John's Random Review

I’ve been going to a pistol league at Shooting Sports Northwest for a few weeks now.  I’ve never competed in any gun related things before, so this is a first for me.

There are 3 events every week, and you shoot each event twice.

The first part is called “zombies”, and is worth the most points.  10 rounds, 9 targets.  the back row of 3 poppers pops up, and is up for a few seconds.  Then the middle row of 3, then the front row of 3.  The zombies are scored on distance;  the back row is worth 20, 18, 15, middle 12, 10, 10, putting the front row at only 7, 7, 7.  Most people will use as many rounds as they can to get the back row. 

The second part is called “blackjack”.  only 3 rounds, all 9 poppers pop up and stay up 8 seconds.  The object is to get 21 points (without going over!).  All of the targets are again assigned point values:  Ace, 10, 9 in the back row, 8, 8, 7 in the middle, and 6, 5, 4 in the front row.  Most people aim for the middle’ish area, doing 8+5+8.  Depending on a miss, you might try something else, like 8, miss, 10.  With all of the poppers up, seeing and hitting the back row can be a challenge though!  8 seconds seems like an eternity, so almost everyone is going too fast.

“Stop and Go” on the dueling tree is the last part, and this part is timed!  10 rounds, 7 targets. When the green popper in the background falls (it pops back up instantly) time starts: shoot the 3 green targets on the tree, then the green popper in the background, then the three red targets on the tree.  Time ends when you hit the last red target, or when you’re out of ammo. Scoring is 5 points per target hit, minus one point per second on the clock when you’ve hit the last target or are out of ammo.  This one is everyone’s favorite, it seems.  The fastest people (I’m not one!) are doing it in around 5 seconds.  I think I’ve been in the 7’s mostly, although one week I did have a 5.66.  The fastest people are doing bottom to top, so that you follow the recoil up to the next target.  Although I think people are still working down the red side after shooting the popper though…

The theoretical maximum number of points each week is ~320.  After 6 weeks, I’m averaging ~185 with a high of 241 (I was #1 last week, but only because most of the high scorers were gone ). The highest person in the league is averaging 256 with a high of 291, so I have some work to do!

Here’s a phone video of me doing one run of stop+go:

While in Arizona for spring training, my step-dad Art took my brother and me to the Ben Avery Shooting Facility outside of Phoenix.

Here’s the panorama view from where we were sitting. I should have gotten a couple more shots to the left, though!

Here’s the view from space:

The main 200 yard range is just eastnortheast a bit of where the orange dot is on the map. If you zoom in you can see what 200 yards looks like from space. Then zoom back out and see HOW HUGE that place is! It was awesome! Weather was nice, not too warm, not too cold. A little windy, but not so much that it really affected us at the distance we were shooting.

We went on St. Patrick’s day, and expected it to not be very busy. Boy were we wrong! (and boy am i slow finally getting this post up!) We had to wait for a while before we got a lane (originally we were hoping to get a lane each), but that gave Jimbo and I some time to soak it all in and see what was going on. The range masters were all business. There were rules, and rules were followed. Even 6 weeks later, i can still remember the rules they kept repeating during every cease fire, which occurred every 15 minutes. It was basically 15 minutes shooting, then 15 minutes with the range cold to check + move targets (but stay away from the benches. hey, you! move away from the bench. HEY! YOU, YEAH YOU! away from the bench during cease fire!)

We shot a whole bunch of revolvers in .22, .22 mag, .38 special, and .357 magnum, then bolt and lever rifles in .22 mag, 30-30, and a .308 autoloader. I’ve never been much of a revolver guy, but i really liked the .357 mag revolver. The smaller revolvers just seemed like they had too small of a grip for my hands. my hands aren’t huge or anything, but i just couldn’t get a comfortable grip on the smaller guns.

All in all it was a pretty awesome day at the range, even with the wait. Hopefully it will become another yearly tradition when we go down to AZ for spring training!

I’ve now had my Spike’s Tactical AR-22 for more than a year. Its now on a different lower than it originally was, has some different accessories, and has lots of ammo through it!

Go to the original review.

In 2009, i put more than 2300 rounds through it, with only 27 failures. And of those 28, 15 were on one day early in February, where i tried to use CCI Mini-mags. Lets just say that it doesn’t like those! I also think i went through a bad batch of ammo in January, where i had ~100 light strikes or duds. It happened with 2 separate lowers, so I don’t think it was hammer or spring related.

Since i got it, i’ve added an Eotech (off an ebay pawn shop ), and a knockoff magnifier. I didn’t spend a lot on the magnifier because i wasn’t sure how well the setup would work, or if i’d like the combination or not. For a cheapo magnifier, it actually works pretty well. I got a used noveske kx3 flash hider, but mostly for looks. The barrel isn’t short enough to really need it, although i am tempted to have the barrel cut down and have the kx3 permanently mounted. Tempted, but not sure.

