If you’re wondering what real grassroots activism looks like, head over to Snowflakes in Hell. Sebastian recently attended a gun owners rally/protest at the Capitol in PA, and there were over 1,000 fellow gun owners there with him. They even received some shouted invective from an elected representative! Nice to know the anti-gun factions in government are still keeping it classy.
Bowling Pins on Saturday
I am stoked for the Pin Match at MCF&G on Saturday, because I 1) haven’t shot pins in forever, and 2) really need to shoot some pins. Did I mention I love shooting pins? I’ll probably bring the Para Tac-5 and shoot the whole thing minor – normally I’d bring a “real gun” but I need to pull that trigger as much as possible in between now and Bianchi Cup in May.
Party like it's 1773
Like we said, party like it’s 1773 with the Gun Nuts Tea Party Show. Last night’s show featured call ins from attendees of Tea Parties in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and a couple others. It was as usual, the fastest hour on the internet just zoomed by, with great discussion on the topic of Tea Parties, going armed, and the general motivation and mindset of the participants. The actual reports from attendees run pretty contrary to the negative reporting you may have heard in the media. But you don’t have to take my word for it, because you can listen to the Tea Party Show by clicking that link. If you’d like to download an .mp3 copy of the show, that’s as easy as clicking here. Or you can click the Gun Nuts Logo on the right, and be taken directly to the show page which automatically updates with each show. While you’re there, check out our sponsored Amazon link this week: The Federalist Papers.
If you’re interested, you can also download Gun Nuts Radio on iTunes, by following the instructions in the link. Join us next week, as we take a look at the ammo shortage, supply and demand, and other issues immediately affecting shooters!
Food Column
Since I try to keep this blog “on topic” of firearms, gun related politics, and the shooting sports, I’ve largely shelved blogging about my other interests, one of which is FOOD. Coming from a restaurant background, I’ve always been a big time foody, and as I’ve gotten older it’s only gotten worse. So it’s only natural that I’d get myself an Examiner.com column in the Indy Metro edition, talking about my favorite food of all time: the hamburger. It’s going to be a M-W-F column, with each Friday having a “where I’ll be eating a burger this week” feature (which should hopefully start next Friday). I’ll also have features on “do it yourself burgers”, where to find certain kinds of burgers in Indy, well kept secrets, and restaurant reviews. Bookmark it, subscribe to it, do whatever – but if you’re a foody or just like burgers, check it out.
Gun Nuts Tea Party
Did you go to one of the recent Tea Parties held across the country on April 15th? If so, we want you to call in to Gun Nuts Radio tonight at 9pm Eastern. Tonight’s topic is just that – the Tea Parties, the experience had at them, and why is the left so afraid of peaceable assembly? If you went to a Tea Party and want to share your experience with us and our listeners, join us on the show tonight by calling 347-539-5439.
We go live at 9pm Easter time on www.blogtalkradio.com/gunnuts – be there with us!
Want
An FN “I scare Nancy Pelosi” Five-seveN with a suppressor? Heck yes, chuck.
Happy Birthday
To regular listener and friend of Gun Nuts, Jay G. Let’s see, 1971, what was I doing in 1971? Oh yeah, that was 11 years before I was born, I wasn’t doing much of anything.
😀
NSSF Fact Sheet on Ammo Shortage
The NSSF put together a fact sheet on what exactly is going with the ammo shortage, after talking to various manufacturers and resellers. Here’s a link to their fact sheet on the ammo shortage. Additionally, Tam, who worked in the firearms industry for years, sheds light on some of the major issues that have caused the shortage to worsen, and have made certain calibers effectively unavailable. One of the biggest issues is that people who used to only buy ammo 100 or 200 rounds at a time suddenly jumped their consumption to 500 or 1000 rounds. That means that Johnny Blastomatic rolls into Wal-Mart to buy some 9mm FMJ for the range, instead of getting 2 of the 100 round value pack, he buys an entire case. The problem that’s created is for people like me, who normally buy their ammo in lots of 500 or 1000 anyway, because we tend to shoot a lot of ammo anyway, but the sudden surge in people buying cases of ammo has dried up our supply lines.
Last week or so, I was at Plainfield Shooting Supplies, and they had a cap on the amount of 9mm or .45 ACP that you could buy. Mind you, two weeks before that, I had bought a case of 124 grain FMJ from them, so needless to say I was confused. The thing about the ammo crunch is that people need to do a couple of things – 1) chill out, and 2) seriously, chill out. In about 3-6 months, everything’s going to die down, and all of a sudden the second hand market is going to be flooded with guys who need to make a car payment or something like that trying to unload the 5k rounds of Winchester White Box or Federal American Eagle that they stockpiled; or conversely those same “100 rounds a weekend” are going to spend the next few months shooting up that ammo before they even think about going to buy more.
Wheelguns are realguns
The recent Steel Challenge Match at Atlanta CC got me thinking a little bit about revolvers. I’m still editing the video, so I won’t have that up on Youtube until later in the day, but I wanted to talk a little bit about revolvers. It’s no secret that I like wheelguns, and in fact in the past I shot them pretty much exclusively. Then I started shooting competitively on a regular basis, and I shifted my focus to semi-automatic pistols, because being a guy with a relatively short attention span, I like to go FAST. I can go much faster with an auto in general than I can with a revolver, so I set aside (and sold off) my DA wheelguns.
Saturday, watching the Steel Challenge match, I started thinking about revolvers again, but this time as a serious competitive pistol. My squad had the usual assortment of semi-auto blasters, my CDP gun included, but it was unusual in that we had three or four wheelgun shooters as well.
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| From Steel April 18th |
Both the shooter and the RO in that picture are running wheelguns, and I was fascinated by the way they had to “manage” their guns during the competition. With five targets to hit, and only six rounds in the gun, accuracy was at a premium over speed for the wheelgun shooters. Even my 1911 had a distinct advantage – loaded with 8+1 in the first magazine, I’ve got room for four misses/make up shots before I’d have to reload. The thing with shooting Steel Challenge is that if you have to reload, you’re probably hosed anyway, and the revolver guys know that just the same as the auto guys. But unlike the guys with the Limited Guns, or even the production guns, a revolver shooter doesn’t have the luxury of hammering make up shots downrange.
So how do the wheelgun guys manage it? Well in short, they don’t miss. By far, the most accurate shooters on the range that day were the guys running the revolvers – without the luxury of all those rounds in the magazine, they made sure that the rounds went where they needed to go.
That was ultimately what got me thinking about revolvers – in that if a shooter can learn to properly manage a revolver in competition, be it Steel Challenge, USPSA, IDPA, etc; then that shooter is (in theory) going to be able to transition very easily to an auto from a strategy and round management point of view. The skill that Master Class revolver shooters demonstrate is one of those things that will never cease to impress me – truly “a more elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.”