Willie Nelson said that “living on the road is gonna keep you free and clean”. I guess we’ll see. Today I’m setting out on the first leg of a 3 day hardcore drive across the Western frontier. First stop will be today in Sioux Falls, South Dakota after 12+ hours of driving from Indiana. Interestingly, most of my drive today will be spent in states that don’t honor my carry permit, namely Illinois and Iowa. Wish me luck!
Quest for Master Class: Run and Gun
The latest episode of the Quest for Master Class is available at Downrange.TV! We shot the Ruger SR9c at the Indiana State USPSA Section Match, and I actually had a pretty good match. The SR9c now has over 1000 rounds through it, and a malfunction rate of 0.00% when using ammo other than Remington 115 grain FMJ.
Check out the latest episode of the Quest for Master Class: Run and Gun!
Quote of the day
No sword, no matter how perfect, is much use if it just hangs over the mantelpiece looking pretty. Shoot your defensive firearms, people. Take them to the range. Get them dirty. Clean them sometimes. Shoot them more. Say I went out and bought an STI Rangemaster in 9mm for Bianchi Cup Metallic Division (I yearn for this gun in a decidedly inappropriate way, btw). The gun starts at $1500 MSRP, but the additional touches I’d have put it on it would definitely drive that cost up. So then after I’ve had one of the top 1911 companies build a gun according to my specs, would I let it languish in the closet not getting shot? No way. Shoot your guns. Shoot them lots.
In fact, here’s my challenge to you. Pick one gun from your collection that you compete and/or carry. I want you to try and shoot 1000 rounds through that gun this month. If you already shoot 1,000 in a month, try for 2k. And don’t just do magazine dumps in to the berm at 5 yards, make these rounds count. Shoot for accuracy, or speed, practice drills you’ve seen online, but try to shoot 1000 rounds through the month of August. I’d be very interested to see how that goes!
Hey, I know that guy
Stage from the 2010 Indiana USPSA Section Match.
You had two targets to the left and two the right, then 4 more behind the port that could only be activated by putting the ammo can in the slot. Some people chose to shoot the four visible targets strong hand only and then put the can in the slot, I figured that I could drop the can in the slot with both hands and engage the four targets, reload while stepping back and get the last four. It worked pretty well, my time was 9.something and I shot 14 alfas…and two deltas which hurt my score pretty significantly. It was definitely a fun stage, and one of my favorites from the match. This is just me, but I don’t believe that a “good” stage has to be 32 rounds, but rather that it presents a shooting problem that can be solved in different ways. That was why I liked this stage, as there were multiple ways to shoot it. The match winner, Bob Vogel shot the stage in 6.57 seconds with 15 alfas and 1 charlie, on his way to winning every stage at the match.
That’s the big advantage of going to major matches. You get to shoot against the best, and see how your skills stack up against them. If you never shoot against the best and only compare yourself to other shooters in your classification, then you’ll end up the sad little king of a sad little hill, and never really improve. For that reason alone I encourage people to go to matches. Challenge yourself to shoot better, faster, and more accurately by comparing yourself to people that you don’t have a chance of beating, and who knows – someday you might just pull it off.
The last HAVA Charity Gun
Is now available on Gunbroker for you to bid on, and we are closing out the auction in STYLE. For our last item, 
we’re bringing out the big guns…literally. This is a DPMS LR-308 with a Leupold VX-II 3-9×40 variable power scope. You’ve got two magazines, the scope, and of course a DPMS .308 Winchester rifle. Perfect for hunting, 3-gun heavy metal division, long range rifle matches, or just for making guys with .223s feel inadequate about their caliber of choice. You can bid now on the LR-308 and Leupold scope package at GunBroker!
As of right now, we’ve raised over $2,000 for HAVA. This gun will put us over the $3000 mark when it sells, and I wouldn’t be upset of it went for $2000 or so and bumped us over $4000 total. This is a win-win situation – you get to buy a cool gun, and help our veterans! Bid now at Gunbroker!
Movie thoughts
I watched Terminator: Salvation last night, which means I have no seen every movie in the Terminator franchise, including the thoroughly wretched Terminator 3 or whatever it was called. This isn’t a thought so much on the movie itself, but rather on something that got my attention. During the movie, there’s a scene where John Connor, as played by Christian Bale is pointing his USP at one of the other characters, and you get a good look at his grip. To Bale’s credit, he’s holding the gun in a positive two handed grip with his arms extended isosceles style…just like a real pro would be doing in that situation.
Now, we know that Christian Bale is an insane method actor, and having worked on a Michael Mann film and just generally being Christian Bale, it stands to reason that if he was going to play a hardened commando/special ops type like John Connor, that he’d actually learn how a hardened commando/special ops type would hold a gun. For whatever reason, seeing that made me unusually happy. Perhaps I’ve seen one to many TV cops and soldiers tea-cupping their guns lately, and watching someone look like he had actually shot a gun before was very refreshing.
Also, if you can get it on HBO or DVD, you should watch Terminator Salvation. It’s quite fun, stuff blows up and people shoot robots with all kinds of crazy weapons. And John Connor uses an HK USP, so the HK fanboys will love it.
No new Gun Nuts Radio this week
I wanted to get this announcement posted as soon as possible, but I’m afraid that we won’t have a new broadcast of Gun Nuts this week. Lots of stuff going on that’s going to require my immediate attention in the next week. We will be back next week with an all new episode with new surprises and info!