Men spend money primarily on two things. If you want to sell your product you have to tap into those two things:
Sex and Violence.
If something looks sexy and dangerous… it’s going to sell. If it’s not selling, it’s not sexy or dangerous enough.
My bike
I miss it already… bad! This is going to be a long long winter… but come spring time, my bike will be ready and better than ever.
Only second place in Zombie Survival?
I must object to this. Utah should be #1 thank you very much. Obviously, the makers of this list have not read Uprising USA.
Lever Action Reaction
There are few firearms that just give me such gratification as a lever action rifle. The elegant lines that fuse form and function with a mechanical simplicity that makes the Lever Action one of the most beautiful of all firearms. Doesn’t matter which lever you have… they are truly lovely. I find myself simply taking out my Rossi made Winchester 92 clone, just to look at it, just to feel it, just to hold it in my hands. I’ve got a lot of other guns that I like… but they don’t stick in my mind like that little 92. I’ve got my guns I use for certain purposes… and to be honest, this 92 doesn’t fall in to any of those purposes. But that’s all besides the point. I could probably very easily adopt the 92 for more serious purposes. Maybe I will. But I do prefer the right tool for the right job, shotguns, magazine fed semi-auto rifles, long range precision bolt actions. And they are all fine and good within their spheres. But if I had to have just one gun… well… that would still be an 870, but the 92 is encroaching on that in a big way.
MAG-40 Photos
The MAG-40 class.
This class was hosted by THE GUN DUDES, with special guest THE GUNFIGHTER CAST. Meeting these guys in person was fantastic. And of course learning from Massad Ayoob was absolutely amazing. Their links are now on the right side over there under the A List Links. The class was held at a confidential law enforcement training range. A beautiful range, that was a great venue for the training course.
There are a lot of great shooting schools out there. I’ve been to a bunch of them, and all can help you be a better shooter. But the way of the gun demands more than just being a good shooter. Because if you are ignorant, you might win a gunfight, and then spend the rest of your life in prison. Let me be clear about this, the MAG-40 class was the most important class I’ve ever taken. Half of it was shooting. Half of it was legal lectures and videos. In the course, you will take a lot of notes. Technology is great, and Gundoc and I used our HTC Sensation smart phones for note taking. At the end of the course, there is a test. I’d suggest bringing a notepad and pen, and then after the class, each nite, transfer what you wrote to your computer so you are going over everything twice at least. The note taking is heavy and justifiably so… the info flow was heavy. Heavy in volume and significance. I can’t stress this enough, this was the most important class I’ve ever taken. Also, as a bonus, when you graduate, should you be involved in a defensive shooting, Mas will serve as an expert witness should you be prosecuted. That could be worth it’s weight in gold one day. Everyone who takes the art of the gun seriously, or carries one daily by choice or career… you need to take this class.
The shooting is straight forward Old School stuff, with some modern stuff thrown in to keep it up to date. Mas is big on the Classics and makes sure you try it out. Weaver, Chapman, Isosceles. You fire 6 rounds in each course of fire… each stage. So you are only loading 6 per mag. You can very easily bring a Revolver to the MAG-40 class and do very well with it. In fact, if I take another one, and I’d love to, I’ll bring a revolver. Accuracy over speed is stressed. Over all the shooting portion was great, and I enjoyed it. The Qualifier had me shooting a 298 out of 300. I posted a number of class photos on my Facebook page, so if you want to see them, then by all means, check them out there.
Uprising SWAG
Hoodies, T-Shirts. More coming. Get it. Wear it. It grants the wearer, +4 against Zombies and the effects stack.
Almost a whole hour?
Some customers at Basin Sports… You just want to say “Get Out.” Guy wanted some new arrows cut to length of his old arrows. Okay, fine. No problem.
But then the guy starts running is mouth… “Yeah this is my last arrow.” Alright, not really caring about what you do with your splinters, but fine. “I shot this big old Buck this morning… nailed it. High shoulder hit. Blood was pumping out like a fire hose. Those Grim Reaper heads really cut them open, you know. But the critter ran off. The blood trail ran out about a hundred yards. Searched for that sucker for almost a whole hour. Gunna go back out and get another one. Gotta fill the tag you know.”
