Saturday, October 04, 2014

Yeah!!! One More Item Checked Off the Ole List!

Yesterday we closed on the sale of our old house! The money's in the bank and no more 2 mortgage payments. Was on the market for a loooonnnnnnnnggggg 6 months. As you might expect, it was a bittersweet moment. We bought that house before it was built and we lived there for 14 very good years. And as you know, there are some beloved ghosts in that house. I hope the new owners love it as much as we did.

Was going to shoot a cowboy match this AM, but the match was cancelled for some reason. So I'll do an afternoon road bike ride and work on my reloading bench. Coming up is one more week of filming on SHOOTOUT LANE...I have to say that the filming has exceeded my and Producer John Carter's wildest expectations. Kay, Jerry, Lena, Brock and Jim have been just super, and I think you guys are gonna be blown away!

I got my Geissele trigger for the Tavor yesterday! Hopefully I'll pop it in this afternoon. I am REALLY looking forward to visiting IWI in Israel for SHOOTING GALLERY next month. I still want to take a carbine class with my Tavor fitted with the Lucid HD-7. I love that set-up! If you're not familiar with Lucid, you should be. they're Wyoming homies and their mission to to build quality sights that don't require a mortgage.

I need abut 2 weeks at home doing nothing but gun work -- mounting scopes, sighting in, testing guns, reloading, finish setting up the range. Not gonna happen anytime soon, but I can dream. I've got 5 more Action Target Rimfire Series pieces of steel on the way. I've blocked out a course for rimfire rifle and pistol, with shots out to 200 yards...lotsa uphill hiking and some aggressive shots (off-hand, sticks, kneeling, prone) suspect that if it's as cool as I hope, we'll probably film it for DRTV. It's basically training for Africa, with a little Appleseed thrown in.

I picked up the Ruger 9mm LCR and I'll put some rounds thru it thus morning. I should have first impressions for you tomorrow. I will say off the bat that those extra 4 ounces (the .357 frame vs. the .38 +P version) make a difference. Having carried the LCR .38 for a few weeks, you don't even know it's there. Still a lot less than the 25+ ounce SP-101. Based on a comment from the previous post, I have shot the striker-fired LC-9s, and it has IMHO the best striker-fired trigger I've ever used. Period.

My Sweetie wants to shoot USPSA this winter. I'll be shooting revolver, I think, initially with the old S&W 629 that Randy Lee of Apex fame built for a SHOOTING GALLEY ICORE episode a few years back. The original premise was to see whether we coUld run a .44 based gun like a 625 .45 ACP, using moon clips and stubby .44 Russian brass. Besides, I owned a 629, and 625s were in short supply. The results were decidedly a mixed bag...the 629 came out as easily the best shooting .44 Maggie I own -- stainless gun, titanium low-mass cylinder, amazing DA trigger. The .44 Russian -- Black Hills cowboy ammo -- not so much. With the tighter tolerances for the custom moon clips from TK, it didn't take a lot gunk/unburned powder to gum up the works. I ended up shooting the match with .44 Specials in the moon clips, which worked out well.

USPSA has a weird set-up for the revolver divisions -- a 6-shot revolver can be major caliber; an 8-shot revolver minor caliber. The intent, I believe, is to balance out 6 and 8 shot revolvers on the round-intensive USPSA run-and-gun stages, where a couple of extra reloads can make a big difference in the score.

I've shot the S&W 929 8-shot 9mm, and I do lust after one (especially after a couple of weeks with Jerry Miculek, who's name is on the sideplate of that Performance Center gun and who pretty much fathered the N-Frame rocket). It is a pure competition beastie, and I don't want to go heavy into a new gun/gear/angst if I'm not gonna run it.

BTW, I note that SyFy has anew zombie series based around the premise of having to transport "serum" across the zombie-infested landscape. That was the plot of the SHOOTING GALLERY zom episode (which I, of course, stole wholesale from Roger Zelazny's DAMNATION ALLEY...the book, not the pretty wretched movie with Jan-Michael Vincent, whom I always found to be a pretty nice guy). And, of course, Balto got the serum to Nome, too.




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really interested to know how that geiselle trigger works in your Tavor. I normally don't like pullpups but the Tavor is unique and well designed, very battle proven.
Gerard

Alien said...

Yes, the 929 was conceived for competition, but a 4-inch version might make a pretty good carry gun.

FiftycalTX said...

How would you compare the Tavor with the AUG? They are both about the same money and now the AUG will take AR mags.

Sheepdog1968 said...

Hi Michael,
I've listened to all of the podcasts. It took about a year and it helped the long commute I had till recently go by quickly. The one thing I kind of miss is that in the early episodes you would have some interviews with folks in the industry. I really liked that a lot. Any chance we could have a wee bit more of that in the future? If not, no worries. I will still listen.