CZ Customer Service Rocks

I’ve been having problems with my CZ-85B‘s slide locking back part way through a magazine. I’ve worked to eliminate the obvious stuff like limp wristing it, but unfortunately, no matter who’s firing it, it does that. So I called CZ‘s customer service, got over to one of their gunsmiths, and described what was going on. He agreed with my diagnosis of the slide release spring going bad and put one in the mail for me. Without asking for serial number or method of payment. Once it gets here, I’m going to have some fun installing it, but hopefully that’ll fix the problem.

Dallas Area Blogshoot II

Heather and I braved the rain and went out to the second Dallas Area Blogshoot today. The Jeep was packed full of firearms and ammo, as well as a couple prizes for Kilted To Kick Cancer fundraising. We had a great time shooting, talking, and teaching a few new shooters how to shoot safely. Thanks to The Redneck Engineer and Bob S. for putting it together, as well as to everyone who came out. You all are a great bunch of people and we’re honored to know you all.

And yes, I was kilted today, and did raise some more money thanks to some really generous people. If you haven’t donated, please head over here and throw some money in the pot. It’s a good cause and your help would be greatly appreciated!

Plinking at the 100 yard range

Bachelor Party Stuff

A bunch of us met up at Elm Fork Shooting Sports for some festivities involving stripper clips, WWII military rifles as well as more modern semi-automatics, handguns of many different calibers, and just fun in general. I’m just really not a fan of the typical drunken excesses that seem to have become the expected bachelor party fare. It’s a waste of money and doesn’t really do anything for me. Range time, on the other hand, can burn through just as much cash, especially when you get in to oddball calibers, and in my mind is a lot more satisfying.

We got started early, before the heat had a chance to build, spending some time over at the steel bays, shooting a little of whatever anyone brought, and then moved over to the 50 yard rifle range to play with some of the long guns. Much fun was had by all, there will probably be a few bruised shoulders tomorrow, but all-in-all a satisfying way to spend a morning with friends and family.

Dallas Area Blogshoot Recap

Today was a stress management day, I’ve been way to frazzed with the workload around finishing up my degree and needed to get out and blow off some steam. What better way than a trip to the range? Well, how about a trip to the range with 15 or 20 good people! Yep, I made it to the Dallas Area Blogshoot and enjoyed myself immensely. We had a number of local bloggers including U.S. Citizen, who got us the location, down by the Trinity river, The Redneck Engineer who brought a homebrewed .50 amongst other toys and graciously let me shoot his Mosin-Nagant, and Bob from 3 Boxes, whose table I shared. I also got to shoot Nick The Blogless’s Saiga-12. It’s moved WAY up on my must have list.

We also had some guests who came from further afield, including Southern Belle and KX59 from down around Houston, Borepatch and Mrs. Borepatch drove in from Georgia, and Kevin from The Smallest Minority drove in from Arizona.

A good time was had by all, much ammunition was expended, many targets were ventilated, including Hope-N-Change the magical unicorn. Poor thing, with all the unicorn farts spread over that range it’ll probably get closed down as a superfund site or something.

The best part of the day was being around a bunch of kindred sprits. I didn’t worry once about walking away from a table of guns and ammo. Nor was I concerned that someone was going to violate one of the 4 Rules. Now to see which fades first, the smile on my face, the bruises on my shoulder, or the sunburn (that’s pretty much a riff of Bob’s statement, but I couldn’t have said it better so I’m copying it).

And here’s the guest of honor, Hope-N-Change, slightly worse for wear.

Some Range Time With Reese

Reese and I went down to the range to try out that Rossi .22 rifle today and had a blast (pun intended). The sites were out of adjustment, but a little tweaking got that sorted out nicely. He was hitting the steels pretty consistently and we were able to start working on fine tuning grip and stance a little more. The rifle is great! It’s a youth sized gun, so no fitment problems, and easy to operate. We had some misfires, but I’m blaming that on the cheap .22 ammo, not the gun. In all cases save one, cocking the hammer and firing again did the trick. That one was just not going to go off, and the primer area had a nice hard strike. We’re definitely giving it two thumbs up!

Shooting the Rossi .22

Reese shooting the Rossi .22

Rossi Matched Pair

While out finishing off some Christmas shopping, I happened to find myself at the gun counter over at Dick’s Sporting Goods, looking at one of the Rossi Matched Pairs. It’s a neat setup, with interchangeable single-shot barrels in .22lr and .410 shotgun. It’s youth sized, so I thought it would be great for me to work with Reese on basic marksmanship and safety. I was pretty impressed with its fit and finish, and since the price was extremely compelling (and there was a rebate to boot), the last one in the store came home with me. We’ll see how the little guy does with it when he comes down to visit…

No More NFA CLEO Sign-off Soon?

If this article over at Outdoor Wire is to be believed, the ATF is poised to remove the CLEO sign-off requirement for Form 1 and Form 4 paperwork. That means that individuals will be able to complete NFA purchases in counties where the sheriff is hostile. In Texas that includes Bexar (San Antonio), Harris (Houston), and Dallas (Dallas) counties. In other words, a sheriff will not be able to deny someone their constitutional rights simply because they don’t like them.

I would still advise against going down the individual transfer route. It leaves ones family unprotected, as opposed to a well written trust. That has been the legally permissible route to get around CLEOs that refuse to sign off on NFA paperwork. One big reason why it should still be the route of choice is that it allows you to put your family on the trust as well as you. That means that they can legally be in possession of the NFA items as well. For example, lets assume you and your significant other go to the range with a suppressor and you are injured and have to be taken to the hospital. If you’ve done an individual transfer, that suppressor can’t be in anyone else’s possession. It’s an illegal transfer, which is a felony punishable by a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. So your significant other could not take it home to lock it back up in your safe (you DO have a safe, right?). On the other hand, if it were transferred via a trust, and the significant other is on the trust, it’s good and nobody’s facing jail time.

Keep an eye on this, because it sounds like they’re going to open a comment period, and you can expect the opposition to come out of the woodwork. They love CLEO sign-off on everything, even though it is used to deny people their rights for political reasons.

Taking The Sparrow Out For A Spin

I got up at the butt crack of dawn and dodged showers over to the Dallas Pistol Club to give the SilencerCo Sparrow a try. This was my first trip to the range with it, so I set up a testing regimen to be sure everything was in working order. First was two magazines of standard velocity .22 to verify that the pistol was in good working order. Then I ran two magazines of subsonic through it to make sure that the action would cycle. No problems were experienced. After that I removed the thread protector and installed the suppressor and then ran a couple magazines of the subsonic ammo through. I was pleasantly surprised at just how quiet AND noisy it was. There was literally no report, but the action cycling was louder than I’d though, as was the sound of the bullet hitting the steel target. The pistol, a Ruger MkII, continued to feed and cycle without issue. I also ran a couple magazines of the standard .22 through, and while it was a bit louder, it was still comfortable without any hearing protection. Here’s a YouTube video of me running a couple magazines of the subsonic ammo through it.

Picked Up The MkII

Heather and I went up to the Bavarian Grill for dinner and then popped over to my FFL’s place to pick up the Ruger MkII I had dropped off to be threaded for a suppressor. Andrew did a fantastic job not only threading the barrel but also machining a thread protector that looks like it isn’t even a separate part. The suppressor fits perfectly, but until the tax stamp comes in, I can’t write about its performance. Hopefully that will be in soon, there’s just no telling…