What do I need a blog for?

2012 Tactical Trends? Look at 2011

2012-01-05T22:19:00.000-08:00

I've been pondering lately what's likely to be the next big trend or trends in the industry. I thought I might see them at SHOT in about ten days, but then I saw the schedule for working the booth, and I'm not sure there'll be much opportunity to see any significant amount of the show. Must be nice to work for a big ol' company that spends a million dollars on SHOT and the reps don't have to spend all their time in the booth. Some of 'em, I kinda wonder if they brought their reps to the show. The marketing department folks who try very hard but can't answer any product questions seem to make up most of the booth people.

But I egress, or something. This year's trends will probably continue. The economy is growing by a tiny percentage, unemployment is still way high, and prices are up. That'll probably mean there will be very little truly new this year. Companies just aren't gonna sink a bunch of development money in uncertain times.

We'll see more AR's. That wouldn't be a bad thing if there were more duty-quality AR's, but there aren't; commercial junk still rules the overall market. We'll also see the "carry" market expanding. I'm of two minds on that point. On the one hand, I'd prefer that law abiding citizens carry than not, and little guns make that happen since so few people will change anything about their lives to accommodate the carriage of a gun that's easier to fight with. Those that know me know that I despise the trend in pocket guns. Can't manipulate 'em, their sights are practically nonexistent and they have crappy capacity. Unfortunately, this trend is alive and well and will continue with more crappy guns that are seven round straight blowback .380's and clunky, small-yet-ungainly 9mm's. They're a money maker, so they'll keep being made. Note that SnW is making their version of that ultimate bad idea The Judge, calling it the Governor or something. Yeah, those damn things are here to stay, too.

What'll we see in tactical gear? The trend toward lightweight continues. Lite Lok fabric will make some inroads, but until the price comes down, 500D will still be the standard. We're gonna do some stuff with it, but a RAID II in Lite Lok is gonna be quite a bit more expensive. With budgets shrinking, there's gonna be a cap on how much this stuff gets used; don't expect to see big dollar items like armor carriers being sold in really big numbers. Even the SOF side of the house is going to see significant reductions in what they can spend. Why pay a premium if there's a similar, nearly-as-good solution?

The next big change will be whatever the Army decides to do with their next pattern. What should happen and what will happen will probably be different. I gotta admit to being surprised that Multicam was chosen as the Afghanistan pattern. But since ACU-Delta wasn't chosen there doesn't mean it's dead. It's what makes the most sense: the pattern isn't the problem with ACU, it's the coloration. All they have to do is take the pattern that they already own and change the colors. That may not be what happens, though. Regardless of what they choose, there's gonna be a lot of ACU gear and clothing that nobody will buy unless it's at sub-giveaway prices (and not even then) once the new pattern comes out. Police departments will use it because they'll get it free through the DRMO system. They won't pay anything for the gear in ACU because cops are notoriously cheap. It figures; they don't make a lot of money.

So, I guess the summation of all this is that the trends for this year will just be the trends of last year. Stand pat and see what happens will be the rule of the day. Kind of a bummer, really.

Who's an idiot? This guy!

2011-12-16T22:33:00.000-08:00

Don't know what exactly I did, but I seem to have misaligned something in my shoulder and it's not working itself out as quickly as I would like. But, since I'll be out of town for Christmas and New Year's and then SHOT in the middle of January, I probably won't have a lot of opportunity to shoot. At least not weekly like I typically do.

So instead of doing what I should, treating the injury and resting it (and pondering going to a chiropractor), my stupid ass is gonna shoot a match tomorrow. There are better shooters than me there, so it's unlikely that I'd win anyway. How much damage could I possibly do? Guess we'll find out! If I cripple myself, I guess I won't be shooting for a few days.

Missapplication of Principles: Motor Skills and Hick's Law

2011-11-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

Some things refuse to go away. The items in the title being used incorrectly to illustrate a point are the ones that are my biggest of pet peeves. It's not that they don't exist or aren't factors, it's that they are misapplied as descriptors and misunderstood. And much of the time, they are used as a basis for advocating one technique over another, giving a false picture.

Most often, the gross vs. fine motor skill argument is used to advocate slide grabbing a pistol rather than using the slide stop. Now, to be clear, I use, and as far back as I can remember, have always used, the slide stop to run the slide. However, I don't care what technique is used as long as one isn't getting chosen over the other on bad information. If you're gonna be a slide grabber, go ahead and be a slide grabber. Just don't tell me it's a "gross motor skill, which you'll revert to under pressure." That simple can't be true.

OK, so what's a gross motor skill? By definition, a gross motor skill is a movement that uses large muscle groups. In terms of using a gun, the easy definition to understand is that gross motor skills are everything that happens above the wrist. A fine motor skill, by contrast, is anything that happens below the wrist. The argument is that the ability to do fine motor skills deteriorates under pressure, and that is, of course, true. But examine that a little more closely, and you'll find that it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Consider this: if you can't use your thumb to release the slide via the slide stop and must grab the slide over the top to do that job, how can you possibly use that same thumb to release an empty or faulty magazine, or control the trigger with the index finger from that same hand? I'm not saying that slide grabbing is wrong; it's a valid technique and it works. Just don't tell me the reason to choose it over running the slide stop is that I can't use that thumb and index finger. If that were true, nobody would ever be purposefully shot because the hands wouldn't work at all.

Incidentally, the reason I chose to run the slide stop is because I put both techniques on the timer, and running the slide stop is considerably faster. The timer is the way I've proven, or had proven, different ways of doing things with a gun. Except in terms of it's use by politicians, time doesn't lie.

Which leads us to Hick's Law. I won't bother going into the history of it, because the Internet doesn't care about that when they're misusing it anyway. In short form, Hick's Law says that it takes your mind too long to choose between two tactics. Worse with three! Therefore, I will show you one response." In terms of raw choices, that's true. If you give an untrained person choices, they'll struggle and make errors in attempting to complete the task as they try to pick a way to do it. No argument there, but this post is about arguments, so what's my beef with it? That beef is, once again, the Law being misapplied.

Anyone who's been around shooting and training for any period of time has no doubt heard the phrase "another tool for the toolbox". But, just as it is with a mechanic, just having the tool doesn't mean much. In the hands of the professional mechanic, the right tool is the fast way to get a job done, and done correctly. It's really no different at the core of fighting with weapons. The tool doesn't really become a tool until you...pay close attention here, here's the difference maker...until you MASTER it. Obviously having a choice and not knowing exactly how to use it in a pressure situation won't help much. But master that skill, and combine it with other mastered skills, and you have the gunfighter that nobody wants to go against. One last example: consider Anderson Silva, UFC Middleweight Champion for quite some time now. He's got kicking skills from muay Thai and karate, a black belt in Brazilian Jui Jitsu for ground fighting, and has knocked out just about everybody he's faced with precision striking skills. Watch him fight, and you'll see a fighter who mixes techniques as he sees fit, and there's no lag time between them. Why is that? The skills have been MASTERED.

For the Love of Pete, if you're going to make an argument for or against a particular technique, make sure the reasons you use are valid. I'd rather hear somebody say "I prefer to do it that way, I'm more confident and comfortable with it" than to misapply physiological or psychological principles in the process. That crap won't go away once it gets out there.

Musically unusual

2011-11-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

In what seems like a different lifetime, I was a bass player. I did that for about 12 years until I came to a couple of conclusions: first, I wasn't creative or talented enough at it to get anywhere with it, and second, other musicians, especially guitar players, are typically a PITA to work with.Being in bands just got old, although I loved playing live. I got to play in a house band for a little while that played Sunday nights at the church in an attempt to try a different format. That was back in the '90's, but I still remember it fondly because my brother was the drummer at the time. He's a bass player now. It was a big church, and the attendance was pretty good. There were probably in the neighborhood of 700 people there that night. Good times.

Another conclusion I reached was that I would never be as good as either of these guys. Two of my favorite bassists are Victor Wooten with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and Otiel Burbridge with Aquarium Rescue Unit. Besides that these guys create these huge grooves, they're capable of doing anything, so there's improv in there within driving the song. It's an amazing talent that very few have.

Victor is probably the best overall bassist in the world, in my book. I love that he's so dynamic and forceful within the very unusual framework of The Flecktones, and he can do all that with only four strings. Take a listen to this:

Otiel Burbridge is...I dunno how to describe him except a groove machine. When I first heard these guys, I knew the bassist was black, but I was pretty sure the rest of 'em were, too. Surprise! Otiel plays a six string, but he uses all of it, and what he plays with all those strings drives the song...and he can sing his solos, too. ARU might just suck without him.

Bass players make everything better...just as much as guitarists make everything difficult. LOL!

Love/Hate of the seasons

2011-10-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ugh. I tell ya what, I love the changing of the seasons and how landscapes totally change. I see that and I'm sure the Big Bang is total hooey. But where the hate part comes in is with these wild fluctuations in the weather, specifically humidity levels or temperature. When the weather changes, it's awful hard on the old man.

I'm feeling like crap this morning because my sinuses are a mess, and that's because overnights have been cold and dry. The high today should be around 85. It's been really dry (relatively) in the south lately, so the humidity is going shoot back up, and I'll be able to feel that in my knees. It ain't all that fun.

It's one of those situations that just is, I guess. There's only two seasons in California: warm and beautiful and the few days of rain and jacket weather. Here in KY we have a hot, humid summer followed by a short fall and a humid, cold winter with ice and snow. Spring is my favorite time, but it's short, too. The season changes tend to be abrupt, and it just beats me up.

I'll put up with it because I'm not giving up my guns.

I don't wanna do that, it's hard.

2011-09-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

Another revelation: I don't practice what's hard often enough. Over the past several weeks, I've devoted range time to doing those things that I'm not good at, don't practice that much, and frankly don't use often but still have a need to know.

As I've mentioned before, my ammo budget is about a hundred rounds a week. With that small number of rounds, what I do with them becomes much more important. I end up asking myself where the best value is, whether that's in working on improving what I'll probably need all the time, or some things I may need in a limited number of circumstances. The bottom line is, ya never know. I try to consider that I may end up in a fight that's outside the statistics. With my luck, it seems like that'd be a virtual certainty, but there's no way to determine that. To that end, I've decided it's worth some practice time to try to improve those areas.

Those areas are longer range pistol shooting (25 yards) and one handed shooting, both with strong and weak hand. One handing I'm passable with, by that I mean if I only had one hand, I can lay on some accurate fire. With so little ammo available, there's no way I'm ever going to get really good at it, but at least I don't start over from square one every time. I'm left eye dominant, which makes shooting lefty a little easier...but probably not enough to notice. Perhaps the only real advantage I have is that I can be at the range as long as it takes and I don't have to worry about anybody but me. The flip side of that is that I'm the only one of the guys I shoot with that isn't married. I think I'm also getting decent at making myself practice under all kinds of conditions. What else am I gonna do? All my home boys have wives. LOL!

Trying to get organized with practice

2011-09-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

My ammo budget is rather limited these days. What am I saying...it's always been limited. I love what I do, but I'm not getting rich doing it. I'll take donations, in case either of my readers were wondering.

Once again, I digress! The point is that with a limited budget, maximizing the value of each round becomes critical to being able to improve. To that end, I've attempted to get more organized with what I'm practicing. This came about because there will hopefully be a Classifier shot at our club again soon, so a couple weeks ago I decided to bring the Classifier COF out to the range to reference and to work on what I didn't do very well on. There are parts of that test that I don't work on much, such as one handed and weak hand shooting. Other parts, like shooting and moving, come easy to me, thanks to about ten years in marching bands. Having that course of fire to base practice on was very useful. The actual Classifier is a 90 round exercise, so it works pretty good as a practice test.

If you've been reading here for a while, you may have noticed that I really like shooting with Matt E. It used to be Matt and Paul J, but Paul punked out and decided to move home, get married to a wonderful lady and go to college instead of staying here and shooting with me and Matt. He may have made the right choice, but the jury is deliberating. ;)

Anyway, Matt and I have, in the recent past, shot some interesting Standards, including the 10-8, Hackathorn, and the Operator Standards. There are others, including Kyle Defoor's, the FBI's, and more. The nice thing about these is that they're not incredible wazoo difficult tests, but in the aggregate, your score will suffer if you have a weakness in any of the tested areas.

Now, hopefully in the near future Chris W and Bo R. will be added to the clan, once they get memberships to the range. Both of these dudes are excellent shooters, and good guys to train with. Along with Casey B, that'll make five of us that shoot together, and points out the need to get organized. What I hope to do at some point is to put together a calendar and have everybody have a particular day to bring whatever COF they want to use, whether it's downloaded from somewhere or made up before hand. So, I've begun the collecting of COF's and compiling them in a binder and separating them by type of firearm (handgun, carbine, or both). I'm hoping this will be an easy resource to maximize limited ammunition.

I'm also pondering getting shirts made and having an informal "team" for the monthly matches. The name's picked out, but I have to check with a buddy of mine that does small run custom printed t-shirts. That part could be fun, and has the potential to get big. Have to see where that goes somewhere down the line.

My job doesn't suck: flash suppressors and cans in the dark

2011-08-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

My bro Matt and I spent last night on the range, doing some night shooting, and testing flash suppressors and several of Surefire's cans. The only downside to last night's festivities was that there was no photos or video.

We found out several things: fiber optic sights are as useless at night as white dot or black sights are for being seen by old eyes. My MnP and G17, which were the guns I grabbed holsters for (Safariland ALS with X300's using the MLS system), both lack night sights, but I have lights on both, which makes night sights somewhat less important. The steel plate bay we were shooting in was slightly back-lit by a security light up on the ridge (the range is in a former quarry) and my FO front sight just became a black front sight on a black target at night. I couldn't see it at all. With the light on, the front sight profile stands out, but that leads to the next issue.

There's a bit of a recurring theme with ammunition: smokeless powder isn't really smokeless; it just smokes less than black powder does. I was using some PMC Bronze 115 gr. FMJ 9mm, which is decent ammo in terms of consistency and accuracy...at least in terms of bulk ammo. It's also really smoky. That doesn't matter much during the day, but at night, with sights that aren't particularly visible and a bright light on the gun, the smoke obscures everything. The wind was non-existent for most of the night, so smoke stayed where it was. Waiting for it to clear was an eye opener.

We tested the Surefire 212A on a few different guns: Colt and BCM lowers with Mk 18 and 416 10" uppers, and my 16" carbine. To compare against, we used Matt's BCM 14.5" M4 style upper with a KAC QD flash hider. We shot some 55 gr. Winchester, 68 gr. M855 and 77 gr. ball similar to Mk 262. The difference in flash was dramatic, even though I expected that with the 212A being a longer unit. Even so, I was very impressed with the flash reduction. So far, just about the best I've seen, rivaled by the Smith Vortex. The big difference to me is that I can run a Surefire suppressor on it and it doesn't ring after every shot.

Next we did a little test of the M300 vs. the M600, and how far they reach. Again, the air was still, and smoke made a big impact, even with Matt running the 212 on is 416 and me running the Mini on Schwaggie. Out to about 35 or 40 yards, there's not too much practical difference, but as the distance increases, the M300 doesn't have the reach. Where that really matters is in being able to see the edges of the target. Seeing the edges makes centering the target much easier. We were shooting a steel plate about the size of a B27 silhouette. Past 50 and out to 75, I shot the plate while Matt lit it up with the M600, and we moved all the way back to 100, but with the M300 getting hits were more a matter of guesstimating and basically remembering where the target was. Under the weather conditions we had-hot, humid and dead still at 10 o'clock at night-it got tough to really define the target with the M300.

We also found that at about 25 yards, hammering a steel target with a rifle and a tac light at night at high speed is a heck of a lot of fun. Just wish I had gotten some pics.

The wait is over: The OBR has landed

2011-07-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

In my previous cryptic post, I mentioned something was supposed to arrive and something was gonna happen with something. Or something. It has, in fact, happened: on Friday afternoon, my Larue Tactical OBR was delivered. It was a happy, happy day.

There's a little more to the story, though. Here's the back story.

I got the notification that my rifle was shipping and was to arrive on Wednesday, the 20th. It only takes a couple days to go from LRT to ATS, so I was expecting to have it Wednesday afternoon. While watching the tracking info, I was dismayed to see that the package had an intercept and return request on it. I knew that could be done, but I'd never seen it before. After running though a number of scenarios that didn't make a lot of sense, I called Larue and asked them. By this time, it's fairly late in the day, and everyone in the shipping department had left for the day. The sales guy who took my call, though, promised to research it first thing in the morning and call me back.

Oh, look! Sub-back story! It's like Dennis Miller is writing this article. I'm the admin of the Lightfighter forum, which is most definitely a pro-LRT place, and has been for a very long time. Because of that history, Mark Larue offered a special rifle to the moderators of said forum. My rifle originally came with UDE furniture, but my buddy Joe wanted that color furniture for a project, so he swapped me black for UDE. Somewhere in this post I've got a photo or photos of the logo that LRT applied for these guns.

LRT did, in fact, get right back to me. Turns out that after my rifle had shipped, mark saw the logo on another receiver and wasn't happy with it. He had it recalled and fixed. Mark's known to be a perfectionist; it showed in this case. So, they fixed that logo and still got the rifle back out to me to arrive by Friday. How cool is that? No wonder so many think so highly of Larue. Here's the end version of the logo:

I took it out and got it on paper after the IDPA match on Saturday. It was bloody hot again, and there's no overhead cover on the rifle half of the range. The upper and lower fit so tightly that I gave up on boresighting. I did get 'em apart when I got home, but I was already baking trying to get 'em apart at the range, and decided to just shoot it. I don't have a precise zero because I didn't have the precise distance. It was so dang hot that I wasn't as concerned about that as I was about being close enough to only adjust a little when I did zero "for real". I plan to dope with 168's, but had 150's to get close with. Pretty darn pleased overall, though, even with sweat running into my eyes.

As to the specifics of the rifle: its an 18" barrel, with collapsing Magpul CTR stock, with the LRT RISR. Trigger is a two stage Geisselle match unit. It's awesome. The bipod is the Harris BRM-S with the Larue LT130 QD mount, and the scope mount is the Larue LT111 OBR QD mount. The rifle came with a Magpul 7.62, 20 round magazine, but so far I've only used the two LRT mags. They worked flawlessly.

The scope is the new Weaver Tactical 4-20X50, 30 mm tube. It's FFP (first focal plane; the reticle gets larger with magnification) and has side focus, a very handy feature. It's MOA adjustments with a mil-dot reticle. The glass is as clear as some much more expensive scopes; the clarity is outstanding. I haven't tested the tracking yet, but reviews say that it tracks excellently. They retail about $750 and are a very good buy.

Also of note: the iron sights are the Dueck Defense 1 o'clock offset units, available through Surefire and their authorized dealers. They're a set of A2 sights set up to allow addressing close range targets without changing magnification of the scope or some variation of point shooting. All you have to do is lift the elbow. I borrowed these from a friend from Surefire. I've fooled around with it a bit, but I really wanted to work 'em out and give 'em a good going over.

I couldn't be happier, Larue Tactical rules, and everybody needs one o' these bad boys!

The waiting is the hardest part

2011-07-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

I have a new toy on it's way to me...or something. I shoulda had it a couple days ago, but there are interesting reasons why I don't. So, instead of making several posts that don't have the whole saga, I'm gonna wait a bit and write one post to cover it all. I know that's horribly cryptic, but it'll make sense once it's in hand.

I will say this: normally, when stuff doesn't show up, it's because somebody dropped the ball. That's not the case this time. I think you'll be impressed with the steps taken.

are 9mm, .40 and .45 really all the same?

2011-06-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

Since there's a push on for small carry pistols and everybody seems to want to buy them for carrying (not much for shooting, but a lot for carrying), there appears to be a feeling running through the Intardweb that the 9mm, .40 and .45 are all the same, with all kinds of gun store BS sayings to go along with defending the little guns.

Consider this: if all you could have, if the only option available was eight rounds, would you want them to be 9mm or .45? Not all the same.

Undecided and decided: The Magpul BAD Lever and X300 DG switch

2011-05-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

I added a Magpul Battery Assist Device, AKA The BAD Lever, to Schwaggie on Thursday-Thanks Joe!-and worked it out a little bit on Saturday, before being overtaken by events, and by events I mean a need for a Large Double Bacon Cheeseburger from Becky's Country Cafe in Woodlawn, TN.

Overall, I'm convinced of the utility of the part. It makes reloading faster, which is a good thing. Eject the empty magazine, insert the fresh magazine, perform push/pull, and while re-gripping the fore end, the index finger of the firing hand releases the bolt and prepares to resume firing. The thing is, this is something that requires training and a good bit of practice to do safely. The issue I found was that going to the trigger was automatic, which is not a good thing when the task at hand is activating the BAD. In other words, it's very easy to take a swipe at the lever with the index finger, and continue curving in to the face of the trigger. That's something that can be trained around, but it's not just a quickly overcome action. The upside is that the bolt can be released conventionally, with the support hand as well, so the rifle will operate normally even with the lever installed. If anything, it makes the paddle of the bolt release a little bigger and easier to press. Mine installed with no issues whatsoever. Make sure the part works as it should with your rifle before you go to a fight with it. I know, but some people need to be told everything, especially the obvious.

The utility is there; there are good reasons for running this part. However, it's not like a rail panel; it can't just be dropped in and mastered without practice. With practice, once again it's a winner of a part from the crew at Magpul. The reason this company comes out with so many popular parts isn't because they're cheap (they're reasonably priced and a fine value, certainly not cheap) or because SEAL Team 6(3+4)*(34/2)^10 uses them. It's because those guys shoot and apply what they know and learn.

Also on Thursday I obtained a DG Switch for the Surefire X300 on my MnP FS. I also took this new part to the range and tried it out as well. While not necessarily perfect-it requires the firing hand to trigger it, which means that a tightened firing hand grip is needed; not necessarily desirable for marksmanship. It does make triggering the light about a million times easier than using the support hand thumb. The key is learning the grip pressure needed to trigger it. If it comes to firing the gun, the light's gonna be on. What I'm learning is the nuances of the switch pressure to be able to keep the light in the "off" condition. This thing is the HEAT! Go get a DG switch for your X300, but because it's a better way, not because DG stands for DevGru, which it does. With Surefire products, it's pretty easy to tell the ones that were designed with their team of shooter's input. The DG switch is one of those parts.

Latest pics of Schwaggie

2011-05-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the rule is "take a photo, then change something again." I just shot these on Saturday evening, and then Saturday night I switched the QD swivel point to the opposite side of the stock to help the rifle hang better on the sling. The stock is pretty nice. It's a bit longer than most of the other stocks on the market. I had a CTR on this rifle about a week ago, and could run that stock all the way out. This one I run in a couple notches...or out a few notches, depending on which direction you count. It's a little heavy, but not a deal breaker in terms of weight.

I was not intending to go with an FDE color scheme, its just that FDE was the color that came to me. To that end, I kinda wish I'd grabbed a black mag, but the tan one was on top of the pile. It looks like I'm gonna be getting some XTM panels in the near future (and a BAD lever), so I'll probably do that checkerboard kind of thing, just because I can. I'm not what I would call a Magpul fanboy, it's just that they make good stuff and it finds its way to me pretty often. They sell a ton of stuff, so it would figure that some of it would get distributed to those in a position to give it to me. :)

Also new to Schwaggie is the Surefire 212A flash suppressor. It works pretty well as a brake, it works like WHOA as a flash suppressor. It's a bit longer than most, so on a 16" barrel it's reaching out there a bit, but not bad enough to do anything about. Next time it'll probably be on a 14.5" and permanently attached, but this barrel has a lot of life yet. The rifle money is already earmarked elsewhere, so I'm not sure where that 14.5 is coming from just yet.

Anyway! On to the new photos.

News: My blog is still NC-17. The people rejoice!

2011-05-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

Back in, what, '07 I think, I found a link to a site that gives a movie rating to blogs, and now to facebook and stuff. Just because I got curious, I had to have it rated again. Of course, there's even more references to guns-I shot some new pics of the carbine again, so yet more gun posting will be happening-so of course I kept my rating. What's different, though, is that the stuff that brought me that rating originally isn't the same stuff that does it now, other than guns. I'm OK with that.

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

gun (48x)
shoot (16x)
dead (7x)
kill (4x)
dangerous (3x)
zombie (2x)
steal (1x)

Bin Laden reportedly unarmed when he was shot: my thoughts

2011-05-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

According to several news outlets, Osama Bin Laden was unarmed when he was terminated with extreme prejudice. The newsies seem to think this is a big deal. here are my thoughts: so what? All it shows to me is what a coward this guy was, that he didn't even bring a knife to a gun fight. Apparently his wife put up more of a fight than he did. Was it in some way "dishonorable"? Goat Lover (that's bin Laden, if you weren't sure) caused the death of 3,000 of my fellow Americans. Pardon me if I don't think two to the heart and one to the mind equals that out. Never arrest a terrorist tomorrow when you can ghost one today. Nice to see that those involved were good enough shots to end this thing Right Freakin' Then. I tip my hat and raise my glass to the personnel involved. Bravo Zulu!

Matches and Training: Not the same thing

2011-04-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had this abstract idea for a whole series of posts that were under the title of "Free Advice is Worth the Price", but the organization that would require doesn't work very well with my Stream of Unconsciousness style (I have a style?) of writing. Suffice it to say that there will be posts of that ilk coming, but I may or may not tag 'em as such. If I do that, then I'll have to go back through the old posts and tag those that belong under that heading, and then you know where that will lead:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

Clearly, we can't let that happen, so I'll just throw 'em up (that's a nice visual, huh?) as I think of 'em. I have much to rant about. This could become a long, long list of posts. Muahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!

