Category: Guns

Dear Ammo Makers

Dear Ammo Makers,
Stop crimping primer pockets. Unless you’re the military, it’s completely unnecessary.
Even if you are the military, it’s probably not necessary. How often do primers push themselves out, anyway?
Finding Remington and Federal brass in my range pickup bags is always nice, as their primer pockets allow for the easy but firm seating of primers.
Anyway, knock it off. My fingers are killing me and I can’t afford a Dillon swager.
Thanks!
-AZR

Musings of the Day

I’ve always been a big fan of Glock pistols: they’re not terribly expensive, they fit my hand well, they’re mechanically simple, and freakishly reliable. Sure, they’re not pretty, but I don’t care.
That said, why hasn’t Glock ever made a rifle…like, say, an AR-15? Not a 100% mil-spec one mind you, but something with some improvements. Say, have it striker-fired with the striker contained within the bolt carrier. A firing pin safety. A similar sear/disconnector to the one in their pistols — it could considerably simplify the working mechanisms of the gun itself.
CavArms has made all-polymer lowers and they turned out quite well. I’d imagine Glock could do something similar, or maybe just stick with the aluminum receivers and do some internal modifications.
Glock pistol magazines tend to be rugged and durable, with both a steel liner and a plastic outside. Why not make AR mags in a similar way, and have them be compatible with mil-spec ARs?
Many police departments and militaries around the world use Glock pistols. Many departments in the US are now equipping their officers with patrol rifles, usually AR variants (mostly likely because of the “Oooh! Shiny!” factor). I’m really surprised that Glock hasn’t gotten into this market.

Reloading Woes

I got another case stuck in my .223 die.
After the first few times doing this, I built a stuck case remover: drill out the primer pocket, tap it, then use a threaded bolt to pull it out. Simple, quick, and easy.
Unfortunately, it requires that the expander pin not be in the case. In this case, it’s well and truly stuck and the pin is still there…and blocks my drill from being able to drill through the primer pocket.
I sheepishly wrote a check to Lee for $4 and will drop the die in the mail tomorrow. If the last time this happened (about a year ago) is any indication, they don’t bother to extract them, but rather just send you a new one and the $4 is the cover return shipping. Not a bad deal.
Moral of the story: use enough case lube.

Registration

Why do some people support registration of firearms?
I’m not talking about rabidly anti-gun groups like the Brady Campaign. Instead, I’m talking about regular, everyday folks, including some gunny folks I’ve met.
I’m honestly interested in why people support such a measure.
Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller?

When Common Sense Isn’t

I’ve never understood why anti-gun folks always refer to their proposals as “common sense gun laws”.
When I think of “common sense” things[1], I think of liberty, fair and impartial justice, and personal responsibility.
I don’t think that taking inanimate objects away from tens of millions of law-abiding citizens will have any effect on the tiny fraction of people who commit crimes. I don’t think that restricting guns (again from the law-abiding) with certain cosmetic features will have any more effect on crime than restricting ordinary cars that look fast will have any effect on street racing.
I certainly don’t think that making it illegal for one citizen to sell a gun to another will make life even the least bit more difficult for criminals.
I don’t think that limiting magazine capacities to an arbitrary number of cartridges will do anything except inconvenience ordinary, non-criminal people.
Indeed, I’ve asked several non-shooters and anti-gun friends of mine what they’d consider “common sense” solutions to violent crime would be, and none of them suggested any of the above. One did suggest banning handguns, but changed her mind when (a) she went to the range and had fun, (b) discovered that police and private citizens use their guns to stop criminals more often than criminals use guns in crime.
Who actually believes that the anti-gun beliefs in “common-sense gun laws” are actually sensible or commonly held? Certainly not me or anyone I know.
[1] Other than things like “water is wet”, “fire is hot”, “objects fall towards the earth”, etc.

AR Mags

For those looking at AR magazines, I highly recommend these. While their retail pricing is a bit high at $18/each, Midway dealer pricing is ~$10/each + shipping. Not bad at all. Best of all, Midway has them in stock.
They feed flawlessly and the 4-way anti-tilt follower works well. They’re no longer gray with an easily-scuffed finish, but are black and look remarkably like the mags that came with my DPMS M4gery (except for the floorplate and the follower).
For those in Tucson who want to get in on a group buy, let me know. I just bought ten, but may be tempted to get more.

Oh, hell.

Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

From here. As an aside, does it disturb anyone else that there’s already a “change.gov” website for the president-elect?
Hmm, let me see if I can sum things up:

  • Open up gun trace data for political purposes (read: lies), as police already have access to trace data for bona fide law enforcement purposes.
  • Ban on private sale of firearms. (There is no “gun show loophole”.)
  • Mandating “smart guns” that don’t exist and probably won’t work.
  • Banning scary-looking guns, permanently.

That sounds remarkably like the list of talking points at the Brady Campaign.
It looks like all my friends who claimed Obama was a friend of the Second Amendment were wrong. I hate to say “I told you so”, but…well, I told you so.
Look, I agree that violent crime is reprehensible. I agree that violent criminals should have no business owning a gun. I agree that we, as a society need to work to reduce violent crime…but putting these restrictions on law-abiding citizens has no effect on crime. California’s banned the private sale of firearms, and it’s done nothing. There was a ban on scary-looking guns for ten years, and it did nothing.
Rather than pushing for these stupid feel-good measures which have been tried over and over and over (and have inevitably resulted in no change in violent crime rates) and which only affect law-abiding citizens, why not actually try to address the root causes of violent crime?
Update: Hat tip to Sebastian. It was bad form of me to not credit him first.

T-shirt…

I really should buy this t-shirt:

Unfortunately, I’m a bit tapped out for cash. The new AR, pistol, and a bunch of new mags (I needed them anyway, and today was a good a day as any…) have left me without much money. Oh well. I’ll have to wait a bit.
(Hopefully Commander Zero doesn’t mind me hijacking his picture — it’s better than the one at the store.)