Jonnin

Proms are, historically, a place that will have illegal activity --- usually drugs and booze, rather than guns, but a search of the students *is* reasonable based upon past behavior of this age group at this type of gathering. Its also a waste of time as the bulk of the activitys that go along with a prom are held offsite where no one can search them... but the search itself is not without merit due to the history of lawbreaking associated with these events. I see no difference in having an unqualified teacher do a pat-down or a pro do it. Again, I think it is a waste of time and money to do so. Also, this age group is not able to own firearms or carry them legally, so I cannot see the pat down as a form of anti-gun liberalism; instead it is enforcement of the laws that we have. Point is, if some kid goes there with a gun, I want them to get caught.

If you follow these rules with a heavy dose of common sense, you will be fine: NRA Gun Safety Rules Its PC to have rule #3 but clearly, your carry gun (if you decide to go in that direction one day) cannot sit around unloaded waiting for a thug to show up. The same is true about storing guns so that no one can get to them.... use your own common sense and judgement for your situation if you choose to have loaded weapons around your home or person (and get your permit if you want to have a gun on you). I think they took this one out, but you should also not hand off a loaded gun to another person (and all guns are always loaded, right?). Put it down on the table facing downrange, let the next shooter pick it up. If it is loaded, the other shooter should be aware of it (though, they should treat it as loaded no matter what so thats just a courtesy thing). In a gun store or show etc, the seller will usually open the gun and demonstrate that it is unloaded before handing it to the customer, this is the proper way to hand one off in the situations where it is appropriate to hand a gun to another person.

The info here is a bit confusing... do your cast handloads group well from a bench, IE are you using the same ammo for all this? If so, have you had someone watch you shoot to see if you are doing anything odd, or filmed yourself? Can you shoot the taurus 45 well? Do your misses group up but far off point of aim, or are they all over the place? Do you want to try to figure it out, or have you reached the sell it point already? It may be worth it to figure out what is happening -- which may lead to something that you are doing that can be corrected to improve your shooting with every gun. Or not, as you are shooting great with other guns, but its a thought. Only you can say when enough is enough and when to sell it, but IMHO its worth a number of range trips (which you may have already done) to at least figure out the issue (then decide to keep or sell).

Its not that. I agree that all modern guns are, by and large, equally safe apart from the occasional lemon or known bad design. I do mock the "safe action" name... the implication is its more safe than other guns, and that is simply not true, but thats just marketing and worthy of being mocked. The reason to not recommend a glock is that one gun does not fit all people and if the person takes your recommendation they have a high chance of getting a gun they do not like and not even knowing how to find one they would like. I have to wonder how many guns glock sells to folks that do not know any better... my dad, wife, and sister are 3 that I can think of right off. That is not to say, "dont recommend a glock" either thoug... my point is recommending any one style or brand name does not work well, instead you have to encourage the person to try different stuff and decide their own likes and dislikes. If the person does not want to do this, and just wants to have a gun to have one, any brand or model will do and the glock as good a choice as any if they really and truly want you to decide for them, but I would encourage the person to shop first and buy later.

I like adjustable power scopes, from 2--7 is a good setup that will take you from nearly point blank all the way out to 200 yards. Sighted in at 50-100 yards it will be reasonable at any range from 0-200, at most aim an inch or so high/low as needed. A lot of folks in 3 gun have a red dot at 45 degrees for up close and a scope for farther out. I have picked these guns up and checked it out, and while its a neat idea the variable scope is just as good IMHO. Another idea is to loft your scope up so you can see thru to use your iron sights, I have seen this done a few times but most often on a revolver. On an AR, the scope is already a bit high off the barrel and taking it up more may be a questionable choice.

Yes, I cleaned and lubed it first thing. The problems caused by 2 things: 1) occasional hollowpoints that muck up on the feed ramp and 2) bullets that bite into the rifeling before the slide closes 100% on them --- these do not close enough to fire safely and cannot be removed without a hammer and dowel rod to tap them back out (or, I cannot do it, I am not that strong). I have 3 magazines, its not a mag issue. I can polish the feed ramp myself, and that may help the hollowpoint issue, I planned to do this next time I tear it apart, which may be today. As an update, I tried some of the stuff I have around the house and the same rifle bite issue happened on some old SXT ammo (black talon replacement?). Today I sat down to reload a round that would feed into it. Lead bullets were just a no go. I took the finished lead bullet and hammered it (gently as can be!) into an empty, crimped 9mm case. This shaved the bullet down, a bit of twisting and such. After doing that, the bullet fed flawlessly and could be hand cycled out of the chamber. Having no other 9mm slugs around (I bought a lifetime supply of the lead ones... sigh), I poked a 380 FMJ into a 9mm case and that also cycled flawlessly. I think my answer is going to be carefully selecting and buying some plated 9mm slugs that will feed in it. I will also tear it down to look at the chamber for any roughness but the marks on the extracted, jammed up bullets are rifleing marks, not burrs or anything. If you are familar with this gun, when a bullet bites and jams, the slide is in the disassembly position (the 2 dots/marks you use to take it apart are aligned, so the slide is that far back). It may call for a trip back to EAA. All this thing has to do is work with ball ammo for action shooting stuff, prefer to make it work off reloads but if it will take cheap ball ammo reliably it is acceptable. To be honest we thought the bulk pack that we were shooting yesterday WAS ball ammo, didnt expect to buy a cheap pack of 100 shots and get hollowpoints.