As the weather gets better, more shooters get to shooting matches, and forum members begin talking about shooting matches. Talking doesn't always lead to actually competing, but there is talking. And there's almost always talk of shooting a match because it's "good training". Match shooting is a lot of things: good experience with shooting under time pressure, a way to shoot a different course of fire than you usually do, and most of all, it's fun and a way to hang out with shooters. There are more reasons than that to compete, too. However, the one thing that competing isn't, is training; good bad or indifferent. They're totally separate things.

Training is the time spent learning skills: the manipulations required to operate the gun, drawing from the holster, reloading, and marksmanship, among other techniques. Technique is the difference between the trained and untrained shooter. It's evidenced by speed and movement with less wasted motion. It's easy to spot a well trained shooter, because everything they do is smooth and sure. The untrained shooter has much more movement, both in their actions and in their shooting. The gun moves around in their hands much more, their reloads are not smooth. Do not take this as a knock on untrained shooters; everybody was untrained once. Some still are. That's simply the way of it. The way out of it is to get training and then spent time on the range regularly practicing those learned skills and learning new ones. Training is what allows a poor shooter to be a decent shooter, and good shooter to be a great shooter, and a great shooter a grand master-class shooter.

As an aside, the topic of phenomenal shooters has come up in the shop from time to time, because we've gotten to meet some as they pass through the area, or are stationed across the street from us. I've come to the conclusion that some people are gifted towards being amazingly talented shooters. The rest of us have varying degrees of talent and coordination that allows us to get to that same level. The difference is that, while it may have taken Jerry Miculek a few hundred thousand rounds to get as good as he is, it'll take me a few hundred million to get to where he is. Given the funds and the time, though, anybody can do it.

Shooting matches is where a shooter goes to test their skills, not learn them. This is why the organizational bodies (IDPA, USPSA, Zoot Suit Shooters Association, etc.) group shooters into classifications of weapon and skill level, so you have a chance to win your class when you're in a match with Rob Leatham or Sgt. Horner. You won't beat them, but you may beat the rest of the shooters with your skill level. If you want to get to their level, you gotta train to get there. Which leads us to the "training value" of matches.

Do not confuse the training value of shooting matches with training. What a match will do, especially the Classifiers (the standard course of fire that the organizational bodies use to score your abilities to classify who you shoot against with your skill level) is to show you where you have weaknesses. When I started shooting matches, I confirmed something I knew about already: transitioning targets was a weakness of mine. Luckily, Ernest Langdon happened to have a meeting on Fort Campbell one day and had some time to kill. While Matt E. and I spent a couple hours talking about robots, shooting, and competing, Matt was smart enough to say "We're not gonna let you leave here until you teach us something." Ernest gave us a short class on getting your eyes to the target before the gun. What I was doing previously, and what many, many shooters do, is to swing the gun along with your eyes to the next target. What happens when a shooter does that is that the gun swings past the target. As soon as I was able to make some use of Ernest's training, I stopped having that problem. That was confirmed with shooting matches: my transitions were much, much better, and I was much faster than I had been (I'm not fast now, just faster than I was. I've got a long way to go to get fast) between targets as well as increasing speed on individual targets. That was an area where shooting matches showed a weakness that I was able to begin to address and improve.

If you don't want to meet new shooters, try different courses of fire with people watching and comparing yourself against other shooters, then there are still things you can do. 10-8 Performance has the 10-8 Standards, and there are others like the Hackathorn Standards and Mid South's Operator Standards. These are set courses of fire, with specified time limits and scoring, that will expose weaknesses in your game. They can be found by Google-ing for them, and you'll find others, too. They're generally not "hard" in and of themselves for each skill, but you either have those skills, or you don't. If you have no skill at all with your support hand, you'll score lower. If you have trouble with long distances (who doesn't?) or transitioning targets, you'll have problems getting good scores. But, all you need is a pen and pencil to keep track of that stuff, and work on it. Generally, these COF's don't use that much ammo, either.

One area that shooting matches can hurt training, is getting wrapped up in "winning the match". If that's the most important thing to you and the purpose of your training is defensive in nature, you may do some things in the shooting games that you wouldn't do on the street. An example: you've been trained to scan and assess, but you don't do that during a match because "it's just a match". In IDPA, they're big on reloads with retention, which is an administrative action. It's always on the clock, in my experience, but that's not something you should do under a time limit. IIRC, the IDPA rule book says it shouldn't be timed, but it always has been in the matches that have used it as part of the specified COF. I'm not gonna lay blame, but suffice it to say that if you're concerned with time you may not execute that reload as you've been trained to.

Can that be countered? Yes; shoot the match only within the techniques you've been trained to use. You probably won't win, but you will test your skills. If you're good, you'll win anyway. Shoot that match with your carry gear in your carry clothing, and see how it stacks up. You may lose to a guy running a G34 with trigger work, but you know you did it with your regular carry gear and did the best you could, while noting your weaknesses.

I've shot matches using match gear and match guns, meaning stuff I only compete with. I determined that the match I shoot this month will be with my carry G19 and my carry Safariland 529 holster. I may actually finish lower than I usually do, but so what? I'll be using it as a test of my technique, not just to win the match.

My job doesn't suck: DCAEK and RAM on top of a trigger job

2011-03-05T23:42:00.001-08:00

About a week ago, I was visited in the shop by Bruce Gray of Grey Guns and Randy Lee of Apex Tactical Specialties. I didn't realize that Randy's company also uses the letters "ATS" until he handed me his card. I shoulda have noticed that earlier, as I've only been with my employer since before they were called ATS. Duh. Yeah, I got that attention to detail down!

Bruce's shop specializes in customizing H&K and SIG pistols; two guns that are not all that easy to work on. Randy's shop, of course, is best known for their replacement parts for the SnW MnP...and I just happen to have one of those. We spoke about MnP's for a while, and I inquired as to whether Apex had a dealer's program. They do, and that's something I'm going to push for in the near future. Because I'm kind of a big deal on the Intardweb ;) Randy gave me a DCAEK and RAM kit. I was very curious as to how these parts would perform because my pistol has already had a trigger job done to it by Greg Derr of Derr Precision. Greg did amazing things towards improving the stock trigger as it came from the factory.

When I got the pistol, the factory trigger had a hitch in it that felt like the trigger had reset when it had not. Greg was able to smooth and lighten the trigger, as well as to improve the feel of the reset, although the reset still wasn't like a Glock or 1911...probably because it's not a Glock or 1911. Because of the polishing and trigger work already done, I didn't put the entire DCAEK in the gun...yet.

I installed the new sear spring and hard sear as well as the RAM unit. These were relatively simple drop in units, except that the parts and the tweezers I was using to put them in were both magnetized. That's a plus and minus: the spring and plunger are tiny parts, and they're also very light, which means they're easily moved out of position. Putting them in just takes some patience and a light touch, but it's easy to lose both of those in short order. The RAM was even easier to install, as it's only two relatively large parts.

I did not use the replacement Ultimate Striker Block as the S&W part has been polished to within an inch of it's life by Derr Precision. I also did not install the heavier trigger return spring. I may still put that spring in, as the trigger is pretty doggone light right now. The most interesting improvement, though, is in the reset. It's about an eighth of an inch, and much more definite than it was.

My Tru Grip panels showed up yesterday, so I installed them last night as well. Tru Grip is by far my favorite addition to polymer guns. They use a grip tape that doesn't shed and is a somewhat finer grit than any others I've tried, but the "stickiness" of the grip is outstanding. In addition, they wrap the front strap as well as the back strap, and the design allows for use of any of the MnP back straps. I was concerned about using the Tru Grip with my CTC Laser Grips, but it works fine. No need for extra holes or any such extra stuff.

All these parts are most definitely Haji approved. Next up, besides perhaps swapping in the heavier trigger return spring and the Apex striker block are, if I can source them through our regular distributors at work, will be a set of Warren Tactical Sevigny Fiber Optic Competition sights, which I have a set of on my Glock 17. Currently the MnP has a stock front sight with the white dot painted orange with a paint pen and a 10-8 Performance black rear sight. The main reason for wanting to change them is for consistency: I shoot that G17 more than any of my other pistols, so I've got more time using that set up than any other. I'll just have to see if I can get 'em for that gun or not, through our regular sources.

One more note about sights: if you have a fiber optic in your front sight, you've found that sooner or later they get dirty and dinged up and need to be replaced. If you shoot a lot, that can be fairly frequently. I went on a search for replacement fiber optic rod a while ago, and found out something interesting. The rod is a standard size; in terms of the Warren front sight, it's .040". Now, if you buy that stuff from "gun" sources, you'll pay about .50 an inch and pay quite a bit in shipping. What I found in my travels around the net was that FO rod is available from other sources, namely hobby shops. It's used very frequently for tail lights and stuff like that in modeling and radio control cars. It's also a ton cheaper. The place I got mine from, Oakridge Hobbies, send me 80 inches of the stuff for $10.50 shipped, which works out to about .06 and inch if my math is correct. It probably isn't, but it's still a whole lot less than fiddy cent a inch. I'll be covered for FO rod for quite a while to come, for cheap. Can't beat that with a stick.

Pet Peeve: T-Marked

2011-02-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

The longer I'm around guns, the more I find things that annoy me because they've become misunderstood and misused. One of those is the term "T-Marked", especially when applied to railed fore ends. "T Marked" used to refer to the flat top upper's modular interface, but as rails were designed to make the area where the rail and upper receiver meet more seamlessly, the term expanded to be used with rails, too. The purpose was so that things attached to the rail could be removed and replaced in the same location easily. That most couldn't be expected to retain zero in most cases is kind of beside the point.

The thing is-and if you've been reading my blog for a little while, you know there's always "a thing"-that those markings only apply to a quarter of the rail. T Marks refer to the letter "T" and a number. The number starts at 1, and proceeds from the rear of the receiver forward to the muzzle. "T" stands for...wait for it, it's very complicated...Top. There's a Left, Right, and Bottom, too, with the numbers corresponding to those on all sides.

I know, stupidly simple. However, I just saw a photo in what's supposed to be the preeminent gun magazine showing the right side of the rail with it's clear R Marks, saying that it's T Marked. It's a pet peeve...what am I gonna do except blog about it, and on my birthday? I shoulda stayed on the range today, I think.

Carnitas! The web is a wonderful thing

2011-01-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

My fish taco obsession led me to do some online searching recently, and I found that there isn't a whole heck of a lot of stuff that can't be bought through the intardweb. I was searching for Rubio's Fish Tacos recipes, and found a recommendation for Porkyland Extra Thick corn tortillas. Turns out that this was a fine suggestion. I followed a link or two and ended up at a place called Mexgrocer that has not only the tortillas, but spices, tortilla warmers, and even pre-cooked carnitas.

For those not from SoCal, carnitas are slow cooked pork. That's awesome enough to just be abbreviated to SCP, its so universally amazing. There's very little, if anything, that SCP can't make better. Tacos? That's what I had for dinner last night and again this morning. Burritos? Obviously? Chocolate cake? You know it. SCP is yet another reason that the Pig is a Magical Animal.

They package them in a shrink wrapped bag within a tray within a cardboard cover within a mylar bubble wrap bag with a couple of gel cold packs. It works perfectly. A little microwavin' and it was on to carnitas tacos. The funny thing is that it costs quite a bit to get all the condiments necessary that I didn't have laying around. I had Cotija cheese, but most of the rest of it was out of stock. After buying lettuce, sour cream, salsa stuff, avacados, six boxes of 9mm, and everything else, the bill was rather high. No matter...the tacos were more than worth it.

I couldn't get pics because I couldn't keep 'em around long enough. I think the next step will be to take some of my six dozen corn tortillas (actually a little over five dozen after dinner last night and breakfast this morning) and make some rolled tacos with 'em. Most of the time, rolled tacos are made with shredded beef, which is great. I'm considering making them with Magical Carnitas to see what happens. Seems like a good idea to me.

I think I used to be a gun blogger and now I'm a food blogger. There's no tellin' where I'm goin' next!

What to do when you can't have Mexican food

2011-01-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

For the first time in Five Long Years, I was able to be home in San Diego for Christmas. Got to spend a lot of time with the family, especially Mom, and saw some good friends while I was there...although I didn't get to see as many as I would have liked. I was only there for a bit over a week, so there's a limit to what can be done. I finally got to visit the USS Midway-highly recommended, by the way-and hit Casa De Pico and Mardi Gras Cafe, before a bit of a mishap.

The crown on the root canal I had done this year has apparently come loose, which cause OUTRAGEOUS amounts of pain. Enough that if I bumped it while I was asleep, I was no longer asleep, and in fact was awake for a couple of hours before the pain was knocked back to where I could go back to sleep for another couple hours. Why this matters is that if you know me, you know I have proven without a doubt through long experience that there is no Mexican food in Kentucky. Here I was in Mexican Food Heaven, and I could hardly eat any because I couldn't chew. That's true agony.

Because of this, I've been exploring the Intardwebs for authentic Mexican ingredient sources, and cashed in my Christmas gift card on a deep fryer. The bottom line is that I HAVE to have some fish tacos. I'm a native SoCalifornian. They're part of my DNA. I've simply found that if I don't have fish tacos at least about once a year, I may experience spontaneous combustion. I'm sure having them more often than that is good for my health, too.

A few weeks ago, I found a pork roast "kit" that (IIRC) Tyson makes. It comes with a couple pound pork roast with a spice packet, and onions (big chunky hogs of onions. Awesome!), carrots, newpa tatoes (red skin potatoes, sometimes called New Potatoes, or Newpas if you enjoy funny sounding words like I do), and celery. All ya need is a cup of water (Helpful hint: I don't use tap water; our water here is awful) in the Crock Pot, put in the roast, arrange veggies around it, and mix the spice packet in a bit of water and pour over the pork. Let it go for six hours. Ten might be better, but I can't stand to wait that long, so I do it on high for six. It's delicious.

That got me thinking about how easy it'd be to do carnitas, so some exploring the Webz again came across several variations of how to do it in a crock pot, then fry it a bit to crisp it up. I have some ideas to try, make no mistake. I have no doubt that this project will be explored completely throughout 2011. My New Year's Resolution: make killer Mexican cheap and sleazy taco shop food at home. My only concern is getting so fat I can't get through the door anymore, and I'll just have to stay home and make more. It's gonna be a good year.

Greatest Glock 19 review of all timeses.

2010-12-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

A link to this vid was posted on one of the forms I frequent, and it was too entertaining not to share. He was doing really good with making it sound like he was clueless, until he went into just a little too much detail. In actuality, if you take every sarcastic remark he makes and reverse it, you get a really good overview of the 19. Kudos to Mixflip for the most entertaining thing I've seen on YouTube this week.

10-8 Pistol Test 1: where your skills at?

2010-12-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

Matt E. and I shot this course of fire on Saturday. There's nothing ground breaking or outrageously technical in it, but it's a very good test of skills. I should have known that it couldn't be as easy as it appeared because the 5 second time standard is what Hilton Yam says a good Master class competitive shooter can do. Silly Haji. Most of my times were a bit on the plus side of 7 seconds, this first time through.

Click the JPEG, print it and try it. I think you'll find it a very good test of skills, and if you have holes in your game, it'll show those, too! It did for me.

.

Wisdom from Brother Borebrush

2010-12-01T19:50:00.000-08:00

This was posted on LF in an AAR from last year by my homeboy Chad. I was tempted to copy and paste the whole post, but this quote really stuck out for me:

Getting mad never wins a fight. It’s the ability to keep that fire bottled up and in its rightful place, which wins today’s fight. It might be the very fight of your life.

There's trained and untrained...but how do you get there?

2010-11-10T14:15:00.001-08:00

Despite being an American male, and contrary to public opinion and Intardweb common knowledge, nobody comes into the world knowing how to run a handgun. Rifles are pretty intuitive, and most people can do acceptably well with them with little training. That's not the case with the handgun. The fact of the matter is that pistols are hard to use really well. If you think of the Grand Master pistol shooters in the world, and how many of them there are as a percentage of the country's population, they are indeed a rare breed. Because most female shooters are saddled with instruction from their Paw Paw/old man/brother/uncle/boyfriend/husband (those are all supposed to be different people, and are except in certain states), they're already fighting an uphill battle, and that there are so many that can shoot so well is a testament to their will to win.

I've seen some really wacky things happen at the range. I've seen some folks trying to teach their pals or wives/girlfriends to shoot and doing them a total disservice in their instruction. The "why" of that is that the gun owner isn't trained, either. They're passing on what they think they know about shooting, but which they picked up from movies and TV. Unfortunately, they're watching The Shield instead of Street Kings, and not being able to tell the difference. Why? Because they have no formal training. Even Larry Freakin' Vickers didn't get to where he is by making it all up on his own. He got training.

Yes, you can attend a LAV (the "A" is, I think, the initial of the Latin root word for "Freakin'") class, but if you don't have some existing shooting skills, a base of knowledge and safe gun handling skills, you'll spend the whole time behind the curve and slowing the rest of the class down, making you That Guy. Even if you're female, you'll still be That Guy. Pat Rogers gives a hat with That Guy on the adjusting tab as a memento to That Guy in his classes. Often, that's a previously trained shooter earning it, which means that there wasn't enough training already. it ends up being a bit of a Catch-22: if you're not already trained, how do you progress in training? How do you get trained enough to get trained more, to get better and do so safely? How can one afford it? I'll explain some of how I got to where I am now (which is nowhere near as far along as I want to be), which will hopefully help and perhaps generate some ideas for both the readers of my blog.

I started off like most people do: I got my first rifle for Christmas when I was 16. I still have that rifle, and I wish I'd kept track of how many rounds it has through it; it's a significant number, as a brick of .22 was only about $10 in those days, and we rarely took less than 500 rounds out, every time. That wasn't shooting, though. That was plinking, and there was scant actual shooting going on. I shudder to think where I'd be if I knew then what I know now...

I owned a fair number of guns-most of them middle quality, none duty quality guns yet-and was OK enough that I shot better than most of my friends, and read a lot more magazines than they did. That made me the defacto expert, sad to say. I did realize that I needed some actual schooling to get better, so I started looking around at where I might get some training. I found that the local Community College had an Administration of Justice department, and that there were firearms classes available through that department, with the only prerequisite being the Introduction to Administration of Justice 110, which turned out to be a very informative, fascinating class. Those classes started with the building blocks of marksmanship: sight alignment, sight picture, trigger press and follow through, with an SnW 686 revolver. All courses of fire, which didn't go further back than 15 yards, were from the low ready, and always double action.

Those classes progressed from Beginning to Intermediate to Advanced, the difference being that the advanced class added some moving targets and moving to targets, as well as such things as 25 yard shooting and using barricades. It was more tactics based than marksmanship based, but those principles of marksmanship were there through all three classes. These were every Friday for three hours, for four months; a full semester length class. The fundamentals and safety rules were pounded into my skull and seared on my soul. Or something like that.

From there, I did some competing and shot with as many people that knew more than I did as I could find. About three years ago, I started shooting regularly with Matt E. and Paul J. Matt is a very well trained shooter (he's at a class right now, as a matter of fact), and Paul is one of the most naturally gifted shooters I've met. He's one of those guys that can do everything wrong, but his trigger control is so good he still gets tiny little groups. That's when I went from shooting to training. Working on specific drills, keeping track of times, trying to make every shot a perfect repetition. Now if only it always was a perfect repetition...

The NSSF recently started a new program aimed specifically at the new gun owner with little to no experience called First Shots. I don't know why it took so long for an organization to develop this idea, but the NSSF has done an excellent job with it. The whole point is to be able to get some classroom and range time under very controlled, supervised conditions. The site can be searched to find a club or range near you that is doing this program.

What do you do if you can't find a club doing that program near you? I've talked to a couple range owners that like the concept but have some differences in how they train new shooters, and don't want to be affiliated with an organization. By all means, contact the local range and inquire. It's possible that they don't know about First Shots, and may very well want to be a part of it.

Gun shops can be hit or miss on this topic. For every shop that has a squared away staff that knows what's going on around them, there are a whole pile of 'em that pass on really bad information. I don't really know how to get to the good ones. One must be discerning. If you hear something weird that doesn't jibe with what you've heard elsewhere, try to verify it. If you can't, file that bit of info away. Eventually patterns will emerge and you'll be able to tell who's straight up and who's full of crap. Remember though, it's in a shop's best interest to steer you right, so once you find a shop that can get you good info from, patronize them. Many times you will find a knowledgeable employee that has the ability to teach, who can get you started in the right direction. Grab your yellow pages and/or Google, and start with Gun Ranges. If that doesn't prove fruitful, try Gun Shops next. Don't leave out Rod and Gun Clubs. If they are to continue to exist, they need new members. They're a good resource for this sort of thing, as are local USPSA or IDPA clubs. The NRA does a lot with training, with a network of certified instructors all over the country. Their programs can be found here.

Expect to travel. Think about it: if you're buying a gun to trust your life to, how much is that life worth? You may have to drive to get to a class, but it's a small price to pay. Consider it an investment, and a savings in ammo not spent reinforcing bad habits and TV technique. Having to drive a couple hours is a small matter in order to get started off right.

If worse comes to worst, consider hosting a class. This is a lot of work and will be much easier when you've got some experience and have networked within the community, because hosting involves contacting the instructor and arranging the times and dates with a local range (can be private property, Police ranges, rod and gun clubs, stuff like that) as well as getting the word out to prospective customers. It's a lot of work, but it's not impossible. The instructors will have a lot of ideas for accomplishing the tasks.

Once you have that base of knowledge, you can move on to the more "high speed" courses, but you have to have decent gun handling skills and some shooting skills to be safe and to not be drinking from the fire hose the whole time you're in the class. I have to tell ya, though: quality training is addicting! Let's face it. Getting better at shooting is just plain fun. Go get some training!

Setting Up the AR Carbine-A Way and some Reasons

2010-11-07T12:16:00.001-08:00

AR's are probably the best assault rifle-based rifle available right now. The upside of the AR is that there are an incredible number of options and ways to set 'em up. The downside of the AR is that there are an incredible number of options and ways to set 'em up. Any site on the web that has the capability of posting pics of guns almost certainly has photos of AR's on it. Some are set up well...and some are better termed Football Bats than carbines.

My intention is not to dwell too much on brands, as I intend to rant on the set up rather than on the particular model. Up front, I have to state that my carbine is what I would term a Frankengun, and I have blogged against parts guns for best reliability. I do need to make a couple of comments on this subject, though: first, "just as good as" doesn't exist unless you're comparing guns built on or as close as possible to the TDP (Technical Data Package). Gun prices don't exist in a vacuum, and Daniel Defenses, BCMs, Colts, LaRues, LMT's, Noveskes, Knight's's...'s, and their brethren aren't just more expensive to be more expensive. Not all parts are created equal, and quality isn't free. Are you paying for a name with Tier 1 and Tier 2 brands? In a sense you are, insofar as you're paying for what the name represents. Reputations are built, not awarded. You're paying for the name that is based on the reputation built on quality. A Bushamster or DPMS or other commercial spec gun isn't the same. It can't be; it's not built to the same standard with the same quality parts. How to determine which is the right gun for you is a blog for another time.

For simplicity's sake, assume that the base gun is a duty-quality carbine with properly staked gas key, staked castle nut, Mil-Spec parts, and the like. That way, I can limit this epic tome just to set up and external parts and accessories. And of course, this is a way, not the way. OK, it is the way, but there are other ways that are the way, too. And there are lots of ways that aren't the way. Don't do it with the not the way. It's called "not the way" for a reason. Not the way often has plastic parts from one of the 78,000 Israeli companies that make crappy parts for the AR, which falls under the blessing/curse clause of the AR mentioned in the first paragraph.

If you're starting from scratch, consider the 14.5/permanently attached flash hider (to make it a 16", non-NFA legal barrel) and mid length gas system. There's nothing wrong with the carbine gas system, but the mid length is a little smoother, softer shooting, and probably wears parts slower. In terms of front sights, I'm a believer in the Front Sight Base rather than rail mounted folding sights. The "why" is that if your optic goes out due to failure or the battery going dead, you can make surprisingly accurate hits using the front sight post. Your rear sight becomes a giant aperture sight at that point, meaning out to about 25 yards, put the front sight post on what you wanna shoot and press the trigger to the rear. At that distance, you may or may not have time to flip up your back up sight. If you have time, do it. If you don't, put the front sight post on your target and nail it. The reason I prefer the FSB to rail mounted sights is that as long as the barrel is properly indexed, there's just less involved with a pinned FSB vs. other screw-on sight systems. Pins are a big enough deal that I've become a believer in grinding down the FSB rather than using a set-screw low profile gas block.

The great thing about fore ends is that there are a ton of great choices now, and where there were lots of choices of the 7" rail before, now it's possible to go longer with a few different choices. There are two advantages to going to a longer rail, and 12"-13" is the magical length. The "why": those two advantages are that you can grab the fore end further out. The closer you can get your hand to the muzzle, the better you can control recoil. The other advantage is that you can get your light further out, which means less shadow caused by the barrel. Some lights can even be mounted in front of the FSB, which means less leaning out from cover to get the light shining where the target is. In terms of rails, I'm a huge fan of Daniel Defense. Their stuff is always in spec and are the lightest rails going. I don't recall ever hearing about one being broken under normal circumstances. There are, of course, other quality rails, but I always recommend DD. Light, strong, in spec and easy to install. How can it get better? Their 12.0 FSP Lite rail is the standard of excellence for rails.

However! Now there are some options for fore ends other than full rail systems, and they're less expensive to boot. There are tubular handguards that can still mount lights by adding sections of rail where they're needed. Note the light on my home boy Paul J.'s VTAC fore end:

The VTAC is really light, slim and comfortable. Troy makes a nice 13", called the TRX Extreme, and it's MSRP is only $189, which means that it can be had for less "on the street". Like the VTAC, it can use bolt on rail sections. Ignore the vert grip in this pic, it's in the wrong place. The pic is Troy Industries's...'s:

As I said, that's not my preferred sighting set up, but it beats the hell out of no front sight at all, and there are advantages to having a clear sight picture, too. For Pete's sake, run that vert grip out to the end of the rail!

