Shane45

But... the safety is the size of a tic tac

I have a good deal of experience in this area as I am still on this journey as we speak. My advice is likely to be quite different than others here. Metalurgy and metalworking are the key! Although I guess it really relates to what level of gunsmith you aspire to be.Armorer classes will qualify you to be, well an armorer. It will give you specific product knowledge and what makes an actual gunsmith a gunsmith is a wide spectrum of knowledge across many platforms. But it wont give you waht you need outside of basic troubleshooting and parts swapping. I would not be so quick to dismiss online classes. Im sure there are a lot of crappy ones just like I am sure there are a lot of crappy in class schools too. You have to research and find out whats what. My biggest question is what kind of Gunsmith do yu want to be? Do you want to be a general gunsmith working on minor problems or do you want to be a gunsmith capable of full custom work? Do you intend to specialise in a specific area. I do not consider myself a gunsmith as I specialise in key areas. The way I approach problems alows me to work on other platforms if need be but I always make sure I dont take on anything to far outside of my wheel house. My focus was/is on 1911's. I started the very fist online pistolsmithing class. I figured that an inustructor using a known recipe of parts would be able to lead a class using a private forum, pictures and detailed lesson plans to teach a class. I found an instructor who was a known smith with a background in teaching gunsmithing. He accepted the challange and the class was born. It was terrifically successfull and even made it into the pages of American Handgunner. The value of the class was learning the methodology. That was they key. But it was clear to me that understanding metal, and how to manipulate it, would really add an enormouse amount of ability to the skillset. So I put down the tools to build 1911's and I picked up the tools to work metal. I had been advised by the likes of Chuck Rogers and George Smith that it is supremely easier to turn a machinist into a gunsmith than it was to to turn a gunsmith into a machinist. After a while of getting enough machinist knowledge to be dangerouse, I found it added a tremendouse amount to my ability to build a 1911. It gave me the deeper understanding as to why. SOOOO my recomendation would be to seek out opportunities to learn how to operate a manual lathe and a manual mill. Always keeping an eye on how they might apply to the firearms world. If your good at reading and applying what you have read, you could even opt to aquire a low end bench top mill and just start having at it on scap metal to learn. Im particulerly fond of this method. Here is a pic of my first 1911 built. It was built from the ground up hand fitting EVERY part on the pistol and doing the finish myself as well. She has been run hard and put away wet and still runs like a champ and remains tight and accurate!

I like FN, I do! But EVERY FN product I have owned just seems to always have a few annoyances and issues that accompany them. Always seems to be things I dont like about the firearm mixed with an odd bug or two. In pistol land the the FNP's had an issue with the pin working its way out of the trigger which starts to hit and chew the frame. The FNS has had a bunch of issue with slide locking up and the external safety on it is so small I dont even know why they bothered. The FNX(at least the 45t) has a bug when you try and slap a mag home. If pressure is at all rearward, the mag will hang up in the chute. And dont even get me started on the rediculas fish hook ejector they got going on. So I think most dept probably come to the conclusion there are probably better choices for a rank and file issue pistol. With that being said, if I was getting dropped into a combat zone, the FNX45T (with some mods) would in fact more than likely be my choice!

You will read it. They always do You need to understand that basically you walked into a pro choice meeeting carrying an anti abortion sign.....

A drill press is... well.. a drill press. It has its place as a basic tool. It is not well suited for most things I would do from a gunsmithing perspective unless wecsog style gunsmithing is good enough for you.

Dont confuse motto's with legal decisions. If a bad guy is chasing you with an Axe and LE intervenes, I think its a safe bet he will protect you. But the courts have decided he is not obligated to do so. So if you have a stalker after you, they are not obligated to give you an armed escourt for the duration.

THIS is why it is so important to separate the 2A right from all this feel good "common sense" based thought process and legislation. The smart gun legislation WILL be forced upon us much the same way mag restrictions are. The argument will be made that its common sense legislation for the greater good. Those of us that understand all the inherent issues with smart gun tech will get clobbered because the general public, and apparently some of our own, will accept the "common sense" BS and it will get forced down our throats. This is why ALL infringements on 2A should be rejected. My rights should go unabated no matter what the non shooting, non subject matter expert public thinks!

