Bianchi Cup

It's on now

Posted on by Caleb

I see that NRA is baiting me to try and get me to recommit to Bianchi Cup this year.

Sadly, after shooting well last year and generally having one of the best weeks of my life, I won’t be able to repeat my performance this year.  Real life being what it is, I’m committed to a “real life” obligation during the week of the Cup this year.  I’m not going to lie, I’m totally bummed out by this.  Last year at Bianchi I met some great people, had a great time, and learned a lot about shooting better.  Not having the opportunity to continue to improve as a shooter and a competitor is a disappointment for sure; I’ll just have to make it up and shoot it again in 2011.

Don’t worry guys, I’ll make pdb kiss that hobo, just not this year.

USPSA

Reinventing Limited-10

Posted on by Caleb

At the Gun Nuts Facebook page (which you should join)  There is a small discussion going about reinventing Limited-10.  Whenever I express my irrational love for this division, I will usually get 1 or 2 people to email or comment and say that “Limited 10 should be done away with” or something like that because either they don’t live in a state that limits mag capacity or they thing it should be shot with 1911s are usually the arguments that I hear.

The problem is that I find this argument to be very shortsighted when you look at the guns that people actually own in relation to USPSA’s divisions.  Obviously, people just don’t buy Open guns off the store shelves, and for the most part to be truly competitive in Limited Division you need to sink a couple of grand into a platform (noted exceptions such as Bob Vogel and Dave Sevigny notwithstanding) because the Limited division tends to be dominated by high end 1911s with 22-25 round magazines.  Production division is obviously favorable to neophyte shooters, but if you’re trying to play the Production game with a .40 or .45 that you’re feeding factory ammo in because you don’t have the time to reload, then you’re not competitive.  I don’t know about you, but constantly getting my butt kicked isn’t a lot of fun.

So then I look to the new shooter – the guy who works full time and has a wife and kids and doesn’t necessarily have the time to reload, so he can’t download his .45 to make minor…but he still thinks that shooting USPSA might be a good way to improve his gunhandling skills with the Glock 21 that he carries.  Enter Limited-10, which I would love to see USPSA rebrand as “Super Production” or whatever they want to call it.  Make a conscious effort to appeal to the Glock 21, M&P .45, XDM .40 owners to show that their guns that they bought for concealed carry and personal defense do have a home in competition. I think that there is actually a market for that and you could significantly increase participation in Limited 10 by driving interest in these shooters – the guys that buy factory ammo but want to shoot a match because they saw it on ShootingUSA, the guys that bought a .45 ACP because it’s an absurdly popular cartridge in the US.

Essentially, Limited-10 as a division has incredible potential for new shooter recruitment, but the name has to go. Limited-10 just sounds LAME. Calling it Major Production or Super Production or (my favorite) even Limited-Factory would go a long way towards making it more accessible to the guy that rolls in off the street with his Beretta 96 and SERPA holster. Most factory loaded .40 S&W and .45 ACP (and even .45 GAP) ammo makes Major power factor, so I don’t really see any reason why Limited-10 couldn’t or shouldn’t be rebranded as a Super Production division and marketed that way to shooters. Get a couple of big name companies to sponsor someone shooting a .40 or a .45 ACP in that division and you’d be well on your way. They “hey, that’s my gun” factor helps attract shooters to a division.

Springfield XD

Springfield Armory XDM .45 ACP

Posted on by Caleb

If you hit up Springfield Armory’s XD website, they have a form up about the new XDM in .45 ACP that allows you to sign up to receive updates when it’s going to be available. According to the information I have, the new XDM .45 will be available for people to see at the 2010 NRA Annual Meetings, which I’ll be attending in Charlotte, NC. I predict that this gun will sell like absolute hotcakes for Springfield. The XDM is a better gun than the standard XD, and people have been crying for a .45 ACP verison for a while now. I expect that the insatiable market for carry guns in .45 ACP will gobble this pistol up ASAP.

If it actually is on display at NRA, I’ll get pictures and info as quick as I can and get them out to you guys – the upgrade to the .45 ACP cartridge in the XDM is something that a lot of shooters have been waiting for!

gun control

NSSF Response to New York Times

Posted on by Caleb

NSSF has issued a response to the hysterical editorial written by the NYT about the “terrorism loophole”.

No one wants to see terrorists obtain firearms, period. Yet before the Times, or anyone else, considers denying American citizens their Constitutional rights, it’s important to first examine the law enforcement requirements currently in place that enable law enforcement to protect Americans from terrorism.

Anyone attempting to purchase a firearm from a retailer must first undergo an FBI background check. The prospective buyer’s name is also cross-referenced against government watch lists. If there is a match, the law enforcement agency that placed the person on the list is immediately contacted and provided an opportunity to determine any legal basis to deny the transfer of the firearm and to take whatever law enforcement measures they deem appropriate. This includes requesting that the firearms retailer decline to sell the firearm, or to delay the sale so law enforcement can monitor the person. These measures properly balance and respect both national security and the Second Amendment rights of law abiding Americans who might wrongly be on the list.

