Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Loaded-chamber indicators

For the life of me, I can't figure out why this discussion keeps popping up.

Now it seems that respected gun-blogger Tam (I'm not a reader) has opined, and that started a chain of responses, including a blogger I DO read every day, PawPaw.

I commented over at PawPaw's, but it seems to me that this is a non-fruit-bearing discussion.

Let's take it one step at a time.

First, all guns are loaded, all the time. That's Rule One, and if you fail to heed it, you WILL have an unintentional discharge, which could be anywhere from embarrassing to fatal, depending only on luck, which you DON'T want to have to depend on.

Second, all of us gun people, as well as the gun manufacturers, can read, and we keep reading about unintentional discharges with bad results. All of us want to stop those issues, so we preach the Four Rules, and we re-preach the Four Rules, etc. Some of us (Joe Huffman is an example), even compose new language for the four rules, but always, THE FOUR RULES.

It doesn't stop there. If we were perfect students, it COULD  stop there, but we're not, so it doesn't.

Enter the manufacturers. It doesn't stop there with them, either, thanks to product liability lawsuits, so they HAVE to continue to find ways of improving product to avoid these lawsuits.

Years ago, probably at the dawn of Browning's era, came the Loaded Chamber Indicator for semi-auto pistols. I have an early example, a pre-war Walther PP.

Loaded chamber indicators make sense, not only to help protect manufacturers from lawsuits, not only to protect dummies who can't or won't learn the Four Rules and apply them, but for other reasons as well.

My Walther, being a blowback action, gets dirty. The main way I tell that it is dirty is the Loaded Chamber Indicator, which starts to get sticky. When it starts to get sticky, so does the firing pin in it's channel. Then the pistol needs detailed stripping and cleaning.

That's a bennie of LCIs that no one else seems to have noticed, helping you know when your pistol needs detailed stripping and cleaning.

It's like this, boys and girls: you have a manual safety on your firearm (unless it's a Glock or clone). That safety doesn't need "Safe" and "Fire" designations to function, but most have them. You accept them, right?

'Nuff said. Go with the flow. Find something else to vent about, this isn't a real issue. Nothing to see here, move along.

Capiche?

Fox News can't describe guns, either

It's not on their Web page, but last night, during the 11pm news, Fox affiliate KPTV here in PDX reported on a story out of Rhode Island where a couple of kids got ahold of a parent's AK-47 and went around the neighborhood "playing war". The kids had no ammo, the weapon was unloaded, so no damage was done. The junior soldiers' foray ended when a citizen took the gun from them and turned it in at a police station.

OK, pretty much a straightforward story, up until the place where the KPTV reporter referred to the AK as a "machine gun".

Skipped right by the usual and incorrect "assault rifle" and got right to the heart of being wrong, she did.

In case you think that Fox News, being somewhat less in the tank for the Left, has any better grasp on the reality of gunny things, you'd be wrong, too.

Bear country

When you're in bear country, you need to be armed for bear. Good lesson here.

When I'm in bear country, my 4" Anaconda serves that purpose, loaded with Cor-Bon Hunter ammo.

 

I have the 4" one on the bottom of the photo.

Plus, you can take down home invaders of less stature than bears, of course. BTW, this is the ONE revolver I've found that I can hit with at 100 yards, open sights, round after round, in the K-zone of a #28 target. Barrel length isn't everything.

Celebrating GBR IV

...even though I can't make it.

I have lit the fuse on the AR vs. Real Battle Rifle controversy yet again. I don't own an AR, but have qualified with one as part of a Sheriff's Tactical Weapons Squad, so I know whereof I speak.

On a future battlefield, not too far distant, there will be ARs, and there will be some 7.62 NATO-equipped troops. Those troops equipped with the Thirty-Cal weapons will take the encounter, given that the encounter is done at a range of 300+ yards. Those with the ARs will die still believing that their ARs are the best rifle ever fielded.

That is all.

Nyah, nyah nyah nyah, nyah

...made you think, didn't I?

Good.

Now think about THIS:

"My mama done tole me"

"Do the right thing"

"In your heart, you know what is right"

No, those are NOT political statements, they are statements that quantify MORALITY. Yes, morality. Most readers of this blog are moral people, simply because we live our lives by the rules and we strive to change those rules when they are immoral.

So, here is something to take away with you.

The first move to help you retain your OC weapon is to buy a Level Three retention holster. A Level Three requires TWO, simultaneous moves to get the weapon out. The early ones were rocking the gun forward and pulling upwards at the same time, but there are some new twists to the moves now, depending on which holster you buy. A decent holster will set you back about $125. You don't go cheap, you go BEST on this. I like Safariland gear.

