Category: Guns

On 3/22/14, James (he of Bidet Shoot Fame) and I went to the AR-15.com Tennessee Hometown Forum Spring Shoot put on by Precision Multigun in Cookeville, TN.

It was fantastic, problems with my new Remington 700 notwithstanding.

There are actually several ranges on the property. The first one we went to had a 230 yard position and an 1100-ish yard position. We didn’t stick around long enough to go out to 1100 yards there, but here are some pics from the 230:

Next we were off to “Massa” which was more geared towards precision. The “warm up” target was I believe an 8″ plate at 344 yards. There were several dozen steel targets at various ranges out to (and past?) 900. Most of them could not be seen with the naked eye.

James and I got brave enough out to one of the 650’s. I think we took a couple of 700 yard shots but weren’t connecting.

Fun times. There was a lot of serious gear out there. I look forward to the next one.

Looks like I’m going to be going the the NRA convention.  I guess the big question is to pack the kilts or not.

Alternate title: Why you need BUIS 😀

This rifle was one of the ones at the ARFCOM TN shoot.

Pretty, ain’t she? Slidefire, Magpul MVG, Magpul MOE Handguard. Beautiful.

But there’s a problem.

The EOTech (either an XPS2 or an XPS3, I can’t tell) had it’s lower piece of glass just kind of banging around inside the housing.

That’s a bad day. I think the same gentleman also had a BCG lock up inside a rifle. Really, really bad day.

The very first time I ever went shooting with Oleg, two very embarrassing things happened.

1. I was the reason we had to wear hearing protection, because I was the only one without suppressors
2. The alkaline batteries in my EOTech 512 had blown up and corroded the battery compartment, rendering it useless

I also didn’t have backup irons on that rifle. I pretty quickly was able to repair the EOTech (replacement parts are cheap) and within a couple of weeks had put on an MBUS rear sight and a YHM Front Sight.

There is an argument to be made about not putting backup sights on all your rifles, but two is one and one is none. You can do what this guy did, though: Bring lots of rifles 😀

When I made my initial post about the ARFCOM Hometown shoot, I realized that I hadn’t posted any updates about what I did to the Remington 700 AAC-SD I bought in January, despite having taken several rounds of pictures.

Bad blogger. No cookie!

So here goes:

The first thing I did was get an EGW HD 20 MOA scope base. The HD model is steel instead of aluminium.

Next up was the YHM Muzzle Brake that fits my suppressor:

Fun Fact: I called three gunsmiths to try to have one install this for me. Each one said a version of “Really? Any idiot can install these. Why would you pay me do to this?” (Hint: Because YHM says to have a qualified gunsmith do the install)

Then came the scope and rings. My original plan was to get something in the $600 range for the scope, and about $100 for the rings. The money didn’t end up working out, so I got a Millett TRS-1. I got the .1 mil version, because FarmDad told me not to get a mildot scope with MOA adjustments, because it’ll mess with you. The scope gets “good for the money” reviews pretty much everywhere. It’s got fanciness like locking target turrets and a side parallax knob, and comes with a sunshade, flip open caps, and an illuminated mildotbar (not to be confused with mildot, which I did confuse it with). I’ll do a more in-depth review of the scope later but the short version is that about 10 minutes after I took it out of the box I decided I that while I won’t be returning this one, I likely wouldn’t buy it again.

For the rings…. well, due to the aforementioned budgetary problems, I wasn’t going to have rings by the time the ARFCOM shoot was scheduled so my friend James lent me some Warne 214M rings:

Now, when mounting a scope the idea is to get it as low as possible. With a 50mm objective that’s still going to be pretty high. The idea was to take the Warne rings, mount the scope, take some measurements, and then order some lower rings. When I mounted it all up, I got this:

Ignore that there’s only one ring.

The distance between the bell and the barrel is about 6mm.

But the distance between the rail and the magnification ring is, well, the ring actually sits lower than the rail. That means that this is as far forward as the scope can go with these rings. I didn’t think that was going to be a problem based on some measurements I took, but the first time I fired the gun i got scope to the forehead. More on that at a later date.

After I got the scope loosely mounted, I did the same procedure to raise the comb that I did on my 10/22 (using another Allen Company Buttstock Shell Holder and Pouch), minus drilling holes in the stock. Not doing that ended up biting me at the ARFCOM shoot. After that I tightened down the scope mounts, added the rail from the cheap chinese bipod I bought last summer, and packed everything up to go shoot it:

Wait. Something’s missing:

Ah. That’s better.

I titled this post “finished” because as we all know a rifle is never, ever, actually complete. It’s a continuous improvement process. Because of the dismal performance last weekend (which, again, I’ll post more on later) at least one part between the barrel and my eyes is probably going to need to be replaced. That bipod is completely temporary until I get a Harris HBLS. The screws aren’t torqued to spec. The rail isn’t bedded. I need a better stock but that’s not happening until I can outshoot the rifle. I’d like a scope level. But all those things can wait for now.

but this was totally worth it.

AAR with pictures and a couple of videos to come later this week. Spoiler: My most recent purchase did not do so well. Kinda embarrassing, actually.

Me? Oh I was fine hittin 8″ steel plates at 650yds. With someone else’s .308.

So… Wizard has talked to the owner of the range that hosted the Bidet shoot last year… and I have some bad news…

He says no more toilets as targets.  Clean up was just too much of a mess (yes, we cleaned up after ourselves, but I’m guessing we missed some chunks).