I very much prefer the Surefire M300 Mini Scout with theSR-07 switch. This system keeps the light and the switch out of the way, and means I have to move my thumb about a half inch instead of changing my grip to reach the light.

Previously, I've used the tail cap and actuated it with my support hand knuckle. This allows me to use the thumb over grip without much other change. Changing as little as possible makes everything easier, smoother and more consistent. Related to all this is sling placement, which I'll address a bit later.

Working backwards, we come to the upper receiver. Some people like to have AR's with carry handles, no lights and optics, and call them "KISS rifles". KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. The fact is, that's not simple, that's less capable. Flat tops are the only choice for a real fighting gun, because simple only needs to apply to the mount for the sighting system. Choices in optics are simple, too: get an Aimpoint. There is much to love about the Eotech reticule, with the dot and circle sight picture. However, on the whole they just don't last. Some can go to very high round counts, but most don't seem to be able to do that. I've got a friend who's XPS2 crapped out within 12 rounds, shutting off and not coming back. Another friend has about 7300 rounds on his, and his zero has started wandering. An 18B friend of mine DX'd (sent back as broken) 32 of them, on a 12 man team. Others have reported exceptionally high failure rate amongst their duty guns. I dig the XPS series, but they're not lasting a whole lot better than the older sights. If the gun may be used for serious purposes and not just a range toy, get an Aimpoint. My M68 (old style Comp ML2) has been on two deployments before it went through the DRMO system and given to me. Still works fine-now that there's a battery cap on it-and holds zero like a vice. Almost everyone I know that runs one has trouble free performance. It's just cost-effective insurance.

What about mounts? There are plenty of good ones, but LaRue Tactical is still the best of them. They have a new no-lever mount that saves about $25, so if you don't intend to move the optic, get the VFZ version. They're the best there are, no more expensive than other good mounts, and ya get a bunch of cool stuff with the order. Can't beat 'em. If you're using an M68 CCO mount, use the LT-150, which gives a 1/3 lower co-witness. One reason for going for the throw lever mount is that if your optic gets destroyed somehow, you can dump it and go to your BUIS. I mount the optic as far forward as the receiver will allow to increase field of view, while avoiding putting the optic over the barrel nut, which is the hottest part of the carbine. Heat and electronics don't go well together.

Why lower 1/3 co-witness instead of absolute co-witness? I don't want the clutter of having the rear sight in the sight picture. Just too much junk to deal with. I just wanna see the dot and the target. I zero my BUIS and optic separately from each other. Having them all lined up when they're not the same sight system doesn't make much sense to me. Since I run an Aimpoint, the chances of needing my folding Troy Battlesight are very, very slim.

We're in a time when there are better magazines than ever before. USGI aluminum mags get a bad rap, but I'm convinced that happens because there are a whole bunch of magazines still in service that shouldn't be. The latest generation of them has an improved spring and Magpul-like follower, and is a very high quality magazine. However, it costs more than the Magpul PMag does, which seems to beg the question of "why not just buy PMags?" PMags haven't been absolutely perfect and trouble free; there are stories of feed lip problems cropping up here and there, but that may be due to the polymer of different colors being a little problematic. The black NSN PMags have an enviable reputation, and are almost all I use. I have a couple green ones, a few tan ones, and some good aluminum mags from Colt, Okay, BCM, and DSG. The back PMag sees the bulk of the action, though. There are also excellent reports from the Tango Down polymer magazine, too. I know that doesn't narrow things that much, but use this as your guideline: avoid steel mags, they're heavy with no benefit, and in the case of HK, have a short service life. Stick to quality, GOOD CONDITION magazines, whether aluminum or polymer, and GET RID OF THEM when they need to taken out of service. That means destroy them before putting them in the trash bin. Don't bother with mags that aren't in wide distribution. Every now and then, something new comes out, has a huge buzz, and then fades away. Don't bother with being the Johnny Come Lately with magazines. If they're really better, they'll get proven as such over time, and if you need new mags, use them then. Till then, stick with the proven winners. You won't have to drill clearing a double feed as often.

What about stocks? My bro Matt E. put both a Magpul CTR and an LMT SOPMOD on the scale. We always thought the SOPMOD was heavier; its bigger, so it has to be heavier, doesn't it? Turns out it isn't, so it doesn't. They're roughly the same weight. I still like the cheek weld of the SOPMOD and Vltor Modstock, but the CTR is what's on my rifle because I like that it's slim while having some of the characteristics of the cheek weld of the others. One thing I wish it did was to be able to run the sling off the top of the stock as with the Vltor, but that's not necessarily a deal breaker. I don't have a problem with the "LE" style stock that most carbines come with these days, except that it doesn't have a thin pad on it. That pad isn't to tame the thunderous recoil of the 5.56 cartridge, although it probably does aid in that a little. What the pad is for is to keep the buttstock from sliding around in your shoulder pocket. Everybody who's opinion I care about is all about leaning on the rifle aggressively, so the Duostock is a non-starter for me. Probably works great for Camp Perry-type competition, though.

I hate the A2 style pistol grip's finger rest, and I have big hands. I went with the Magpul MIAD to get the fattest grip I could. Most of the quality aftermarket grips have a duckbill or tab that covers the gap between the trigger guard and the grip, and that's a tremendous help if you're shooting 1500 rounds over three days. If you don't have that type of grip, stuff a foam ear plug in there or bust out some tape to keep that finger from being rubbed to the bone.

In terms of slings there's only one design to use: the adjustable two point. Blue Force Gear's Vickers Combat Applications Sling (VCAS) and Viking Tactics VTAC are both excellent. BFG's sling doesn't have a running tail when you adjust it and it's wider. The VTAC adjusts faster but has a running end on the adjusting strap. Both are excellent and both work. Get the padded version if you don't wear armor, and get the non-padded if you do. Padded slings with armor are just extra bulk that you don't get any benefit from.

There are two schools of thought on sling placement: the sling can be close in, using an end plate adapter or sling mount that attaches over the receiver extension and at the receiver end of the rail, or off the stock and at the end of the rail. The advantage to running it in close is that it keeps the sling out of the way of your hands when manipulating the carbine, and generally frees up the carbine to be put into position to be reloaded. Pushing the sling out to the ends lets it hang better on the sling and allows the sling to be used as a tensioning device against the forearm to improve steadiness for longer shots. I find more utility in the sling points being pushed further out.

That sling mount is the ACE 1.5" rail grabber mount.

I like that mount more than any other I've used, because all it does is secure the sling to the rail. The problem with most QD sling mounts is that they end up being bulky, or they're not rotation limited. Daniel Defense mounts are, and I've had good luck with them. I just like the lower profile of the Ace part. It's also only about $20, while most of the QD mounts are around $30, or more. Lots of people cite needing to have a QD to dump the rifle in a hurry if they need to. I guess, but are you training that? I found that the way I'll get the rifle off in a hurry if the need ever arises-and since the chances of me being in an armored vehicle, getting rolled over into a canal in the ME is pretty doggone remote-will be to lift the sling off, like I've always done. If you have a need for a QD, by all means use one. If you don't, save some money and simplify things.

As I said, this is a way, but it comes from those smarter and more experienced than I am. However you set up your carbine, do yourself a favor and use the methods of experienced people. If it doesn't work for you, don't do it, but be honest with yourself and your assessment of "not working".

Happy Belated Birthday to Blog

2010-11-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it turns out I missed my own e-birthday. My first post here was Oct. 15th, 2006, a momentous day that will be remembered by both my readers. Oddly, the mayor made no note of it.

I was fairly prolific back then, probably because being online was more fun than work; it wasn't part of my job description like it is now. Additionally, much has changed since then.

Most of what would have been blogged about has been shifted to other outlets, such as Facebook. If you're a celebrity in dire need of telling the world you took a dump again, there's Twitter. I don't care how popular Twitter gets, its still gay. But if you think back a little, there was a time when all there was available was Myspace. That place was called a Digital Ghetto recently, and is most certainly in its decline. Despite being owned by some currently rich kid and having a movie made about it, FB will probably go that way too as something new comes along.

I dunno how much I plan to continue to post, but I'm not going away completely for some time yet. There will be a few more late birthday announcements, I'm sure.

Does this ass make my car look big?

2010-10-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

Shamelessly stolen from my home boy Tatonka:

There's no part as misunderstood as the vertical grip

2010-10-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

For everyone that knows what a vertical grip is, there is an equal number that misunderstand it's purpose. Lots and lots of people want them, but there don't appear to be that many that understand what they do and what they don't do. A little understanding can go a long way towards maximizing its effectiveness...and may lead to doing away with it altogether.

The vertical fore grip, often times abbreviated as VFG, came into use in the SOPMOD kit. SOPMOD Block 1 was quite a while ago, and the standard of the day was a 7" rail-same length as handguards on a carbine length gas system-as well as the AN/PEQ-2 laser and a Surefire Millennium series light (not part of SOPMOD Block 1; that light was an Insight...sadly) was standard issue. With all that, there was no place left on the fore end to put the support hand, so the KAC vertical grip was born. It was a pretty elegant solution for a difficult problem.

But what happened next was where it all went wrong. Photos came back from the war zones with Servicemen that had VFG's on their tricked out (for the time) M4's. Lots of people assumed it was a shooting aid, and started running them as the only thing on their rails (not everyone knew they needed a white light yet; this is still several years ago), figuring that was what they needed to shoot better...or at least look cooler in their minds. Then they started making things worse by running that VFG towards the receiver.

Thanks to America's best gunfighters (they're sometimes called The Artists Formerly Known As and Those of the Burrito Eating Moustaches) ending their time in the Service, a better way to use the VFG was developed. To understand what was better about it, one must first understand what the ultimate goal is: fast and accurate shooting. We're going on a slight detour here for a second. Trust me, it'll be OK. We're coming back to this.

What follows assumes the use of no VFG at all. Essentially, shooting fast and accurate is controlling the muzzle, and by extension, the barrel. So, in order to shoot in various positions as accurately as possible, minimizing movement-controlling the movement of the barrel-is The Key. How does that happen? By putting the support hand as far forward as possible, grabbing as much fore end as possible, and pulling into the shooter's shoulder. This does two things: first, it minimizes the movement of the muzzle, and secondly, it makes driving the gun between targets easier, faster, and more precise. For illustration, here's Kyle Defoor (a former SEAL amongst all the former Delta guys at Tiger Swan Training. He must know some things). Note his support hand placement.

And here's one of the winningest competition shooters that ever lived, Jerry Miculek. Note the similarity to how Kyle D is running his support hand.

I can post pics of this all day, as there are TONS of examples of this style of shooting. Control the muzzle, control and drive the rifle. We can safely call this fact. I can show more examples, but then this post becomes a book.

OK, so back to where we were before. Remember I mentioned that Those That Shall Not Be Named were running their carbines a different way from the rest of the world. What they were doing, and remember that this is several years old by now, was running the vert grip out to the end of their rails. There's some good footage of how they used to do it starting at about the 1 minute mark of this vid on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzHqqTmSnC0
Normally, I wouldn't put out a link like that, but it's been posted more times than I can count over the past two years, so I'm gonna call it pretty much common knowledge.

That's "how they used to do it", because equipment has changed. Notice the rather specialized lights integrated into the vertical grips...which are at the end of the rail. Seeing a pattern here yet? Also of note is that rails have gotten longer. Take a look at the photos that follow. All those fore ends are at least 12" long. Lengthening the rail and having lasers and lights get drastically smaller. That's made shooting better even easier. More on rails and handguards in a later post.

Hopefully, the short vertical grip has become fairly well known since it's introduction. What I don't think has become well known is how to use it. The shorty grips aren't meant to be grabbed in a chicken choking grip, and most people can't unless they have very small hands. They're meant to be a hand stop. Here's Chris Costa of Magpul Dynamics using one exactly that way:
Stickman takes great pics!
Costa uses a little less of the grip than many other users do; he's got his pinkie up against it, where others have the pinkie and ring, and occasionally middle finger against the grip.

That's how it works best. How's it work worst? Run it towards the receiver and chicken choke it. I will guarantee that two shooters of equal capability will be made to look like master and beginner by where they run that grip. Running that grip in and chicken choking it is the worst way to use it. When the goal is to control the barrel, hanging a lever off 90 degrees to it is not the way to make that happen. The closer to the receiver one gets, the more control is sacrificed.

I tried almost every version of VFG's that there are, by putting them to the timer. I set up at 7-10 yards, and shot at a 4" black dot at the beep of the timer, as many rounds as I could keep in the circle in one second. I was a full round a second faster with no vert grip at all vs. even running it to the end of the rail. What I found was that not using the vert grip at all made me both faster and more accurate. Give it a try. Your results will be very similar.

Getting rid of it altogether is where I am right now, although I have acquired another Magpul Angled Fore Grip that I may put back on...again. It doesn't hurt my shooting, but in messing with it, my crew and I found that it works better with a thumb forward grip, whereas I use the "thumb over" or "competition" grip, where the support hand thumb is wrapped over the top of the rail. I may still go back to it, but at this point all my training has been without it. I'm not in a big hurry to do that for myself, but I certainly encourage taking a look at it and seeing if it makes the shooter better. It's not that expensive, so it's a cheap experiment.

However it's approached, as long as the support hand ends up as far down the handguard as possible, that's the right track.

Handguns: How to Choose What to Bet Your Life On

2010-09-26T13:45:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm gonna stir up a hornet's nest among some people by writing this, but so be it. There's really nothing here that I haven't said online all over the place already, but now most of it ("most" because my "stream of unconsciousness" style of writing will probably cause me to miss something) will be in one place to be roundly ignored.

I work in a tactical gear store that also sells guns, primarily in order to sell more holsters. Even with our very narrow focus, we still see a lot of first time gun buyers, or people looking for a home defense/carry gun who have limited experience with handguns. The right call for most of them is also the right call for a more experienced (or even supremely experienced) person, too.

The first question is "what is the job for this particular gun"? Is this a home defense gun or personal protection/carry gun? Why it matters: smaller guns are harder to shoot well, so don't choose a compact unless you need to. A full size gun will be easier to manipulate under most circumstances, so if the purpose is home defense, there's no need to be concerned about concealability. If the purpose is concealment, then a compact or subcompact will be in order. Match the choice to what the purpose for the gun is, and be honest while doing it.

Most people get very wrapped around the axle on caliber choice. It doesn't matter...to a point. There is no way to make smaller and lighter equal to bigger and heavier in absolute terms; it just can't be done. 9mm and .45 are never going to be totally equivalent. There are many accounts of people absorbing large numbers of smaller caliber rounds, while there are none that I've seen of somebody doing the same thing with ten rounds of .45 ACP hollow points. There are other factors that mitigate the question, though.

Here's where the trades are, using 9mm and .45 because they're the most common and disparate. .45 ACP is a big bullet in a big case. It takes up a lot of space. On top of that, it's very expensive, running roughly twice as much as 9mm does per fiddy round box. 9mm is less expensive, has less recoil, and as of right now, far more available. What that means is that a shooter will be able to get more ammunition and train more often with 9mm, making them more proficient. If the budget allowed and ammo was readily available all the time, I'd shoot .45 exclusively and be happy about it. However, ammo cost and availability have to play a part, because training and proficiency with the chosen gun are the most important thing. So, while I'm fully aware that my carry gun is a 9mm and not equivalent to a .40 or .45, I don't feel undergunned because I train weekly and have a lot of practice with it. Also in the "balancing factor" column is 32 rounds of 9mm in the same space that my 1911 would have 17. A .500 Zombieslayer is useless if you can't fight with it (defined as fast, accurate, effective hits). Get what you can afford to feed and can logistically support in order to be as good with it as you can be.

I used to feel like night sights were absolutely required. I don't really think that so much anymore. They're still good to have, but what having a front sight I can reference easily is a lot more important to me than having three glowing dots. As a matter of fact, my preferred sight systems these days are black rear sights with either a tritium or fiber optic front sights and going further, I like a .140" rear notch and a .100-.125" front. The reason for that is that if you're proficient with your pistol, you'll line it up correctly automatically because that's what you've trained to do. If you haven't, you need to, and I'd still suggest night sights for that shooter. Sights can always be changed, so don't choose your protective piece based on sights alone.

I wanted to get a couple other ideas out before I came to the topic of what system to choose and why, because here's where the controversy will come from. There are a whole bunch of different actions out there: DAO, DA/SA, SA, and striker fired. There are probably more, but those are the common ones. I'm a big believer in striker fired actions for a couple reasons: first, they've got a trigger that's the same every time it's pressed, and secondly because they don't make 1911's with strikers. Striker fired actions like the Glock and M&P are much, much easier to master than either the single action of a 1911 or a conventional double action/single action of something like a SIG, Beretta or HK USP or P30, for example. They make it easier for a shooter to get proficient in less time. Let's face it: mastering that initial long double action pull and a short second pull or the preloaded DAK type action of the HK P30 are harder to accomplish than a Glock's or M&P's. Shorter, lighter pulls are easier to shoot well. It's pretty cut and dried. There may be a nebulous "safety" advantage, but poor gun handling is poor gun handling. You're either safe or you're not; there's not much in between.

My recommendations are almost universally for an auto rather than a revolver because of the revolver's ammunition capacity penalty and that they're not significantly more reliable than a duty quality auto is. With a little training, there's no manipulation advantage, either. In fact, revolvers take more grip strength than autos do.

A pistol needs support equipment. That means a duty-quality gun with holsters and magazine pouches for them. The typical shooter will probably want, if not need, more than one style of holster. I wear a belt slide, a Safariland 529, and I also use a Peters Custom Holsters Hold Fast inside-the-waistband rig for more concealed carry, for places like church.

Polymer is preferred. The "why" is simple: the guns cost less and the frames last longer than steel and aluminum do. That equates to a longer service life. Todd Greene shot an MnP to 65,000 rounds before the slide developed a crack and retired it. Glock 9mm's typically go to 35,000 rounds with no significant wear other than springs, which have to be replaced on any gun as they wear out. Glock has some test pistols that have gone to 100,000 rounds. Having a steel or aluminum framed handgun go that long is a rare thing.

Support gear limits choices more drastically than just about anything else, basically trimming the choices down to two: the Glock and the S&W M&P. Every new holster made comes out for the Glock first, and by a huge time margin. The M&P has come along very, very quickly in that respect, whereas all the other guns are a very distant third in release times and new development. The XD, while in the conversation in other areas, falls way, way behind in this respect. When you add spare parts to support gear, the choices really single out.

Are there other quality guns out there? Of course. HK makes probably the most accurate out of the box polymer guns available...at twice the price of the Glock and MnP. I'd still consider it if they made a striker fired auto, even with the price disparity. Their triggers are just too hard to run at the same level that the Glock and MnP are. What about 1911's? That's a topic for another time, but my friend Doug came back from Larry Vickers' 1911 Operator's Course, calling it what most do: The Glock appreciation Course. They're specialist, enthusiast guns now, not duty guns.

Reasonable cost in the reach of most, easy to master, accurate, long service lives, easy parts availability, and accessibility to support gear all add up to the Glock and MnP as the duty guns of choice. They are the dominant duty pistols for a reason, and those reasons also make them the choice for defensive purposes for the individual, too.

Now, that said, let me go on record with this statement: I don't "love" either one of these guns. The guns I love can be counted on one hand, and one of the pistols on that list is my old friend Elle, my 1911A1 custom. When something better comes along, I'll be all over it, and may sell my MnP and Glocks to have it. If I was just starting out, I might have gone with the MnP first, but since I'm old the Glock was already there. I think it's a little too late to switch it all now.

I didn't really want to go this direction: Haji's thoughts on stuff

2010-09-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, other than going to the range and working out, there's not a lot to do in Western KY, especially with the Division deployed. As such, there just isn't that much to blog about...except my opinions on stuff, which are pretty well set, because I'm gettin' old and increasingly grumpy.

I was trying to avoid going this direction, but I've noticed a couple things. First, I see a lot of people posting stuff on the Intardweb that makes it clear they need some help. Why should they listen to me? Because most of my information comes from people much smarter and more experienced than I am. Basically, you're not getting my word, you're getting theirs.

What do I plan to cover? Well...I really need more of a plan to determine that. I have a couple topics I want to go into: a (notice I didn't say "the") proper way to set up an AR, vertical foregrips, polymer framed pistols, the Taurus Judge, training and trainers, why or why not a 1911 and why all 1911's aren't the same, and a few more topics. I haven't determined an order yet; I'm going to have to ponder that and see what comes up.

What can I say? It's either this or no blogging at all. Both my readers rejoice!

I am, of course, opinionated. I am convinced I'm right, until proven otherwise.

Ouch. Sore. This better be worth it.

2010-09-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

I'm a big, fat bastard, and I know it. That's not a really big deal until I come up against something that proves it to me. For me that was Pat Rogers' Carbine Operator's Course. I ran into a couple things I was physically unable to do, and I didn't like that. I started changing my diet in an effort to move towards being able to do what I couldn't do before. I will do them sometime in the future, after more work is done.

To that end, I started on Sunday working out with my home boy Sean. He's much stronger in the upper body than I am, but he's been shot in the leg and has a messed up hip from it, too, so there are things I can do more easily than he can. When he was a full time Infantry guy, he was working out a lot and got pretty doggone big, and crazy strong. Since he's been rehabbing his injuries, he's gained some weight and lost some strength, and wasn't happy about it. He really wanted to start working out again, but it's a lot easier to do that when there's somebody else to do it with. We decided that we were gonna get into this craziness together.

We started on Sunday, doing upper body. That's always funner, and you know where this is going: yeah, I overdid it. I started off going light, but it started being challenging and I pushed too many reps with too much weight, for the first time back to lifting in several years. I was much more sore the second day, and I'm just now starting to feel less pain in those muscles. Honestly, I was kind of dreading doing the lower body work out tonight.

I headed over to Sean's place, and it turns out that he had a month's worth of water (and other stuff) to get out of his rig, and taken to his third floor apartment. That was about a dozen, 32 ounce bottle cases, and a couple extra trips of other supplies. What ended up happening was that by the time we got to the third floor, the burn was pretty hardcore! I tried to push the pace a bit, and I think I succeeded because my legs felt like lead going back down the stairs. But, I helped a friend, and mixed up the workout. I'm not enjoying exercising yet, but that'll probably happen again, especially when I start seeing some good results. It better be worth the effort. ;)

A little something for the heat

2010-08-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

Because it's way hot this week and the A/C is runnin', a little video of cooler times was warranted.

That's my homeboy Blogger Formerly Known As Josh, somewhere in the mountains of Durango, CO a few years ago. We did a snowmobile tour that was pretty cool. I don't care that much about riding snowmobiles, but being out in the mountains on one was a lot of fun. This particular incident took place as our guide went back to find where Amber had dumped her scooter and Beefy, Josh and I were forced to entertain ourselves. The header was by far the best part...other than the Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich posted a while back from that trip.

Something new to take up time

2010-08-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

I finally got tired of seeing our gear in other people's reviews and not hitting as much info as I would like, so Mel and I started shooting vids for YouTube. This is the first of them:

I found out a couple things: first, its a little harder than it seems to be. Second, trying to keep it short and keep the relevant information in the flick takes some planning and forethought. I also found that I hate the sound of my voice when it's recorded, and that my hands have been called "freakishly large". Not a lot I can do about that. Pat Rogers, on several occasions, has called me "a Large Human". I think I have to agree with his assessment. Us Big 'Uns don't look as good on camera. Just the way it is.

Interest seems to be strong. If nothing else, it's something different to do at work every once in a while, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission.

?

2010-07-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

I find this hard to believe, but I've been off from work for a week, and didn't come up with a single thing worth blogging about. Maybe something good will happen tomorrow.

Grilled Wonder Chicken

2010-06-20T21:19:00.001-07:00

I have been exceptionally neglectful of my blogging duties, especially since LF has been down due to server migration issues on our host's end. That should have freed up time to blog, but I generally stayed offline instead. Guess I needed a break or somethin'.

So, in order to have something new to post, I'll tell you about my latest kitchen kitbashing creation: Grilled Wonder Chicken, BBQ Style. Now, I'm generally a pretty simple cook in terms of spices. The only thing that goes on a steak for me is some EVOO, ground pepper and sea salt. I take a similar approach with chicken, because I just like the taste of chicken. However, I was in the mood for something different, so I messed around and got good results from this.

I'm not a skilled cook, I just know how to prepare meat with fire so that it's not undercooked and dangerous. I found that I was getting a little bored with what I already had going on, so I tried this: as usual, I rinsed some boneless skinless thighs, and set 'em out to get to room temperature, which didn't take very long at all. Next I gave 'em a touch of oil so the spices would have something to stick to, and because I like the taste. Next I dusted both sides with Weber's Smokey Mesquite seasoning, and gave 'em a shot of Dillo Dust while I was at it. It was close by, so on it went. I let it sit a bit so it'd stick to the bird better.

I got the grill hot, after warming it up and running a gas canister dry, and tonged the yard bird onto the high heat grill. After searing for a bit, I flipped 'em so as not to burn the spices already attached. I reduced the heat a bit to medium, and then started basting el pollo with some Jack Daniel's Spicy Original barbecue sauce, and closed the lid. this let the sauce glaze on the Leghorn, which is something I haven't really done before. Normally, I'll salt/pepper/sauce 'em before they go on, but did it different this time and was quite pleased with the results.

Because the sauce cooked on the bird somewhat less, more of the flavor came through, and the little bit of heat from the Smokey Mesquite spices was a nice change. I'm gonna do 'em like this again, and see if there's another tweak I can do.

I added some corn and potato salad, and a huge glass of iced tea. That worked downright well.

What can I say? I'm an unskilled bachelor. We can't all be Emeril.

Wyatt Earp's OK Corral Gunfight Testimony

2010-05-04T21:10:00.001-07:00

Recently, the original court documents from Tombstone, AZ. pertaining to the Gunfight at the OK Corral were found in the courthouse in Bisbee, AZ. These were not copies, these were originals. Talk about a piece of history! They've been turned over to the AZ State Archives for preservation. I found Wyatt Earp's testimony online-linked in the title of this post-and to say that I've been fascinated by it would be an understatement.

