Gun Nuts

One of the best parts about being in the firearms industry is that you get to see cool new products, and even in some cases have a hand in how a product turns out. But there’s always something more, and each of us has own special kind of derp that really attracts our attention. I could make a massive, long list of all the guns I wish someone would make, but I decided to constrain it to just the five. Remember, these aren’t currently in production, and many of them stupid. But I don’t care, because I’d buy all of them.

No, not what you think. Do you remember recently when my assistant had to saw apart an MGW sight pusher because I outsmarted myself? Well, the end result did leave the desirable LPA rear sight on the gun, and after letting it sit for a while, I was finally able to get to the range yesterday and sight it in. I expected to have to adjust it, because the goal was to end up with a six o’clock hold on the x-ring of a Bianchi Cup target at 25/50 yards. Here’s the target:

I’m sure I shared with you guys that at the end of last summer I met my ideal match; Lets call him “Big J”. He’s a dream boat and after many years of the single-life I feel incredibly lucky and blessed. One of our many shared interests is food. He loves to cook and we spend a lot of time in the kitchen together. Since he’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy we often have big meals that include a protein and a startch, a combination that had formerly been a rarity in my life.* After over 10 years of very a stable body weight, I began noticing some extra jiggles in certain places. I should point out that it’s not like I was working at it over those 10 years. My eating habits consisted of snacking when I found the time and that was about it. Also, I don’t weigh myself or stressing over dieting because I believe paying too much attention to such things is probably the cause weight gain and is generally no fun.
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Remember years ago, when STI was importing these as the GP6? Man, I wanted one of those to keep. I had a loaner that I got to shoot and it was cool, and then they just…went away. The reason why they went away is because no one bought them, which sort of turns out to be a good thing. The reason it’s a good thing is because now you can get them for $400 on the internet! Now that’s awesome. There’s something about it that tickles my “want” button, maybe because I’m a sucker for obscure guns.

Did anyone buy these when they were coming from STI?

What comes to mind when we talk about women and guns? Empowerment, strength, confidence. Well ladies, I’m here to tell you something: Just because you shoot, it doesn’t mean you always have to feel empowered, strong, and confident. In fact, it’s perfectly acceptable to be a little terrified the first time you go to the range. Even after that you might cry, and that’s okay.

By winning the 2014 USPSA Nationals, Rob Leatham has become the only person to win the National Championship in every single USPSA Division. Rob has won the Limited title many times, Open in 1995, L-10 multiple times, Single Stack multiple times, Production in 2006, and now Revolver in 2014. That is a historic accomplishment no matter which way you look at it.

Prior to Rob’s victory, Julie Golob of Team S&W had won the Women’s title in all six divisions as well, but until Rob won revolver no one had ever won the overall National Championship in ever division. Rob beat over 100 other shooters in Revolver division at the 2014 Nationals, coming out with a 0.547% win over David Olhasso. There is a reason they call him The Great One. Congratulations to Rob on his incredible, historic achievement.

The other day I picked up a hot beverage bottle and a wine stopper with an elk on top of it over at BerettaUSA.com. I know no one cares about what frivolous things I decided to order, but it did give me pause for thought. During the transaction BerettaUSA.com asked, “How did you hear about us?” I had options such as “Other” and “Word of Mouth;” the normal culprits.

Every time I see this, I think how hilarious it would be if a bunch of pipe-hitting OAF dudes showed up in the Game of Thrones universe. With M4s and 249s, of course. I feel like dragons aren’t as scary when you have a belt-fed LMG.

I’m sure I’ve made it clear how much I love my CZ75B. It was the first gun I ever purchased. It’s insanely accurate and the weight of the all steel frame makes for minimal felt recoil. And in the over three years that I’ve owned this gun the only modification that I’ve made to it, was the addition of rubber grips. My CZ75B is full sized so it didn’t seem that much of a stretch for me to plan to use it for the Lady’s 3Gun Pro-Am this coming October. However, during my recent practice one of my coaches informed me that I was “fighting” my gun.
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Sometimes more is better. Despite my concerns about the future of USPSA in the post below this, there was a very interesting note from the USPSA Revolver Nationals. As many of you know, USPSA changed the rules for revolver division recently to allow for 8-shot revolvers scoring minor powerfactor in revolver division. That makes Revo somewhat mirror Single Stack. In Single Stack, you can run a 10-shot minor gun, and in revo an 8-shot minor gun. The difference is that most Single Stack shooters usually opt for the 8 round major PF guns. However, this year at revolver nationals, all 10 of the top 10 shooters were using minor PF guns.

