“If you don’t make it look easy, why should the other guy be afraid?”
Training Day
Today’s Guest Post is from Jay at the Firing Pin Journal.
Training is a regular part of a “Gun Nuts” life for several reasons. Clearly becoming more proficient in the use of the selected firearm is job number one but there exists another reason many will admit in private. It’s fun.
Standing and shooting at a stationary target downrange can be enjoyable for a while but often it isn’t enough. Soon the desire for variety creeps in and the gun owner looks at tactical shooting as a superior way to expand the knowledge base and add more excitement to training.
One example is to make every round fired count for something. There are no lazy rounds. For every round fired there should be reward and penalty. If you make contact with the target in a predetermined, difficult location, you get to continue firing. If you miss you pony up 25 cents into a jar and must reshoot the target until the previous miss is a hit.
What do you do with the money you have collected? If you involve friends it can add up to a fairly significant amount. Donate it to your favorite gun rights organization or a charity. This makes every round count for something, which it should, whether in competition or in self defense.
Jay, Firing Pin Journal
It's going to be a little quiet
Starting tomorrow, it will be a little quiet around here for a bit. Don’t worry, I’m not pulling a KdT and leaving the internet forever and ever (until I come back), but rather for the next month-ish I’m going to be pursuing an opportunity which prevents me from blogging for a bit.
I’ve got a couple of excellent guest posts lined up from my buddy Jay at the Firing Pin Journal, as well as a series of short, twitter-esque posts of some of my favorite quotations scheduled to go up during my temporary hiatus.
When I come back on the other side of April, expect Gun Nuts to hit the ground running, as we’ll be ramping up towards the big Honored American Veteran’s Afield Benefit Auction, some major match coverage, as well as some very cool announcements about the future of Gun Nuts Media!
See you in April!
-Caleb
Competition ready revolver package
So you want to shoot a revolver in competition shooting, but you don’t want to spend a ton of money? Here’s a simple, competition ready revolver package that will allow you to compete and actually be competitive in multiple games using one gun and one set of gear.
The Gun: Smith & Wesson 686SSR – 
chambered in .357 Magnum, this gun combines some of the Performance Center features with a “Production” price. When using .38 Special loads, this is a great gun for IDPA Stock Service Revolver and ICORE Retro division with Comp-III Speedloaders. Upgrade to a light .357 Magnum load for major scoring in USPSA, and while you’ll probably not beat the top notch revolver guys with moonclip guns, with enough practice you’ll not be at a total disadvantage. The light weight and fast sights make this gun excellent for Steel Challenge Revo division as well.
The Holster: Blade Tech StingRay Belt Holster
This is approved for IDPA competition, and with the addition of the drop-offset attachment for an additional 10 bucks because a wicked fast holster for ICORE/USPSA/Steel Challenge. I use one of these holsters exclusively on my competition guns.
The Belt: Blackhawk Instructor’s Gun Belt – again, this is the belt I use in competition. It’s 1.75 inches wide, and sturdy enough to support an N-frame revolver and 8 moonclips full of .45 ACP ammo, so it will carry the little 686 quite handily.
Speedloaders and pouches: While I’m personally having some trouble with mine, the Safariland Comp-IIIs are far and away the choice for competition shooting. When paired with (another) Blade-Tech Speedloader holder, it can’t be beat.
Not counting the gun, which can be found at retail for around $760, the rest of the gear costs you less than $200 once you purchase everything. While that seems like a lot, to be able to get in and be seriously competitive for less than $200 is a pretty good deal, especially since you’re able to use the same rig across three or four disciplines.
As a matter of fact, I like this rig so much that I own everything in here, bought and paid for with my own money.
Speaking of STI
Shooter’s Connection has the STI GP6-C in stock for $745. Having never shot one of these personally I can’t honestly say how good or bad it is as a gun, but I’m a sucker for Bo-Mar style sights and fiber optic front sights. The one thing I can tell you is that no Top-10 Production shooter in USPSA or Stock Service Pistol in IDPA uses one.
