This is possibly the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen done with a hula hoop.
We do have a show tonight
Gun Nuts radio will be on tonight – this is our last show at 11pm, and Squeaky’s last show for a while. Please tune in tonight at 11pm to say thanks to here for the work and effort she’s put into the show over the last three months. Listen live at www.blogtalkradio.com/gunnuts and you won’t be dissapointed.
Carbine Course Review
PDB, who is a big proponent of the “spend money on training and ammo” school of thought, has a pretty good review of the first day of the carbine course he took.
For the record, this is what I think of when I think of “training a rifleman”, not that Appleseed stuff. The difference here is that they’re not training you for a highpower match at the course PDB went to, they’re training you to fight your rifle.
S&W Releases 1st Quarter Revenues
Tying directly into the piece below this, Smith & Wesson has released their 1st quarter revenues, which are definitely good news for the arms company.
Net product sales for the three months ended July 31, 2008 were $78.0 million, a $3.6 million, or 4.9%, increase over net product sales for the three months ended July 31, 2007. Firearms sales totaled $73.1 million, an increase of $3 million, or 4.2%, over the first quarter of last year.
…
Pistol sales grew 18.4%, driven by continued consumer market and law enforcement adoption of the M&P polymer pistol line. Sales of M&P pistols grew 27% in the first quarter. Walther products grew at a 19.9% rate based largely on the performance of the PPS sub-compact handgun, which was launched in mid-fiscal 2008. M&P tactical rifle sales grew by 11.0% in the first quarter as demand for this product remained strong in both the consumer and law enforcement channels. Revolver sales grew by 3.4% over the comparable quarter last year. Sales of non-firearms accessories, including handcuffs, totaled $4.9 million, a 15.1% increase over non-firearms accessories sales of $4.3 million in the first quarter last year.
What’s interesting if you read the entire article is that their hunting lines are suffering, but their self-defense lines are doing big business. Hunting rifles and shotguns have not been selling nearly as well as defensive pistols and carbines lately, which is a telling statistic for two reasons. First off, it shows that the firearms market is continuing to shift away from the traditional staples of bolt rifles and shotguns towards a more “defensive” oriented market, with things like M&P pistols dominating the sales for Smith & Wesson.
Obviously, I’m not saying we should abandon the hunting markets or anything, but it very interesting to me to see how different the firearms industry is from when I started shooting a few years ago.
Gun Sales up again
As this handy diagram from NSSF shows, gun sales are up for this time of year as opposed to last year and the year before.
A total of 7,499,680 background checks have been reported by NICS so far this year. The increase coincides with an up-tick in excise taxes reported by firearms and ammunition manufacturers, an increase in small-arms production and a slight increase in hunting license sales — all key economic indicators for the firearms industry.
I am sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we’re sitting on a precipice overlooking what could be the most anti-gun administration in the history of the nation. /sarcasm
In all seriousness though, this is a good sign in the sense that it shows that gun owners understand the threat to their rights that Obama represents – people are stocking up on firearms, ammo, and components which indicates that they’re concerned as well. The important thing will be getting all these people out to the polls come November to vote for their right to keep and bear arms.
Magazine Bleg
I need new magazines for my Para 16-40 Limited. I mentioned in the IDPA match post, my magazines were giving me fits. I’m going to keep the mags I have in the hopes that they’re going to eventually “shoot in” and start running. I have some hope for this, because after the 100+ round main match, they didn’t jam at all during the 90 round qualifier match.
However, I still need more magazines. Factory Para magazines are about $50 a pop, and I don’t know anything about Mec-Gar and Pro-Mag. Some people have said avoid Mec-Gar, and some people have said avoid Pro-Mag. I have ordered one Pro-Mag 10 rounder to test out with the gun, but as it stands right now, I essentially have one working magazine for my main match pistol.
Topsy-Turvey
McCain leading in Gallup/USA Today poll.
Now, I usually believe that polls are largely irrellevant, especially in a tight election like this one, but it is certainly interesting to see that John McCain has pulled ahead from being 7 points behind Obama in the previous USA Today poll to being 4 points ahead.
Interesting, indeed.
IDPA Weekend: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
As per my usual procedure, I went out to Atlanta Conservation Club and shot the IDPA match this weekend. The title of the blog post is appropriate, because the entire match could be summed up by describing what occurred in those three categories. I’ll go in reverse order (Ugly, Bad, then Good) because knowing what I defined as The Ugly will provide you with important context on the match itself. First, let me set the stage for you.
