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Monthly Archives: April 2011
Llama’s cute little .22 Auto
We got here a Llama .22LR. It’s very 1911’ish, small, and cute as hell. The action feels well worn, and the finish is about 80%… but the gun still feels solid and it should shoot just fine. We took it in for a hundred bucks… Marked it for 220 bucks. It has the box, all that, and two spare magazines. My question is should we mark it for more? I mean, dang… this thing is adorable.
S&W 745
This is an older Smith & Wesson auto. I’m not sure of the value as the blue book on it only showed the 745 IPSC model, which looks just like this, but has a fixed rear sight. It’s Single Action Only. The safety lever is only a firing pin blocker, and does nothing to prevent the trigger from dropping the hammer.
The grip is slim, giving it a feel much like a SIG P220 with factory synthetic grips. The checkering on the front strap is a little rough, but it’s factory checkering. Over all, I like the gun.
Congratulations to Larry Correia!
I keep telling people to read Monster Hunter International, and his following books. They are Awesome +10. His stuff is so good, Larry is now a Finalist for the Campbell Award.
That is so cool, only a master Wordsmith can put it into words. So go read what Larry said.
The Two Biggest Gun Counter Misconceptions
At the Gun Counter, I frequently come across one of two of the most common misconceptions.
ATI Commander Update
The nice wood double diamond grips were just too nice for the ATI. They didn’t go well with the matte black finish. After awhile it got to the point that I found them just irritating. So I got some nice plain old Hogue grip panels in OD green. The matte finish on the Hogue work very well, keeping the ATI in a nice subdued scheme.
The gun is north of 600 rounds now, with only one fail to feed. Again, that failure to feed was in the first few rounds right after I got the gun, and it has never happened since. I did replace the recoil spring after those first few rounds, because the gun did feel under-sprung. The gun has been perfectly reliable since. The gun shoots point of aim/point of impact at 30 feet or so… I’ve had no complaints about accuracy, only compliments from everyone that has shot it. I’ve let a few people shoot it and no one has had a negative bit of feedback, and no one has reported any malfs.
The biggest question about the ATI is the quality of the steel. So far, there has been no unusual wear on any of the internals. So I am thinking, so far, that the steel is up to snuff. I have no reason to suspect that its a lesser quality steel alloy. I don’t think it’s anything great or special… but it doesn’t look bad at all. The only real wear the gun is showing is on the finish, which looked suspect right from the beginning. If you look at that photo closely, look at the muzzle end, you can see the wear. I’ll have Joe at Crusader Weaponry give this thing a Duracoat treatment, and that will take care of the finish – no problem. It’s a 450 dollar 1911, so you do have to cut it some slack. And finish that shows holster wear only makes it looks like you actually use the thing… I think a gun with some holster wear looks better than a gun that looks like it’s a Safe Queen. But that’s just me.
Two Shows…
There are two TV shows that I want on DVD, the full series collections…
1. The Shield. I’ve not seen a single episode, because I want to watch it all from the very start. Reason that I want to see it, because I’ve heard only universal praise of the show. I’m not into Cop Dramas… But I think I can groove on The Shield. The show has been praised by my most trusted advisors. This is all I need to know.
2. Sons of Anarchy. I started watching in season 3 on Hulu. I need to catch this from the start too. Season 3 rocks to a shockingly high degree… If you guys have missed SOA – you missed some tight story telling and compelling characters and a kick butt cast.
Magnas don’t get soggy in the rain.
But Ogres do… no riding today. Dang it.
Learned a lot about my new bike this week. Chain tension, lube and inspection. Saddle bags can unzip off. And I learned that my bike gets 40 MPG on the dot, which is pretty good. So I learned just how far my bike can go on a tank… then shortly there after, I learned just how far I can go on my reserve tank. Which I found out was about 400 yards short of the gas station. Luckily the bike can coast pretty good, to within 100 yards. So it was not a lot of pushing, but enough to hammer home the lesson. Seriously, I need a bigger fuel tank. I heard you can get a tank off a Honda Shadow, and with some modification, make it work for the Magna. If anyone has any detailed information on that – I’d really like to hear it.
I’m not even sure what to think of this
I saw this some time ago and had to snap a pic of it. The photo doesn’t do it justice. This is an F-350, full sized, quad cab… a massive truck… jacked up high. I’m sure it’s great in the snow. The stacks put it over the top.
An interesting pistol for HK Fans
I don’t know if a lot of guys have seen these… they are pretty cool. It’s a .22LR version of the HK 416, as a pistol. It’s like any other AR pistol type… meaning it’s cool but awkward and would take some time to get used to it.
