Archive for December, 2010

Having fun but having the right stuff

I would have to say that the vast majority of those that have anything more than a flashlight and optic on the M4 are probable putting something on our guns that we really don’t need, but just enjoy having on.   There’s nothing wrong with having an LWRCI upper with a quad rail or a MidWest quad rail if you think you can put it to use, but when we actually have to carry the Carbine for any real length of time, we’ll wish we could strip a few extra pounds of weight off the gun.  Many of our Staff have been attending competition shoots lately that have been really well run.   These events are everything from battle scenarios or even Zombie shoots.

Last  year in Pennsylvania we attended a Carbine shoot where the the attendees has to sign in at 8am and once they left the club house, they couldn’t drop off any gear and had to lug it all with them for the day.   All of the competitors were carrying M4 or AR15 variants and a few had AK rifles.    Ammunition loads were approximately 400rds of rifle and 100rds of handgun ammo.    I enjoy these events because we get too see some real hard use of tactical gear and tactical accessories.   We tend to not see things fail at these shoots because the competitors are in the higher class as far as skill and the types of firearms they use.   If you ever want to see what kind of optics work and which firearms and when things jam, go to a competition shoot at your gun club and sit back and watch.

Top

Guns by the nightstand, is that level of security dangerous?

I have a few family members that grew up knowing where Dad kept his gun and some of them have even informed me that they use to play with them and friends knew where they kept them.   I believe that I would be accurate in saying that children back then were more aware of what real guns did and that even if they knew where they were, they were not as dumb as some children are today and ended up shooting themselves.  Back  in my Grandparents day, guns were left in Dad’s closet or by the nightstand and everyone knew that it might be loaded.  That era of gun handling seems to have disappeared from Urban thought these days.   I always keep track of the number of gun accidents I hear about on the radio and use them in my teaching sessions.

I would never tell you that you shouldn’t have a gun in any place that you feel confident that it should be, but I will tell you that considering the number of people that may be in your home, especially if you have children it’s a good idea to keep all of your guns locked up.   Gunvault gun safes are hands down the best and fastest gun safes to open, you can easily bolt them  in hard to reach (from a child’s hands) and harder to steal if properly mounted.   If you want to put a gun safe next to your night stand or on it, you should sleep better knowing that it is as easy for you to get to as a push of 4 or 5 buttons or spend the money for the Biometric safe and know that only your hands or other authorized hands can open it.

Top

Standard and lightweight tactical pants

I am starting acquire a very large collection of tactical pants, and although I am liking some of my 5.11 and Blackhawk pants,  I find it very hard to jump around with the various types of tactical apparel.   There are too many variations in where the pockets are and right now, I’m trying to sort through various locations in my home for a folding knife that I believe I left in a pair of pants, but can’t find.   We recently got feedback from a women that had the Eotac style 702 pants, she liked the fit, but said there were too many pockets and wanted something more casual.   Well, the answer to that is to  not buy tactical pants thinking you are going to get something casual.

The reason the tactical clothing market has gotten so big is because so many new markets have been created and there is a need for clothing for people to wear at work.   Everyone carrying a gun over in Iraq may not be active in the United States Military and there are just as many military contractors over there.    If you want to wear something in the winter you are going to need heavier material, but if you are wearing pants in the summer you are going to most likely want a cotton ripstop material.   We get people calling on the phone all the time for the most “versatile” tactical pants that we sell, but we always have to come back and tell people “for what”.    I remember the years when I was monitory gun forums and just about every other discussion forum would have an individual come in and say, “which gun is better, Glock or 1911” and the answer is always “for what”.     I only see 4 really good tactical clothing companies right now, but there are a few niche CCW companies that I monitoring.

Top

NAA Guardian, pocket gun options

Many of my shooting buddies have been CCW for 1-2 decades longer than I have.    I have watched the evolution of weapons they have carried over the years and they have all ended up carrying guns and calibers that I would never have wanted to carry before.   In my opinion it was always about how much damage the bullet could do, followed by reliability, and finally durability.   I was always turned off by some of the pocket semi-autos that I cam across because the recoil tended to be pretty nasty.   I am not afraid of shooting 50 BMG rifles, but I don’t like shooting too much recoil in a handgun.   I know an individual that actually has developed nerve damage from shooting too many heavy handguns and if it hurts after I shoot it, I don’t want to carry it as a CCW gun.

