Friend and Reader Drew K sent me an email last week (appropos of my range report on the Howa HCR) which contained this:
One of ProMag’s first big projects was a replacement “precision” stock for the M1a.
Had a retired NGMU (National Guard Marksmanship Unit) armorer do a demonstration shoot, published in the old Shotgun News, of what just replacing the standard wood stock with ours would accomplish: Improvement by 1/2″ at 100yds.That same stock is now available for the Howa. Check it out.
Well, I did.
I’m sorry, Drew, but those don’t do anything for me. I know they’re accurate, and improve a rifle’s accuracy and so on.
But here’s the thing. I never could shoot that accurately anyway, and I don’t do competitive shooting anymore, so an improvement of 1/2″ at 100 yards wouldn’t mean much.
More to the point, I think those stocks are pig-ugly. Conceptually, they look like some engineer made a robot of a woman:
…and said “See? It’s a functional improvement over a normal woman.”
No, it isn’t.
So ask me again which one I prefer, between this:
…and this:
Or this:
…and this:
Or even this:
…and this: 
I’m sorry; what was the question, again? I seem to have lost the thread.
A) If my life depending on hitting a penny at 100 yards on the first shot, every shot, I don’t care what the rifle looks like as long as it performs. Because sometimes a tool is just a tool.
B) can the robot woman cook? Sometimes the other model can’t even make a sammich!
A few years back Brownells was selling Howa barreled actions for stupid cheap. I bought a fluted heavy barrel 308 for $320.00. I bolted this stock on it–
https://www.hogueinc.com/stocks/howa/shortaction/heavy/howa-1500-weatherby-s-a-heavy-varmint-bar-full-bed-block-od-green
I’m thinking that both those women have their place….the top one is the one you can take home and live with….the lack of mouth is a deal sealer for long term happiness.
The other is a rental for the evening, enjoy what it can provide and get the fuck away when/before that changes for the worse.
Life is simply too short to shoot ugly guns. For my money while Glocks might be perfectly good firearms, they look like a kid built them from Legos so I just can’t bring myself to own one. Likewise a semi-auto shotgun has many advantages but you just feel more the gentlemen with a nice double barrel shotgun. Aesthetics matter.
YOU can stay.
Very much agree.
Glocks look and are very utilitarian but their aesthetics are absent. At some point things just look too boring and sterile. When someone is carrying a hand gun my first question is it a Glock or something interesting.
JQ
I put a stainless 10/22 in an Archangel stock. It tightened up the groups. It also forced me to clean the 35+ year old gun where I took it all the way down. I think I paid more for the Archangel stock last year than I did for the 10/22 back in the 80’s.
It’s all good, I still have a handful of great looking blued rifles with great wood, all made over 30 years ago and in recent years I have purchased a few more with CNC work, matte finish barrels and composite stocks and dollar for dollar the new stuff shoots better while the old, for my needs was good enough. Guns are just hole punches, remote hole punches, when used just as tools while at the same time the process of shooting a fine rifle or shotgun, enjoying a post shooting bit of scotch while cleaning your firearm and sharing the experience with good friends is a different experience compared cleaning up the lawnmower after doing a great job on the lawn while drinking a Bud Light, or something. In my early years I owned a 58 VW Bug and later an E-Jag and they both would take me from one place to the other and the Bug was cheaper and more reliable however the E-Jag was a ride, not just a trip, totally different experience.
Well here is a question on style. Saw this pic posted somewhere with a caption describing the rifle as a “Mosin 1891” ( ?? Mosin-Nagant 1891??). The implication being that this is all that Putin can give to his troops…. First question: is this actually and 1891? Second question: would this possibly be the rifle of a marksman/sniper?? It does carry a scope, which would not be ‘usual’ for a bolt action “battle rifle”!!
OK. Third question. How do I post a picture??
If the robot woman cooks, cleans and doesn’t nag about how much you spend on guns…
Y’all are going to laugh at me, but as I read this post, I reacted to most of the comparisons with indifference. I’m not really interested in guns or cars, and with a divorce and several failed relationships in my ledger, I am content to live a simple, solitary life with no woman in it. But the moment I saw that USB flash drive that looks like a vacuum tube, I sat up straight and thought: That is COOL! I must have one!
After a quick image search, I found it for sale on Amazon, and blanched at the price. It depends on the storage capacity, but the cheapest one (8 GB) is $49, and the most expensive (256 GB) is $119. That seemed excessive to me, but I read the description and saw, to my astonishment, that this thing doesn’t just look like a vintage vacuum tube, it actually IS one! These things are crafted by hand using a genuine vacuum tube that was made in the USSR in 1981. A collector’s item for sure. Too rich for my blood if I were just buying it for my own amusement.
But if my father were still alive, I would buy one for him in a heartbeat. He was a ham radio operator and electronics hobbyist starting in the 1950s, and our family had a home computer in 1976 because he built it from a kit! He was very hard to buy gifts for, because if he wanted something, he generally went ahead and bought it himself before anyone could give it to him. So the trick was to find something that you knew he would want IF he knew it existed, and then hope he didn’t find out about it before he opened the gift. He would have LOVED this.
“I’m not really interested in guns or cars”
…and yet I permit you to comment on this website.
See? I can be tolerant and forgiving and all that shit.