Category: The Gun Thing

Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them

Quarantine Project

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Last week I posted how a friend decided, whilst being confined to quarters, to clean his shotguns.  Clearly, he’s not the only one getting twitchy.

From another locked-down Reader comes this project:

Nothing else to do, so I attacked my Thompson Center R55 .22 rifle.  The stock always felt clumsy and clunky to me, so I smoothed out the sharp edges, rounded the corners & cut away near the trigger.  Then finished it with automotive clearcoat.
And I think we can all agree that this was time well spent:
What a beauty.  And I’ve written before how good a rifle the R55 is.
[jealous]
If anyone else out there has been bored out of their tree and taken to fiddling with their guns in this time of cholera Chinkvirus, feel free to share the details, with pics.

About That Europellet Stuff

Disaster, The Gun Thing

Seems like we may have an Obama-era situation here:

A cursory look at a couple of websites showed no problems with stock, e.g. CheaperThanDirt and LuckyGunner.  (A little pricier than normal, to be sure, but at least they have it handy — at time of writing, that is.)  However, MidwayUSA and Graf & Son show complete OOS on all 9mm except the premium loads.

Compare and contrast the .45 ACP situation:  CTD (sweet deal, by the way for quality range ammo) and LuckyGunner.

A little worm crawled into my ear, though, triggered by a deal I saw on the little Makarov 9x18mm pistol.  Stocks of the 9mm Mak ammo seem to be quite substantial (e.g. CTD’s Sellier & Bellot) and cheap, to boot.

Just as I suggested yesterday that it might be prudent to have a rifle chambered in a not-so-popular chambering (the PSL in 7.62x54mmR), maybe one could extend that thought to pistols.  I love the Makarov (also the CZ-82 version):  it’s rugged and easy to shoot, and the 9x18mm round is a little fireball.

Food for thought, n’est-ce pas?  And for you Crufflers out there, it’s a C&R transaction.

Of Course

Gummint, The Gun Thing

Which can be encapsulated by the standard liberal response:

…even though this whole episode seems to have been triggered by Lockdown Blues.

Just coincidentally, this little advert arrived in my Inbox a couple days back:

Now, leaving aside the wisdom or lack thereof in buying a gun from Century Arms at that price, this merchant of death has a lot to recommend it, i.e.:

  • regardless of ammo shortages in other calibers (e.g. 5.56mm, 7.62mm Nato), none of the online suppliers ever seems to run out of 7.62x54mmR
  • the PSL (Dragunov clone) has a great deal to recommend it:  excellent AK-type reliability and, once you’ve done the necessary trigger work, decent accuracy out to about 500 yards

So let’s ignore CanuckiPM Pantywaist (as always), and consider the merits of the PSL, in Comments.

No Thanks

The Gun Thing

Arriving in my Inbox yesterday was this breathless news:

Man, have they ever got me wrong.

In the first place, my NRA membership has long since expired — which just shows you the value of a mailing list (at least to them).

And yeah, I’m so jazzed about winning a fucking sandy-colored Glock, because that screams right there that I’m an “operator” and I really want to be regarded as such.

Even if

were to be replaced by any one of these:

…I still  wouldn’t have sent in an entry and renewed my membership.

To the NRA:  don’t hold yer breath, you clueless idiots.

The good thing about electronic mail is that it costs almost nothing to send a message.  That’s also the bad thing about e-mail.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Ruger Talo Carryhawk (.45 LC/.45 ACP)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

While seeking to assuage my Lockdown Blues a couple days ago, I stumbled on this little piece at Collectors:

Hmmm… a down-sized carry revolver in .45 Colt/ACP;  what could be bad about it.?

Leaving aside the single-action issue (not an optimal choice for self-defense, really), what’s wrong with this piece is the bird’s-head grip.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find revolvers thus gripped to be almost uncontrollable:  the damn thing turns in my hand not just up-and-down (which is a good thing with the bird’s head as it helps handle recoil) but side-to-side as well, which is a huge problem.  I once had a pretty little Ruger Bearcat revolver in .22 LR, like this one:

…and after a couple years I sold it to someone who wanted just that kind of revolver.

Maybe it just was my hand size, I dunno;  but I just had no fun shooting it.  And that was a .22 LR revolver:  what, I wonder, will it be like trying to control that grip in a meatier chambering like the .45?  I’ll probably never own this type of gun again, but I’m willing to be proved wrong.

Your thoughts in Comments.