Month: November 2009

Passed up a deal?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I was at my local Cabela’s to pick up some last minute hunting items and also check out the reloading supplies (no primers, but I picked up some bullets). On my way out I always like to stop into the Gun Library to see what’s there.

Today had something interesting.

There was an STI race gun. Used, of course. It was a 2011. Not exactly sure what model as there was nothing stamped on the left side of the slide and the right side had only the STI logo. Totally decked out as a gaming/race gun: chambered in .38 Super, C-More sight, big old mag well, big old mag release, compensator, awesome trigger. It was tricked out to the gills, ready for IPSC open competition.

For only $999.

Consider that the MSRP of a race gun from STI can run at least $3000 or more, that basic STI 2011’s are $2000 or more, that $1000 for a used tricked out race gun seemed like the deal of the century.

I didn’t have a lot of time so I just saw it in the showcase, looked at it for a few seconds, then had to pay for my stuff and get home. But it nagged me all the way home:

1. Wow, that seems like a great deal.

2. Wow, that deal seems so great, it’s almost too good to be true. I mean, if they’re selling it for $1000 used, how much did they buy it for? There’s got to be a catch.

I got home and was emailing foo.c about it. I couldn’t stand it any more and went back to Cabela’s. But even on the drive I had second thoughts, bad enough that I pulled over and called foo.c to talk about it. I figured it was worth giving it a fair shake to see what it was about.

I got back there and looked at it. Asked the guy to take it out of the case so I could fondle it. Yeah, trigger was sweet. It was evident it was a very used gun. Looked down the barrel and you could see the wear. Sales guy said that his boss was able to shoot it and said “it was a tack driver” (whatever that means in this context). I asked how he was able to shoot the gun and apparently the seller was a regular customer and boss and customer went out shooting before the sale and boss was able to try out the gun. So I had as much information as I could get. I needed an opinion. I called Karl. We spoke for about 10 minutes. There’s no question that, on the surface, it’s a bargain deal. The reality is if it’s going to be a .38 Super race gun I must reload for it. Or I could get it rebarreled in 9mm. Karl made some generous and helpful offers, but bottom line was while the tag might say $1000 the gun was likely to need some work and who knows what the cost would be. Plus if I had to reload well… while reloading is happening, it would push up the need to buy a progressive press, which I wasn’t prepared just yet to buy.

While I was on the phone, the gun was placed into the back office and salesguy helped someone else. The issue that someone else had was rather time consuming, but that was good because it gave me a lot of time to think while saleguy was helping him. I noticed a couple guys in the back office that weren’t in Cabela’s employee shirts but seemed to be “relevant” to the office. They were fondling the gun so I went over and joked about not getting too attached to the gun I was about to buy. Talked with one guy that said he’d love a rig like that for shooting hogs (awesome) and then another guy said something that I didn’t quite catch. But it was something that led me to believe there was something wrong with the gun… not that they were selling a brick, but that the gun had some problem that was repaired or fixed or rebuilt or something… something that gave me the impression as to why the price was so low (not just the fact it’s an old gun with a lot of wear). The way the conversation in the small group was going I didn’t get exactly what he said, but the vibe was enough.

So while I waited for the salesguy to come back to help me, I kept hearing this voice in my head saying “don’t do it”. Ever since I laid eyes on the gun it kept smelling of “too good to be true” and there just kept a nagging bit in me. I think the only reason I cared to entertain it was because it appeared to be a great deal.

Maybe it is.

But I passed it up.

I’m sure the gun is OK. I’m sure it shoots fine for what it is. If dropping $1000+ wouldn’t be something that made me cringe, I’d buy it. Of course, if I could toss around $1000 without flinching then I’d also be able to just afford a brand new STI without flinching.

I have to also consider other things, like wanting to buy a progressive reloading press. Spend $1000 on a gun? or on a press? The press then lets me reload a lot, which means I can shoot a lot, which means I can get better. Hrm… I think that route is better.

Furthermore, I haven’t even been able to start competition shooting! There’s always been something confounding it. It feels strange going straight to an open gun, but the only reason I was considering it was purely because it looked like a once-in-a-lifetime deal. I didn’t feel like I “deserved” such a gun at this stage of things.

So well… at least as of this afternoon there’s (still) a used STI race gun sitting at Cabela’s (tho it’s not on their Gun Library website yet for some reason). I feel OK in my decision to walk away from it. I may kick myself because on paper it looks like a great deal, but I just had that feeling that in the long run the deal would have turned out to not be so hot. Besides, I think there are better ways for me to spend my money right now.

On Voting

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

“I’d vote for them, if they had a chance of winning.”

I never understood that sentiment.

You know what? If you vote for them, they will have a chance of winning!

Ever notice that people only vote for a “possible winner” but then all we ever get in office is a Certified Loser?

 

So THAT’S how you say it

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ve shot a bunch of their ammo (a lot if their .308 Winchester 168 grain match stuff, especially), and I’ve always wondered how you pronounce Prvi Partizan. Now I know.

And knowing is half the battle!

