Until Ruger’s “Big Reveal”. What will it be? A pump action shotgun? An AR clone? A 1911? A medium framed revolver with a polymer frame? Who knows? Well, what I can tell you is that at 10am PST, check out DownRange.Tv for the update. The show floor opens at 10am PST, and that’s when you’ll know what Ruger’s new toy is. Lots of hints have been dropped across the web about what it is, but we’ll only know for sure today at 10am Pacific, which is in about 6 hours.
S&W Revo-Lution
Smith and Wesson wants to give you a gun. You could win an M&P Pistol, or one of their new Pro Series pistols, and all you have to do is compete in a match with a revolver. You can also enter in the Crossover Commotion, to be eligible for that you have to compete in three state level or higher matches with a revolver, in three different sports such as IDPA, USPSA, and ICORE. You can view the rules and eligibility at the link above.
On a humorous note, there does not appear to be any rules that say you have to compete with an S&W revolver, so I guess technically you could do this with a Ruger GP100 and still be eligible to win the drawing. Skill isn’t an issue either, all you have to do is shoot, fill out the entry form, and you’re entered! Link found at Julie G’s Blog.
FN USA's Midwest 3-Gun now NRA sanctioned
From Outdoor Wire, NRA will be sanctioning FN’s Midwest 3-gun match, which occurs in June of this year.
Ken Pfau, vice president for law enforcement and commercial sales at FNH USA, said, “NRA sanctioning of these events is recognition that three-gun shooting is one of the fastest growing areas of the shooting sports.”
You can pick up an entry form at FN’s website (click on events and scroll down) if you’re going to be in the Fayette, MO area around June 5th or so. 3-gun has divisions for everyone, including you guys with .308 rifles, just sign up to shoot in the “Heavy Metal” division, which is reserved for .308 rifles, 12 gauge pump guns, and .40 caliber or higher handguns.
Coming out
Last Monday, I started a new “real job”, working in an office with actual people. I’m going to keep blogging and doing Gun Nuts Radio, don’t worry – it’s interesting trying to balance being a freelance writer, full time blogger, competitive shooter, and having a real job again. Tuesday, I was talking to two of the ladies that I work with, and they asked me about where I was going to be next week (hint: Bianchi Cup). Right there, I had two options – I could either hide what it is that I do, or I could be proud to be a gun owner and competitive shooter, and own it right there.
So, I told them that I’m going to Bianchi Cup to shoot a national championship pistol match; just to reinforce the whole “I’m a gun nut” I also have a signed picture of R. Lee Ermey with a Glock on my desk. It’s like I’ve said in the past – I don’t believe in hiding what it is that I do anymore. I am proud to be a shooter, and I’m proud to be involved in the shooting sports. I was able to broach the subject of being a gun owner without sending anyone into hysterics or tears; it turns out that one of the other people in my office is a gun owner, and her husband is an avid hunter and shotgunner.
Don’t hide who you are, and don’t hide your sport. Like Jim Scouten says: “Share your sport.”
The sauce that burns
Ouch.
Judging from the fact that two of their nine sidebar buttons are related to product recalls, maybe the platform they’re going to redefine is the UPS Call Tag.
Ammo I can actually find
Goex factory manufactured blackpowder ammo is actually available. I was watching “Cowboys” on Outdoor Channel last night, and they were doing a show on the blackpowder shooters at your local cowboy matches – if you’ve ever shot Cowboy Action, you know these guys. They’re the ones who literally create a fog of war when they pull the trigger, pumping out more smoke than noise with their revolvers, shotguns, and rifles.
With the whole “I can’t find ammo for anything”, it’s times like these I wish I hadn’t sold my revolver chambered for .45 Colt, because I’d actually be able to shoot that right now. C’est la vie, I mean I can also find .38 Special ammo, but I don’t run any guns that chamber that.
Turn your gaze
To the left sidebar for the moment, and take a look at those fine advertisements you see. Go ahead and click on them, unlike a Google ad, I can ebcourage that kind of behavior, as the ad rates are based on impressions. If you’re interested in getting your product in front of an audience of high volume shooters, then drop me a line about advertising rates at [email protected].
New From Ruger in 2009
According to Ruger’s website, at the 2009 NRA Annual Meetings, they will be unveiling a new product, which they’re billing as being in the lines of the SR9, LCP, and LCR – another “platform revolutionized”. Since I have no idea what they’re up to, I am commencing with wild speculation. Post your wild speculation in comments!
Caleb’s wild speculation: A medium framed revolver along the lines of their LCR – a polymer revolver that’s about the size of a S&W M&P revolver or something along those lines.
Gun Nuts – getting ready for the BlogBash
Last night’s Gun Nuts Radio Pre-BlogBash show certainly was fun, with calls from several of our long time listeners, and a lot of good advice given to Breda as she prepare to embark on her journey to Phoenix for the NRA Annual Meetings and 2nd Amendment BlogBash. Attendees of last year’s event called in with useful advice, such as “bring some business cards”, or “bring a rolling cart for all the fliers and stuff”, and that’s just a sample. If you’d like to listen to last night’s show, simply click here, or click on the Gun Nuts player/logo in the right sidebar. To download an .mp3 format copy, click this link to get the raw media file. As usual, I cannot stress enough how much you’re missing by not catching the live steam of the show – you could be calling in and sharing your thoughts with us, or simply playing the Gun Nuts Drinking Game.
If you’d like to download the show on your iTunes, simply go to the iTunes store and search for Gun Nuts Radio, or follow the instructions in this link to the podcast rss feed to your iTunes.
Next week, Breda will be hosting and recapping the NRA Annual Meetings, and I hope to be able to break away from Bianchi Cup activities long enough to get a call in to the show. It should be a fun combo of Bianchi Cup info, BlogBash anecdotes, and all around good times. That’s Tuesday the 19th at 9pm Eastern – be there live!
Taking Pictures
Almost everyone in the gunblogging community knows who Oleg Volk is. Almost everyone in the professional shooting community knows who Yamil Sued is. What I find interested is that a lot of people who know who one of these great photographers is often don’t know about the other one; a fact which I can only attribute to Oleg being better known for political photos (and photos of boobies), and Yamil being generally known for his action pistol photos. As an example of what I’m talking about, check out this photo of Jerry Miculek.
The fact that the camera somehow caught the gun right as the round was going off so that you can see light coming out of the barrel and cylinder gap is one of the neatest effects I’ve seen in a gun related photo. Yamil seems to have a knack for capturing the best parts of “action shooting”, whether it’s shooters just as they’re breaking into a run, a reload with the empty magazine in the air, or my favorite type of gun photo – brass in the air.
One of the things that I’ve learned about action pistol photography from my own meager attempts at such is that to get those shots, you have to shoot a lot of pictures. It’s not like being a photography sniper, where you wait for the perfect shot. No, at least for me it’s more the “machine gun” approach. I find an angle to set up at, and then I just hold down the shutter button. I usually get 5-10 usable pictures for every hundred exposures, which makes me thankful for digital cameras, because I could not afford to be a photographer if I had to pay for actual film.
If you’re interested in Yamil’s work, he’s often featured in the Downrange.tv blogs as well, so make sure you watch that space for pictures by him.