MidwestPX

I was just talking to him yesterday about some other gun stuff and forgot to ask. I'm still undecided as my daughter's birthday is the 15th but due to schedules, we may not be able to celebrate on the 15th and may have to delay which is more/less what happened to me last year.

This was the most sophisticated phishing scheme I've ever seen. I nearly fell for it because I received it about 10 minutes after it was in the wild from a dealer who I had just recently purchased a suppressor from but I thought it was a little odd so I contacted him through other means and asked if he meant to send that to me. He explained what happened then I started seeing posts from Ars, Gizmodo, Wired, etc. about it.

My FB feed today was tons of reposts/reshares from a year ago. Right in the feels.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/05/john-boch/springfield-armory-rock-river-arms-made-campaign-contributions-to-anti-gun-rights-politicians/ The plot thickens.

I have one on a 6.5C gas gun. I believe I paid around $1200 for it new. At that pricepoint, I think it's a steal. The only things it's missing are zero stop and a cat tail, IMO. The glass quality is good but not great. Next to a Kahles or S&B, you see the difference immediately. But it's good enough for me to engage 0.8MOA targets at 1,450 yards. The reticle is busier than I'd like but it's somewhat useful. "At least it isn't a Horus," was what one of my shooting partners said.

Didn't Ruger do the same back in the 90s? I'm sure those of us who are more informed will take this into account when making purchasing decisions however the average gun owner walking into a gun store probably won't know or care.

Rebarreled one of my 16" .223 guns in 20" .224 Predator. It's a 6.5 Grendel necked down to .224. It uses a Grendel bolt and mags but you can load the 75gr ELD-M to mag length which is something you couldn't do with the AMAX in an AR15. That same bullet comes out of this barrel at over 3K fps and shoots like a laser. Out to 400, it's about one mil of drop. It also has basically zero recoil. Now my problem is to find the right medium power variable optic for it.

Lately I've been doing the opposite and divesting myself of personally owned Glocks. I'm down to five (17, 19, 20, 21, 26). At my peak, I had 3x G19, 2x G17, G20, G21, G26, G29. Once I started focusing more on shooting rather than collecting, I looked at them as guns that weren't being shot and I could sell to fund other gun stuff which is exactly what I did.

I ripped every set of Big Dots I had off my guns after my first class with Vickers. They make hitting reasonably-sized targets beyond 15 yards monumentally difficult. I've been pushing myself to 6-8" targets at 25 yards in preparation for CHE with Yeti this summer and there is no way I could do it with Big Dots considering the difficulty with the Trijicon HDs.

HST for the consistency in expansion and weight retention. Test after test shows Federal got it right with the HST line.

I started with a single folder in my pocket that was pulled double duty as a utility knife and as a potential defensive knife. Since then, I added a small, fixed dagger that is mounted parallel to my belt and at my 11 o'clock (I'm right handed). I've also abandoned liner lock knives completely as I have yet to find one that I trusted at a decent price point. My folder is now a Benchmade Griptillian. I'm also shaking out the addition of a folding karambit and a fixed karambit as a neck knife. My sister is allowed to carry a knife at work but the environment certainly qualifies as a non-permissive environment and due to other aspects of her job, more traditional belt and pocket carry are not an option for her so I thought I'd see how well neck carry works.

Nope. The KAC bolt required a proprietary extension but the LMT doesn't.

Hands down toughest bolt I have come across is LMT's enhanced bolt. Aermet is a ridiculously tough material for the application.

Left to Right: 5.11 Tarani fixed Karambit set up for neck carry, double edge Ban Tang titanium clinch pick, Benchmade Griptillian, and 5.11 Tarani folding karambit. I'm experimenting with what I carry, how I carry it, and where I carry it.

Oh yes, gas guns require a bit of a different approach to shoot well. Consistent preloading is probably what I struggle with most followed by trigger followthrough.

You said you had someone else shoot it already and duplicated the results though?

