A Good Time At The Range Today

Went to the Range with Tosh and his cousin who was in town from new York.

We let his cousin shoot stuff he can;t have in that benighted state.

Heck, he could even have normal capacity magazines for his H&K VP9 here, unlike New York where he's stuck to 10-rounders, so he enjoyed not having to reload quite as much.

I shot my AR15 which I hadn't taken to the range in awhile and the Carmel.

The Carmel continues to function perfectly, and the controls make it very easy to quickly manipulate.  Fully ambidextrous and laid out very similar to an AR15 but slightly more ergonomic, it makes some drills easier.

Speaking of drills, we did quite a few.

Mainly we did the MDFI Qualifiers for Shotgun, Carbine and Handgun.

7 yards for hadngun, 10 for shotgun, and 15 yards for the carbine.

Very straightforward, relatively basic drills that don't take a lot of rounds but get you working on your reloads - something I don't often do with the carbine on the clock.

I shot the IWI Masada for the handgun qual, and The Tavor for the shotgun quals, and shot both the AR and Carmel for the carbine quals. The Carmel seems to be ore solid for the multiple shot parts of the qual and the AR being lighter is a bit faster to move around for the reloads - but the larger magazine well of the Carmel makes the reloads a bit smoother as does the shape of the bolt release on the Carmel, making the overall time for the reloads a little bit faster.

So it was some good practice, and a very fun time at the range.

Sunday Range Day

So yesterday morning I got up, loaded the car, and met Tosh at the range.

Did some solid handgun practice, in which I learned I need to practice more, but I think I already knew that.   To be fair, I was using a couple new handguns while doing so, so getting used to them likely slowed me down a tad.  More on that in another post.

We also shot my Turknelli shotgun, which is still having some issues since coming back from repair and is now being broken in all over again.

We then shot Tosh's AR-15 with his new can.  It is much more pleasant to shoot it with a suppressor but it does kick a lot of gas right back in your face and he's working on modifications to reduce that.

We then shot my PS90 and much fun was had.

So as it turns out, we shot those three firearms in descending amounts of recoil.

In short, the Turknelli shotgun with 12-pellet 00 Buck kicks quite a bit and wants to get off target. 

The AR-15 by comparison had very little recoil and was easy to keep on the steel silhouette target.  

The PS-90 had effectively no recoil at all and stayed right on the target without any effort at all.

That was a darn good time at the range.

Brace Yourself For Black Friday Weekend?

One item to consider for purchase this weekend is a brace for an AR or AK pistol you may consider building.

Certainly there are some good sales for them going on at the moment from various vendors for Black Friday.

Since it appears that ATFE is about to issue their ruling in December that effectively makes AR15/AK braced pistols SBRs and it seems they may offer a free registration of such pistol braced SBRs saving $200 per pistol thus made by regulatory fiat into an SBR there is an opportunity here.

There's also some peril in this ruling, as some states allow pistol braced pistols but do not allow SBRs, and the legal interplay between state and federal law and their competing definitions can be problematic. 

The interplay can also be beneficial. In Michigan, for example, you can have a firearm that is both a Federal registered SBR and a Pistol under Michigan law at the same time, which allows for some interesting and useful things to happen if you have a concealed pistol license.

In 2019 there were some 413,167 SBRs in the NFRTR.

There are estimated at least 3-7 million braced pistols out there, which would increase the number of SBRs on the registry almost 20-fold.  Since those are rookie numbers we ought to pump those numbers up some this weekend.

Anyone else think statistical proof that 7,413,167+  SBRs are in circulation would make a convincing argument that SBRs are in common use. Hence SBRs as found to be in common use should not be banned by a State nor need to registered Federally as unusual and dangerous weapons?

Hence go forth and get a a brace and assemble yourself or buy a completed an AR pistol prior to the regulation coming out.  It's fun, it's easy, and you will likely get a free Form 1 and help make SBRs common use items. 

In short ATFE classifying braced pistols as SBRs may just have a wonderful unintended consequence of providing the fodder for a challenge to the banning of SBRs by states and requiring their registration and control federally on the basis of the common use test.

So go on out and brace up this weekend!

Today's Range Trip - A Great Range Outing With Friends

A bunch of friends decided to meet up at the range today.  Four of them were rolling buddies from jiu-jitsu - it seems there's a large cross-over between the jiu-jitsu community and the firearms community. 