From March of 2009 to date, i’ve only had 2 failures, both failures to feed, and one bad round in 1600+ rounds.

Statistics

I started keeping really detailed logs a few years ago. I may be off by a few rounds, but not by much!

In the previous review, i talked about how much cheaper .22lr ammo was than .223 or 5.56. Since then, the price of 22 has gone up a bunch, and the cost of .223/5.56 has come back down to a more reasonable (read: non-panic) price. Because of this, i also have an AR chambered for 5.56, so i shoot that too, and shoot my spikes’s 22 a little less often.

I recently received this amazing piece of WWII era history through the Civilian Marksmanship Program:

A Springfield Armory M1 .30 Caliber Rifle, commonly called an M1 Garand.

The serial number is in the 278xxxx range, which, according to Fulton Armory (via Scott Duff), makes its manufacture date in March of 1944.  By the proof marks on the stock (pics to follow!) it looks like the stock is much newer, either HRA or IH from the mid to late 50’s.  Either way, i think it is the oldest thing i own!

It is in great condition, and it is beautiful!  Laura even said, “That’s way prettier than the AK”

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found. — From ABCNews.com I love how all of a sudden a marking like JN8:12 is a “Secret Jesus Code”, instead of a passage in the bible.

This whole article is fully of quotes so hilarious, it should really have been published by the Onion:

“It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles,” he said.

OMG, since the scope on the rifle has a bible passage book/section number on it, its magical? Do they have the pope sprinkling them with holy water too? Or just the ammunition? I wonder if this will finally put to rest the 5.56mm vs 7.62mm myths to bed. “7.62 has more stopping power!” “Oh, but my scope has 5.56 bullet drop compensation marks and HAS SECRET JESUS CODES!!!!!” “5.56×45 wins!”

“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country,” said Weinstein. “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

Really? Really? A private company stamping 2COR4:6 on some scopes is the WORST thing that’s ever happened in the separation of church and state? I’d think putting “In God We Trust” on every piece of currency we’ve ever used, or adding “under god” to the Pledge of Allegiance would rank a little higher.

I’d bet the bible markings have a more insidious purpose: anti-counterfitting. Everyone marks production numbers, etc on their stuff, and real ACOGs are not cheap. this is a great way to get that but in a meaningful way. Worst case, Trijicon can just replace the text with the number of the book in the bible, like N4:8:12. (The N for New Testament)

I wanted an ACOG before. Now I need an ACOG. The power of Christ compels you! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!

Before i get to the wood part of the project, can you identify the object the wood goes with?

If you’ve never seen one stripped down, you might not recognize it. Here’s a better “pre” picture that will make everything clear.

OMG SO SCARY AK47 MACHINEGUN!!11!! No, its an AK variant, a Yugoslavian M70AB2 underfolder. Its semi-automatic, not a “machine-gun”, so don’t get your panties in a bunch. It’s less powerful than most hunting rifles. Yes, it accepts 30+ round magazines, but so does almost any semi-auto gun these days. Why do i have one? Because (1) i like guns, and (2) the bill of rights says i can, so there! And this way when zombies attack or red dawn goes down, i’ll be ready…Everyone should have at least one AK!

But to me it doesn’t look right with all that plastic, so here are the parts getting replaced (bottom), and the replacements (top):

Inbetween sanding and painting other house projects the last couple days, I’ve been sanding, fitting, oiling, and waxing those wood pieces. Finished, looks much more correct now. The result:

Unfolded to its full size:

Thanks to Ironwood Designs for the fantastic quality, made in the USA handguards and grip. Well worth the wait!

I posted most of this as a comment on the blog of Michael Yon, a former special forces operator turned war journalist, in a response to his post: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/tons-of-arms-flowing-to-mexico.htm. I really respect Michael, and read all of his disptaches and own all of his books, including a signed copy of Moment of Truth in Iraq.

Michael’s post is really just a link to a government document full of statistics about “tons” of guns going to Mexico. All of the block quotes here are quotes from the government document.

Mexico is having huge problems, yes, but now people are trying to make it sound like this problem is our fault. And because it is our fault, we should limit our own rights. But that won’t solve the problem. If there really is one. Let the statistics begin!

It is an undisputable (sic) fact that the weapons and firearms used to fuel the drug-related violence in Mexico can be traced back to guns procured legally or illegally here.

Wow, how vague. “weapons and firearms”. plural. That could be one knife and one gun, or one baseball bat and one gun, or could be many more. For an indisputable fact, that isn’t very specific.

