EssOne

At's OK - I can hover in Depends. ;)

Wellsir, like most of us, your insurance policy will have to be a secure gun safe, some good locks, and a decent alarm system in your rental, plus some good common sense about who knows you have guns in the first place. Anything more than that will require you to provide a list, I'm afraid. I don't know any other way around it because, like OS says, insuring specific properties always requires specific identities of each item.

My sentiments exactly. I've used Mobil 1 in 0W20 to lube all of my auto pistols and AR's for some years now and it is a perfect lube for the purpose. I really like the way it keeps carbon in suspension, and a quart of it will last for years and years.   For a solvent I use home made Ed's Red minus the Lanolin, and when something needs blowing out I use non-chlorinated brake parts cleaner, although you have to keep it off of plastics.  Nothing cleans the barrel extension of an AR as well or as conveniently as BPC.   For cleaning AR barrels I use a foaming bore cleaner called WipeOut.

Yep. Jes' like I said - Hoversnake.

It's a Hoversnake. I see one and I go into my famous bird imitation - hover like a summagun, too!! (regardless of resolution!) :eek:

Welcome!

Thanks, gents. I appreciate the information. 

Yes. Thus the TAP bullet.

True, but a fairly frangible bullet like the TAP in a 55 grain load will do less penetrating than a ball bullet of the same weight, especially if it's a barrier penetrating load. A lighter bullet will give up its velocity and energy faster than a heavier bullet, etc. etc. etc. Anyway, the 55 grain TAP load has been recommended to me by our SWAT guys as being an effective defensive load that is less likely to cause undue penetration indoors than other defensive loads like the 55 Gold Dot, etc. Like I said, I just wanted to know what other guys are doing. 

Hmmm. Maybe that's where the AR missing from the safe went.....WIFE, FRONT AND CENTER WITH PURSE!!!! :angel:

Because I still think the 55 grain loads offer the best combination of stopability without overpenetration in a good defensive load. I have been using Hornady TAP 55 grain loads for a number of years and was just wondering what everyone else is doing, i.e. is there something better than TAP now. etc.

What factory 55 grain loads do you guys use for home defense in the AR 15 5.56mm rifle?

Thank you for your years of service, Sergeant Major. Best wishes for a good retirement.

That was us exactly. They switched from brown to black boots in '57, and still had some brown ones in stock when I enlisted in '61. The poor slobs who got them were given a big wad of steel wool to get the brown dye off and a bottle of black dye to change the color. They worked themselves bloody but it never worked. Heck, with a good spitshine you could still see brown shining through for years to come. I missed getting them by about three guys. Whew!!

Only because you ain't old as dirt!! I am. :usa:

Company drill team. Charley Company, 7th Battle Group, 3rd Brigade, United States Army Training Center Infantry, Fort Ord, California. May,1961. Yes, Mildred, those rifles really are M-1's. This was the most fun I ever had in the Army. I'm the skinny 18 year old kid 4th from the front. OK, here's the other one. Same outfit, same drill team, same day, different formation. This one shows the M-1's a lot better than the photo above. My M-1 was a Springfield Armory rifle with serial number 792554, which puts its date of manufacture as 1942. I'm the skinny kid in the front row, second from left. That steel pot was so big on me I always figured that if I went into combat I could throw it down, jump in, and fire from it. We stayed in the 1941 barracks of the Greatest Generation and were largely trained by them. We broke in on all of the WWII weapons - M-1 rifle, M1918 BAR, M1919A4 and A6 machine guns through the end of '61, then transitioned to the M-14 rifle and M-60 machine gun after that. It was really neat to have trained on all of the classic American infantry weapons of WWII, and then to have gone on to a completely new and different generation of weaponry. I liked the M-1 a lot better than the M-14, and the BAR had no peer, but the M-60 had it all over the Browning .30's in my book. The Army came up with a squad automatic rifle based on the M-14 with bipod legs and a pistol grip, but it had such a high cyclic rate of fire and such sharp recoil that it was uncontrollable and didn't last long. Long ago and far away, but I wouldn't take a million bucks for the experience. Fort Ord was the most beautiful training post in the Continental Army Command. They shut it down as a training post in 1976, and it became the home of the 7th Infantry Division. It was eliminated during the big round of base closings that followed - around 1991 or so. Oh by the way, notice how perfect our trouser legs are above the boot? To get those perfect blouses we cut the ends out of coffee cans, slid the cans up our legs, put the boots on and then bloused the pants down around the coffee cans. We wore the gloves for the photos only - they were so slick we couldn't hang on to the rifles, so they were just for looks. Fun. EssOne

I took this photo at the National D Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia in June of 2006. There were 2,500 of these on D Day and I sure as heck haven't forgotten. I spent three years in the Seventh Army in Germany and served with a lot of senior NCO's who were veterans of the war in Europe. They called it the Greatest Generation for a reason.