Tosh had also brought Scott along, one of his co-workers that had recently escaped from California and is now enjoying standard capacity magazines and the many other benefits being relocated from CA can provide.

It was sunny out, but the temperature had plummeted 30 degrees from yesterday. Standing in the sun, it wasn't bad - but get under some shade and 30 degrees feels cold pretty quickly.

We started out with rifles/arm-braced pistols and I shot my new build for the first time:

 

It's a 10.5 inch AR on a stripped Spike's lower.  Lower and Upper all pit together from parts. I had a stripped upper lying around for awhile now, and I decided to get it built up, and now seemed to be the time to do it.  I decided to put some decent parts into it, including a flat Geissele trigger which is awesome, a Midwest industries rail and some other decent parts.

It ran flawlessly on this it's first time out, which was nice. Got the scope dialed in as well. It's a Vortex Strike Eagle 1-8 and it is very decent glass.  Very fast at the low magnifications and sharp at the high end.

I also installed the AAC 7.62SDN suppressor onto it and it ran like a champ, but a quieter champ.

Then on to the Tavor, complete with silencer attached as I had installed an AAC flashider on it as well.

It ran like a top with the suppressor attached, and with the suppressor it was still shorter overall than the 10.5 was bare, complete with the Tavor's 13" barrel.  I do think its my favorite rifle at this point.

Interestingly, it appears that 5.56 makes the suppressor a lot hotter, longer,  than the 300 Blackout for some reason. 

Scott had a blast and enjoyed shooting the suppressed rifles, and everyone else's rifle there too.  We're friendly like that.

Then on to pistols.

I had a great set at shooting at a steel A zone at 25 yards.  

On timer, from draw to hit my best time today was 1.4 seconds, with other runs at the 1.67-1.70 second range.  Quite happy-making.

The 3x2 drill was in the 3 econd range so it still needs some work.

Scott and others liked the Masada quite a bit.  A solid 150 rounds through it with zero issues.

Scott also enjoyed shooting my suppressed M&P Compact 22 - so quiet you don't need ear pro, and the sound of the bullet hitting the steel is louder than the shot.  Much fun.

He now wants to buy a suppressor, because he can now.  And another angel gets its wings.

We also helped Jason out quite a bit with appendix carry.  Jason has a lot of reserve muscle mass you might say, so he's shied away from appendix carry as a result.  

He recently got a Shadow Systems MR918 and its a great pistol and he's running an RMR on it with good results.  

With a borrowed PHLster Floodlight holster  and a Surefire attached to his pistol we got him trying appendix carry out. First with just a bluegun, then the real gun and active shooting.

Having him try appendix as compared to his usual IWB hip position, his draws were measurably faster on the timer - At least a second or more faster - and that's trying appendix for the first time after carrying hip side for years.   Pretty impressive improvement just from changing the carry location.

Lots of fun shooting and a great bunch of guys.

Range Trip - Smile, Wait For Flash

Went to the range yesterday morning with some friends.

Tosh brought his AR15 that he had built, complete with a rather impressive muzzle brake.

Not only does it push the muzzle blast to the sides and away from the shooter, it gives off some very worthy muzzle flash fireballs.

Lots of fun.  Also easy to hit targets at 100 yards.  Just put the dot on the bottom edge of the target and you'll hit it.

I then brought my AR in 300 Blackout for comparison.

That was fun.

Also shot the 6.5 Creedmoor at 100 yards and put most shots into the x ring of a B8 target, which was happy making.  Its functioning great, especially after I gave the bolt some more oil.

We also did some pistol shooting, included some timed drills which were good as they indicated we need more practice. Which we will get in.

A great time had by all, then I went home to be productive and get some work done.

I Love It When A New AR15 Comes Together

Today I had some time on my hands, it was overcast and rainy so not a good day for flight or the range, so Leah and I decided that, in addition to doing a Pirates Of The Caribbean Movie Marathon, to get a project of mine accomplished that's been waiting around for awhile.

It was time to build my latest AR.

The Upper had been done awhile ago and just had an AAC 51T hider attached to it.

So I took my stripped lower received and with Leah's help, including some enthusiastic hammering and assistance finding flying springs, we got the lower assembled and it function tested correctly. Then it was simply a matter of mating it to the 300 Blackout Upper I've had ready for this moment and voila:

Now dressed with can and Crimson Trace Grip with laser/light mounted.

