A Quickie Before I Race Up To the Studio and Finish the Podcast

I went to the Ruger website to vote for the newest Ruger 10/22 50th Anniversary design. There were some definitely cool design, but I went with the one from Gary in Michigan...it's a 10/22 designed for the Appleseed Project. As you guys know, I unconditionally support the Appleseed Project. I think 1 10/22 designed as the Appleseed "Liberty" rifle would help boost the program. Check it out for yourself!

Other good news on my long distance rifle project is that CDI Precision Gunworks now has the bottom metal to convert my FNH TSR .308 to the AI magazine standard. That'll make the TSR consistent with my Ruger Gunsite Scout on mags. Yes, the mags are expensive, and yes, they are bulletproof. I'll be interested to see if the Ruger polymer versions will work as well (the Rugers, duh, work fine in the Ruger).

Time to get to pod'ing...LOL!

Sunday Catch-Ups

After a few days in Santa Fe catching my breath, I'm gearing up for the long run to the SHOT Show. For an ep of SHOOTING GALLERY, I'm looking forward to doing some filming with Mike Hughes, CEO of NextLevel Training and it's great S.I.R.T. laser training pistol and rifle. My friend Paul Markel of Student of the Gun and I were joking on the phone a couple of weeks ago that if it wasn't for the S.I.R.T. pistol there are weeks when we wouldn't have any training at all. Both of us keep a S.I.R.T. pistol on our desks and the walls of my office have different-sized IDPA targets and pictures of plates thumb-tacked up.

The SG crew is also building a nice arbalest, a siege crossbow, for our episode on What To Do Until the Ammo Returns. It's about quarter-scale, so I need a quarter-scale castle to assault. Or a quarter-scale troll...

On the road I carried the usual assortment of armament — an LCP in my pocket, my Perfected LC9 (thanks Galloway Precision) in a SafePacker (with extra mags) and the DoubleStar C3 AR in a Comp-Tac Trojan Horse rifle case. BTW, the Trojan Horse case works exactly as billed, a great AR carry system that raises no eyebrows.

Couple of articles that are well worth reading. The first is from Afterburner's Bill Whittle, one of the most thoughtful commentators on politics, survival and just plain clear thinking. It's called Bamboo Spears, and it's from his personal blog, now called The Common-Sense Resistance:

Not long ago, the man who made my career possible – Glenn Reynolds, aka The Blogfather, aka Instapundit, wrote a simple, throw-away sentence that went through my forehead like a diamond bullet. It fundamentally changed the way I see things, and like a diamond bullet through the forehead – it hurt. 

Glenn was talking about the pummeling the GOP was taking in the polls during and after the latest “government shutdown,” which was in fact caused by President Obama but which was reported in the press – universally – as being the fault of the Republicans. He wrote: 

The GOP has to deal with the problem posed by a hostile media. It’s like trying to mount an invasion when the enemy has air superiority.

Read the whole thing, please! I've been saying for a couple of years or so that the loss of the free media in the United States is a disaster of as-of-yet unplumbed proportions. Consider the staggering scandals of the Obama administration — Obamacare, Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, overtly snooping on the media, Fast and Furious...and no doubt I'm missing some. A Republican President could not have survived even one of those scandals! Not one, much less 6 in the span of 2 years.

The Democratic/statist administration survives and even thrives because the once much-vaunted "free press" provides cover and cover-ups, "false flag" explanations and an unquestioning recitation of administration talking points — much the same way Pravda used to dutifully report the crop and manufacturing projections from the old Soviet commissars, even though they were blatant fantasy. The formerly free press now defines its job as protecting the Progressive agenda, period. Air cover, if you will. Again, read Mr. Whittle's post and take it to heart.

On a much lighter note, my old friend Massad Ayoob has an exceptional column over at Backwood Homes that really helps cut through a lot of the current thinking about firearms why we sometimes get beyond "logic" in our firearms acquisitions:

Logic? Certainly, it can't be denied. Indeed, it has to be integral to any decision making process. Sentiment, as opposed to generic emotion? Well, one thing we all have to remember is that if our collective experience with the given thing wasn't good or positive, we probably wouldn't have developed a sentimental attachment to it in the first place.  