I've copied his statement from the law.umkc.edu website. There's a very good synopsis and related trial information here on the Famous Trials/OK Corral site. The actual history recorded in the documents is really, really interesting.

Statement of Wyatt S. Earp
in the Preliminary Hearing in the Earp-Holliday Case,
Heard before Judge Wells Spicer

November 16, 1881

Source: Turner, Alford (Ed.), The O. K. Corral Inquest (1992)

Wyatt S. Earp

On this sixteenth day of November, 1881, upon the hearing of the above entitled action, on the examination of Wyatt Earp and J. H. Holliday, the prosecution having closed their evidence in chief, and the defendants, Wyatt Earp and J. H. Holliday, having first been informed of his rights to make a statement as provided in Section 133, page 22 of the laws of Arizona, approved February 12, 1881, and the said Wyatt Earp having chosen to make a statement under oath and having been personally sworn, makes such statement under oath in answer to interrogatories as follows:

(Q) What is your name and age?

(A) My name is Wyatt Earp: 32 years old last March the 19th.

(Q) Where were you born?

(A) In Monmouth, Warren County, Illinois.

(Q) Where do you reside and how long have you resided there?

(A) I reside in Tombstone, Cochise County Arizona: since December 1, 1879.

(Q) What is your business and profession?

(A) Saloon keeper at present. Also have been Deputy Sheriff and also a detective.

(Q) Give any explanations you may think proper of the circumstances appearing in the testimony against you, and state any facts which you think will tend to your exculpation.

(A) The difficulty which resulted in the death of William Clanton and Frank McLaury originated last spring, [Objection made by prosecution against the defendant, Wyatt Earp, in making his statement, of using a manuscript from which to make such statement, and object to the said defendant being allowed to make statement without limit as to it relevancy. Objection overruled.] and at a little over a year ago, I followed Tom and Frank McLaury and two other parties who had stolen six government mules from Camp Rucker. Myself, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp, and Marshall Williams, Captain Hurst and four soldiers; we traced those mules to McLaury's ranch. [Prosecution moved to strike out the foregoing statement as irrelevant. Objection overruled.]

While at Charleston I met a man by the name of Dave Estes. He told me I would find the mules at McLaury's ranch. He said he had seen them there the day before. He said they were branding the mules "D S," making the "D. S." out [of] "D. S." We tracked the mules right up to the ranch. Also found the branding iron "D. S." Afterwards, some of those mules were found with the same brand.

After we arrived at McLaury's ranch, there was a man by the name of Frank Patterson. He made some kind of a compromise with Captain Hurst. Captain Hurst come to us boys and told us he had made this compromise, and by so doing, he would get his mules back. We insisted on following them up. Hurst prevailed on us to go back to Tombstone, and so we came back. Hurst told us two or three weeks afterwards, that they would not give up the mules to him after we left, saying that they only wanted to get us away, that they could stand the soldiers off. Captain Hurst cautioned me and my brothers, Virgil and Morgan, to look out for those men, as they had made some threats against our lives.

About one month after we had followed up those mules. I met Frank and Tom McLaury in Charleston. They tried to pick a fuss out of me down there, and told me if I ever followed them up again as close as I did before, they would kill me. Shortly after the time Bud Philpot was killed by the men who tried to rob the Benson stage, as a detective [working for Wells, Fargo & Co.] I helped trace the matter up, and I was satisfied that three men, named Billy Leonard, Harry Head, and James Crane were in that robbery. I knew that Leonard, Head and Crane were friends and associates of the Clan tons and McLaurys and often stopped at their ranches.

It was generally understood among officers and those who have information about criminals, that Ike Clanton was sort of chief among the cowboys that the Clantons and McLaurys were cattle thieves and generally in the secret of the stage robbery, and that the Clanton and McLaury ranches were meeting places and places of shelter for the gang.

I had an ambition to be Sheriff of this County at the next election, and I thought it would be a great help to me with the people and businessmen if I could capture the men who killed Philpot. There were rewards offered of about $1,200 each for the capture of the robbers. Altogether there was about $3,600 offered for their capture. I thought this sum might tempt Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury to give away Leonard, Head, and Crane, so I went to Ike Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Joe Hill when they came to town. I had an interview with them in the back yard of the Oriental Saloon. I told them what I wanted. I told them I wanted the glory of capturing Leonard, Head, and Crane and if I could do it, it would help me make the race for Sheriff at the next election. I told them if they would put me on the track of Leonard, Head, and Crane, and tell me where those men were hid; I would give them all the reward and would never let anyone know where I got the information.

Ike Clanton said he would like to see them captured. He said that Leonard claimed a ranch that he claimed, and that if he could get him out of the way, he would have no opposition in regard to the ranch. Clanton said that Leonard, Head, and Crane would make a fight, that they would never be taken alive, and that I must find out if the reward would be paid for the capture of the robbers dead or alive. I then went to Marshall Williams, the agent of Wells, Fargo & Co., in this town and at my request, he telegraphed to the agent, or superintendent, in San Francisco to find out if the reward would be paid for the robbers dead or alive. He received, in June, 1881, a telegram, which he showed me, promising the reward would be paid dead or alive.

The next day I met Ike Clanton and Joe Hill on Allen Street in front of a little cigar store next to the Alhambra. I told them that the dispatch had come. I went to Marshall Williams and told him I wanted to see the dispatch for a few minutes. He went to look for it and could not find it, but went over to the telegraph office and got a copy of it, and he came back and gave it to me. I went and showed it to Ike Clanton and Joe Hill and returned it to Marshall Williams, and afterwards told Frank McLaury of its contents.

It was then agreed between us that they were to have all the $3,600 reward, outside of necessary expenses for horse hire in going after them, and that Joe Hill should go to where Leonard, Head, and Crane were hid, over near Yreka, in New Mexico, and lure them in near Frank and Tom McLaury's ranch near Soldier's Holes, 30 miles from here, and I would be on hand with a posse and capture them.

I asked Joe Hill, Ike Clanton, and Frank McLaury what tale they would make them to get them over here. They said they had agreed upon a plan to tell them there would be a paymaster going from Tombstone to Bisbee, to payoff the miners, and they wanted them to come in and take him in. Ike Clanton then sent Joe Hill to bring them 'in. Before starting, Joe Hill took off his watch and chain and between two and three hundred dollars in money, and gave it to Virgil Earp to keep for him until he got back. He was gone about ten days and returned with the word that he got there a day too late; that Leonard and Harry Head had been killed the day before he got there by horse thieves. I learned afterward that the thieves had been killed subsequently by members of the Clanton and McLaury gang.

After that, Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury claimed that I had given them away to Marshall Williams and Doc Holliday, and when they came in town, they shunned us, and Morgan, Virgil Earp, Doc Holliday and myself began to hear their threats against us.

I am a friend of Doc Holliday because when I was city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, he came to my rescue and saved my life when I was surrounded by desperadoes.

About a month or more ago [October 1881], Morgan Earp and myself assisted to arrest Stilwell and Spence on the charge of robbing the Bisbee stage. The McLaurys and Clan tons were always friendly with Spence and Stilwell, and they laid the whole blame of their arrest on us, though the fact is, we only went as a sheriff's posse. After we got in town with Spence and Stilwell, Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury came in.

Frank McLaury took Morgan Earp into the street in front of the Alhambra, where John Ringo, Ike Clanton, and the two Hicks boys were also standing. Frank McLaury commenced to abuse Morgan Earp for going after Spence and Stilwell. Frank McLaury said he would never speak to Spence again for being arrested by us.

He said to Morgan, "If you ever come after me, you will never take me." Morgan replied that if he ever had occasion to go after him, he would arrest him. Frank McLaury then said to Morgan Earp, "I have threatened you boys' lives, and a few days later I had taken it back, but since this arrest, it now goes." Morgan made no reply and walked off.

Before this and after this, Marshall Williams, Farmer Daly, Ed Barnes, Old Man Urrides, Charley Smith and three or four others had told us at different times of threats to kill us, by Ike Clanton, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Joe Hill, and John Ringo. I knew all these men were desperate and dangerous men, that they were connected with outlaws, cattle thieves, robbers and murderers. I knew of the McLaurys stealing six government mules, and also cattle, and when the owners went after them finding his stock on the McLaury's ranch; that he was drove off and told that if he ever said anything about it, he would be killed, and he kept his mouth shut until several days ago, for fear of being killed.

I heard of John Ringo shooting a man down in cold blood near Camp Thomas.5 I was satisfied that Frank and Tom McLaury killed and robbed Mexicans in Skeleton Canyon, about three or four months ago, and I naturally kept my eyes open and did not intend that any of the gang should get the drop on me if I could help it.

Ike Clanton met me at the Alhambra five or six weeks ago and told me I had told Holliday about this transaction, concerning the capture of Head, Leonard, and Crane. I told him I had never told Holliday anything. I told him when Holliday came up from Tucson I would prove it. Ike said that Holliday had told him so. When Holliday came back I asked him if he said so.

On the night of the 25th of October, Holliday met Ike Clanton in the Alhambra Saloon and asked him about it. Clanton denied it. They quarreled for three or four minutes. Holliday told Clanton he was a damned liar, if he said so. I was sitting eating lunch at the lunch counter. Morgan Earp was standing at the Alhambra bar talking with the bartender. I called him over to where I was sitting, knowing that he was an officer and told him that Holliday and Clanton were quarreling in the lunch room and for him to go in and stop it. He climbed over the lunch room counter from the Alhambra bar and went into the room, took Holliday by the arm and led him into the street. Ike Clanton in a few seconds followed them out. I got through eating and walked out of the bar. As I stopped at the door of the bar, they were still quarreling.

Just then Virgil Earp came up, I think out of the Occidental, and told them, Holliday and Clanton, if they didn't stop their quarreling he would have to arrest them. They all separated at that time, Morgan Earp going down the street to the Oriental Saloon, Ike going across the street to the Grand Hotel. I walked in the Eagle Brewery where I had a faro game which I had not closed. I stayed in there for a few minutes and walked out to the street and there met Ike Clanton. He asked me if I would take a walk with him, that he wanted to talk to me. I told him I would if he did not go too far, as I was waiting for my game in the Brewery to close, and I would have to take care of the money. We walked about halfway down the brewery building, going down Fifth Street and stopped.

He told me when Holliday approached him in the Alhambra that he wasn't fixed just right. He said that in the morning he would have man-for-man, that this fighting talk had been going on for a long time, and he guessed it was about time to fetch it to a close. I told him I would not fight no one if I could get away from it, because there was no money in it. He walked off and left me saying, "I will be ready for you in the morning."

I walked over to the Oriental. He followed me in and took a drink, having his six-shooter in plain sight. He says, "You must not think I won't be after you all in the morning." He said he would like to make a fight with Holliday now. I told him Holliday did not want to fight, but only to satisfy him that this talk had not been made. About that time the man that is dealing my game closed it and brought the money to me. I locked it in the safe and started home. I met Holliday on the street between the Oriental and Alhambra. Myself and Holliday walked down Allen Street, he going to his room, and I to my house, going to bed.

I got up the next day, October 26, about noon. Before I got up, Ned Boyle came to me and told me that he met Ike Clanton on Allen Street near the telegraph office, that Ike was armed, that he said, "as soon as those damned Earps make their appearance on the street today the ball will open, we are here to make a fight. We are looking for the sons-of-bitches!" I laid in bed some little time after that, and got up and went down to the Oriental Saloon.

Harry Jones came to me after I got up and said, "What does all this mean?" I asked him what he meant. He says, "Ike Clanton is hunting you boys with a Winchester rifle and six-shooter." I said, "I will go down and find him and see what he wants." I went out and on the comer of Fifth and Allen I met Virgil Earp, the marshal. He told me how he heard Ike Clanton was hunting us. I went down Allen Street and Virgil went down Fifth Street and then Fremont Street. Virgil found Ike Clanton on Fourth Street near Fremont Street, in the mouth of an alleyway.

I walked up to him and said, "I hear you are hunting for some of us." I was coming down Fourth Street at the time. Ike Clanton then threw his Winchester rifle around toward Virgil. Virgil grabbed it and hit Ike Clanton with his six-shooter and knocked him down. Clanton had his rifle and his six-shooter was in his pants. By that time I came up. Virgil and Morgan Earp took his rifle and six-shooter and took them to the Grand Hotel after examination, and I took Ike Clanton before Justice Wallace.

Before the investigation, Morgan Earp had Ike Clanton in charge, as Virgil Earp was out at the time. After I went into Wallace's Court and sat down on a bench, Ike Clanton looked over to me and said, "I will get even with all of you for this. If I had a six-shooter now I would make a fight with all of you." Morgan Earp then said to him, "If you want to make a fight right bad, I will give you this one!” at the same time offering Ike Clanton his own six-shooter.

Ike Clanton started to get up and take it, when Campbell, the deputy sheriff, pushed him back in his seat, saying he would not allow any fuss. I never had Ike Clanton's arms at any time, as he stated.

I would like to describe the positions we occupied in the courtroom. Ike Clanton sat on a bench with his face fronting to the north wall of the building. I myself sat down on a bench that ran against and along the north wall in front of where Ike sat. Morgan Earp stood up on his feet with his back against the wall and to the right of where I sat, and two or three feet from me.

Morgan Earp had Ike Clanton's Winchester in his hand, like this, with one end on the floor, with Clanton's six-shooter in his right hand. We had them all the time. Virgil Earp was not in the courtroom during any of this time and came there after I had walked out. He was out, he told me, hunting for Judge Wallace.

I was tired of being threatened by Ike Clanton and his gang and believe from what he said to me and others, and from their movements that they intended to assassinate me the first chance they had, and I thought that if I had to fight for my life with them I had better make them face me in an open fight. So I said to Ike Clanton, who was then sitting about eight feet away from me. "You damned dirty cow thief, you have been threatening our lives and I know it. I think I would be justified in shooting you down any place I should meet you, but if you are anxious to make a fight, I will go anywhere on earth to make a fight with you, even over to the San Simon among your crowd!" He replied, "I will see you after I get through here. I only want four feet of ground to fight on!"

I walked out and then just outside of the courtroom near the Justice's Office, I met Tom McLaury. He came up to me and said to me, "If you want to make a fight I will make a fight with you anywhere." I supposed at the time that he had heard what had just transpired between Ike Clanton and myself. I knew of his having threatened me, and I felt just as I did about Ike Clanton and if the fight had to come, I had better have it come when I had an even show to defend myself. So I said to him, "All right, make a fight right here!" And at the same time slapped him in the face with my left hand and drew my pistol with my right. He had a pistol in plain sight on his right hip in his pants, but made no move to draw it. I said to him, "Jerk your gun and use it!" He made no reply and I hit him on the head with my six-shooter and walked away, down to Hafford's Corner. I went into Hafford's and got a cigar and came out and stood by the door.

Pretty soon after I saw Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and William Clanton pass me and went down Fourth Street to the gunsmith shop. I followed them to see what they were going to do. When I got there, Frank McLaury's horse was standing on the sidewalk with his head in the door of the gun shop. I took the horse by the bit, as I was deputy city marshal, and commenced to back him off the sidewalk. Tom and Frank and Billy Clanton came to the door. Billy Clanton laid his hand on his six-shooter. Frank McLaury took hold of the horse's bridle and I said, "You will have to get this horse off the sidewalk." He backed him off into the street. Ike Clanton came up about this time and they all walked into the gun shop. I saw them in the gun shop changing cartridges into their belts. They came out of the shop and walked along Fourth Street to the comer of Allen Street. I followed them as far as the comer of Fourth and Allen Streets. They went down Allen Street and over to Dunbar's Corral. [Dunbar and Behan.]

Virgil Earp was then city marshal; Morgan Earp was a special policeman for six weeks or two months, wore a badge and drew pay. I had been sworn in Virgil's place, to act for him while Virgil was gone to Tucson on Spence's and Stilwell's trial. Virgil had been back several days but I was still acting and I knew it was Virgil's duty to disarm those men. I expected he would have trouble in doing so, and I followed up to give assistance if necessary, especially as they had been threatening us, as I have already stated.

About ten minutes afterwards, and while Virgil, Morgan, Doc Holliday and myself were standing on the comer of Fourth and Allen Streets, several people said, "There is going to be trouble with those fellows," and one man named Coleman said to Virgil Earp, "They mean trouble. They have just gone from Dunbar's Corral into the O.K. Corral, all armed, and I think you had better go and disarm them." Virgil turned around to Doc Holliday, Morgan Earp and myself and told us to come and assist him in disarming them.

Morgan Earp said to me, "They have horses, had we not better get some horses ourselves, so that if they make a running fight we can catch them?" I said, "No, if they try to make a running fight we can kill their horses and then capture them."

We four started through Fourth to Fremont Street. When we turned the comer of Fourth and Fremont we could see them standing near or about the vacant space between Fly's photograph gallery and the next building west. I first saw Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton and Sheriff Behan standing there. We went down the left-hand side of Fremont Street.

When we got within about 150 feet of them I saw Ike Clanton and Billy Clanton and another party. We had walked a few steps further and I saw Behan leave the party and come toward us. Every few steps he would look back as if he apprehended danger. I heard him say to Virgil Earp, "For God's sake, don't go down there, you will get murdered!" Virgil Earp replied, "I am going to disarm them." he, Virgil, being in the lead. When I and Morgan came up to Behan he said, "I have disarmed them." When he said this, I took my pistol, which I had in my hand, under my coat, and put it in my overcoat pocket. Behan then passed up the street, and we walked on down.

We came up on them close; Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton standing in a row against the east side of the building on the opposite side of the vacant space west of Fly's photograph gallery. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne and a man I don't knows were standing in the vacant space about halfway between the photograph gallery and the next building west.

I saw that Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury had their hands by their sides, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton's six-shooters were in plain sight. Virgil said, "Throw up your hands; I have come to disarm you!" Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury laid their hands on their six-shooters. Virgil said, "Hold, I don't mean that!" I have come to disarm you!" Then Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury commenced to draw their pistols. At the same time, Tom McLaury throwed his hand to his right hip, throwing his coat open like this, [showing how] and jumped behind his horse. [Actually it was Billy Clanton's horse.]

I had my pistol in my overcoat pocket, where I had put it when Behan told us he had disarmed the other parties. When I saw Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury draw their pistols, I drew my pistol. Billy Clanton leveled his pistol at me, but I did not aim at him. I knew that Frank McLaury had the reputation of being a good shot and a dangerous man, and I aimed at Frank McLaury. The first two shots were fired by Billy Clanton and myself, he shooting at me, and I shooting at Frank McLaury. I don't know which was fired first. We fired almost together. The fight then became general. After about four shots were fired, Ike Clanton ran up and grabbed my left arm. I could see no weapon in his hand, and thought at the time he had none, and so I said to him, "The fight had commenced. Go to fighting or get away,” at the same time pushing him off with my left hand, like this. He started and ran down the side of the building and disappeared between the lodging house and photograph gallery.

My first shot struck Frank McLaury in the belly. He staggered off on the sidewalk but fired one shot at me. When we told them to throw up their hands Claiborne threw up his left hand and broke and ran. I never saw him afterwards until late in the afternoon, after the fight. I never drew my pistol or made a motion to shoot until after Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their pistols. If Tom McLaury was unarmed, I did not know it, I believe he was armed and fired two shots at our party before Holliday, who had the shotgun, fired and killed him. If he was unarmed, there was nothing in the circumstances or in what had been communicated to me, or in his acts or threats, that would have led me even to suspect his being unarmed.

I never fired at Ike Clanton, even after the shooting commenced, because I thought he was unarmed. I believed then, and believe now, from the acts I have stated and the threats I have related and the other threats communicated to me by other persons as having been made by Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and Ike Clanton, that these men last named had formed a conspiracy to murder my brothers, Morgan and Virgil, Doc Holliday and myself. I believe I would have been legally and morally justified in shooting any of them on sight, but I did not do so, nor attempt to do so. I sought no advantage when I went as deputy marshal [city marshal] to help disarm them and arrest them. I went as a part of my duty and under the direction of my brother, the marshal; I did not intend to fight unless it became necessary in self-defense and in the performance of official duty. When Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their pistols, I knew it was a fight for life, and I drew in defense of my own life and the lives of my brothers and Doc Holliday.

I have been in Tombstone since December 1, 1879. I came here directly from Dodge City, Kansas. Against the protest of businessmen and officials, I resigned the office of city marshal, which I held from 1876. I came to Dodge City from Wichita, Kansas. I was on the police force in Wichita from 1874 until I went to Dodge City.

The testimony of Isaac Clanton that I ever said to him that I had anything to do with any stage robbery or giving information to Morgan Earp going on the stage, or any improper communication whatever with any criminal enterprise is a tissue of lies from beginning to end.

Sheriff Behan made me an offer in his office on Allen Street in the back room of a cigar store, where he, Behan, had his office, that if I would withdraw and not try to get appointed sheriff of Cochise County, that he would hire a clerk and divide the profits. I done so, and he never said another word about it afterwards, but claimed in his statement and gave his reason for not complying with his contract, which is false in every particular.

Myself and Doc Holliday happened to go to Charleston the night that Behan went down there to subpoena Ike Clanton. We went there for the purpose to get a horse that I had had stolen from me a few days after I came to Tombstone. I had heard several times that the Clan tons had him. When I got there that night, I was told by a friend of mine that the man that carried the dispatch from Charleston to Ike Clanton's ranch had rode my horse. At this time I did not know where Ike Clanton's ranch was.

A short time afterwards I was in the Huachucas locating some water rights. I had started home to Tombstone. I had got within 12 or 15 miles of Charleston when I met a man named McMasters. He told me if I would hurry up, I would find my horse in Charleston. I drove into Charleston and saw my horse going through the streets toward the corral. I put up for the night in another corral. I went to Burnett's office to get papers for the recovery of the horse. He was not at home having gone down to Sonora to some coal fields that had been discovered. I telegraphed to Tombstone to James Earp and told him to have papers made out and sent to me. He went to Judge Wallace and Mr. Street. They made the papers out and sent them to Charleston by my youngest brother, Warren Earp, that night. While I was waiting for the papers, Billy Clanton found out that I was in town and went and tried to take the horse out of the corral. I told him that he could not take him out, that it was my horse. After the papers came, he gave the horse up without the papers being served, and asked me if I had any more horses to lose. I told him I would keep them in the stable after this, and give him no chance to steal them.

I give here, as part of the statement, a document sent me from Dodge City since my arrest on this charge, which I wish attached to this statement and marked "Exhibit A."

[Here counsel for the Prosecution objects to this paper being introduced or used for, or attached as an exhibit as a part of this statement, on the ground that the paper is not on its face, a statement of the defendant, but a statement of other persons made long after the alleged commission of this crime. Counsel for the Defense objects to any objections interpolated by counsel for the prosecution in a statutory statement made by the party charged with crime, for the reason that the law contemplates such statement shall not be interrupted by the court, the counsel for the prosecution, or the counsel for the defense, or for the further reason that it is perfect evidence of character lacking only the absurd formality. Objection of counsel for prosecution overruled and the paper ordered to be filed as part of this statement.]

In relation to the conversation that I had with Ike Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Joe Hill was four or five different times, and they were all held in the backyard of the Oriental Saloon.

I told Ike Clanton in one of those conversations that there were some parties here in town that were trying to give Doc Holliday the worst of it by their talk, that there was some suspicion that he knew something about the attempted robbery and killing of Bud Philpot, and if I could catch Leonard, Head, and Crane, I could prove to the citizens that he knew nothing of it.

In following the trail of Leonard, Head, and Crane, we struck it at the scene of the attempted robbery, and never lost the trail or hardly a footprint from the time we started from Drew's ranch on the San Pedro, until we got to Helm's ranch in the Dragoons. After following about 80 miles down the San Pedro River and capturing one of the men named King that was supposed to be with them, we then crossed the Catalina Mountains within 15 miles of Tucson following their trail around the foot of the mountain to Tres Alamos on the San Pedro River, thence to the Dragoons to Helm's ranch.

We then started out from Helm's ranch and got on their trail. They had stolen 15 or 20 head of stock, so as to cover their trail. Virgil Earp and Morgan Earp, Robert H. Paul, Breakenridge the deputy sheriff, Johnny Behan the sheriff and one or two others still followed their trail to New Mexico.

Their trail never led south from Helm's ranch as Ike Clanton has stated. We used every effort we could to capture those men or robbers. I was out ten days. Virgil and Morgan Earp were out sixteen days, and [we] all done all we could to catch those men, and I safely say if it had not been for myself and Morgan Earp they would not have got King as he started to run when we rose up to his hiding place and was making for a big patch of brush on the river and would have got in it, if [it] had not been for us two.

[Signed] Wyatt S. Earp

Weather, and a lot of it!

2010-05-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty lucky this year so far. While I knew we'd be getting rain this weekend, I didn't really expect to get two + solid days of rain. The time between showers has been short, and even when we've gotten short periods where it wasn't coming down, it seemed that it didn't take long to get dumped on all over again.

Here where I live outside Fort Campbell, we've gotten lots of rain and a handful of tornado warnings, but the tornadoes stayed away. That's the power of prayer, I'm sure. However, down in TN near Nashville, there were a few that came in fast and did considerable damage. There are, IIRC, at least six dead from this storm, although coverage hasn't been good enough to tell whether it was due to flooding or tornadic activity. What I do know is that those folks have been hit HARD by water. Roadways washed away, rivers and streams overflowing their banks and having fish swimming in the roadways. It normally takes a third world country to see devastation on this level.

I've been praying a lot. I have two friends that have roof damage from the previous storms that are dealing with a ton of rain now. So far it hasn't been me. Thank you, God.

