Gun Nuts

When was the last time you saw a firearms error in a movie? Some of us are better able to overlook these gross over estimations of firepower than others; I’ll admit, I’m not such a person. We’ve all seen those sequences when a single shot from a cop’s side arm, knocks a bad guy off his feet and over a car. What about those scenes when an automatic weapon has no muzzle rise and bullets hit all the intended targets? We know it’s complete fiction, but does the average joe?

It’s no secret that I have been extremely critical of the Open Carry movement in the past. For the most part, I find OC “activists” to be nothing more than attention seeking troublemakers, who are at best a nuisance, and in the case of Open Carry Texas are actually helping the other side win mass media victories. But on Sunday, when I got up and put my gun on, I did something a little different. I decided to OC, because it occurred to me that if I really wanted to understand the open carry “community” I should make an active effort to actually open carry.

New M&P Shield Pistols Chambered in 9mm and .40 S&W Available Without Single-Sided Thumb Safety

Good luck to all our friends out in San Luis Obispo shooting the 23rd Annual International Revolver Championship. Shoot fast, shoot accurately, and reload like the wind!

Today is our final installment in the business of the shooting sports series. Previous articles covered 3Gun, USPSA, IDPA, and the general trends in the sport. In our final piece, we’ll have a bit of a double feature, covering two sports. NRA Action Pistol and ICORE. NRA Action Pistol is the sanctioning body for the Bianchi Cup, and ICORE is the International Confederation of Revolver Enthusiasts.

Today is the 70th Anniversary of D-Day. The world we live in today is free because the men of that time put their lives on the line to keep is free from evil. I cannot think of words to properly due justice to what they accomplished. Each time I read about another veteran of World War 2 passing, I know that we are diminished as a country. But today is not a day for sadness, but rather a day for celebration, because through their sacrifice and heroism we live free of foreign tyranny today.

If you’d like to learn more about the guns used on D-Day, click the links for more.

Photo courtesy Safariland – this photo was shown to contestants at Bianchi Cup this year, and it shows the original Team Safariland wearing what was the very first “shooting uniform.” It’s AWESOME – matching pants and shirts, and the pants even have a gold stripe down the side. I wish people at matches on teams still dressed like that. If you look at this photo too long, your face will melt from all the swag.

From left to right: Doug Koenig, Rob Leatham, Scott Carnahan, Jerry Barnhart.

Just got this in the other day for T&E, took it out to the range yesterday. This gun is pretty rad. I’ll run it at M3GI this year and hopefully get out to a carbine class with it.

In the wake of the spree killing in California, there has been considerable discussion online and in the media about violence towards women. This is somewhat odd, since 50% of the killer’s victims were male, but whatever. Because his manifestos were littered with rants against women, it has become quite a topic of late. One of the things that’s caused me no small amount of consternation has been the topic of victim shaming/blaming. For those not hip to the lingo, victim blaming is pretty much what it sounds like, blaming the victim of a crime for allowing, or encouraging the crime to happen. An example that’s cropped up recently: “she deserved to get raped because she was dressed like a slut.”

Now we arrive at the new hotness of the action shooting sports: 3-Gun. We’ve covered USPSA, IDPA, and general trends, so now it’s time to turn our attention to the sport that seems to be grabbing the lion’s share of media attention and sponsor dollars. These days, when people think “3Gun” they’re probably thinking about 3 Gun Nation, which has risen from nothing to become the absolute top dog of the 3 Gun community. For clarity’s sake, we’ll use the abbreviation 3GN when referring to 3 Gun Nation specifically, and use 3Gun as a general term for other 3Gun stuff.

This week details about H&K’s latest polymer striker-fired handgun have hit the gunternet and it seems to have people chatting quite a bit. I say “latest” here because many people don’t realize H&K actually made the very first polymer framed, striker-fired handgun in the world: The VP70. No, folks, Gaston Glock didn’t invent the basic Glock formula for “perfection”…H&K did. The VP70 is often forgotten because it wasn’t a commercial success for H&K. Aside from appearing somewhat ungainly, the VP70 was saddled with a very heavy trigger pull (18 pounds, if I remember correctly, heavier than most DA revolver trigger pulls) and a magazine latch in the heel of the pistol, features that have never gone over terribly well with American shooters.

MSW takes a look at the leaked info on the new striker fired HK, the VP9.

Today, we’re testing the Battlemag’s ability to withstand a pistol round. In our next installment, we’ll feed one to Godzilla.

Today in part 3 of our coverage of the business of the shooting sports, we look at the smaller (in terms of membership) of the two practical, pistol only shooting sports, the United States Practical Shooting Association. Part one covered general trends, and part two covered IDPA. A discussion of USPSA must be extension include a small discussion of the international version of the sport, IPSC, as well as a look at Steel Challenge, which is owned entirely by USPSA.

Normally that’s my “shooting” face, this time I’m making that face because I’m missing so many plates.

My coaches, James Casanova and Janna Reeves, are awesome! Last weekend the left me a course all set up and a handful of drills to keep me busy while they were at the Benelli Rockcastle match. The specific drills they chose, were based on two factors. One, after my performance at the USPSA club match the previous weekend, some skills were clearly in need of attention. Two, being alone in their backyard range, I had to be able to coach myself to a certain degree. In other words, with no one calling my shots, I would have to be able to self correct and then repeat, correctly.

GunUp the Magazine editor and Gun Nuts Co VP of Awesome Shelley Rae is the latest awesome person to be featured in the Third Century NRA.

Photo credit: Reistroffer Design http://www.reistrofferdesign.com/

Fact: the national right to keep and bear arms movement is winning. Two Supreme Court decisions, Illinois now has shall-issue CCW, and more and more people are buying guns and carrying guns. There has been an absolutely explosion in awareness of 2nd Amendment rights and gun ownership. If you’d told me in 2004 that we’d be where we are right now, I’d have laughed in your face. And yet with all our victory, and indeed perhaps because of it, the anti-gun factions keep lying, and keep pushing their nonsense. It’s like they see they’re on the brink of total defeat, so they’ve doubled down on their lies even harder. Here are their five favorite lies.

Today in part two of our series on the business of the shooting sports, we’ll take a look at the International Defensive Pistol Association. Click here for part one, The business of the shooting sports, general trends.

One of the search terms that’s brought people to the site today is “what’s the speed of a 38 caliber bullet?” I’m not going to lie, the first thing I thought when I saw that was “African or European?”