Jonnin

That really wouldnt matter *that* much, its a pretty wicked round even if a bit weaker than the magnums. Its on par with a .45 auto (slightly more potent). There is no reason he could not have shot a magnum: it says ...Their 27-year-old son... It was NOT a child/boy. Still a hero, and still in need of some plinking practice.

Sort of. I prefer handguns but own a number of long guns that I rarely shoot, many of them inherited. Apart from a couple purchased for my wife, I have never bought a long gun, bought many handguns. Probably put 100 handgun rounds downrange for every 1 in a rifle over my life; a typical rifle session for me is 10-20 shots, while an hour with the 22 or 9mm can easily burn out 100 rounds. It wouldnt be that good a ratio except I spent my pre-teen years shooting a 22 rifle with my dad, and recently my wife got a 10/22 that I burned a few 30 round clips thru. Just got a mini-14 in 223 for the wife. Very nice, only problem I have with it is the oddball mag type, I thought all high-cap 223 semis used the AR type mags, and was hoping she could use my 223 pistol mags in it, but alas they don't fit. I stuck a scope on it & we took it out this weekend, I let her zero it and she had a blast. I had fun playing catch the brass -- it really chucks them out. She got the non-tatical generic rifle style, it looks like a bolt action hunter apart from the flash hider & long magazine.

I do not know if you have to swap the springs, but thats also doable.

Yea, its been done. I know the makarov folks like to pare down their mags to hold one more. It really depends on the mag at hand whether it can be done, but its definately possible for some types. You might also just buy a higher cap mag for the gun; these either have the regular follower (no 10 round limitation) or extend the base of the gun, should exist.

The LDA is, if I am not mixed up on models, a DAO gun with a very light but very, very long trigger pull and therefore not "really" a small 1911 style. Their warthog/nighthawg line are the small 1911's, again if not mixed up.

silver bear isnt as bad as the brown bear, but its still not exactly clean either. Its pretty good but depending on the caliber you may have to clean your gun some, every 100-200 rounds or so depending on how grumpy your gun is about gunk.

I missed something, why does this need to be defeated? Looks like you just have to have permission to hunt on someone's land, which should be the case anyway. Im sure there is more to it, but I am not seeing it right off.

The best education in the state isnt an elementary education degree, no matter what school it was from. A large part of our education problem is that the teachers are all cut from the same mold, with an E.Edu degree. This system encourages teachers to be pulled from a pool of college students with some of the least amount of math and science possible, and they are trained to "teach" by presenting children with a list of crap to memorize (this is not learning to think, this learning to be a parrot). Nothing against your wife, and I agree she should be paid more, but the entire education system is broken in many ways, one of them the requirement that teachers are all the same due to the required degree/training system... I am 90% anti union. Unions should be allowed to exist, to do 2 things: protect the workers from unfair/intolerable conditions, and to perform collective bargains. However, the bargains may not overstep the rights of the employeer: if the union employees all walk off the job, the employeer retains the right to hire someone else without union thugs resorting to violence, etc. Rights are a 2 way street, and if a person refuses to work, they should be replaced by someone who will. If no one will work for the offered wage, the company must offer more or move to china or whatever. And, ex-employees that are on the company's property are tresspassing and should be removed by the police: employees have rights, they have the right to work in exchange for pay, and the right to ask for more pay, and the right to take a better offer from someone else, etc. They do not have the right to quit working, remain on the company property, and continue to draw a salary/wage while doing so, or to just re-hire themself at a later date once the company has been terrorized into paying them more. Once you walk off the job, you just quit, and standard rules apply, and as you are no longer an employee, you no longer have any "employee rights" at all. Just my 2 cents.

Check it with normal ammo. The higher pressure stuff probably makes the problem worse, whereas normal ammo probably just has a small deformation that can be ignored or reshaped.

When I asked a custom builder this, he said to get a basic springfield or colt, that he found both of those to be easier to upgrade.

