Thursday, January 22, 2009

Six Day Work Weeks are Hard on Getting Pics Done!

I was recently gifted the very cool LRT Tip Off mount for use with my Po Boy, and as I posted earlier, a KAC flash hider for Schwaggie. My MnP recently got a 10-8 rear sight installed, and the only pic I have of that is the promo photo from 10-8. I really wanna get some photos done, but having to work six days a week these days means that's tough to do. Its also why I blog so sporadically. Add to that "Burn Notice" being back on the air with new episodes, and the influx of knuckle heads doing stuff to get themselves banned from the forum, and blogging becomes a casualty of a lack of time! I'll do what I can to get it taken care of soon. I hope.

I Promised DirtCrashr

My bro DZ Hitshard took these at SHOT, amongst some other great pics. Its the new DD A1.5 rear sight, that will be standard on the new Daniel Defense carbine. I think I mentioned in the previous SHOT post that ATS will be seeing the first of our sizable order towards the end of February. They're gonna sell like hot cakes...or cold cakes, if that's your preference...or whatever type of cakes means "selling really fast" to you.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Some thoughts on SHOT

As I have done many times before, I attended the SHOT show last weekend. This time it was back in Orlando, Florida, which I didn't mind. I wasn't really planning to go to SHOT, but then I looked at it from a different perspective: it was in Florida this year, in early January. Five days to get out of Kentucky's windy, cold winter to warmer climes. I decided I had to attend. Turned out to be fine timing, too, as on Wednesday as I was flying out, it was somewhere between 40 and 50 degrees. When I checked the Weather Channel on Thursday morning, it showed that Nashville was at 9 degrees. That's good timing.

I decided not to bother with taking pics this year. There are tens of thousands of shutter monkeys taking better photos than I am capable of. There's great photos of stuff I missed every year. Luckily, there are some pics of some of the shenanigans I was a part of. In the end, that was what SHOT was for me: shenanigans punctuated by a small amount of business, a large amount of playing with guns and knives, and an even larger amount of meeting people (customers, vendors, old friends, and what I call La Familia: the members of LF) and seeing some of my favorite people.

This show was about what I expected in terms of product. So many companies are cash strapped this year that they either downsized their booths or didn't attend with one. It appeared to me that TAG, for instance, only brought their new stuff to prominently display. They make great gear, and have some killer new MTV carriers. There were some cool new guns, most notably Daniel Defense's new in-house carbine. They're making just about everything with this gun, with the possible (I don't know for sure) exception of small parts like springs and detents. Its an awesome value, even moreso considering the parts that are on it. More on this rifle later when ours show up; we ordered a hundred of them. Due in end of February.

Overall, though, this show was more about the people than stuff. One of our moderators, and a friend of mine, is a Jacksonville SWAT cop who got in touch with a couple of shooters from the Austrian SOF. These two men proved that being a professional doesn't have to do with the size of a country's armed forces, it has to do with the quality of the individuals. These two were very, very professional, and were fanstastic ambassadors of their country. They were also incredibly good sports, putting up with the Americans in the bunch making "shrimp on the barby" jokes.

The Baconforce/MCLMM Representative from Scotland picked me up at the airport and then went to dinner with Jeromy and myself on Wednesday night. If all Scots are as cool as Brother Murray is, that's a country I have to visit. If they're not, I'll still go, as Murray is one of my favorite people in the world. I wish there was more time to spend together. Sometimes SHOT gets in the way of the very thing it helps to bring about.

I met some straight up shoot you in the face warriors, too. I was introduced to a number of Sergeants Major, some active, some retired, all amazing. One of the guys I met online that I met at the show works for LaRue Tactical. I met his dad through my friend Bill Harsey, who was at the Chris Reeve Knives again this year. The father is a former SOG RT guy from the Viet Nam era. The amount of information he has at his fingertips is pretty amazing. What a great man. That's to be expected, though, as all of Bill's friends seem to be pretty damn awesome people.