In fact, according to ATF’s National Tracing Center, 90 percent of the weapons that could be traced were determined to have originated from various sources within the U.S.

Again, wow. “90% of the weapons that could be traced…” 90% of how many? How many couldn’t be traced? I read this as 9 of the 10 weapons that had serial numbers. the other 300k didn’t have serial numbers because they weren’t manufactured in the united states.

In FY 2007 alone, Mexico submitted approximately 1,112 guns for tracing that originated in Texas, Arizona and California. The remaining 47 States accounted for 435 traces in FY 2007.

Finally! some numbers: 1547 guns in a year. That is “tons” now? they still don’t say how many were traced, just 90% of the TRACEABLE ones were traced. Even if 100% were traceable, that means that 1392 were from the USA. ATF stats for 2007 say that 2.7 MILLION guns were produced that year. Not only that, but 207,000+ guns were legally exported. So if 90% of the guns that were traced to the US turns out to be 1392 guns, that is less than 1 percent (0.67%) of all exported guns, and less than 5 hundredths of a percent (0.05%) of all of the guns sold in the us in 2007. The only way this is tons of guns is if you measure it by the pound.

And again, this is only the guns that were submitted to the ATF for tracing, and those that could be traced. Best case, that’s all 1392, worst case that is NINE.

There are related statistics to these 1392 guns that were traceable that i would like to see:
1) how many of them had been reported stolen?
2) how many of them were reported lost or stolen by the US Government? State and Local governments?

Those are harder numbers to find. So lets look at state by state trace information published by the ATF.

If you look at only the Texas ATF trace statistics for 2007, they traced 14,111 firearms to that state alone. Of those recovered, there were seventeen “machine-guns”. 17 of fourteen thousand!

What is the distribution of the guns given to the ATF for trace? How many hanguns? revolvers? shotguns? rifles? how many were “scary black rifles”? If you go with the texas numbers from above, it would be about half autoloading handguns, then about a fifth revolvers, a fifth shotguns, a fifth rifles, the rest random stuff.
How many exactly were fully automatic? That’s what everyone is talking about, drug runners with scary machine guns!
If you go with the texas numbers above and do the math, it would be less than 2. Yes, two. Two machine guns. All this press and rhetoric about two machine guns.

California has much more restrictive gun laws, so That state must have much fewer guns than Texas, right? Heeeeeeell no. Lets do the same things with the 2007 Cali statistics:
Traced weapons in california in 2007? 27,672. So around double that of Texas and twenty times as many as were done for Mexico. The pistol/revolver/rifle/shotgun distribution is about the same as Texas. How many machine guns? 62 in California. About two tenths of a percent of those recovered. So that would round up to be 3 machine guns in the mexico batch.

In addition, drug traffickers frequently resort to using “straw purchasers” to gain firearms from federally licensed gun dealers in the U.S., dealers who often are unwitting participants in these schemes.

Yes, and straw purchases are already illegal. Its the first checkbox on the ATF 4473 form you fill out when you transfer a firearm. paraphrasing: “Are you buying this for yourself? If no, stop right here.” If someone’s going to lie on the first question of the form, why wouldn’t they lie on every other question on the form?

ATF also has seized large quantities of ammunition for use in these firearms.

Define “large quantities”, that is a very subjective term. Almost everyone who owns a .22LR gun has large quantities of ammunition as they sell ammo in 550 round bricks. People buy .223 and 7.62×39 by the 1000+round case, because its the cheapest way to get it. People build ammo forts and take pictures. Go to any standard retailer (like Cabelas) website and go look at prices for ammunition. Nobody is going to buy ammo 20 rounds at a time for $1 / round when they can buy 1000 for 33 cents/round.

Unfortunately, in the past six months we have noted a troubling increase in the number of grenades, which are illegal to possess and sell, seized from or used by drug traffickers, and we are concerned about the possibility of explosives-related violence spilling into U.S. border towns.

This is the best part of this document. Something that is already illegal to own is being sold to drug traffickers. OMG PONIES! People breaking the law are selling illegal things to other people breaking the law! Lets change the law for selling other things that have nothing to do with this to solve that other problem!

Update 4/2/09:Seems that i’m not the only one who’s complained about this number. FoxNews (yeah, i know, i know) did some real research and got real numbers from someone. the 90% number is exactly what i said it was. A percentage of a small percentage of some smaller number of guns. The real number is around 17%, which is much more reasonable to me based on the size of the border and the number of guns produced here. Its still unclear from that number, though, how many of those were M16′s that might have been produced here under military contract for the mexican government:

More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

The article says they are Belgian produced, but some portion might be from the US.

With my stimulus check, i built a rifle! And since my xbox has RRoD’d again, i have some free time to write about it!

Assembly

It all starts as what they call a “stripped lower receiver”. This is the part that the government classifies as a “firearm”. Even though it barely resembles a gun (its just a milled piece of aluminum with some holes cut in it), it has a serial number, you have to buy it at a gun shop and fill out paperwork and everything.

The rest of the parts you can get just about anywhere, from gun stores to pawn shops to online. The lower parts kit is a large amount of springs, pins, and the other pieces to make the stripped lower into most of a firearm.

Stripped Reciever	Lower parts kit

Since i was building a .22 AR rifle, i shopped around and watched for reviews until i found the place i bought most everything from Spike’s Tactical. There were other .22 kits for the AR, but the most common, the ceiner kit, had a lot of bad reviews, and seemed that were very inconsistant and required a lot of tuning to make it work right. Spike’s has a 22 based upper receiver with a .22 barrel and chamber with a special bolt. Being a popular company and only able to make the bolts so fast, there was 6-10 week wait on all of their 22 uppers over the summer. I’d imagine the way gun sales are going since the election that its an even longer wait now than it was then!

Here’s the upper and lower receiver, handguards, grip, stock, sight, and everything else You need to build a rifle:

All the parts	Fully Assembled

You can buy a complete rifle, but there’s an additional tax on complete rifles. You can buy a completely assembled lower as well, but then I wouldn’t have learned anything, would I? Putting the lower together myself was pretty cool. The mechanism of how the trigger and hammer work is pretty slick. Plus, when you buy an assembled lower you’re also paying for someone else’s time to put it together, so it was cheaper this way too. If you build it yourself, you also get to pick exactly the components you want, like which stock (in this case, a Magpul CTR), and which grip (in this case, just the standard grip), and which trigger (again, standard).

Break-in

I’ve been using the federal bulk pack (red box) ammo exclusively. Its the cheap ammo that spike’s tests with and recommends, and its alright. My marvel 22 pistol doesn’t like it very much, as the ridge area at the rear of the bullet would binds up when feeding. During breakin, a similar thing happend in the rifle too.

FTFd	Crazy FTE

Just that one crazy failure to extract, I’m still not sure how it got in there like that. You can’t see it well in the small picture, but there’s an empty case in there sideways! It was trivial to clear, but some people have reported a similar situation except that the case ends up higher inside where the gas tube would normally be and then gets stuck in there where you have to use a tool to get it out. I haven’t had any problems like that.

During the first 600 rounds, there were a ton of failures (59 to be precise), mostly failures to feed, with a handful of failures to extract. In the last 750 rounds, I’ve only had 7 failures, all but one being failures to feed. So that’s about 1 failure every 4 mags, which for a semiautomatic 22 is pretty good!

The other thing i’ve had a lot of is light strikes (25). The firing pin dents the rim, but not hard enough to fire the round. They’ll fire from my 22 pistol, so i think that its a little bit the rifle, but probably mostly the inconsistency of the cheap ammo.

Performance

Aside from the occasional FTFeed or light strike it works like a charm! I only shoot at an indoor range that maxes out at 25 yards, but even at that distance i’m a pretty good shot. I’ve never fired from the bench or from a rest or anything, so i’m positive it could to a lot better than it does if i had the time and patience to really dial it in. But then again, i’m firing cheapo federal bulk pack, so its not like the ammo is very reproducible.

25 rounds @ 25 yards, standing, unsupported with an Eotech 511
20 rounds @ 25 yards at each target. Again standing unsupported, but these were all with iron sights instead of the eotech.

Statistics

I started keeping really detailed logs of all of my trips to the range about a year ago. I may be off by a few rounds, but not by much!

I load the mags to 25 rounds, so right now, thats about 1 fail per mag, but that ratio has been falling rapidly after the first few hundred rounds.

If you do the math there to compare .223 or 5.56 ammo vs .22LR, thats a huge amount. Federal Bulk pack .22LR is 500 rounds for less than $20. so 2000 rounds would be about $80. Current prices on .223 is about $250 for 500, if you can find it anywhere. so 2000 rounds would cost a cool grand. So on ammo alone i’ve saved almost grand!

My mini-2 year review of my Marvel Precision .22LR 1911 conversion. This is a continuation of my adventures with it, continued from the original post, and my 1 year followup! I’ve been keeping religious track of range time in a Numbers spreadsheet for about 9 months now, so I can give exact numbers and ammo used and everything. in the last 9 months i’ve fired: CCI Mini-mags: 300 CCI Stingers: 133 Total: 433 Follow the jump for the rest of the details and some pics.

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I’ve had my Marvel Precision conversion kit for more than a year, and my first review of it here was just over a year ago. So In a year, and probably close to 4,000 rounds through it, how has it held up?
10 rounds at 30 feet →

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