My first adventure into CCW was with a friend that had 20yrs more experience than I did.   He showed me he had evolved to the NAA guardian .380 pistol and that in his opinion, it was the only gun he could carry at work with any level of comfort.  My only issue with some pocket guns is that they are so small that I can’t feel them, and I like to know I can feel the gun on me at all times.   The real issue I have noticed with NAA Guardians is that you have to really pay attention to the round counts you have put through your gun and how many you put through your NAA Guardian gun magazines and rotate out the springs before you have any issues.   The NAA Guardian is strictly a CCW gun and will handle some of the hotter loads for the .380 compared to some of the Kel-Tec counterparts.   I was fortunate enough to test out some of the Rohrbaugh R9 pistols next to the NAA Guardian and the only thing the R9 had over the NAA Guardian was the trigger pull.

Top

Spicing up your gun collection with handgun displays

Long before I moved to where I am presently living, I was able to turn a closet in my home  into a gun safe.   I think there needs to be some serious thought put into how safe it is to keep your guns in a closet, but depending on the location in  your home and how strong and secure the door is, the only bad thing other than any a break in would be fire.   If you have a good fire alarm system in your home, the notion that your house is going to burn to the ground shouldn’t really be much of a reality, although it is possible.   There are ways to fire proof areas of your  house especially around closets that can help you avoid having to bring a 500lb safe down your basement steps.   I strongly recommend keeping any kind of firearms safe out of visibility because I have learned that a good $2000 gun safe will only slow a thief down, but not necessarily stop them.

If you have the time to build a small fire proof room  in your home for your firearms, you can avoid all of the clunking and banging around that can happen in other safes.   There are good pistol display racks like the Versatile rack that can organize and spice up the look of your collection.   Springfield Armory also has fun looking GI 1911 gun cases that are a wooden box that looks like you just received it from an airdrop in Europe.  Gun cases can help you keep your guns and stuff organized and protected, but it’s no fun to have to store your guns in a gun safe that is cluttered.  Build yourself a gun closet.

Top

Reliability of the 1911 GI or MilSpec guns

My first 1911 was a Colt 1991A1 that I picked up for $375 for a gun shop.   The gun was hardly used and I don’t believe it was ever shot.  Every 1911 that I own has been had for under $400.   I have had maintenance issues with my Colt 1991A1, but I believe the gun has well over 10,000 rounds through it and I’ve made a few customizations to improve it.   I miss my gunsmith, but he did mess up something on the gun when I took it to him to have the feed ramp polished.  When he was polishing the feed ramp he hit the slide stop and put a niche in it that I noticed immediately after test firing that the gun would not lock back.   He found the mistake was his and fixed it, but I thought that it was a good time to replace the slide stop with an extended one.   When I put Hogue gun grips on Colt, it made the grips a little fatter and it was a little difficult to hit the slide release with my thumb.

I messed around with polishing the feed ramp and using Wilson Combat magazines and noticed a good improvement in feeding SWC and HP ammo, but I was still not happy with it not running flawlessly.   At this point, I don’t care, I’ve seen enough junks of wood fly out of the back of backstops to notice the difference between a 45acp and 9mm ball ammo to know that one type of ball ammo is better than the other.   I would never use 9mm ball in a defensive situation, but a 45acp is fine by my book.   I have also noticed absolutely no difference between Wilson Combat magazines that are 7rd vs 8rd.   I have done the 8 +1 in the chamber on several occasions and never noticed any reliability issues as long as the gun wasn’t stored like this for very long.   Even though I believe manual safeties aren’t the best type of device to have on a CCW gun, I think 8rds of 45acp ball ammo in a GI 1911 is not a negative.

Top

Avoiding unnecessary searches during police stops

There has been a recent issue with a man who moved from Colorado back to New Jersey and has been arrested and thrown in jail for transporting firearms that he legally owned.   I won’t go into the whole story, but it’s available with just a google search.  From what I am reading about it now, there was something that occurred and the police made a stop and searched this individuals car, they found two unloaded handguns in the car and he was arrested.   Transporting firearms in non-gun friendly States has been a real problem for those traveling across State lines for hunting trips.   I had the opportunity to take a trip to Maine and I had to plot driving routes to avoid as many blue States as possible although  avoiding all of them was impossible.