The holster will come with instructions on how to tension it properly. Follow the directions carefully. Those directions will probably also tell you to practice at least 200 draws, in front of a mirror, before OC. Do that, it's muscle memory you are trying to train.

Retention moves:

Now that you have the holster on a stout gunbelt, worn snugly around the waist, and have practiced the draw, you are ready to train yourself in some BASIC retention moves. You need a Red Gun and a spry partner.

The most basic move is the wrist lock. With the wrist lock, when you feel the first pull at your gun-side (or see the lunge of the grabber in your peripheral vision), your gun hand goes to your gun and you grab the wrist of the person doing the grab. You push downward when you have their wrist, and hold, visualizing your wrist as a piston. You use all the force available in your wrist, arm and shoulder. The grabber has to work the gun up and out, and all you have to do is defeat the up. Now you have the grabber, what do you do? Lots of choices.

If you have a secondary concealed weapon, and it is on the other side (where it should be), you draw it and fire it into the grabber at contact range. End of grab. Same with a knife, if you have one. You spin to stretch out the grabber's arm and cut him near the wrist with a slash or two or three, severing vein and tendons. Other vitals probably won't be in range.

Let's say you have neither secondary weapon. Now that you have the grabber's wrist locked, you need to upset the grabber (judo upset, not vocal). You spin AWAY from the gun side, which stretches out the grabber's arm and shoulder around you (he can't apply force while in this position), then you transition your spin to a push, releasing the grabber and pushing him to the ground while he is off-balance. You draw (draw, load and charge chamber if you are in an "unloaded carry" place, which needs to be done fast), take two hop-steps backward and take the grabber under fire, shooting a double or triple tap at him. Shoot even if he is on the ground, where he should be if you've practiced the wrist-grab, spin and push enough. You COULD transition to a point-and-command to freeze, but this guy has just tried to grab your gun, which counts as an ONGOING attempt MURDER in your mind, not as an attempt theft, so you fire.

If you ARE a trained martial artist, you COULD leave your gun in it's holster, maintain the wrist lock, do the spin-away, and when the grabber's head comes into elbow range, do an elbow-smash to his temple, then transition to an arm bar, spinning and breaking the grabber's arm at the elbow with a chop-strike.

But what the hell, if you ARE a martial artist, you aren't reading this, you are in your dojo doing actual practice.

What am I, your morality-spouting Rivrdog, going to do? My martial arts days are past. At 65, and with damaged lumbar discs, such moves would likely cause instant and disabling back spasms. I'm going to shoot.

It isn't easy. The RIGHT thing seldom is, but, your mama done told you, so get busy...

Open Carry - Take it seriously or don't do it

My title sums up my feelings on this issue.

Much ado has been made about open carry recently, but almost all the posts are stuck on either defending the 2A right to carry, or fighting against it on the grounds that it scares people (the Left's main argument, since there haven't been any open-carry incidents that the media didn't manufacture out of whole cloth).

Almost no one takes the next step, which makes it the moral duty of anyone carrying openly to be able to retain their weapon against a gun-grab (not a political grab, a REAL, physical, grab). This moral duty EXCEEDS the morality of your right of carry, by the way.

I wrote a few words on this over at Say Uncle, in a comment on one of his posts. 

Just a little history here: Are you aware that in every hard-time prison in this nation are convicts who have trained themselves, and freely offer training to other convicts, in the skill of grabbing guns out of holsters? Convicts have a lot of time, and typically, they have two or three "yard" periods each day where they can go out into the prison yard and exercise in the manner of their own choosing. Several videos have been shot from the guard towers of such prison yards showing groups of cons practicing the gun-grab moves which they would use to take guns from "retention" holsters. They practice from the front, sides and back, and the open-carry citizen HAS to be able to defeat all these moves.

You defeat these moves by actual practice defeating them, with an experienced partner and a martial-arts instructor (who can be your partner).

It all takes a lot of time, even more time than learning to be proficient with the handgun in the first place. Defeating a gun grab of a slung long arm is even more difficult, I'm told (I've never practiced it).

People, this is nothing to mess around with. If you go out into a hostile world and open-carry (almost always with an UNLOADED weapon), you MUST be able to retain that weapon.

If you can't retain, don't open-carry. Don't even THINK about open carry.

It's just that simple.

Any day at the range....

...is better than a day scrubbing/repairing one's boat, but I managed to do both yesterday. The early Fall weather we've had for a week finally ginned up some showers at 1530, but we three Vietnam vets were done by then. I got some work in with my 1911A1, the gudwife's Glock 19, my carry piece, the Kel-Tec P-11, and my Hi-Standard 9-shooter revolver.

All this work was at 21 yards, a bit longer than I usually practice pistol at, but with concentration, I could even keep most of the double-taps in the K-5 zone at that range.