I took the trash out a little while ago, went to start up the steps, and found out that the steps are really wet and slick. Ended up bouncing foot and knee off step and plowing up quite a bit of mud while I was at it. Abrasions from the edge of the steps is not pleasant to the ankles. I don't recommend it.

Training Courses: thoughts on gear for the new student

2010-04-21T21:26:00.001-07:00

In my previous post, I discussed some of my thoughts and some answers to questions that I had as a first time three day carbine class student. Since I didn't touch on what gear I ran and how it worked out much, I figured I'd about double the amount of posts I'm putting up in a typical month and see if I can knock this missive out before I fall asleep and bash my head into my desk. Funny, of course, but I don't like having to explain those black eyes at work. It also damages my Intardweb Celebrity. Can't have that.

To me, gear is something that deserves some thought before a class. Because I believe in train as you fight, getting too much gear can be a hindrance rather than a help to being able to apply what you learn. If you're a SWAT cop or door kickin' Soldier, then it makes a lot of sense to run the course in your duty gear, including armor. That's how you're going to be doing it for real, so the most value will be in training in your gear. If that's not what you do, though, running a lot of gear just to look cool may soon get in the way and stop you from learning. When you figure that going to a class far enough away that you'll have to stay away from home to go is going to cost you a thousand dollars or more, having a breach in learning is a catastrophic failure.

I'm gonna tell you what I ran in the class, and then I'm going to point out a couple issues that had to be worked around or changed. I did find some things that didn't work out as I had planned. That happens when new gear goes to class.

I had to carry four to five magazines per relay, which I did by a chest rig and a first line belt. I gotta shoot some photos, but that may have to wait till after the match this weekend. I also needed two to three pistol magazines. That number is variable because I wasn't using them a lot and I'm not certain I truly needed more than one spare. It was handy to have a pair, and I compete with a double pistol magazine pouch, so I think I'd have preferred that in any case.

My chest rig is the ATS Low Profile Chest Harness, which I carried four magazines and a tourniquet in. The harness holds three magazines in pouches, and has two upright utility pouches hard sewn to it. I used the right hand pouch to hold a Tac Med Tourniquet. The left hand pouch did multiple duty. I typically used it to carry an M4 magazine, but I also used it for my fourth MnP 9 magazine, and also for loose rounds. The thing that's different about my harness is that it was made of 500D (denier) instead of 1000D Cordura. It's about half the weight and about 70% of the strength of the heavier "thousand d" harness. For a training rig, it's just about perfect. I'm fairly sure they'll be available in the near future, but I'm not certain when.

I used an ATS War Belt for my belt kit, and for training, I found a lot to like about this rig. I ran an ATS War Belt Insert Belt, which turned out to be much better than I expected it to be. Its a flexible belt, which usually doesn't bode well for hanging a holster from it. Flexible belts will sag under the weight of the holster. However, since the inside of the War Belt is lined with hard side Velcro and the Insert Belt is soft side Velcro, they pretty much lock together. I also used ATS suspenders on that belt.

On the War Belt, I used a Safariland ALS holster for a S&W M&P9 with an X300 light from Surefire. The holster is attached to a UBL (Universal Belt Loop), which drops it down below the belt 2". The bottom of the War Belt is left open for just this purpose. That way, the hanger runs off the inner belt, rather than taking up valuable PALS webbing on the War Belt's outside. I also used a 500D Roll Up Dump Pouch from ATS behind my left hip, and used a Safariland M77 single M4 magazine pouch. This was used as a "speed pouch", and was typically where I was keeping the mag I used when I needed it fast or where I kept the magazine I loaded out of when doing the five round loads of the Modified Navy Qual. That was attached to the belt with a Safariland MLS hook. I also have the belt loop and ELS mounting systems, but those are for different purposes. Its a very flexible system.

I initially tried running an ATS double magazine pouch on my War Belt, by my Viking Tactics VTAC sling was getting caught on it. Early on, I moved it to the front of the Low Profile Chest Harness (LPCH from now on). That was somewhat less natural for me, since I pistol reload off the left hip, but I didn't find any other issues other than that the sling occasionally had to be moved over to access the mags. I could have hung them on the utility pouch, but since it's much less rigid, I decided that there'd be more trouble trying to get the mags out of a pouch that wasn't against a "solid" surface. The pouch didn't shift or flop on the left most magazine pouch of the LPCH, so that's where I ran it.

I ran a prototype hydration carrier from ATS specifically for ATS chest harnesses. It's not a final version, but that's gonna be a heck of a good seller. It's money and it probably doesn't even know it...but I do.

My carbine has been listed here several times, but I'll get some new pics of it and throw them in the gear photos that I'm gonna take. The only thing that's changed is that I've added XTM panels from Magpul to the rail, but she's so sexy I can't help but post photos of that gun.

I preloaded my 25 Magpul PMags. After talking to some friends that have done lots of training, and to Pat Rogers about this, I've come to believe there are advantages to preloading even more magazines, to the tune of 40-60. Loading 40 will get you about a thousand rounds in magazines. Why that's important is that other students will have done that. They're relaxing, hydrating, and talking to each other. There is much to be learned from other students, and it may or may not have something to do with guns, gear, or training related stuff. If you're jamming mags, you're going to be less able to be a part of that. The advantage of preloading even more is that you can just dump the partial magazines and grab full ones. Less time messing with loading is more time to spend talking to and listening to the instructor and other students. ABL: Always Be Learning.

It was amazingly hot and humid during the three days I took the class initially, so I wore long sleeve shirts. Wicking shirts are something I consider a must-have. Long sleeve wicking shirts would be even better. They do so much to keep you as cool as you can be under those conditions that they're almost life saving equipment. When Joe and I went back on Sunday for the second class, it was a good ten degrees cooler and breezy. The weather was much better, and I ran a short sleeve t-shirt and a lot of Bullfrog waterproof sunscreen. A long sleeve wicking shirt would have been money, and Joe confirmed that...because that's what he had on.

Because of the amount of time spent on the ground, long pants are a must. I used 5.11 tactical pants, because that's what I have. They gave 'em to me; I kinda have to use it when it's free and it works pretty good. I also used knee pads. In my case, they were Alta Superflex buckle knee pads. Joe borrowed my Black Diamond Telekneesis pads, and said they were a life (or knee) saver. Another good one to take a look at are the Hatch X-Factor pads. Elbow pads are not a bad idea. My elbows got some minor dings, and I would have used pads if I'd had them. For that job, I'd go with neoprene pads for their flexibility and comfort. Finally, I ran good ThorLo and Lorpin socks and a pair of The North Face hiking shoes. Ankle support is a good thing on uneven terrain, when shooting and moving and some running is involved.

My go-to-the-range, concealed and open carry belt is the same old black Aker gunbelt I've had since mid-'05. It refuses to die. I carried my Glock 19 to the range in a Peters Custom Holsters "Hold Fast" IWB rig. It's good stuff.

I think that's all of it. I may edit this later if I think of anything else or I get a good question about something I missed. Pics will be coming soon, probably over the weekend. I'm falling over and have to go to bed.

Training Courses: thoughts for the new student

2010-04-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

I just got back from three days of the Carbine Operator's Course, taught by the legendary Pat Rogers. This particular class took place in Columbia, TN, a short ways south of Nashvegas, TN. I wanted to blog about this class after the first hour, but as time and training went by, I decided I wanted to take a little different look at it, and not just do another AAR; there are already several very good ones from the class. That would mean this post would have to be taken down the hall to the Department of Redundancy Department.

Instead, I'd like to offer my observations as a new student, to the potential new student who's thinking about taking a class for the first time. This was the first gun fighting course I've taken, although I wouldn't call myself untrained in that area. As a frame of reference, here's a snapshot of what I've done so both readers of my blog can determine where I'm coming from: beginning, intermediate and advanced tactical handgun at Grossmont College in San Diego (through the Administration of Justice department), and training with friends who've trained with several known instructors and are instructors themselves. Most of what I've done has been informal, but the quality of instruction was very good, and I practice those manipulation repetitions regularly.

This will consist of determining if the course is appropriate, what to expect, and some thoughts on what to bring. Out of curiosity, I did some searching before the class, and didn't see anything like this done already. I'm sure that means it's probably not needed, but it's my blog and I don't have to pay for the hosting. Up it goes!

There are two things I consider to be very important that I'm sure get the least amount of attention: knowing who the instructor is and the course description. Knowing who the instructor is becomes important not so much as what he'll teach as what level he's teaching to. Larry Vickers has an introductory class that reads like a beginner's course description, but it's really not. He's Larry Freakin' Vickers. His background is pretty well known: a guy that taught tactical shooting to Operators isn't the first guy to go to when you leave the gun store. Some thought MUST go into choosing a progression of instructors. And, once you know who the instructor is, including their background and what they teach, the course description will make a whole lot more sense. When in doubt, contact the instructor. They want you to have a positive learning experience as much as you do.

You've found an instructor that the Intardweb says you need to be training with if you're cool. That may or may not be a good idea, based on the next factor: matching the course of fire to your physical abilities. I'm really not talking about the PT studs as much as those of us who are...less fit, shall we say. Here's why that's important: when the course says "moderate intensity", what that means is you're going to have to be relatively flexible and be able to do some physical things, like going to your knees about a hundred times in a three day course. Honestly, that was a big problem for me. My knees don't like to be knelt on. Couple that with soreness from the course, and I wasn't able to keep up on the Mod Navy Qual on day three. You've got to be honest with yourself and your abilities to get the most out of the course. Some are more ACQ (Arm Chairborne Qualified) friendly than others. Contact the instructor and ask what type of stuff you'll be doing, and be honest with yourself in your evaluation as to whether you can do it or not. It's your money, invest it wisely.

When and where exactly you choose to attend a class will make a difference in your comfort. Be aware of what the weather is doing and dress appropriately. You may need rain gear, you may need warm clothes. If that's something you need, shop early, and determine what your budget is. If you can't afford decent stuff, you may consider training at another time. Going cheap because you won't use it much may not help you if you tear a hole in it early in the training. You're not deploying with it, but you will be using it a lot, Make sure it's not going to fall apart before you're done with it. The same goes for warm weather gear, and one factor is critically important to both: make sure it's breathable. Overheating or being cold and miserable can both lead to dehydration, which will put you down and keep you from learning.

The class I attended ended up being humid and warmer than average for this time of year. I am prone to sunburn, so I used copious amounts of Bullfrog waterproof sunblock and long sleeved shirts. I also used wicking t-shirts underneath, which was tremendously helpful. Even so, I did sit out a relay. I brought three gallons of water and ten bottles of Gatorade. In this humidity (we're in the middle of April right now) that was about half as much as we ended up using. The cooler, though, was money. The one we used was a 40 quart with wheels and a travel handle. Big enough for about a day and a half of hydro, but we consumed a lot more than we planned. The most important thing is to stay hydrated, and having a cooler full of that stuff was worth the hassle of lugging it along.

Consider food, too, both in what to eat and how the cost impacts attending training. There's a balance to reach between getting calories so you have energy and eating too much and wanting a nap after chow. I certainly got hungry, but tried to eat just enough to stop being hungry. I got my Jetboil up and running again, so I took a Mountain House freeze dried entree for lunch. Worked like a champ! Snacking on NutriGrain bars between did the trick.You might consider an MRE a day if you have some you like, but there are some good freeze dried meals out there that'll keep you from having to leave the range. Interaction with your fellow students is tremendously helpful. Stay where they are. Many classes will meet after the class to break bread. I find this time very helpful, and highly recommend spending the time with your fellow students.

I lived an hour and 40 minutes from where the class range was. That's far enough, to me, to make getting a hotel room worth the cost. The less you travel, the more time you have to prepare for the next day's class. I brought 25 mags that I had preloaded. If I'd needed to, I could have jammed mags in the hotel room. I had all the time I wanted to get cleaned up (and taking ridiculously long showers that I don't do at home because I pay for the water), relax, get sleep, go out to eat with classmates by staying 15 or so minutes from the range. That was a big, big help. Plan that carefully when choosing to attend a class in your region. What you make up in saving money may cost you in other areas. Put some thought into this.

What to bring is an interesting question. Let me preface this by saying that the only thing I brought that I didn't use, other than clothes and the portable DVD player, was my big ol' collapsing chair. I could have, I just didn't need the chair because chairs were provided. As I typically do, I packed more clothes than I used, trying to cover contingencies. People who pack better than I do will be able to take a smaller bag, but since I only have one piece of luggage, I tend to fill it.

I also brought my own pillow. It's a Sobokawa buckwheat hull pillow that I've been versions of for a couple decades now...not the same pillow all that time; I've bought new ones since the original. I find that, for me, the secret to getting some sleep away from home comes down to my own pillow, earplugs, and Simply Sleep. Add to that a cranked up A/C to make the room good and cold, and I tend to fall asleep fairly readily.

My friend Matt E. and I traveled together for this class, and on the way back we discussed the many ways to carry the load required for this class. Many of the students in this were full time Tactical Team members. We had guys who did that for their local PD, and contractors as well. Those guys took the class in their work gear: full armor and full load outs. I don't want those guys coming through the door on me. Those guys are Terminators. Train as you fight was applied in spades.

In other classes, though, there are guys that wear a bunch of gear because they see photos of America's warriors doing so. Yeah, it's cool, but ask them if they want to have to carry that load. They'll say lighter is better. Apply that to a class and you may find that running all that cool kit is getting in the way of your learning because you're suffering. We both came to the conclusion that more is definitely not better in this case. I would posit that the way I went is the best path to follow: not only minimal gear, but I also chose the lightest stuff I could get.

Where the load out comes into play in a big way is this: you're going to be putting out all day long. You're going to be working hard. You're going to fire somewhere over a thousand rounds in three days. What you'll find is that you're going to get sore in places you don't expect to. Your hands will get sore and weak, your shoulder and back muscles will get tight, your knees will get beat up (can't recommend knee pads strongly enough) and your lower back will become irritated. Even though the AR carbine has very little recoil, jamming it into your shoulder will make your shoulder sore. Your forearm muscles will get fatigued from pulling on your carbine all day. You're going to get tired even if you are in good shape but don't shoot that much regularly. Minimize how much compounding of that you do.

Another thing to know is how stuff rides before you get there. You need to spend some time adjusting and situating your gear to find conflicts. I did that and still ended up moving my double pistol magazine pouch to the front left of my harness because it was hanging up on my sling. That's another reason less is more: less conflict and fighting your gear, the more you're learning! See how this works now?

The instructors are the real authorities on what is required to get through their class, and they'll have recommendations for you. I would caution you to do your research ahead of time and try to keep your questions to a minimum. They're on the range literally all day, busting their butt training people. Away from that, they're taking care of administrative issues for the class. They have limited time when they're on the road to take care of such things. Don't pester them. Ask pertinent questions, but don't bombard them with every thought that comes to your head. That's one of the ways to get on the NFE (Not F'ing Ever) list.

Other ways include: being That Guy to the point that what you're doing becomes unsafe or irritating to a level the instructor won't put up with. Having poor gun handling skills in a class that requires being good with them is another way. Whining, arguing, and having a closed mind will all get you NFE'd. If you're trying to prove a point of one training style over another, you're wasting your time and theirs. One of my friends went to train with Larry Vickers, one of the premier pistol instructors extant. A guy paid for, paid to travel to, and paid to be there for a pistol class with The Man. He also did EVERYTHING with the Israeli Method he'd been taught previously. Why go to train with LAV if you're going to bring something else into it and not at least try his way? That's stupid, and a waste of money.

There are several forums that a prospective student can check out to read AAR's (After Action Reports) for various classes and instructors. Google can be a big help. Before you do that, though, have an idea of what it is you wish to be trained on, and be honest with yourself when checking the qualifications.

I will be doing a separate post on the gear I used for this class. I'm not sure if both the readers of my blog care, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

Variations on a Theme: It's Killin' Me. Again!

2010-03-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

Both the readers of my blog probably remember me complaining that it was talking too long to get to go to SHOT. Well, it's happening again, except this time, it's training that's doing it to me.

I'm going to the Carbine Operator's Course with Pat Rogers in the middle of next month. I'm very much looking forward to it, as I have no formal training in carbine shooting. I've done drills with several good rifle shooters, so I'm not a novice. I just don't have a real world mission for a carbine. I have a pistol with me literally every day, so that's where most of my training time goes. Spend all that time with a pistol, and running a carbine become comparatively easier.

I've picked up a LOT of info from Matt E. and Paul J., who are both pretty scary good with carbines. They were both Infantry Bubbas. Paul's back home in NC workin' the farm as a hunting guide and field hand, and going to college. Matt works for Surfire, so both have reasons to have rifles in their hands regularly. Since I don't, I'm several levels below those guys. I don't expect that to change, except that my manipulations will get a lot better. I'm also going to be practicing that some before I go.

I went shooting with some Soldier friends last weekend, including Pat Alumni Joe. What we found was that gear and set ups had to be tweaked a bit to get one thing out of the way of another. I found I needed to put even more slack in my sling, as I was running a variation of the chest rig I'll be taking to Pat's class. I don't need a ton more slack, but I do need a little more to keep the sling from hanging up on the chest rig I'll be running.

I'll be taking some stuff that's new for ATS. We've done up a 500D Low Profile Chest Harness and I'll be running our new prototype hydration cover. I don't expect any surprises, but this will be the first time that the hydro carrier for our chest rigs will be run. I think we've solved the problems we were having with it, now it's time to verify.

I'm not even scheduled to start jamming mags until next week. Holy cow, this is taking too long!

Blog Spamming: weird.

2010-03-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

Since I don't post all that often to my blog-certainly not as much as I used to, when I had things to say-I have come in contact with one of the weirdest of online phenomena: blog spamming. This also happens with forums that have little traffic, and that whole thing makes no damn sense to me at all.

I'm the site admin of a very active mil/LE forum that my employer owns. We get the occasional Chinese spam bot posting links to knock off clothes and shoes. We also get similar posts from the representatives of armor companies, but that's another question for another time. Doing that on a high traffic forum (mine gets several hundred posts per day, with a membership of over 40,000), because even if all they do is laugh at it, the post will probably be seen.

Here, that doesn't happen. There just aren't that many people stumbling across my blog, and I don't have all that many people that care what I have to say anyway. What I do have, in large quantities, are spam bot posts. That's why I went to comment approval: the spam is not only weird, its retarded.

Here's what I don't understand: what good does it do to spend time creating posts and posting them where they don't get seen? Additionally, why spam without a link, at least? Makes no sense. They're weird, but kinda entertaining. Because they're somewhat strange, I thought you might get a little chuckle out of some of 'em. I'm going to kinda sort them, because there are themes.

This first one is very typical. Wherever there is an Intardweb connection, there's somebody who wants to sell "performance enhancers". This one is kind of unique in that they went through the trouble of posting a vid on YouT00b...that sucks. LOL! No music, no celebrity voice over, just a text based vid with a funny, disjointed comment about balloons. I'm going to change the links, but I'll leave the one to YouTube just for comedy value:

Naturomax is a high quality male improvement pill that’s guaranteed to improve your sex life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pobXsnw7CWs

I thought this next one almost had me believing that it was a serious comment from someone who was ESL (Engrish Second Language). There aren't any links in it, which makes me wonder why the time I was taken to compose it. This one, typical of spam posts, was a comment left on older posts, some of which had very little to do with the text of the comment. Using blogs as sources for papers is a dubious practice at best, but when the post is about something I did over the weekend or something like that, this doesn't make a lot of sense...unless the Chinese have a file on me, and Chinese kids are writing papers about this famous blogger and online personality. LOL!

Amiable dispatch and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you for your information.

This last one is a favorite of mine, simply for it's staggering arrogance. Sorry, dude, nobody has any idea who you are. Since you asked, Nicky, my opinion is that you're an asshat. I guess that means the Russian Mafia has a file on me now, too. LOL!

Sure, you’ve heard about me, because my fame is running in front of me,
my name is Nikolas.
Generally I’m a venturesome gambler. recently I take a great interest in online-casino and poker.
Not long time ago I started my own blog, where I describe my virtual adventures.
Probably, it will be interesting for you to find out my particular opinion on famous gambling projects.
Please visit my diary. http://outrageouslyarrogant.com I’ll be interested on your opinion..

Edited to add on 3/15/10: I got this today, the same Little Nicky with a different attitude. Had to add it just because:
Good day!

For sure you didn’t here about me yet,
friends call me Nikolas.

Generally I’m a venturesome analyst. all my life I’m carried away by online-casino and poker.
Not long time ago I started my own blog, where I describe my virtual adventures.
Probably, it will be interesting for you to find out my particular opinion on famous gambling projects.
Please visit my diary. (edited out because I ain't sendin' em traffic)I’ll be glad would you find time to leave your opinion

Awesome.

Just a few of the spam I regularly get. I've got some new 419 scam e-mails to post, too, but I gotta go dig 'em up again since I didn't file them when I got 'em. Turns out I get a lot of e-mail...most of which is spam, too! Thank God for filters, huh?

Pet Peeves: AR Gas Rings and staggering

2010-03-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

I've been attempting to keep this from being a gun blog, but the only evidence of that is that I spend a long time not posting anything. So, in order to have another post for some jackass from China trying to post his web address to get cheap knock off Viagra and Cialis to-such is my fan base, apparently-I'm updating with at least one pet peeve...which will likely turn into several peeves in a row, because many of you know I'm moderately easy to peeve.

Since there's very little on Wednesday night for TV, I typically tune in to Wednesday Night at the Range on The Outdoor Network. Most of those shows I don't care much for, but I keep finding myself actually watching Shooting USA. Its a good show for a lot of aspects of shooting, some of which I'm into, and some I'm not. Overall, they're solid on their info. Sometimes, though, they do things that make me nuts as a life long shooter and student of the gun.

They did a repeat segment this week, with a section on how to clean the AR. Overall the information was solid, but two things made me a little crazy: they made a point to mention staggering the gas rings on the bolt, and the BCG (bolt carrier group) was put back in the gun dry. My eye was twitching after that.

Here's the thing about gas rings: gas can't blow by them when they're in use. The old saw about not aligning the gaps in the rings is retarded, given how rings work. Did you ever notice the rings on a combustion motor's pistons? To get them onto the piston, there MUST be a gap in them. They're not gonna be able to be put on if they're solid. But do new rings have blow by, given that they're installed correctly? Of course not. That's because-now pay close attention here, this is important-when they're at work, THEY'RE CLOSED! Just like they are on the AR's bolt. The only reason you can see the gaps is because the dang bolt ISN'T IN THE CARRIER when you're looking at them. When the bolt is in use inside the carrier, the rings are closed. Holy cow! Revelation!

Eventually, those rings will wear through use, and they'll cease to work. That's because they're worn, not because of the gap that is only there when the bolt is out of the carrier. At some point, they'll have to be replaced, and that's no big deal. The way to test is all over the Intardweb, so I'll forgo that here. That may be another rant/peeve altogether.

If you haven't picked one up yet, I highly recommend Mike Pannone's book "The M16/M4 Handbook". In that book you will find more wisdom than should probably be available in one place, including good illustrations of how gas rings actually work, and how/where to lube an AR. That gun, in it's direct impingement form, will run tens of thousands of rounds without significant cleaning. Pat Rogers has carbines with over 20,000 documented rounds through them without significant cleaning. All they do is run 'em wet. Not cleaning is not the same thing as not lubricating. Keep that gun properly lubed, and it'll run till you get sick of not cleaning it.

Always check what experts have to say about the info that "everybody knows". The Intardweb is very often wrong. I'll take One Eyed Mike Pannone's word as gospel versus some guy who's screen name is "Snake_Doc" or "IluvAKs69".

Things strike you weirdly when you're under the weather

2010-02-20T23:35:00.000-08:00

I've been fighting off a cold for about a week now. I have a bit of an upper respiratory thing going on that won't leave me alone. It hasn't manifested itself to its fullest extent yet because I've been keeping it at bay with Nyquil to keep me asleep, and going to bed earlier. That's working OK so far, but it's kickin' my butt during the week. It's sucking the life out of me, and I'm coming home dead tired. Being without my glasses hasn't helped. I gotta get this thing beat so I can go back to mistreating myself!

And because I haven't been feeling well, I've noticed some things that wouldn't normally get much attention from me. I'm noticing more humor in the Bible than I have before, stuff like that. The strangest thing though, by a wide margin is the whole cultural phenomena of the Amber Lamps video, and how it's taken off. I know you've seen it. If you haven't, just search Amber Lamps on YouTube.

I'm just amazed at what gets noticed and run with. I had no idea there was even a young lady on the bus, until I started seeing links on various forums. All this happened with the speed of fad. It's puzzling to me that what maybe a handful of people would have known about ten years ago was known to something like three million within just days. We truly are in the information age.

That is disconcerting to me. For somebody with as much of an Intardweb presence as I have, I've done an adequate job of staying off the grid with my name. But all it'll take is to be in the wrong place at the right time and somebody having a video camera, and all that will go away and everybody will know the name...for a while. I guess one of the plus sides to this phenomena is that people that would really get into this will be done with it in a short time. I really didn't see this situation coming, and I think I should have. I've been online for a long time now. I'm no geek, but I have a decent understanding of it. I think all it's done is to make me see how flat out weird, or perhaps overly bored, people in this world are. Ya'll be some crazy pipples!

The big scare, or Heck Yeah, God Answers Prayers!

2010-02-16T16:26:00.001-08:00

I spent a decent amount of money on some Flexon eye glasses frames, that were billed as "unbreakable". Well, it turns out that they're not unbreakable. I had my arm up on the armrest of The World's Worst Couch, and when I moved my hand, I hit the temple or arm of my glasses. Near as I can tell, that's all that happened, except what came of that was my glasses breaking at the bridge. One minute I had a pair of glasses, the next minute, I had left and right monocular lenses.