Your shooting yours 2 handed style probably. If you shoot them one handed, the brass flys out the port, to the right and backwards: right into... you. If you hold it 2h in the middle of your body, it goes the same place for anyone, of course -- this is probably the common knowledge of which you speak. Depends on the pistol and ammo in question whether it hits the shooter or not, but some ammo in some guns will hit you every time if you 1 hand it, others will never do it. For the combinations that do it, its very, very annoying. If the port were on the other side, that would *never* happen, the brass would go back and left, away from the shooter.

They actually can set up shop to check everyone for a drivers liscense. Its called a roadblock. The problems / lawsuits are for "random" pullovers of folks without cause just to check their ID or hassle them, such as pulling over all teenagers or pulling over all white men with beards or pulling over every 70's caddy with shiny hubcaps, etc. No one has yet shown to my knowledge that checking *everyone* is a problem, its profiling that creates tension. Same for HCP. If they only stop skinheads with glocks, its a problem. If they stop everyone they see, its a "roadblock" of sorts, I would imagine.

Reloading is fun, is the thing. If I got my regular hourly wage for the time spent reloading, I would actually lose money on your process, or at best, break even. Call it 2 hours per 500 rounds for the bullet casting (time to clean the lead, drive around/gather, gas prices, etc), and another 5 hours to make the 500 rounds of ammo (yea I know some folks can go faster), its nearly a whole day's pay + materials to generate 10 boxes of ammo. Buying the bullets or making them, if you factor in a wage for the time spent making ammo, the BEST I can do is about 30% savings over wall mart prices (for compatible ammo: brass cased, reloadable, jacketed ammo). For the crapammo, the steel/aluminum/berdan primed/etc junk, I actually lose money to load my own (again, if time wage is factored into it). Everyone's situation is differnt, of course, and caliber matters for the prices, but depending on how you look at it reloading can actually COST you money (if you have a high middle class or better wage) or save you money (if you ignore the time spent since its a hobby, or if you have a very low income, etc). Casting or not casting is the same thing, depending on how you look at it, how long it takes to find/clean/cast/etc, and such. Its not always about the money, though. I would much rather make a box of ammo than spend an hour of overtime at work to afford another box... ! And, even buying jacketed bullets, I am still looking at under $10 for a box of 45 acp, $7 for a box if 9mm when I ignore the time I spent on it. Add up the fun factor and the savings, and its a good deal for me right now. As for casting, its just not for me. I would constantly worry about impuritys harming my barrels, or lead fumes, or what the neighborhood would think about my alchemy in the yard, etc. It would cost me less money in exchange for more time, and at this point, I would rather have the time. Not much of an answer, but just some thoughts on why I buy the bullets right now. On top of all that I am very new to reloading and just that process is more than enough for me for a while.

Yarf. Apparently the kid can hold it steady, next time give HIM the camera Kidding aside, nice shooting and a fun way to get started. My early shooting was similar, an old bolt action 22 with a scope out the back of the truck (rested on the cab) or a sawhorse in the yard. Fun times that he will remember for a lifetime.

I am a lefty and would HATE having ambi controls on this gun. It would make it fatter/bumpier/more snagtastic/etc, a terrible thing for a pocket pistol. I wouldnt mind reversable controls (unscrew and attach on other side or something) but having them on both sides all the time would be awful IMHO. Reversing just the safety is pointless: the mag release has to be reversed too, and it would be even better if you could order it to eject left handed. Right handed ejection covers the left handed shooter in hot brass. Ambi controls is twice the chance of knocking the safety off in your pocket, and twice the chance of dropping the mag in your pocket (something the 238 likes to do already!!). I just do not think ambi controls belong on a pocket pistol/derringer/mousegun type frame. 15% is way high: left handedness runs about 10% and good % of that 10% just shoot right handed. At most, they may lose a few sales to the lefties who WILL NOT shoot right handed, but as was already said, its probably a wash since a number of existing (right handed?) customers would not buy the thing with ambi controls. Even I, as a left hander, would rather have it as-is than ambi. Its no pocket pistol, but take a look at the CZ82 or 83 maybe for a mak or 380 with 1911 safety and ambi controls. Still spits the case at you, but its about as neutral-handed weapon as you can find.

