Weapon's Wednesday - The All Weather All Animal Rifle

In college, I got invited to go on a south Georgia whitetail hunt. Over expansive farm land. Stand hunting. My humble Marlin in .35 Remington wasn't quite up the task. Now don't get me wrong, I love the .35 Remington. I believe Frank Hamer could take down anything with a Model 8, but, out a short lever gun it leaves a little to be desired when you're looking at Bambi's dad 243 yards away through iron sights.

So I made a mental note to get a deer rifle. An honest to God deer rifle. In a suitable caliber. The 7mm Rem Mag Hawkeye being a bit overkill for, well, just about everything.

I thought off and on about my perfect rifle for about five years. Between the Army and the Boy Scouts, what little deer hunting I did was either stalking or shooting car struck deer before a bus load of Cub Scouts came by. So, 336C or Mk II territory.

In the fall of 2016, I decided I wanted an all weather Hawkeye in .30-06 Gov't. Part of that may be the old saw of "you can always find .30-06 in a panic because a man with a .30-06 doesn't panic."

Which is kind of true, it's a very common round. Every hardware store in the country carries it near enough.

My corollary to that, and why I went with the .30-06, is that "a man with a .30-06 doesn't panic, he squares his shoulders and trusts that the 220 grain Sierra solid is enough for grizzly."

And that is to say that the grand old .30 caliber Government can take everything in North America, given proper bullet and shot placement. To include both striking coal miners and West Virginia militia men.

The Ruger M77 is the brain child of Jim Sullivan and Bill Ruger. Both firearms greats. Bill Ruger famously stated that he chose the M77 designation because of the success Remington and Winchester had with the Model 700 and Model 70, respectively.

The Model 77 is a traditional, Mauser style action. It features a large claw extractor and control round feed.
It also comes standard with proprietary and patented integral Ruger scope mounts on the top of the reciever. A nifty feature.

Which of course lend themselves to Loopy glass

I aquired my rifle from Gander Mountain in the spring of 2017. It was the last all weather Hawkeye in.30-06 in the Gander Mountain inventory. I was able to get it at quite a steal, especially considering I ordered it from a store in Colorado.

The internet likes dog pictures

She's a good shooting, good handling, heavy rifle. I hope to pass it on to my children one day. That is after they out grow the Remington 700 ADL in .243 I bought for their first center fire gun. But that rifle is a story for another day.

Sunday Stories - Dead Right There

Gander Mountain 309 - Spring 2017

"Mister Culverhouse, you need to equip yourself with a heavy rifle and a pistol suitable for personal defense and report to the Transvaal at once." 

I was fondling a lovely Winchester Model 70 super grade in .458 Win Mag. I was envisioning being summonsed by the Home Office to a desolate village, a predatory lion needing slaying.

And then that couple walked up. I say that couple because it wasn't just that once customer, it was a couple. And they were both that customer.

"Howdy. I want you to show my girlfriend a couple of rifles." The fellow began, pleasently enough but already my alarm bells were going off.

"I need me a deer rifle!" She piped up energetically enough for me to believe that this wasn't a straw sale or anything, so no worries there.

Now, these two, were younger, decently well dressed but with the redneck affections that a lot of kids in our little well to do suburb of Atlanta affected.

Boots that had only seen mud at a Luke Byran concert, UGA hat even he probably went to Valdosta State, torn designer jeans that probably cost more than my P-345, you get the picture.

You could take your pick of which lifted 4x4 in the parking lot Daddy had paid for.

But hey, to each his own, and more importanly, those folks bought guns. A lot of guns.

Now, it pains me to say it, but I sold a lot of Taurus PT738s, SDV40Es, DPMS ARs, and 870 Express Magnums.

But hey, there poor choice in guns lets me buy cool guns.

"Sure, thing. We got a bunch of rifle. Any idea on what caliber you want?" I ask, already heading towards the Ruger Americans, knowing we had a camo one in .243 with a Vortex Crossfire on it.

"I want a thirty ought six!"

Oh, dear. Here we go. 

Our little huntress was all of five feet nothing, and maybe a buck oh five soaking set.

"Um, ma'am, that's a lot of gun for Georgia whitetail..."

"I know, I'm not dropping them right there with my Savage three-oh-eight."

Dear Lord, why did I ever leave the Boy Scouts?

"Well, you see, it's really not the caliber, it's shot placement...."