But they’re still cool, and for $750 for a competition ready gun that’s a hard deal to beat. Plus, STI is pretty well regarded in the competition community. The biggest disadvantage to this gun is that you have to manually lower the hammer before each string of fire to get that first double action shot. If you’re doing that in a match, it would behoove you to inform the safety officer of your plans before you stick your finger in the trigger guard.
Capitalism fail
$1000 for 300 rounds of .45 ACP. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen all year.
5 inch Glock 21
I don’t remember to whom I was talking about this the other day, but there was a lament on the lack of a 5 inch barrel/slide combo for the Glock 21 (the .45 ACP). Glock offers the 9mm and .40 S&W cartridge with 5 inch tubes on the Glock 34 and 35 platform respectively, but there isn’t a factory version of the .45 ACP Glock with a long slide.
Thanks to the internet, I learn something new every day – today it was the existence of Lone Wolf slides and barrels for Glocks, specifically the G21L slide and the G21T slide. The G21L slide is the same length as the slide provided with the Glock 24 and 17L models and requires a 6 inch barrel; the G21T slide is the same length as the slide on the G34 and G35 and requires a 5.15 inch barrel. All your factory Glock parts fit inside the bare slide, and they’re compatible with all current manufacture G21 and G21 SF frames.
Now, there’s absolutely no reason to put one of these slide/barrel combos on your Glock if you’re only shooting it for concealed carry and personal defense. However, if you were running a Glock as a competition gun, I’d get the 5 inch slide and barrel, I’d buy an Advantage Arms .22 LR kit for the 21, I’d get all the necessary parts so that I could just swap the 4 and 5 inch uppers back and forth, and finally I’d send the gun to SouthPaw Custom to have a Sevigny Speedway done. Then I’d buy another Glock 21SF and s boatload of mags and never ever buy another handgun again, because I’d be able to do EVERYTHING with that gun/slide combo.
North American Arms reintroduces pistols in .25NAA and .32NAA
Press release from The Tactical Wire:
North American Arms is pleased to announce the reintroduction of the Guardian pistols designed to chamber NAA’s proprietary bottle-necked cartridges, the 32NAA (380ACP case) and the 25NAA (32ACP case). “Our new manufacturing capability has enabled us to assure our customers of regular production and a timely supply this popular platform,” explained NAA’s President, Sandy Chisholm.
“As personal protection specialists, we felt it was our role to pioneer this important development to create a new benchmark in extreme high-performance handgun ballistics. We were supported in this task by Ed Sanow, editor of Law Enforcement magazine and a recognized ballistics expert, as well as the team at Cor-Bon, a company whose brand is synonymous with high performance ammunition,” Chisholm added.
As an example, the 32NAA cartridge pushes a 60 gr. Hornady bullet in excess of 1200 feet per second from the 2.5″ Guardian barrel, generating almost 200 ft. lbs. of energy. Serious students will find that compares very favorably with virtually any ammo/gun combination in the pocket pistol category. Full specifications and test information can be found at http://www.naaminis.com/index02.html
I’m honestly ambivilent on these guns – although I do like the concept of a .25 caliber bullet at 1200FPS or whatever absurd number it’s rocking at – I’m generally opposed to boutique cartridges. They’re more expensive than traditional cartridges, which means that shooting the gun (the most important activity with a carry gun) is going to occur less, and less shooting is never a good thing.
That being said, I also love capitalism.
Indiana 5th District Series
Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve had the opportunity to interview the candidates for the Republican nomination in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. I know that I’ve got a decent number of readers from that area, so for your listening review here’s a handy archive of the interviews with each candidate:
Each candidate provided an excellent interview discussing a broad range of topics. While I know for whom I’m going to cast my vote in the primary, it’s up to you to make your decision. Thanks again to the candidates for making an appearance on Gun Nuts Radio!