Voting with our feet.

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him; better take a closer look at the American Indian." Henry Ford
From: Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 5:09 PM To: Subject: FW: 1 4 u 2 c Outdoor Channel pulls production from CO due to Gun Ban 1 4 u 2 c Outdoor Channel pulls production from CO due to Gun Ban OUTDOOR CHANNEL PULLS PRODUCTION FROM COLORADO DUE TO CO SENATE BETRAYING 2ND RIGHTS! From: Michael Bane Date: Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 4:09 PM Subject: OUTDOOR CHANNEL Pulls Productions from Colorado To: Steve King
Dear Senator King;
I met you yesterday after the so-called "public hearings" on the anti-gun bills; as I mentioned, I am an Executive Producer for OUTDOOR CHANNEL. I currently have four series in production, including GUN STORIES, the top show on OC, with several additional series in development. My series focus on guns, hunting, shooting and the outdoors.
This morning I met with my three Producers, and we made the decision that if these anti-gun bills become law, we will be moving all of our production OUT of Colorado. We have already canceled a scheduled filming session for late this month. Obviously, part of this is due to our own commitment to the right to keep and bear arms, but it also reflects 3 lawyers' opinions that these laws are so poorly drafted and so designed to trap otherwise legal citizens into a crime (one of our attorneys referred to them as "flypaper laws") that it is simply too dangerous for us to film here.
I can give you chapter and verse on the legal implications if you need, but suffice to say that the first legal opinion was so scary we went out and got two others. Al three attorneys agreed.
We are relatively small potatoes in television, but our relocation of production will cost Colorado a little less than a million dollars in 2013.
Secondly, we have proudly promoted Colorado in our productions (and have been moving more and more production into the state); now we will do exactly the opposite. What does this mean for Colorado? The community of television producers is a small one. Last week I had lunch with a major network producer who was looking to locate his new reality series in Colorado. That producer is also a shooter, and the new reality series will now be based out of Phoenix. That lunch cost Colorado over a million in economic impact.
Thirdly, according to numbers I received from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (for whom I used to work) yesterday, hunting had an almost $800,000,000 impact on Colorado in 2012, driving as many as 8330 jobs. Next month I will be in Texas meeting with most of the top outdoor/hunting producers, and the Number One agenda item will be Colorado. Already, hunting organizations and statewide hunting clubs around the country are pulling out of Colorado, and we expect this trend to accelerate rapidly.
The message we will take to our viewers and listeners is that these proposed laws are so dangerous to hunters and any other person, be she a fisherman or a skier who brings a handgun into the state for self-defense, that we cannot recommend hunting, fishing or visiting Colorado. We reach millions of people, and, quite frankly, we have a credibility that Colorado government officials can no longer match. Colorado Division of Wildlife is already running ads trying to bring more out-of-state hunters to Colorado...in light of the flood of negative publicity about these proposed laws, I can assure you those ads will fail.
We estimate that as many as one-quarter to one-third of out-of-state hunters will desert Colorado in the next 18-24 months, which will quite frankly be a disaster for the hunting industry in Colorado and have a devastating effect on our western and northern communities (certainly cities like Grand Junction).
This is not a "boycott" in the traditional sense of a centralized, organized operation; rather, it is more of a grassroots decision on where shooters, hunters and other sportsmen are willing to spend their money. Look at the collapse of the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in February. That venerable multimillion dollar trade show chose to ban modern sporting rifles and standard capacity magazines, and within three weeks it collapsed as all vendors and sponsors pulled out.
Colorado is going to pay a huge price for laws that will do nothing. Thank you, sir, for your support.
Best.
Michael Bane
OUTDOOR CHANNEL mbane@outdoorchannel.com IT BEGINS.... PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ALL ON YOUR ADDRESS LIST... THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO BEAT PROGRESSIVES!! SHOW THESE SOCIALISTS THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR STUPIDITY.

pretending to be a gunsmith

i picked up a new Ruger MKIII Target back in March, and crowed a little about it the day i took it to the range and fired the first 100 rounds through it.

so here it is, August, and i finally got around to tacking on a couple of goodies. i'm not sure if i'm done with it yet, but there isn't much more i can do to this sweet little pistol that i haven't already done. maybe get a pistol scope to use when i get bored with the holographic sights.
so in a nut shell, here's how to install a new target trigger, sear, hammer, and bolt release. those were purchased from Volquartsen. i bought the Accurizing Kit for the pistol, rather than individual parts. cheaper that way, and you get everything you need. my only bitch was that it took what seemed forever to my terminally short term patience. something like 2 weeks. don't know what i'm bitching about when ordering parts from a custom house, but when i order stuff for work, its usually delivered the next day, at no extra charge.
but i digress.
the kit comes packed in ziplok bags, and has an excellent two sided sheet of instructions.
you will need the Ruger manual supplied with the gun, but these can be ordered from Ruger if you have lost it. you really, really need that book.