If you think about it, this is one of the many ways in which the world of the gun is an allegory to the rest of the world we live in.  

Sentiment and logic can co-exist comfortably. That co-existence, after we've given it some thought, can be natural and efficient...and pleasing, an element which carries an intangible value which only the individual can weigh and value.

Nicely done, Brother Mas!

Time to face another week! My Ruger SR-762 should be in this week, in time for me to show it off in Phoenix next Tuesday at the SHOOTING GALLERY Live Audience filmings at Ben Avery. Looking forward to seeing lots of people there!

What We're Up Against...

...so earlier this week I was in Santa Fe, and as usual I made an homage to the Lucchese Boots. I believe Lucchese are the best boots in the world, and over the years I've spent a good bit of money with them. I go to the store, talk to the boot-fitters who ask how this or that boot is working, and if I'm having an exceptional year, buy another pair.

This year I wasn't buying. On the way out of the store I saw an exceptional bolo tie with carved skulls...good taste is indeed timeless! I asked the clerk whether the carving was bone, synthetic or ivory. She lit up on me..."it's not ivory!" she snapped. "We woudn't have anything made of elephant ivory in the store."

Why, I asked mildly? Any commercial ivory would be legal.

"It diesn't matter to the elephant whether it's legal or not," she snapped again.

Okay, here's the punch line...I'd been looking at a belt in the back of the store. It was a great belt...elephant, of course, to match Lucchese's elephant skin boots...but I'm never going to be plopping down $320 for a belt, sans buckle. hey, it wasn't even a gun belt! Another guy was trying on a pair of crocodile leather boots, and as near as I can tell the crocodile was dead. Dead, I tell you! Ostrich leather? Dead ostrich. Lizard leather? Dead lizard. Bison leather? Dead tatonka. Hey, even just plain ole boots (like mine)? Dead cow.

How does one process that level of hypocrisy? Smugly lecturing me about ivory while selling a huge selection of dead animal skins? 

No, I didn't go all Michael Bane on the clerk...I was with my Sweetie and it was her birthday. C'mon...but I will let Lucchese know.

Register for the Shooting Gallery Season 14 Studio Audience Q&A Segments

Be part of the live studio audience for season 14 of Shooting Gallery. The filming will take place at the Ben Avery Shooting Range in Phoenix, AZ on November 5th 2013.

More info and registration form on DRTV.

What If It Turns Out we Were Right All Along?

From ABC News today:

Exclusive: After Westgate, Interpol Chief Ponders 'Armed Citizenry' 

Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said today the U.S. and the rest of the democratic world is at a security crossroads in the wake of last month's deadly al-Shabab attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya – and suggested an answer could be in arming civilians. 

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Noble said there are really only two choices for protecting open societies from attacks like the one on Westgate mall where so-called "soft targets" are hit: either create secure perimeters around the locations or allow civilians to carry their own guns to protect themselves.
...
"Ask yourself: If that was Denver, Col., if that was Texas, would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly?" Noble said, referring to states with pro-gun traditions. "What I'm saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, 'Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?' This is something that has to be discussed."

Read the whole thing, and give it some thought.

Alf Survives Again!!!

This time, Death From Above! Amazingly, while I was walking the Wonder Beagle today I saw a bald eagle, which migrate through the area of the Secret Hidden Bunker a couple of times a year. The eagle was circling up high when he suddenly dropped like a freight elevator, then made a swooping run above us at telephone pole level. The eagle banked, looped around and came in even lower, so low that even Alf pulled her nose off the ground to watch the bird. Of course, in Alf's World big birds deliver food and are relatively benign playmates.

The eagle apparent decided that Alf was a bit big for dinner and headed off on the thermals. I think the eagle was puzzled by Alf, who was wearing her fashionable holstein cow sweater. So there...doggie fashion as a survival skill!

The eagle was darn cool, though.

We were up on the property of the New Improved Secret Hidden Bunker with the contractor today...the blasting is finished and the house platform looks a little like Europe at the end of WW2. There a 10 foot high wall of blasted granite at the front of the house platform, which I (of course) see as a feature, not a bug! All I need is a couple of arbalests and a moat...and some crocodiles maybe. Boiling oil. The whole medieval package, so to speak. Probably pour the foundation in November, after they finish digging the dungeon and get the iron rings set in the granite.