I'm going to have to continue this later, as I have to get ready for work now. I don't know if I'll edit this one, or start anew. I think I may continue the rambling in another post. The Meat Dot deserves a post all of it's own.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Best and Brightest

Saw this pic in a thread of "fail" pics and posters on "my" forum, and couldn't stop chuckling. We're at war with the Best and the Brightest. If it weren't for their significant numbers, this conflict would have been over quite some time ago. I bet if he were able to legally vote, or in Chicago, he'd have voted Obama.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Vince is even worse than Billy Mays

I was hoping that the Shamwow would be the only product we saw being hocked by that Jersey weirdo Vince, but alas, that's not the case. He was selling some kind of chopping thing called the Slap Chop. He even makes a comment along the lines of "you're gonna love my nuts" after chopping a handful of them. All I can think is "Slap Chop...I'd like to do that to Vince".

Its a disturbing trend to see infomercials condensed into a 15 to 30 second format. It was bad enough that they existed in the first place because there was unsold airtime. At least you knew if it was a half hour or more long (remember Tom Vu?) it was gonna be cheesy and low quality. Now they're trying this quick hit thing that I'm sure is much more effective. I mean, if people thought Obama was a good choice for President and that we needed a Democrat majority in Congress, clearly their attention span is short enough to allow them to make these kinds of poor decisions. Vince is capitalizing on American ig'nance. Good for him, bad for America.

More parts: 10-8 rear sight for the M&P9

I decided that I needed to try something different with the sights on my MnP. Having three dots is, I think, slowing me down, as I attempt to align the dots rather than the sights. Additionally, the Novak rear sights that come on the MnP are a wedge design that is much less effective to use for the racking of the slide using the rear sight as a "hook". That lead me to start looking for other sights, and through recommendation of better shooters than I (not that hard; most people shoot better than I do), lead me to the 10-8 Performance rear sight.

picture belongs to 10-8 Performance

The sight's notch is a "U", rather than a...uh...one of these: "|_|". What I am hoping is that the deep notch and the serrated face will help me zero in on the front sight. I know I'm dropping shots from time to time because I'm not staying on the front sight in an effort to go faster. The sight is thick enough to add a tritium vial or vials to, but my plan is to get only the front sight with tritium. After that, I have some other work to be done, and then this gun will be finished...as finished as an inveterate tinkerer such as I can be.

I've heard a lot of good things about Bowie Tactical's trigger work for the MnP, but I've also heard from one of the Cool Guys I know that the back log has gotten very long. There are others getting into the MnP/Glock/whatever other polymer pistol you have sweepstakes, some of them even posting on their websites that those guns are the only ones they're working on anymore. Additionally, the SnW Performance Center shows some custom work for this gun. I think what I may do is have them (SWPC) install a tritium front sight, and do a trigger job on the gun. Express service is a five business day turn around. The polish job probably isn't crucial, as I don't have access to really crappy ammo, but it won't hurt my (so far) 100% reliability, either. Most of what I've read of the PC sear is that it both lightens and crispifies the trigger. I don't know if he gets a "harder" reset or not, but that's about the only thing I wish the MnP came with. Glock triggers reset much more positively.

I've really come to like the MnP a lot, but I haven't forgotten why I was willing to trade my G19 for it in the first place: I have a line on another G19 at a very attractive price. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't have done it. I've got some G19 magazines and some G17 magazines, so I gotta get another 19 to make all those usable.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the proper tools in the shop to fit the rear sight, so I left it with Hal Wade at Tennessee Custom Gunsmithing. I'll have it back early next week. I'm figuring on about Wednesday before I can get it. Luckily, he's got the range that Matt, Paul and I shoot at, so if I remember to bring a little ammo, I'll be able to check it out at the same time...assuming I'm not laid out by being at the dentist tomorrow.

Friday, January 02, 2009

New Parts: Knight's flash hider

My friend hooked me up again. Since he's already got several of the excellent Knight's Armament Co. 's excellent flash hiders, he gave me one. Brand new. He even installed it. I have the best friends. I don't have any pics, but I will add some once I have some new shots. I think it kind of makes up for the jacked up molar I have that I can't get taken care of until Monday.