Guns

Yes, I did another bunch of competency exams. This time, the four “Handle and Use a [Handgun | Shotgun | Manual Rifle | Self Loading Rifle] for Business Purposes”.

I had to study — everything I know is not quite the same as the answers in the book, and of course the answers in the book are always right — for example, the four rules of gun safety, in order of importance, are:

1. Always keep the firearm pointed in a safe direction;

2. Keep your booger hook off of the bang switch;

3. Always treat guns as if they’re loaded; and

4. Know your target and what’s behind it.

Now, I learned those in a slightly different order, but it’s simple enough to remember what order the examiner considers correct.

Also, I only ever learned four colour codes, but the course adds black. And not the USMC one, no, black is apparently when people are trying to kill you. Sho sho, I’ll try to remember that next time someone tries to kill me…

Anywayz, the general setup is still the same. Get the book, read through it, do the open book exam at the back. Pitch at the venue, write a closed book exam on the easiest three quarters of the open book exam. Identical questions, (presumably) identical answers, and they leave out the tricky bits like identifying the parts of the firearms by name (except they did ask what you call the lever used to open a double barrel shotty (the “break neck lever”. I suspect I might have misremembered that. And I had to look it up for this post)). Also, “what’s the difference between a boxer primed case and a berdan primed case?” “You can reload the boxer” is not the right answer. The right answer mentions number of flash holes and stuff about the anvil — all stuff I know, but who cares, “berdan cases stuff up your decapping pin” is important.

Then I had to prove that I can shoot. 10 shots with a CZ75 at about 7m, all shots must be on an A5 page. 10 shots with a scoped 22 rimfire boltgun at 7m, all shots must be on an A5 page. 10 shots with an LM5 (semi-auto 223, peep sights) at 7m, all shots must be on an A4 page. And three shots with a shotty, all shots must hit the berm. Didn’t have too much of a hassle with that…

Now I need to make an appointment at the cop shop to apply for a competency to deal in firearms (actually, I just want to store some ammunition for a friend, but this is what’s required).

Some internationally known damn fool goes and shoots his slightly less but still internationally known extremely photogenic girlfriend on Valentine’s Day and the email starts ringing off the hook.

So far I’ve been quoted in the Metro newspaper, Time Magazine and Global Post.

Edit: And CNN (2012-02-25)

In the mean time, the campaigns for victim disarmament are claiming that only the police should have guns (really? Are you kidding?) and that “Very few people successfully use firearms to defend themselves” (really?).

For once I am in perfect agreement with Pierre de Vos:

Meanwhile another women is dead today. Because Oscar Pistorius is famous, I fear that many of us (including many in the media) will forget this. Oscar is not dead. Reeva Steenkamp is. We should not forget that. Neither should we forget that many women are abused or killed by their partners every day.

Back when Obama was first elected, the American public kicked their gun and ammo purchases into high gear. CCI alone was shipping 12 million primers a week, trying to catch up with their “billions” backorder.

And then Obama got re-elected, the Sandy Hook tragedy went down, and Obama started shooting Skeet.

Seems that the people were relatively calm until this bullshit pic was released (with a request to not photoshop it. R U kidding? Is Internet. “Don’t” is short for “Do it immediately damnit!”)

The problem with four letter words being ubiquitous in our society is that one lacks words to express the absolute crazy. It’s like Jeremy Clarkson trying to explain just how fast the latest land-jet is. They ripped those gun purchases out of high gear and straight into a new gearbox. With a supercharger. And afterburners.

From Doug (along with the picture above):

Smith & Wesson-is running at Full capacity making 300+ guns/day-mainly M&P pistols. They are unable to produce any more guns to help with the shortages.

RUGER: Plans to increase from 75% to 100% in the next 90 days.

FNH: Moving from 50% production to 75% by Feb 1st and 100% by March 1. Remington-Maxed out!

Armalite: Maxed out.

DPMS: Can’t get enough parts to produce any more product.

COLT: Production runs increasing weekly…bottle necked by Bolt carrier’s.

LWRC:Making only black guns, running at full capacity…can’t get enough gun quality steel to make barrels.

Springfield Armory: Only company who can meet demand but are running 30-45 days behind.

AMMO: Every caliber is now Allocated! We are looking at a nation wide shortage of all calibers over the next 9 months. All plants are producing as much ammo as possible w/ of 1 BILLION rounds produced weekly. Most is military followed by L.E. and civilians are third in line.

MAGPUL is behind 1 MILLION mags, do not expect any large quantities of magpul anytime soon.

RELOADERS… ALL Remington, Winchester, CCI & Federal primers are going to ammo FIRST. There are no extra’s for reloading purposes… it could be 6-9 months before things get caught up.

And from Bob:

It really hit me when I realized that the World War-era M1 Garands , M1 carbines, and Enfield .303s were gone, along with every last shell. Ubiquitous Mosin-Nagants—of which every gun store always seems to have 10-20—were gone. So was their ammo. Only a dust free space marked their passing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone. This isn’t a society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war.

This is going to impact shooters worldwide, if it isn’t already*. Primers and ammo — we get a lot of stuff from Europe, S&B, Fiocchi, Russian 22 — but that’s likely to be diverted to the US market too. The local agents are assuring us that the current orders will be filled, but once that’s gone, I see a two year drought coming.

Commencing operation stocking up.

* I’m trying to get hold of a few Thompson Contender G2 frames. It’s a single shot target handgun — useless for self defense, and highly unlikely to be banned — but it goes “bang” and as a result the distributor is back-ordered.