I chewed on my tongue as I cut the arrows. I had a lot I wanted to say… but instead I just did my job and kept my mouth shut.
Bike chain failure.
I knew I was well overdue to get a new bike chain. I was planning on doing it in October, towards the end of the riding season. Fate however, had other plans. Coming back from a lunch at Cafe Rio, the chain broke.
I’ve had a chain break before on me. When it did, the chain locked up the rear tire and I was suddenly dumped to the ground. I was going pretty fast and the results were unpleasant but not serious as I was wearing good protective gear. I was shaken, but not stirred. This time, it was strange… engine RPM just ramped up and spun free with no increase in speed… the chain just unspooled off the sprockets.
The bike will go into the shop tomorrow. New chain, sprockets, tires. (7000 miles of hard riding is evidently the life span of these tires I had.) While it’s in the shop I’ll have them put in some iridium plugs, K&N filter and rejet it.
I think my riding for the year is done. I’ll hit it again in the spring.
The Glock 23 in School
The MAG-40 class is a subject unto its self. And will be. My thoughts at the moment are about the Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol that is on my hip right now, and was with me through the course. Riding of course, in my Sharkhide rig from Adams Holsters, which was asked about all the time through the course. Sharp looking rig, good rig, and it worked great through the class.
I will make this point as clear as I can. The Crusader Modified Glock 23 RTF2 performed flawlessly. It shot point of aim, point of impact when I did my job right. The gun was digesting some horrid ammunition. I did what I had sworn that I would never do… I used steel cased ammo for the class. 500 rounds of Tulammo, 180 grains. Let me tell you, this stuff is complete crap. I could feel the differences in pressure from one shot to the next. Some rounds felt like 10mm loads, others felt like they were damn near squibs. But it was cheap. 14 bucks a box, so I snagged it. I am impressed with the Glock in that it shot all of that very well. I had zero malfunctions of any sort. Period.
I do believe that my groups could have been better with some better ammo, but I can’t make any excuses. Just before the course, Gundoc gave my Glock a Trigger Job, which caused me some stumble at first – all the sudden I had a different trigger than I was used to! But I quickly adapted to the new pull and I was well pleased with the result. The same weight, but it was crisper and there is no over-travel. Very nice. Using this combination, I shot a 298 out of 300. I’ll take that. I’ll happily take that. I wanted 300. I wanted it bad. But the shots I dropped, high and left, were not the fault of the gun or the ammunition. Those were my mistakes and I’ll own those.
I’ve taken other guns to other courses and sometimes I come away unhappy with the gun or pleased, depending on things. I was less than satisfied with Beretta and CZ in some shoots… HK and SIG has pleased me… and now this Glock has pleased me a great deal. I am very confident with this pistol and I am more and more impressed with it.
I think I’d like to change up the Warren Tacticals. I like the straight 8 configuration, but I wish the front sight had a white ring around the tritium insert. There was a couple instances where I lost the front sight post…. totally my fault, but I think some more visibility would have been a help.
Other pistols in the course I observed had some issues. I observed a couple XD’s with light primer strikes, and one that had a trigger return spring that failed and the shooter, Gail Pepin, had to change to another weapon. Kimber’s had some issues after the first day… one just didn’t want to run. Others had failures to eject. S&W M&P’s ran gun, only a couple failures to feed a couple times. I saw no failures with any of the Glocks on the range. Now, my Glock did give me some trouble with failing to lock back on an empty mag. Reason being, Gundoc also gave me an extended slide release and my Ogreish thumb kept riding it. This didn’t slow me down though and my mag changes were just fine. It’s easy to count 6 Shots when you only load 6 rounds n the magazine every time.
The solid reputation for accuracy and reliability of Glock handguns is well earned.
If I was going to take the MAG-40 class again, I think I would bring a 4″ revolver.