Just need to add an optic up top and its ready.

It is in fact a pistol, as yes, that's an arm brace on it currently.

Pretty darn useful arm brace, I must say.

Probably get to papering it as an SBR at some point, but this way I can take it to the range and run it while the paperwork is processing.

Update: I took it to the range on Sunday, mounted an EOTech on it from one of my other ARs, and it turns out the Crimson Trace laser grip was dead on with no adjustment needed.

The first target:

First rounds through with no malfunctions of any kind and nice accuracy, and I'd say its a keeper.

Leah also liked shooting it and it was as simple as "Put dot on target, squeeze trigger" and she made some nice hits on her target as well.

Let's Start With No.

The Detroit News: Gun control advocates rally at Michigan Capitol

More than 100 gun control advocates rallied Thursday at the Michigan Capitol, urging the state’s Republican-led Legislature to enact new “common sense” regulations after a teen gunman last week killed 17 people at a Florida high school.

Common sense in this case includes things that are already the law, and banning stuff they don't understand because it scares them rather than concrete steps to stop mentally ill persons from committing these acts and making it harder for schools to be attacked. Banning stuff is easy - actually trying to solve the problem is hard.

Let's put it into perspective:

There are currently at least 6 million AR-15 type firearms in circulation in the United States. Probably many more than that, and the call to ban them will only increase this number.

If we take very school and terrorist shooting where an AR15 gets used in a mass shooting we have 7 incidents - Newtown, Connecticut a school shooting by someone mentally ill and known to be so before the fact; Aurora, Colo. a theater attack by someone mentally ill and known to be so before the fact; Santa Monica a college shooting by a mentally ill person and known to be so before the fact including by police who had informed him he was not eligible to purchase a firearm and San Bernardino, Calif. an ISIS terrorist attack; Orlando, Florida an ISIS terrorist attack; Las Vegas Nevada which is still being investigated and motive not understood or known but likely due to some mental issues; and Parkland where another mentally ill individual well known to police is committing a shooting.

So, that's five attacks and we'll generously increase this from 5 to say 24 AR-15s as the Nevada nutcase brought a lot with him, regardless of whether they were actually used or not.

24 out of 6 million is 0.0004% of all AR-15s out there being used in a mass shooting. That's almost a rounding error in statistical terms.

If the only purpose of an AAR15 is to kill, as claimed by the gun banners, it is clearly not doing the job they claim it was designed to do.

So for the acts of 5 people, two driven by terrorist sympathies and the rest by mental illness, we want to ban something legally owned by millions who have hurt no one.

Axelson Tactical - Premium AR15s

Old NFO told us we should go visit the Axelson Tactical booth. If you're smart, you'll know Old NFO's recommendations are good, and verily, we were not disappointed.

Axelson Tactical will be offering their line of AR15s and tuned-up handguns through Cabelas. Very nice, enthusiastic, and informative people they gave us the rundown on their products.

They offer AR15s with great triggers, carbon fiber parts for lightweight and high quality throughout for a premium product.

They have quite a patriotic line of AR15s.

They also have a drop in trigger unit for your AR-15 that makes for one of the best AR triggers I've ever shot.

If you're looking for high-end AR15s with an impressive pedigree behind them, Axelson Tactical will fit the bill nicely.

They also have customized AR15s in 6.5 Creedmore which do not yet appear on their product list. Talking with them, it's one impressive accurate rifle and with all the carbon fiber parts it's lightweight and match accurate to boot. To say its an impressive rifle would be an understatement. Charlie Melton of Charlie Mike Precision uses their 6.5 Creedmore rifle and we got a chance to meet and talk with him as well. First off, Charlie Melton is one heckuva nice and smart guy. This is good because he's not only a former SEAL, but he's also huge and sure as heck hasn't gotten out of shape at all. He's the real deal who as a SEAL trained some notable SEALs how to shoot - SEALs like Marcus Luttrell and Chris Kyle.

Now Murph wants something in 6.5 Creedmore and I'm gonna have to go along and maintain my side of the arms race....and then we need to go get some training in shooting it from Charlie Mike Precision.

Signs The AR15 Market Is Flooded

Yes, Taurus has a line of AR-15s out.

