Yep, I live in Iowa...

Listening to the traffic report for the trip home. It includes a cow loose near my house. Wow, I did not know that was worth calling in on, let alone making the traffic report. Glad I live in a little county. Polk, you know, where the capital, Des Moines, is located.

So Canada is becoming less PC?

Canada may reverse their "your mean" (yes, I'm spelling it wrong on purpose) "hate speech" laws? That is unpossible! Those whiners earned their special right to be offended years ago. Any random person may, gasp, say something that doesn't conform to the 'correct' world view. How will the Canadian government stifle their citizens now? They are stopping the pointless long gun registration debacle too. Will this freedom spread to the other ends of the empire, like Oz or, gasp, England itself? /sarc

Quick wild prediction.....

HR822 will pass the Senate and be signed by the President only if Mitt Romney is the nominee. The sad part is that it would differentiate Obama from Mitt, half cocked gun schemes excluded. The funniest part would be watching the media newspeak transform from 'derp, gunses are ebil' to 'Look at this champion of our right to self defense we have in our President.' Bonus points if they amend it to force Illinois to join the Union. Triple points if they use words 'see Amendments 2 and 14' somewhere in the bill, instead of relying on the old, hackneyed commerce clause.

Phone post (obligatory)

So I got a droid. Well, el cheapo plan midrange Samsung exhibit 2. If it sucks, it will turn into something else.

And here I thought it was just me...

A sharpshooting pistolero I am not. I'm working on it, takes time and money, etc. But I did notice I could not hit the broad side of a steel target with my M&P9 on the steel beyond 15 yards. Did alright with the 40 and the elcheapo 1911 (leftward push notwithstanding) and shot just fine at all distances with sumdoods tricked out 1911...... 

So, I'm watching Shooting USA tonight. The protip segment on sighting in a pistol interested me greatly. Is this the early unlocking issue in action? At 10 and 15 yards, great groups from the bench. At 25 and beyond- LOL. I'm willing to bet Julie Golob is a pistolero who does shoot straight. My 15 yard groups from a bench look just like hers. And I have yet to put on paper further downrange, as I have been running it for reliability so far- no problems there. 800 rounds and counting. So it may just be me sucking with my M&P9, but less so with the M&P357/40.

And those Performance Center 627s look like fun. Must not watch again....

Range time with the spouse.

My wife went to the range with me today. Her first time in 9 years. This was her first shot. S&W 22A 7".

 Here is the upper target of the two. As I was shooting beside her, I had not noticed she was using the incorrect sight picture. She was aiming at the lower target for most of these.

We slapped on a stick on target,, drew her a better sight diagram and she settled down to this. She fired around 250 total rounds. And she blew through them very fast, so I can't fault her shooting too much. Only one FT Fire the whole time using Federal ammo. As opposed to Remington's failure drill practice rounds.

My slow fire target. There is some .357 Sig Ranger on this one, and some 9mm el sucko (independence) too. The upper is in tatters, 200 assorted 9, 40, 357 will do that. Asked the rangemaster; the .357 SIG is not allowed on steel. They tested them and it is the only non magnum that always blew through a car door.......So at $20 a steel target, glad I asked. My wife said the .357 sounded the loudest of all the rounds (excluding the AR). All targets at 15 yards.

My wife did not care for the LCP or the 40S&W. The 9mm may grow on her. Hopefully it doesn't take her 9 more years to shoot again.

We also noticed that the range is next to a cemetery. The leaves are gone this time of year and  now you can see it. At least we know where the zombies come from for the zombie shoots!

Another Armed Services Tractor

Just in time for Veteran's Day. Air Force. To go with the Marine tractor posted before.

This reminds me of MST3K somehow.

The movie was City Limits. The quote was, "Hey, that's not Old Milwaukee, it's Colt .45!" when the cases of beer were found to be hiding, well, Colt .45's. It is at the 7.45 mark. That is my favorite quote on MST3K, and the one that hooked me on the show.

So I ate lunch with a radio talk show host...

My wife is one of those radio contest junkies. She wins. WHO Radio has a contest to win a lunch with Simon Conway. They do it once a week. He is the drive time host, and often speaks at TEA Party events and other political activities. As you can guess, he tends to lean right. As do I. Anyway, she won and we ate lunch today at Splash. Great restaurant. I've never had a bigger piece of Key Lime pie without actually eating a whole pie.