Okay...Solerno Sunday?

“A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends”

I stumbled across this listed as an "Arabian proverb." Whomever thought it up, it rocks.

Most of the morning I finished setting up the DoubleStar C3...I already added an Aimpoint Micro co-witnessed with the BUIS (via a Daniel Defense mount). Today I finished up by bolting on a little piece of rail and adding a Streamlight TLR-2 high output light with a green laser and a single point sling.

Cool!

After a long, snowy hike with the Wonder Beagle, during which Alf was NOT attacked, molested, assaulted, bitten, threatened, nipped, mugged, etc., my Sweetie suggested, strongly, that since I was definitely in town, our weekly margarita fest be moved forward — not a word from you, Worsham!

I'm still experimenting with her favorite, and I think I may have reached the pinnacle — 1 1/4 ounce Milagro Anejo, 1 ounce Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur, 1/4 ounce Triple Sec, 1 1/2 ounce lemon/lime juice (fresh squeezed, mixed 50/50). I challenge you to make this margarita and tell me that it is not the single best margarita you have ever tasted!

I'M THROWING DOWN THE TEQUILA GAUNTLET! Post your best margarita recipes, and we'll try the ones we like. In a totally arbitrary, unscientific and let's face it, completely unfair, biased and corrupt taste test, we'll pick a winner and give you one of them nice Streamlight TLR-2s...maybe in green, in you use limes instead of lemons.

I'm Cooking! Cooking, I Tell You!

If I remember how. I'm starting small with broiling some salmon, maybe done up with my friend Tim Wegner's "Tim Killer Seasoning," which is a great blend. Add black beans and rice and a glass of Boete Cheval Rouge, a peppery red from Carmel Valley, and I'm definitely home. I'll try something more exotic, maybe something Mediterranean — white fish in a clay pot with olives, say — later this weekend.

Meanwhile, read this article on women in the shooting sports from ActionTargets via Ammoland:

Here’s a breakdown of the numbers:
Younger: 66 percent of new shooters fall into the 18-to-34-year-old category compared to 31 percent in the same age category for established shooters.
Female: 37 percent of new target shooters are female compared to 22 percent of established target shooters.
Urban: 47 percent of new target shooters live in urban/suburban settings versus 34 percent of established target shooters.

As Glenn Reynolds is fond of saying, it is all going as I have foreseen.

Had a talk with Gabe Suarez about AR-15 pistols, which I still content have utility as PDWs...Gabe's going to give some thought about how the tool might be used in that context. Be cool to take a 2-day class in using the AR-15 pistol in and around vehicles!

I spent the afternoon alternating between shoveling snow and dinking with an AR in the gun room. The dinking was more fun, to be sure.

Finally, a "bulletproof style" vest! The only difference is that, hey, it doesn't stop bullets! Still, style is tres important!

Friday Round-Up

Interestingly enough, a local man was attacked by 3 coyotes...he fought them off with a flashlight. As much as I like flashlights, I think there are better anti-coyote strategies.

“So I took my flashlight and hit it over the side of the head to get it to let go. As soon as I got it to let go then another one went to lunge at me. All I really thought to do was swing and knock it to get it from jumping at me again,” Dickehage said. “Picture closing your eyes and having the three figures, you can barely see them, and all you could do is keep your hands up and just make sure that they weren’t going for the face … You feel the initial impact, and as soon as you felt it, then you could react and go to shove, but, I mean, after that … all I could try doing was make sure I was moving backwards.”

Of course the first recommendation is carry dog/bear spray.

Let me relate an incident that happened to our hapless beagle Alf 2 weeks ago. A neighborhood dog she'd always been friendly with grabbed one of her big, floppy ears and wouldn't let go (both dogs were on leash). The woman walking the other dog pulled out her dog spray and promptly sprayed her own dog directly in the eyes, splattering Alf. Net result? Same as always...nothing. My Sweetie hit the dog twice on its head with her fist until it turned loose. Alf got stitches, my neighbor got fined and my Sweetie got dog spray off Alf all over the steering wheel of my Honda Element.