Guys, thanks for the kind words. Yes it can be distributed freely. I just ask that it remain unchanged and that my name be included at the bottom. Thanks! Shane

Do you as a politician really care? I am writing this open letter to explore the logic behind why any politician would present or stand behind most gun legislation that has been presented. So why would logic be the main focus of this discussion? The answer is simple. If you actually think through what a ban, restriction or law would accomplish, logic would indicate that there is little reason to support most pieces of anti-gun legislation. So let’s look at recently presented legislation. The Greenwald bill in particular will serve to illustrate this point. This is a bill created to reduce the magazine capacity to 10 rounds in a state where the capacity is already limited to 15. To quote Mr. Greenwald , "If we can save even one innocent life through common-sense legislation like this, it will be worth it.". That is an interesting piece of logic right there. I think that logic follows a path to restricting just about everything in existence! Aside from the state’s tax revenue, how does alcohol and cigarettes still exist if that is the case? Another statement by Mr. Greenwald, "By re-instituting a reasonable limit on gun magazine capacity that has already been proven successful, we will save innocent lives." This is the statement that interests me most. I would LOVE to know where this was proven. In fact I would absolutely love to hear about just 1 single case where a restrictive legislation such as this one did anything to deter a criminal! This is the biggest flaw in that line of thinking. A law is ONLY going to be followed by the law abiding citizen. Please submit for examination the sample case where, for example, a hard core criminal was deterred from robbing a bank at gunpoint because he had magazines that exceeded the capacity limit? So what did this type of legislation solve? Clearly no criminal is going to be dissuaded by the law. In fact the criminal seems to enjoy freedoms law abiding citizens dream of. The criminal goes unabated because he does not care what the law says. So legislation like this only affects those that follow the law and it is NOTHING more than harassment to the law abiding gun owner. It has NO effect on the criminal. This has been proven time and time again. But forget statistical data, anyone with common sense can see this clearly. The culture of New Jersey. I think that many politicians in New Jersey would simply faint if they were aware of what goes on in the rest of the country. Again, the fact of the matter is that law abiding citizens are NOT the problem. How come states that allow the ownership of FULLY AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUNS do not have an issue there? How come the news is not flooded with accounts of citizens that legally own machine guns committing crimes with them? So what’s the root problem here? It’s simple. The politicians raised here in the northeast, spoon fed a lifetime of the rhetoric, simply do not understand the truth behind firearms or even the fundamentals of the firearms themselves. They simply think the rest of the country is like here. They do not realize how different New Jersey’s laws are from the majority of states. I will stop here on this topic because it would quickly turn into a book instead of an article. At what point does it become safe? If we are to follow the line of thinking most anti gun legislators have, it would be the eradication of all firearms. If those that believe in the second amendment were to simply give in, my questions is, at what point would I be safe? What would that look like? Let’s look at a prison for a moment. Even officers cannot take their firearms with them into the prison. But there are many documented cases of criminals obtaining firearms even in prison!!! So is that what it would look like? A society with extreme security measures including strip searches that will still succumb to the determination of the criminal? The point that is so often lost on the anti gun legislator is that what has been created is a pool of victims. A criminal will still get the tools he will use in his crimes, but now you have taken away the law abiding citizens ability to defend his self. One only needs to look to Australia to view the unintended consequences of such legislation. Violent crime skyrocketed! In our own country, the numbers seem to indicate that violent crime drops considerably in states that embrace the right to carry. So what is the answer? If there are much greater threats to a single innocent life out there, why are they skipped over? Some of the largest mass murders in American History were NOT committed with firearms! Lets review. Mille Eastern Terrorist hijacked airplanes and killed THOUSANDS of people yet we have laws in place to prevent profiling Middle Eastern men because we don’t want to infringe on their rights. The Oklahoma bomber used fuel oil and fertilizer and killed 168 people of which 19 were children. I don’t hear an outcry from politicians against fertilizer! It may surprise many to find out that the Columbine shooting was actually planned as a bombing but the devices failed. But certainly the common thread among them was determination and certainly no regard for the law. So as far as I can conclude, rational thought can’t be the motivation behind it so it has to be something else. After watching a quarter century of the slippery slope of anti gun legislation, it’s my opinion that it comes down to a few possibilities. Irrational phobic fear is one. A perceived expectation by the politician to act is the other. In my view the phobia explains why in many cases no matter how much fact is presented, the person is unmoved and usually cannot articulate anything more than “well that’s how I feel” as a counterpoint. Much the same way that no matter how much you explain to a person afraid of spiders, the one you are holding is safe and harmless. It just doesn’t matter. Their position is 100% emotion based so facts and logic have no effect. This is the worst type to deal with in my opinion because for them, it is hatred. And as such they do not care how underhanded they may have to be to suppress that which scares them so much. This is the type that also is so quick to seize upon a tragedy to further their agenda. This, in my view, is the most dangerous type of politician for the second amendment. The reason for this is simple. They can get on all the media outlets and give a 5 minute emotional argument against firearms ownership that will reach the general voting masses of the public. It WILL move them. It takes an hour or more of logic and reasoning to counter the emotional argument. Try getting an hour of public attention span! The second is the type that really has no true understanding of that which he is legislating against. But an event occurs and this seems to trigger a feeling in them that there is an expectation from the public for them to act. They just don’t realize why it’s so ineffective and only really impacts those already abiding by the law. But at least with this type, there is a chance they can be educated on the subject. Once bad laws are passed, I think they are incredibly hard to overturn because no politician want the headline to read that they are accused by their opponent, come election time, that they are making the public unsafe. So it is vitally important they are stopped before they become laws. For all the other politicians out there that get it, you have my deepest respect for upholding the constitution.

