All posts tagged Marlin Firearms

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.

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Keep your range mags and your primaries separate

Gun magazines have various levels of quality.   Some gun magazines are meant as throw aways i.e. 1911 magazines made in Tawain.   I have several 1911 GI magazines that were pretty good range mags, but when they jammed up on me, and I could blame it on the gun springs, it was time to toss them.   Buying Wolff gun springs that cost about $8 for an $8 magazine isn’t really worth my time, plus I’ve found that many of these have worn out followers and it’s really not worth the headach to tweak them, plus I’d consider them to not be worth using for self defense.   Wilson Combat and Chip McCormick make very good gun magazines and both of them should help get your 1911 to be more tolerant of various types of ammunition.

The one thing I have learned over the years is that no matter how much money I spent on a firearm, I’m still going to have something break.  When you put thousands of rounds through a firearm the you will eventually have to learn some level of gunsmithing.   After taking some of my guns to gunsmiths and having to wait for months to get simple things done, it’s good to pick up an AGI video and do the changes yourself.   The same goes for gun magazines.   Parts on a gun magazine can wear out and depending on how much you spent on the magazine, you may want to just toss it in the trash.  For some magazines, you will only have to replace the springs to get it back to reliable functionality.

 

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Marlin 925 range report

rifle casesWhen getting asked the question how many guns we own, the question should be asked “what do I not own?”   After several  years of dealing with the high speed, low drag weapon systems, and after watching the 2008 election results, there was huge jumps in ammo prices.    I thought to myself when 5.56 ammo was hitting close to the $700 per 1000rds range, that maybe ammo was going to be worth more than gold soon.   After putting a little thought into why the ammo prices were going up, I pretty much guessed that they won’t stay up that long in a bad economy, because nobody in their right mind would spend money on something that was 200-300% over  inflated.   I decided that if It was reloaded ammo, I wasn’t going to touch any factory ammo, and it was now time for a 22lr bolt action rifle.
I picked up a Marlin 925 bolt action rifle with iron sights and I was planning on not ever putting a scope on this.   As a firearms instructor, this was a basic platform for teaching basic shooting skills.   There is nothing wrong with teaching to shoot firearms to new shooters with a scope, but in my opinion iron sights are a better starting point.    This Marlin 925 was extremely accurate, but I  noticed that my groups were always left of center.   I looked at the rear sight adjustment and noticed I really couldn’t accomadate for the windage.   I was a little depressed and packed up my Marlin in a one of the rifle cases I had with me.  As a kid, I always compensated for a guns accuracy flaw by aiming at a different point, but as somoene who’s been able to hit the X at 600yds with other firearms, this off center accuracy really bothered me.   I’m looking to put another adjusteable rear sight on this or possible put a scope on this and pick up another bolt action that has better sights.

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