I stayed almost apolitical in my conversation, which is weird for me. Well, maybe not that weird. I tend to STFU when I am nervous or trying to make a good impression, which usually makes the impression that I have nothing to discuss. When 95% of what the man says you agree with, about all you can do is nod your head yes and enjoy the great food. Plus my wife can talk to anyone about anything. Period. Hell, she can manage to talk to me. Not an easy feat.

Great afternoon at the range.....

Went to the range today. Decided to just shoot steel. Was very dead today and they had fresh paint on the targets. The big target is 15 yards away, the round one on the spring loaded post is a bit closer, maybe 13 yards. The further targets are 25, 30, 35, 40 with a 50 yd backstop. And I do push left when shooting

Can't say I was trying to make a smiley, but it sure looks like it. 15 yards.

One .40 box was half full. Plus I shot a full mag of RA9124TA. I'm sure the M&P9 is going to work. It is near 800 rounds with no problems at all. 200 hollow points between the elcheapo Wally world Remingtons and the Ranger ammo. I seriously feel like the 9mm +P social cartridges shoot just like the .40 loads. Maybe my 6'5", 250 lb frame helps with the .40.

The 165 grain .40 WWB was fun- flat nose, looks like a hollow point. By the end, I was hitting better with the M&P357 (40 barrel) than I was with the federal 115 9mm. Dry firing is paying off immensely. And the High Standard 1911? It was an absolute beast with the Federal round nose. By beast I mean ding, ding, ding. I would hit twice, change targets 2 shots, change back. For the most part it was deserted, so I was moving around, crouching behind the range tables, gun pointed downrange when moving, of course. Makes up for not being able to put targets at 5 or 10 yards.

 One guy showed up just to run some handloads. He let me shoot his slicked up STI Trojan. I hit all but one target; that one was a quick double tap. That thing was wicked and I felt like a complete bad ass hitting different targets in quick secession, further and further away, with a gun that was literally handed to me.

I kept both eyes open for 95% of my shots. Caught myself twice shooting with one eye shut. I really think that plus the dry firing has improved my shooting. May be time for a class next year. Now I just need to stop pushing left so much. At least the milk can target is smaller than a standard silhouette target.

Coming to Dec 24 soon..

Knock, knock..

Yes officer, what is the problem?

Papers, please.

What papers? What is this about? We are only decorating our tree for Christmas.

That is why we are here. Where are your papers proving you paid your Christmas Tree Tax?

Why do you have a SWAT team with you?

We are far more serious the the Department of Education, ma'am.......

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/08/obama-couldnt-wait-his-new-christmas-tree-tax/


Update: Doh! We thought that you wouldn't notice. Um, nevermind. Hey, it was supposed to be like the pork checkoff, er, um, cough, cough......

Fun Show Find

Picked up a used M&P at the local fun show. Night sights, 3 mags, and funny markings on the slide.

But wait, there was more in the box. Pictured installed below with my 40c and 9mm plastic bullet hoses......

A shiny new .40 barrel, unfired! The dealer had two, his story was they were demos of some kind. 2 mags have been used, the other was undropped. The SKU 609702 does not show up on the S&W website.

Have no 357SIG - the prices at the show and in stock locally are LOL funny even for FMJ. 762Sass.com is ordering me 2 boxes of RA357sigT (that I get to pay for, go away FTC. Plus they don't sell the ammo online as far as I can tell). Have I mentioned that I love living 6 miles from a guy who has competitive prices.

Looks like Speer GoldDot in .357sig is the way to go from online research, and the prices locally are within the shipping/tax window for me if I really want to use it as a .357sig.

Ran about 150 .40 through it today including a mix of 30 Ranger subsonic/20 RA40T. Had fun running 300 through my M&P9, compared the RA9124TA (+P) to the RA40T in the same size gun. Honestly, between those 2, the recoil and muzzle flip felt very similar to me. Kinda like the 17+1 in that case.

The M&P357 is early '10 production. I notice several differences. The front locking block has longer rail surfaces than the 9 or 40c

 The extractor pin is solid vs a double roll pin.

 The bottom of the slide is machined differently after the striker. Don't know if that is 9/40 specific, but the 40c looks like the 9. The green spring is .357sig specific apparently.

My plan is to turn the 357 frame into an Apex parts storage device. If I like it, the other full size may get made over as well.

I wish I had more pictures...

A local company that we are doing some work for has 4 tractors with a special graphics package. One for each branch of the armed forces. The eagle on the hood is cool as heck. I have no photos of the Army tractor, but they used an Air Force uniform due to issues with the digital camo. They even had to patch the graphics to remove the rank from his sleeves. The Navy tractor has a battleship; I am unfamiliar as to the exact class. The Air Force tractor is due next week.