"I can shoot! My Daddy taught me! He was in the Marines!"

"I really think you'd do better with a heavier gun in .243; that'll make it more fun to shoot and cheaper to practice."

"I don't need to practice, I need something to drop a deer."

Honey, buying a pink Glock doesn't make you tough. 

This exchange went on a few more minutes. In a perfect world, I would have said "screw it" and sold her what ever .30-06 she wanted from the rack. But I think I made her madder than she already was.

You can't make this stuff up. And if you ever wondered why counter jockeys like me have a burning desire to drink, well, there you go.

A co worker solemnly swears that I walked off muttering something about the Democrats being right and maybe there should be a test.

Free Form Friday - A post dated prologue

So, the below is kinda in the same universe as the first piece I posted last week, In my vision/outline, Jim and Jake are brothers. And Jake is KIA at some later future war. The problem is that I started writing this in college. So the war with iran seemed like it would kick off in 2014 and we would have figured out the Syrian mess before it got bad. Oh, well.

Hope you enjoy it. Kind of stream of concious, but sort of explains how Jake is the way he is. Feel free to point out any issues. 

Jim felt his socks grow soggy, the damp Montana winter could eat through even the best waterproof boots Danner had to market. Out of habit he glanced to his wrist, looking where his battered Casio dive watch normally resided, and could only manage a sheepish grin, his watch was somewhere in the Persian Gulf, he lost it when the burly SWC enlisted man hoisted him onto to the zodiac, half dead and bleeding. That had been months ago, and Dillard was still burning through his personal days, his recuperation leave, and some straight up time off. The down time was the least the Army could do at least according to Katherine, who was back in the cabin, either grading English papers, or pushing through Colonel Dillard’s collection of Hemingway novels he kept in the lodge. Dillard could barely contain his laugh when Katherine stumbled onto his Dad’s stash of classic American literature.
“The Colonel doesn’t strike me as a man who reads much of anything other than Air Force tech manuals.” Katherine had said as she ran her fingers across the handsome leather bound volumes on the shelves among the mounted animal trophies. Shaking off the memory of his what had happened to his watch, and the botched mission that led to Dillard swimming out to sea with his team, ripping a page out of the SEAL manual, he looked at the sun and estimated the time using his old Boy Scout skills and decided he had hunted enough for the day. Slinging his Ruger M77 over his shoulder, he fished his compass out of his pocket and shot a back azimuth towards the lodge and began the trek back. Despite the fact that his feet were wet and growing colder, he hadn’t seen an Elk in the week he’d been here, and the heavy 7mm Magnum rifle on his back, was, well heavy, he was utterly pleasant. The time off was nice, even Katherine seemed to be enjoying herself, the blonde beauty was proof you could take the girl out of the sorority but not take the sorority out of the girl. She generally balked at any sort of vacation that didn’t involve the beach but seemed to be quite happy at this vacation, and that made Jim very happy. He reflexively fondled the small box in his pocket, chuckling to himself at the notion that it had been to Iran in back, and wondered if he could ever summons the courage to give it to Katherine. The highly trained Delta commando, personally decorated by the President, still got cold feet when it came to women. Those thoughts kept Dillard occupied as he hiked the mile back to the cabin, a slightly ramshackle structure that had been in his family since Great-Great-Grandpa Eli had led a Troop of the Buffalo Soldiers up here on their campaign against the Blackfoot.  Walking in he stamped his boots in the mud room and hung them on the boot warmer, he then cleared and locked his rifle and made his way into the den. Katherine was snuggled on the couch, “A Farewell to Arms” in her hands, and a small fire burning in the fire place. Chuckling at her Phi Mu Snuggie, Dillard eased his lanky frame down beside her and pulled some of the blanket/garment to him, only to be surprised that Katherine was wearing nothing but a purple cotton bikini under her snuggie. Dillard arched an eyebrow as he leaned towards Katherine and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“Don’t read too much into it, Trooper. My pants got wet when I was bringing in wood and I was cold.”

“Well let’s see about making you warm…”Dillard said with a chesire grin, only to be cut off by the chirping of his satellite phone, the official Army issue one which only the Delta Duty Officer of the Day and his CO had the number too. Dillard stifled a curse as Katherine flung her book and leapt up off the couch, wrapping her Snuggie around her as she sulked off to the bedroom.

