in blue randomly frisking people (even though any charges keep getting thrown out for being unconstitutional).

  • I have to admit that that’s dead sexy

    Ok, so some of you may not know my typical stance on taking old battle rifles and slapping after-market stocks on them.  I’m not a fan.  I’m not a fan to the extent that I bought an Ishipore Enfield off of Wizard in large part because he was planning on doing terrible and horrible things to it and completely bubba’fying it.  Granted, I told him that if he wasn’t going to buy it when we spotted it at the gun show, I would, but I also told him I’d buy it off of him when he realized that it wasn’t what he wanted (I think there might have been some violence threatened if he cut into the stock).

    And yes, I typically have to grit my teeth and remind myself “it’s her rifle, she can do what she wants to with it,” and that there’s a zillion of them out there when I’m reminded what Erin has done to her Mosin-Nagant.  Yes, she’s made her rifle more comfortable, more accurate, and, to her, more fun to shoot, but… damnit…  It actually helps me that she’s written “Avada Kadavra!” one the side.  It’s kind of like saying “yes, I know this is ridiculous, but I’m doing it anyways.  Shut up!”

    Of course, there are exceptions.  Apparently specifically for the Mosin.  There’s the bullpup stock that Linoge picked up a while back and then sold off.  Then there’s apparently a new stock coming from the Archangel folks.  I have to agree with Erin on this one.  It’s dead sexy.  I almost want to go buy a bargin bin 90/31 and get this stock.

    But no… I’m not changing my M39 anytime soon.

  • random thoughts

    Hung out with Wizard for a bit yesterday, and the topic of the idea that Taurus may try to buy the Freedom Group.

    Wizard: I’m pissed off that Taurus is buying the Freedom Group

    Me: Why?

    Wizard: It’s… like Ford buying Jaguar

    Me: um… That was probably the best move for Jag since Ford came in and told Jag that their cars needed to, uh, work.  Hell, even the Top Gear guys* have admitted that Ford did a good job with that.

    Wizard: Ok… bad example.

    *The Top Gear guys are well known for hating the American car industry.

  • They must have some expensive dirt!

    So, I just got an email from Cheaper Than Dirt saying that they now have some high capacity mags in, and I should buy them now!

    Out of curiosity, I followed a couple links.
    Magpul 30 round AR mags? sold out.
    Colt USGI issue 30 round AR mags? $129.97!!!
    Beta mags? The low low price of $699.97!
    AK-47 mags? $79.97

    Makes me glad I’m not in the market for any.

  • Review: Williams FireSights

    My Buckmaster is a super accurate little .22 pistol, and I thought it was great out of the box except for really one thing: the sights.  They’re your standard black on black adjustable pistol sights.  The rear sight is metal and has both windage and elevation adjustment screws, which is nice, but the front is just a chunk of black plastic.  I knew there were fiber optic sights out there, and I figured that they would be the best for a target pistol.  I settled on the Williams FireSights.  The primary reason was because they sell a kit to replace both the front and back sights with fiber sights instead of just the front blade.

    DSCF0040

    The sights come with a very small instruction sheet… and that’s it.  Honestly, that’s fine since the installation of the sights are mostly “remove old ones, install new ones.”  There is one extremely aggravating part, though.  The new rear sight does not include the elevation spring or the detent pin, which means you have to remove them from the old one and install them on the new one.  They recommend using a “small punch.”  By small, they mean tiny.  I ended up resorting to a paperclip… which was almost too big.  Then came the job of prying out the tiny spring without it going sproing and disappearing forever, and installing it in the new sight with similar issues.  Because of this, I would say that it completely fails Erin Palette‘s “so easy, her grandmother could install it” test.  It’s not necessarily a job to be relegated to a gunsmith, but if you don’t have good fine motor control, you’re going to have issues.

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    After installation, I could tell that this would improve things right away.  It’s much easier to line up the three dots (red for the front post, green for the two points on the rear.  Of course, this was in my house at night, so it was difficult to tell how it would really work on the range.

    DSCF0044

    That was a couple months ago, and I’ve taken it to the range a couple times since then.  I can tell you that the sights are a huge improvement.  What surprised me was that they’re wonderful during our normal late fall/early winter weather (read: cloudy to the point that you start to forget what the sun looks like).  In truly bright light, the dots are easily visible but I don’t think they’re much better than painted dots.  In the dark, there’s not enough light for them to really do their job.  On a cloudy afternoon, they positively glow.

    DSCF0042

    Bottom line is I would recommend these sights to anyone that’s wanting to put together a precision target pistol.  They are kind of a pain in the ass to install because of the rear sight, but it’s worth it.  The front post is still plastic, so I’m not sure how it would handle abuse, but for a range gun, it’s worth the $45.

  • What does Feinstein have against accurate rifles?

    So, with very little surprise, Sen. Feinstein has decided to introduce a new “assault weapons ban.”  The short of it is that it’s like the old one, except a gun needs to only have one of the evil features instead of two, bayonet lugs and flash suppressors are not longer evil, but thumb-hole stocks are.

    So… say you want to build a semi-auto version of the rifles that are used for target shooting in the Olympics?  Nope… sorry.  That would be illegal.

    Here‘s a link to a company that specializes in high-end target rifles like they use in the Olympics.  Notice anything about these rifles?  Just about all of them either sport a pistol grip or a thumb-hole stock.  The few that don’t have semi-pistol grips where the bend in the grip is so severe that it makes little difference.  They pretty much all also include adjustable butt-stocks that could run afoul of the “collapsable butt-stock” feature, since the type that you see on an M-4 is considered collapsible.

    These features have not become popular because people like shooting from the hip or shoving full-sized rifles in coats as the anti-gun folks would lead you to believe, but because they make using the rifles more comfortable and more accurate.  I know I’m preaching to the choir on this blog, but this information is the kind of ammunition we need to fight this stuff.  There’s lots of folks out there that don’t know about guns and the best way we can fight the anti’s is by going down lists and showing why, point by point, this sort of stuff is stupid.