Gun Nuts

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words.

Here’s something we’ve worked on in the past, but never spent a significant amount of pixels on. However, with the addition of USPSA’s Production Optics division there’s finally a place where you can take your slide mounted red dot pistol and pressure test your skills. While I think the PO division rules are a little wonky, it’s still better than nothing.

Irony – a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.

Content warning, mildly NSFW image below the jump. Now that’s out of the way for the ninnies, what the hell am I looking at here?

After taking (now) 8 months off from any sort of shooting sports training, over the holiday weekend I finally sacked up, loaded up some guns and ammo and went to the new Badlands Gun Range here in Sioux Falls. A quick note on the range itself, which I’m going to talk about later on, it is by far one of the nicest facilities I’ve ever had the pleasure to shoot at. Right up there with the NRA HQ range or West Coast Armory in Bellevue. But anyway, back to training.

Dry Fire. It is both proven to work and often misunderstood. It applies to competition and to concealed carry skills. Many swear by it and some (foolishly) scoff at it. Many times we hear people mention dry fire without actually explaining what it means so let’s get on the same page with regards to what dry fire is and isn’t.

Today’s subject is a brief discussion about match pressure. If you shoot competition, you already know match pressure is real. So how can we control it?

On Friday, I published a list of The Five Worst Guns for Self-Defense. I didn’t list specific makes and models, because I wanted to focus on types of guns that are poor choices for as primary guns for self-defense. I like derringers and I think they’re cool, but it certainly wouldn’t be my first choice for an SD gun. Today I want to flip the script and focus on the five types of guns I do recommend for self-defense, starting with my top choice.

So PDB sent me this early in the morning, and it almost made me hit the tequila at 0800. I love Armlist fails, but this one? This may be the new world record. Let’s begin with the first photo, shall we?

In the last post I gave my thoughts on ensuring your personal narrative was based in reality when it came to a strange noise outside. Now I want to discuss how being “certain” you are encountering an assailant could lead to tragedy inside your home.

Everyone has an inherent, human right to self-defense. Here in America at least, that right is obviously frequently exercised with the use of firearms. In the gun community, we always say “the first rule of gunfighting is have a gun” – and while that’s all well and good, we should also discourage people from picking guns that are terrible for self-defense. Because let’s be honest, some guns are not good choices for self-defense. Maybe they’re poorly made, maybe they’re a gimmick, but guns like this really shouldn’t be carried as primary defensive weapons.

Not our usual topic, but something I wanted to share with anyone who might be prepping to go off to BMT.

By now you have likely heard that last Friday night Paris was attacked by what has proven to be a multinational group of terrorists flying the ISIS flag. Even now French and other European police forces are conducting raids in a bunch of neighborhoods dominated by islamic immigrants. The mastermind of the Paris attack was killed in Seine Saint Denise in a neighborhood that had been identified by the government of France as a “sensitive urban zone”, or what has been more widely known as a “no-go zone“.

Let’s talk about home defense for a bit. Yes, I am shifting gears from competition for my next few posts. After delving deeper into my own situation and thinking about potential outcomes from what I experienced the other night I have some thoughts that I felt were worth sharing. I offer them for what they are worth.

First off, I’m genuinely surprised I spelled “equivalent” correctly in the title of this post on the first try. But anyway, on to the point. I’m not going to do a post on whether or not dry fire is useful, because duh and or hello it is. Whether you believe that dry fire is a place to practice getting faster at draws and reloads, or a place to perfect the motions at a slow pace, dry fire works. It has its limitations of course, you can’t get better at Bill Drills doing dry fire. I think a lot of people who dismiss the utility of dry fire aren’t really involved in other sports training, because every sport has its own version of dry fire.

As I write this it is the morning after the event. It made me think about my own personal preparedness, complacency and norms.

Jeez, that title was a mouthful, wasn’t it? I swear, ammo manufacturers are getting carried away with their product names these days. But that’s not the point, the point is to talk about this product from Hornady. Today we’re reviewing their reduced recoil .308 Winchester load, which is loaded with Hornady’s 125 grain SST bullet.

This commercial from Umarex for their Fusion air rifle is absolutely worth it. Watch the whole thing, because if you don’t laugh at the end, you’re dead on the inside.

I was watching CNN Friday evening when the news of the Paris attacks broke. Everything was pandemonium in the news reporting; however over the weekend the details have settled out. What we’re learning now is more about the background of the suspects and the support network that enabled them to carry out this attack. I’m not going to beat the drum of “carry you guns” because anyone reading this blog at this point should already know to carry your damn gun. I’m also not going to tell you to “die on your feet” for the exact same reason.

Between August 2014 and May 2015 I put 4387 rounds through an XD 9 Tactical. That included a 3 day class (in the rain and mud) with Ben Stoeger that saw 1877 rounds without cleaning. With that in mind I thought I would offer my first hand experience an XD.  This is not so much a review as what I learned about the weapon with a sample size of one.