“Major Dillard.” Jim said gruffly as he answered the offending device.

Tactical Thursday - Tedious Tasking

The 2,000 round test of the humble P-95 continues. At a pace that could best be considered glacial. Shot over to Atlanta Range and Ordnance yesterday. 70 rounds loaded up in mags. And another 50 sitting in a box of some Aguilia 117 grn JHP that was cheap at Academy. And that box some how didn't make it into my ammo can. And there was a guy and his son shooting a Blackhawk in the bay next to me.

I ran through my loaded mags and headed to Hooters. Good day.

So, put my 70 rounds through the gun, which brings us to 150 through the gun in total. No issues. We'll get this thing in high gear here soon. Thus far, the gun doesn't seem to notice what cheap brass cased 115 grn I put through it.

Was planning on doing some shooting Sunday but I forgot the wife had made plans with the work wife.

Glad wife and work wife get along

D'oh! Baseball. Beer. Kind of my favorite things there. And then we had to hurry back to get ready for prime day.

Thanks for reading and tune in tomorrow for some more cheap fiction.

Weapons Wednesday - Embargo Guns

This weapon's wednesday will be yet another meandering essay.

To begin with; in some rare good news, the State Department and Department of Justice have settled out of court with Cody Wilson.

The key point being that entities of the federal government have admitted in legal documents that semi automatics weapons below .50 caliber serve no military purpose.

Now, yes, this is a win. But I worry about implications with the piss poor Miller decision. I hope that anti Semite bastard is cooking somewhere hotter than any ovens the Nazis ever fired up.

But I digress. My point for today's post is about outlaw guns.

Given the contents of any half way decent handyman's garage and less than a hundred bucks at Home Depot any nearly competent do it yourself-er can make a sub machine gun to put the Sten to shame.

I'm not sure if the gun grabbers are too stupid to realize that or are too naive to believe that anybody with some decent hand tools won't build a weapon for whatever reason.

And hell, it doesn't even have to be home built guns to make a stand against the gun prohibitionists.

Bill Ruger is an American hero. The man did his level best to make sure Rhodesia would stand against Communist aggression.

A few good men

Yeah, he said no honest man needed 10 rounds. And he did that to save his company. And to ensure the sunset provision made it in the '94 AWB. Any body who bad mouths Bill Ruger can recite talking points they read on that website Fargo puts out and not much else.

Firearms ain't complicated. Death to tyrants.

And that death to tyrants can come from smuggled carbines, home built sub guns, or 3D printed zip guns.

Free people will always find a way. At least I hope so.

Hognose followed the Cody Wilson case very intently. I hope wherever he is that he can enjoy this small victory.

Tinkering Tuesday - Taking roll

First off a bit of blogging house keeping; as my kid sister will tell you, and my old 1st Sgt, and my office manager from the Boy Scouts, and Jackie, and the guys at the shop, despite being a millennial, I ain't the most technologically minded fellow.

If I miss a comment of yours or a reciprocal blog link, please let me know. Between posting on my ancient desk top at home, playing on my phone at lunch, and using the work computer when the manager ain't around, it is pretty easy for me to miss a comment or ping back. So, let me know.

So, on to today's Tinkering Tuesday, which is more a meandering essay about the gun culture.

So, Jackie brought me lunch the other day at the shop. And I was singing the praises of the ACOG we had in the case. I need one in my life. Because reasons. In a desperate attempt to win the support of Household Six, a plaintive cry of "since my gun parts are expensive I buy shirts at K-Mart"

So, not exactly the best effort. And after lunch, we took in an old Savage 110 in .30-06. So help me, my first thought was, "oh man, that'd be fun to re barrel into something odd."

As previously noted, I have hankering for odd calibers.

And shortly there after, I bought a basket case 642 off a little old lady. I figure what better way to learn the ins and outs of the J-Frame than to take one a part this is already non-functional. Sidenote: I can hunt and peck pretty good so if I screw up the timing you will all have a detailed AAR of what went wrong and I'll start going by stumpy.

Another project gun for the ledger; which at last count includes the following:

• The Ruger American Predator
• The Savage Axis .35 Whelen build
• SiG -226 barrel swap (Seriously, I forgot about that. Easy project)
• AR- rifle build
• AR- pistol build
• Basket case 642 sympathy project (You want to tell a little old lady you can give her $200 for her recently departed husband's carry gun?)

