According to a police affidavit, 21-year-old Stephen Jones and 20-year-old Andru Pritchett approached a dorm room in Boyd Hall on the TSU campus, displayed a handgun and demanded money, cell phones and car keys.
The suspects tied up the two students with duct tape before assaulting them with the gun.
Following the incident, police caught up with Jones and Pritchett and arrested them.
During a search of the suspects, a K9 unit found over 15 grams of marijuana in Jones’ pocket.
You can’t carry on campus.
You can’t carry without a permit (there is no 21-year-old Stephen Jones who has been issued a TN Carry Permit).
I wasn’t really “in” to guns until well after college. The AWB went in to effect when I was 14. But I very vividly remember vowing to never, ever, buy a Smith because of this.
It’ll be Spring before I can even think about doing another Appleseed, and hopefully the rumors about having one less than a mile from my house are true–that’ll make it a lot easier for me.
I’d still rather use a 10/22 than the M&P15-22, but I don’t see myself buying another rifle anytime soon (I’m still waiting on the ATF for my 762 Phantom suppressor and York Arms to get back to me about my .300blk upper). The M&P15-22 was purchased as a trainer clone of my Rock River AR and I’d like to keep it that way.
But that’s the great thing about ARs: it doesn’t take much to switch the rifle’s purpose.
I had bought my Marlin 795 over a year ago with the intention of using it at a Project Appleseed event. At the time, the only semi-auto detachable magazine rifle I had was my AR. While .223 is cheap compared to other “proper” rifle caliber rifles, I was still able to buy the Marlin ($80 new after rebate) plus the needed ammo (<$20 for a bulk box of .22) for less than the needed 500 rounds of .223 (roughly $250). I learned to shoot on a Marlin .22 lever action, both my dad and I own 336’s, and I already owned one of their .22 bolt guns, so I figured this was a no brainer.
Stock 795 with a cheap sling
I’ve already upgraded the um… rudimentary sights that came on the 795 with Tech Sights. This was a huge improvement over the cheap leaf spring sight that Marlins typically come with. After Appleseed, I’ve decided that I should order a scope for it. While the ideal is to get rifleman with iron sights, to quote Linoge “if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.” After shooting his rifle on the last red coat target, I’m a believer in using glass. Oh, and Amazon happened to have his scope on sale. So… that’s on the way…. The Tech Sights may end up on the Papoose.
The last thing that I’m doing to the 795 is replacing the stock. There’s not a whole lot of options out there for .22 rifles that aren’t 10/22s. For a long time, I thought my only options were ATI’s Fiberforce stock or Muzzlelite’s bullpup. Both of which just look and feel cheap. Anyways, I’m a fan of wood stocks over plastic.
Recently, I tripped over Boyds’ gun stocks. They make some beautiful wooden stocks. including some “drop in” stocks for my 795! After debating with myself over which color to get, I decided to get an SS Evolution stock in nutmeg.
It showed up last night, along with the sling mounts and some Acraglass bedding material. There was a grand total of two sheets of paper in the box. One was the purchase order. The other was an anti-lawyer warning sheet telling me not to work on loaded guns.
Fortunately, the Marlin 795 is pretty darn easy to disassemble. Remove two screws, and the trigger group drops out, at which point the receiver and barrel can be removed. The stock was, indeed, a simple drop in. No fitting was required. Probably the trickiest part was drilling the holes for the sling points, which is pretty simple.
Here’s the end result:
New stock, GI sling, and Tech Sights
It looks a thousand times better than when it was in the original stock. It also feels a lot better. The pistol grip is just easier on the wrist than the semi-pistol grip, and there is a palm swell that fits my hand nicely. I can also get a much better cheek weld on the Boyds’ stock then I ever could on the old one.
It’s sooo preeeeetty… And yes. I did drill the holes on my kitchen counter. Naienko didn’t yell at me too much.
It’s not all good though. The problem with laminated wood over plastic is that you can make plastic thinner without loosing too much rigidity. This is obvious around the receiver. The plastic stock was almost flush at the side, where the wood stock sticks out a good bit. It sticks out to the point that I’m concerned about clearance for my fingers to manipulated the bolt after mounting a scope on it. It also hides the bolt release a good bit. It was this giant lever sticking out for all to see, and now it’s barely sticking out when the bolt is held back. This could be an issue, since the 795 requires you to hit it instead of manually cycling the bolt. The last bit is that I wish I was able to move the front sling mount just a bit further out, but that’s the limitation of this style of free-floating design.
Not a whole lot of space to grab the bolt from underneathyes, I can grab the bolt release with my thumb, but there not a whole lot of extra room there…
Obviously, the big question is “how does it shoot?” Unfortunately, I’m stuck at work on this beautify sunny day and can’t tell you. I can tell you that it feels rock solid and I’m glad I plopped down the $100 to get the new stock. I haven’t done the bedding yet, and I debating whether I will or not.
There’s also the nice thing of knowing that I’ve currently invested roughly $250 on this thing, which is about what I see bare bone stock 10/22s being sold for around here, if not more.
I knew I had forgotten at least one thing from that big rambling post… well… several things…
The three big things that the folks teaching the Appleseed clinic kept pushing were breathing, relaxing, and natural point of aim. The breathing and relaxing are both pretty simple to explain, if you tense up, not only do you start shaking, but it’s also very difficult to replicate exactly where you were. It’s one thing to be able to hit the bullseye once, but the trick is to hit it consistently.
The last bit is also pretty easy once you think about it. Natural point of aim (NPoA) is simply the spot where the rifle wants to point when you bring it up to fire. A large portion of proper form is to be able to have that be a constant spot. The Appleseed folk’s philosophy is if that point isn’t where you want it, then move until it is.
We did do one drill on Sunday to check to see if we were doing this properly. They handed us paper targets that were blank except with a single star in the middle. We were to get into a prone position, set up so our NPoA was on the star, close our eyes, and pull the trigger at the end of our breathe cycle (full exhale). Obviously, this is not a drill to do unless you’re on a tightly monitored range. I knew I was, but intentionally firing a gun with my eyes closed was still… weird.
The thing is, it works. I scored two hits overlapping each other, and the other 3 shots weren’t far off. Which, of course, meant that I was shooting better blind than with my eyes open, but…
The odd thing is that the instructors told stories about how NPoA was something that isn’t taught much anymore, or, if it was, was considered an “advanced technique.” This was the first time I’d gone to an actual rifle class, unless you count a summer camp elective back in middle school, so I can’t comment on the accuracy of that statement, but I found that odd. I can say that I hadn’t really thought about it on my own other than getting “close enough” to basically be on target and then make adjustments with my arms. I would think that this is something that should be taught as a fundamental of shooting accurately.
I had the pleasure to shoot my first Appleseed this weekend. I’ll leave the more in-depth review to others who where there, but here are some quick things I learned.
When they say you need a GI Sling, they mean you need an M-1 Garand sling, not some crappy 3-point you bought 5 years ago. The GI Sling has a loop in it that I can’t really describe (due to not personally having one) that allows you to disconnect the rear sling point and wrap it around your arm so that you get good support structure in prone. I didn’t have that, so I shot hasty-sling all weekend.
QD Sling swivels are awesome. I also discovered that the rail-mounted sling adapter I’ve had for years actually has a QD sling point, which was neat. (It is this one, though I don’t see myself having paid $40 for it.)
Use a 10/22. With a scope.
When they say you need a shooting mat, they really mean a Shooting Mat–not a doubled-up comforter or some foam padding. My ribs started digging in about 2/3 of the way through day 1, and I have a visible bruise.
My abdominal muscles hurt today. I suspect that means I wasn’t doing something right
My shoulder also hurts. 500+ rounds of .22 with no rubber pad seems to have taken a toll, though I’m not sure I’m ready to admit that. Also: I’m not as young as I used to be.
From a training perspective, you can skip Day 2 if you’re on the fence about attending one of these events but don’t want to dedicate an entire weekend. There is no additional instruction on Day 2…just repetition. Go if you can, it’s useful.
The history lessons were awesome.
The shoot boss told us that next year they’re planning on having some events at a range that’s about a half mile from my house. I almost qualified twice, so I really want to get back and do it.
Alert the media! A man just bought over 1500 rounds of ammo over his lunch break!* Nothing good could come of this!
*I needed more .22 ammo for the Project Appleseed shoot I’m going to next week, and I owe Wizard some ammo in trade of a brick of CCI .22lr Quiet. It’s not my fault that Winchester sells it’s .22 in quantities of 525 rounds per box.
By all accounts, the “good kid” was the dealer in that case.
Also note the journalistic malpractice committed here. They mention a man who was killed in an attempted robbery on Saturday, but not that his family participated in this–or were even aware of it.
that Linoge used 
, not 
. The GI Sling has a loop in it that I can’t really describe (due to not personally having one) that allows you to disconnect the rear sling point and wrap it around your arm so that you get good support structure in prone. I didn’t have that, so I shot hasty-sling all weekend.
I also discovered that the rail-mounted sling adapter I’ve had for years actually has a QD sling point, which was neat. (It is 
, though I don’t see myself having paid $40 for it.)
–not a doubled-up comforter or some foam padding. My ribs started digging in about 2/3 of the way through day 1, and I have a visible bruise.
and some 