I checked mine. The bullet seated area of the case is .47 the area below that is narrower at .4675 roughly (this varied a little while the .47 area was firm for all cases). Also, I had a couple of "oops" rounds (mostly, no primer... duh...) and I tried to push the bullet in deeper against my concrete floor with as much power as my hands could stand, and it did not budge. For whatever that is worth to you.

Yes, it would work if the window is rough on top, some are a little bit. Glass is harder than steel, and anything that is harder will sharpen it if the surface of the material is vaugely whetstone like.

Nah, its not a light, its a CARBINE and he told em what to print on the phone, most likely, with as you said 4 15 round mags.

There is a good discussion on the buffalo bore ammo site about using hollowpoint ammo in weak rounds (specifically the makarov and 380 "calibers"). They give you a dissertation on it, then let YOU decide if you want their hollowpoints or the solid stuff. I use hornady's critical defense in my 380, but its a different gun and may or may not feed in your gun. You cannot search the taurus site without login, which I didnt care to make (I have a 709 but I don't really want to talk about it all day... its not *that* interesting to me...) but the quick answer I found in their sticky posts said that individual guns vary a lot in what brands work, no one brand works in all of those guns so you have to try a few types to see what works in your specific gun.

I will check the OD on mine then. It seems tight enough, I am sure if I pushed on the table with all my strength, it would go in deeper but its not easy to do that. Putting the bullet into the case takes a little bit of force with the press and the bullet will sit on top of the case when using the seating die (it does not go in, and I cannot push it in by hand, never tried to push it in against the table though).

This topic has been off and on a couple of times this past month, and I am still not sure what I am doing or should be doing. I have the lee 4-die set (so I have the factory crip die) but have not been using it. Is this "wrong" ? The ammo is working fine so far, very light load (just under 5 grains of #2 on a 230 FMJ). The paperwork said the seating die "crimps it" and the factory die is sort of optional, unless I misunderstood it, so I tried it without first and since it worked, just left well-enough alone. As I am fairly new to it, I have been focused on not blowing myself up more than anything else, trying to learn all the stuff that can go wrong as a priority. Should I use the crimp die? Or leave it be since its working? Does the seater die crimp it "enough" or did I misunderstand? Thanks for any clarifications!

a cloth wheel on your dremel tool with light polishing compound of some sort (car wax/polish? diamond dust? jeweler's rogue? etc?), or the very finest "sand paper" (the very very fine grit stuff), or the like. Again, anything that will leave it looking like a mirror; if you can see scratches, it will feed rough.

The kindle can handle basic text files without conversion, so if you can convert whatever to text (and you usually can, unless its image based pdf (imaged scanned books), which needs an OCR program to convert) you do not need anything else. I even read my own documents from work on it sometimes.

Many semi-autos will struggle with various types of ammo, often hollow points choke up. Polish the feed ramp, it helps sometimes, and try another brand or three if it still will not take the federals. Also, many guns do require a few boxes to break in, which polishes the parts (feed ramp being one of the parts that gets polished by use), that is normal as well. Often, the break in can be done by taking the gun apart to polish the important moving parts in the critical areas if you prefer that to buying 10 boxes of ammo (380, which is pricy..). Depending on where the rough areas are, racking the slide 500 times can help, or shooting snap-caps, etc. Even after break in some guns just will not take some ammo, so do try another type. Note: polish means polish. Not grind. Not sand. Polish. Whatever you use should leave a surface like a mirror, for example, diamond dust on a damp cloth.

Definately go with him to learn it for yourselves. Because the next step is to buy a couple of guns to practice with, and the adults in charge have to know the rules to properly train the boy. Gun safety can be boiled down to just 4 or 5 common sense rules that will keep you safe 100% of the time. Check the NRA site or google gun safety rules. Some of the rules are excessive if taken literally: some sites insist that you keep your guns unloaded when not in hand, which makes your home defense gun or carry pistol useless if you ever DO get into a bad situation. This is where the common sense comes into play. Other rules will say that you always point it in a safe direction: not possible if you have a rifle in your trunk for transportation; at some point on the road its going to point at someone, period, and here again common sense is all you need (action open, double and triple checked that its not loaded). If you just follow those (usually 10 or so rules) with a healthy dose of common sense, you will be fine.