Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Some Things Just Won't Go Away

Seems Miss Stephanie Kraft can't get over the fact that people can lawfully purchase firearms even if their names appear on a super-secret-squirrel list kept by the DHS.

What gets her knickers in a twist is the fact that someone who hasn't been accused of a crime, let alone been convicted of the same, can walk into a gun store and lawfully purchase a firearm.

Never mind that DHS admits there are flaws with their super-secret-squirrel list. What with over a million names on it, there's bound to be innocent people on it somewhere.

Now, this has been old news for about 4 months. Apparently Miss Kraft needs to keep up with the times. Not only has Frank the Fixer's bill been reintroduced, but so has Carolyn "Barrel Shroud" McCarthy, and Rep King from NY.

By the way Stephanie, all of these bills are DOA in Congress. You're a little late.

Wow!

One has to wonder what they hell is going on around here. First, we have the WH telling everyone that carrying firearms at presidential events is hunky-dory. Now, we've got the NYT itself actually carrying a decent piece on semi-automatic weapons on their "At War" section.

Pretty good piece that actually is devoid of the usual pants-sh**ting hysteria that is so common in their op-ed pages. Of course, the comments don't disappoint in that regard. Some of them still need to come in from barking at the moon.

As a proud owner of one of their products (SA-M7 carbine), I think what they're doing is noble. They just need to keep on top of some of their recent quality control issues.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Buffalo Chip Machine Gun Shoot

Well, my week of employment at the Guns of Freedom shoot has come to a close. Got to replace a disconnector in a malfunctioning rifle, troubleshoot a rifle that wouldn't feed right, pound a squib discharge out of a barrel, and reattach the roller mechanism in the top cover of a MG 42.

By far, the most popular item was the .50 BMG rifle. Not sure how much we went through, but it was alot. The next most popular thing to shoot was the shorty 1919 in 8mm. Not sure how long the barrel is on it, but it's definitely wayyy shorter than the standard. Makes for one hell of a flame thrower, let me tell you.

So far, I've seen a Frog, a half a dozen Aussies, and about the same number of Canucks, a Dutchman, and a Brit at the shoot. But one Aussie in particular takes the cake for the "Funniest Moment of The Shoot". It all happened Wednesday night about an hour before we closed down. Dude came in wanting to shoot 4 through the .500 S&W. Guy did his 4 rounds and wanted some pictures of him holding an M16. Now, I should also note that whilst our intrepid Aussie was having his picture snapped, there was another customer loading up the .50 rifle for 4 rounds. He watched as they loaded the rifle, he watched as they turned the bolt down. Hell, he was standing about 3 ft behind and to the left of the shooter so it shouldn't have been a big surprise what was coming. Well, the customer on the .50 cranked off a round and our brave Aussie damn near messed himself. Jumped about 2 feet in the air. I was surprised he didn't toss the rifle, but he held onto it and promptly turned and handed me the rifle and took off like someone had lit his butt on fire. I couldn't stop laughing for a good 5 minutes.

The high point of the shoot so far was getting to meet Joe Perry of Aerosmith. He came over and wanted to shoot a little of everything, but once he got behind the controls of Ma Deuce, he pretty much didn't want to shoot anything else:

The other high point was Miss Montana USA showed up. She got some trigger time on an M16.
I guess the low point would be the thunderstorm we had Friday night. Saw the weather coming in for about an hour. Didn't think much of it as we'd dealt with some form of rain all week long. But Friday afternoon we got pounded. Winds had to be in excess of 60 mph; at one point we actually thought we may have been caught in a tornado. Which was a pretty fair assumption based on the size of some the hail we found afterwards. With the amount of rain we were getting, and how fast the wind was blowing, we couldn't see the monster hay bails about 100 ft from where we took shelter.
Fortunately, there was no visible damage from the storm, given the size of some the stones. Thankfully, these were the exception rather than the rule. Most of the hail was between dime and quarter size.
Given the eventful nature of last week's shoot, I can't wait for the next one, this time a weekend gig at Wall, SD in September.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Machine Gun Shoot-Day .3333333333

Went up to the Guns of Freedom machine gun shoot this afternoon at the Buffalo Chip Shooting Complex, I am the local guy helping out and all, to see when they'd need me.

Talked to the proprietor about some things and he had an AK that had gone TU that morning with a broken front trunion, and he wanted me to see if there was anything that could be done to salvage it. Not much, short of a new trunion, was the diagnosis. The problem was, well, fatal, and can't be fixed until he gets back to his home shop.

I got to meet some of the stage hands for Toby Keith who were wondering around seeing the sights before his show tonite. All of them were a little in awe of all the firepower on hand for the event. Several asked questions of the proprietor about specific arms and such, but almost to a person, they were all googly eyed at Mrs. Ma Deuce. I mean, who wouldn't be? She's a sexy beast that Ma Deuce, even at the ripe old age of 88.

But the highlight of my trip today was watching a bowling ball get launched about 300 yds. Talk about frikkin' AWESOME! I've never seen a 16lb bowling ball get punched that hard, evar! Granted, I've wanted to do something like that when I was on a bowling league years ago, but my size 10's wouldn't stand up to it, so I'll settle for watching from a semi-safe distance.

Tomorrow? Well, I'm lined up for a non-resident Utah CCW class at 1000 put on by Minnesota Concealed Carry. After that, I'm helping with the shoot. Hopefully, I'll have more interesting things (and people) to post about tomorrow night.