Category Archives: Gun Fun

Tim and Susan Have Matching Handguns

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Last week I received an email:

Hey Joe,

I realize you probably get a lot of emails, but this one may be unlike what you’re accustomed to. Bear with me and I’ll give you a little background so you can understand why I’m writing.  I work for a Texas-based company that makes rugged leather gear. We started doing product videos on our website about 3 years ago and it morphed into some pretty cool projects. One of those projects was short profiles on our employees. The first one was about a husband and wife who work here and their desire to have matching guns, so in case there were ever a crisis they could swap magazines.  (Smith&Wesson M&P9s) 

Well, it was submitted to Sundance Film Festival and out of the 8,100 short films, it was selected to be one of the 60 entrants. Then YouTube has told us they selected it to be one of the 10 in the running for their special YouTube award. (Crazy, isn’t it?!) Now we want to put the idea of husband/wife gun ownership in front of as many eyes as possible and thought that reaching out to influencers like yourself may be a good approach.

Please let me know if you’re interested. I’d be happy to show you a sneak peek. 

Thanks!

—

Sarah Farver

I thought it was a decent video so I agreed to post it. The “sneak peek” time is over and it is public now:

Free Bracken

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Today only, three Matthew Bracken novels are free at Amazon.

Thought y’all might want to know, being into books more than on a typical day.

Gun Fun – Gringo Pistolero sung by Andy Stanford

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A shooting instructor, at the range, with an accordion. Yeah, this should be a hoot.

Nicely wrapped, but not a surprise

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Barb and I saw this on the wall at Wade’s yesterday:

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A kids gun

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Barb spent soon time in Idaho with me this week. Dad wanted her to see how much better the room in basement was since she was there the last time. After Dad showed off the improvements I saw something in the gun cabinet I wanted to show her.

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It was the old Winchester 32-20 that had hung on the wall of my bedroom for many years as I grew up. It had belonged to my grandfather and my Great Uncle Walt (Grandpa Huffman’s brother) had shot his first coyote with it when he was 10 years old.

Under some of the more repressive laws in this country it is banned as being an assault rifle because it has a capacity of greater 10 rounds. But as it was originally used it was a great gun for kids because of it’s light weight, relatively low cost to shoot, and light recoil.

Gun Song- Guns by Justin Moore

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Justin Moore is a country singer. This is from his “Outlaws like me” album.

 

Gun Song- Pistol Packing Papa by Jimmie Rodgers

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A classic from the way-back machine. Recorded more than 80 years ago. A simple tune from a simpler time.

Jimmie Rodgers was a classic country-western singer, sometimes called the grandfather of the “modern” genre, born in 1897, died 1933.

Novelty shotgun shell

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H/T to @rhodeskc.

I can see the appeal for the shear novelty but having spent my childhood on a farm and a lot of time in the garden I cannot see this having any practical application:

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There are far better ways to distribute seeds of any type.

Fair weather defense

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Last time I went out shooting it was a beautiful, sunny day. Granted, it was nine degrees Fahrenheit and very windy, and my fingers were going numb to the point where I could barely load my guns, but hey; sunshine and beauty.

There’s a lot of discussion about shooting in adverse conditions under stress, and then there’s also a lot of talk that goes along the lines of, “Hey I got this fabulous new gun, but I’ll have to wait ’till Spring before I can try it out.”

For seven months of the year, there is a real possibility of snow on the ground here, and more so as you get higher in elevation. Maybe your practice should be around 7/12 cold weather practice in places like this then. You may find that your gun(s), which functioned well at 70 degrees, will start behaving in strange ways at zero and below.

Remember Washington’s crossing of that icy river on that snowy night to attack the Hessians at Trenton? Yeah. That kicked ass.

Do you know what it’s like policing your brass in three feet of snow on snowshoes while carrying all your gear on your person? Have you dropped a warm magazine in the snow when it’s zero degrees out? Yeah; it’s out of operation ’till you can warm it up and get the ice out of it. How does that slick new pistol hold work out when you’re wearing a heavy coat and standing on uneven ground on ice? What does your super bright flashlight do for you in a blizzard? What happens to the effectiveness of different types of batteries when they get very cold? Should you attempt to shoot while wearing gloves, or no? What do you do when snow falls out of a tree onto the exposed action of your rifle? What happens to the effectiveness of your optics at 10 degrees when you happen to breathe onto the ocular lens? Can you even turn the zoom control on your scope?

Next time it’s snowing, windy, very cold and dark, maybe consider it an opportunity for some good shooting practice. If you enjoy the warmth and comfort of home on a stormy winter’s night, just think of how much more you’ll enjoy it after some good shooting practice.

Gun Song – I Shot The Sheriff by Eric Clapton

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A classic, live version. Originally by Bob Marley, but Clapton made the biggest cover of it. More about it here.

