What Could Be More Fun...

..than cleaning your .22 silencer! Still, had to be done. I had to soak it apart with Ballistol, which worked super-deluxe.

The big Colorado state championships for the NSSF Rimfire Challenge is coming up, and my Sweetie and I are shooting it. Are we ready? HA!  My plate runs yesterday constitute the sum total of my match practice. Hopefully I can spin this up just a bit this coming week. I'm planning on using the Zebra Gun™ and my Ruger/Tac-Sol MkIII. The MkIV just isn't ready yet. Since any optic put you in Open Class, I'm running optics on both the rifle and the pistol — Vortex on the Zebra Gun™; Primary Arms on the Tac-Sol. I'll clean them both next week, then run some rounds through them and make sure everything is copacetic.

My friend John Farnam has an excellent article in his Quips, reprinted on Ammoland.Com. It's main point bears repeating here:

I think the nature of, or reason for, a particular threat may be interesting from a political or historical standpoint, but that is all secondary. Personal awareness, and acknowledgment that there may be a significant threat to you personally 

1) At any time2) In any place3) In any form4) From any direction5) Under any circumstances6) For any reason, or7) For no reason at all 

is what is most important, probably the only thing that really is important!

Indeed!.

Yet Another Saturday!

Yes, back in the saddle again!

Not saying that we had a big ole time at the Mill Creek Shooting Resort last week, but I realized we shot up pretty much all my 6.5 Creedmoor match ammo (Hornady 140-gr ELD-Match). This is indeed a spectacular facility, located in what I think is the most beautiful part of America, southern Colorado. The accommodations are super, the meals delicious and the shooting beyond spectacular.

We did most of our filming on top of a mesa with ranges from 400 - 1300 yards. The SG episode will focus on training from Sean Murphy at Nightforce and featuring co-hosts Iain Harrison and Di Muller. Thanks to Sean, I did get to push my personal best out to 1300 yards. The combination of the MPA rifle, the 7-35X Nightforce and the Hornady ELD ammo got the job done.

Iain is heading out for a bear hunt next week, and that got me thinking a bit about hunting. We're sort of  on opposite ends of the spectrum  he's the classic "adventure hunter," and he's amazingly good at it. I suspect those expedition days are behind me now, but you never know. I'm more of a "travelogue hunter," focusing on places I've never been. I probably need to think about this more. I will say pretty much the only red meat I eat is game meat. Beef is just not the same anymore.

Since I was in Africa this year, I don't have huge plans for the fall. I would like to get down to FTW or one of the big Texas ranches to break in my new Montana Rifle 6.5 Creedmoor, probably on whitetail, but maybe an exotic like axis or fallow deer.

My Sweetie's out at a 3-Gun match, but I was just a spec burned up from last week's filming schedule. I'm probably going to sped a couple of hours on the range today doing .22 work. I need to sight in my Sweetie's .22 AR that she wants to shoot in NSSF Rimfire Challenge. I was finally able to gather up enough CCI Tactical, the ammo the gun was built around, to get through a few matches. She asked me to put a low power scope on it, not because she might need it in Rimfire Challenge, but because she wants the .22 to mirror her Stag 3-Gun rifle. I gave her my workhorse Leupold 1.5-4X Firedot. I've used that scope for years in both competition and hunting…I think that at less than $400 MSRP,  it's one of the great screaming buys in optics.

I also want to start working with my ancient S&W M41 topped with an UltraDot 30mm.

Grips, which I plan to grind the hell out of, especially around the magazine release button, are Hogue.

Ridiculously good day for new gum releases. As choirs of angels sing, I'm waiting for my Glock 19 Gen 5. I couldn't make the super-secret Glock media event in early August, which coincided with the InterMedia Editor's Roundtable on new products, so I don't have any hands-on yet. I'm willing to bet ti shoots amazingly like a Glock. I'm glad to see the finger grooves gone, but I am apparently one of 3 people in The Entire Universe whose hands fit the finger grooves on the last few generations of Glocks. Also interesting to see Glock abandon polygonal rifling after years of defending it. It'll cut into the aftermarket barrel market, to be sure.

I think it's also very cool that Auto Ordnance has rolled out a 9mm Thompson.

C'mon, admit it! This would be totally cool to use in a USPSA PCC competition. Or add a 1911 .22 (or a conversion unit), and you will be the coolest kid at the NSSF Rimfire Challenge match. I say this as the last — indeed, only! — national champion in the "manually operated" class for Rimfire Challenge. Maybe they can add a retro class, and I could compete with guys running the .22 StG-44 we filmed with this year for GUN STORIES WITH JOE MANTEGNA and a classic Stoeger .22 Luger. American Tactical Imports also has a .22 AK, but I'm pretty much at a loss for the appropriate pistol…there is a Makarov .22 conversion unit, but I've never seen one in the wild. Of course, somebody would show up with a CZ-75 Kadet, and the arms race would be on!

Finally, I've now started putting rounds through the SCCY CPX-3 .380. The ones I've shot have a really smooth trigger and are exceptionally accurate. I've talked about the larger format .380s before, both when the Ruger LC380 and the Glock 43 came out. The mini-9mms do bark, and I believe they are more appropriate in the hands of experienced shooters. OTOH, the pocket .380s like the LCP2 or Kahrs can be hard to shoot well once the distance gets beyond arms-length. The larger-framed modern .380s are, to me, viable self defense tools, given modern ammunition. They're holster guns, of course...I have been able to cram a Ruger LC9 into a cargo pants pocket, but it looked like I was carrying a concealed encyclopedia.