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Gun Thread: 9/11/22 Edition

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Twenty-one years ago today, our country was attacked by cowardly assholes. I hope you will join me in taking a moment to remember not only those who were lost outright, but also those who continue to suffer from the effects, both physically and emotionally, to this very day. Thanks.

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

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Public Service Announcement
Last week I included a schedule of shooting events for the 2022 TXMoMe, and as promised it has been moved down below for reference. After publishing the thread and re-reading what I'd written, it occurred to me I'd made the whole event sound like it involved nothing but shooting, and nothing could be further from the truth! To be fair, shooting does comprise a large part of the planned festivities, but lots and lots of people attend who do not participate in the shooting at all and have a great time just hanging out and socializing. There is always plenty to eat and drink, as well as lots of laughs and camaraderie. Please, if you are not a shooter, don't let that deter you from coming!

Are you an introvert or socially awkward? Do you smell? Each year we have lots of smelly and socially awkward introverts who attend and love every minute. No kidding! This is a seriously relaxed and no-pressure event and you are only cheating yourself if you don't come see what it's all about.

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Super Badass!
Annnnnd we have a hands-down winner in the "Coolest Gun Ever" contest! Our pal and Air Force F-16 pilot SPinRH_F-16 makes all of you girly-men cry tears of inadequacy and shame as he walks away with all of the range babes after this epic range report!

I dug up a photo from 2003 of my dedicated crew chief, my favorite plane, and my favorite gun, the M61A1 Vulcan 20mm cannon, and me. Unfortunately, you can't really see the actual cannon in the photo, only the gun port. F-16.net has a decent article about the weapon and some photos of a Viper with enough of its panels removed to see the cannon inside the jet, plus some schematics.

By the time I'd begun flying, gunsights in the jets had been upgraded to the point that aerial gunnery training was superfluous, so I never employed it live in the air-to-air mode. Trips to a live air-to-ground bombing/gunnery range were infrequent but welcome, and we normally trained to a low-angle strafe attack; sometimes to a high-angle strafe attack if the range allowed it. The target was a white parachute-sized cloth tied up between two telephone poles; the number of hits on the target were determined by an acoustic sensor underneath the "Rag" (jargon for the cloth target). We normally had enough fuel and ammunition for two strafe passes if we'd managed our fuel correctly during bombing practice.

There's nothing in the world like it: Hurling yourself at over 500mph at Planet Earth trying to find a tiny white dot in a sand pit 2,000' below you and just over a mile away; then finding said tiny white dot while lining your aircraft up for the attack pass quicker than you thought was humanly possible; then getting your aircraft and your sight picture stabilized on your final attack heading; then squeezing the trigger and holding for a second listening to the "Chainsaw" while the tiny white dot got marginally bigger but said Planet was rushing upward in your peripheral vision awfully fast; noticing ever-so-briefly where your rounds were landing in relation to the "Rag"; then snatching the stick back both smoothly but "Expeditiously," pitching the jet up at 5G into level flight or a slight climb; subsequently rolling the aircraft as if you were standing it on a wingtip so you could begin a 5G turn to clear the target for your wingman's attack in order to finally return to the range airspace's flight pattern. From the time you rolled onto your final attack heading with a radio call to the range "Mace Zero-One's in hot" until you've rolled out onto your post-attack heading was no more than about 20 seconds. Being on your attack run for more than a handful of seconds was considered a gross error. Sometimes if you were unlucky you were still listening to the radio to hear if the range control officer had cleared you to perform the attack while trying to focus on lining up your jet and flying the symbology onto the target, but most of the time attack clearance came through while you were completing your base-to-final turn. Strafing was one of the most fun things we did in a jet that could do almost anything; but nearly everything we did while flying it was fun.

I wrote the paragraph above sequentially with no paragraph breaks intentionally. In the time it takes one to read that paragraph, two F-16s have performed their attack and the third just called for clearance. It happens rapidly.

Dude. Duuuuuude. This is really bigly awesome - Thank you!! Everyone -show of hands if you would like him to bring his jet to the TXMoMe and give us all rides!

SPinRH_F-16 cannot participate in real time because he's out slipping those surly bonds, but will answer questions if you ask in the comments and I'll post them next week.