Got to do something about the 1911 sights, though. As my eyes age, those GI sights are getting to be VERY hard to use. Any suggestions out there for a set of sights which won't require me to buy new holsters? I have a shoulder rig and a belt rig for the pistol, and the belt rig is fitted to the GI sights...the Uncle Mike's shoulder rig would probably take a target-type rear sight.

I had a STRANGE malfunction with the 1911, and I've never even heard of this happening before. The firing pin stop and retainer plate slipped the spring tension which holds it in place via the rear end of the firing pin, slipped down and jammed the pistol. I knew there was something amiss when I couldn't rack the weapon, it took me a couple of minutes to examine the gun and figure it out, then about 2 seconds to fix it by sliding the firing pin stop and retaining plate back into it's proper place.

Anyone figure out how this might have happened?

Bucket full of pistols to clean now, and a blown boat alternator to take to the repair shop, but I'll have to wait until the case of 'gits I picked up at the country tav on the way back from the range subsides a bit...

Stole the Show

heh! Guy goes openly strapped (legally, the Police Chief was there and so opined to the cameras) to be in the protest crowd outside a "town meeting" in New Hampsha yesterday, and all the GFW media could do was wet their pants over the Man With Gun. The media circus over the Town Meeting was then ignored.

heh! Hoist by their own petard, these media plebes, no focus, can't stay on message at all.

Note to Strapped Guy though: common sense says if you go to a place which attracts multiple whackos (aka, Obama-bots), and you are using your hands to carry a protest sign (referring to "watering the Tree of Liberty" no less) you open-carry in a Retention Holster. It looks like you had one, but to my quick glance, it didn't look like a Level Three.

Gunny question

I just stumbled on this rifle when CDNN Sports sent me an offer to get one at a $150 discount. Hadn't heard of it before. Note that this offer isn't in their catalog.

Does anyone out there have any experience with this Thompson-Center boltie?

Of course, at Boomershoot, T-C singles are VERY popular, but I can't recall seeing one of the bolties.

If I get one, it would be in either the 300 Win Mag caliber or the 7mm Remington Magnum caliber, so as to be able to do the 700-yard boomer work at Boomershoot.

Reading their ad closely, it would seem that they've addressed some of the traditional shortcomings of the bolt-action rifle. That action-bedding block looks like it will keep the powerful magnum recoil translating into the stock better than the usual two-screws-into wood arrangement. The 60-degree bolt is a good idea, as is the interchangeable bolt handle idea. I LOVE the idea that they give you a bolt-disassembly tool with your purchase.

But, experience is the great teacher. How about it, gunnies, has anyone out there in the gunnysphere owned/shot one of these?

Boomershoot vs. sea level, and other riflery matters

Just got back from the rifle range. Boomershoot is at elevation 3045 MSL (by my GPS), and Douglas Ridge Rifle Club is at 300 ft more or less. At Boomershoot, I was shooting at (last distance set for) almost 600 yards, with a .243 WIN shooting 95-gr SPBT ammo (Federal Fusion).

Wind at DRRC was variable, from 5 mph down to zip, and there was heavy mirage (that could be seen blowing, a 1/2 minute hold required).

I re-zeroed for 3" high at 100 yards (approximately right on at 250-300 yds).

I wound up changing the sights: 1.5 minutes down and 2.5 minutes left (at Boomershoot, I had a windage set in for the usual 10-15 kt breeze from the right). Then I switched to Remington V-Max 75-gr Varmint ammo, and got a 3/8" group! It was, however, 6 minutes right and a minute low of the 95-grain.

Can anyone explain why? I thought that the main difference would have been in elevation, but it was in windage.

BTW, the "first bubble" on the Nikon BDC Buckmaster scope is EXACTLY 3 minutes high, just like it's supposed to be.

Dial-a-kill. Ya gotta love it. Now NEXT year, when I actually take Gene Econ's school and graduate (I sort of audited it this year), I will feel even MORE confident.

I am DEFINITELY ready for the open-range antelope season now.

Next project: the Savage 99E. Today was a "bad eye day", and I had horrible parallax problems with the reticule on the Weaver K-4 mounted on that Savage. I MUST find the rare but correct  High mounts for that rifle so I can install the other Nikon BDC Buckmaster I bought for the purpose. I was no better than 3-4 MOA with the Savage today. Might as well been shooting an AK47.

A BAD day on the range is better is better than the best day at the office. Remember that.

Ammo cost: 20 rounds of factory .243 WIN expended, $32. 15 rounds of reloaded .308 WIN expended, approx $5 (old prices: components from old stock).

Ammo: $37.00
Fuel: $3.25
Range Fee: $5.00
Confidence gained through practice: Priceless.