When Mike and Breda got married. Congratulations, you two!
Quote of the day
(Note: I can’t actually find a source for this, but it sounds like something he’d say).
“A good trigger job gets a revolver where it will be all by itself after about 3000 rounds.” – Jerry Miculek
There’s a lot to be said for that, actually. I have known shooters who bought a new gun, fired maybe 200 rounds through it, and then sent it off to #GUNSMITH to have the trigger “worked on”. The problem of course was that the trigger itself hadn’t worn in yet, so you’re just wasting money at that juncture, especially if it’s a relatively factory/stock gun.
My favorite action job for any gun, either one I’m going to carry, or one I’m going to shoot competitively is the same – shoot the gun a lot, and dry fire the gun a lot. With a revolver, you could easily reach 3000 dry fires in a month’s time – just do it 100 times a day, every day for a month and bam, there’s your poor man’s action job right there. The added benefit of dry firing a revolver repeatedly is that you’ll start yourself on the road to some monster Popeye forearms while you’re at it.
Dry firing is also a cheap and effective way to practice your shooting skill set. In the safety and comfort of your own home, you can practice everything except for recoil control and follow up shots. That means when you get to the range, you can focus your shooting time on those skills, because you will have spent all your “not-shooting” time practice sight alignment, trigger control, presentations from the holster, magazine changes, etc. A few snap caps and some free time around the house go a long way towards developing your skill set.
The Gospel
Carry a spare magazine, people. If you carry a 1911, there is pretty much no excuse to not carry a spare magazine, actually. They’re small, slim, and inexpensive. You can buy a bucket full of Chip McCormick mags for an entirely reasonable amount of cash. Take care of your magazines. Clean them, inspect them regularly, and like the lady says, if it’s become too wobberjawed to use, toss it. It’s just a hunk of cheap steel and plastic, don’t get emotionally involved with them.
Steel Wrap-up and Photos
Photos from Saturday’s Steel Challenge match are up at The Gun Nuts Radio Blog. As usual, the guys at Atlanta put on a fun and challenging match. Once I get the scores, I’ll post them at the Radio Blog.
I can't shoot you without my timer
Alternate title: why playing pistol games like IPSC can be dangerous for your self defense (note: I do not actually believe this).
I will say that we do have some crackin’ good times in the Gunblag IRC.
Looking for Ammo?
If you’re like me, you’re probably tired of not being able to find any ammo anywhere, whether it’s .45 you’re looking for, or 9mm, no one has anything. No one except for FrangibleBullets.com, that is. I buy all my match ammo from FrangibleBullets. If you go to the store, you’ll see they have two different types of frangible ammo. The first type is made by Wagner Accu-Swage, usually on once fired brass. It makes great practice ammo, and I use it for exactly that purpose because it’s about the same price as regular ammo. The second type is my “match” ammo – the rounds manufactured by International Cartridge Corporation. I use these for matches, because they’re made to a very high standard of consistency in the components. Those are more expensive than regular rounds, but they’re also excellent ammo. If you’re looking for some ammo, check out my friends at www.frangiblebullets.com!
Oppose the Inter-American Arms Treaty
Sebastian has a good rundown of the danger that’s before us if the Inter-American Arms Treaty, also known as CIFTA is ratified by the Senate. We’re already signatories to this thing, thanks to President Clinton, but the Senate has failed to ratify the treaty after 12 years. I’m encouraging everyone to contact your Senators and express your opposition to the ratification of a treaty which would further infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Here is NRA’s statement on the treaty:
The NRA is well aware of the proposed Organization of American States treaty on firearms trafficking, known by its Spanish initials as CIFTA. The NRA monitored the development of this treaty from its earliest days, but contrary to news reports today, the NRA did not “participate” at the meeting where the treaty was approved.
The treaty does include language suggesting that it is not intended to restrict “lawful ownership and use” of firearms . Despite those words, the NRA knows that anti-gun advocates will still try to use this treaty to attack gun ownership in the U.S. Therefore, the NRA will continue to vigorously oppose any international effort to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding American gun owners.
I’ve contacted Senator Lugar and Senator Bayh indicating my strong opposition to the ratification of the Inter-American Arms Treaty – I of course encourage you to do the same.
A pretty, individual snowflake
You know how they say that no two snowflakes are alike? I’ve found something else that follows the same rule, and is cooler. No two pieces of lead that pancake after hitting a pepper popper are exactly alike.
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| From Para Tac-5 |
I know some of those are a 9mm and some are a .45 ACP, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what was what. Yesterday we were shooting small poppers with paper targets mixed in as well; there are few feelings more satisfying than cleaning a run on the poppers while moving from 25 yards.
The IDPA Classifier
In less than a minute.
To rip a line from Maverick (the movie with Mel Gibson): “Was that fast? I thought that was fast. Did you think that was fast?” Yes. That was fast. The bar for getting into Master Class in stock service pistol (since he’s shooting a Beretta Elite) is about 98 seconds…so he’s almost 40 seconds faster than the “minimum” requirement for Master Class. That’s fast, no matter where you’re from.