Took the Garand, the Auto-5, the Browning Semi-auto 22, the Norinco JW-21, the Freedom Arms 454, and four Spanish pistols to the range, along with two pups of the female persuasion.

The Freedom Arms has a new front sight blade, it was terribly high with the old blade, now it looks like I can come up a few clicks at 50m, so that’s all good. That’s why I went, to check the difference the new front sight made. The rest was just fun.

Practicing for the shotty, which kicks a bit more than a 22.

Norinco 22 levergun — copy of the Winchester 9422 — fun little gun, as is the Browning.

Three diminutive 1911 rip-offs. Star in 9mmK, Llamas in 32 ACP and 22LR. The 22 is straight blow-back, the other two are toggle-link.

Star Model B. Almost a full-size 1911 rip-off.

Fun was had.

My Dedicated Hunter certificate came today. To get this, I actually had to study — there’s a test on animals and habitats and ethics and all kinds of stuff, there’s also a shooting test (Impala target at 100m sitting, 200m prone, 50m standing, three shots at each distance).

I am now a Dedicated Hunter, Dedicated Collector and Dedicated Sport Shooter in terms of the Firearms Control Act.

Now I can apply for the 300 Winchester Magnum Howa 1500 I bought a few months ago.

The SADPA postal shoot consists of four stages, shot by local IDPA shooters, to get an idea of where you rank. You can shoot multiple times, but only the first score you submit counts — which leads to some people shooting and then tearing up their score sheet because of completely missing the 15m target. But Richard Dews is a rather large fellow so we don’t argue with him.

Anyway, I shot it on Saturday at FBGC and I sucked. But maybe less so than last week. This time I shot both the revolver (SSR) and my 1911 (CDP).

Modified Bill Drill (Stage 1). Three targets at 5, 10 and 15m. Six shots at each target. Boring :-) Except I completely stuffed up the 15m SSR stage and got 22! points down. SSR raw time 19.35, CDP raw time 21.84 with 8 points down.

Standards #708 (Stage 2). This was a fun one. Six targets from 4m to 25m, with no-shoots in front of the front two targets. I really thought I was going to plug the no-shoots but I managed not to. And I even hit the 25m target a few times. SSR 36.91, 10 points down, CDP 35.83, 12 points down. Both revolver and pistol required two reloads — I’m only marginally slower with the speed loaders, but that’s just because I’m way too slow with magazine changes.

Seated (Stage 3). Four targets, all 5m away. One no-shoot. Tactical sequence, which means one shot to each target and then empty the magazine at them. 12 shots, that’s one reload for the revolver as well as for the pistol (7 round magazine, so I started with 8 shots in the gun). SSR 18.03 and one point down, CDP 18.89 and 4 points down. Gotta work on those magazine changes.

Quick Standards (Stage 4). This one was… weird. Seven shots at 3m… and yes, you can miss at 3m, but only if your brain comes undone, like mine (of course) did. Note to self, seat the bloody magazine properly. I can’t think of any real-world scenario where I would draw with my strong hand and then transition to weak hand only — but then, IDPA is a game. SSR 6.49 no points down, CDP 6.89 and two points down.

I figure that when the nationwide results get published I should probably look for my name on the last page or two…

The IDPA postal shoot consists of four stages (this year, at least) which are shot by IDPA members all over the world, as standardised as possible, and then collated to give you an idea of how much you suck compared to… well… the world.

We shot it today at FBGC. And I sucked*.

In the order we shot it in:

Bike Crash (Stage 3). Lying on your weak side, with the firearm on the ground in front of you, and three targets mounted horizontally to simulate dogs, 7 – 14m away. My grouping was excellent. My aim, notsomuch.

2-0, 2-2, 2-2 (means two shots on target, in the zero zone on the first target and in the -1 zone on targets two and three, for two points down on targets two and three), raw time 6.95.

Bucket Brigade (Stage 2). Starting with a bucket in your weak hand, two targets on the move strong hand only, then two targets (with a no-shoot (hostage)) 7m away through a gap, then two more targets around a corner, 8 1/2m away, with another no-shoot.

2-2, 1-5, 2-0, 2-0, 2-0, 2-1, raw time 21.34. Pretty good, except for the one handed on the move with bucket in hand first two (two shots in the -1 zone on first target, only one shot on the second target).

Dinner Interruptus (Stage 4). Start sitting down, both hands on table. Four targets, two 10m away, two 21m away. The bottom half of the front two targets is blocked out, so a shot there is a miss. And the two back targets flank a no-shoot.

3-2, 2-6, 3-7, 3-5, and a hit on a non-threat. Ouch. I need to practice my shoot-sitting-down a bit. Raw time 22.46.

“Cup” Standards (Stage 1). For this one you don’t need concealment, but hey, who cares. Three targets 10m away, two of them flanking the inevitable no-shoot. Two shots each, then another six shots strong hand, then another six shots weak hand. With a revolver**, this needs two reloads. All timed as one string.

6-0, 6-0, 6-0. Damn I’m hot. Except that I also plugged the non-threat. Twice. So if you know I’m around, try not to get taken hostage ‘cos I’ll prolly end up taking you out as well. Raw time 33.47, I also need to practice my reloads.

Next week we’re doing the SADPA postal. Looks like it might be even more fun.

* I suck a whole lot less than I used to, and a whole lot more than I will in future, but I suck.

** Taurus Model 66 (357 Magnum) stainless, 3″ barrel, shooting 38 Special SWC reloads (158 gr at about 920 fps).

Edit, 2013-01-14: I’m #11 out of 38 SSR MM-level shooters.