 

If only we could too…

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Look at what I saw in my backyard a couple weeks ago:

Mind you I live in the city of Austin, tho obviously not downtown. There’s some flood control plots that run behind my house and coupled with the few hundred undeveloped acres connecting through (again, all for flood control and other “naturalization” stuff by the City), yeah we get all sorts of critters including deer and coyote. But for a city deer, he’s pretty good looking, isn’t he? Of course the majority of the deer we see on a daily basis are does and fawns or much younger bucks, but still the deer population in my backyard is pretty healthy. Over the years we’ve watched the same does come around, watched their children be born and grow up. And the deer population grows, unchecked.

The City seems to grant this is a problem. City of Austin recently passed an ordinance outlawing the feeding of deer. I know other similar legislative attempts have been made to control the deer population. Trouble is, the deer are oblivious to the hard work of our legislators. They don’t see your pretty flowers and landscaping as improving your house’s curb appeal… .no… the deer just see it as food. And the deer problems increase, because there’s a lot of this food about. The only threat to these deer are all the SUV’s driven by soccer mom’s with mobile phones glued to their ears. Unfortunately that’s not enough of a control measure.

Seems allowing hunters to hunt in urban areas is working to control the deer population. Whodathunkit?

I can understand people getting their panties in a wad over firearm-based hunting within city limits. But why not bow hunting? Mr. Buck above wasn’t but 25 yards from me. Certainly proper guidelines could be set down and the deer population could be better regulated. Furthermore, if the hunter didn’t want the venison, I’m sure the Capital Area Food Bank would be happy for the donation. Hell, Austin being Austin, I’d even find it acceptable if they made it a requirement of getting the “within the city hunting permit” to donate at least half of the meat to the CAFB.

But for now, all I can do is dream… and watch the deer play in my backyard. Hrm. Now if I could just get some buffalo roaming and antelope playing out behind my home too.

Home Invasion Defense Tactics

/ hsoi / 10 Comments

Reading Caleb’s post reminded me of something from a couple weeks ago.

A friend of mine was home alone. She heard some noises upstairs, it freaked her out a bit so she fetched the gun and kept it on the table next to her as she worked. Eventually she was freaked out enough that she opted to leave the house. Later she was given advice that she should have cleared the house because she knows how to do that.

IMHO, that wasn’t the best advice. Maybe she does know how to do it, but that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. I also don’t think that leaving was the right thing either.

Best thing? Hunker down. Call the police.

The main question to ask yourself is: “is this worth dying for?”

To go clearing the house could be inviting trouble. You don’t know what’s there and it could be a bigger problem than you’re able to handle, especially if you’re alone.

To leave the house could be a problem too, as you don’t know what’s going on. Maybe someone did break into the house and now there’s dude #1 in the house and dude #2 outside keeping watch while dude #3 is set with the getaway car. You don’t know what’s going on so again you could be walking into trouble.

But what if it’s nothing? Wouldn’t that be a waste of time for the police? Perhaps, but what if it’s something?

Are there cases that you should leave your position? Yes. For instance, a loved one is elsewhere in the house and the trouble appears to be in their general vicinity. In the end it just depends upon the situation and asking yourself “Is it worth dying for?”.

Slayer – World Painted Blood

/ hsoi

I’ve been a Slayer fan for gosh… long enough to realize I’m old. 😉

Today Slayer released their latest album, “World Painted Blood”. iTunes Music Store had it, so it was a quick download and start to listen.

It’s a Slayer album, no question. Dave Lombardo back on drums makes a difference. And there is something about this album’s vibe that’s different. The songwriting is very mature. Songs have Slayer-like composition, but there’s gosh… it’s hard to explain and something you just have to listen to. “Snuff”, “Not of This God”, “World Painted Blood”… there’s something different and very mature and evolved about the song writing and structure. “Playing With Dolls” is just creepy. There’s fast, there are tempo changes, intricate passages and flat out thrash. I’m still listening to the album, probably giving it a lot more spins before I reach a final verdict, but so far the album feels strong.

The real interesting question is, what does the future hold for Slayer? This is their last album in their current contract. Tom Araya just went in for emergency back surgery (today in fact). There has been talk about “the end” because they do see something not right about 50-60 year old men up on stage playing this sort of music. But right now? Who cares. Tom heal up, get back on tour, and just enjoy things in the here and now. The future will be whatever it will be.

 

Go Vote

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Today is election day in the US.

Go vote.

I know the races may not be that glamorous, but they’re still important. If you don’t know what’s on the ballot or how to vote, then Google is your friend. Find your local county clerk’s office or local election board and find out what’s on your ballot.

Here in Texas, we’re voting on 11 Texas State Constitutional amendments.

Bob S. gives us his rundown.

Here’s the Texas Libertarian Party’s take.

Be mindful of the language/wording. If you’re not sure what something means, look it up. Don’t just look at the surface “oh that sounds good” or “that sounds reasonable, why would anyone want to vote against that?”. Consider the deeper, long term impacts. For instance, Texas’ proposed amendment 9 — I fail to see why that should become a “right”. Bob S. considers the bigger picture:

 

Access to state beaches is already protected, probably too much, so why do we need another amendment. This one forces people who aren’t on the shore to grant access if the shore line changes over time or due to natural causes (hurricanes for example). No one should have to give up their property or control of their property without due compensation. I don’t see the amendment providing for that.

