The ride out to SLC was fast and the Honda Magna did very well. Save for one small detail. I had thought that the seat was just fine. Unfortunately on an extended ride, the seat becomes a torture worse than water-boarding. The 100 mile range per tank is more than enough. Because at about 60 miles, you have to get off that seat and get some blood back into the buttocks.
At Crusader HQ, I dropped off my ATI Commander for some slicking up and for a new finish… Cerakote. In Battleship Grey. We got the Grey Cerakote in for our customer, who I still can’t reveal. But the color is awesome. After talking with Joe and twisting his arm, he agreed to come with, on a little adventure. I had a mission.
The Browning X-Bolt .300 WSM showed up. It’s BEAUTIFUL. It’s black and sinister, and the Nikon Monarch 3-12 BDC is a perfect match to it. This is an awesome rifle! I shouldn’t have looked at it. I really shouldn’t have looked at it. I should have taken the box and stood it up in the corner and not looked at it. Dang it! Now I wants it, my Precious!
But I need a good laptop. I have to have it. I could have all my editing done in no time and I’d be back in to doing videos because I could actually run Sony Vegas again. Basically, I could get back to work.
But the rifle is so cool. If Darth Vader was going to go hunting for North American Big Game, this would be the rifle. It’s Back in Black and all Matte finished with that Duratouch stock which feels awesome… so it radiates Darkness… it’s like the room grows a little darker when you open this up to expose it to air.
We had a Kimber Desert Warrior that had come in on trade some time ago. It’s been riding the shelf almost completely untouched for a couple months. I remember selling the gun to the fellow years ago. This was before Kimber took they QC Nose Dive. I examined the gun carefully. He carried the gun a lot, then let it ride his gun safe a lot. But he didn’t shoot it very much. There is only a little finish wear on the frame rails from cycling, which is nothing because we have new guns on the shelf with more. The breach face still looks new.
My cost on it was real good. So it went into the back on Layaway. I’ll take my time getting it payed off… I’m in no rush to take it home. It still has those weird yellow waffle-like grips. I hate those things. Those are going Bye-Bye as soon as I finish the 4473 on it.
We just read on WTA that there has been another KB with a Semi-Auto .17HMR rifle. Most of the time the result of a KB is only stings and scares… but this time the shooter was hurt badly.
A blow back semi auto .17HMR (and even the .17 Mach 2 but to a lesser extent) is a bad idea. No matter who makes the gun or how custom the gun is…. it’s going to, at some point, have a KB. This is the same problem with EVERY semi auto .17. Which is why all of them have been recalled and dropped from production by everyone that has ever made them. Except for Alexander Arms, who is making a 1200 dollar AR type – that will still do the same thing everyone else’s did. Even in one of the Gun Rags, during the review process the writer mentioned this happening but kept shooting it.
There are a couple causes of the .17 Rimfire KB’s.
1. The bolt, rebounding off of firing the last round, slams forward into the cartridge rim hard enough to set it off while the round is in the magazine.
2. A few rounds fires slightly out of battery puts enough carbon fouling in the chamber to builds up until a case is completely unsupported and firing pressure blows it. Continue reading Avoid Semi Auto .17’s→
My brother Zack, and my friends Mike, Larry, and Tom were at ConDuit and were all on a panel together about surviving in a world gone Zed.
First point of order… When it comes to winning against Zombies, ignore everything Max Brooks has ever written. If you have to get a book or two to follow, the first book to get is the Boy Scout Handbook. Not a new one, but an old one. Then, if you can, the US Army Ranger Manual. Just to make you feel safer.
I really want to like the Rossi Circuit Judge, especially if they would offer it in .44 or .357, which they’ve not done yet. I’m a Die Hard .410 Hater. I sweat to God I’ll never like those, and if I do – please smack me upside the head with a Hockey Stick. Anyways, we’ve seen some issues with the Circuit Judge. The Grip-Stock is blocking shell ejection. We’ve just had to take one back because an attempted speed reload resulted in a bent ejector. It was too easy to bend and too easy to bend back. That’s not cool. That needs to be strengthened. The grip-stock also needs to be redesigned so as to allow it to clear ejecting shells.
I think the swing out cylinder is awkward on these things. The package is nice enough… a light and handy revolving carbine… it’s cool. It really is. But the Circuit Judge is a poor execution of the concept. I’d rather see a Revolving Carbine based on a Peacemaker action – which actually makes more sense than anything, or better yet, a Top Break. I bet a custom gunsmith could take one of those Uberti Top Breaks and make it into a revolving carbine pretty easily.
I’ve heard a lot of people scoff Wheelguns lately. Saying that the revolver was dead. These are guys that worship at font of High Capacity and think good shooting is a 1.5 second mag dump. That’s all fine and well. Drilling at target mulitple times in the blink of an eye is fun. And in a gunfight, it would do the job.
However not all shooting is a gun fight. I don’t have to look over both shoulders before I safe my weapon and reholster every time I shoot because I tend to think that in an actual fight, that instinct is still going to be there.
Back the wheelguns… I think revolvers are actually seeing a resurgence of popularity. Not just the Snubs or the huge magnum .500’s… but in the mid sized guns in .357 and .44. Which used to be the main stream of handgunning. People are appreciating that great balance of power and controllability that 686 and 629’s have.
I’m still itching for a .44 myself.
I often get emails asking about what loads to use in what guns… Handguns and Rifles. There is a lot of considerations for what load to shoot, and often the load selection is even more important than the choice of platform to launch it from.
For handguns, I generally like to go Light for Caliber. Picking the lighter load options rather than the more popular heavy options. Reason being, I like velocity in my handguns, which often provides more hydrodynamic reaction that gives more consistent bullet expansion. Take the lightest options, try them, and only go heavier if accuracy is suffering in the light loads. I’ve found that quite often the light to medium shoot the more accurate than the heavier loads, but every gun is different and yours might be different, so you have to try it all out for yourself.
Now, for Rifles… I like the Medium to Heavy bullets for caliber because the heavier ones tend to offer then higher ballistic coefficient numbers that I want for longer range shots.
This is just the way I roll… it’s what works for me… Your mileage may differ.
With the CDC warning of Zombies, and the Zombie Survival Discussion Panel that’s going to happen Friday Night at ConDuit with Larry Correia, Mike Kupari, and my brother Zack… I thought I’d preemptively put out my opinion on the subject. Luckily, I found that my good friend Terry has made my argument for me in language so clear and concise as to command acquiescence and affirmation.