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Next up we have a report from our pal blaster on sharon (willow's apprentice) and her new 1911.

Sharon (willow's apprentice) purchased a Kimber Aegis Elite Custom OI (Optics Installed) in 9mm. Her only concern was with the grips which are heavily textured G10, and it was not comfortable in her hands. She wanted to get a smoother grip that was a little slimmer, so she acquired replacements from Duragrips. One thing to note, the Aegis is a "round heel" 1911 so the aftermarket is not as plentiful. Kimber does offer some round heel replacement grips on their website. They are made from giraffe bone and cost $357.

A little parking lot gunsmithing later, and the new grips were affixed, and ready to go.

Pace GEN Patton, it looks pretty good.

The Aegis ships with a Vortex 6 MOA red dot. First order of business on the range was to dial that in. swa fired her pistol for the first time with a 3 round group very low and to the left. Time to adjust. It was way off, so 6 clicks up, 6 clicks right. Next 3 rounds were pretty much in the same place. The OI is not meant to co-witness, but the iron sights are usable without the red dot - but looking at it, the dot was not even close on windage. More clicks. A full turn and some more clicks. Learning point: Out of the box, the red dot was WAY off, and the adjustment dials do not move the point of aim as much as you might be used to. Ideally, we would have aligned with a boresight laser prior. Would have saved a little time.

But even with that, it did not take long to dial it in. Soon enough swa and I were putting holes in the bullseye(ish). I also brought along sra blaster's Kimber Raptor II in .45, with iron sights, as a comparison other. At 7 yards, we were achieving similar results with the two pistols, so mission accomplished.

We pulled the target back and patched it, and then, very uncharacteristically, I blew out the bullseye with 5 shots - I usually am an "okay" shooter. The guy in the next lane peers around the divider and asks "is that a 1911?" And his buddy comes up to the line and says "I am NOT breaking into your house!" I was thinking hey I got a little range cred and they both looked over at swa's pistol and said "what is that!" My 15 seconds of fame was over, and they wanted to know about the Aegis. They LOVED it. The guy was looking at it and handling it so we offered to let him shoot it. He brought over a box of 9mm and loaded up and blam blam blam etc. I said, pretty good for right out of the box, huh? He asked how many rounds through it - I said, umm, 20 or 30. He was very impressed. He also shot the Raptor and liked that, too.

Then he asks swa (not me) - you want to shoot a Nighthawk? She said sure and he brings out a commander length pistol that weighed about half a normal 1911. I was thinking it was a Kimber Night Patrol, but, no, it is was a Nighthawk - I looked it up later, with the optic he had on it, its about a $5000 pistol. swa picked it up and blam blam blam etc. and all those rounds right in the center. Both guys offer up "I am NOT breaking into your house!" He also showed us his carry gun which was a Wilson Combat in 9mm.

The guy was headed out, he left his box of Wolf behind as a courtesy, so swa and I decided to use it up. Often you will hear Wolf derided as "dirty" ammo. It is indeed. About 15 rounds of it and the glass on the optic was smudged - we had to clean it off after shooting that stuff.

Thanks Blaster, and that's a nice-looking pistol, s(wa)!

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Next up our pal Butch shares his Colt M1908.

Colt M1908 Pocket Hammerless - Chambered in .380 ACP; pretty much identical to the .32 ACP M1903. Yet another two JMB (PBUH) designs. According to the serial number, it was manufactured in 1922. I think it is incredibly elegant, a gentleman's pistol. About three years ago somebody broke into my house and stole this and two other handguns. About a year later, I got a call from the sheriff's office: it turned up in a pawn shop. Happy dance!

Very nice and congratulations on recovering the pistol!

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Our pal and enormous hat-wearer 10 Gallon Hat sends an excellent and very informative video on the .22LR cartridge. Careful! Learning is possible. Thanks 10 Gallon Hat!

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Our pal "Perfessor" Squirrel not only brings us bigly excellent the Sunday Book Thread, but Gun Thread content, too! PS writes:

Very interesting concept. Not sure how practical it is just yet. But technology keeps improving. 300 shots per battery charge, very little noise and virtually no recoil. However, accuracy is still terrible (non-rifled) and the muzzle velocity is only about 200 ft/s.