So, yeah, that's a lot on the plate. Oh, and my writing. Oh, and the 2,000 round test on the P-95. Yeah, in a little bit over my head.

But, and big but here, as I was reading up on uppers on The Firing Line, I read a thread concerning AR- building, some of the fellows were discussing how they thoroughly enjoyed building a project gun and then sort of lost interest in it. And that really resonated with me. Never in a million years would I have envisioned myself playing with cheap guns as a hobby. But it's fun. Almost as fun as shooting.

At least with a whole bunch of projects to work on; my Mother won't worry about me delving into alcoholism. I don't have any money for it. Mr. Larry has it all.

Military Monday - Cats Over Korea

Ask anyone about dog fights over Korea and it inevitably people think of Saber against MiG. And rightfully so. The air combat over "MiG Alley" was in some regards the end of an era. Only the IAF would ever engage such a large enemy air forces again in a quasi permissive environment where pilots could rack up large numbers of kills.

And man, the F-86 is a good looking airplane.

As a child I held several truisms dear to hear.

• The National League is superior
• The F-86 was better than the MiG-15
• Leslie Coffelt was the finest pistol shooter this side of Mister Ed

Now, the above are all certainly up for debate. Except the National League thing. The DH is worse for the game than the shift. But the other day I read something that definitely made me reconsider the air war over Korea. 

A bit of backstory, I was trying to find books concerning the post war Fleet Air Arm. In a conversation with a friend of mine who is a flag waver, he off hand mentioned one of the best use of signals intelligence in the Korean Conflict. 

On 3 July 1950, a two ship flight of F9F Panthers was vectored in to intercept a flight of MiG-15s. Four of which were flown by pilots of the Soviet Naval Air Force. In an intense 35 minutes of air to air combat, LTJG Royce Williams splashed four of the bandits. His humble Panther sustaining severe damage. 

This is a thumbnail sketch of an impressive feat of both flying and intel gathering. Thomas Cleaver covers it in great detail in this piece. Definitely worth a read. 

Grumman makes good Cats

So, yeah. That was a truly impressive feat of flying. I loved the movie "Bridge of To-Ko-Ri" as a kid. And Sea Wings had an awesome episode about the F9F as well. Great air planes. Straight wing fighters off of straight deck carriers shouldn't have been able to tangle with the very best of Soviet Naval Aviation But hell, a guy shot down a MiG in his Corsair. And I'm sure that if the handful of A-1 drivers who bagged MiGs in Vietnam are still alive they are telling the story of how a stupid gomer in a Fishbed went head to head with a bunch of 20mm cannons.

Free Form Friday - Some late night fiction

This is the rough intro/middle piece to some sort fiction I've been kicking around forever. In my mind, Jake Dillard is a guy hamstrung by his commitment to duty and family. He is the scion of a well to do family, his Dad wearing three stars. Kevin is a party boy who some hows finds himself always tasked with rising to the occasion when he would much rather drink a beer and watch football. The ending passage takes a slightly different meaning today with the announcement of the death of SFC C.A. Celiz. Chris was a good guy. A good NCO. Good engineer. He will be greatly missed. RLTW. I'm of mixed opinion of the current POTUS. But if he can find a way to end that god damn war in that god damn place he'll be as highly regarded as Washington and Coolidge, at least to me anyway.

To borrow from OldNFO the below is posted after just a little editing and what not. Feel free to point out any errors.



Afghanistan, 2014

Things were bad for Jake. Real bad. His nose was bleeding, and every so often the gash on his head would open up and stream blood into his eye.

As near as he could tell, no one was left by the burned out hulk of the Nighthawk. He could still hear the heavy chatter of the Dishka off to his left.

Got to take that thing out, it's killing us. Jake thought to himself as he tried to pull himself up.

He patted down his plate carrier. Things were looking up; even though his back hurt, and he was bleeding, he still had his M-468, and his M-45 was tucked into the waist band of North Face hiking pants, the DeSantis holster worth every cent of the sixty dollars he had spent on it at Cabelas.

Jake allowed himself a brief thought of Nicole, she was working from home in their small Fayetteville apartment. She was wearing a pair of his wool boot socks, a pair of gray briefs with a pink waist band and his West Point bathrobe. He kissed on the way out the door and said he'd be home in time for breakfast.