Sweet, congrats! 308 is all the bolt anyone ever needs, really, given the flexibility of that round and range. I grew up on bolt guns and have a bunch of them, though I rarely shoot them anymore... much more of a pistol shooter at this point in my life. They are a lot of fun, nothing else has the same feel and its a good feel =) I hate to ask, but I will... what is "tatical" about it?

Hah that may be one of the worst things I ever had to fix... someone gave me some 44 mag ammo when I was very young (my first pistol was a blackhawk 44) and they didnt crimp any of it (reloads)... all 5 of the remaining shots pulled and it took me a very long time to recover the gun, somehow, after a lot of work, I was able to push the lead back in just enough to disassemble it. Totally unrelated but of interest, the magazine of the desert eagle keeps the lead from coming out too far, making it the more reliable weapon for shooting junky ammo...

Mine looks like a smoothbore and shoots very well. The makarovs are the most accruate, with a fixed barrel blowback design, but all the 9x18 pistols I have tried (and I have shot a number of them, feg and mak and cz and others) are quite accurate. The last time I shot my makarov I was hitting 7+ rings on a NRA bullseye target at 25 yards with handloaded ammo. They all look like a ppk somewhat, but the closes is the FEG pistols, at least visually IMO.

As promised elsewhere, a quick review of this gun. First, every darn gun they sell is a "witness". This is ours, a 9mm DA variety: It feels great, with low recoil from a heavy gun and really nice grips and overall 1911ish experience. Its very, very accurate. The first shot went astray for some reason but the rest did ok... this is the wife's shooting, of course. Out of the box, the gun had fixed sights that were not even close. We had the rear sight replaced with fully adjustables first thing, to get the above result. One issue is this thing is very, very picky about ammo, even for a new gun. It may break in or not, but currently it jams on the first round if the slide release is used, and not if the slide is pulled back and released instead. It clogs up a bit on cheap hollowpoints, and would not even chamber my reloads which has worked in a glock, beretta, ruger, and a couple of other 9mms. All commercial ball ammo has been flawless and even the hollowpoints are "ok" apart from 3 or 4 feed jams. The trigger is very nice, for a DA almost no slop and one of the best DA triggers I have felt out of the box. She loves it, and while more testing and break in are needed it looks like it may work for her without jamming up easily (she is not strong and does sometimes jam stuff by moving it from side to side too fast). For a $500 gun, this is definately a great range gun. Its too picky (so far..) to recommend it as a defensive gun, though I may revise that after a reasonable break in period and some additional ammo testing.

I still use paint shop pro 3 (yes the dos/windows 3.0 shareware tool) a lot because its one of the few that let you edit one pixel at a time easily (its amazing how difficult this can be in the newer software). The latest version of PSP is very good, as are the gimp and photoshop. I use all 4 of those depending on what I am actually doing, and as a codemonkey, I even export the image in PSP 3 as a raw file that I sometimes manipulate with my own software... its also difficult to find modern programs that export simple RGB files that you can hack on.... The background looks nice, well done!

I do not think it is fair to say the store is wrong to fire someone for breaking a rule that says "if you do this, you will be fired". If you want to shop elsewhere, do it because the rule exists in the first place, not because it was enforced upon someone who knew he was breaking the rule and did it anyway. Yes, the guy is a hero and yes, I would have done the same thing... but the point is nearly every place you shop at has this same rule in effect and if you logic it out, you would have to stop shopping at almost all stores. The only difference between walgreens and every other big store is they were forced to choose between enforcing their rules and policys or to create an environment where rules are really just suggestions (which never works outside a mom and pop sized operation). I am not saying I am pleased with the results, or approve, I am just saying that I understand their decision and cannot fault the company for enforcing a documented policy.