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40 Days!
The countdown to the TXMoMe continues! That's right, boys and girls, the TXMoMe is a mere 40 days from today, and by now you should be rushing your MoMe attendance plans to completion. There are lots of big doin's in the works and your hosts Rancher Bob, Cow Horse Queen and Ben Had are ready to welcome YOU to the festivities! Have you signed up? Are you on the exclusive guest list, or are you one of the mentally defective people who always finds a reason to make it next year?

PRO TIP: Word has it there may be some, well let's just call them "exotic" weapons, available to shoot in Texas. I don't want to go into a bunch of specifics, but if you like shooting at a high cyclic rate, plan on bringing a box of brass case 9mm ball ammo (example) with you to Texas. Please, NO reloads!

Q: Weasel, what the heck is a "high cyclic rate"?
A: Well, it's faster than a low cyclic rate such as that found on semi-automatic weapons.

Q: Weasel, why do I want to do that?
A: Because it is mucho fun-o, and an opportunity that many of you might not have often.

As long as we're on the subject, if you aren't planning to bring a firearm and ammo, but plan on shooting, please pick up a box or two of ammo in the caliber you like and bring it to Texas. Each year we have lots and lots of guns, and even more shooters, and it's nice have the cost and effort needed to source the ammunition spread around a bit. We want to make the shooting available to as many as possible, and cover those who want to shoot but for whatever reason cannot bring ammo, so every little bit helps. Thank you!

Holy Shitballs, people. Have I not implored and cajoled you enough? Do you require additional imploring and cajoling? I challenge you to find a single person who has attended a TXMoMe and not found it to be a life altering experience. Life altering for the good even! So please quit screwing around and making up reasons not to commit and start planning on getting your ass to Texas in October!

You will see this material again, so for heaven's sake, so do yourself a favor and email Ben Had for details!

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Schedule O' TXMoMe Doin's

This seems like a good time to talk a little bit about the upcoming shooting program at the TXMoMe. What started years ago as an informal plinking session lasting a couple of hours has matured into a full program of shooting activities over two days. I have to thank Ben Had, Cow Horse Queen and RancherBob for allowing the shooting to comprise such a significant portion of the TXMoMe.

For a while I have been conducting a Rifle Clinic on Friday morning followed by range time Friday afternoon and then again well in to Saturday. We have also been steadily refining the handgun portion of the program to now include an IDPA-esque move-and-shoot pistol course designed and run by Ben Had and Nurse R, as well as the usual static pistol range for those who prefer that.

Anyhoo, here's a very rough outline of the schedule of events. Times are tentative and subject to modification/change. I'll move this down to the TXMoMe section below in the coming weeks and update as necessary.

Friday, 10/21
Rifle Program
8am - 10:30am: Rifle Clinic (carport)
11:30am - 1pm: Rifle Clinic, Intro to Wind Estimation (rifle range)
1pm - 4pm: Live fire (rifle range)

Handgun Program
10:30am - Noon: Handgun Clinic (carport)
1pm - 2:30pm: Static live fire (pistol range)
2:30 - 4pm: Briefing and Move & Shoot live fire (pistol range)

Saturday, 10/22
Rifle Program
8:30am - 1pm: Live fire (rifle range)

Handgun Program
9am - 1pm: Live fire (pistol range)

Again, these times are approximate and may change as weather conditions and participation warrant. I have been doing the same presentation on rifles for a number of years now, so if you would like me to cover new or different material, just mention it in the comments or send me an email!

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More on Ammo for Texas
Let's talk a little more about bringing ammunition to the TXMoMe. The options are buy it at home and ship it UPS, buy it at home and ship it in your airline checked baggage, or just buy it once you get to Texas.

Let's begin with the easiest, first. Texas is awash in shooting and outdoor stores, and you really shouldn't have any trouble using this option. There are a lot of sporting goods stores on the south side of Dallas and in the towns all the way down I-45 to Corsicana. A quick internet search should return several options, and you might want to identify a couple before you leave home. Next, there is a store in Corsicana, Brinson PowerSports, that has a generally reliable stock of major calibers, although ammo is not listed on their website. I'd suggest calling first and asking if they have what you're looking for. The physical address and phone number is:

Brinson PowerSports
1931 Martin Luther King Blvd.
Corsicana, TX 75110
903-229-4330

Honestly, sourcing ammo locally seems like the most logical choice to me, but for those of you with special needs, it's pretty easy to fly with ammunition in your checked baggage. Here I am speaking in very general terms and it is incumbent upon YOU to check in advance with your airline, confirm the requirements, and comply with them.

