Boomsticks

I’m not that tactical, actually…

by Tam May 17, 2012 View from the Porch

Writes Greg at Dum Vivimus, Vivamus:I know some people who claim they are always armed…that they carry even around the house.Y’know, I’m not all that tacticool, I’m just lazy.If I’m dressed, I have a gun on, mostly because the empty holster would feel silly. The holster is there because before I go to bed, the [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam May 15, 2012 View from the Porch

Certain words have consequences.Having dispatched a mouse with a CCI .22 shot shell in the last couple weeks, this was interesting.You can see the white guilt from 250 miles up.

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It’s what that double-barrelled 1911 is backup for.

by Tam May 14, 2012 View from the Porch

Actual photos of goofy Siamese-twin AR-15 setup are out. Sure to be included as an option in the next Call of Duty upgrade and the talk of every gun shop commando BECAUSE ISRAELI!Seriously, if you want to hear more BS about any firearm or firearm accessory, all you need to do is associate it somehow [...]

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QotD: …And Then You Win Edition

by Tam May 14, 2012 View from the Porch

Sebastian’s trying his hand at a wine-making project using Welch’s white grape juice concentrate as a starter. The irony comes, of course, from the fact that Dr. Welch was an ardent Prohibitionist.What the body politic did to prohibitionists is a wonderful lesson for our cause. To the extent there even are prohibitionists these days, they [...]

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The whole point of gun shows…

by Tam May 13, 2012 View from the Porch

I know I harp on this constantly, but if what you’re looking for is a brand-spankin’ new SIGlock&K XD11A1, gun shows are generally a waste of time, unless you just want to price shop several vendors without having to drive around or use up airtime minutes on your phone.Given the economics of setup, teardown, table [...]

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Saturday Stuff…

by Tam May 12, 2012 View from the Porch

To whoever mentioned “C.B. Colby” in my comments section, thank you! I have been totally tortured for years trying to remember the name of those elementary school library staples. It was C.B. Colby books that taught me about such cool things as SEALAB and the M-28 Davy Crockett Weapons System, and helped mold the hopeless [...]

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Leavin’ on a jet plane…

by Tam May 9, 2012 View from the Porch

So all my gear is re-packed at Castle Frostbite: all the sharp pointy things are in my checked bag, the Glock and the Ruger are all packed up, and yet again I spent a week in the woods without busting a single cap of .22, unless you count the single CCI shotshell used to dispatch [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam May 8, 2012 View from the Porch

Stupid should hurt.Big discussion on chamber-empty carry over at Robb’s. I would like to point out that they are called “handguns”, and not “handsguns”, for a reason.That ’70s Show. Just as the presence of iridium in geological substrates indicates the “K-T boundary”, or the delineating point between Cretaceous and Tertiary layers, so one day will [...]

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___________s Suck!

by Tam May 7, 2012 View from the Porch

Apparently, the thing to do these days, especially if you’re a bald shooting instructor with a Brand Name®©™ and a goatee, is to release a YouTube video declaring that _______s Suck!By using “sucks” in the title, everyone will know that you’re hip and edgy. You’ll increase attention to your Brand Name®©™ as hundreds of owners [...]

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"If you blink, you’ll die in the dark."

by Tam May 5, 2012 View from the Porch

Bob Vogel absolutely smokes the P-T.com FAST Test:That is almost exactly one third of the time it took me to do my best run yet at an AFHF class.Watching these really fast guys, the thing that always impresses me is their incredible economy of motion; there’s not a bit of extraneous herky-jerky to their movements.

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Okay, they finally did it.

by Tam May 2, 2012 View from the Porch

As most folks know, I am generally into older, collectable guns; I like my guns to have a bit of history to them. I used to have all kinds of scary black rifles and all different manner of funky newer pistols and revolvers, but I’ve jettisoned them all over time except for a handful.The few [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam May 2, 2012 View from the Porch

Fred goes outside to fetch a pail of air.A classic sporterized Springfield. There’s a big difference between a clean vintage sporter and a bubba hacksaw job. (The apex predator of the sporterized warhorse environment being, of course, Griffin & Howe.)If there’s a less American concept than “Loyalty Day”, I can’t think of what it might [...]