 

So it sounds like a “no brainer” to vote yes on that, but don’t let your surface reading influence you. Think deeper. When in doubt, don’t codify it into law. If it’s that important, if it’s that necessary, it will be able to happen (again) down the line, and hopefully with more discussion and debate behind it. But if it’s a bad thing and get rushed into law, especially a Constitutional amendment, it’s going to be difficult to undo the damage. Government should be minimal and slow.

Father Son Time

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Work ran late tonight. Consequently I wasn’t going to make my martial arts class in time. *sigh*

So let’s make the best of it. I headed to the garage to fiddle with the reloading gear. 🙂  Since it’s a single-stage press I’m going to set it up for one task, then do as much of that task as possible. In this case, put a 9mm resizing die on there and go through ALL of my 9mm brass and deprime and resize it.

As I got rolling, Wife and Kids came home. Oldest saw what I was doing and came over.

“Can I try?”

“Sure.”

Gave him the basic instructions to move the handle through its full range of motion. Don’t rush it. Got to point out a few things, teach him a few things. Even encountered a Berdan primed case and got to show him the difference.

Oldest just sat at the press, putting in an old case, cranking the handle, taking out the reshaped and deprimed case, lather, rinse, repeat. He just kept doing it with no signs of stopping. Seemed happy doing it too. So I set about better organizing everything on the bench, sorting some things out, cleaning some things up.

Oldest just kept working the press.

We talked. Cracked jokes.

I took over for a bit. I stopped for some reason then Oldest snaked his way in and started working the press again. Go figure.

I eventually cut back in. Gave him my tub of non-usable brass and told him to get a pair of pliers out and crush them to ensure they don’t get used. He had fun with that. Told him to get the big pliers out for increased leverage and he really had fun with that. 🙂 I worked the press, watching him squish brass with glee and listened to him explain to me the differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class levers. I know what they are, but it doesn’t matter as I’m not listening to him to learn about levers… I’m just listening to him because he’s my Son and has something to say.

And so there we were in the garage. Father and Son. Talking, joking, working, playing… and sometimes just sitting in silence.

Oldest asked me if I was having fun reshaping the brass. I said that I was neutral about it. It’s repetitive, technically it’s boring. But I know it’s going to be good work and serve a useful end, so I’m good with it all. But that really, what I was enjoying more than anything was just spending time with him.

He seemed to like that.

I think I liked it more. 🙂

 

Which to get

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m all agog. <— click it. You know you want to hear it.

What with yesterday’s reloading session, I’m all excited about reloading. I wish I didn’t have to work today so I could just sit in the garage and try things out. Thankfully, a lot of my work today has been “hurry up and wait” so while I let something churn away I can Google and read.

It’s evident that my single-stage press will drive me insane eventually. If I want lots of handgun rounds for practice, I really need a progressive press. So the question becomes, what to get. The big players are the Dillon Precision 650, Hornady Lock-N-Load, the Lee Load-Master. There are others out there, like RCBS’s Pro 2000, Lyman has stuff (website down at the time of this writing), but Dillon, Hornady, and Lee seem to be the “big 3.” At least, if Google results are to be believed.

So it’s cool to find that a guy wrote up a good comparison piece on the big 3. You can read it here.

Foo.c sent that PDF to me some time ago, and I read it, but I knew nothing so I couldn’t really evaluate what was being said. I mean, was the guy just biased? Or just how straight up was the review? It did seem to be straight up given how things panned out, but still I had no knowledge with which to evaluate. But with the bit of experience I had yesterday, including seeing things going wrong, re-reading that PDF makes a lot more sense now.

Furthermore I found a lot of reviews, like this one at arfcom. As I’d read reviews today I’d find myself going “yeah, that happened to me with the Dillon, so I know what he’s talking about.” The issues with primers, the little details with the retention pins, all the powder measuring and adjustment mechanisms. Lots of little details. Not knowing any better I just experienced the 650 and said “well, that’s annoying, but that’s how it goes.” Then I read how the Hornady Lock-N-Load works and how it seems to have been designed to address those little annoying nits. Then I read about Hornady problems but then I read how they fixed it. For instance, the latest little nag seemed to be that 9mm rounds wouldn’t eject well (9mm is important to me) unless you did a bunch of work on the ejector wire. But now the LnL has a new EZject™ system that supposedly takes care of all that. Seeing Hornady listening to customers and striving to improve their product is a good sign.

I still don’t know what I’ll get, and for now I won’t be getting anything because I’m determined to start out learning the gear I have. But I know for the volume of handgun rounds I want that I’ll eventually want a progressive press, so I’ll start looking around and learning what to get. I’ll admit I’m leaning towards the Hornady Lock-N-Load based upon what I’m reading compared to my experience with the Dillon. More research needed.