When Taurus launches an AR line, you know everyone is fully into production of the modern American Rifle. It sounds like Taurus amongst many others had (quite reasonably) anticipated Donald Trump not winning the presidency and a gun control push to end all pushes so they ramped up to be ready and now the market is saturated in AR15s.

Springfield Armory's SAINT ARs were out in force

There were even glow-in-the-dark ARs from DPMS.

Ok, not really but the DPMS booth was certainly heavy into the neon green look.

You can get a decent Del-Ton AR15s for under $499, which is a nice rifle for cheaper than you can build them yourself.

While the AR15 market may be flooded, this is in one way a good thing: Anti-gunners certainly cannot argue with a straight face that AR15s are not "in common use" in America.

The Common Use test, adapted in Dc v. Heller and applied to the states via MacDonald is that the sorts of weapons protected from banning are those “in common use at the time.” As stated in Heller, and while the Court in Heller was referring to handguns but certainly also applicable to AR15s - “[the ban of] the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,” 478 F. 3d, at 400, would fail constitutional muster."

AR-15s are certainly in common use in America today, are without a doubt a class of rifles being the most preferred rifles in America and banning them would fly in the face of the Heller decision - god luck with any ban on ARs there Antis so long as Heller remains in force. With Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and a likely further replacement by Trump of a liberal justice to get the court to a Conservative bent, I can forsee some very valid challenges (I'm looking at you California) to assault weapons bans across the country being brought and being won under the Common Use test.

Range Trip And The P30 Hits 1,750

So whenever Matt visits, a trip to the range is in order.

The weather gave us a break and it was reasonably warm but muddy at the range.

We ran a total of 250 rounds through the P30, 200 WWB, and 50 Federal FMJs, and 50 rounds of Speer Gold Dot 124+p rounds. I figured it was time to have some hollow points through it.

The Speer Gold Dots had noticeably more oomph than the FMJ rounds.

Zero malfunctions so far with the P30, though the feed ramp is getting all sorts of dirty.

The shiny metal part is what the entire feed ramp should look like, instead most is covered in carbon, but it still fed every round without complaint.

The Glock 17, M&P 40 Pro, and then the M&P 22 also came out for some suppressed fun, and yes silencers do in fact help protect your ears.

Then we shot some rifles.

Matt highly enjoyed shooting the Tavor, AR15, M1 Garand, and SAR-1. The Tavor was his favorite and he ran it very well with the AR15 a close second.

We also shot a couple more handguns that deserve their own posts, which will come later.

Afterwards we headed of to Alchilies. No it's not a Mexican offshoot of Al Qaeda, its a rather delicious hole-in-the wall Mexican place with real Mexican style Mexican food. We're talking Beef Cheek tacos and other delicacies. Simply awesome.

It's always a great time when Matt comes to town.

The AR-15 Hits Middle Age

The AR-15 design is over 50 years old.

It is certainty a testament to its efficacy and the brilliance of Eugene Stoner's design that it has served so long and become the most popular modern sporting rifle in the USA.

That it is over 50 years old means some AR-15 models can now be purchased using a Curio and Relic FFL as the rifles are now over 50 years old and still in perfectly good working condition. You can bid and buy on this one and have it shipped right to you using your C&R FFL.

That gun banners want to prohibit ownership of over 50-year-old mature technology that is in very common use speaks volumes, and it's also why they'll fail.

A Very Good Range Day

In the late morning, I met up with my friend Jason at the range.

Jason is a newer shooter and a heckuva nice guy. After a safety briefing and my demonstrating how to load and shoot the guns as they came out in order we were ready to hit some paper and some poppers.

The H&K P30 continued to run perfectly, eating another 250 rounds without complaint, making it to 450 rounds with no issues and no cleaning.

Jason shot the P30 quite well and knocked down the poppers in quick succession as well as hitting the paper targets.

I did both Dot Torture and FAST drills with the P30 while Jason knocked down steel poppers and did a Dot Torture sans holster work as he's never drawn from a holster beforevso we're elaving that until he gets a lot more practice and comfort with shooting. I need more work on Dot Torture with the P30 as I did drop a few shots out of the circles.

Happily, with some dry-fire practice since last time, I've at least redeemed my FAST times - my second and third FAST runs today were 7.15 seconds and 7.10 seconds, respectively. The first run's time is lost to history. Jason was running a timer for his first time ever and he hit the start button for a second time as if it was a stop button when I was done. He said I had looked pretty fast doing it that time. Ah well. In any case, it's nice to see some focused dry-fire practice can really shave seconds off your time on a FAST.