Spray, either dog, bear or people, seems to work great if the dog, bear or person is sitting around having an adult beverage watching television. I think blood chemistry and, for lack of a better word, the psychology of the animal/human are the primary factors in spray performance. A person or a bear or a coyote in full attack mode will not necessarily respond the way we might hope when popped with spray. I've done sims in a "gas environment" (where afterwards I ended up throwing away all the clothes I was wearing at the time) and I've been sprayed with various flavors in one of my other lives as a journalist who specialized in covering urban riots. As a journalist, I just worked through it...it sucked, but my head didn't explode. Interestingly enough, the gas worked best in the sims, where I knew it was coming and dreaded the heck out of it...once again, a lot of it is in your head.

This is another one of those "you pays your money; you takes your chances" situation (and we deal with it this upcoming season in THE BEST DEFENSE). We don't have a big coyote problem up high...there's just not enough food in the high alpine niche to support a pack. Typically, I'll see a few coyotes during the fall and winter and I always offer them the deal: be gone or be dead.

I would tend to err on the side of caution with coyotes...they are not afraid of us and they are very efficient pack hunters. I realize there's some controversy on this choice, but IMHO this is where the .410 pistol comes into its own. I have a Bond Arms derringer and a Taurus Judge in .410 and I think they are world-class coyote guns at the ranges we're talking about here. This is not hunting coyotes; this is protecting oneself against coyotes...different beasty.

[BTW...Alf the Wonder Beagle has taken this hellish year in stride, even though she's now 11 years old. She had major surgery and was attacked twice, both times requiring stitches, and has bounced back quickly each time. The dog's a tank!]

UPDATE: Paul Markel of STUDENT OF THE GUN has had excellent results with OC spray against both people and animals...he heartily recommends carrying spray as a "bridge" between handheld and lethal force.

Here's an excellent article on the balance of speed and accuracy from Jeff Gonzales at Trident Concepts:

Your effort to achieve balance between these two factors is the ultimate goal. The relationship between shooter, weapon and environment are constantly being challenged, but kept in check through speed and accuracy. Most shooting scenarios have a limited amount of time to respond, so speed is often the primary goal. The mistake that happens is when we are compelled to act quickly, we can sometimes emphasize speed over accuracy and actually end up missing the goal of the task entirely. You have to resist the urge to go so fast that you compromise your accuracy, this is probably the hardest skill to develop.

Read the whole thing!

Finally, from The Firearm Report, An Average Joe's Guide to 3-Gun:

The Gear: The first thing you’re going to need to know is that you’re going to have to buy a lot of stuff, and pretty much everything you buy you will immediately throw away or sell. “That holster looks like it will work” will instantly become “This holster will never work!” You can try to live by the mantra “Buy once, cry once,” but it doesn’t work that way in 3-Gun. Even if you tried to “buy once” two things would happen: you would spend upwards of a year researching everything you need to get started, and then once you figured it out you would wait another year for your custom pistol, rifle, and shotgun to be ready. So if you want to save money buying only once, bad news – you’re two years away from shooting your first match. It’s better to take inventory of what you have, and then borrow the rest.

Been Waiting for This One — Ruger SR-762!

The long-rumored, much anticipated Ruger piston rifle in 7.62/.308 arrives today!

The short story: 16.12 inch barrel; 1:10 Twist; weight coming in well under 9 pounds (8.6 on the spec sheet), probably because of the smooth-sided Ruger Adaptable handguard (which I really like on my 556). Includes 3 20-round MAGPUL PMAGs, essentially the defacto standard of the industry. The barrel is a chrome-lined hammer-forged 41V45 and is fluted. The flash hider is the Ruger Mini-14 style...paging TSD Kompressor! Hurry up with that .308 version! New Ruger comes with BUIS.

Hope to have one of these as quickly as I can get it. Been looking forward to this one! MSRP $2195.