I wrote this article over 2 years ago but never posted it or submitted it. I figure instead of just hitting the delete key Id post it up here. Maybe someone whil get a shred of inspiration out of it or something. For this audience id call it preaching to th choir .

The better question is, is anyone not with you! The list will be much shorter...

The only thing I can think to add is that sometimes civy 308 rifles have a hard time with Mil-surp primers as they are harder. So dont be shocked if you get a click instead of a bang.

As noted the 308 is a great learning tool. Everything drops, that is not the issue, when a round goes transonic is, thus the recomendations for 175's. However, worthy of consideration are the crop of 6.5's. 6.5X47 Lapua, 6.5 Creedmore, 260 rem. Roughly 300wm ballistics with the economy near the 308 side of the fence.

One more point on the Elcan is that many dont read the manual and understand how to zero it. This can lead to a shift when switching from 1 to 4 as opposed to if you did it correctly.

Specialty by the way of big $ that most arent willing to cough up. My Henny scope was $3,300.....

Thanks for the heads up!

I have to much respect for bacon!

How do you know she is not reholstering?

In my opinion, the official agenda matters little. Our elected officials have proven, read that again, PROVEN that they will try every insidious political trick to have their way here, All the promises to pro 2a organisations having input etc etc has all been lip service. I would NOT put it past them to present watered down versions to the public and then adding in the rest of the language at 11:59. Its a simple fact. They do NOT want you their to testify. It impedes their ability to get away with what they are attemting to do. DO NOT let them trick you into not attending rallies and testimonies. Your presence is the last thing that they want.

Update! I was able to speak with our potential speaker. He is considering the undertaking. I dont want to get hopes up prematurely but I left the discussion feeling it was positive. He will get back to me. If it does come off he will speak as a guest speaker at a Toms River location NJ2AS meeting. Please be patient as this will take some time to put together.

98% of the 7% catagory are NJGF members

Does this make me a geek or something? Science and Technology Knowledge Quiz Results You answered 13 of 13 questions correctly.

Im sorry, I have fallen behind on this. I will try and reach out again. With that being said, if the person I have in mind is not interested, I will try and scource another but that might take a bit to find.

Bullseye, was that the PST 2.5-10? FFP or SFP?

I have a big giant axe to grind with permier. Aside from that, the company always being on the brink of closing its doors always has me concerned about future support, which is why I dumped my PR glass. As I have said, glass is a deep deep rabbit hole. It can depend on what you place your key values on. Clarity is great, but useless if other areas of the scope are lacking. IOR comes to mind here. Point is that there are a LOT of other things to consider. Color representation Chromatic aberration Tracking Internals Exit pupil Eye box light transmission Eye relief Durability Size Weight Tube diameter total available travel reticle movement per rev on the dials Im sure Im missing a few. But when your dropping this much coin on glass, its important, in my view, to make sure you are making the right choice. The biggest problem is that there is essentially no where to go to sit down and look at several high end scopes