Since that was both sucktastic and unacceptable, I went to the Vision Center and made an appointment for an eye exam. I found out once again that I have an unusual prescription, in that my astigmatism, which usually runs up and down or side to side, runs at an angle, and a different angle on both eyes. When I had a root canal last year, I found out that the root of that tooth was unusual, too, and only .5% of the people in the world have that. I don't know what that means, other than that all this stuff probably costs me more in the long run.

Upon getting my eye exam, complete with dilating my eyes and making the whole world blurry, I was informed by my new optometrist that I potentially had a retinal detachment. That was not welcomed news. Knowing how expensive that is, and how crappy my insurance is, I was dreading that being the case.

So, I called my brother back from his Birthday message for me, and told him what the what's up was. He promised to pray about it, and I certainly was. I know it sounds like I was jobbin' the prayers, but that's not the case. I have always been a believer in prayer, as I've seen God come through for me and for others time and time again.

Today was no exception to that rule. I met with an excellent eye surgeon, who it turns out is also into shooting and hunting. He took some really cool photos of the inside of my eye-I'm always fascinated by those kinds of things-and took a look in there with some really blinding white light. In the end, he informed me that I would be needing surgery, but not for the detached retina that I feared. I do have a cataract, and it's growing, so it's gonna have to be zapped. But, it doesn't have to be done right away, which means I have some time to get some funds together (of note, I do take donations at hajipaypal@yahoo.com).

How I'm gonna get that deductible rounded up is another question altogether, but at least its not a detached retina! I may still go for the pirate eye patch. God answers prayer.

Magick

2010-01-30T08:44:00.000-08:00

There is something magical about waking up and rolling out of bed at the butt crack of 10:15. That was pretty much just what I needed and now I feel energized to loaf on the couch all day long, and well into the night.

Since my street didn't get plowed, I'm planning to stay home all weekend. I have a few things to do, like put away clean clothes, clean up the Fortress, wash a small pile of dishes, make pancakes for brunch...or straight up lunch, now that I check the time(actually, I'm gonna move that to the #1 position as soon as I'm done with this), and I plan to initial and number the rest of my magazines that haven't already been. Being prepared for is a good thing, I think. I'll be bored if the power goes out, but I'm still prepared for that.

One last note about snow: we got a pretty good blanketing last night; the ground was fully covered. I went to bed a little later last night than I intended to, and before I did I took a look outside. Normally, there isn't a whole lot of ambient light in this neighborhood. I have a dim street light across the street, and there are a few more around, but for the most part we don't have a lot of light here. With the snow, it looked like the sun was coming up. The white stuff is more reflective than I think most people that don't live in it would realize. Now we've got four or five inches of reflection going on. lol! I'm gonna head out to the mailbox and grab the next Battlestar Gallactica disc, and be as snug as a bug in...man, that's a dumb phrase.

Back from SHOT '10. Mostly alive and mostly well

2010-01-24T15:18:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a week! I left for SHOT in Vegas on Monday afternoon, arriving around 8, and left yesterday around three. I spent a whole lot of the intervening hours awake when I probably should have been asleep. I didn't get sick, which is a huge plus.

I don't want this post to end up being a book in length, so I'll just make some notes and comments, and do some more of my not-at-all-famous stream of unconsciousness style of writing. That may prove to be more interesting in the end. I won't go a whole lot into the social gatherings because I don't think more than two of my three readers will care.

The good comes first, I think, because it's more gooder. Our lodgings were pretty sweet. We got hooked up with a suite at The Wyndham Grand Desert resort. One of the moderators at LF has a family member that has a time share there, so we had it for the week. I got the master bedroom, which meant I had a giant king sized bed, my own TV, my own bathroom and a jacuzzi tub. I never did get to use the tub, which was a bummer. I meant to do that on Friday night, but we ended up staying out outrageously late and not getting much sleep before leaving. There were a few other guys staying in the suite, but I definitely got the best room. I should have taken photos. Matter of fact, I didn't take any photos at all. That may or may not have proven to be a good thing. lol!

First and foremost, I met a LOT of LF forum members this year, both old timers and new guys. The scheduled parties were cool, and fun. The amount of people that were asking where I was kind of blew me away; I didn't think there were that many that cared. Just goes to show that military people and some of the people in the Military Industrial Complex are good folks.

Bill's at The Flamingo is a pretty good steak house. 22 ounces of prime rib is kind of a lot, and the baked potatoes are ginormous, too. I managed to finish it all, and some of the bread, too. All that because Ellis Island failed us and was not doing barbecue due to the weather. Pansies.

For being in such a serious business, the guys at American Snipers are a seriously funny bunch of guys. I spent some time with them at Kifaru's party in their suite, pretty much laughing my ass off the whole time. Send them some money, they're worth the investment.

Best piece of gear I saw in the whole show was, by a wide margin, the panda balaclava-with ears-that was for display only and not for sale. The not for sale part was pretty sad. Sad panda.

Ben Simonson of Boresight Solutions does the best work on polymer guns I've seen. Ever. His attention to detail is truly amazing, and he does quite a few things that nobody else does. He's not cheap, but for the quality of work he does, his work ethic, and overall coolness make up the difference. For what you get, his prices are excessively reasonable. Send him at least one gun, and several more would be better. His work kicks major ass.

The LaRue OSR Light was cool. I could definitely use one.

Blue Force Gear had their new DAP stuff in force, as well as the Basicload Chest Harness. They're doing some very innovative stuff, and since it's BFG, they're making it with attention to detail and quality.

Safariland introduced a new belt and a new line of their MLS-type stuff, in miniature for ammo pouches and the like. 'Course, I knew about that a few weeks ago.

Supply Captain has new technology for their IR flags. The new finish is as much a step forward from their previous versions were to what was on the market at the time to their previous ones will be to the new stuff. It's pretty amazing; I'm still geeked about it.

Beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot that I hadn't already seen-some of our reps are really damn good-or didn't know was coming. Good show, but there was no product that really blew me away as the "Gotta Have It" (GHI) product of the show.

Here's the less gooder stuff. The venue was a PITA. Being on three separate floors and in hallways and halls wasn't the problem, its that the grouping of stuff was retarded. There was Tactical and Law Enforcement stuff on all three floors, and not all together. I ended up on the second floor "general firearms" area to find the Remington Military booth to check out that as-yet vaporware ACR and their new sniper stock, and figured if I hung two rights I'd be doing a "u"ie out of the booth, and would be headed back to the stuff I care about. About five yards out of their booth, though, I'm surrounded by a triple canopy of Realtree. Look to the right: cheap Chinese hats! To the left, deer piss and fish lures! I would have panicked if I was prepared for that. Eventually I made my way back to the Surefire booth, but it was touch and go for a while there.

There were booths in an underground parking lot. Seriously? A parking lot? That's lame, Reed Exhibitions. Several of those vendors were PISSED at their locations.

I could deal with it if I knew where things were. The floor numbers weren't running consecutively. Matt and I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out where the Chris Reeve Knives booth was, and we knew we were in the area. It was worth the time, though, as they make a fantastic product and have wonderful people there. Anne Reeve remembered my home boy Jeromy a year after meeting him once at the show. She remembered me, too, and has no real reason to do so. She's a great American and Chris has done very well with his selection of his wife.

Vegas has gotten expensive! It used to be cheap to eat and drink there. Not this time! Ten bucks for a croissant breakfast sammich and a bottle of water? Nein, danke.

Overall, it was worth going, and my employer is going to benefit from us having attended. We made some new contacts, renewed some older ones, and in general had a very productive trip.

It was a lot of fun, too.

This just in: 25 degrees and slight wind= cold!

2010-01-09T22:21:00.000-08:00

I wonder sometimes if my love of shooting is foolish. I had a hundred rounds of 9mm, so I went out to meet the boys at the range. Matt and Casey had been there for a while already when I got there, and Bo was smart enough to show up a little later, when the temperature was peaking...such as it was. We found individually, and agreed collectively, that 25 degrees can justifiably be called "cold".

I took along the previously posted about Safariland 6004-DFA, which is going to be dual purpose for me. It's going to be my "its too cold to use a hip holster" rig, and also my "training rig", which means that it'll be the rig I use for Pat Rogers' Carbine Operator's Course in April. That's gonna be a great class, since I know a bunch of the people that'll be attending, but that's kind of a subject for another time.

What I found about the DFA: That's a cool rig. When I got it, Mike (our Safariland rep) told me that once it was in place on the belt, it's impossible to move, and that I should mark the belt when the loop goes. I haven't done the marking yet, but he wasn't kidding about it staying put. And, with the MLS modular adapter parts, it's going to be a really nice rig to swap guns around on.

Since this was the first time I used it at the range, I left it where I had assembled it, which is in the middle of the adjustment range. That, for my height-some would call it "excessive"-proved to be a good adjustment. It's still high on my hip, but easy to draw from.

That is, except for one small issue: the G17/light holster I have is the only one I own with the snatch guard, and I keep running into that thing. I'm fairly sure what's going to end up happening is that I'm going to take it off; it's just Allen-screwed on there. Since grab attempts are going to be exceptionally rare when using that rig, I'm not gonna sweat it, and I'll just run it nekkid like my MnP ALS holster.

Bottom line, here's what we learned today: the DFA is a really smart addition to the Safariland line, and it's highly recommended if you have need of a drop leg style holster. And, by unanimous decision, shooting in the cold isn't as much fun as it could be. Lastly, it was also unanimous that 25 degrees with wind, even just a little wind, is COLD.

TWO WEEKS! Its killin' me.

2010-01-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

Two weeks from today, I'll be in Las Vegas, meeting up with fellow Lightfighters at The Freakin' Frog, for five days of sore feet, good food and meeting old friends for the first time. Incidentally, all of those evenings have already been planned out, and I've been told that a birthday celebration for me has been planned as well. For that, I think I should be at least mildly afraid.

This is ostensibly a business trip, since it's an industry trade show that I'm going to. SHOT show is the first big trade show of the year, and it draws a lot of My People. It draws a lot of yahoos and idiots, too, but those people aren't mine. They're probably some other low rent cheesy forum's people, or troglodytes that aren't online at all. See the beauty of that? They can't get offended at being called trogs because they're not online to see this. HA!

The reality of SHOT is that, while it's for business, its for fun, too. I'm going to see what's coming and what's gonna get ordered, but the SHOT specials are always extended, so we don't have to write orders at the show like crazy. That eases the pressure some, and just makes the time more enjoyable. If I miss something, oh, well. Our rep will be contacting us about it soon enough.

The real beauty of SHOT, other than the guns, accessories I care about,the deer piss and fish lures enough to fill a lake that I don't, is hanging out with Lightfighters. I'll be meeting people I've known online since 2002 in some cases, and feel like I already know, for the first time. I'll be seeing friends again that I haven't seen since last year's SHOT. I really can't wait.

Merry X-Mas to me! SF M300, Safariland 6004-DFA

2010-01-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to avoid writing strictly about gun stuff of late, which is why I haven't been posting as often as I used to. I'm coming to a realization, though: outside of Jesus, my life kinda revolves around shooting. Like Dave used to say, a decade ago at The Cutler's Cupboard: "It's better than drugs or other women". I guess so!

These weren't actually "Christmas presents", but they were close enough. The one advantage to my job is that it tends to bring schwag my way, because smart representatives know that getting stuff in my hands is a good way to sell more product. Smart people, those reps!

First up, the excellent new Surefire M300 Mini Scout light. As I understand it, this was the brain child of, or at the very least ramrodded by, Surefire's Director of Military Sales. It makes perfect sense, really: take the already successful Scout light, and do more of what made it successful, which was to make it slimmer and lighter. What it ends up being is a 4.5 ounce light that's only 4 inches long, with at least 110 lumens output. It runs on a single battery, but with an LED emitter, it has a 1+ hour run time. In a light of this type, I'll get a year out of that battery.

Also of note is the SR07 rail mount tape switch. I'm not typically a tape switch guy, but this one's seriously beefy. Its a pressure pad and an on-off button that's designed specifically to mount to a rail. Two things that need to be mentioned about the switch: mine is a much "harder" switch than ones that I've used in the past. It takes a significant amount of pressure to engage the light. The possibility of a white light ND is still there, but probably less likely. Surefire still sells switch blockers for tape switches, so I think I'm going to secure one, just for general purposes. The other interesting engineering feat with this switch is that they made the on/off switch an "on at release" button. The light doesn't come on until the circuit is closed when the button is released. That means bumping the button won't ND the light. Smart.

This one I added just to show my carbine without the magnifier. I can't he'p it, I'm a dork.

The chest rig, the UW Chest Rig Gen III from Mayflower R&C wasn't a Christmas present, but it was a gift from my friend Travis, who happens to own and run Mayflower. It's a feather; the body of the harness is 500 D Cordura, while the lid flaps are 300 D. Travis has a ton of experience in using gear in the real world, as well as a very creative and analytical mind. His gear is among the best available anywhere, at any price. That his stuff is so reasonably priced is a bonus!

The Safariland 6004/6005 holsters have been a staple of the tactical holster line for a really, really long time, and still are. However, with the introduction of the MLS line of modular components, the platform was revolutionized. The trend in the past couple years has been to take a Dremel tool to the two-strap shroud and shorten it. Safariland noticed, and started making one of their own. Then they added the MLS locking plate to it, and a modular drop leg was born. However, that wasn't good enough, so the DFA was born. Lotta borning going on over there at Safariland. Basically, they got rid of the old belt loop and put a flexible polymer belt attachment in it's place. The advantage is that once it's in place on the belt, it doesn't move. You can't adjust the thing without creating slack in the belt, i.e. taking it off. It locks on. I put it on my inch and 3/4 Bianchi Accumold gun belt, specifically because it's a rather slim belt. Works like a champ. Currently, it's got my Duty ALS holster for the Glock 17 with light. Now all I gotta get is an ALS holster for my MnP with light on an ATS War Belt, and that'll be my training rig. To quote the Bard, Eric Cartman: "Schweeeeet".

The reason the MLS parts are Flat Dark Earth rather than foliage green is that the FG parts that came with the DFA were really, really tight. I had a spare MLS kit, so I slapped it on there. The seem to be two slightly different types of plastic, but I have no idea if that's true or if it just seems that way. It's probably just a lot-to-lot variance of some sort. For whatever reason, it fit a whole lot easier, so I just left it. If nothing else, it makes it easier to see the photos.

And, just because I know both readers of my blog are curious about the gun in that holster, I give you this:

Its got a Wolff competition spring kit in it, Warren Sevigny competition sights, and a grip texturing job by my friend James. He gripitated the frame, and rounded and textured the trigger guard. The light was a gift from my home boy Matt, who has one of the coolest jobs in the world.

What can I say? Sometimes my job doesn't suck. lol!

My Christmas Post

2009-12-16T23:01:00.000-08:00

My friends know what a sucker I am for the whole holiday spirit. That being the case, I have to share my favorite holiday videos. Its all about the classics.

And a couple new ones: Lil Wayne, and the Peter Griffin re-work of this classic original posted above.

1911's: I've had enough.

2009-12-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

I went to an IDPA Classifier match today, intending to get classified with my 1911 in the CDP division. I had my bro Jay ship it out to me (there wasn't enough room in the truck to bring everything here, so it was staying in his safe for a while) for the purpose of competing with it.

I attempted to compete with it today, and shot well with it. The problem is that the dang thing wouldn't run consistently. I had at least four failures to go into battery, and all those malfunctions caused me to take too much time to classify.

Chances are it needs new springs, and perhaps some new magazines. But that's the problem with a hundred year old design. Get a Glock and shoot the recoil spring to death in it, and it'll still run. That'll be true of several new gun designs: they're just engineered from the ground up to have fewer parts and to run with minimal maintenance. That's definitely not the 1911.

The 1911 still has some characteristics that are outstanding: they're typically very accurate guns that are easy to shoot well. A tuned single action trigger in one is an amazing thing. They're only an inch wide, so they're easy to conceal...although a steel 1911 is a heavy beast by the end of the day.

They have other downsides, too: they're magazine finicky, and as Ken Hackathorn has stated, they're "the king of feedway stoppages". Add to that their limited magazine capacity, and I think I'm pretty much done with the 1911. The upside isn't outweighing the downside. I'm beginning the process of considering what to do with the gun. It may end up traded or sold for an MnP .45 or perhaps a Glock 21 or 30. I miss my old 30.

Underrated: favorite movies with a twist

2009-11-29T12:02:00.000-08:00

I've been fascinated by how much money movies make for a while now. Part of it is the phenomena of the flop, a movie that had a huge budget but proved not to be a blockbuster. The other is what I like to call the hidden gem or the small budget hit, which is a movie that isn't expected to do a lot at the box office, but turns out to be a huge, huge hit. I can think of several like that: Black Hawk Down and 300 jump to mind. I think those got huge because Hollyweird accidentally made a movie that most people can relate to, as opposed to the dreck they usually serve up with their left wing messages and agendas. That's a post for another time, I think.

What I have been interested in lately are movies that may or may not have been hits at the time, but have been forgotten or pushed to the back because of new material and holiday movies coming to the theater. Some of my favorite movies are classics, or huge blockbuster hits that are older now and neglected. Still others are films that were never big hits, but turned out to be great little movies. TNT calls some of these The New Classics, but some are just classic in and of themselves, regardless of when they were issued.

Since you know already that I'm working towards a list, here it is! I decided that only choosing five total would be more work than I want to put in on a day off, I decided to choose some categories. These may or may not be in order.

Older Action Movies. These can be war movies, gangster flicks, or anything else that pretty much has guns as a central theme. lol!

1. Black Hawk Down. It was a huge hit, but it's such a great demonstration of the American spirit that I have to include it. It should not be forgotten.

2. Hatari. Even though it's not a Western, this is one of my top six John Wayne movies. Red Buttons and many of the character actors that are seen in John Wayne movies are here, and the story is flat out fun.

3. The Big Hit. It's the quirky movie on the action list. Its about hit men, but its part comedy, quasi-love story, and revenge flick all in one.

4. The Buccaneer: Probably my all time favorite movie that doesn't star John Wayne. The cast is epic, the story huge and sweeping, encompassing both a pirate story and a story of the founding of America. What's not to like?

5. The Longest Day. There just aren't that many stars in a movie anymore; it's too expensive. This film is huge, epic and has more stars than fit on the Hollywood Walk of Stars.

Comedies. These had a profound effect on my sense of humor, and I still find them hilarious. Many of these were hits, but they should be considered must-see flicks.

1. Stripes. Deep and profound effect on my sense of humor. While it lacks heavily in realism, it makes up for that in just plain funny.

2. Ghostbusters. The first was funniest. The ending of the second was bad. It is said that there will be a third, with the original cast having singed on to do it.

3. Strange Brew. I think most people don't get Bob and Doug McKenzie, but I still find this movie funny. I have a couple of the McFarland Toys Bob and Doug playsets, too. They're awesome.

4. The Hangover. This one's way over the top and not for everyone. If you're not easily offended, though, it's a terribly funny movie.

5. Ski School. The second one sucked. This one had a particular spirit about it that was pretty dang good. With a "b" movie like this, it's easy to go over the top and ruin the suspension of disbelief, but they minimized that with this flick. It just makes me laugh.

Others. These are movies that I dig but can't fit in just one category. There's cop stories, actioners, sci-fi, and..."other".

1. The Fifth Element. Its not just that I'm a Milla fan. This is a great story with some innovative tricks thrown in. Its funny, it's action packed, it's just plain entertaining.

2. Shaun of the Dead. It's a zombie movie with greatness involved. It's a new classic.

3. In Bruges. It's all kinds of quirky. Not everyone will love it, but if you're kind of into the Guy Ritchie thing, you might dig this.

4. Public Enemies. This didn't do quite as well as it should have. Fantastic cast, and it's different. Normally, a film like this is either from the cop's or robber's POV. This one goes pretty much right up the middle. If you didn't see it, you should have. It releases to DVD in about a week or so.

5. Appaloosa. You have to ignore Renee Zellwegger in this one. Its not about her anyway. This is a great cowboy story of The Reckoning.

6. The Proposition. Another off the beaten path Southern Hemisphere Western. This one's set in Australia. Its a story of choices and family. Powerful and intricate.

7.Bad Boys II. Its a guilty pleasure, and I like it better than the first. I hope they can get together to make a third.

8. Zombieland. Again, not a perfect movie (there will be a LOT more zombies walking around), but very entertaining, and one of the greatest cameos EVER. Like the girl said, "He just gets me". If you don't know what I'm referring to, you have GOT to see this one.

9. The Ghost and the Darkness. Well cast, memorably performed, and classical in subject matter. This one was a moderate hit, but I fell in love with it from the first showing. I got the same rush from the suspenseful moments as I did when I thought I had jumped a black bear while hunting.

These kinds of posts are always changing and variable, because there's always movies I can't remember at the time I'm doing this. I'll have to start taking notes and keeping track of ideas. I'm just not quite there with this list. I'll revisit this later.

Left 4 Dead 2: the song from the commerical

2009-11-25T06:58:00.001-08:00

Funny how different a whole song is from the bit used in the commercial. Here's the video that predates the commercial...or they would have used game footage. I would have.

This consecutive music video thing wasn't planned and I don't think it's a trend...yet...I just wanted a record of this song. I like heavy, bluesy rock.

Remember the Classics: Hadji Girl

2009-11-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

I know this song is a few years old now, but I believe in remembering the Classics.

The Latest 419 Scam: A New Twist

2009-11-18T05:56:00.000-08:00

I haven't gotten one of these in a while, which I thought was unusual. Maybe they know that the messages interest me and are trying to formulate new angles to keep me entertained. This one is different in that there's a link in it to what I presume is a news article (I didn't click it) and there's also a PDF that came with this that I didn't open. The article I presume to be regarding the death by accident of the account holder in the message. That's the twist, and I haven't seen one of these before. Interesting.

Good Day,

It's my pleasure to contact you over this transaction and I hope for your assistance on this
Matter.

I discovered a dormant account in my office as a group director with a bank here in London; presently the account is dormant and there is no claim since Nine years from now, and the rightful owner Mr. John Koffie died in a plane accident as shown on the link below.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

It will be of my interest to transfer this money worth Twenty Four Million United States Dollars in an account offshore. If you can assist me in getting this money transferred out of London then invest with it and also establish partnership.

Email me if you think you can handle such amount and kindly remember that this is very confidential.

I wait to hear from you.

Regards

Charles Vanzandt.

It is unlikely that Charles is related to the Van Zandts of Lynyrd Skynyrd fame.

Hand to Hand Death: Combat MMA

2009-11-16T10:59:00.001-08:00

Where did it all go? Did I even have a weekend?

2009-11-15T16:21:00.001-08:00

I don't know where my time off went. It was there on Friday, right about 6:00 p.m., and now it appears to have been absconded with. There was the promise of hours away from work, and now we'll have to check with accounting to see if there's nefarious activity afoot here.

Some of this time is accounted for: there was a reasonable amount of sleep, and some time preparing food. Part of Saturday was consumed by shooting an IDPA match-finishing 5th out of 9-and a little more time was spent at Zaxby's with Taylor, solving all the problems with the government and the armed forces. If all of Sunday had been taken away, that much of Saturday was just about enough. State of Play was viewed, and ultimately found wanting. Of course it was; it's a Hollyweird movie.

Oddly enough, the missing time was continued on to Sunday. An hour and 15 minutes was spent at church, another 40 to 45 minutes were consumed at Wally World. Some small part of the day was used keeping tabs on Football and NASCAR. A full hour and a half was frittered away at the Laundromat. The rest of the time, though...appears to have defected. It has been reported as AWOL until further notice.

Here it is, 8:30 p.m. on Sunday evening, while The Prisoner continues to make little sense and I miss Mad Men already, and I can't quite figure out where my whole weekend went, even though it was completely devoid of alcohol or medication. Weird.

Religion of peace? Ft. Hood is making me rethink my opinion

2009-11-08T10:28:00.000-08:00

The events at Fort Hood this week have been very much in the fore of my mind. There was at least one LF forum member that was reported to be in that area, so the situation hit closer to home. Thankfully, he's been heard from since and was not involved. However, the reaction from the leaders of Islam are making me rethink what I thought about Muslims.

I used to believe, or at least want to believe, that there was a difference between Islam and Militant Islam. I don't know a lot of Muslims; being a Christian I don't have a lot of contact with them in my daily life, and certainly not in my spiritual life. So, what I know of Islam has been gleaned through my own limited research and what I have observed of it through the news.

Islam is called the Religion of Peace. That sounds great on the surface, but if the definition of peace I have been told is accurate, that becomes very troubling. According to what I've found, "peace", in terms of the Muslim definition of the word, means "the world under Islamic rule". Till then, there is no peace. We're certainly in the midst of that right now.

Because Islam doesn't come out against, and denounce as being against the teachings of Islam, fanatics like the murderer in Texas-I refuse to publish that waste of skin's name-makes me think they're in favor of it. Because they decry only Islam being painted in a bad light and not acts of murder and terrorism, I'm coming to the conclusion that there's no difference between Militant Islam and the rest of Islam. It appears they may be one and the same. I need to do more research, but as the Magic 8 Ball would say, "signs point to yes".

It's fun to make fun of gummint

2009-10-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

Got this in my e-mail from my friend Nick. Pretty good for an e-mail joke.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him.

The driver, a young man in a Armani suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?'

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure, Why not?'

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resoluti on photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-Tech Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.'

'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud..

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?'

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?'
This is hilarious, you gotta read it.

'You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government', says Bud.

'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?'

'No guessing required.' answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew,to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a
herd of sheep. . .

Now give me back my dog.

Cool photo Men at Work

2009-10-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

I love this pic. My friend Jim snapped this while his team was doing assault training at their bad ass facility in Flo'da. Its the moment before things get really exciting. He got a lot of great pics from that event, and some even better training, but this one's my favorite.

