Archive for the ‘Firearms’ Category
If Vehicles Were Treated Like Firearms
Just think what life would be like if automobiles were treated like firearms.
- You could not purchase a long vehicle until you were at least 18. In some states you would only be able to purchase ANY vehicle after your 21st birthday.
- You could only obtain a short vehicle after your 21st birthday. Read the rest of this entry »
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Firing The Kentucky For The First Time
Yesterday was Saint Joseph’s day here in Colombia (that’s what I was told anyway, at least it was a three day weekend). So we took some time and ran up to the gun club. Got down to the 50 meter range and found a bunch of junk all over. Turns out they’d hosted a three day IPSC match – and didn’t tell me about it. 
Oh well, I didn’t have the ammo for it anyway. STILL it would have been nice to know about. But I digress. Initial disappointment was forgotten as I settled down to try out the “new” CVA Kentucky. It is an old kit rifle that Lancer gave me a while back, a couple years ago I carried it down with me. Someone did a horrid job of putting it together, but I was able to get it looking pretty much OK over a period of a couple years. But since I finished it up a couple weeks ago there has been no time for the range.
First Shot
The Volcanic – or – Building A Gun From Scratch
I’ve been a member and a moderator of Paco Kelly’s leverguns.com forum since it was started several years ago. It’s a great place to hang out when time allows and is populated by some of the finest folks on the internet.
Recently a fellow started posting there. He goes by the name Charlie and builds guns for a hobby. Now, a lot of folks do that anymore. They’ll order up a bunch of parts from Brownells or Midway or one of a number of other places and put them together. Some of the guns so produced are fairly easy to do. Put everything in the right place and PRESTO! You’ve got a functional firearm. Others are more demanding, requiring some filing or stoning of parts to get them to fit and function properly. But all these have one thing in common – they rely on mass produced factory parts. Not that I’m trying to take anything away from the folks who build a gun this way, not at all. I’m in the process of building up a Kentucky rifle from a poorly built kit that was given to me a couple years back. It takes time and effort to get it right. Read the rest of this entry »
When Guns Are Outlawed – part two
A while back I did a quick blurb called “When Guns Are Outlawed“. Well, since then I also read about a new knife for sale in the UK that is “stab proof”. Haven’t seen any pics yet, but I suspect it will have something like a large flat thing welded or forged on the tip. As shown by the pics in the article above, such measures will never defeat anyone who wants a weapon capable of stabbing someone. Read the rest of this entry »
The IZH Baikal 46M
This year a friend gave me an IZH Baikal 46M target pistol. It is a 4.5mm (.177 caliber) Russian built pistol. It’s made of blue steel and wood – the way God intended pistols to be made. 
And I am tickled pink with it – now. At first I was a bit underwhelmed. Accuracy, even from a rest, left a lot to be desired. It’s designed for 10 meter competition and I was unable to get decent groups at that range. Well, I’ve never been one to worry about design limits in my pellet guns. The Gamo CFX had the scope rail removed, the front sight base replaced, the rear sight removed and a Mendoza rear sight fitted to it. A pin sight was fitted to the new aluminum block front sight base and a Charlie Da Tuna trigger replaced the stamped steel factory one. And then it got pressed into service for a 50 meter rifle. So it was natural for me to want to press the 46M into service at 25 meters – but it wouldn’t group right at 10.
Third World Quality Control
While looking for another draft I found the following somewhere in the dusty file cabinets of this site.
One of the problems with living in a “third world country” is that often one is subjected to less than ideal products and services. One pretty much has to just put up with it, although sometimes one CAN influence a situation or person to provide a better outcome than expected.
This type of situation happened on Sunday. There was a local IPSCA competition. Dozens of people congregated. Dozens of guns were all over the place. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were available. Besides the usual crowd of guys there were also a number of women in attendance – some of which were fairly attractive. But, contrary to what we are told to expect by the mass media and the “political gurus”- not one murder, robbery or rape took place.
