JonF

Every year I like to take a vacation to Monterrey, CA to watch the US MotoGP with some friends who live in the bay area. A couple years back the company sent me to Seattle for some training the week prior to the GP. Not a problem, i'll just skip the friday practice, fly down friday eve after the seminar and join up with my friends. Well, there's a Cabela's only 1 hr drive from the SeaTac area so of course i went there one evening to grab a few small things (But nothing i knew i couldn't pack ion the suitcase for home). I also went to a local shooting range to waste some time one evening and rented a 10mm pistol for the first time. Since i keep a growing collection of spent cases of every caliber i can find, i grabbed a few to take home. One my way to the airport there was some aweful friday traffic and i had to haul ass through the rental return and up to security. I put my carry on with my goodies and apparently spent shells on the conveyor belt just praying my flight doesn't leave without me. I only realized it when i was standing there impatiently waiting for my bag to go through that the stuff was in the bag and i immediately turned white with panic. The bag went through, came out the other side like it was all ok but guy went and backed the conveyor up and my bag through the x-ray again to take another look. I watched the guy scrutinize the screen with more intensity and concern this time but then turned to me and said, "its clear". A wave of relief immediately fell over me as i grabbed my stuff and sprinted to the gate. I still don't know what he saw that caused him alarm initially but i suppose a few loose shells in the bottom plus some gun cleaning tools must have been the reason. I thought for sure he was gonna open it up. Hell, every time i bring a helmet on an airplane, they fully inspect my helmet bag and look at me like "WTF are you bringing a helmet on an airplane for?"

I started going to the pistol range with a friend who was working as a gov't IT contractor and being routinely sent to various places in the middle east to set up infrastructure. As part of his job, he was to receive firearms training so he wanted to buy a gun of his own to practice with. We went to the range for a few months and rented various stuff and he settled on a G17. I enjoyed shooting with him and so I decided to pursue my FOID and get some permits myself. At time time (And boy did i end up wrong) i thought i would just get 1 or 2 pistols to play with. I decided i would make it count the first time and spend the money to get something that was accurate and a good shooter as the idea of practical shooting appealed to me. I settled on a CZ75 SP01 custom from Angus Hobdell's shop and still have it to this day. Love that gun, its really a sweet shooter, very accurate and feels great in the hands. Over time i found myself with a bit more than 1 or 2 guns and still enjoying the sport more than ever.

Anyone have a link to a pic/breakdown of these rifles? I'm curious to see what the hubbub is all about.

Yesterday i took the AA kit out for some more testing. My friend gave me a box of Blazer LRN 22 and i also bought a box of Golden Bullets to try. Contrary to AA's advise, the Blazer operated 100%. I'll be on the lookout for a case of this stuff as i've used it before in all my other .22's without issue as well. The Golden bullets worked 99% too which is acceptable. I shot the entire brick of 525 that day to torture test it. Between my buddy and i, we had a total of 7 AA mags and he was reloading them as fast as he could while i just repeatedly ragged out a large shoot-n-see in a semi-rapid fire fashion. There were a few issues with the GB's but only few FTE's out of the whole brick with a dud here and there that wouldn't fire on a second strike. One annoying thing about the GB's is they leave little golden specs everywhere. After housing the whole brick, it looked like i had spilled gold glitter all over my hands and gun. Real dirty stuff. I liked the Blazer much better.

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It snaps a pic every 60 seconds.

So i decided to work from home today and avoid the mess. While i was sitting there in the office i thought it would be interesting to chronicle the progression of the snowfall outside the window. I just happened to have received a GoPro Hero camera that also does time lapse in a user settable increment which would be perfect for this. I set it up on the window sill mid morning and let it run until sundown. I like how the tree slowly sags and sways early on under the weight of the snow and the setting of the sun later. you can also see the road get plowed and cleaned and then fill back in over time again and again. VtxRIuRBOfk

Dude, this mauser was so full of cosmo, when you cocked the bolt and pulled the trigger, you could watch the rear of striker fall like it was in slow motion! You could use the bolt as a damper for your screen door it was so sluggish. My mosins only ever had a thin film coating here and there but the the interior of this was so packed full, i could have reclaimed enough to recoat several other guns. For stuff that bad, the heat gun works but again its the crevasses that are hard to get it out of. I do use brake cleaner too but i noticed that sometimes it counteracts itself because when you spray it, the liquid is ice cold which solidifies the cosmo preventing it from draining away cleanly. What about those various chemicals you see in home improvement stores? MEK? Xylene? Toulene? acetone? are these too hazardous to use indoors?

Ed Zachary. For the shooter its fine, but a few degrees off and you *will* lose your hat. Clearly Re Re has never experienced this first hand.

The first time i ever shot an AR was a friend's bushmaster with a compensator. I sat at the shooting bench next to him spotting while he shot first. I couldn't believe how loud it was and even more uncomfortable was the pressure wave bouncing off the little roof over the table. In the open it was fine, but under that little awning it pretty bad.