The stock and upper/lower fit won't matter if you're preloading the rifle properly. To rule out the optic, try swapping another setup on and see if the accuracy improves. If unchanged, there's a problem with the rifle somewhere and it should go back to POF.

Assuming you've eliminated the scope and mount/rings as possible culprits, my guess would be either a bad barrel or a loose barrel.

AIWB is 1-2 while strongside (for a right handed shooter) is typically 3-4 though in my experience, most opt for 4 due to comfort.

Hold on, I've got a good one... I break down a rifle for a more-meticulous-than-usual cleaning and inspection. I'd have to check my log book to be certain but IIRC, this was a test involving an "enhanced" carrier meant to mitigate carrier tilt with piston uppers. So I've got the lower in a vise block in my vise with the buffer and action spring removed so I can better inspect the extension. Satisfied, I begin reassembly when the phone rings. I field the phone call and go back to my reassembly. Lower still in the vise block, I put the upper on, push the pins together and rack the charging handle to do a function test. Except there wasn't any resistance. And the bolt is still to the rear after I let go of the charging handle. Crap. Without looking, I know exactly what's wrong. I forgot to reinstall the buffer and action spring. So what I've got is my carrier sticking halfway into the extension but pretty inaccessible from the ejection port. I can't separate the two halves either because of the carrier being stuck. I try whacking the stock with a rubber mallet to dislodge it but when I rack a charging handle, I jerk on it like I'm separating shopping carts which is usually a good thing. In this case though, I've basically created a friction fit between parts where there shouldn't be a friction fit. I consider dropping the rifle on the muzzle because it's just an A2 flash hider but I don't because if I mess something up, it's probably a more expensive solution than necessary. At this point, I'm cursing loudly at the rifle and at myself (mostly at myself). I'm thinking about ways to get at the carrier that doesn't involve destroying something but can't think of a clever solution so now I'm thinking, "What's the cheapest, least destructive way to fix this cluster?" I pull the stock off and look at the extension. Yep, a beloved (and not cheap) LMT extension is on there. Shit. I say a quick prayer apologizing for what I'm about to do and I grab my drill. I chuck up a 3/8" bit and proceed to enlarge the hole in the rear of the extension. I slip a 1/4" Delrin rod through the hole and push it against the carrier. Now that I know where it is, I mark the rod and cut it down so it's only an inch-ish longer than necessary. Keeping a firm grip on the stub that protrudes, I grab my rubber mallet again and give the rod a solid strike. The sound of the BCG flying forward and locking into battery was the sweetest thing I heard that week. I'd have to look for it but to this day, that extension is in my "you broke this, you idiot" bin.

Every pistol I would pull in a defensive situation has a set of orange Trijicon HD sights. The front site is very fast to acquire in all lighting conditions.

I'm a Kydex-only kind of guy. After years of carrying in a hybrid holster (Comp Tac MTAC), the 1/4" thick leather was too easy to deform for my liking. These days, I carry my M&P full size with a U-boat on it in a RCS VG3 AIWB all day, every day on a stiffened Nylon rigger's belt. If I'm going somewhere where I can carry OWB but still concealed under a jacket, the M&P/U-boat goes into my Peters Custom Holsters Spada. Greg does the Kydex bending thing on the side but is good people and makes a quality holster. Not all Kydex holsters are equal either. There are plenty that have too extreme of a bend, too thin of material, or other issue that doesn't present itself until after some use when repetitive flexing is introduced. I've seen plenty of cracked and broken Kydex holsters that people bought because the holsters were cheap or hyped on social media. Do as much research on your holster and support gear as you do on your blaster.

I genuinely enjoy writing AARs. It gives me a chance to go back through my notes that I scribbled furiously during class, organize my thoughts, and make more sense of what I wrote which I can then incorporate into my practice schedule. I know carbine classes are the sexiest of training classes but for myself, the reality is I am far more likely to use one of my knives and blowout kit than draw my pistol or need a carbine so I make it a point to go after that education too. I really should seek it out more but there's not much in the immediate area and between the shop and having two young children, the chances to travel to train are pretty much nonexistent.