I like the .308 cartridge and especially on an AR platform. As you recall, I shot the He-Man World Championships (and didn't finish last!) with a Colt 901 and Federal Match 168s. My FAL has been a long-time companion. Since I live in Rural Nowhere, I like the idea of a .308 at my fingertips. If ammo wasn't so DARNED expensive I'd settle on Heavy Metal class in 3-Gun, because it's just big fun. I wish GUNSITE offered their Battle Rifle class more than one a year (in mid-October!).

I've always been impressed with how easy the AR-10 platform guns are on the shoulder. Back in the very beginning of 3-Gun in the 1980s, I borrowed a friends HK-91, which was the ne plus ultra of of MBRs at the time, to shoot a couple of matches. It was like shooting with a jackhammer. It made shooting slugs out the 12 gauge seem like fun.

Home, Where My Thought's Escaping!

Survived the Long Haul! Been traveling like crazy since July...now I'm off the road for a couple of weeks, then travel resumes at a moderately sane pace.

Have to say working with Gabe Suarez was both an honor and a learning experience! Zero-To-Hero is going to be great this year. Our 2 "zeroes"  Kevin Creighton from Misfires & Light Strikes blog and Alf Sauve from our own DRTV Forums were just super to work with. I had a great time, and I hope everybody else did as well. And heck, I decided to put a Docter red dot on a G26 because...well, because!

Am doing some work on the Ruger Africa rifle in anticipation of a return to Namibia next June (with Marshal and Teresa and maybe a very special guest!). Cylinder & Slide Shop is adding a Timney trigger  and some action work to get the pull down to a crisp 2 pounds; then it's going to Falcon Gun Finishing for cerakoting.

BTW, Are You a Downrange Member????

We don't give away all that much stuff, but occasionally we outdo ourselves. Members of the DRTV FORUMS have their name entered twice for every drawing (and only DRTV FORUM members are eligible for ZERO TO HERO).

So sign up to make sure you're double-entered just in case we give away something really cool...like an African safari or something...

Just sayin'...

You're Probably All Thinking I Died...

...and I feel sort of dead, too! Spent the first 4 days of the week in Montana at Montana Rifles and Proof Research, the rest of the week (and today,obviously) at GUNSITE. Getting up every day

at zero-dark-thirty and getting back to the hotel just in time to collapse into bed.

Sorry!

To my credit, I think, I only ordered one (count 'em) gun...Montana Rifle is building a .223 bolt gun that, like the Mossberg MVP series, uses AR magazines. I really like their set-up on the mags. The only custom feature I asked for was a scout scope rail, and they said no problemo. I'm unlikely to see the gun until after SHOT.

Proof is...impressive...very, very impressive. I believe their carbon fiber-wrapped barrels do have the potential to change the game. Almost 50% lighter and crazy accurate. A lot of the proprietary technology I'm not even allowed to talk to you about, but you'll see a lot of it on SHOOTING GALLERY 1st quarter next year. The carbon fiber/Kevlar stocks are crazy light and crazy strong. One of those might be in my future for the FNH long range project.

At GUNSITE, we were doing a special event we put together. I spent some time with my friend Martin Tuason from Armscor/Rock Island...the .22 Mag 1911s are ready and waiting for magazines...expanded range of 10mm Commander-length guns....22 TCM rifles hung up waiting on wood for stocks...ammo lines running like crazy. I'll have some of my interview with Martin on the podcast next week.

Also got to spend some quality time with my old friend Tim Wegner from Blade-Tech, mostly swapping lies.

Next week is Zero-To-Hero with Gabe Suarez on red-dot pistols!!!!!

Will try to be a little more efficient on posting?

Sorry! Last Big Travel Push...

...almost. Am cruising Montana with OUTDOOR LIFE's John Snow...at Montana Rifle Co., then Proof Research, then on my own south to Arizona. Almost ran into a big beaver last night pushing into Kalispell...maybe a kangaroo, too. Getting into hotels late; leaving early... 

Snug in the Bunker...

...and it's beautiful with the aspen in full color...I'll try to grab a picture later today. Per yesterday's commenters, you will DEFINITELY see the NYC motorcycle attack next season on THE BEST DEFENSE, assuming of course that TBD is renewed for another season. We had some spectators while we were filming scenarios earlier this week, and they were amazed at how much goes into the TBD scenarios, both in debate and production resources.