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See Don. See Don Make $#!+ Up. Don’t Be A Don.

by Tam May 2, 2012 View from the Porch

Just like back in Knoxville, discharging a firearm (except at a range or to bust a cap in a bad guy) is prohibited in the city limits of Indianapolis, but there’s no ordinance against ordnance out in the county, which is weird, because Indy and Marion County supposedly fused into this “Unigov” thing years ago…Anyway, [...]

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I’ve got bad news, Ambassador van Winkle…

by Tam May 1, 2012 View from the Porch

Wow, how did I miss this column?A little over a week and a half ago, apparently, some cat by the name of Dan Simpson launched another one of those ban-all-the-guns screeds that are so poignant and quaint because they’re so out of touch with on-the-ground political realities. He goes on with the usual blatherskite and [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam April 30, 2012 View from the Porch

“Worse Than SOPA” passes the House on a party-line vote, with the “Small Government GOP” backing the legislation that is opposed by a pretty broad spectrum of people. Barry O is making veto noises, which is more than his predecessor would have done. And I can’t believe I just typed that last sentence.So Iran is [...]

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There was a jingle, too…

by Tam April 28, 2012 View from the Porch

I dreamed I met my roomie at an indoor range to do some shooting. It was the only indoor range I’ve been to with a dirt floor.I’d forgotten to bring any .22, so I went to the counter to buy some. They were out of all CCI except for shotshells and CB Longs and Green [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam April 24, 2012 View from the Porch

Cool werewolf story that you should totally read if you haven’t already. (I got to read it in dead tree format last time I visited Marko, but I happily read it again.)Because Race Gun, that’s why.More stuff in one place about Site R than you’ll find anywhere else outside of Raven Rock.The truck driver that [...]

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A day in the life…

by Tam April 21, 2012 View from the Porch

This morning I met commenter Global Village Idiot at Iggle Crick so that one of his squaddies could get some time cramming for marksmanship quals with my M&P15-22. His daughter was along for the ride and had a blast with the deuce-deuce M&P carbine and my Mk III 22/45. What can I say? I’m an [...]

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Can I see your license for that keyboard?

by Tam April 20, 2012 View from the Porch

Arizona reporter Kellie Mejdrich writes that she obtained an Arizona CCW permit over her lunch break and it only cost her a c-note, despite the fact that she had never handled a firearm before in her life. (I should point out that she’s saying this as though it’s a bad thing.)She points out that now [...]

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What media bias?

by Tam April 20, 2012 View from the Porch

Here’s a guy who injured himself with his Remington Model 11-48. The forensics lab that tested it said it would discharge when dropped on the butt with the safety on or off. They also measured the trigger pull at ~39 ounces, which is awfully light for a factory trigger; so light, in fact, that I’m [...]

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Jan folds.

by Tam April 18, 2012 View from the Porch

Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer, who dismayed Democrats by never meeting a gun law she didn’t like, finally met a gun law she didn’t like.She vetoed a measure that would have allowed Arizonans to pack their heaters in publicly-owned buildings, such as city halls and libraries, on the grounds that the only way the bill [...]

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No, really?

by Tam April 17, 2012 View from the Porch

Just in case you were deaf, illiterate, and in a coma for the last couple of months, a Chicago lawyer and a Minneapolis law prof writing for CNN would like you to know that the “Trayvon Martin case [is] also about guns.”Gosh, thanks, guys. I’m not sure I would have picked up on that from [...]

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Do want.

by Tam April 17, 2012 View from the Porch

So I’m over at Days of our Trailers, reading the NRA Convention recap, and he mentions an ATI StG-44 copy in .22LR. How had I missed this?Now, I’ve been pretty good about divesting myself of everything other than working guns and the investment stuff in my collection, and this manifestly falls into neither category, but [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam April 15, 2012 View from the Porch

A very insightful and much-needed reminder that everyone is not Just Exactly Like Me. That’s part of the reason I make myself watch one or two MSNBC talk shows on weekend mornings as well as reading web stuff from SoCons and foreign policy hawks.The downside of being a firearms hobbyist is that firearms are a [...]