The match was actually a two parter, they had the regular monthly match, and then immediately following that, they had IDPA’s marathon classifier match, which is a 90 round shoot that covers everything from shooting on the move to weak-hand shooting and all sorts of good stuff. I was running my Para 16-40 Limited, the .40 S&W single action double stack 1911 that I have become (and remain) quite fond of. I used a Blackhawk CQC Level One holster, which was actually pretty awesome, and I also ended up using my Blackhawk gloves (more on that later). Now that the scene is set, here is the match breakdown itself.
The Ugly: The magazines. I mentioned in my review of the pistol itself that they were murder on my thumbs, and that’s true. However, what I didn’t anticipate was that they caused the pistol to tie itself up repeatedly. The 10 round magazine from Para worked fine, I had no problems with it, but the 16 round magazines were unpredictable. When loaded with 10 rounds, they absolutely refused to feed reliably. The match became a less of an IDPA match for me and more of a training class in malfunction and jam clearance when the jam is mag related. That’s “The Ugly”. So now I’m on a quest for reliable mags for my Para 16-40. I ordered a 10 round Pro-Mag from Midway USA to test out, because I really don’t feel like paying $50 for a new magazine from Para.
The Bad: 2 items here. During the qualifier match, I found out that the rear sight on my Para is about as sharp as a katana, and as such am missing a good sized chunk of skin off my index finger on my weak hand. I am extremely glad I remembered to pack my Blackhawk gloves, because otherwise shooting the rest of the qualifier (when I cut myself, I still had 70+ rounds to go on the 90 round match) would have been quite literally, a bloody mess. The 2nd item in “The Bad” is that all the magazine related jams caused me to drop from a top 5 finish to another middle of the pack finish.* Very frustrating, especially when you’re having a good day from a shooting standpoint.
The Good: Finally, the good parts of the day. First off, I had the 3rd least number of target points down on the entire match, which is in part due to the fact that the Para is very controllable in recoil and rapid fire shooting. So when the mags don’t jam up the gun, I’m decently fast and accurate. Now, the very good news for me didn’t come until the classifier match, after the main match. For whatever reason, the mags didn’t jam the gun. This was because I usually had enough time during strings to reload the 10 round magazine with bullets from my pocket, and that the other magazines, when downloaded, didn’t seem to foul up the gun. Go figure.
The Classifier Match: After my middle of the pack performance in the main match, I didn’t have high hopes for the classifier. A day of gun jams and other issues have a way of getting to you. Then, a weird thing happened. For no apparent reason, on the entire 90 round course of fire on the qualifier match, I had 0 failures. Each magazine fed flawlessly. I tied for the least number of target points down, and won the qualifier match. I qualified as Sharpshooter in Enhanced Service Pistol division, squarely in the middle of that bracket. The IDPA brackets from lowest to highest are Novice, Marksman, Sharpshooter, Expert, and Master.
It was actually a great ending to the day, because I had been losing confidence in my gun and was generally disheartened about the day, but qualifying as Sharpshooter and winning the qual match really improved the way I felt about the day. Now my goal is to find some magazines that run the gun 100% of the time, and I will be really happy.
Ultimately, it turned into a good weekend at the range for me, I learned a lot about my gun, I learned that Todd Jarrett was right about everything (when I gripped the gun 20% harder my shots were faster and more accurate), and more importantly I learned that I actually have a shot at winning the state match.
*Time lost calculated by assuming that I would have gotten the average time on stages where the mags tied up the gun.
Sounds Familiar
Obama on your guns:
“Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,”
Implying that if he had the votes in Congress, he’d be more than happy to take them away, ala Dianne Feinstein. Thank to NRA-ILA for the heads up on this one.
That is a terrifying statement from someone who could be the next president -sounds like he’s just waiting on the votes to come in so he can go ahead and take your guns.
Even more of an empty suit
Turns out Obama is even more an empty suit than I thought he was.
The following is a list of all the really important legislation that Obama has sponsored that has been approved:
1. To congratulate the Chicago White Sox on winning the 2005 World Series Championship.
2. Recognizing the historical significance of Juneteenth Independence Day and expressing the sense of the Senate that history should be regarded as a means for understanding the past and..
The list goes on, read it for the lulz. The next time someone tells you how effective he’s been as senator, you can politely refer this person to a list of his legislative “accomplishments”. Then if they talk about that bill he worked on with Dick Luger (R – Indiana), you should probably point out that it’s a not exactly a secret that Luger piggy-backed Obama on there so it could look more bipartisan. Obama didn’t actually do anything with that bill.