Jake did a brass check on his carbine, the mean, pointed 6.8 SPC rounds looking hungry in the chamber. Wiping his nose one last time he crawled towards the Dishka position, a semblance of a plan forming in his mind.

Fayetteville, N.C.

Nicole was happily pecking away on her MacBook, writing critiques for her senior seminar students at Duke. Jake had emailed his DEROS Date and it was going to coincide nicely with the end of the spring semester. Wearing an a starched out white oxford of Jake's, along with a faded pair of his old Wranglers always made her feel a tinge better when he was gone. The phone rang. The dog barked at a black Chevy Impala that pulled in the drive way with Government tags.

Eight years earlier
Jake was nursing a Rolling Rock at the bar of the small club on the outskirts of the college town. An old buddy from his brief stint in the North Carolina National Guard had talked him into coming down for the Duke/West Point basketball game over Christmas. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He was on leave. He liked beer. His friend said there would be girls aplenty.

All of the above was true, but most of the coeds he had met so far didn't seem to give the West Pointer a second glance after taking note of his high and tight hair cut. His friend, who despite being an ROTC cadet, was wearing his hair long in what he called a "frat shag."

Jake was considering calling a cab and packing it in when another group of twenty-something sorority girls walked in. Jake decided to order another beer and conduct a visual recon. His friend was on the dance floor attempting to grind on a recently found coed to the strains of "Copperhead Road" by the cover band.

There was a brunette, a shade over five feet bringing up the rear of the group. While the rest ordered Bud Light and Vodka Shooters, she wrinkled her nose in disgust when told they had no red wine. Obviously, miffed she settled for a martini. While her friends moved off to the bathroom, booths, and towards boys, she dejectedly pulled out her cell phone and began to play on it.

Jake mentally flipped a quarter in his head, drained his beer, sub-consciously rubbed his loafers on the back pantsleg of his jeans and slid down next to the brunette.

"Hi, I'm Jake." He said in a rapid burst of speech.

"Nicole." The brunette said, almost shyly a bit taken aback by Jake's bluntness. Oh my gosh, that's the most beautiful name I've ever heard Jake thought to himself.

"What fraternity?" She asked as a follow up. Jake chuckled a bit before responding.

"How about USA?"

"Do what?"

"I go to West Point, I visited a friend for the game tonight."

"Oh, gotcha. So major?"

"History and international relations."

"Isn't West Point an engineering school?"

"It is. But the day of the professional Army officer being a civil engineer went away when Bobby Lee resigned to fight the yankees. You?"

"English Literature."

"Oh." Jake was at a loss. He was out of small talk. He glanced at Nicole's drink and a plan started to formulate.

"Buy you a drink after a dance?"

Whether by coincidence or design, the cover started to blue an old Willie Nelson song as Jake led Nicole on to the dance floor. Even Kevin, his old Guard buddy, was slow dancing with the same sorority girl. Jake expertly placed his hand on the small of Nicole's back, low enough to be intimate, but not too low as to be vulgar.

"So did the Army teach you to dance?" Nicole asked, pleasantly surprised by Jake's gracefulness.

"Actually, Mrs Lewis did at Cotillion every Tuesday afternoon from four to six during fifth grade."

"Oh, so you did cotillion, huh?"

"Yep. Cotillion, golf, polo, Boy Scouts, and the rifle team." Jake replied, generally he was uneasy discussing his hobbies, for they marked him as somewhat wealthy, which his family indeed was, but something about Nicole made him want to talk.

"Oh, good. Then you want be off put when I tell you I just had my deb ball."

Jake stifled a laugh.

"No, not at all, would you believe my sister's deb ball was the first time I wore my mess dress?"

"What's mess dress?" Nicole asked. Before Jake could reply, the song ended.

"Well, tell you what, let's find a booth and I'll tell you."

"You owe me a drink first, soldier boy."

"A Scout is trustworthy."

Present day

Jake's ears were ringing terribly. His nose had stopped bleeding, but he couldn't decide if it was because his body was furiously trying to heal itself or if because all his blood was running out his ears. He couldn't help but laugh.

He'd pitched an M-65 frag perfectly into the position where the Dishka was firing from. Which had resulted in a large secondary explosion. Which had rocked him off his feet. And caused his ears to begin to bleed.

Despite the ringing in his ears, without the constast heavy clashing chatter of the old Russian machine gun, Jake allowed himself a moment to think.