As we were explaining to one of our role-players, who's an active LEO, any of the TBD team — me, Janich, Seeklander, Hayes, producer Matt Shults and DP Brandon Green — can contribute scenarios, and any member of the team can veto a scenario. Most of our scenarios come from real crimes, but there are exceptions, Next season, for example, we have a scenario based on an incident that actually happened to a much younger Mike Seeklander and a scenario built on a training exercise refined at the Firearms Academy of Seattle.

We analyze, basically deconstruct, the crimes we use, then build the scenarios from the ground up. All of us have a pretty wide range of contacts in the training community and law enforcement, and we're not shy about asking for help on constructing scenarios.

I think the system works well. Today on Fox I saw an attack that took place on a bus, which looked uncannily like the "Bus Attack" we filmed Monday for TBD (except, of course, for the "better-" and "best-" case response). The victim in the real bus attack used pepper spray on the attacker, which failed to produce the results he anticipated...funny, but that's EXACTLY the scenario we filmed Sunday night!

I was riding to the airport with Mike Janich, and he and I were talking about how proud we are of this body of work. Janich was the first person I called when I got the green light for TBD (on the floor of the NRA Show many years ago). I told him that my goal — or maybe, more appropriately, my dream — was to build a "gold standard" show on self-defense, a show that hopefully would become a leading light for trainers and for people looking for training. I think we've done that.

BTW, at Janich's recommendation I bought a Fred Perrin-designed Shark neck knife made by Boker. After you see next season's TBD knife training segments, you'll buy one, too.

There's an interesting column in the Richmond Times-Herald from a George Mason University professor, Walter E. Williams, that notes when guns were readily available at the local hardware store or through the mail without background checks, filling out forms, anything, the country wasn't nearly as violent:

Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not just laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society, not restraints on inanimate objects. These behavioral norms — transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings — represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works. The benefit of having customs, traditions and moral values as a means of regulating behavior is that people behave themselves even if nobody’s watching. In other words, it’s morality that is society’s first line of defense against uncivilized behavior.

Gosh, what a novel idea!

There's a new 2A news website run by the folks at Townhall.com, with veteran gun blogger/columnist Bob Owens in charge — BearingArms, and it's definitely worth a visit. They note today that the Civilian Marksmanship Program has opened a custom shop for vintage US military firearms. National Match Garands, anyone?

If you're looking to build an AR, now's a great time since the price bubble has popped popped popped and prices are sinking toward the basement. I suggest visiting AR15 News, where they're putting up new on great deals practically on a daily basis. Another great resource for the builder is AR15 Parts Finder.

I note that my good friends at Wilderness Tactical are running an October Special on their famous Instructor Belts...you know how much I recommend these guys. My 1 3/4 inch Instructor Belt was standard kit for Africa, as it is pretty much every day. I also didn't realize they made a Money Belt version...I will definitely be added a money belt to my kit!

And just briefly, I've talked about the Africa hunting kit, but to answer a couple of emails, but clothing-wise, I pretty much wore what I wear a lot — 5.11 long-sleeved shirts, REI cargo shorts, the aforementioned Wilderness Tactical belt, Lowa Zephyr desert boots (which I can't recommend highly enough...sticks great on rock, sturdy enough tread for gravel/rocky trails as well as sand, cool and QUIET!), and plain old boring Woolrich hiking socks. Add a Grenadier safari hat and a pair of boring Ray Bans, and you're good to go!

Finished THE BEST DEFENSE Scenarios...

...for next season! Filming went really well. Because we got off to a late start, we had to push it pretty hard on all the shows. As I mentioned on the podcast this AM, several of our scenarios have no "best case, " which is consistent with the Real World crimes on which our scenarios are based.

Surviving the Shutdown!

Wow! It sure is scary, but somehow I'm surviving the government shutdown! I feel so lost I'm thinking about spying on myself.

We're in the doldrums about 3 months out of the SHOT Show. Some interesting new accessories — my friends at Daniel Defense have the next iteration of their Lite Rail system. I also like the Precision Rifle Solutions maxi-tripod for shooting. Finally, Bill Wilson has the latest iteration of his superb 1911 magazine, the HD/+P.

More later!