sixminus1

I'm late to this thread, but I have a Buckmark Sporter rifle (the one pictured -- iron sights, narrower tapered barrel). It's over-priced for a .22 rifle, but I got it anyway, mostly because I get a kick out of it. It's the big brother to my buckmark pistol. So, to me it was worth the money. It's a nice gun, but there are some things about the design that you just need to accept. First, it's really just a buckmark pistol wtih a stock and a longer barrel. So, it has some of the inherent distastes for certain brands of .22 LR that most buckmarks have. My buckmarks hate loading winchester, refuse to fire remington, tolerate Federal Bulk and CCI Blazer (but Blazer is dirty), enjoy CCI SV/MM, and absolutely love Wolf MT. Wolf MT is also dirty but the feeding and accuracy are the best out of every ammo I've tried. It's comfortable, but length of pull is a little short for my taste. Wear safety glasses while firing because the design lends itself to getting a little powder in your face from time to time. Keep your face a safe distance from the slide unless you want your nose broken. Don't plan on making many modifications - if you want to mod, get a 10/22. It has a scope rail, but the iron sights are perfect for my purposes, and the red and green fiber-optics are neat. Magazine interchangability with my buckmark pistol is a plus. Random Note: Those silly magazine loaders are a fantastic addition to the range bag if you have any buckmarks. Biggest problem I have is probably a manufacturing flaw specific to my rifle -- the slide hold-back lever has a bit too much upward play, so when the mag is empty, the lever can sometimes get pushed upward too far to naturally fall back down when a new mag is put in and the slide is pulled back. Not a huge deal to me. I don't mind popping the lever back down as I pull the slide back. I'm actualy considering removing the lever entirely. Just check that lever on whatever rifle you look at. I'd give it 8/10 overall -- it's a good (if expensive) little plinker. Compact gun. Easy for the kids to handle, and lots of fun. EDIT: Added more about ammo.

Yes. I have one remington electric saw, one homelite gas saw, and one husqvarna gas saw. I would welcome more. Got a woodstove a few years ago. Local tree services bring logs to my house for free. I cut, split, and stack the firewood. It's a bit strange to answer "heating my home" when asked about hobbies.

It really is as simple as the police department marking the permit as "extended". Mine didn't even have the original issue date changed -- they just took a pen and marked them. Also, my girlfriend dropped the permits off and picked them up again after the extension. Give it a shot. At worst you're in the same situation. But it'll probably get you 90 more days for very little effort

I have nearly the same safe, only a bit narrower, and without an electronic lock (EX14). Similar deal from costco in April 2009. Shipping charges included in the price make it a good deal. It took a couple of weeks to ship from California. I paid the truck driver a few extra bucks to help me get the safe up the front steps and into the front door. I took it from there. I'm very happy with it. Suits my needs perfectly. It's well-built, and the outlet is a great feature. I have a dehumidifier rod, and a 16" flourescent light plugged in. The shelf brackets are standard size, so it was easy for me to add an additional shelf myself. I would say go for it and get the EX20. For the price, you really can't go wrong.

This is exactly the kind of story that antis tend to ignore when the CCW or open carry conversations come up. http://www.app.com/article/20100629/NEWS05/100629003/NJ-dad-beaten-to-death-during-walk-with-family-teen-suspects-may-be-tried-as-adults

Initial FID application (Dec 2008 - Mar 2009): 1. Application type (FID/permit w/ existing FID). Initial FID w/1 pistol permit 2. Police Department where you applied. Brick Township 3. Name of the person you dealt with at the PD. Dealt with a few different folks. All decent. No hassles. 4. Time taken to issue FID and/or permit. 14 weeks 5. Documents required by the PD (aside from the standard application and the mental health release form). None. They included a nice checklist and summary, though. 6. Notes - anything pertaining to the application process (unforeseen difficulties, chief of police calling your home, you hiring an attorney, etc.). None. More Pistol Permits (Nov 2009 - Jan 2010): 1. Application type (FID/permit w/ existing FID). 3 Pistol Permits 2. Police Department where you applied. Brick Township 3. Name of the person you dealt with at the PD. Dealt with a few different folks. All decent. No hassles. 4. Time taken to issue FID and/or permit. 8 weeks. 5. Documents required by the PD (aside from the standard application and the mental health release form). None. 6. Notes - anything pertaining to the application process (unforeseen difficulties, chief of police calling your home, you hiring an attorney, etc.). I was unemployed when applying. I called and spoke to a detective who said it was fine to list that on the application. Turns out he was right, as the permits came through smoothly.