TIP #1: take volquartsen's instructions, and go through the gun drawing in the manual. the instructions call the parts by their part number, so find each one in the table and then write it down next to the part on the exploded diagram. seriously. or you can find the drawing number for each part and write it down on the instruction sheet. either way will way way more than save the time it took to do in the first place. it really sucks trying to flip back through the manual to the parts table trying to figure out what the hell the instructions are trying to tell you. especially when you have spring tension trying to scatter parts all over the place as you disassemble the gun. seriously, take the time and label the exploded diagram.

next, watch this video. it's linked off of the Volquartsen site, and is almost indispensable unless you really are a gunsmith. i watched it through 3 or 4 times before beginning the process on my own gun.

first, you have to field strip the gun and remove the grips

click for other image size options

then, take a picture of what the guts look like before you start popping pins and scattering all the parts everywhere. i really didn't need it, but it was there, just in case

then, push pins, shake, rattle, and thump until all the parts you want removed are removed. follow the published instructions. it's almost impossible to screw up. unless you lose one of the tiny parts, like the safety detent. keep a close eye on that sucker. it's very small, and can easily become MIA.

reassembly following the instructions is easy, especially if you watched the video. personally, i brought the gun into the computer room, clicked on the video, and put it together at the desk. nice thing, the pause button.
here's the final product

on one of the customer reviews i read at Midway USA, the reviewer bitched about the bigger, wider bolt release. since i put Pachmayr Signature grips on a couple of weeks ago, i was really happy to have the bigger release. the stock release was just too small, and was a bear to operate once the new grips were put on. here's a view of the original release

see how small it is? it just disappeared into the Pachmayr grips
i like the new bolt release much better with these grips.

here's what my Ruger MKIII looks like now

besides the volquartsen accurizing kit, i've installed a set of Pachmayr Signature Grips, and a TruGlo holographic sight from MidwayUSA.
all in all, i think this will become my favorite go to plinking gun. i took something that was pretty damned good, tweeked it, and now it should be really pretty damned good.

every time my wife raises her eyebrow at one of my little purchases, i always tell her, "honey, i could have a 1967 Camaro SS sitting in the garage. then imagine the money i'd be spending. come to think about it, i WOULD like to have a 1967 Camaro SS, or maybe a 67 Z/28. naaah. i think i'll stick with guns. they are way cheaper....

Oh Happy Day!

High court affirms gun rights in historic decision
sure have heard a lot from the gun grabbers about how this won't really affect anything.

WRONG!!! the NRA is already in court suing Chicago over it's unrealistic and confiscatory gun laws.

again, i say Oh Happy Day!
I may have to get a couple of pistols out of the safe and go to the range and crack a few caps, just to celebrate.

coolest flashlight on the block.

check this out. you know, when i was a kid, the Man From U.N.C.L.E. was the rage, and they had some really cool toys. of course, my buddy Johnny Z. and i spent every damned dime we could beg, borrow, steal, earn (i had a paper route), or cajole our parents to buy the entire collection of toys. let's see, there was a camera, that turned into a cap gun, and a briefcase that was both a gun and a camera. i don't remember any of the others, but between us, we had all of them, and killed an unimaginable number of bad guys and spys in our little town of Burns Oregon. they were the coolest, and made the more modern Transformer toys seem like, well, toys. OURS fired caps.
so i'm guessing the design team for this little jewel were fans like John and I were.

i'm not sure what i'd do with it, but i want one!

follow THIS LINK to watch the sales pitch.

this must make the gun control weenies sweat in their sleep.

editlooks like i'm not the only one that thinks this is a pretty cool gizmo. the armed liberal over at Winds of Change posted too, and the comments are great. one of his comments has a link to what looks a lot like the toys i talked about at the beginning of this post.

something to think about... Run TO the sound of gunfire

i bought a stack of AGI's gunsmithing courses on DVD for all the firearms i own, that they make a course for.
their product is simple, straightforward, and informative courses on working on various firearms. most require at least some semblance of mechanical aptitude, but you do not need to be a machinist to appreciate most of these courses. of course, if you want to work your way from duffer like me to master gunsmith, you can do that too.
i've lightened the trigger and smoothed it out to a perfect glass rod snap, no creep pull on my S&W revolvers (all of them). i've tuned a browning hi-power, and overhauled a 45 or two. good stuff.
since they are based out of a building about 2 miles from where i lived for 10 years, i feel some attachment.
the president of the company sends out a newsletter every month, and i look forward to reading about new courses available and his reviews and thoughts on all manner of gun issues. what's really cool is that he's started a blog. here's a taste:

In spite of the tragedy of lives lost and the after action trauma this woman will most likely face, there is some small good that can come out of this awful situation and that is this; because of this brave woman’s example we have an opportunity to Re-train at least some of the American population about How to react in a situation like this and how NOT to simply be Victims.

I have spent much of the last 27 years as a Professional Security Consultant, bodyguard, Firearms Instructor and served a brief stint in law enforcement. Much of my training came from Israel where a totally different mind set is prevalent. There, in the face of an attack you are trained to DO SOMETHING. Often Anything is better then nothing.

Almost all of the recent attacks have been perpetrated by a single gunman. And, while the thought of attacking a shooter while unarmed is daunting, it may be the only road to survival.

interested in gun stuff? check out AGI's Blog.