AAR Global Resource Services, LLC. Edged Weapons/Karambit Hosted by Central Iowa Training Group Instructor: Mr. Steve Tarani 4-5 Mar., 2017 Weather: Beautiful. Sunny and mid 60s. But we were indoors. Attendees: Multiple LEOs, two father/son teams, a doctor, a few industry guys, and armed citizens. Two students were also Masters of various martial arts as well. Instructor: Here's his bio from his website, https://www.stevetarani.com Basically, this is a guy who has been there, done that, and made the t-shirts. Steve's training included total immersion in foreign cultures where he learned from the masters who taught his state-side instructors. He literally lived with the tribes for months at a time, learning and developing his skills. His movements are unbelievably fast and precise. This is a man who has truly honed his craft until he simply cannot get it wrong. Gear: Fixed and folding conventional blades as well as karambits Day 1 Safety briefing led the way. Watches, chains, piercings, and anything that went bang came off before we started. Steve, like any quality instructor, put safety before everything else. This day focused solely on fixed blades and folders. We went through grips, positions, movement, and targets. While this was not a knife-fighting class, students needed to understand common vectors and targets of attack to defend against. After the first hour, we were on our feet for the rest of the day. Steve hammered us on access and deployment first. With just an hour of instruction, 80% of the class could draw and deploy a folding knife from concealment and be in a fighting position in under 1.5 seconds. The fastest of the day was 0.97 with a folding karambit (two handed deployment). Myself, using a trainer I had never handled before because my EDC folder was in the mail (long story short, helped move my sister across the country and mailed my gun and knife back to myself), I was turning in 1.03-1.05s deployments. I'm certain that I could have been sub one second if I was using a knife I was familiar with. Compare that with typical draw times and you see immediately why knives are a go-to at ECQC range. From here, we paired off and moved on to techniques to defend against a knife attack. Steve had us changing partners frequently so we would be forced to adapt to different sizes/shapes of attackers. Day one ended with everyone tired, grinning, and some of us, bruised (but still grinning like morons). Day 2 Again, safety led the way. Once we were all ready, we learned a bit of history about the karambit then it was right into working with them. We did a lot of what we did the previous day but with the curved blade. Then we dug into karambit-specfic techniques. I have to say that as someone who had never even held a karambit prior to this class, karambits are amazing tools. They flow like water from one strike to the next. It's so fluid and natural feeling that it really does feel more like an extension of the body than a separate tool. I can't say the same for a folding or fixed blade knife. As the day progressed, so did the difficulty of Steve's drills. His masters taught him that to be master the craft meant to be able to thing about three things in parallel. To facilitate this, he had us start with a rhythm drill (like a boxer uses a speed bag but with a knife). Once we had it down, he had roleplayers ask the operators math questions while doing the drill. Then he added movement where the roleplayer was leading the operator around the room (kind of like dancing but with a knife) while asking math questions that the operator had to solve. Then he started throwing chairs around the room which the operator had to avoid while the roleplayer was leading them around, pushing us even further as we had to incorporate situational awareness into the drill. Sounds easy but it was anything but, I promise. We closed this drill by reducing the space in class to about 10'x25' with seven sets of roleplayers and operators. Once the operator dispatched the roleplayer, the roleplayer was free to engage another operator. If an operator was too slow, he had to handle multiple assailants simultaneously. So multiple assailants in a crowded space with a bunch of people moving around at all times. Sounds like a subway from Hell! In summation, this was my first formal introduction to edged weapons. While I'm not looking for a knife fight, I do feel much more confident with an edged weapon both in my hands as well as defending against one and I have a new set of drills to practice (running out of time in the day...). If Steve comes around you, make it to his class. My thanks to the Central Iowa Training Group for organizing the class, Steve Tarani for the instruction, and Brownells for letting us use their facilities. Without these actors, this never would have come together.

This is not uncommon when competing for gov contracts. Sig did the same when Glock won a DHS (I'm not entirely certain it was DHS but it was one of the alphabet soup agencies) contract.