Okay, got the gun taken out. That was the biggest threat. Now gotta find the rest of the Team. Make sure the boys are okay. And maybe, just maybe, I can pull this off...

Jake felt to make sure he still had his M-45, checked to make sure his M-468 still had a round in the chamber and silently began to crawl back down the hill.

Six years earlier

Jake was nervous, to the point of being nauseous. He could barely eat, and was trying to pacify his Mother buy pushing food around on his plate. If he could get a spare second without every one badgering him about how he was filling, he fully intend to give everything on his plate to the damn dog.

Finally, his Mother left the dining room table, which in the stately Northern Virginia mansion that Jake called home, was a sign that the formal portion of the meal was over. Nicole flashed Jake an inquisitive look.

With a semblance of a plan already formed, in a flash, Jake stood from his chair, dug a small box out of the pocket of his blazer and hurriedly walked around the escort carrier sized dining room table to Nicole.

Dropping to a knee in a manner more like assuming the kneeling rifle position, Jake popped open the small box. A substantial portion of his trust fun, a passed up Browning marked semi-auto FAL, and new tires for his Jeep were represented by the rather larger diamond on the simple silver band inside.

Present Day

Things could have been better for Kevin. He was pretty sure his company commander was dead. He was also pretty sure that the Blackhawk he had just seen get shot down was the Delta Force team that was attempting to bag the local Taliban chieftain. So, taking a breath, he thought about what to do. The mean, sadistic, half literate psychological cretin with the walking stick and tan beret from six years early made himself known in Kevin's subconscious. 

Yelling something about gallantly showing the world about being a well trained soldier.

Kevin looked around. His platoon was still pretty much intact, and the attached M-240 from the weapons platoon was with him. He'd eaten a pretty good dinner that night before going out on the op. It was cold, but not unpleasantly so, the OD wool sweater he'd stolen form the Marine supply corporal was quite toasty under his body armor. Yeah, things were a lot worse than this at Benning, Merrill, and Egland. No sweat. Some other voice from the past, a stately fellow, Robert Mitchum, no that was the actor that played him, oh well, some West Pointer general guy, was preaching about who he wanted to move out first. Thinking about West Pointers made him miss his friend Jake, and his entirely too pretty for him lady Nicole. Rich bastard had all the luck. Suppressing the momentary bout of loneliness that came with a thought, Kevin pulled himself into a low crouch. He wasn't wearing a beret. He wasn't wearing his 1st Bn Scroll. He wasn't wearing the black and gold tab. Hell, he wasn't even wearing an appropriate uniform shirt to attach any of that crap to. But, he energetically checked the chamber on his ACOG equipped M-16A3 and motioned to his platoon sergeant to rally the men around him.

"Alright men, change in plans. Let's move up that hill and see what we can do. RANGERS! Lead the way."

Tactical Thursday - 2,000 Round Beginnings

So, I'm gonna begins today's post with a bit of housekeeping/backstory. As some of you may have know, I draw a lot of inspiration from Hognose when it comes to blogging. Kevin was a hella great role model. And I miss him every day. Shawn is doing great work over at his place keeping his spirit alive. He posts both old Weaponsman's pieces and new content that is very much in the same vain. Some the great commentators make appearances over their as well. Kirk even brings up tripods from time to time. So go check out Shawn and Howard. They even manage to get content up daily.

But for today's post, I'm falling back on stealing from the other great gun blogger, Tam, and her abuse of pistols. But hey, a gun blogger ought to go shoot. And shooting has commenced in my own personal 2,00 round test.

The Ruger P-95 made the trip down to Florida. Pudge looked at it askance, which a lot coming from man who owns a Hi-Point. But a quick fam fire brought him around. The guys at Prescott knew what they were doing. To no one' suprise, the old P-95 spit out 20 rounds of 115 grn Remington/UMC just fine.

Cheap and clean. You pay double for that on Victory Drive

And Tuesday, I stretched the old gun's legs just a little bit more. Another 30 rounds of the UMC to finish off the box and then another 20 of Blazer Brass 115 grn. Which was also aquired on the cheap.

Not as cheap and in a ugly box

So that brings the total to 80 rounds thus far with no issues. To personify just a bit; I think the old piece is wondering what in the hell happened after the last 15 years of living in a case stuffed in a footlocker at Mother's house. Tune in next Thursday when we broach the 200 round thresh hold. Hopefully. Kryssie is coming to town this Saturday and we're all going to see the Braves play; so, Tuesday I may be shaking off an old man hangover.