I still need to work more to get out of intermediate to reach an advanced time, not to mention improve my shooting overall, but it's a fun work in progress and at least its going the right way now that I finally convinced my brain that the slide release on the P30 is not the magazine release button. I'm also starting to like the P30 more and more as it seems to fit my hand like it was made for it.

We also shot 50 rounds through my M&P 9 - the sight is still slightly to the right even after an adjustment since the last range outing and needs a slight nudge to the left.

We then both shot my M&P40 compact and 50 rounds went through it without the slightest issue. Jason could definitely feel the difference in recoil between the compact 40 and the full size 9mm pistols.

Then it was rifle time:

I had brought out both the Tavor and one of my AR-15s with a Trijicon ACOG mounted on it.

We fired 200 rounds through the Tavor, bringing it to a total of 940 rounds fired through it without a single malfunction.

We also put 100 rounds through the AR15, again with no issues.

Jason liked the Tavor more than the AR-15 and found its manual of arms easier than the AR15 and he shot it better. This was an interesting result considering he had no experience with either rifle before today. He now wants to buy a Tavor as his first rifle.

That was a darn good range trip.

A Good Morning On The Range

Instead of our regular Friday morning meeting, I took five members of a business networking group I'm a part of to the range this morning as a get out of the office event.

A few of them had never shot before, and a couple had either as hunters and one as a more Gen2 type shooter.

In short it was a great time.

We hit the rifle range first. I let them shoot one of my ARs, the AK and the Tavor on the rifle range. That's another 100 flawless rounds through the Tavor.

Everyone thought the Tavor was very cool and one of the guys that owned an AR was very impressed with it.

One of the guys brought along a GSG MP-5 in .22. It was a blast to shoot - lots of fun, ridiculously easy to control and just a fun gun. I could ring the steel plates at 100 yards no problem. It had quite a few failures to feed, most likely due to the ersatz lead round nose budget 22s that was all he could find to shoot through it, so can't blame the gun for that.

One not so funny event happened. One of the guys had brought his deer rifles out to sight in (He's a deer season only shooter). His first rifle had some serious functioning problems due to a complete lack of lubrication. It was so dry the bolt would not close on a round. I put on some Slip2000 EWL and it functioned like a champ.

The second rifle was a different story.

He fired a round and it worked ok, but the second round he tried to fire jammed completely and could neither be fired nor extracted, so he had a live round stuck in the chamber.

The round would not come out of the chamber no matter what - prying with knives and multi-tools did nothing, nor did a rod down the barrel. It was jammed in tight. I couldn't figure out how it could be so jammed into the chamber like that.

It was a 308 Winchester round, which he swore was the caliber of the rifle.

I took a look at the markings on the barrel and guess what? It wasn't chambered in 308. The rifle was chambered in 30-06.

Be sure you check you've put the right ammo in the gun folks.

Then we headed to the pistol range and had a blast. I set up a couple plate racks, then added some poppers and supervised them shooting at them in a friendly competition as to who could knock 'em all down with 10 shots on 8 targets. They had a great time shooting.

One of the guys brought a few interesting pistols - A Walther PPX, a S&W Shield and a SiG 239.

I got to try out the Walther PPX. If you're following Tam (and if you're not, you should) you know about the Walther PPX and can see how she's putting one through its paces. Handling the PPX was interesting. While it looks blocky as heck, the grip fit my hand like a glove and the trigger was truly and impressively excellent, I'd say certainly better than a stock Glock trigger. Knocking down plates quickly with accuracy was no problem.

The Shield was also easy to shoot as was his Sig 938.

I brought along my 9mm S&W M&P, my Glock 19 and two 1911s.

The 1911s were a big hit. But they had problems clearing all 8 targets with just the 8 shots in its magazine.

After putting hundreds of rounds through the guns it was time to head back to work. Now I've got quite a few guns to clean.

Everyone had a great time at the range and agreed that it kicked the Group's golf outing's butt and that we should do it again.

The NRA AR Convention

The Convention floor was like a gathering of AR-15s and variants.

It seemed everyone and their little brother had at least one if not a multitude of AR models on the floor.

