Gun Nuts

When it comes to lady shooters Randi Rogers’ name can sometimes get lost, and frankly, I don’t know why. What amazes me and impresses me about Randi is that she is headed toward titles above and beyond “High Lady.”

I often use this space to give vent to annoyances that accumulate in my brain over a period of time because eventually the buildup reaches such a state that it interferes with my ability to write coherently on other topics. I fully intend to write about subject A, but three paragraphs in I’ve somehow morphed into a rant on annoyance B and it just goes downhill from there. Today is going to be one of those days. I need to rant a little bit about tourniquets.

Dropping another video review today; we have the Mossberg 930 SPX tactical on the range. I really enjoy shooting this gun; like most shotguns it provides a very rewarding sense of accomplishment. There’s something delightfully tactile about the “chunk-chunk-chunk” of sending 12 gauge downrange and feeling the gun drive back into your shoulder in recoil. It’s a primal feeling, right up there with the emotional reaction I have to hearing a V8 turn over.

Though I have been practicing in my coaches’ backyard range, which includes an abandoned horse barn, a chicken coop and a rusty horse walker, the first stage I encountered at the Freedom Munitions Memorial match at Clinton Plantation was more complicated than any I had ever tried. It began with a pistol draw from the belt and shots at a dueling tree from behind the hood of an old suburban. The pistol dump bucket was in the back seat of the vehicle and my shotgun was staged in the front seat. Once I complete a few pistol shots from behind the truck, I will grab my shotgun and clear a steel spinning star with birdshot, load slugs and shoot distant steel gongs. Upon finishing the shotgun portion of the stage, I should run to a ladder and climb to the bed of a large truck on which my rifle has been staged (and has been soaking up the noon sun). Lastly, I should engage six steel gongs at a distance of between 200 and 350 yards.
...

From Target’s statement on Open Carry: [S]tarting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target – even in communities where it is permitted by law.

Looks like another “win” for Open Carry Texas! Good job “educating” the public and “normalizing guns”, guys. If we keep this up, pretty soon we’ll have nationwide CCW reciprocity thanks to people working hard to defend our rights, but won’t be able to open carry into any private business because you f***sticks keep screwing it up for the rest of us.

Photo by Shelley Rae.

The internet is a great place to learn. It’s also a very efficient at spreading bad information, half-truths, and lies. I’m sure that this applies to any niche community, but let’s look at the gun community because, well, this site is called “Gun Nuts” not “Mopar nuts.” When you do need help from the internet, no matter what question you ask and where, you’re going to get good answers and bad answers. Here are five ways to make sure you sort the wheat from the chaff.

Steel Challenge wrapped up over the weekend, and the good news out of the gate is the match had much better attendance than I’d anticipated. It did well enough that we will likely see a 2015 match, which as I’ve said before is a good thing for the shooting sports. Here’s a by the numbers look at the divisions:

If wanted the experience of having a fat dude breathe heavily on me while trying to push me around, I’d cut in line at Sizzler. (aside: is Sizzler still a thing? I haven’t seen one in YEARS)

Look, I get it. Actually learning to shoot well is hard but people still want to feel prepared. That’s why derp like this is exists. You get to feel all badass while not actually accomplishing anything in terms of skill building. Slapping rounds at huge targets up close while you perform some sort of junior high balance drill isn’t really going to make you a better shooter, and it’s certainly not going to prepare you for the big bad streets.

Using a gun is just part of self-defense. But if you’re going to learn, study the actual skills and fundamentals that the pros teach. Don’t waste your time on clownshow derp like these idiots.

Dear OC activists: please stop comparing yourself to Rosa Parks or other civil rights activists. What you’re doing is obeying the law in an annoying and childish fashion. Rosa Parks actually broke the law to act as a test case for an unjust and immoral segregation law. You’re not Rosa Parks. If you want to compare yourself to real civil rights activists, try engaging in some real civil disobedience.

Taking defensive guns to games: Remington 870 Magpul, Troy Lamb Carbine, and HK VP9 with Taylor Freelance +5. Sure, the shotgun gives up capacity, the pistol doesn’t have a five inch slide, and the rifle is a little too heavy, but if you take this to a 3-gun match you’ll probably have a pretty good time.

And you’ll have the best looking gear at the game, that’s for sure.

One of the dangers of working in a gun shop is you can see dealer level pricing on guns. One of our distributors had a special on Remington 870 Tactical Magpul shotguns in FDE, for a stupid low price. I dipped in my rainy day fund (it was raining that day so it counts) and ordered one. It’s a really good looking gun right out of the box.

Over the weekend, this video of some Open Carry scumbags in Ohio went viral (for gun community levels of virality):

At many major 3 gun matches, big name, sponsored, professional shooters are placed on a squad together. This tends to keep them out of reach of the other shooters at the match. Because of this system, the pro squad seems to hold some mystique. I have heard some people’s beliefs about being on this elusive squad and some of these opinions really make me giggle. So, after shooting the Freedom Munitions Memorial Match at Clinton House Plantation in South Carolina last weekend and being the greenest member of the pro squad, I feel it is my duty to set the record straight.

Next week’s 90 second gun review is going to be full of tube-fed goodness.

I love the idea of pistol caliber carbines the same way I love the idea of the M1 carbine. A good PC should be lighter than an average AR (6 pounds or less), take common pistol magazines, and be accurate and reliable. What it does in this roll is give shooters the ability to extend their zone of domination or whatever silly tactical phrase you want to use out past the effective range of a pistol. Essentially, someone who can effectively fight within 10 yards with a pistol becomes capable out to 50 yards with a pistol carbine.

Posted this morning on Facebook:

I think that this is a solid, reasonable, and balanced response. Lacking any way to prove that Hendrix colluded with others conclusively, the punishment should fall squarely on his shoulders, and a lifetime ban is the only appropriate punishment.

My only question is why this was posted on Facebook, and not emailed to the entire membership at large?

Last week I wrote about training with limited time and ammo, and I specifically called out two drills you can use to train on and test your improvement. The first was the 99 Drill, which I didn’t shoot this week, and the second was the 700 point aggregate, or the Humbler. Today I’m going to take you through the drill string by string and talk about what you can do to shoot it better.

If you’ve spent more than 2.5 seconds on internet gun forum, you’ve probably had someone tell you that M&P pistols aren’t accurate. I feel like a lot of it is overblown, because how many people are really shooting their guns at ranges where a real lack of accuracy would be noticeable? But, in the interest of science, I decided to pull at random one of the 5 M&Ps we have in the house and see. The gun selected was an M&P full size, with a 4.25 inch barrel and Sevigny sights. It’s an older gun, we’ve had it for at least three years.

I don’t know where it came from, but for some reason women new to handguns, and especially interested in concealed carry, are always told to buy revolvers. Sometimes, women should buy a revolver. For example, if they like it, are proficient shooting with it, and have found it easy to conceal. It shouldn’t be everyone’s automatic go-to though, and here are a few reasons why: