Guns & Hunting Thread (1-13-2013)

Gun Safety, Redefined

Put this one on your radar screens. Since "gun control" polls right up there with asking your mother-in-law to move in with you, the left needs a new term. This one must've focus-grouped well.

About to go on @cnnsitroom with @wolfblitzer & @ewerickson to talk gun safety. Is NRA unreasonable to oppose ALL gun safety proposals?

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) January 11, 2013

Now that's just asinine. The NRA literally wrote the rules for gun safety, and their Eddie Eagle program has taught gun safety to millions of kids.

They don't oppose gun safety at all. Gun control, OTOH ...

Good Stuff From Bob Owens

Forget bans; where are my Constitutionally-protected suppressed machine guns?

Also, Bob's eBook, So You Want to Own A Gun, is highly recommended for the first-time buyers among you.

And, of course, you should bookmark Bob-Owens.com.

A Brilliant Idea By Frank J. Fleming

This really takes the cake. Sheer brilliance.

Since Something Must Be Done!!11!™, ...

Gun control advocates won't know the difference if we pass laws banning a bunch of made-up things that sound scary.

I could totally lose those magazines that never run out of ammo and suppressors that make that "pew" sound like they have in the movies.

Finally, a Worthwhile Petition

I generally think these White House petition things are pretty stupid. I can get behind this one, though:

Eliminate armed guards for the President, Vice-President, and their families, and establish Gun Free Zones around them

Gun Free Zones are supposed to protect our children, and some politicians wish to strip us of our right to keep and bear arms. Those same politicians and their families are currently under the protection of armed Secret Service agents. If Gun Free Zones are sufficient protection for our children, then Gun Free Zones should be good enough for politicians.

They're 2/3 of the way there, if you want to lend 'em a hand. (h/t Laura W.)

Gun Of The Week

Hint: God created man, Col. _____ made 'em equal.

(answer below)

Marksmanship Award

Hero of the Day - Texas: Witnesses shoot robbery suspect - click2houston.com/news/HPD-Witne… #NRA (via @kprclocal2)

— Cam and Company (@CamAndCompany) January 12, 2013

Gun Of The Week - Answer

That beauty is, of course, the Colt Single Action Army.

I always wanted one of those when I was a kid and picked one up a few years ago. It looks exactly like the one in the photo and is chambered for the .45 Colt, although they made those in a ton of different calibers like .44-40, .32-20, etc.

Reloading For Fun & Profit (But Mainly Fun)

With the cost of a few boxes of ammo these days equaling what you could buy a nice gun for not too long ago, it makes sense to try to pinch pennies where you can. I address this the way I always have, by mainly shooting a boatload of .22 rimfire for practice, since all the skills translate over to the bigger calibers. But another way is by reloading your centerfire ammo.

Now, to be clear, there's an initial investment you need to make in equipment, but if you shoot a lot, you almost have to reload.

The process basically works like this: you collect up your spent cartridge casings and then knock out the old primer and put in a new primer, powder charge and bullet. The device pictured above, a single-stage reloading press, is what most folks use do most of this.

But if you want to get really fancy, you can get a progressive press that cranks out a completed round every time you pull the handle. Now don't get scared off by the name ... you know liberals really hate these. They're the semiautomatic assault weapon of reloaders, except they're real.

I started reloading with my dad when I was about 10. We never did it as a cost-saving thing, though. It was all about the craft of shooting, which is the other reason to reload, and the main one IMO.

If you want very precise consistency from round to round, mass-produced factory ammo leaves a lot wanting. Even "match grade" factory ammo doesn't undergo anywhere near the quality control that a hand-loaded round does.

Plus, once you've shot enough to be really good at it, you'll notice that different guns prefer different brands of ammo. The simplest example is a rifle that shoots one particular brand of factory ammo better than others. My personal favorite is the Ruger M77/22 bolt action of my dad's. It shoots "hot" .22s like the Stinger, Viper, etc. like crap. Meanwhile, the standard old Remington Golden .22 is just deadly in that thing.

You don't have any direct control over this with a rimfire, but with a centerfire, you can try all sorts of different factory ammo or you can load your own. We spent countless hours working on wringing the maximum performance of various rifles with different loads, and it was a tremendous amount of fun.

The pinnacle of this came for me when I started handgun hunting for deer with a T/C Contender (a/k/a an eevilll single-shot sniper pistol).

The barrel I use for deer is chambered in .30-30 Win., and all the factory offerings in this chambering are designed for a tubular-magazined rifle like the Winchester 94 and not a single-shot pistol. Reloading to the rescue: a 125-135 grain pointed bullet loaded in this thing expands well and is unbelievably accurate, but you can't buy them at the gun shop.

Whether you're looking for a way to lighten the cost of shooting great volumes of ammo or are just looking to wring every ounce of performance out of any given firearm, you should look into reloading.

Tips

If there are topics you're interested in seeing in the gun thread, please send them to AoSHQGunThread at gmail. You can also send them to me on Twitter at @AndyM1911.

posted by Andy at 09:27 AM

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