my '08 3-gun setup (Gun Pr0n)

Spring draws near and another season of action shooting is around the corner! My thoughts are turning to getting back to the ol training cycle.. which would be nice if I wasn't so freakin swamped with overdo orders and the recent / pending shop re-modeling. The busy season has really snuck up on me this year and I am more behind than evar. Fuck. Very soon I will have to cut the nightly COD4 rampage in order to compensate

Anyways, figured I'd share a couple pics of the tools I have assembled for the '08 season. These are the guns I will be shooting in IMGA Scoped Tactical Division, Trooper Class (if I shoot any), and probably a few Outlaw 3-Gun matches this year. I had originally built the rifle for Trooper at the '08 MGM Ironman, but I don;t know if I'll make it this year either, so I took the MRD off to be Scoped Tactical legal (normally a double optic setup is legal only in Open Class).

I think I'm going to duracoat them all coyote tan when it gets warm enough..

(EDIT: zomg the forced photo resize in this blog makes these pics look crappy! oh well, right click them to view the original if u want to see a cleaner image)







Shotgun:
Remington 1100 Tac4 12ga, pretty much stock 22" rem-choke barrel, +4 mag tube extension, lengthend forcing cone, EZ Loader, green HiViz fiber optic, extended charging handle, 3-gun gear's excellent velcro sidesaddles and slidelock 2 pack. 23 rounds onboard fully loaded, woot!


Rifle:
Upper - VLTOR MUR billet receiver with dust cover and brass deflector only, no forward assist. Barrel is a custom job: Mike Rock 5R stainless, 16" midlength gas, hand-lapped 1:7 twist w/ Wylde chamber, lined with electroless nickel silicon carbide, barrel was then turned down to minimum safe diameter and CNC helical wrapped with carbon fiber by Advanced Barrel Systems. Insanely stiff and accurate for it's weight. Handguard is JP's excellent Vtac free float. Gas block is a LaRue lo-pro. Bolt carrier: JP LMOS Low Mass Operating System black chromed stainless roller burnished carrier. Bolt: standard LMT .milspec shot-peened and MPI proofed. Muzzle device: Primary Weapon Systems FSC556 flash suppressing brake. Optic: Trijicon ACOG TA-11 w/ Progressive Machine flip cover in LaRue 4XDOS mount. Also put an extended ambi latch on the charging handle.

Lower - Cavalry Arms CAV-15 MKII polymer. Did a bit of customization on it, shortened the stock about an inch off the length of pull and re-profiled the grip a bit. Trigger group is the JP single stage w/ low mass hammer. Arredondo oversized mag release button, Norgon Ambi mag release, Ambi selector, Wilson Combat extended bolt release, Action spring is Brownells chrome silicon carbine spring and the buffer is 2.8 oz. I am using Magpul's PMAGs with this rifle, the best AR magazine on the planet.


Pistol:
Glock G34 9mm. I reduced the grip and re-profiled it somewhat, undercut the triggerguard and built a custom beavertail using Acraglas. Vanek trigger system, otherwise stock internals. JP aluminum magwell on the frame. HiViz tactical red fiber optic front sight, factory rear sight. I am using factory G17 mags with Arredondo +5 baseplates.


ok that's it for today, time for some grub and then teh CODz!

Posted by frozenground @ 11:39 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

shame..

on me for not blogging last week. Busy with work and of course the CODz... Then Friday morning rolled around and it was sunny, calm winds and like 40 degrees out (which is damn nice weather around here this time of year), so we headed out to the Logan range and spent the day blowing shit up. Hence no Chicks with Guns last week. I'll make up for it at some point....