I was just about to post a rant on cosmo... I just got done cleaning up a Yugo Mauser for 6 hours that was equally encased in a tomb of cosmoline. Generally i use a combination of my heat gun to soften the thick stuff and then soak and scrub the small parts in low odor mineral spirits. I'm not too thrilled with the spirits because while they help when scrubbing relatively clean parts, it doesnt dissolve gunk that i cant reach with a brush. Its just not aggresive enough. Time to find a better solvent that wont harm old metal finish. I wonder if kerosene works?

Hi Greg TPM ridercoach? We may havesome mutual acquaintences then. I too am relatively new as i've only been at dirt riding for a few years. Between myself and some other folks that we ride with, we span the novice to intermediate skill range but since we're just trail riding, you'll be comfortable riding down here and have a blast doing it. I too came from a street background and i think that helped accelerate learning to ride dirt as i could focus on specfiic technique and not worry about basic motorcycle operation. I'll def give you a call soon when the pines finally melt!

Eric, what has been your experience with the accuracy of this rifle? Waht sort of groups does it shoot and at what range? Does it require a lengthy cooldown of the barrel to keep consistent?

Mixing a dummy or snap cap in a mag of live ammo is good for identifying the issue and works on the principle of reducing the anticipation some but i found a better exercise that i both have personally used and have flinchy new shooters do. "The progressive squeeze" 1. With a live loaded gun, you take aim and put your finger on the trigger and prepare to fire. Only now, you don't immediately pull the trigger all the way to fire, rather, you give it a light squeeze but not nearly enough to fire the gun, then let all pressure off the trigger. 2. Begin to squeeze the trigger again, this time with *more* pressure, but still less than whats required to fire the gun. 3. Continue this progression of squeezing the trigger with more and more pressure and letting off until it finally fires. The idea here is to condition the anticipation out of your trigger pulls because you know in the beginning nothing is actually going to happen. With nothing happening, there is no loud bang to anticipate. When the gun does fire, the idea is that it will be a complete surprise to you and if the exercise works, you were not anticipating the fire event and your aim should be true. Give it a try, i think you'll be pleasantly surprised how effective it is.

I greg, i got you PM. We do various type of rides from easy road/trail exploration to more technical enduro style runs. Wahts your skill level? I'll definitely keep you info handy. If there is enough interest, i'd like to organize a ride some time in the spring.

Primarily i have been exploring lebanon but next year i'll start to check out wharton as well. i'm looking to get involved in some organized light enduro and dual sport events which generally take place in those locales. Not looking to compete per se, just get informed of good areas to ride that are legit.

Mosins and pee pee sha's everywhere! Towards the end, it looks like the soldier in the trench was experiencing the classic mosin "sticky bolt" syndrome.

Toughen up, will you? Haven't you had enough carnage already? 8-)

The past few years i have been transitioning from riding on-road to more off-road as i've found great enjoyment in exploring the vast expanse of adventure riding. A few years back i picked up a cheap, used DRZ400 to tool around on but between not knowing where or who to ride with and other obligations, i never rode more than a few times/year casually. My bike was always street legal, but i never registered it as it was only a toy to mess around on. Last year i decided to plate it after I found some good legal places in the pines to explore through places like advrider.com and rode more in a month than i did the past 3-4 years. I also have a couple riding buddies that i regularly ride with and one of them i passed my old DRZ onto to make way for my new KTM 690 enduro. In the past i would always end up carting the bike to PA where there were ORV parks since the one in NJ has long since closed but now i can ride a short jaunt and the pines are my oyster! I have a Delorme GPS that i ride with so i can track my routes and mark good roads and find my way out of some of the bigger areas such as Lebanon an Wharton. I also have a copy of the Trans New Jersey Trail which is a 1000 mile, mostly dirt, route that starts at high point state park in sussex county and snakes its way back and forth across the state while making its ay down to cape may. I'll be exploring more of this route in the season ahead (just as soon as the 4' of snow melts off the trails). I'm sure there's some other DS riders out there in nj gun land! If you ride, your bike is street legal and want to get together sometime to ride the pines, post up! When we ride we usually meet in the morning at a convenient location, ride a bit, get lunch, ride a bit more and then head back. Jon KTM 690e

So far, the mk23 definitely takes top honors in the "too big for its caliber" class.

Check out one of his related vids.. he jumps a mini-bike and his pants fall down on the landing. nDNK8V9Qz_c&feature=related

I bet even Gene is probably surprised at what he uncovers sometimes. "Oh, i remember that!"

That's exactly what happens with mine as well. Every jam in the vid i posted required manual removal of the unejected case and the new one jammed up against it.

A Limbsaver (small) fits the butt of a Mosin perfectly.

Yet oddly they sell every single one they make! They won't change a thing since people continue to gobble them up no questions asked.