Interesting comment on Iran and the American military

2009-10-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

One of my Facebook Homies posted a link to a short article about what's going on in Afghanistan of late, which was mostly a photographic essay. Typically, comments on such an article such as this are not worth reading, because the staggering ignorance does nothing but raise one's blood pressure. However, amongst the stupid comments and the attempts to set the stupid comments straight, there was one posted by Mohammad, which said,

"I wish that U.S.A send some of their troops in my country ( Iran ) too,beacase i think that we really need them too.same as Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran need those army too,Anshalh we going to have them im Iran too.God bless us."

Could it be that what we've been told about how the world hates America in the media isn't entirely accurate? I know this is one comment, from one single allegedly Iranian person, but it is interesting, and it does make one think, at least just a little bit.

My friend the Renaissance Chick

2009-10-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

This poem was written by my friend the Renaissance Chick, Renee. Her blog, Random Thoughts from a Life in Progress, doesn't get updated as often as I'd like, so I thought I'd see if we can peer pressure her into writing more by allowing both readers of my blog to read it. I know there are some warrior types that read my screed occasionally, so this is of interest to them/you.

This poem is as yet untitled, but I dubbed it the Ballad of the Ass Kicker today. Perhaps The Embattled is better. I dunno; I'll keep working on it. Sometimes I come up with a winner. I'm the guy that can get you one or two, maybe three or as many as four words on a crossword puzzle.

Because I want a copy of it, and in case you didn't click the link above, here's the poem.

I am Romans, Vikings, Vandals
Mongolians on the plain
My march is long
My heart is strong
The tongue I speak is strange

I wear sandals, armor, helmet
Carry carbine, mace and shield
I’ve bayonet
Or Spectre’s threat
Upon the battlefield

I march for king and sovereign
For fiefdom and for pharaoh
Reap what’s sewn
I crack your bones
And feast upon your marrow

For age and age before me
And age after I’m gone
You’ll speak of me
My victory
And recount what I've done.

Bleh

2009-10-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

It's been dull here for the past several weeks. Outside of the match I shot yesterday-and did poorly in-not much is going on. I'm in a real creative rut at the moment, at least in terms of writing. I haven't even seen a movie in a couple weeks, although Pandorum was fun. When the big excitement is that I got a haircut today, it's pretty easy to tell who's not out living life on the edge right now. LOL!

I have a couple ideas to explore, but I need to get them oriented correctly first. My typical stream of unconsciousness style of writing doesn't work very well for that.

Norv Turner needs to go.

The Luciousness

2009-10-12T14:08:00.001-07:00

I gotta get this done real quick before my connection takes a dump again. It's been down more often than it's been up this week.

Just got this bad boy back from a little custom work by my friend Jimmy Adams. Jimmy's a hell of a good shot, and a supremely cool dude. Unfortunately, he PCS'd recently, so I can't get him to do more work on this thing unless I bring it to him. I do have some friends relatively close to where he is now...hmmmmm....

Somewhere along the line I was given a Wolff competition spring kit, which my bro Jonny threw in there for me, as well as installing the extended slide stop. The spring kit knocks about a pound off the pull weight. I added the Warren Sevigny FO Competition sights (Glocks are a piece of cake to swap sights on) and extended magazine release. I think the mag release is a bit on the long side, so I think I'll take a file to it and shorten it to the same length as the Tango Down Vickers release that's in my 19. It's just about the perfect length.

Jimmy did the grip texturing, and textured the underside of the trigger guard, while flattening "the hump" where the finger undercut was and rounding the front of it. This is my IDPA competition gun, and I may run it in some USPSA matches somewhere down the line. Currently, I'm only shooting matches at Rattlenake Ridge in Indian Mound, TN, but I may decide to do more of that in the future.

The rest of my competition stuff consists of an Aker leather gun belt that I've had for about five years, a Blade-Tech double magazine pouch, a Safariland 5188 Concealment holster, and the ever popular South Sea Rhythm and Blues Tiki Lounge Hawaiian-style button up shirt. Helpful hint: tape a couple quarters to each side of the shirt, to the inside of the placket, so when you sweep the cover garment out of the way, it'll actually go. You wanna put 'em on both sides, so you can reach both holster and reloads. To the photos!

Check your ammo!

2009-10-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

Just about the time ya don't see anything weird happening with ammo, something really odd pops up. I found this round out of a hundred pack of Winchester White Box that I just got at our local Mega Mart. I've never seen this before, but if ya shoot long enough, pretty much everything will show up. The long and the short of it is: check your ammo!

Killer grub the bachelor way!

2009-10-03T17:11:00.001-07:00

Man, dinner was GOOD tonight! And, it was simple to boot. I generally don't use a stove; I do the grill and microwave instead, because...I dunno. I guess if I don't use the stove, there's less stove to clean. We'll go with that.

I found a new product at the market yesterday: Dole has a bag of red skin new potatoes (I just call 'em newpas for short) that can be microwaved and steams right in the bag. I wanna shake the hand of the guy that came up with that idea. Takes about nine minutes to nuke 'em.

Newpas are best when they're salty and buttery, but I wanted a little bit more. So, while I nuked the newpas, I rough chopped some dill and rosemary. Then, I tossed that in a bowl, dumped some butter in it, and added some chopped garlic. That went into the micro to melt together, and I sea-salted and fresh ground peppered the potatoes, which I quartered. I put them in a big bowl, and then poured the mixed herby-butter conglomeration over 'em. I tossed em, and went to turn the chicken over on the grill.

The chicken I got from Wal Mart in the frozen stuff aisle. Its a boneless chicken breast stuffed with cheese and bacon. It's supposed to be baked, but I find that it cooks pretty darn fast on the grill, so that's how I do 'em. Get the grill hot, then turn it down to med-low. Then it's just a matter of not burning it to a crisp.

Add to this a VERY big glass of Arizona Sweet Tea, and...WAH LAH! (yes, I know)Easy, instant-ish mackin' bachelor food! I'm gonna bust out a piece of chocolate creme pie later, after COPS (AKA Boys on the Hood, or The Guy With No Shirt Goes To Jail).

Why pacifism is crap doctrine

2009-09-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, even bet wetting liberals stumble on the truth. Found this cartoon in my e-mail this morning, and realized that this is why pacifism and isolationism don't work and will get you a beat down. Basically, there are people in the world that aren't down with it. Because of that, when it comes to what Clauswitz called "friction", they don't back down. Friction means somebody's gonna lose. I don't agree with it being me, mine or us.

I don't know the artist's politics, so I don't know if he's a bed wetting liberal or an arch conservative. The cartoon is illustrative, though.

A rough weekend.

2009-09-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't felt a whole lot like blogging these last couple days. Found out that a couple of good dudes, one a soldier, one a contractor, were killed over the weekend. One was Javahed, a Lightfighter forum plank owner. He helped shape the community there with his sense of humor and expert information on a variety of matters. The other was one of our regulars at ATS, SSG Shane Angell of 3rd batt, 5th SFG. My friend M4 Guru posted this on LF:

Official word from our CoC after all notifications had occured.

quote:
It is with a heavy heart and deep sense of loss that I report to you we have lost a fellow 3rd Battalion Soldier. SSG Shane Angell, 26, ODA 5*** died of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident at approximately 3:30 PM, 11 SEP 2009 on Hwy 100 (Franklin Road) about six miles east of Russellville, KY. Shane is survived by his wife, Ashley, daughter Skylie, Mother and Father, SGM (Ret) Glenn Angell, 3rd Battalion, 5th SFG(A). I ask that you keep the entire Angell family in your thoughts and prayers
__________________

Shane was a good guy with a lot of potential. We had just returned from OIF which adds to the tragedy.

It's one thing to lose one in the line of duty. It sucks bad, but chances are those that did it will get paid back. When it happens after a deployment, it just goes to show how fragile life really is. Prayers out for the family. This is the part of my job, both with the company and as an admin on the forum, that I can really do without.

More "My Job Does Not Suck" Ernest Langdon

2009-09-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I'm at work today, talking about guns and shooting with Jimmy and Matt, and a guy comes in and looks around the store a bit. I treat him like everybody else, asking if he needs any help or is after something particular. We're not very good at the high pressure sales here.

I go on to help a couple other people, sell some parts kits and a Glock 19 (always a fine choice), and once I'm clear Matt says, "Hey Haji, this is Earnest Langdon", and introduces me to The Man. We kept the poor guy in the store for at least an hour (and probably more), talking about guns, shooting, equipment...all that interests me and keeps me working here.

We even got a lesson in things to work on to get better, which was very in depth and supremely helpful. I hope I can put it into action. I wish he was still doing classes regularly, because he knows so much about shooting and all that goes into it, such as neural networks, physiology, and where speed really comes from. On top of all that, he's a hell of nice guy. Why did he stay and talk so long? Because most of our competitors here don't shoot. In contrast, that's pretty much all we do or think about when we're not here.

That was a fun weekend!

2009-09-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Three days off is a great thing. I feel much more rested and ready to get back at it, and had the most fun in a weekend than I've had in a while.

Friday was uneventful, and Saturday broke bright and sunny. I went to the range for a couple hours, and did some work with the timer-AKA the Devil Box, AKA the Brain Scrambler-and some longer distance shooting than I typically do. Overall, I was quite pleased with the results. I went home and did more relaxing than anything else; I also spent the weekend trying to kick the cold symptoms that didn't quite get to full power, but also wouldn't go away.

I had to hit Wally World that evening and replenish my stocks of meds. I hardly ever take medication of any sort, so even small containers go past their expiration date sooner than I use them up. I tossed a bunch of expired stuff and replaced it with another $30 or so of new stuff. New, full potency meds seem to have helped a heck of a lot.

Saturday, I met Joe and Gene at the shop, and we proceeded first to Sonic, then on to an IDPA club match at Rattlesnake Ridge. Joe and Gene had never shot an IDPA style match before, and really seemed to enjoy it. I had a blast with them there. My friend Alan finished first, Matt got fourth and I took fifth, out of about 10. I'm not trying to make finishing in the middle a habit, but I did it again. I shot my MnP because my Glock hasn't been working as I want it to.

My G17 is having some sight issues that I can't quite figure out just yet. I put the Sevigny Competition Fiber Optic sights (FO only on the front) from Warren Tactical on it right before I shot the last match, where I was disappointed with my accuracy, as I dropped at least a point on every stage. Holding dead on the bull at ten yards, I get these very pleasing, small groups that end up in one slightly ragged hole...about an inch to the left of my point of aim. I found that the front sight blade is slighly tilted to the left, but it appears that somebody either lost or took home the front sight wrench from work. I'm going to remove and re-attach the front sight and see what I can find out from there. None of my other guns have done that, so I'm hoping it's a simple anomaly that I can get fixed up quick. I may contact Warren and see what's up. I can run that G17 just a little faster than I can my MnP, and the MnP has a non-IDPA legal CTC grip on it. For a club match, they don't much care as long as it's turned off, but sanctioned IDPA matches are more strict about exacting adherence to the rule book.

I went to bed a little later than I should have, but I fell asleep on the couch for a while yesterday evening, too. Fighting the cold was apparently not finished, as it put me out after I went to the evening Church service. I took a couple Simply Sleep in order to sack out undisturbed, and it worked well. I didn't wake up until after 9:30, which is a lot later than I usually do. Did some chores, did some research on the Intardweb, and went to see Halloween II with Matt this afternoon. It was OK, but very predictable. Not really Rob Zombie's best work, but it didn't suck, either. At any rate, it was fun to get away and watch a movie for the first time in several weeks.

I got some good rest, had a lot of fun, and still haven't beaten this cold completely. I'm gonna go to bed soon!

One of the coolest shirts ever

2009-08-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Saw this on TV on the Travel Channel, on a show called Steak Paradise. There's a steak house in north Texas that serves a 72 oz. slab of cow. If you can eat it and the side salad, potato and some other side dish, you can get it free...if you survive, I guess. One of the guys that tried-and failed, even with a really valiant effort-had this slogan on his shirt. I had to go seek it out, because this is truly one of the coolest shirts in the history of ever.

This ranks second to my "PETA: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals" shirt, which offended a clerk at 7/11 so much that she didn't say a single word to me during the entire transaction of the purchase of a Super Big Gulp, and scowled at me through most of it once she read the shirt. Yeah, that was a great moment.

I still find it somewhat...I dunno...bemusing, I suppose...that there are people out there who allow their day to be affected by what someone wears. I see some slacker with no job in a Che shirt or "I wanna stick it to the rich with Obama, even though they're the ones who employ people" sticker on a vehicle, I simply think "What a poor, misguided person that is" shortened to one word ("idiot"), and go on merrily thinking about shooting and how great it is not to be represented by a Kennedy. Yet, those who worry about what other people wear instead of really doing anything about what concerns them so, can have their day ruined by a shirt slogan. What an odd way to live a life.

If you wondered what to get me for Christmas, this shirt would be a great idea.

What's happened to style?

2009-08-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

Where has style gone? I was watching SportsCenter the other night, probably the very good NFL Today show, and I couldn't believe what was seeing. It looked to me as if the current state of style was the worst of all available eras. It hurts my eyes and my heart.

One thing I will always love about Abbott and Costello, besides that they're still funny all these years later, is the clothes. That was a more civil time, when men wore hats that weren't baseball caps, pocket squares were not only stylish but required equipment, and suits looked good. I've always been a fan of that era. It wasn't extreme in color or tailoring, didn't have any extra junk that didn't need to be there, and still had variety. Burberry coats. Double breasted and single breasted suits (although I prefer notched collars to peaked collars, I'd still rock the right peaked collar), narrower ties, and no four in hand or Windsor knots with spread collar shirts. Simple, classic colors and simple, classic tailoring.

Giant knots and spread collars look like ass. Always have, always will. I don't care for that knot or that style of collar under any circumstances, but together they're hideous. I still favor single overhand knots in ties, and it took me a long time to warm up to the trend towards wider ties.

In terms of fashion, it's a lot easier to look good traditionally than it is to look good with flash. Sure, you can get the trendiest suit out there, which will probably be too bright and too shiny, and you'll look fly for a while. Just don't let anybody take pictures of it. Many a torturous moment has been caused by the simple act of breaking out the photo album. One reason I really enjoy Mad Men, besides that it's a great show with great characters doing great-or at least interesting-things, is that the clothes are so awesome.

In searching for this pic (well, a pic like this one):

I came across this article in today's Daily Mail Online, a British online magazine. I had no idea I'd find this, but at least it gives me some hope. I gotta admit, even though it's trendy as can be, I like the current big band swing music. In some ways, I'm hopelessly retro and nostalgic. I very much disagree that the gun isn't required anymore, though.

Health Care...Reform? Suuuuuure it is.

2009-08-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

The health care debate is raging right now, and will probably rage even louder as the details are disclosed. It seems that its not as popular right now as it was during the election. What, it's not really completely free? It's going to be crushingly expensive? The gummint's gonna run it so choice will go away? Can it be?

Well...yeah. That's pretty much what can be expected of a gummint run program. Here's the thing: gummint is the least efficient, most expensive way to do ANYTHING. The Post Office, which has a practical monopoly on printed correspondence, loses money every year. Cash For Clunkers ran out of money in about a week. That procurement of cash was supposed to last six more months, and they couldn't even go one month, much less six.

Every time the gummint gets involved in running businesses, the lean efficiency required by the marketplace goes away. Would the industry (such as it was) in the USSR survive if the Politburo hadn't decreed that it would? Of course not. Inefficiency causes businesses to fail, meaning they close their doors and all their employees are out of work. They hemorrhage money, which only gummints can get away with...for a short time. Remember, the USSR eventually failed, too.

Here's the juice: whatever they tell you it'll cost, it'll cost much, much more than that. If they tell us its going to cost $70 trillion, it'll cost $170 trillion (I just pulled these numbers out of thin air). This is shown throughout our history, so there's no reason to think they got the math right with this project. We, the American taxpayer, are on the hook for that. That means those of us that work will have to pay for it. The rich (defined as those that earn $100,000 to $150,000 yearly, according to President Obama's election rhetoric) already pay 3/4 of the tax bill yearly. They can't pay more than they already do and be expected to still live in this country. That means everybody loses their options, their out of pocket costs skyrocket, and their quality of care plummets.

Consider this: right now, being a doctor pays well. It should; consider how much it costs in time and money to become a doctor. That means that the profession draws the best and brightest. If the gummint runs the system, do you really think the best and brightest will still be drawn to the profession? Of course not. They'll go find a field that will reward their investment, as it should be. If you want a second rate doctor, go ahead and sign for this mess. If I have to have a major surgery, I want the best and brightest working on me. That's not the time to find out he's not the best available. That's what you get from socialized, government run programs. I want no part of it. EVER.

Commemorating

2009-08-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine had these made up for members of the LF community that have been killed in action. They include Travis Patriquin (look for a book soon on the man), Danish serviceman Christian Raaschou, and the teammate of my friend M4Guru, SSG Justin Whiting. I can't call Justin a friend, but I had met him and talked with him on several occasions. Like all of these gentlemen, he was taken too early in his life, but gave his life for a cause he believed in.

All of these, and more in the service, are better men than we deserve. I fear that we will, once again, leave the job unfinished and do the famous cut and run in the Middle East. I can't believe we're looking at doing that AGAIN. What a waste.

Met another hero today: James Megellas

2009-08-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

I was not thrilled to be working on Saturday again, having been at it all week, but once again, I found that my job does not suck. I got to meet another real hero today: James Megallas stopped by the store today with his beautiful and gracious wife. He was over on Fort Campbell visiting the troops, and luckily came by the shop with a few of the 101st Screaming Eagles.

He's a very unassuming, very friendly man. Like many of the heroes of the Second World War, one does not expect the smiling gentleman that just shook their hand to have done what the record shows they've done. James Megallas is currently being reviewed via legislation to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He'd already earned The Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts, Presidential Citation w/cluster, Belgium Fouragere, 6 Campaign Stars, and Master Parachutist for his WWII service. In short, Mr. Megallas is a stud...although I'm sure he'd dispute that.

Once again, I'm fortunate to meet a hero, and in my world, a celebrity of enormous stature. Kinda makes the temper tantrums of more public celebrities seem all the more childish and petty than ever before.

Diagnostic target and The Great Seal.

2009-07-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

Here's the diagnostic target I mentioned in a previous post. If I could solve all these problems in my shooting, I'd be pretty good. LOL! The Seal I made a long time ago and found it in a picture folder while looking for the target. I figured it might as well get posted somewhere. See how much more enriched the whole world is because of that? Yeah. Me neither.

A poor performance

2009-07-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

Finally shot a match today, for the first time since I shot the IDPA Classifier. And I didn't do very well, which was dismaying, but not wholly unexpected. I finished 6th out of 12, which to me isn't as good as it might seem.

That basically put me last in the group of experienced shooters. Many of the other six were either dealing with a handicap, such as the older man that had a severely broken ankle earlier in his life that hindered his movement and made it difficult or impossible for him to kneel. There was a young lady that had only been shooting for a couple of years. I should finish in front of that group, and should have finished further up than I did...but I didn't.

I found that, once again, mashing the trigger and trying to go faster don't work well together. I dropped some points that I shouldn't have. I caught myself looking at the target instead of the sights a couple times. I missed a relatively easy head shot on the second of three targets, and pretty much center punched the other two. I dropped one point on the hardest stage and felt like I should have gotten that one, too. That's where the points were missing, but it was all my fault. The one I have a hard time living with was the head shot I missed. 5 down on an easy target. I hit the target, but managed to put it outside the perforations. Yeah, it's a talent.

I mentioned expecting a less than stellar performance, and to a degree I did expect it. I was shooting a new Glock 17 with new sights. I'm not dead certain the sights are adjusted to where they need to be, but they worked good on the pepper popper that I hammered with about five rounds. The trigger in that gun is quite a bit different than my MnP, which I shot my Classifier with. It was the new gun and I wanted to run it, so I did, expecting that I might not shoot as good as I might have.

I also ran a new Safariland ALS that was tighter than my MnP ALS is. I didn't practice much with it, and had to borrow my mag pouches, too, as my Blade Tech double mag pouch has come up missing. All that new gear meant that I was going to struggle a little, and in the end, I struggled about as much as I expected to. If there had been mag changes in this match, I would have made up a lot of ground, as some of the malfunctions I saw were not handled expertly. Oddly enough, the ones I saw were with 1911's, with at least one of them being a Kimber. That doesn't mean that Tactical Tupperware shooters wouldn't have had trouble. Its a skill that has to be practiced.

It all comes down to this: you will not rise to the occasion. You will revert to the level of your training.

Figures: cats are easily offended

2009-07-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

This is a funny comic for how obvious it is. How many people have you come across that are exactly like Bucky? And how many of them, like Bucky, are bed wetting liberal? lol!

My job does not suck: Mini Scout

2009-07-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

Once again, my job does not suck, and I got a look at a prototype of the new Mini Scout light that Surefire has been messing with. There are five of these in existence, so I didn't get to keep this one, but I did get to hang it on my rifle and run around the store a little bit. I switched the tailcap to the Z71 cap that I have on my full sized Scout (that sounds funny to me) and lemme tell ya, I fell in love. Dunno how far out this bad boy is, but this thing is the HEAT!!!

Its a single 123a battery, and currently about a hundred lumens for about 80 minutes. Those are not final specs; IIRC the target is 120-ish lumens for about an hour continuous.

July 4th: don't lose perspective of what really happened

2009-07-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to add this yesterday, but like a true American patriot, I spent pretty much the whole day shooting. That which was not spent shooting was spent eating a drinking with friends, most of whom are in the Service.

I copied this from Glenn Beck's e-mail newsletter. Glenn is almost as conservative as I, but doesn't claim the GOP as his end-all, be-all party. He's just an American in that sense. He's also a historian, and loves to dig into the culture and truth of historical accounts and matters. I thought he wrote this succinctly and more directly than I could, given the over-fed status I have this weekend. He does a really nice job of explaining what exactly was at stake for the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Let us NEVER forget what the Founding Fathers actually risked to make this nation a reality.

July 3, 2009

Hello America,

Here it is, another Fourth of July. Traditionally, this is a day to gather with friends, maybe fire up the barbeque and play with kids until the sun sets and the fireworks start. But in thinking back on the meaning behind this day, we must never forget that our nation was baptized in the blaze of a very different kind of "fireworks." Yes, this is a day of rest and relaxation, as well it should be, but this year…I'd like to ask you a favor. At some point during the day, I hope you'll take time to think and reflect on what it is we're truly celebrating on the 4th of July -- our Independence Day. Of course the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776 but it's so much more than that. On this day, 233 short years ago, a small group of men dedicated themselves to a higher purpose, an ideal they believed in so greatly, they signed their name to its expression and in doing so put their very lives at risk.

Never has a simple act of signing one's name carried such weight, such a profound commitment. By signing the Declaration of Independence, 56 men stood in direct defiance of the British government. They became marked men, and willingly so. As I was doing some research on the significance of July 4th, I came across some interesting facts about these men. Today as we all enjoy the freedom our forefathers guaranteed us, join me in honoring the extraordinary sacrifice of 56 extraordinary Americans.

Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence:

Five were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes burned to the ground. Two lost sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, and two more had sons captured. Nine fought and died in the Revolutionary War.

If you ever feel like your lone voice can never be heard, that the political system isn't set up for "regular" Americans to change the course of history, remember: The signers were flesh and blood, mortal men with a divinely-inspired aim.

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants, and nine were farmers and large plantation owners. They were well educated, smart enough to know that by signing the Declaration of Independence, they were signing their own death warrants. They did it anyway, and God bless them for it.

As we enjoy our liberty on this 4th of July, or any day of any month, we must never take that liberty for granted. Too many have given too much. In the words of the Signers themselves, "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor -- I think that's a price paid worth a few minutes of reflection, don't you? But let's not be solemn in that reflection. I say rejoice and share this information with your friends and family, especially your kids. The Signers asked for nothing in return for their pledge, but I say that we show our thanks with a pledge of our own: To remember, to be grateful, and to carry on in their spirit. America is the greatest country this world has ever and will ever know, and it will stay that way so long as "we the people" remember that just like in 1776.

It's US that surrounds them, and we'll never back down.

Happy Independence Day, and God bless America.

Glenn

How many of us would have the fortitude to do the same thing in those circumstances? I think more of us than one might initially think.

Sign of the times from Moderately Confused

2009-06-30T06:51:00.001-07:00

This would be funnier if it wasn't so accurate.

Supply and Demand

2009-06-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

I read this post on the Down Range blog by Chris Hodgdon of Hodgdon Powder Company. As most people who's tinfoil hats aren't on too tight, the reason for the shortage is simply high demand. Some folks seem to think it's unusual that powder would be in short supply, but all I can do when I hear that is to throw down my best Spock Eye Brow Move. Why wouldn't gun powder be unavailable when primers, brass and bullets are in the same category? Reloading equipment is hard to find too, for exactly the same reason. There's simply more demand than we've seen in...well...ever. The amount of buying going on is unprecedented, even in comparison to the Clinton years of the original AWB.

Back before the current ownership of my employer took over, Lightfighter Tactical had to deal with these issues. Basically, at the height of the gear buying frenzy in the early years of the GWOT, nylon stuff was in the same boat that ammo and components are now. I can't count the number of times somebody with no background at all in economics suggested that "well, just order some extras" to solve the availability problem. Here's the thing: if one is backordered, what good does it do to order two or three? They're all back ordered; they're not gonna get here till they get here. Same thing with ammo. It just isn't on the shelf to be ordered.

What we're going to see, though, is a slow down in purchasing, which has already started. There's also going to be a swelling of stuff on the secondary market as those that got in on the Hysterical Gun Buying Frenzy of 2008/2009 find that they can't cover the AmEx bill as it comes due. Guns and ammo will be there, and I'm sure accessories from the high end to the low end will be trickling into that market as well.

I think we're going to see an increase in the number of consumers in the primary market, though. Perhaps a better way to put it would be to say that not all the members of that market will leave it as they realize that the predictions of doom and gloom aren't coming true...until after the mid term elections. A lot of people that didn't intend to become shooters, who just wanted a gun for the home, or just because they feared that the government was going to stomp their rights and tell them they couldn't have something (have no illusions; that's where this administration is moving towards) are going to become avid shooters. They're going to find out what we know: shooting is fun, and training to become as proficient as you can is necessary.