So many of my friends own SUV type vehicles and I have urged many of them to think about tinting the windows, not too dark, but darker than what they had, just because they can dramatically reduce their chances of having a theft by making it harder for the less  honest in society,  from seeing any firearms even in gun cases or valuables they are transporting.  Most of the smash and grabs that I have heard of were for laptops and the CCW stuff was under or near it.   Of all of the times I have ever been in a vehicle stop, being polite to a Police officer avoided any friction and I have never had issues with searches.

Top

Tactical Pants and real CCW

I have been trading back and forth between 5.11 tactical clothing, Woolrich Elite Series and the much newer Eotac brand.   I will admit that I understand that many of these brands may be personal preference, but there are  huge differences in the fit and feel of the pants.   If I just take the covert pants from 5.11 and the Woolrich Elite 4909 pants vs the Eotac pants.   Woolrich and Eotac look similiar, but none of them fit the same.   While I find the 5.11 pants to fit more like normal fitting jeans, the inside the waist pockets are not very useful if you are going to be sitting down a lot.   I can carry a small j-frame revoler inside the pants without a holster, but the locations of the pockets aren’t very comfortable.

I took a Sig 239 9mm 8rd magazine and put it in the rear pocket and when I sat down it, was not comfortable to wear at all.   I think these pockets lend themselves more towards putting a wallet or handcuffs in them than a firearm and accessories.   Next I tried putting a Streamlight Scorpion in various positions and none of them worked.   I tried to pocket carry and inserted a Smith & Wesson 38 Special I had around and it could not be concealed in these tactical pants at all.  They were in 5.11 tactical pants, but not these?   With both the Woolrich Elite 44909 and the Eotac 205 jeans, these were not the traditional straight leg jean, and the fit was different for each.   I personally like the Eotac color, Woolrich pants were too purplish and baggy.   Both pants were pocket friendly and my vote would go for Eotac by far.   I do think the rear ID pockets are a little over done when you keep the water bottle pocket below it.   That strikes me as a little too tactical and not discreet.

Top

The FN 5.7 as a defensive weapon

I first saw the 5.7  in all it’s glory with what I would consider to be AP ammo.   I heard a few people mention that they thought that this gun should be illegal, but ballistically it couldn’t do anything that the much more common M855 or SS109 could do.   Yeah I know that a criminal might prefer a handgun to defeat a police officers armor, but the last Police Officer killed here in Pennsylvania was killed with an SKS with standard ammo and a 30rd magazine that actually jammed.   The SKS can take detachable magazines, but I have never seen them hold up as well as the AK family of guns with these mags.   The 5.7 has the ballistics of something close to the 22 magnum, and even though that is not a very powerful stopping round it is as effective as the person carrying it.

I don’t know of any reliable 22 magnum semi auto guns, I know a few pocket revolvers that were fun to shoot, but if you want a small and light semi auto with similar 22 magnum ballistics and has a much  higher capacity, there’s nothing wrong with packing the 5.7 FN.  I think there are better calibers for duty officers, but there are a number of gun holsters like the Blackhawk Serpa that can be had for this gun.  Unfortunately the piece of crap that killed our soldiers at Fort Hood used this firearm arm very effectively, but hopefully anyone reading this will know that every firearm used in the hands of a good and law abiding citizen is an asset to society.

Top

The stuff you read about on the internet about Fobus

Fobus HolstersI’m sure the majority of what you read about various holsters is mostly based on peoples personal tastes.   Guns and accessories can suit your purposes just fine if they are use appropriately, but there is a lot of BS on gun forums.   Probable 75% or more of what you read about accessories on gun forums is propaganda either for a product or against it.  One of the biggest BS bits of  info I saw on the  internet was about how easy it was to break Fobus Holsters.   There is a youtube video of a guy with a holster on and another guy walking up behind him and breaking the gun and the holster off.   The reality is this, if you give anyone enough time, they can mess up your life.

I could do something even better than that, how about sneaking up behind someone and hit the mag release and take the magazine out of their gun while it’s in the holster which leaves them with one round in the chamber, better yet, just hit them with a baseball bat and take their gun and their wallet from them.  If they have an AR15  using GI Mags, why not sneak up on them and use a pair of vise grips and pinch the mag well so the gun jams on them.  Sure you can break certain holster designs easier than others, but I’m not going to toss my gear out a window and find out if it breaks from a two story window.   Fobus holsters are simple to use, they are primarily used for people carrying large sized autos and don’t need retention like a thumbstrap or serpa holster does.

Top
1 … 3 4 5 Page 5 of 5