So I was reading some crap about how Heckler and Koch may start marketing the 416 etc to civilians, perhaps only in Germany at first but there could be some truth to the rumor they are getting ready to break ground on a factory right here in the US. Sucks for those guys who were stupid enough to pay $3k for their super ninja extra lethal 416 upper lol. In case you couldn't tell, I'm no HK fanboy, in fact I'm exactly the opposite. I fucking hate their hollywood marketing BS.. not to mention all the secret squirrel proof marks they put on everything just to give the collectors a boner. As if all those esoteric runes of power somehow make their guns more lethal ;) Don't get me wrong, HK has made some nice weapons. The HK P7 is an incredible pistol design and I carried one for years. Of course they no longer produce that model. We used to have 2 select fire MP5s (post dealer samples) as range rental guns at the dealership/indoor range where I used to work. Luckily I wasn't the certified HK armorer, so I didn't have to make them work again every time they broke. But damn they were fun when they were running, of course getting spare parts to keep them that way was a nightmare because HK didn't give 2 shits about us as "civilian" customers all the way over in bumfuck USA, but that is another story altogether..


Anyway, here is an infamous example of HKs genius marketing dpt. that apparently has most 20 year old mall ninja airsoft commandos convinced that there is no compromise. Sexy ad copy? Yes. Bullets in magazine backwards? Yep. LOL cracks me up everytime I see it.

Wish I still had a hard copy of this brochure, they are probably collector items now..



Yeah, so all this reminded me of an awesome post by Correia:

"In a world of compromises, some people put the bullets in the magazine backwards...

But it doesn't matter, because our gun is on the cover of the Rainbow Six video games. Look how cool that SEAL coming out of the water looks... If you buy a $2,000 SOCOM, you will be that cool of an operator too. And chicks will dig you.

At HK, we stuck a piston on an AR15, just like a bunch of other companies have done, dating back to about 1969. However ours is better, because we refuse to sell it to civillians. Because you suck, and we hate you.

Our XM8 is the greatest rifle ever developed. It may melt, and it doesn't fit any accesories known to man, but that is your fault. If you were a real operator, you would love it. Once again, look at Rainbow Six, that G36 sure is cool isn't it? Yeah, you know you want one.

And by the way, check out our new HK45. We decided that humans don't need to release the magazine with their thumbs. If you were a really manly teutonic operator, you would be able to reach the controls. Plus we've fired 100,000,000 rounds through one with zero malfunctions, and that was while it was buried in a lake of molten lava, on the moon. If you don't believe us, it is because you aren't a real operator.

By the way, our cheap, mass-produced, stamped sheet metal guns like the G3 and MP5 are the bestest things ever, and totally worth asinine scalpers prices, but note that cheap, mass-produced, stamped sheet metal guns from other countries are commie garbage. Not that it matters, because you're civillians, so we won't sell them to you anyway. Because you suck, and we hate you, but we know you'll be back. We can beat you down like a trailer park wife, but you'll come back, you always do.

Buy our stuff.

Sincerely

HK Marketing Department"



Posted by frozenground @ 5:18 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

chicks with guns woot!

wow it's friday again already..





I'm gonna start off this installment with a few pics of my favorite hot chick with a gun, my wifey! She is a damn good shot, in real life and in teh CODZ








ok back to the random interweb hotties with guns..










Apparently the Swedish Bikini Team did in fact try their hand at IPSC. I'm trying to find some match results...


Nice M134. Get sum!!









IDF girls rock.





AR-15s, Tannerite, Bombay Sapphire... looks like a party..





UFC ring girl



I love Oleg Volk's work, he is an amazing photographer. This is one of my favorites. I could dedicate a whole blog to posting awesome photos he has taken of Kit and other chicks with guns. Most of em are kinda political, but not this one ;)



here's another great one of Kit and her M249 SAW!


random range pic


Another awesome IDF girl shot


I like SBRs too ;)



ok that's it for this week. I have more I'll try to post up next week

Posted by frozenground @ 5:23 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

I love these targets :D

I only wish they would start making some cardboard-backed versions. I would probably stop buying IPSC targets altogether if they did..

www.zombietargets.net/




Posted by frozenground @ 4:28 pm EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

It's a mag, not a clip! (and how to tell the difference)

ok here's a small rant of mine.

During the game I never mention this and usually let it slide altogether, but all too often I hear things like "I dumped a whole clip into that guy" or "dammit my clip was empty" or something similar. I have heard this since my first days on Xbox Live. I have heard airsoft commandos say clip when referring to their ammo source, for years I have heard the term used in movies and on tv, and god knows I've heard it behind the gun counter way too many times. I am not sure where or when in our culture that the terms 'clip' and 'magazine' became interchangeable, but it was obviously before my time.