Southwest Airlines is a popular option into the Dallas area, and I have found them to be gun friendly as far as these things go. Here is what I found on the Southwest Airlines Special Baggage webpage:

Packing Ammunition Small arms ammunition for personal use (provided it is properly packed) is permissible in checked baggage only.

The ammunition may be placed in the same container as the firearm and must be securely packed in cardboard (fiber), wood, or metal boxes, or other packaging specifically designed to carry small amounts of ammunition.

Ammunition Limits
When checking ammunition, Customers are limited to 11 pounds (ammunition plus container) per person. Gunpowder (black powder) and primers or percussion caps are not allowed in checked or carryon baggage.

Loose ammunition or loose loaded magazines and/or clips are not allowed. Paintballs must be packaged in a leak-proof container and will be subject to limited release.

So my read is that ammunition in its original cardboard container is all you need, and it does not have to be locked inside another container inside your bag as required for a firearm, and you are allowed up to 11 pounds carried in this fashion. Although the instructions are silent on declaring the ammunition to airline personnel, again as you must do when transporting a firearm, I think it's probably a good idea to do so. You may or may not be allowed to check your baggage curbside when traveling with ammunition, so be prepared for a little extra time at the counter. Again, this is my interpretation and as we all know I am mostly full of shit, so check for yourselves.

Every airline has a section like this on their website, usually found in the baggage section, and you may have to dig around a little to find it. I also recommend printing your specific airline's policy and bringing it with you on the trip, just in case you need to help the ticket agent understand how to do their job. I will say in all the years of flying all over the country to matches, I have never once had any problem with airline personnel and their rules and have always found them well informed and helpful.

Finally, if you are really a special needs shooter, our bestest buddy and pal and host RancherBob has offered to allow people to ship their ammunition to the ranch. I would recommend this only in very unique circumstances where very specific ammunition is required and neither of the other, simpler options will work. If this is you, then contact me for details. I have shipped ammunition via UPS in the past and it works, but there are strict packaging and labeling requirements and also necessitates you visit an actual UPS location rather than a retail shipping store. Also remember, you cannot ship ammunition via USPS.

Questions? Just ask!

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Musical Interlude
Brushy One String

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Gun Basics 101
New content from the She Equips Herself Gal! A handgun made for 'ettes?

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Cigar of the Week
Our pal and Chief Gun Thread Cigar Correspondent rhomboid brings it with another excellent cigar review.

Today is La Aroma de Cuba Edicion Especial, a nice simple medium beauty.

Another from the Aroma de Cuba line, this one their Edicion Especial, which was apparently reworked a few years ago to be a little less mild. A solid, accessible medium is the result. Ecuador wrapper, Nicaraguan leaf inside. This is the No.1, or toro size, which received a pretty lofty 94 rating from Cigar Afficionado. I have to agree with the raters' notes on flavor - pleasant wood, and a sweet tobacco/generally sweet tone. Excellent construction, even burn. Recommended for cigar fans of all preferences, but an especially good option for those looking to try something a bit stronger than a purely mild cigar. Available for around $7 online.

I need to check these out. Thanks rhomboid!

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Here is a vid from the Cigar Vixen archives:

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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.

Cigarsinternational.com
Cigarpage.com
Famous-smoke.com
Cigarsdaily.com
Neptunecigar.com
Smallbatchcigar.com

NEW! from our pal Pilot141: Bobalu Cigar Company check them out!

Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who make a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!

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Ammunition Link-O-Rama

I'm really very seriously not kidding around anymore. Buy Ammo
AmmoSeek - online ammo search tool
GunBot - online ammo search tool
SG Ammo
Palmetto State Armory
Georgia Arms
AmmoMan
Target Sports USA
Bud's Gun Shop

***Mail Bag***

This week's mailbag entry is from our pal Ladyl!

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Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!

That's it for this week - have you been to the range?