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Because we’re scaredy cats, that’s why.

by Tam April 15, 2012 View from the Porch

So, the other morning I’m hearing Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, and Ed Rendell, career tax leech on the Body Politic, going at it over gun control, and Ed asks Alan “why would any law-abiding citizen need a magazine with thirty-three bullets in it?” with the sort of smug smile that usually [...]

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Overheard in the Office:

by Tam April 13, 2012 View from the Porch

So I’m over at ForgottenWeapons.com, looking at a video of 19th Century French military revolvers (Hey! I have one of those!) when I see a link to Allegheny Arsenal, and I’m down a rabbit hole of wondrous things I had no idea I needed until this morning.I mean, seriously, I’m not sure I can go [...]

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"We’re in some real pretty $#!+ now, man!"

by Tam April 11, 2012 View from the Porch

So, realistically speaking, the best likely outcome for gun owners in the upcoming presidential election is we get the ex-governor of the state with some of the worst, most restrictive gun laws in the nation as president. That would be the good outcome… well, okay, the less bad outcome. The even worse outcome is a [...]

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Elite Team Fighter.

by Tam April 10, 2012 View from the Porch

Somebody in a forum asked which “elite” outfits were still using 1911s. There was a little discussion, and I realized that this is a line of thinking that I have gotten very out of touch with over the last several years.I mean, it used to be a Very Big Deal to me that I was [...]

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Tab Clearing…

by Tam April 6, 2012 View from the Porch

While I doubt the sky is the same color in Mr. Granderson’s world as it is in mine, I have to admit that some of his suggestions in this column made me go “Hmmmm…”I do not like malingerers, nor either do I like frauds. Neither does friend Ambulance Driver, as this post will so richly [...]

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This man obviously has an internet connection.

by Tam April 4, 2012 View from the Porch

If somebody else bought a different gun than you, it might mean that you bought the wrong one. But you wouldn’t waste your hard-earned cash on the wrong gun, so that obviously means that the other guy bought the wrong one. And is a (stuck-up gun snob/idiot cheapskate), to boot!In a discussion elsewhere, someone pointed [...]

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Wow, what a difference twenty-odd years makes.

by Tam March 31, 2012 View from the Porch

Wandering the back corridors of YouTube, I ran across this fan video tribute to the Colonial Marines.It’s been years since I’ve watched Aliens, probably at least since ’03 or ’04, and I don’t remember the gun handling and tactics stuff being that bad. I mean, yeah, I remember that there was a lot of shooting [...]

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AR Bleg.

by Tam March 29, 2012 View from the Porch

I need an AR upper. I know I want a 16″ flat-top with a midlength handguard and a fixed front sight, and I want something that’s not going to puke if I stuff a case of ammo through it in one weekend. But other than that, I don’t have many hard-and-fast specs in mind.I’d love [...]

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Fetch me my time travel trousers.

by Tam March 26, 2012 View from the Porch

Over at P-F.com, one poster indicated that he was looking for a carbine for his wife, preferably a Colt 6920 (basically a semiautomatic M4 carbine.) Another poster replied:Have her take a look at Wal-mart if you can’t fine one anywhere else. I saw a 6920 today for just under $1100.Imagine, if you will, using a [...]

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Measure twice, cut once.

by Tam March 24, 2012 View from the Porch

There’s always that one person who gets a toter’s permit and seems a little, well, Barney Fife about it. Now they’re a sheepdog! They run scenarios past you:”What if you’re in a convenience store, and you see a guy in a hoodie with his hands in his pockets, looking around at the security cameras?”"I leave.”"But [...]

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I’ve got good news and bad news…

by Tam March 23, 2012 View from the Porch

Good News: Tactical Firearms Training, LLC has gotten things squared away with the city and contracted to run the public pistol range at Eagle Creek Park in 2012 and beyond. They’ll be opening for the season this weekend. Hooray!Bad News: It’s supposed to be raining this weekend.Good News: There’s a covered firing line. And less [...]

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