Saturday, January 09, 2010

Letting Our Freak Flag Fly...

Neat story in the local rag, the Boulder Camera, on our homies at MagPul:
There's a decent chance that if you walked up to a U.S. soldier fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, some piece of equipment on his rifle would be stamped with the words, "Boulder, CO."

But Magpul Industries, a growing manufacturer of injection-molded plastic parts primarily for use on the AR-15 weapons platform, isn't actually located in Boulder -- rather it's a few hundred yards from the Boulder County border in Erie.

The company's head honchos know this geographical fact, but they like the bit of irony that comes from a weapon-gear manufacturer operating so close to the liberal stronghold of Boulder.

"We put Boulder, Colorado, on everything that we make, and really that's just a slap in the face to the hippies," said Drake Clark, senior director of sales and business development for Magpul.

Hippie-slapping aside, Clark is dead serious about what Magpul does.
No doubt we can expect anti-MagPul drum circles in no time at all.

"They're not people, they're hippies!...I hate hippies! I mean, the way they always talk about 'protectin' the earth" and then drive around in cars that get poor gas mileage and wear those stupid bracelets — I hate 'em! I wanna kick 'em in the nuts!"
— Eric Cartman
"Die Hippie Die!" episode of SOUTH PARK

There's a certain humor that here in the People's Republic of Boulder County — 50 square miles surrounded by reality — MagPul anchors the eastern side, I anchor the western side and Col. Robert Brown, founder and publisher of SOLDIER OF FORTUNE Magazine, sits right smack in the belly of the beast on the edge of the University of Colorado campus...hippie central!

This AM I was reading a piece on .22 training on another site (which since I'm not looking for a flame war, I'll fail to mention)...although I didn't agree with some of the conclusions, I realized it reminded me of a very important "truism" — poor practice technique always yields poor real world results. Doesn't matter whether you're practicing with a .22 or a 40mm grenade launcher.

I've been a big proponent of using a .22 for practice in these grim times of no ammo, but it's probably worth stating that all practice — especially practice with dry-firing, AirSoft or lesser caliber guns — must be mindful practice to be useful. When we are practicing with something other than our working firearm, be it competition or personal protection, and standard power ammunition, we need to remind ourselves that we are not exploring the limits of the practice tool. It sort of reminds me of "draft training" on a bicycle...when I was a "serious" amateur triathlete down in Florida when the world was still cooling, we would occasionally do draft training behind a truck....essentially we head out to rural country roads where a friend of ours would drive at increasing speeds while we would draft behind the truck.

The purpose of the drill wasn't to set a land speed record on a bicycle or see how long we could hang onto the draft until the truck sped away. Rather, we were "training" our legs and our body positions on the bike for increased speed. We learned physical lessons we were able to take back to unassisted peddling...and it made us incrementally faster.

5 comments:

Eric said...

Isn't Paladin Press in Boulder?

Haji said...

The best part of that article is the comments after it. The Boulder Hippies kept saying they weren't upset (one in particular, but I fail to care to recall his screen name) and different points of view didn't bother him...but he came back to comment on every dissenting opinion that was on that page when I read it. Comedic gold, and I don't think he was smart enough to realize it.

Jkwas said...

How's about a picture of you as a young triathlete? That would make a great blog post.
Our club cancelled their rides for this weekend: Too cold in South Florida.

Michael Bane said...

Yep...Paladin is in Boulder....their building is next to the building of one of the largest porn distributors in the world.

Too cold to ride in South Florida???? Hey, I did 3 Iditasports, including one on the bicycle. Now THAT was cold! I'd covered most of my Cannondale's handlebars with duct tape so I wouldn't stick to them if I accidently touched them with bare skin...

mb

Anonymous said...

yeezy 380
moncler
curry shoes
jordan 1 mid
off white outlet
off white jordan 1
supreme outlet
yeezy wave runner 700
hermes
hermes outlet