Here's the thing. No modern automatic firearm uses a 'clip' to feed ammunition. No firearm depicted in COD4 or RB6V or GRAW or even Halo for that matter uses a clip as a source of ammo. I will illustrate the technical difference and the reason why not momentarily.

Now the reason I hardly ever mention this is because it's usually more trouble than it's worth and honestly I really don't give a shit how non-gun people want to refer to the source of virtual ammunition for their virtual gun in their virtual shooter simulation. Besides, I know what you are thinking.. 'what difference does it really make how I refer to the thing that holds the ammunition in my gun anyway? If we both know what I mean when I say clip then who cares?'

Well probably no one. Especially today when any distinction between the terms seems to have lost any meaning and most people just think that they are interchangeable names for the same thing. But the fact remains that you are calling something by an incorrect name. Imagine if you worked in a computer assembly plant and everyone except the hardcore computer geeks always referred to RAM as ROM, and when you try to correct them they always say something like 'well it's the same thing', or 'doesn't matter you know what I meant' or 'who cares' ... Yeah it's pretty much like that.

What saddens me is the actual gun owners who don't know the difference. In my not so humble opinion, gun owners who take a 'who cares' attitude about it obviously don't care enough themselves to be educated about their weapon or how to properly call out the parts of it. To me that says they don't care enough to be educated about the safe handling and responsible use of their firearm, and don't take such things seriously. There are other 'tells' also, but this is a big one.

So for the greater edification of the 202p community I present the difference between a clip and a magazine


A magazine (or mag) is an enclosed metal or polymer box that houses a spring and a follower to allow the ammunition to stack under pressure in order to feed the rounds one at a time into the chamber or firing mechanism. The original term for the mags used in most modern automatic firearms was detachable box magazine, because they could be removed from the gun and replaced with another. This revolutionized the process of reloading your weapon since you could remove the empty magazine and replace it with a full magazine. Much faster than trying to reload a magazine that was non-removable, or a part of the firearms receiver. Yes, there is also a magazine that is non-removable. A common example would be on a bolt action hunting rifle (standard Rem model 700, non removable mag etc ). Some other common examples would be a standard SKS pattern rifle, or a Remington 870 or similar style pump shotgun. The magazine is there, but it is a part of the action not designed to be removed during the reloading process.

A clip (or stripper clip, or en bloc clip, or half-moon clip etc) is a formed metal or plastic guide that holds loaded ammunition, but it IS NOT enclosed and DOES NOT contain a spring or a follower of its own. A clip is most often used to load ammo into a magazine or cylinder. But it is the magazine or cylinder which then holds the ammo and feeds it into the chamber or firing mechanism of the weapon. A clip can be used to load ammunition into a magazine, and if that magazine is a permanent part of the firearm then yes in fact you would use a clip to reload the magazine that is on your gun. But unless you are running around with an revolver or M1Garand or an SKS, you won't be carrying clips you will be carrying MAGS!

Here are some pics I took to illustrate..






Both of the devices in these photos are used to hold 5.56mm ammunition. But ONLY the device on the left, the mag, is used to feed the ammunition directly into the chamber of the firearm. The device on the right is a stripper clip and is used (along with a guide device) to load the ammunition into the mag quickly (not as quick as a LULA but thats another story ;) ) Suffice it to say, clips are rapidly becoming obsolete as the industry comes up with new and more efficient ways to load magazines quicker, but even so there will always be a need for them because of the ol codgers with their wheel guns and Garands.

(no offense of course, I love the old timers, and the Garand!)

Anyway, hope that helped somebody out there understand the difference between the two. At least now I can just link to my blog instead of trying to explain ;)




*EDIT* ok for the fun of it I searched the terms clip and mag on youtube and found this vid by DVDtracker that explains the difference better than I did



Posted by frozenground @ 8:49 pm EDT | Permalink | 19 Comments