This leads me to the following conclusion. Since we live in a third world country where the aforementioned quality control problems tend to abound it is quite obvious – the place was full of defective guns…
Long Range Perforation – A Personal Tradition
Christmas – the year I was 14. My brother and I both received a rectangular package that year. We tore into them and found that we were the proud owners of Daisy 880 BB/Pellet guns. This model would shoot either BB’s or .177 caliber pellets. BB’s as a repeater and pellets single loaded. They were duly packed up and included in our luggage upon the family’s return to Brazil, along with a generous supply of BB’s and a few pellets. Back in Brazil we found that the national brands of pellets were as close to useless as one could imagine. They were simple cup shaped pellets with skirts reminiscent of a gypsy queen – all ragged and uneven. About the only use I found for them was to load four or five in the barrel at once and proceed to shoot them as a shotgun. 10 pumps and they’d give a satisfying THUMP on the side of stray mongrels without breaking the skin. But I digress. Read the rest of this entry »
“Only two”
Over on the Leverguns.com Community Forum the old game of “pick one” came up again recently. Only this time it was “pick two”. Here’s part of the original post to give context to my answer as outlined below.
You can only pick one rifle – hunting, self protection, plinking, fondling, drooling over… etc. You won’t have any others at home, at camp, in the car, at some member of your families home. You have to choose only one. It has to be one you have or one you are working to own/build etc. I would like to know which one it is, and why. I am leaving a little room to wiggle with the second part of the question.
With that one rifle, you get to have one pistol, same rules, no others anywhere else.
I ain’t played one of these games in a while -but always find them interesting. Shucks, right now I’ve only GOT one handgun and no funds to pick up a rifle. A lot of it has to do with your surroundings and where you live in the first place. Here? Well, here, south of the Rio Grande by a considerable distance, a 38 revolver and a 22 rifle are hard to beat. Ammo’s fairly easy to come up with (“fairly” being a relative term) since those are probably the two most common calibers.
Now, if I were up in the US – it’d be a different story. There??? Well, he threw a monkey wrench into the system with his “only two” with no wiggle room for an “omnipresent” 22 LR. How can you get along without a 22 in the US of A? Skeeter Skelton’s character, Dobie Grant, picked the good ol’ 22 LR as a “one rifle” in a similar exercise. There’s a lot to be said for a 22 rifle – it can take game up to and including black bear and elk – if you pick your shots CAREFULLY. We’re not talking about HUNTING, we’re talking about KILLING – probably with the aid of “non-sporting” methods. The object being to simply fill the pot. A 22 LR will also give you the means to obtain a more potent weapon in a “Red Dawn” type scenario in which the country’s over run by foreign “liberators” and the good ol’ boys have taken to the hills.
So, a 22 rifle and a centerfire hand gun. Picking the handgun is tough too. 38 spl/357 ammo’s almost everywhere, even in this day and age of the WonderNine bottom feeders. But there’s a lot to be said for the power of a 45 Colt in a modern sixgun like a Blackhawk or Vaquero. In fact, it would be easier to download the 45 to “cat sneeze’ levels for plinking/smallgame/etc than it is to hotrod the 38/357 to the level of power which a hot loaded 45 is capable of. In fact, you CAN’T get a 357 up to the level of power the 45 Colt is capable of in a MODERN large framed revolver.
So, choice one - 22 LR rifle and 45 Colt Ruger large frame sixgun.
On the other hand, a good centerfire rifle can be a handy thing to have. You’ve got a HUGE selection up there – I’d seriously consider the 30 WCF – probably in a 94 Winchester configuration. (Grandpa’s ol’ rifle) The 30-30 has taken every game animal on the North American continent – multiple times. It’s not “the end all” of calibers but is still capable of doing everything it ever did do – and better today than 100 years ago since we’ve more advanced choices in bullet design than folks had when it first came out. Ammo’s EVERYWHERE. No self respecting gun shop can consider itself well stocked without a good selection of 30-30 ammo and components are also easy to find and loading tools are common.
And a 22 handgun is a great game getter. You can take small game and even deer size game with carefully placed 22 LR out of a good sixgun. And with a Single Six or other switch cylinder gun you can bend the rules a bit and have two calibers in one sixgun – the 22 WRM allowing you more power for larger animals – even for defensive use against two legged varmints should the need arise. Alan Taylor’s old Single Six with one reamed chamber is another style that has merit. Carry it with one empty chamber which can then have a Mag round slipped in for targets of opportunity.
So, choice two -30-30 rifle and a 22 LR/WRM sixgun.