That doesn't mean that the ammo shortage makes any of that easier, but Mr. Hodgdon is right: the supply will eventually meet demand. Markets work, as long as they don't get meddled with. It sucks now, but ammo will be available sooner or later. I'd prefer sooner, as I shoot just about every weekend.

I think we're going to find some friends where we didn't necessarily have them before. The unprecedented spending and hardcore liberalism of the current administration are forcing people to be concerned. While they don't shoot or want to own a gun, they realize that we stand together to protect ALL our rights, or we will hang separately.

Wisdom

2009-06-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

Saw this posted on my forum and had to save it:

"It reminds me of the phrase 'don't confuse enthusiasm with capability'."

Robot Chicken: What took so long to notice that?

2009-06-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

Like a few hundred other people, I've been watching Robot Chicken for quite a while now...or at least as much as a couple season's worth can equal a while. I can't believe it didn't dawn on me earlier, but I had a revelation. I had that revelation a while ago, but I have to sorta present tensify it to make it a bloggable conflagration, both for the sake of the revelation and for the sake of creating a few new words.

The end credits music for Robot Chicken is a chicken bawk version of the same tune that the Dead movies (Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Road Trip of the Dead, Weekend in Bora Bora of the Dead, and like that) used. Turns out it's called "The Gonk", and was originally penned by Herbert Chappell. See? You learned something today.

Gun Related Must Have: AK Ice Tray

2009-05-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Found this brousing the AAC blog, and wanted to memorialize it here for both my readers. This is just plain cool: it's an ice tray that shapes the ice into 7.62X39 cartridges. Now if only they did 'em in 6.8 SPC...

Fort Campbell SOF Three Gun Match

2009-05-17T10:29:00.000-07:00

My sunburn today is fairly comprehensive! I spent yesterday out at the Rattlenake Ridge range for the FTCKY SOF Three Gun Match. My employer, ATS Tactical Gear, donated a customized Glock 19 as a raffle prize. The custom work was done by a friend of ours from 5th SFG, and it it's impressive. I'll get a pic of it before it gets transfered to the guy who nabbed it this week.

The 5th Group guys were ready for this match; they'd been practicing quite a bit for it. The top spots last year were taken my 160th guys, with Tony Ely winning the match. That guy can shoot, and has been a serious competitive shooter for a long time. I think it's because he's pilot-tall, which means he doesn't have as far to go to present the gun all the way out like I do. That's what I keep telling myself, at least. What the reality ends up being is that he's better than I am and I have a long way to go to get into that league. lol!

Tony has since moved forward in his career and is posted elsewhere these days. Even so, the Group guys had something for them this year. I watched runs by several of my friends that were just plain fast, with really good hits and clean run after clean run.

Special mention, though, really needs to be made of the guy who doesn't want the attention: my brother-frumma-nuther-mother Matt E. Matt's practice consisted of a hundred rounds of pistol drills that we did a week ago. No carbine at all. He was the first shooter on stage 5, which was where his squad started the match, and got his eye pro sprayed with oil from an "excess of lube", as he called it. He was shooting with an occluded eye, and didn't shoot a couple of targets. Right off the bat, he was down 9 points. However, he won every stage his squad shot from that point on, was the only shooter I can remember cleaning the entire steel stage. After that first stage, he shot better than some guys that get paid to shoot. Out of 59 shooters (IIRC) he finished 20th. I'm really, really proud of how well he did, but it means I can't shoot the match now. He set the bar too high for ATS employees! LOL!

Other than Matt, I think the rest of the top 25 were all Group guys. Several of our gunfighter friends finished way up at the top of the standings. They did well, and so did the Nightstalkers. Bottom line is, if you're an enemy of this country, you don't want these guys knowing who you are, much less where you are. It won't end well for you, I promise!

I wish I had video skills. Pelosi is beggin' to be mocked!

2009-05-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've seen the classic Badger Badger Badger movie. It's been on the 'net for quite a while. It's quite funny, really; I like it.

But now is when I wish I had some video editing skills. I saw Nancy Pelosi lying her ass off on TV this morning, saying she didn't know about water boarding, when we all know she was thoroughly briefed on it. She's trying to cover her substantial butt, and the documentation says the opposite of what she's claiming. In the history of the human race, that's been called lying the whole time.

So, that being the case, for some reason the first thing I thought of while watching her lie was the Badger Badger Badger video, but with different lyrics. Something like this:

Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar

Nancy! Nancy!
(repeat)
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
Liar
A snake! A snake! Snake! A snake! Ohhhhh it's a snake!!
Liar
Liar
Liar...

If you have the skills, feel free to use this idea. Just make sure I get to see it.

Cool Stuff to do in Louisville: The Frazier Museum

2009-05-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I visited Louisville, and I'm finally blogging about it.

Upon breakin' my best friend's step-son out of Fort Knox for his Family Day Pass, we decided that there'd be more to do in Louisville than the area directly surrounding the base, so we meandered our way down to that town. Tony's goals for the weekend were pretty simple: eat a bunch of stuff that wasn't completely healthy, and sleep in big time. We succeeded admirably.

We ended up in a hotel over near the airport that was just a few minutes down the freeway from downtown, and another few minutes from the University of Louisville. Being in the area of a University means lots of cheap eats, and the manager at the hotel recommended the 5th Quarter steak house. Turned out to be an excellent suggestion.

Saturday, after a trip to Crack Barrel, we planned to hit the Frazier International Museum, and then wander across the street to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory. Except that we never made it across the street. Turns out that the Frazier is stocked, on three floors, with armor, flails, maces, broadswords, pole arms, pikes, lances, voulges, spears, rapiers, sabers, pistols, revolvers, rifles, carbines, cannons, and some really kick ass dioramas, or tableaus as they seem to prefer to call them. We ended up spending about five hours there, and if they weren't closing, I think I could have spent a few more. This place was everything I love: sharp pointy stuff and things that go BOOM!

They had a really cool exhibition that was done shortly after we reached the third floor. Two living historians gave a demonstration of swordsmanship by way of acting out the scenes from Romeo and Juliet. The point was to describe the fights as they might have actually happened between the Montegues and Capulets, two families that were more or less at war. In addition to acting out the dialogue, they also explained the weapons, even going so far as to tell us something I didn't know: the derivation of the term "swashbuckler". It comes from a fighting style that was common at the time of the Romeo and Juliet. the "swash" refers to the slashing, cutting style of swordsmanship, where the "bucker" refers to the small, round shield used with the weak hand that has that name. Those guys were really, really good. A tip of the ATS hat with the "Kill Bad Guys Like a Champion Today" patch on the back to them.

This is the Armada tableau, depicting the English kickin' the ever lovin' crap out of the Spanish armada. Tactics made the difference once again.

This next one is from the Battle of Balaclava, more famously known as "The Charge of the Light Brigade". Professionalism in the face of blundered leadership. Note the wild eyed look on the face of the horse. They did an excellent job with this one.

This last one I included as much because I thought it was extra cool as for my friend Matt E. who's a big, big fan of the movie Zulu. The Battle of Rourke's Drift. This photo is not, in my opinion, the best angle to see this scene:

The tableau photos are from the Frazier's website. Those are some great quality pics! Much better than I'd be able to do with my digital camera!

After spending all day at the museum, we wandered around a bit and took a drive down River Road. We found Joe's Crab Shack, and despite the crazy long wait-no doubt because of the 50 top they set before us-we ate more than we should have again...which was one of the stated goals. Again, success. The aforementioned hat drew the attention of the manager as he was walking by. He stopped, took a long look at it, and said "That's what I thought that said. I just wanted to be sure". I just grinned and told him "It was a gift from a friend." He left with a disconcerted look on his face. lol!

Sunday meant we had to get him back to base, but we had enough time to hit Crack Barrel again, and went to see "Fighting". Decent movie, but we saw it more because there was nothing else we wanted to see than it being the first choice. :) I dropped Tony back at Fort Knox, and eventually found my way back home. The best news we heard was that somebody got caught by a Captain at Kentucky Kingdom in civilian clothes. The order was Class A's or Class B's all weekend. Oops!

We had a great time, and I'm really, really proud of that young soldier. He's still got about a month of AIT to do, then it's off to Texas to be a Cav Scout. He's a smart young man, and a self starter. He's going to do great things in the service.

He's got another graduation coming, so I'll be up that way in about four weeks or so. I'm really looking forward to that one.

Star Trek: Yup!

2009-05-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

Went with Paul J. to see the new Star Trek today. I gotta say, overall its a very enjoyable movie. Even if it was a PG-13 and Simon Pegg wasn't in this one enough, I liked it, especially in contrast to the movies that came before it.

The existing flicks are OK, although I'm not a big fan of the ones with the TV show cast in 'em. Much like the James Bond series and the new Batman franchise, the new one is just better than its predecessors. Bad Attitude Bond and Mean and Nasty Batman are improvements over the previous versions, and in total, so are the cast of the new ST.

There are a couple of character interactions that I thought were outside the canon of the original, and the young Spock isn't as comfortable in the role, in my estimation, than Leonard Nimoy, but those are huge shoes to fill. Still, he was good in the role, and Karl Urban was surprisingly good as Bones. In the past, his performances could be characterized as...how to put it...wooden. As Bones, he channeled just enough of Deforest Kelly to let you know who he was, while still putting his own twist on it. I didn't figure out who Nero was until I looked it up on IMDB. Great performances abounded.

Go see it. Its a good story and quality escapism for a couple hours, and it's just plain fun. I'm looking forward to seeing the others in this franchise.

Consider your heroes

2009-05-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

I got to meet a legend, hero and great American today. Tony Pryor was in the store today, meeting another great American who's just become Surefire's Director of Military Sales. Between the two of them, they've killed more people that the plague (they were all bad). Matt and I got to spend a bit of time hanging out with those two, and it was, as it usually is with those kind of dudes, just sitting at the feet of the masters. There's all kinds of stuff to be learned from listening to a couple of pros talk shop.

Once they'd left, Matt and I kinda looked at each other, grinned and just marveled at how cool it was that one of our heroes was hangin' out and buyin' some stuff. I made a comment about how weird it would seem to a run-of-the-mill average citizen that we care so much about a guy like him coming in, and we wouldn't care that much if George Clooney or "some other faggit", in Matt's words, was there. It brings an interesting question to light: who are your heroes?

The older I get, the less I care about celebrities, especially those that are famous for being famous rather than being talented in a particular area. They're just people. Sure, they do things that are entertaining and get well compensated for that, but for the most part, what they give is escapism...and stupid, uninformed political statements. That I may want to go see somebody's performance in a movie doesn't mean that their popularity means anything more than that they are good performers. Most of them don't contribute much to the country as a whole, although there are exceptions.

There are only a few ways that celebrities, whether they be musicians, actors, athletes, or artists, can get my attention, much less respect. One of those is to take their own time and put it in with the USO or visiting troops on posts across the country. There are those, like John Wayne, who used their celebrity to make things better for America's defenders. Others have used their positions to make things better for their fellow citizens, and some put their hands were their mouth is and work. But a lot of Americans consider them to be royalty for being celebrities, and that's just wrong.

Take some time and look at who your heroes are. Consider why exactly they're your heroes, and what they do to make this a better place. If that's not what they do, perhaps you should consider changing the criteria that put them on that pedestal for you.

When all else fails, post pics of the kid

2009-04-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

I actually had something to do last weekend: I was in Louisville with my best friend's step-son, who I signed out of Fort Knoxxx upon his graduation from Basic. Upon delivering him back to said Fort on Sunday, he begins his six weeks of AIT, and then he's off to Fart Bliss. It is said there is no base in the country that has been more misnamed.

So, since I haven't written about that yet, and I'm not going to now, here's a recent pic of Schwaggie, complete with new tail cap on the Scout light. That's the V61, which doesn't have the "fence" that the stock cap (V59, I think?) has. Much easier to manipulate, but more prone to light ND's.

The "why" of ammo shortages

2009-04-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

Got this in a newsletter e-mail from the NSSF:

FAST FACTS . . .
ANSWERS TO AMMUNITION AVAILABILITY QUESTIONS

NSSF has received numerous calls regarding shortages of ammunition. Many of these callers have expressed concern that the supply of ammunition is not able to keep up with the current demand.

In order to provide the best information possible on the issue of ammunition availability, NSSF interviewed ammunition manufacturers across the United States. Here's what we have learned:

Is there truly a shortage of ammunition?

The shortage of ammunition is real and is caused by several factors including:

*

A significant spike in consumer demand
*

Law Enforcement demand for training and readiness
*

Department of Defense demand for training and readiness
*

Higher prices from commodities

What calibers are in the highest demand?

The high demand for ammunition extends across caliber lines. The increase can be seen in most handgun, rifle and rimfire ammunition and on certain shot shell products such as buckshot.

What are manufacturers doing to keep up with demand?

In order to help keep up with demand for ammunition, manufacturers are working at full capacity (24/7). It is believed that any ammunition shortage is likely a temporary issue; however, it will take time for supply to catch up with demand.

How long will it take for supply to catch up with demand?

While it is believed that supply will be increasing, the great unknown is what demand will be later in the year. Since there is no way for manufacturers to predict how long consumer demand will be sustained at its current, unprecedented level, it is impossible for manufacturers to forecast the timeline for when the current backlog will begin to improve.

If that's true, at least it puts the situation in perspective.

The Toughest Man that Ever Was

2009-04-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've been a Christian most of my life. I didn't realize that I was supposed to keep track of the date, or I would have. I think I was about six, maybe seven when I got saved. I come from a Christian family, my Dad being a Chaplain and pastor since before I was born. I grew up in the church, and have read the Easter story many, many times.

The description in the Bible of the beating that Jesus took is fairly graphic, but the written word sometimes doesn't convey the reality of what it was. I just watched The Passion of the Christ (I know, I'm slow on getting to things sometimes). I think Mel Gibson did a very accurate portrayal, in terms of the description in the Scriptures, of what Jesus had to endure for his task to be completed.

Historians have good records of how things were done in those days. The cat-o-nine-tails is well documented (and far more brutal than popular culture depicts it), as well as there being a pretty good idea of how crucifixion worked and was done. Caning is still done in some parts of the world, but with limited numbers of strokes because it's so painful and damaging. And there was more.

The point I think I'm trying to get at is this: I'm a 6'6", 300 pound gorilla who can take a shot. I've had bad injuries that hurt big time. I used to be an athlete, and I used to actually train at raising my pain threshold. Yeah, I was a weird young man in some respects. But there's no way I could have taken all that Jesus did and made it all the way to the cross. He fell and got up when I don't think a single man ever on the planet still could have. He was near death when the Romans were done beating, whipping, and tearing him, and yet he still managed to carry His cross most of the way to Golgotha. He lived through being nailed to the cross, and was still able to talk coherently to the criminal who asked for forgiveness. Bottom line: no one has ever been tougher than Jesus.

Kyle Lamb's thoughts on sights

2009-04-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Shooting while focusing on the target instead of the sights seems to be "coming back around" again. I've been shooting since I was 16. This idea has never really left, but has come and gone in popularity several times in the intervening 26 years of my life. It seems to be coming back into vogue again.

My opinion means squat next to Lamb's, but here's my take on it: if you can't get the gun up to eye level and need to shoot somebody or somebodies, it can be done at waist level, just out of the holster (the Speed Rock). On the occasions that I've done this drill-and I've only ever done it in classes and on the range-I've made same hole hits several times. Perhaps I should shoot from there more often...except that the distances are about as far from the target as one wall is from another, minus the depth of a couple bodies, in a hallway. Otherwise, making hits, especially as distances widen, happens most accurately with sights.

In case you're saying "who's Kyle Lamb?" Here's a thumbnail: retired as a Sergeant Major from the US Army, most of that with Special Forces Operational Detatchment-Delta, AKA The Big Boys, and known in popular parlance as Delta Force. As I understand it, one of the last jobs he did there was as the Force Mod guy. That's the guy that determines what new equipment meets the standards and needs of America's best combat shooters. He was there in some of the worst places American fighting men have ever gone, including Somalia (yeah, he was in the Battle of Mogadishu) and Iraq, among other places that can't be talked about. All that to say, he knows what it's like to be shot at and return fire, and made a career of it at the highest level possible. When Lamb talks, only a fool fails to listen.

And, because its cool and because this the standard of excellence, check out the 2X2X2 drill. Watch Lamb's last run at the end, and realize that these are "A" zone hits; his controlled pairs are right on top of each other at a speed I'm not even near. 1.26 seconds...Wow.

Only one post? Well, here's Jura then.

2009-04-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

I was scrolling up and down my blog, and noticed in the column at right that there was but one post regarding whisky. Hard to believe, but the numbers don't lie. So, in order to do something about that, I gotta mention Jura 10 Year Old.

The bottle I have was a gift from one of the world's greatest people, Brother Murray. Brother Murray is the MCLMM/Baconforce representative in the beautiful northern land of Scotland. He sent me the bottle of 10 y.o. that came with a cool Jura flask for my birthday. I have been blessed with the best of friends.

Jura is an Islay single malt, but it is much different from the other Islay whiskys, primarily in that it doesn't have the strong peaty smokiness of SMS like Laprohaig. Its a 40% strength, deep amber gold whisky. It has a really great color. For some reason, it reminded me of sunsets in the west. I had a lot of good times related to sunsets in the west; that mental image brings a grin to my face.

The thing I found most interesting about this distilling is the finish. Some single malts have a distinct...ummm....pinch to them when you first put them in yer maw. There's kind of a bite to them, at the edges of the tongue. Jura 10 y.o., though, doesn't do that. It does have an agreeable warmth to it, but not until you swallow. Its unique in that respect; I can't recall another SMS that I've had that has the same characteristic in the same way.

Describing food or drink is difficult for me; I don't understand notes, hints of brine or leather, or basically "get" any of the other pretentious attempts to put into words what is tasted or smelled. Suffice it to say, I like this a lot, and I'm quite humbled that I have friends that are willing to send such gifts to me. I don't deserve them.

At least I classified.

2009-04-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

I went out to Rattlesnake Ridge yesterday with Paul J. and Matt E. to shoot an IDPA Classifier. Matt had already classified with both his Glock and Wilson CQB, whereas Paul and I hadn't. I didn't have any extra .45, so I used my MnP 9mm. We had about ten shooters, and oddly enough, most hadn't heard of the MnP. When chatting with other shooters after I shot and basically waiting around and hanging out, when they asked "What do you shoot?" I answered "MnP 9", and got a quizzical look in return. I typically had to expound "Smith n Wesson MnP 9mm", which got an affirmative response. Maybe I wasn't doing it right.

Paul, as usual, shot like he was using a laser instead of a pistol. He dropped six points on the third stage, where the typical shooter will drop somewhere between 20 and 30. He was shooting deliberately to be accurate, so the only thing that's standing between him and classifying "Expert" is speed. He's pretty phenomenal. Matt improved his time and ended up in sharpshooter again, even though he wasn't happy with his shooting overall. Last match, he placed 3rd, even ahead of some of the best shooters we know.

In discussing it, we decided that we will be working on some of the harder aspects of the Classifier, and tuning up those skills. The Classifier isn't the hardest course of fire ever, but the strings are long-20 or 30 rounds per section of each stage, something like that-and the skills that it tests can't be hidden. You can either do a fast failure drill, or not. You can shoot well one handed, or you can't. It really does an excellent job of showing you where you need to improve. My accuracy was adequate, but there are places I can improve my speed, and I botched my tactical (administrative or reload with retention) reload by not having my plan set ahead of time. I thought I had a plan, but I guess I tried to change it in the middle, and added time. The other areas were probably drawing from concealment and getting that first good shot off faster.

I brought my camera, but totally forgot I had it with me and didn't get any photos. Rats. I also picked up a good sunburn on my face and neck. Since we've been so bundled up all winter long, I kinda forgot how that whole sun thing works again. Oops. At least I looked cool in my Oakley M Frames and Peltor Comtacs. lol!

Now, you've read all this, and now you're wondering: hey Haj, where did you classify? Well, I did indeed classify. I'm smack dab in the middle of the Marksman class. I don't have my score handy, it hasn't been posted yet. On the plus side, at least I didn't just barely make it, but I've got a ways to go to get into the next class, too. Got some practicing to do!

T.A.L.L.

2009-04-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

I've been pondering of late, which is typically a good way to come to some unusual conclusions and topics. Sometimes it's crucially important stuff, like what to do with all the Obama threads on the forum, what is CAG using, or the frequent topic: entertainment.

Pondering entertainment brings one to consider those that entertain. Most are celebrities, because that comes with the territory. Being high profile means that a lot of people know your name-they think they know you, but do they? I don't think so-and know what you look like. While parts of that suck, parts are easy to let go to your head. We see it all the time. Lookit Lindsay Lohan.

LiLo has pretty much trashed her career with her excessive lifestyle. Apparently, movie makers just don't want to put up with it, regardless of how willing she is to get naked. Its such a shame, too. The girl has talent. She might be able to make a comeback if she can get it together. I hope she does, because she does have talent.

Somebody asked Bill Murray once what it was like to be rich and famous. He thought for a moment, and said "why don't you try just being rich, and see if that doesn't do it for ya". I'm thinking he really knows the what's up. LiLo was getting rich, I guess, but being famous seems to have been the downfall.

There are plenty of hot young actresses in Whollyweird these days. Lots of them come and go, but there are a few that seem to be able to handle the rise and avoid the fall. They're the ones I hope have long, long careers and make tons and tons of money. To that end, I think I'm gonna start a series. The first two on the list are two of my faves:
Anne Hathaway

and Jordana Brewster

They are the first of the Anti-Lindsay Lohans. Yeah, I have a thing for brown eyed brunettes. lol!

Yay! New carbine stuff! Surefire Scout Light

2009-04-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

I got this little bad boy given to me today. How I got it is a little convoluted, so I'm not gonna go into it, but I will say this: its handy to have connections. lol!

The Scout is based on the Executive Elite series of lights. They have a sub-one inch body diameter, which the 6P and it's cousins have. There's an internal mount that's machined as part of the body, and the head is one of Surefire's new LED lamps and TIR lens that focuses the beam. Expensive, but soooo worth it. Shwaggie looks very sexy with her new light. Chances are more than good that the tail cap is going to be replaced with a non-shrouded one, and the light will probably be moved back. As it is now, I have to change my grip to actuate the light reliably.

Make sure to note the Knight's Armament flash hider, a gift from a high speed friend of mine. Like I said, it's good to have some connections.

Ammo is gettin' scarcer and scarcer

2009-03-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Man, this is getting rough. I'm sure its pretty much the same across the country: there's very little ammo to be had right now, and I'm betting the reason, again, stems from the Gummint. There was a rumor last week that all imported ammo had been banned by Executive Order. I searched for almost a week and can find no proof of it, but apparently consumers are not willing to take the chance and are scarfing up ammo like Pac-Man on one of the magical blue pills in the corner. What he's doing with those blue pills is a topic for another time.

The Obamanation Administration hasn't seemed to figure out that they're driving all of this every time one of their loudmouth figureheads steps up and makes a comment about guns or gun control. Every time they hint at it, it causes a whole 'nother wave of buying and supplies dry up. Again. It doesn't help that Wal Marts all over this area appear to be willing to sell all their ammo shipments to one of the local dealers or their employees. I generally don't like rationing, but if it has to be to spread product around as much as possible, that's what should happen. It doesn't do any good for shooting around here to sell a bunch of guns that can't be fed. Its not healthy for the sport, which could grow with match shooting, training, and all that goes with it.

Zerobama has been the greatest gun salesman the country's seen in quite some time; certainly much better than Clinton ever was. The "leadership" in Congress is watching what's going on, and I think they realize what's happening. The Obamanation didn't get a supermajority of voters. In fact, he didn't break even and won on Electoral College votes. This was not a Reagan-style landslide. So, while there's quite a bit of Hope for the Change of the Hope of the Change, there are plenty of pissed off gun owners, and a large number of them are new gun owners. Now that most of the campaign promises have proven to be as valuable as dust and the Marxism that we know Teleprompter Jeebus believes in is starting to show, gun control legislation is a bad, bad idea. The Speakers of the House and Senate both know that it's the third rail, and came out against it publicly. That doesn't mean they've changed their minds, it means they've realized that they could easily lose the House and Senate again, with the Presidency a short while after that. They know they're just lucky that a true Conservative didn't get nominated in the last election.

If you haven't already, make sure your representatives know where you stand on gun control, and join a group that can lobby for your rights, be it the NRA, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Gun Owners of America, Second Amendment Foundation, Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, or any others. There are more, and Google will bring 'em up. We've got to be vigilant and make our voices heard. I recently joined the NRA again, and will be looking into others. Now's the time to kick some ass!

Combat Focus Shooting: what's different here?

2009-03-27T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've been pondering this question for a couple of days now, and I don't have a good answer. I was watching Wednesday Night at the Range on The Outdoor Network-might as well, there's rarely anything else worth watching on Wednesdays-and caught the "Best Of" episode that was the season finale of Shooting Gallery. That episode centered on Rob Pincus' Combat Focus Shooting.

I watched it in hopes of finally finding out what was different, other than a couple of shooting positions, about CFS. Looks to me like it's no different, except for a couple of TTP's, than the way everybody should be doing it anyway: thumbs forward isosceles. Don't jerk the trigger. They don't focus on the front sight, which is different from the way the best shooters in the world are taught, but the show didn't go into what to focus on instead.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out what's different and better about CFS than the way the best combat shooters in the world are trained. I'm not seeing it. Additionally, I don't see a reason to listen to what Rob Pincus has to say in contrast to what Larry Vickers, Kyle Lamb or Pat Rogers does. I know their backgrounds. Rob Pincus' background is a lot less clear.