There were ARs by FN:

There were ARs by Rock River:

There were ARs by DS Arms, better known for their excellent FALs:

There were ARs by Windham Weaponry including some beauties in 7.62:

There was a colorful array of ARs by Olympic Arms.

There were superlight ARs by Bushmaster:

There was a 12 gauge AR by Rhino Arms:

Assuming it is as good as represented, and shoots as good as it looks and handles, I think my Saiga may be set aside for the Rhino.

There were ARs by Advanced Armament Corp in 300 Blackout with silencers:

There were ARs with night vision:

There were custom pink ARs:

There were lots more ARs there by Just Right Carbines, Colt, Remington, Mossberg, Smith and Wesson, and many others. I half expected to see Hi Point had come out with a line of budget-basement ARs.

Given the ubiquity of the AR platform, it is indeed rightly referred to as "America's Rifle".

Dear anti-gunners, you really think you can ban the AR15 and variants now?

Look at the pictures and realize this is not 1994 anymore.

While you may have a bit of traction in places like New York, California, Connecticut and Colorado for now, don't expect any movement in the rest of America, and expect your temporary success there to get rolled back in time.

The AR platform is now by definition, both de facto and de jure "in common use".

The AR-15. Is There Anything it Can't Be (Humorously) Blamed For?

Over at Clayton Cramer's blog, he's got a very funny post up about the AR-15.

Humor - Subject: Fun facts about the AR-15

You are now warned not to be drinking anything simultaneously with clicking and then reading the linked material.

Democrat Cognitive Dissonance On Women And Guns

In actuality it is probably not cognitive dissonance as they are too ignorant and stupid to realize thier views conflict.

Democrat Thought 1: Women can't handle AR-15s.

According to Democrats, AR-15s are just too hard for women, the poor dears, to operate.

Democrat Rep Carolyn McCarthy: A Rifle Better for Women’s Self Defense Than AR-15s.
Let's take a moment to celebrate Rep McCarthy's (she of the shoulder-thing-that-goes-up) ignorance here - an AR15 IS a rifle. Indeed, it is easier to use with lower recoil and easier operating procedures than traditional hunting rifles.

Democrat Vice President Biden: You don't need an AR-15, it's harder to aim, it's harder to use.

According to Biden an AR-15 is harder to use than a double barreled shotgun. Not true. The AR15 not only has significantly less recoil than a double-barreled shotgun, but is more accurate, handier, and holds more shots than the two shells of a double-barreled shotgun.

Democrat Thought 2: Women should be able to serve in combat in the military and can handle M-4s.

Both VP Biden and Rep Carolyn McCarthy are strong proponents of letting women serve in combat positions.

The M-4, the fully automatic version of the AR-15, has the same weight and the same operating mechanism of the AR-15, but with the added complexity of a selector switch that moves to (oh how difficult!)a third position for burst or fully automatic fire rather than the (simpler!) two position switch on the AR-15.

How in the world will the poor females in the military handle such a complex firearm?

I know, they'll get a man to help!

According to these Democrats, women are both strong, independent persons able to serve in combat and stand on their own, yet at the same time they are too helpless, dumb and weak to operate what is really a very simple device in their own defense - the same device they would be issued with in the military to serve in combat.

Yes, these Democrat idiots are busy making laws to infringe our rights while being completely ignorant of the subject matter, not to mention being both insulting to, and dismissive of American women at the same time.

Weekend Fun

Quite the busy weekend, tempered with the tragedy in Connecticut that I will blog about later.

On the upside guess who came to town?

Murphy and ML came in on a short-notice visit.

We had a nice dinner Saturday night with Murphy's Law, his mom, and all the gang. Even with a cast on, she put on a fantastic dinner.

Murphy became quite attached to Leah, laying down right beside her during dinner. Whether this was from her playing with him just before dinner, or his figuring that the smallest one at the table would drop the most turkey to him, I'm not sure.

After dessert, ML, Abby, Corbin and I went out after dessert to play laser tag at Zap Zone. Abby is getting seriously into laser tag and getting pretty good at it too. Her short size keeps her below most people's line of sight until she lases them. She had a blast and did pretty well indeed.

On Sunday morning, ML, Corbin and I went to the range. We were distracted on the way by ML spotting a Unimog for sale that he needed to check out and a further delay was then caused but I'll let him explain it.

It's accurate to say that once we finally got to the range, Corbin had a blast.