Yes, you read that headline correctly, it says “Rob Leatham wins USPSA Revolver Nationals.” You’re probably wondering “wow, how did he do it? I bet the showdown between TGO and Jerry was amazing!”

Want to dress basically however you want at a match? Do some charity work. It’s the perfect bullet-proof vest! “Why are you wearing that kilt to a match?” “It’s for prostate cancer research.” “Why is your holster pink?” “For breast cancer.” It’s perfect, because you get to feel self-righteous for basically doing nothing, and you get to make other people feel bad!

But in all seriousness, doing stuff to help raise money for good charities is always pretty rad.

Video games have been a huge part of my gun ownership experience, even since I was a little kid. While I couldn’t run out and buy the Stormtrooper carbine in Dark Forces, a little known LucasArts shooter called Outlaws helped fuel my love of western guns even to this day. In fact, the first shotgun I bought was a single shot NEF specifically because they had a single shot break action in Outlaws.

One of the struggles of being a blogger is knowing when it’s appropriate to be critical of a product or brand. One of the struggles of managing a brand/product is knowing how to respond to criticism. Today, we’re going to look at an example from the fitness industry to see how major brands should not handle criticism.

I took this photo after wrapping up a range session at my first ever visit to West Coast Armory in Bellevue. The range was fine, but there was a cute ginger working there, so I figured I should visit again. Seems to have worked out so far.

The success of the Glock family of pistols and the numerous variations on the polymer-framed, striker-fired theme that exist on the market today has led many to view the concept of a double action trigger as a bit of an anachronism. Jeff Cooper maligned double action semi-automatic pistols as “crunchentikers” many moons ago and the stigma has kind of stuck with them ever since. Folks who bring up that term today often forget that Cooper was involved with the 10mm Bren, which happened to be a double action pistol. The cool kids in the gun world shot custom 1911 pistols, often turning their nose up at the very idea of a double action auto, and those who embraced plastic went to Glocks fairly quickly after. As any simple Google search will demonstrate, some Glock and 1911 fans are often quite vocal about their preferred blaster and tend to proselytize fairly aggressively with a fairly good record for conversion. As a result, there’s not a lot of people out there who really understand double action triggers, how to run a double action trigger well, or what benefits they bring to the table.

Our friend Natalie from Girl’s Guide to Guns has her own show now, which is awesome. I’ve known Natalie for years now, and watching her rise to the top of the game in the firearms community has been absolutely awesome. This show is absolutely squared away as well, and I genuinely believe that it nails down “what we need” to bring more female shooters into the fold.

I really enjoy that NRA is absolutely bringing their A-game with their lineup of shows that are presented on youtube in an easily shared and accessed format. Traditional TV is great, but there is an entire generation of gun owners that goes straight to youtube first for their gun information. Shows like Love at First Shot and the upcoming Noir are going to be a great way to target (ha-ha) a generation of shooters that doesn’t know where Outdoor Channel is on their cable guide.

Watch me run around like an idiot! This drill has 56 yards of total movement, which is more than you’re likely to move in the entirety of an IDPA match. There are two scoring methods for this drill. The method depicted in the video is the “points only” method, where the time isn’t important, only the hits count. Based on that method, I would have scored a 7/10, because three shots fell out of the 8 inch circle.

The other method is raw time scoring, where you use a slightly larger target area and shoot on steel. In that format, the drill is shot on an IPSC A/C steel target, and you shoot at each position until you get two hits. Your score is your raw time. As soon as I get my steel in, I’ll set up and run that method.

Found on The Chive a while ago; there are number of interesting things about this photo, not the least of which is the ginger gentleman’s tremendous facial appendenge. It appears that their rifles are British SMLEs, and that the sleeve of the ginger’s shirt says Canada on it. Any ideas what the context or where this is originally from would be appreciated.