Weapons Wednesday - Hi Points and Hudsons

So, for this weapon's wednesday we are going to look at two weapons. From totally opposite sides of the spectrum. Courtesy of Pudge, who when he isn't riding the special short C-130, shoots more than I do.

Hi Point pistols are kind of a running joke in the gun industry. In some regards for good reason. But, something I have always liked about Hi Point is that they stand by their product. Oh, and employed out of work auto workers when they started up. That makes my inner nationalist laborist Dixiecrat all happy inside.
And Hi Points, when they run, can be a good gun for the fellow who only has 169.95 plus tax to spend on a hand gun. That's gonna be the sunday story, but I digress.

Hi Point also makes a pistol caliber carbine. In .380 ACP, .40 S&W, 9x19, .45 ACP, and 10mm Auto. And damn, their carbines run. And run well suppressed, too. The cool thing about the .45 ACP version is that it can be modified to take -1911 magazines. So, a supressed .45 carbine that takes the same mags as your pistol is pretty damn cool. And it won't break the bank. Oh, but that trigger is God awful. And that bolt is a heavy bastard. Oh, and don't shoot it left handed. And most certainly don't shoot it left handed while it has a suppressor on it. My lead content probably went up 3,000 percent. But the thing is fun to shoot.

This was right after I had to spit out ten rounds worth of carbon fouling

And now on to the other end of the spectrum. The Hudson pistol made a big splash both at SHOT Show and NRAAM in 2017. And for good reason. The H9 is a damn good pistol. Having finally shot one, I think it will be a game changer. I really do. I have scrapped the current planned Glock 34 Gen 5 in favor of a Hudson with an RMR. Great gun. All I can really say.

Yeah, I look like I know what I'm doing.

The bore axis, that ever popular measure of mall ninjas everywhere, is really no existent on the Hudson. Felt recoil was minimal, if that. Accuracy was phenomenal. The gun shoots better than me. So my short bus special friend bought this at the Bragg PX. After texting me for adult advice. That was probably a mistake. But he's glad he did. As am I. This might be the ultimate fighting pistol. Everything is marketed as the Glock killer, but this might finally slay the Austrian Tupperware dragon.

Go back to curtain rods, Gaston

Edit -  Blogger and me do not mesh. This was supposed to go live at 0600 on 11July. You know, Weapons Wednesday on Wednesday, but publish and schedule buttons look a lot a like. Oops. Enjoy an early edition.

Tinkering Tuesday - A pistol caliber bolt gun

Sorry for the week long hiatus. There was beer to drink. Waves and rays to catch. Old airplanes to look at. Pulled pork to eat. Work emails to ignore. Blogging not to do. Oh, yeah, oops.

So, this past week, as the astute among you have gathered, I was on vacation. But it was most definitely a working vacation. Did some shooting for the P-95 project. Did some shooting of the featured weapons for tomorrow. And finally got to play with my odd ball project.

The .300 Blk, or .300 Whisper, or .300 JDJ and what have you, one of the new hot cartridges right now. Especially out of an AR- pistol with a shoulder brace. Because screw you Justice Miller.

The round has some pretty awesome potential. Runs great suppressed. Is murder on soft skinned animals and is murder on soft armor. And of course, I'd have to have it. And of course I can't do anything normal. So I get a bolt gun for a round designed to give some thump to the AR- platform.

Yeah, it looks good.

While on vacation, we stayed with a set of our couple friends. Pudge being a girl scout hat wearing snake eating fellow who works on an air base for some reason. But he appreciates fine firearms, too. And we'll touch on that some more tomorrow.

But as for shooting, I couldn't believe how quite the thing was. Ear safe, even. Jackie is now a bit miffed at my friend because this was all the cause I needed to make the jump into tax stamp land.

I had the hardest damn time trying to get on paper with the thing. I blame the shooter and a half ass mounting job done by me in a hurry, but, the rifle functioned flawlessy. And no issues cycling. Which is why I really went with a bolt gun in .300 BLK. No worries about running a gas system. Any washed up counter monkey can run a bolt.

Also worth note is that shooting a .30 caliber bolt gun after a day in the sun is a bit painful until you put a can on it.

I can't wait to ring out the rifle some more. Oh, and get an actual zero.