Yes, that's ML's .41 magnum, a really nice shooting pistol. Having had the opportunity to shoot it, I can see what the fuss is all about - less recoil than a .44, great accuracy and a great trigger in double or single action.

As for my 45 reloads fresh off the Dillon they worked great.

No problems feeding, every round went where it was sent and they had plenty of oomph to drop plates and poppers with aplomb. Nice and accurate loads and it turns out that Accurate No.5 is a very nice powder for 45 ACP.

Corbin liked my 1911 and these loads quite a lot.

We shot a few more pistols and then headed to the rifle range.

As for my new 300 Blackout AR, the results were somewhat mixed.

First, the Aimpoint needed a lot of adjustment to get zeroed.

It started off low and left by about 4 feet in each axis at 75 yards, so I had to bring the target in closer and start adjusting. After some judicious cranking, its now perfectly zeroed for 100 yards and I can easily hit steel plates on the 100 yard line with no problems.

The Core 15 Upper was quite superb with no feeding issues and very tight accuracy - groups were amazingly tight (though very low and left until the Aimpoint was zeroed, but the groups were pretty impressive even so.

The 300 Blackout cartridge was great - very low recoil impulse, soft shooting and accurate.

On the downside, one of the pins in the receiver decided to go for a walk, rendering it rather unusable as it moved out of its hole. I've bought some anti-walk pins and will install them to correct the issue.

ML also brought along his Ruger Mini 14 and his Bushmaster AR with the AK-style muzzle break from hell. The concussion from that thing is deafening even as it reduces felt recoil from the 5.56 to .22LR levels.

Here's ML with the far more pleasant Mini-14 in action.

We then shot my S&W M&P15-22, which ML and Corbin both loved and I'm liking it a lot too. I fired the full 25 round magazine and repeatedly hit the 100 yard steel so easily it was almost boring how repetitive the "ting" sound came back after every shot.

So it was a great time at the range.

But the day wasn't done yet.

Abby and Leah had been invited to a birthday party for a friend that was being held at the Campus Martius Ice Skating Rink in downtown Detroit of all places.

Of course, luck would have it that the rink wasn't quite right. Apparently on Friday during some electrical test it had been overloaded and the compressors had been burned out, leaving a massive layer of water on the rink and it wasn't scheduled to be fixed until Monday. This led to some very wet clothing on the kids, but they had a good time. Lots of security and police were around so aside from a few pan handlers it was pretty uneventful.

We then walked over to American Coney Island, a Detroit landmark, for hot dogs and birthday cake. I had a coney dog and it was quite delicious.

On the way to the American Coney Island we passed by the Michigan Iron Brigade memorial marker.

Then after coneys and cake we headed home.

Amazing how much potential and how great Detroit could be if they could just get themselves together and got rid of the idiots busy running it into the ground.

So it was a very full weekend.

Tonight's Project - An AR-15 Lower Build

I decided that tonight was the night to finally build and complete my AR-15 Lower.

Having never done this before, it should get interesting.

Wish me luck.

Update 1: Ok, The Mag catch is in. So far, so good.

Update 2: Whew, that took some work, but the bolt catch is now in. That roll pin did not want to cooperate.

Update 3: Now it's looking more like an AR lower.

The front pivot pin, detent and spring installed so easily it was surprising.

Trigger, disconnector, hammer and selector were then all installed when I realized there was an extra spring sitting with the outstanding parts...the instructions I had that detailed the assembly process quite subtly glossed over a mention of installing the disconnector spring.

Drat. So I took it all apart, added the spring and put it all back together. Having done it once before it was a tad bit easier to do. Then I added the pistol grip and screwed it into place.

Unfortunately, The roll pin for the trigger guard refuses to go in and Natasha has ordered me to cease all hammering noises and assorted vocabulary enhancements this late at night.

I'll have to work on it tomorrow.

Also, anyone have any idea what is the size of the Allen wrench to screw in the front of the Magpul trigger guard screw? Nothing I have seems to fit.

Update 4: And, with the exception of the trigger guard, I'm done!

Total build time, including running around looking for the right tools occasionally, battling evil roll pins and assembling and reassembling the trigger components, taking pics and blogging the experience was two hours and forty minutes.

Certainly it was an interesting exercise, and I now know a lot more about AR-15 lowers than I had before.