Mossy Creek Custom

On Monday, in many places, dove season will get started to open the fall hunting season.  If you have never had the opportunity to hunt doves, you owe it to yourself to get with some guys who know their way around the dove field.  It is so much fun to be out with the guys or the family and spend Labor Day hunting these birds.  By the way, they taste pretty good!

Before you go out remember these things;

1. Clean your gun and remove any oil from the barrel before you shoot.
2. Make sure you take your choke tubes and wrench.
3. OFF.  There are still ticks around.
4. Don’t shoot when someone calls a low bird.
5. Maintain your muzzle awareness in the field.  Don’t get careless talking to your friends.
6. Bring a good seat.  You will be glad you did after waiting to get started.
7. Make sure you have the proper license for your state.  Many hunting licenses don’t cover bird hunting.
8. Bring a cooler full of drinks (no alcohol stupid!).
9. Clean up your hulls and other trash when you are finished.

Hope everyone has a safe weekend.

Kershaw Chive

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Kershaw line of products you should get to your local retailer and spend a few minutes playing with their designs.  One of our customers loves this little knife for his everyday carry companion.

The chive is a small knife for pocket carry.  The blade is just less than 2″.  It utilizes the Ken Onion Design opening system that makes it esy to deploy one handed with the touch of a finger.  One thing we love about this knife is that pocket clip can be removed so you can carry it without tearing up your nice pants. It is a discreet knife with a great edge.  Perfect for the guy in an office who can’t carry a larger tactical folder.

Does your 1911 rattle when you shake it side to side?  Big deal.  What that means is you probably have a Colt.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love Colt’s.  That is the only 1911 for me.  What that rattling really means is that your gun was not fit very well at the factory.

If you were to buy a truly custom gun it shouldn’t rattle.  They are made to demanding specs that call for tight tolerances.  Some factory guns don’t have a lot of play, but most companies don’t put enough time into them to really care about the fit of your gun.  They are simply trying to give you a good value with a decent fit.

It’s true that you are loosing some accuracy by having one of these old rattle-traps, but for most shooters, i.e. non-bullseye shooters, it will never make a difference because they can’t shoot well enough to see the difference on paper.  If you are using the gun for defense or plinking go ahead and enjoy it.  A little rattle never hurt.

My cousin is a big fan of a group of guys who train here in TN, called Tactical Response.  He has been to several of their classes, and recently let me preview their Fighting Rifle video.

James Yeager, the owner of TR, goes into great detail to give the viewers a look inside his school and method of instruction.  The 3 DVD set covers everything from shooting positions, reloads, firing drills, and gear selection.  What new shooters may find most helpful is the section on setting up your rifle.  It is clear that Yeager’s experience in L/E and the sandbox has given him a firm grasp on what works and what doesn’t.  He goes over all of it so that if you decide to attend one his classes you will be prepared.  As you well know, the AR can be configured in a myriad of different ways, so be careful before you buy.

The live fire drills covered are very interesting, and practical.  Everything TR teaches has a battle mindset.  Of particular interest is the section on cover and concealment.  Watch the video, and you won’t take cover behind a car again.

Yeager’s seems to be a gifted teacher whose teaching style is very clear and methodical.  His opinions are well formed, and his train of thought is easy to follow.  You don’t get lost from wanderings that make no sense.

The videos are shot very well my criticisms are few and simple.  You don’t want to watch this video with young ears around.  The language at times is not appropriate, and after all these years is still something that continues to baffle me.  I just don’t see the point.

The other odd criticism I have is that at several points in the video Yeager engages in a conversation with someone who has obviously written or said something challenging to his system of instruction.  In the tactical world teacher’s become very defensive of their styles.  My comment to this would be that defending yourself against the internet is simply a waste of time.  If you are right, you don’t need a defense, and if you are wrong you don’t have one, so just leave it alone.  The personal stuff should have been left out.

Overall I would give these videos a 9 out of 10, and I personally plan on continuing my training with one of their classes in the near future.  Go to tacticalresponsegear.com to purchase them if you are interested in learning more about the fighting rifle.

This is interesting.  I don’t know how practical it is, but you should think about being able to control your weapon.  By the way, how would you like to have the “opportunity” to be the bad guy?  He has it rough doesn’t he?

Speedfeed I

When we started looking for our SM-1 package, we quickly decided that they needed a sythentic stock to handle all of the abuse our customers put them through in training and competition.  We looked at several designs and decided to go with the Speedfeed I.  These stocks offer great versatitlity and function, and they also look great on your gun.

The Speedfeed I has a great system in the buttstock that allows you to carry 4 extra rounds for fast reloads.  This stock also comes pre-drilled for your sling mounts.  Speedfeed makes several other variations that work for the Remington line of shotguns including a shortened version

This shortened version is called the model IV.  It was designed for L/E applications when the shooter might be wearing a ballistic vest.  At 13″ it could also be used by smaller framed shooters.  The trade off is that you don’t get the 4 rounds in the stock.  Check them out at speedfeedinc.com

Ithaca 72 Carbine

I had a customer bring in an Ithaca 72 to the shop the other day.  He described a feeding malfunction where the gun would not even pick up a round out of the magazine tube.  This gun is a 22lr that has magazine tube with an inner tube providing the spring pressure for feeding.

There were immediately problems with this gun.  No reference book I had even cataloged it.  I was able to find it in the Blue Book, but that wasn’t helpful.  I finally decided to take it apart “blind” and see if I could discover the problem.  The other problem was that no one lists parts for this gun, so if something was broken there was no hope.

Luckily the culprit ended up being a deformed round in the tube that was stuck.  Just a reminder; if you ever face this, DO NOT hit the round from the back end.  It could ignite and blow up your tube.  With a little coaxing it finally came out, but the tube had a burr inside it from the round that also had to be removed.

After thought: the owner noted that this gun looked a lot like a Henry rifle.  Upon further investigation he was right.  The takedown procedure was the same.  The lesson is to be careful when repairing or collecting.  Sometimes things are not always as they appear.  Check, double check and ask someone who knows.  You may just save yourself a good headache.

I have a good friend who makes custom grills.  I wonder if he could do something like this?

Winchester 190

I recently had one of these great guns in the shop for a maintenance/cleaning job.  The gun was in pretty rough shape because it had been stored in a barn for many years, but with a little work it started look great again.  The photo above is a representative picture I found.  Before there was a Ruger 10/22, this was one of the slickest guns around.

One of the things that I noticed was like the Ruger 10/22 it is almost impossible to clean if you don’t take it down all the way.  The 190 does not allow you to lock the bolt to the rear, so it is hard to really get a the fouling out of the action, and it would be hard to run your cleaning rod through.  Another issue with these types of autoloaders is that they can only be cleaned from the muzzle.  Generally this isn’t is a good idea.  You always want to clean from the breach to the muzzle.  If your gun is a good shooter, you might want to invest in a muzzle protector that can be purchased from Brownell’s.  This will keep your muzzle crown from being damaged.

If you do take this gun apart for cleaning, be prepared to fight the recoil spring.  I only shot it across the shop 4 or 5 times!  I’ll admit it was exciting to look for it, but after a while it got annoying. Having taken this gun apart now I would rate it as a 5 out of 10 in difficulty.  Nothing is that difficult, but you will need some patience, and a special wrench for barrel removal if you decide to go that far, which I don’t recommend.

If you have one of these guns, you might just want to do some routine maintenance until it gets gunky.  Then I would advise that you bring it in to your local gunsmith.  They are well designed, and should provide a lot of shooting enjoyment.

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