That said, he’s invited us back!

I’m looking at pretty much the same weekend (the 20-22 of June, with the shooting goodness on the 21st).

I know everyone is ramping up for the NRA con, but who’s interested?

This morning I saw a headline that said “Teen shot and killed near school.” I remember it because 1) it apparently happened on a Saturday and 2) it said near school, not at school.

Since we seem to have a functional Illegal Moms Against Gun Ownership (or whatever they call themselves now) chapter, I expected that one to show up on their list of school shootings. Because, as you may know, they include “drug deals gone wrong at 2 am 3 miles from an elementary school” in the same category as Columbine.

Well, it seems that this may have been a robbery gone wrong.

For the robber.

I’ll reserve judgement for now but this will be one to watch since it may involve “stand your ground.”

So a while back, I was watching this video of Ryan Cleckner setting up a scope on a Remington 700:

I thought that was a neat trick with the wood cheek riser. It stuck with me. When I threw together the “assassins kit in pretty much every action movie in the 80s” as commenter Michael put it, I noticed that the while the iron sights on the 10/22 are naturally where my eyes sit when I have a good cheek weld, the scope is…well it’s a little high.

Okay so maybe it’s a lot high. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing as far as precision rifle shooting (yeah yeah it’s a .22lr–but fundamentals are fundamentals) so I’ve been trying to educate myself. In the Magpul Precision Rifle, the instructor says that the pressure your cheek puts on the stock of the rifle is “about like you’d do if you were going to sleep.” I had to move up enough to get my eye lined up with the scope that my chin was barely on the stock. That can’t be good for consistency.

I may not know what I’m doing, but Ryan Cleckner does. So I copied him. I bought an Allen Company Buttstock Shell Holder and Pouch because it looks a whole helluva lot like the one he uses.

And then I pretty much did exactly what he described:

First I started off with a couple of pieces of 1″ thick (actual) decking that were seven or so inches long and a wood shim. I didn’t want to carve on something all day.

Then I put the pieces on the stock by sliding them underneath the pouch. I didn’t really get a good picture of that but you get the idea:

The short piece of decking was a little too short:

And the longer one was just a wee bit too short:

But the combo of the short decking and the shim was about as perfect as can be:

And with the pad on, you can see how closely it lines up:

So with that all figured out, it was time to…*dramatic pause*…drill into the stock of my brand new gun.

First I put pilot holes in the shim where I was going to eventually put the nails.

Then, I taped the shim in place on the stock:

And then drilled the holes.

Now the above picture is a little deceiving. The line down the top of the stock is not actually a centerline. It’s just where the paint dip stopped..

With the holes drilled, i put the nails back in and glued the two pieces together. Elmer’s wood glue, clamped overnight, because an old carpenter told me to do that and old dudes know stuff so i listen to them:

After that? Press it in and cinch down the pouch. Easy Peasy!

I’ll do the same thing on my 700 after I get my scope mounted.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I had ordered a combination rifle case and shooting mat to go with my new boltie. Well, it’s here, and it’s awesome.

Back when I did Appleseed a couple of years ago, I didn’t have a shooting mat so I just used an old comforter. By lunch the first day I new I was going to have a problem. By the end of day two, I had a bruise where my ribs were contacting the concrete.

I needed a new case to go with my new rifle anyway, and I just happened to find this VISM shooting mat/case combo. Now, I had never heard of VISM before, but apparently they’re a division of NcStar which is not known for it’s quality and they’ve been around for years. I saw one in person at a gun show the day I bought the rifle, and after a couple of days decided to go ahead and get it. I figured the worst case scenario would be that I’d have a $65 soft rifle case.

Now, I haven’t laid on it for 6 hours straight, but my initial thoughts are that this thing is fantastic. It’s a rifle case! It’s a shooting mat! It’s a backpack! It’s a drag bag!

There’s so much going on with this that I’ve got a ton of pics. The Amazon and manufacturers descriptions really don’t do it justice.

(more…)

Over the holidays I sold the FDE Magpul Fanboy AR I built last year. The plan was to take the money from that sale and put it towards an AAC MPW 9″ AR factory SBR. Look at the parts on that puppy and tell me it’s not worth it. It’s a great rifle at a great price.

But then…

Talking about my plans with several people, I decided to go in a different direction:

That’s a .308 Remington 700 AAC-SD. I’ve basically been talking about getting a 700 in 308 since Clinton was President, and since I have a .30 caliber suppressor I’ve been eyeing this one for a while.

When these first came out, they came from the factory with an AAC Blackout flash hider/suppressor adapter. I don’t think they’ve come like that for a while, but I didn’t really notice it until a few weeks ago.

Astute readers may remember that my friend James has an older version of this rifle and that I was disappointed in the trigger. I’m not sure if his has this, but the newer ones have an adjustable trigger from the factory.

It’s going to be a little while before I actually get this out to a range. I’ve already ordered the YHM Brake that fits my suppressor, a cheek rest, and this soft case/shooting mat combo, but I still need a scope mount, good rings, and a decent scope. I’ve set about a $600 budget for all of those things and may decide that I need a gunsmith to install the mount because it may require bedding.

I’m looking forward to getting it all set up. This is a new discipline for me, Appleseed notwithstanding.