Well summagun, sounds like I just decided on a winter trip from the Tri Cities to Pigeon Forge!! Thanks!!

My wife and I both checked it carefully when we went in and it definitely wasn't posted. Now there are a couple of Alamo steak houses in that neck of the woods. The one I'm talking about is at 3050 the Parkway in Pigeon Forge. Are we talking about the same Place?

MHL6493, here is what your Model 15 looks like on the inside. The part marked "HAMMER BLOCK" is the part you saw moving up and down when you moved the hammer. It is the only part that will fall out when the side plate is removed, being held in place by a matching groove in the underside of the sideplate. All of the other parts require a little gentle prying with a screwdriver to get out. This is a stainless steel Model 64 from 1970 I bought in almost unfired condition two years ago.

My pleasure sir. Sometimes I guess my obsolescence actually has some usefulness. :D

It's easy to tell if it has been removed as it can be seen in front of the hammer going up and down as the hammer goes back and forth. But there are some safety procedures you have to observe to look in on it safely.   First, clear the gun and leave the cylinder open. OK, now keeping your trigger finger off of the trigger, we're going to pull back on the hammer like this: To ease the hammer back with the cylinder open, you simply move the cylinder release thumb piece back to the rear with one hand, and ease back on the hammer spur with the other hand - but don't cock the gun.    As the hammer comes back, rock it gently back and forth and you will see a little black rectangular steel part moving up and down in front of the hammer, up against the frame. It will move downward as you move the hammer rearward, and upward when you move the hammer forward. That's the hammer block, or as it's sometimes called, the transfer bar or safety bar. If it isn't visible, or isn't moving with the hammer, don't load the gun until you can get it checked out by a gunsmith. Something is definitely wrong in that case and the gun cannot be considered safe.   OK, now make sure the hammer is fully down before closing the cylinder and you're good. Hope this helps.   BTW, there are some maintenance things you can do with your gun that are completely user doable, such as removing the cylinder and yoke. Back in the revolver days in LE, removing the cylinder and yoke were a required maintenance step in cleaning these guns. I carried a K frame Smith for 27 years and love them. I was an instructor on revolvers in four different commands, so I'll be glad to try and answer any user questions you may have. Best wishes.   EssOne

And remember that there is a right and wrong way to remove the side plate. The wrong way is to remove the screws and pry it off with a screwdriver - this will destroy the fine fit of the part. The correct way to do it is to remove the screws and grips, lay the gun on its left side in your left hand over a padded surface like a couch or bed and lightly smack the grip frame on the up or right side with a wooden or plastic handled screwdriver. The tapping will dislodge the sideplate. When it pops out of the frame, you're good to go.   I agree with the other gents. Remember that the standard service load in 1958 was a 158 grain lead round nose bullet traveling at 855fps and developing 255 foot pounds of energy. That's pretty anemic, and I have no doubt that a steady diet of +P ammo will shoot it loose. So I'd forget any high pressure ammo and let the old trooper be what it is. I would invest zero money in it beyond a set of grips that fit your hand well enough to enjoy shooting it.

The Alamo restaurant above wasn't posted. Or did you just mean Outback restaurants?

We went for our Anniversary Dinner yesterday to the Alamo Steakhouse and Saloon, 3050 Parkway in Pigeon Forge, and I had an outstanding 20 oz. Porterhouse steak. The Alamo specializes in Angus beef cooked over an oak fire, and the guy doing the cooking really knows what he's doing. The Porterhouse is a hard steak to find and they had really good ones. So if you're in playtown.................FWIW   http://dininginthesmokies.com/_pigforge/dpalamo.htm   EssOne   PS - $32