Remember, the no fly list/terrorist watch list is completely secret, you have no idea if you’re on the list or if you’re not. Sitting US Senators have been on the list, and the guys in New York want to deny people the right to bear arms based on a secret government list.

Smith & Wesson

Smith & Wesson SD9 & SD40 Pistols

Posted on by Caleb

Smith & Wesson has announced two pistols which will be unveiled at the 2010 NRA Annual Meetings, the SD9 and the SD40.  Both pistols are brand new designs utilizing knowledge gained from the M&P pistol line to create a line of ergonomic and affordable defensive pistols.  Both guns are available in standard capacity and California capacity magazines.

Apparently, the trigger is an all new design, which Smith & Wesson is calling the SDT, or Self-Defense Trigger.  These are clearly being sold with an eye towards the concealed carry and self defense market – in fact, Smith & Wesson even says as much in the sales material!  “Specifically designed for home and personal defense”, right there in the flyer.  I actually think that’s kind of awesome when you think about it; for the longest time the concealed carry market was barely acknowledged by major manufacturers with just sort of a “wink and nod” policy towards self defense as a driver of firearms purchases.  In recent years though there has been a major attitude shift as major companies such as Ruger and Smith & Wesson are now directly appealing to the concealed carry market as a target demographic.

 The SD9 and SD40 sort of look like an M&P and a Sigma got together and had a baby…personally I’m hoping this gun trends more towards the M&P lineage than the Sigma in terms of trigger pull and shootability.

What I really like is that it comes direct from the factory with a good tritium night sight which I believe is essential on a serious home defense or concealed carry pistol.  I’m looking forward to getting one of these in my hands and putting some rounds through it!

rifles

Pistol Caliber Carbine test criteria

Posted on by Caleb

For the upcoming Pistol Caliber Carbine series, I’ve been working up a series of objective evaluations that will help truly shake out each carbine over the course of several thousand rounds of ammo.  I was able to secure a source for cheap .40 S&W ammo, so that’s most likely going to be our test platform for this evaluation.  Additionally, we’re ditching the AR carbine and the only guns we’re going to run are the Hi Point and the Kel-Tec carbines.  The reason for ditching the AR carbine is that I feel like most folks know that AR carbines are generally accurate and easy to shoot…otherwise it wouldn’t be the most popular sporting rifle in America.

Here are the tests I’m planning on using for the Kel-Tec and Hi Point carbines, please suggest any additional tests you’d like to see.

  • Goal 1 – shoot 1k rounds of ammo through each carbine in a single day
  • Test at 10, 25, and 50 yards for accuracy and group size
  • Run each carbine through the IDPA classifier (modified for rifles) to establish shootability.
  • Pistol-Training.Com Dot Torture drill to establish extreme practical accuracy
  • Pistol-Training.Com F.A.S.T. drill because well, it’s just plain fun to shoot.

Any other suggested drills are more than welcome.  One of the things I’m doing is that in testing and practical deployment, I’m treating the pistol caliber carbine like a “super pistol” – I’m not using it at engagements beyond 50 yards, I’m not trying for MOA accuracy or anything like that.  To me, the pistol caliber carbine is an extension of the pistol – it’s not a “real rifle” in that they are still chambered for a relatively anemic caliber, but rather it’s a large, hard to conceal, but much more shootable pistol.

In theory, anything I can do with a modern, semi-automatic pistol I should be able to do faster and more accurately with a pistol caliber carbine.  To establish benchmarks, I’m also going to shoot many of the tests with a 9mm pistol for comparison.  This will allow me to establish a legitmate standard of performance against which the two carbines will be measured in addition to being measured against one another.

To eliminate the fluke factor on the timed runs such as the FAST and the IDPA classifier, I’m going to shoot the FAST Drill 10 times with each gun, and the IDPA qualifier 5 times with each gun.  That way I can take the average performance for each drill and use that as my performance benchmark.  This will hopefully eliminate some of the deviation that would occur if I shot one gun on a “great” shooting day and the other gun on a “bad” shooting day.

I’m looking forward to running these tests – this is kind of publishing that makes new media so effective!  You get immediate content and the opportunity to interact and change the direction of the tests if you feel that we’re wandering from the path.

ammo

Ammo deals

Posted on by Caleb

You know how I’m always talking about supporting the shooting sports?  Well my friends over at LuckyGunner have some good prices on bulk ammo right now – I’m a huge fan of Federal .45 ACP ammo for my 625, and Lucky Gunner has 230 grain American Eagle in stock for $115 for 250 rounds.  That works out to about $23/50 which is right around what you’d pay in a store for it – so why not support a pro-gun company with your purchase?