Taking the Plunge

On April 24, 2012July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn AR3 Comments

Okay, yall. I’m jumping in.

This bad boy is officially on order through my local gun dealer, Michael of Dogleg Arms. That was Mike in the blog header, before Stan Weber posted the current one on Twitter.

Obviously, I’m going to attempt to build one. My plan is to build a home defense gun, and my first specs include a 16 inch barrel, red dot sight co-witnessed with flip up iron sights. And . . . drum roll . . . a suppressor. I plan on setting up a NFA trust for the suppressor as soon as I can, since that will be the long lead item.

As for the rest of it, I’m in no particular hurry, except that, for some reason, I get the feeling I need to be done before the first Tuesday in November

Hold on, everybody. Here we go.

Ammo Sticker Shock

On April 17, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Economics, Politics, Vassily2 Comments

I had planned a range day late last week, so I decided to make a trip to my favorite gun store in the world, Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia. They recently moved about a quarter mile down the road and across the street, into a renovated old grocery store, and it’s very impressive.

To give you an idea of how reasonable their prices are, comparatively, when I lived in Alabama, 4 hours away, I would wait until we visited family in the Atlanta area to buy ammo.

I went in looking for a couple of venerable Russian loads, 7.62×39 for my SKS, and 7.62x54R for my Mosin Nagant. Boy, was I surprised.

While the 7.62×39, which is the standard round for half the world’s fighting arms, used to be had for $2.99 per box of 20, it was now $6.99. My brain didn’t wrap itself around that until I translated it into a standard “per 50 round” price, more like $20.48. Yikes.

The 7.62x54R was even worse, at around $20 for a box of 20. I’ll save you hunting for your sliderule – that’s $50 for a box of 50.

Worse still, they were completely out of bricks of normal, lead .22LR ammo. Yes, they had stingers, and they had 50 round boxes, but I like to spend $20 for a brick of 500. None.

I know there’s the beginnings of a run on ammo, in anticipation of post election shenanigans, no doubt. It has to be all on the demand side, though, as there isn’t any import restrictions that I’m aware of.

Of course, looking at 9mm prices, now around $14 a box, I am tempted to finally break down and learn to reload. the problem, though, is that I’m not sure it would pay off for the Russian rounds, given that the cost of reloadable brass cases probably approaches the cost of imported loaded ammo.

So I’m faced with a dilemma – do I give in and buy ammo and stock up along with others, in the fear that re-election of Obama will bring even higher prices and lower stock? Or do I forego competing and fun shooting this summer, and wait for the market to come to its senses, as it did in 2008 and 2009?

Decisions, decisions . . . . .

Gun Cart Mark II

On April 10, 2012July 26, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Gun Cart1 Comment

Some time back, I wrote about modifying a thrift store stroller into a rather nice gun cart.

Gun Cart Mark I

But, as I’ve had opportunity to use it, I found a few things that I could improve. For one thing, when I tried to use it over rough ground, when loaded with rifles, I had quite a time keeping it from tipping. Fortunately, others had seen and solved this problem before.

So I’ve had my eye out for a jogging stroller every time I visited the local Goodwill. The wheelbase is wider, and it’s wide overall, making it more stable, and the wheels roll better on rough ground.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I ran onto this:

So, I took off the seat, the sun shade, and the lap tray, and relocated the lower pan from the Mark I cart. I then modified the lap tray supports to hold a piece of wood furring strip, to act as a cross bar to lash rifles to:

Then I covered the wood with foam cushion (actually a split piece of pool noodle that I bought at the Dollar Store), and wrapped the whole thing with tennis racket grip tape.

Finally, here is the completed Gun Cart Mark II, loaded with Vasilly, Sergei, and Captain America.

Investment:

$15.25 for the stroller
$4 for a drywall mud pan, filled with a piece of foam insulation and used as the pan where the barrels go. (I may replace this with something better in the future.)
$0.75 for the furring strip
$1 for the pool noodle
$1 for the grip tape

Total: $22.00

++++

Some design notes for those thinking of trying this yourself:

> For maximum stability over rough ground, the center of gravity of the rifles need to be between their support points. In this case, that’s the lower pan and the cross bar. This limits where I can fix the cross bar. On Gun Cart Mark I this was fixed, since the cross bar was supported by two pieces of all thread running through the stroller handle. But in Mark II I can move it up and down.

> Take measurements of your car trunk before you buy, to be sure the folded cart will fit. One cart I looked at would not have fit. This is also one reason I opted for a removable rifle cross bar, since I can now lay down the cart in the back of my Dodge Caliber 9×19 without laying down any seats.

> If you need to carry more rifles, you could easily add another cross bar, slung below the stroller handles.

A Little Housecleaning

On March 29, 2012 By Tom LindsayIn Blogs2 Comments

I spent some time this past week reading every blog on my blog list. You will note that some of the bloggers there I have had the pleasure of meeting, and others I read even though we’ve never met.

Sadly, a few blogs are missing. Some are still there but have chosen to stop posting new material, like Breda and North. I will be looking for new blogs to link to, so if you know of some good ones, let me know by comment or email.

Although it may seem like it sometimes, I haven’t abandoned my blog. I have been going through a few things at home recently, that limit my time on the Interwebz.

Thank you to all who continue to read.