Saturday, March 27, 2010

First 2700 results

The match results are out for my first 2700. Woohoo! I made the 1600 Club!

In bullseye competition, there's actually something called the 2600 Club. This is that select group of people who've managed to shoot a 2600 or better. I don't see myself ever making that group.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Refreshing

I just got back from our club's light rifle match. It was wonderfully refreshing -- a few guys sitting around and talking about guns. No politics, no health care, just guns. Mausers, Lugers, Rugers, Garands, M-1 Carbines, 1903's, Anschutzes. Just guns.

Ahhhh.

March 23, 1775

235 years ago today:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Sunday, March 21, 2010

First 2700

I shot my first 2700 this morning. For those who don't know, a 2700 is a match in which you fire 270 rounds. It's broken up into three guns (.22, center fire and .45, although it appears that most people simply use their .45 for both of those last two), 90 rounds and 900 points for each gun. This is broken up into 20 rounds each of slow, timed and rapid fire and the "National Match" course, which is 10 rounds each of slow, timed, and rapid fire. (Don't ask me why things are set up this way. No doubt there are good historical reasons for it.)

I did two things wrong in this match, things that pretty much anyone with any competitive experience would have advised against. What's worse is that those two things were really the same: I used new/untested hardware in a competition. In the first case, it wasn't really a problem. The S&W Model 41 I picked up yesterday shoots better than the .22 I had been shooting, and I was happy enough with my performance. In the second case, it was pretty much a disaster. For center fire and .45, I was using a borrowed gun and using my own reloads in it. While the owner has no problem getting it to feed semi-wadcutters, I had no end of trouble getting it into battery for each string. The gun cycled reliably once I started firing, but no matter whether I used the slingshot method or the slide stop, I had little luck.

OTOH, I got to shoot 270 rounds this morning, which makes for a pretty good day in my book.

Defenseless man killed in NY

This man tried to save a teenager from an attack and was killed for the gesture. This is the world that Michael Bloomberg wants all of us to live in.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Buy a Gun Day

So I bought my gun for Buy a Gun Day today. Okay, so technically, today isn't Buy a Gun Day. But I live in New Jersey. My (two) pistol permits came in a week ago (after only six weeks.) My FFL ordered thw gun for me the day he got my check in the mail, it came in a couple of days ago, and I picked it up today. I can't just go out and buy a gun on a whim[1]. These thing have to be planned out.

And, of course, given that I did the transfer today, I wouldn't be able to go out and buy another gun on Buy a Gun Day, as that's less than 30 days from now, and New Jersey now has the one-gun-a-month law.

But on the bright side, this is a really sweet piece, a Smith and Wesson Model 41, a .22 target pistol. I brought it home, cleaned it, then took it out to the range to try it out. I don't know if the gun shoots much better than my other .22 (a Kimber), or if I just shoot much better with it. (Or if it's just the honeymoon phase.) But it seemed to shoot really well. The trigger is certainly better. The out-of-the-box trigger on my Kimber leaves a bit to be desired. The trigger on the S&W needs no work. I'll need to get used to it, though, as it's a bit lighter than I'm used to.

[1] Well, it's still possible to go out and buy a rifle or shotgun on a whim, but I'm not really in the market for either of those right now.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Fess Parker

David Boaz, over at Cato@Liberty, points out that Fess Parker has died. He played both Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett on TV, although he's probably better known for the role of Daniel Boone. The above link quotes a speech Davy Crockett made titled "Not Yours To Give". Given the current state of our federal government, it's worth a read.

I grew up on Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. This isn't necessarily because I grew up in Tennessee, but it probably had some part to play. I remember reading biographies of the two and everything I could get my hands on related to the frontier era. (When I was in elementary school, that is. Later, I discovered science fiction, and then that's all I wanted to read.)

WRT Davy Crockett, it's probably also worth noting that we recently passed the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo. While this is remembered as one of the pivotal points in Texas history, it should be pointed out that 32 of the 180 or so men who died at the Alamo were Tennesseeans, including Davy Crockett. This is where Tennessee earned the nickname the Volunteer State -- some 30,000 Tennesseeans volunteered to fight in the Mexican War in order to exact their revenge on Santa Anna.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Pistol permits in

Woohoo! My two "permits to purchase" are in. I picked them up last night and will have a new gun within the week.

For those who live in reasonable states where purchasing a pistol can be a 15-minute affair if the person behind the counter isn't otherwise busy, this is how things work in New Jersey. If you want to purchase a handgun, you drop by the local police department, pick up the paperwork, fill it out, bring it back with the appropriate checks, hope you crossed all your t's and dotted all your i's, and wait. They actually do things quickly in my township, so I got my permits in only six weeks. (The law explicitly states that the permits must be issued within 30 days, but the courts gutted that requirement.) In less-friendly municipalities, permits might take six months.

Not for the last time do I wish I were still in Tennessee. Admittedly, being forced to wait on a handgun purchase is better for my wallet, but I'd be willing to take a chance on myself being fiscally responsible in exchange for regaining some basic rights.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

USRA postal match over

Well, it's over for me, at least. It was a ten-week pistol match, and I just shot my tenth set of targets.

I was shooting a .22 National Match Course, 10 shots each of slow, timed, and rapid fire (indoors at 50 feet.) My score for the first week of shooting was a 217. I worked my way up to a 252 in the 9th week and ended with a 245 in week 10. Even better, I shot a 96 on my last timed-fire target, of which the first 5-shot string was perfect. (Of course, that also means that I shot a combined 149 on my slow and rapid-fire targets, a 72 and 77 respectively.)

I'm looking forward to doing more of this. Summer's coming up, so there'll be all of the outdoors 2700's to shoot. I don't have a reasonable .45 bullseye gun yet, but I hope to remedy that soon. (Blasted stupid pistol purchase permit system. In any reasonable state, I'd have that gun by now.)

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Cheap primers!

The club I belong to had their annual swap meet this evening. Lots of reloading equipment, including some fairly ancient stuff that may have dated back to the Roman era.

But as I was looking through stuff, I noticed a box of 1000 large pistol primers.

"How much for these?"

"Five bucks."

You bet I bought 'em. Of course, it would have been sweeter if he had 10,000 or so, but it was still pretty nice.

McDonald

So, at long last, the oral arguments have been made in the case of McDonald v. City of Chicago. I would post my analysis of the arguments here, but that's been pretty well covered elsewhere. (Some links here at Say Uncle. Not to mention the Volokh Conspiracy discussion here, here, here and here. And Randy Barnett's WSJ op-ed here.)

I had an invitation to attend the SAF's reception Tuesday night (no doubt as a result of donations, not because I'm otherwise a heavyweight Second Amendment advocate.) I would really like to have gone, but I couldn't justify taking the time off from work to do so. Not to mention that there were a number of other people who were far more deserving of being there.

So now we wait. As good as it looks for incorporation, I'm still not holding my breath. Even if we win, I fully expect to see some text in there weakening the Second Amendment. Sotomayor's question about "reasonable regulation" doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.