Keep an eye on Costco.com (of all places). I got a good deal on a Cannon gun safe in April of 2009. It was $550 with a coupon from the circular, and the price included delivery. http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.as ... d=11379012

As mentioned, the 597 is definitely an entry-level gun. I bought one on sale at Kislin's back in spring 2009. Out of the box, there are a few annoying things about it... the stock feels cheap, the trigger is heavy, and the bolt hold-open mechanism is flimsy. As for reliability, the rifle has been great. I have 5 "3rd-generation" mags, and they've been fine. I got a VQ hammer, which made the trigger a lot lighter. Also, Boyd's often has sales on less-than-perfect stocks. I picked up a nice stock that just needed some sanding and finish for $40. With a cheap scope (which I already owned), I've been getting very good groups. So, for about $300 including the new hammer and the stock, I got a decent shooter. Its favorite ammo is Mini-Mags, followed by Wolf MT, but it will cycle and shoot pretty much anything. Standard diet is Blazer bulk. Just stay away from Winchester Super X if you decide to get this gun. There's something about them that it hates -- I suspect it's the shape of the casing. And to be fair, everyone is right about never having too many .22s... I still want a 10/22 and a Marlin 60... and a Buckmark Rifle, and a Henry Survival Rifle, and a Neos pistol, and.... you get the picture

Just a quick note to any buckmark owners out there -- after about 8000 rds through my BM Practical URX (essentially just a Camper), 50% of my rounds were misfires (click no bang). I took the gun apart and saw the firing pin in the following condition. Notice that the bottom corner of the business end of the pin is cracked off. Ordered a new pin from Browning for a whopping $2.50. It's easy to replace if you're comfortable with taking the barrel off and getting the recoil spring and guide rode assembly out of the slide. Here's the link to the full thread and the replacement procedure on rimfire central. There's a great pictorial that shows exactly how to do it. http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303649

A friend and I want to go shooting from his boat out in the ocean some time this summer. For no other reason than it would be fun to float some targets out and fire away. Possibly shoot at some clays. I'm wondering if anyone has ever done this, what the legality is, and if it would simply be considered the same as transporting the firearms from home to a legal shooting area. I did a search and came up with something from the firing line saying that when you come back from outside the 3-mile limit, you're importing the weapon: http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/sho ... stcount=15 The last thing we need is to get tangled up in some sort of gun-importation-related legal dispute with the Coast Guard. Anyone have any experience with this?

Brick Armory, and hopefully Central Jersey in the near future.

Pardon my ignorance, but is this piece legal in NJ? I'm shopping for a 22LR rifle, and I'd LOVE one of these.

By the 90th day of waiting I was pretty annoyed. I called the PD, and politely said that I just wanted to check up on the progress of the paperwork. The person I spoke with said that they were just waiting for one piece to come back, but they would "move my app to the top of the list". Not sure if they really did that, but exactly a week later I got the phone call that the app was approved and my FID ready to be picked up. Either way, I believe the old saying that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

Thanks for all the suggestions. "Way off the mark" is usually 12" groups at 10-15yds. Trapping and resetting the trigger helped right away. I was able to pace myself, and I felt like I had more control after each pull of the trigger. I also worked on keeping both eyes open. I noticed that when I'm focused ("in the zone", etc), the shots just seem to go where they're supposed to, and I can just squint my left eye without throwing off my view of the front sight. Keeping the left eye open completely is distracting, but I'll see if that can be worked on. I think that a lot of my extra unwanted movement is fatigue. I have three magazines. My GF and I take turns going through all three. We're both seeing that the first and second are much better than the third. Over time, I think we'll both develop the strength to keep the gun steady through the last ten rounds. It's interesting that even though the gun doesn't weigh much at all, holding it steady at arm's length (or close to it) is really a challenge! I have to keep practicing, even if it's just dry-firing. Snap-caps are cheap, but I don't have any yet. Can I use spent casings to dry-fire? I thought about doing the spring-flip, but I'm going to wait a while before I take the gun apart. The procedure is bookmarked, though :-)

I'm new to pistols, and just recently bought a browning buck mark. After a couple of thousand rounds of different brand and style 22LR ammo have been through the BM, I now trust that it will be reliable with almost any kind of ammo. My attention is now starting to turn toward accuracy. The best groups of 10 I'm able to get right now are 1" at 5yds, 2-3" at 10yds, and 5" at 25 yds. Really not as bad as I thought I would be, but I know I can do better. There's a lot of information out there. Some of the technique feels unnatural, and sometimes I get better results by not even thinking and just firing. Keep in mind that my rambling has nothing to do with "tactical" situations -- I'm concentrating on getting better groups on the target, so there's no time limit, and it's a quiet, controlled environmnet. 1.) I know that I need some warm-up time before I settle in and my shots start coming together. Does the gun need to be warmed up as well? The first two mags are always WAY off the mark, and I'm wondering if that's me and the gun, or just me? 2.) Both eyes open, or just one eye open? I'm right-handed/right-eye dominant. I'm keeping my left eye closed, and trying like hell not to tilt my head. Should I be keeping both eyes open? 3.) "Comfortable" grip, or "tight" grip? I've read that one should grip the gun as tightly as possible, but I've gotten better groups by gripping it securely and just letting it do its thing. 4.) Squeezing the trigger was an immediate improvement over "slapping" it, but I'm not sure what to do with the trigger after the shot. Should I hold the trigger in, or let it go right away? 5.) I have long fingers. The grip of the gun is comfortable, but to give myself another half-inch so I don't feel like my hand is getting crunched up, I've been raking my index finger along the bottom-inside of the trigger guard, and catching the trigger at its bottom point. This also allows me to use the friction of my finger against the guard to pull more slowly. Is this wrong? Should the index finger fall into the "pocket" of the trigger? 6.) Finally, what is a good group with a buck mark at 25 yds?