Exactly. Time and time again we see folks trying to compare the sig to DAO guns. They cannot be compared; either you like and want a 1.5 inch pull @ 10 pounds or you want a1/4 inch pull at 3 pounds. Whichever you choose, the feel of these guns is too different to try to say one is better than another for a given person. My take on it: the S&W is just another P3AT clone (LCP, TCP, and 5 or 6 more) with the added laser sighting device. While the gun seems to be well made, I have a nagging fear that a goodly amount of the price tag is sitting in that laser sight. My advice is to look at it this way: if you were planning to buy one of these other 380s and to install a crimson trace style sight on your purchase, the bodyguard may be great for you. If you just want a DAO 380 and were not planning on buying a laser for it, skip the BG for one of the other identiacal guns (maybe send your money toward kel-tec for designing them in the first place?). If you want a light trigger and locked breech recoil reduction, get the sig. Its sort of unique while all the other 380 pocket guns are cut from the same mold.

consolidate. You can get a thumb drive on your swiss army knife these days. That said I have 2 knives, wallet, gun, keys. My cell phone lives in the car and never leaves the car. I would like to cut down to one knife but the swiss army can do everything except cut stuff.

Easily done, I am a noob at it as well.

I sent an email to your friend.

That should break in, possibly even after initial takedown & lube.

The press primer tool should not have sheared off though, I use mine all the time. All I can think of that it could catch on under normal circumstances would be the shell holder, if that slipped out of the groove, for example prime in, shell holder slips, try to raise the ram and it wrings the head off??

A few seconds of google produced a range of 600-750 with the 750 being new. Since gun prices include backgroud checks, shipping, and fees while your BIL does not charge these things, $700 for a mint/new gun is probably reasonable at-a-glance -- but you should do your own google price check before you decide.

If you find yourself in chattanooga you can try mine. Witness may as well be the company name, lol. It apparently is european for "gun" or something: EAA has listed some 20 distinct guns in a variety of calibers, sizes,actions, etc and every one of them is a "witness", including everything from a $400 gun to a $1500 single action competition one. The gun is very new so I do not have meaningful data on it yet, plan to really shoot it a lot this weekend. I will toss up a bit of a review once I have something to say about it, so far it looks cool and the 5 or 10 shots I took with it felt nice, thats about all I can say lol.

Thanks! It could just be my specific gun, but the mag release is easy to activate on mine so a minor bump to the pocket has a small chance of setting it off. Its not a huge problem as I am aware of it -- if I get hit in the pocket, I quietly check it and push the mag back home if needed, but its a minor issue nonetheless. That is as it should be if it did not work! What did it not do reliably, do you remember?

I have 2 of them (well, one is the wife's) and they do well. Mine had a burr on it that needed a gunsmith to cure (or $1000 in ammo worth of break in maybe) that made it hang open before the mag was empty. Once that was fixed it has been flawless thru many hundred rounds, getting close to 1000 rounds I guess. Its a small pocket pistol with its own set of pros and cons, as with any gun. Pros: -accurate to 25 yards or so -low recoil -very good single action trigger -reliable -quality construction -simple to clean/maintain cons - weakish caliber - low capacity - high price tag - drops magazine easily from daily activity / with pocket carry - expensive ammo for break-in and practice sessions I highly recommend it if you need something that will vanish with zero chance of being "made", for those occasions where you do not want or are not able to conceal a more powerful weapon.

Be very careful here. Mak is capable of reaching low-end 9mm loads due to the rugged construction of those guns, and their mid-range is hot for a 380. There is plenty of room for overlap between the two calibers (similar bullet weights and overlapped performance) but do not try to work up a 380 to match a hot makarov loading, esp if using a less rugged 380. The load mentioned is very reasonable for a 380; the warning is just that you should not try to use 9x18 load data for the 380 "in general" esp the higher end. IIRC you can poke 4.5 grains of bullseye into a hot makarov load, 4.0 is a starting load, meaning 3.2 is a nice light load that will do for both calibers.

There is a huge gap between what you may carry and what you may own. You can own a shotgun, semi-automatic rifle, or switchblade. You may not "carry" any of these ("carry" meaning loaded/ready to use/etc in the same sense as carrying a CCW, not "carry" meaning transport or the actual english word, clearly you may transport your belongings).

You are not hurting anything, but I tell them to try a DA, SA, DAO, "safe" action, etc as well as some calibers and get back to me on what they like and do not like. A glock has its charm but its not for everyone, and $500+ down the tubes for a gun they hate is steep for many people.