Ammo for 3-D printed guns

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The plastic guns being made have been tested with conventional ammo intended to be fired in conventional guns. Why not load up some low pressure rounds specifically intended to work with the plastic guns?

Even if the bullets had muzzle velocities half that of conventional guns you aren’t going to get volunteers to be bullet backstops. Choose a common cartridge which already has a fairly low pressure then tweak the bullet weight and powder charge to get something that the plastic is much more capable of handling.

Here is a list of max pressure recommendations in PSI for various cartridges with the obvious high pressure cartridges removed:

380 Auto 21,500
25 Auto 25,000
32 S&W Long 15,000
38 Auto 26,500
38 S&W 14,500
38 Special 17,000
44 S&W Spl 15,500
45 Auto 21,000
45 Colt 14,000

Simple homemade gift

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I hadn’t done any reloading in a couple years so it felt really good to crank out a few hundred rounds. My last rife reloading was done in 2001.

The picture below is a sample of the result. It is a gift for a friend. It was simple, shiny, and you can’t buy it in stores:

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Plus it should give the anti-gun people heartburn.

See also this video:

Random thought of the day

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A silencer speaks louder than words.

Via an Adam Baldwin Tweet (look at the words on the shirt in the picture).

Interview with Jeff Cooper of Gunsite

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From the 1970s

Nothing new to those who’ve read his work, but it is interesting. He certainly never minced words.

When I heard the militaristic sort of music they used, I couldn’t help thinking that it would be taken as sarcasm today. Back then? I’m not sure.

Gun Song- Ten Cent Pistol by The Black Keys

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Don’ t know much about them, don’t feel like research. Guess it’s pot luck for y’all.

I’m a “respected Idaho based shooter and author”

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Apparently I’m now “a respected Idaho based shooter and author.”

The background story is that I and several other bloggers were asked by the folks at AmmoForSale.com which of the three major calibers, 9mm, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP, was the best. I answered, via the blog post, and they just posted an article that incorporates some of my response.

I appreciate the kind words but I’m not sure I have all that much respect as a shooter compared to a lot of other people and I’m a “software author”, blogger, and occasional magazine article writer. I’m not really an “author” in the most common sense.

Still, I think they did a good job on their article even if they did give me more credit than I think I’m due.

Shiny

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I recently purchased some Hornady One Shot Sonic Clean Solution (currently on clearance at Midway USA). This is only for cleaning brass, not gun parts in general.

I put a bunch of dirty, deprimed, brass in the sonic cleaner with the solution diluted 40:1 with water and let it run for 30 minutes while stirring every six minutes or so. The result is quite pleasing:

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The interior of the brass and even the primer pockets are shiny clean. This is faster than using the tumbler with corncob media and gets the interior clean as well as the exterior.

Ammo by the pound

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This could be a good deal for a lot of uses. Ammo by the pound. Think of this as “shelf sweepings”.

“Black Friday” only and the limited quantities will disappear fast.

Via email from Eric the AmmoMan, who said in part:

we’re doing something kind of cool for Friday related to loose-pack ammo— lots of it. Basically, we’ve sorted out any rounds where the boxes have been damaged so we’ll have ammo for dirt-cheap (For example – 2100 rounds of .22 delivered in an ammo can for $99).

You can see all the details and calibers we’ll have in stock here:

http://www.ammoman.com/ammo-by-the-pound

If you think it’s worth sharing, the ammo will be put “in-stock” on Friday morning at midnight.  We’re limiting each caliber to one per customer since it is kind of a unique deal and we want to help as many shooters as possible.

Ignorance and bias

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The headline is “Police find 5 guns, large ammo stash in George Zimmerman’s home.” The text of the article says, “police found five guns and more than 100 rounds of ammunition in the house.”

“Large ammo stash”?

When I buy either components for reloading ammo or completed ammo I consider 100 “sample size”. When reloading, unless I’m doing load development, the smallest batch of anything is 100.

100 rounds isn’t enough for an ordinary morning pistol match. When at a match I carry close to that many (typically about 85) rounds in the magazines on my belt. I could easily burn through that in a two minutes of practice. A single ammo can holds about 1000 rounds of .40 S&W and I have several cans in my gun room. A year ago I bought 4000 rounds of .22 LR (yeah, great timing!) which I could probably have stored in my coat pockets.

If I’m down to 100 units of any type of ammo I consider that “out” and time to restock.

Ignorance or bias by the reporter? Ignorance and bias?

Ammo day

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Tuesday, November 19th, is National Buy Ammo Day. Be sure to do your part. If you can’t find some in a caliber you shoot, but a new gun for the ammo you do find. (I’m partial to 6.5mm, aka .264 caliber). If you can’t / don’t want to do that, load some of your own.

Just a friendly reminder.