And then, there’s the good ol’ “common ammo” argument that’s got some good points to it. This third setup is purely hypothetical as I’ve never owned such a rifle – but the theory’s sound.
The 357 Mag out of a carbine length barrel is a fairly powerful round. It ups the ante from sixgun level power to near 30-30 levels of power. Plus, the same rifle can be used to shoot “cat sneeze loads” for small game and other low noise applications. Likewise, a good sixgun in 38/357 makes for a nifty packin’ piece for protection against most threats in the lower 48 as well as offering more “oomph” for small game shooting. So a Winchester, Browning or Rossi 38/357 caliber rifle with a good single or double action small/medium framed revolver could offer excellent service for a wide variety of applications. I’ve loaded more 38 spl than probably all other calibers combined over the years and it’s given me good service over the years. I’ve loaded less 357 (and shot even less of it) but know that it’s been used to take everything on the continent at one time or another.
So, purely hypothetical (since I don’t have them even in storage) would be a 357 rifle/sixgun combo – preferably a small frame Ruger sixgun or a Model 19 or similar S$W along with the handy Model 92 frame carbine.
Choice three – 38 spl/357 mag carbine and sixgun
Of the three? Well, the first combo is my most likely scenario for such a choice as I grew up with a 22 in hand and the 45 Colt would cover the few niches I couldn’t fill with the 22 LR. Probable choice of rifle would be the Winchester 67 as it’s accurate and the one shot capability it has makes you think before pulling the trigger. But there’s some to be said for the stock factory Ruger 10-22, albeit the magazines can be problematic over time. So I guess I named the “only two” combos in order of probability/preference should such a choice ever be made.
If the first were treated like the second…
Have you ever imagined what the world would be like if the First Amendment to the US Constitution were treated like the Second Amendment has been? After all, EVERYONE’S in favor of “reasonable restrictions” on the exercise of the Second Amendment and EVERYONE’S in favor of “proper training” for those who choose to exercise their right. So, what if we demanded that the First (and all the rest) were treated equally?
You’d have to get a permit from your local government in order to post a blog. You’d be limited to the number of blogs you could have. You’d be limited in the number of words you could print on a given topic. You’d not be allowed to use any of that “saturday night special” language – nor any of that “sophisticated military style language”. The right to worship God as you see fit would be regulated and perhaps limited to “one religious service a month”. You’d have to have a license from the government to use religious language. You’d be at the mercy of the BPSRO (Bureau of Political Speech and Religious Organizations) and any regulations they’d dream up to further hamper your freedom. Anyone who wished to collect or sell Bibles and other religious or political books would have to jump through hoops to acquire the Federal, State and Local permits to do so – and would be subject to surprise visits to check that their paperwork was in order and all such dangerous items were properly stored and accounted for.
And the list could go on and on… how long would folks stand for it? I fear that the time may not be to far distant when such types of authoritarian infringements might become reality. Already many laws are in place which say that quoting the Bible is “hate speech” and one can actually be punished quite severely for doing so. “Radicals” who dare question the furtherance of the “homosexual agenda” to not only “normalize” but actually promote as desirable the sodomite lifestyle are already coming under fire -as are those who question the advisability of promoting obviously flawed “sex education” classes in public schools or who oppose the murdering of pre-born infants. The infringements have started – it’s probably only a matter of time before the First Amendment will be as heavily fettered as the Second.
233 Years Ago Today
233 years ago today a group of simple village and farm folk stood up against the forces of an empire which desired to force upon them its ideals and laws. They “fired the shot heard ’round the world” and after several long years of war they attained their goal – a free and sovereign nation that was built upon Biblical principles with freedom for all. May we all be grateful for the legacy passed down to us by those brave men. It is because of their resolve and dedication and sacrifice that we enjoy the freedom that we have a US citizens.
Now we have candidates to the presidency of the US who would take away the very freedom by which our nation was founded. We have a candidate who denigrates “fly over land” as “bitter people clinging to their guns and religion”. I stand amazed at the current crop of candidates and can only wonder what happened to the spirit of the men who stood that April morning against the forces of a far off king and set the stage for a grand new nation’s entrance upon the stage of the world. Oh that their spirit may spring once more to life in the hearts of my fellow citizens.
Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, –
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.
