Updated YouTube Gun Channels List

Gun Channels on YouTube

Added some new stuff, and noted that some of the channels that I had posted have not put up videos in the last year or more, and in one case, a channel changed format.

Updates On Some Things

I've updated, and edited my AR-15 Magazines Article.

I'm pretty much done with shooting matches until spring, so I've been enjoying shooting without the sole purpose of preparing for a match, which is nice.  It's always fun to go shooting, but now it's entirely for leisure, which is a little bit different.

I've also been restocking the ammo cans.

The primer trays piling up in my living room trash can

I think I've pretty much figured out how to get the 5.45mm AR-15 magazines running properly.  I may still have a few stubborn magazines, but at least I've gotten a few to work properly several times, and I think I've found solutions to the two distinctly different issues.  None of them worked properly when I got them.  I'll post a 5.45mm AR magazine FAQ when I get the text typed up, and maybe add a few pictures or illustrations.

The 1911 is doing well.  I've only had the one stoppage, that was almost certainly due to using a standard recoil spring with a wimpy load.  Although I never did get the tension on the coil-spring powered Aftec extractor tuned to the book spec, I can't complain about the performance.  Mostly I use 8 and 10-round Power Mags, but I mix in a 7-round Colt magazine, and an 8 round Wolff magazine occasionally.

My Kahr PM9 is still going strong.  Great little 9mm pocket pistol.  I've just got the one bad magazine, but the other 3 are fine.

My Gen.3 Glock 19 has been having stove-pipe jams with everything but defense ammo.  I've changed out a couple springs, and I'll see what happens on Monday.  The Gen.3 G17 is a little bit picky about the power factor of ammo, but isn't as picky as the 19.

I pretty much ran out my supply of .38 Special factory ammo, so I got set up to reload the wheelguns, and I've been working up loads.  Although reloading can sometimes be a bit of a chore, more often than not I do enjoy it.  I've actually shot more thirty-eights in the last few months than I've fired over the last couple years, probably.

The Good and Bad of the Last Few Months

GOOD:  I was able to snag a Spike's Tactical 5.45x39mm AR upper from AIM Surplus.
BAD:  There's only one company making 5.45mm AR mags, and they're not too good at it.  All the C Products mags that I've tried, right out of the bag, don't work very well.
GOOD:  A little Teflon dry-lube goes a long way toward making the mags work.  Tweaking the feedlips to actually hold the rounds in the magazine seems to help a lot too.  I got 3 mags to work all the way through, with 25 rounds.  The one that was causing a stoppage every 2 or 3 rounds, all the way through the magazine, didn't give me any more trouble.  Things are looking better now.
BAD:  The 4th, and last, magazine that I had with me caused another trademark bolt-over-base malfunction.  I cleared the jam, reinserted the round, and it did the same thing again.  Like a flyer opening up a nice tight group, there's always gotta be one that screws things up.
GOOD:  From a decent, supported position (not bench rest), and practical sights, the upper will keep the shots on an index card at 100 yards with cheap Russian surplus and Silver Bear commercial ammo.  This is on par with M193 from my free-floated M4 upper, and the Spikes 5.45mm still has the plastic handguards and the delta ring and all.

BAD:  Last time I took the Bushmaster ACR out to the indoor range, I fired a shot, and immediately knew that something wasn't right.  I grabbed the charging handle, and pulled it, and the empty shell flipped out.  I discovered that I didn't have the gas plug in the rifle.
GOOD:  I brought the Tantal along, with the new scope mount, and I had enough loaded mags to keep me busy for an hour.
GOOD:  I found the gas plug for the ACR sitting on the bench at home.  Yeah, I'm a dumbass.  Go ahead and laugh, I deserve it.

BAD: When I took my folding stock 10/22 out to the rifle range last weekend, I was getting a lot of stove-pipe and failure-to-eject malfunctions.  That was weird.  I've had my 10/22s squared away for a while.  When I looked it over today, I discovered that the hook had broken off the extractor.  Yeah, that'll do it.
GOOD:  Surprisingly, about half of the shells popped out under the power of the burning powder, so I still got some shooting done.
GOOD:  New 10/22 extractors cost all of $2.50, and I have the tools and knowledge to tune them.  I can borrow one from the other 10/22 anyway.
GOOD:  The 10/22 seems to feed the blunt-nose Winchester 555 hollow points okay, and it shoots 'em good enough to hit the plates, so at least I've got one rimfire that'll work with the damn things.

BAD:  When I went to run some drills with my airsoft Glock, I tried to fill the magazine with gas, and the gas leaked right back out through the bottom of the mag.
GOOD:  Fortunately, the engineers at Marui in Tokyo did a decent job of creating a simple magazine, that's fairly easy to understand and work on.  I took the bottom off the mag, smeared some silicone oil on the seal and o-ring, put it back together, and tightened the gas valve a fraction of a turn.  The magazine started holding gas again, so I was able to work on drawing from a holster, and shooting on the move.

That's more good that bad.  I think I'll count that as an overall win, eh?

Update, 8/1/2010

I found the website for the self-defense shows on Spike.  So I updated that post.  I also added descriptions of the shows.

Uploaded pictures of Heinie sights and LPA adjustable sights for Glock, and added them to my update post from July 18th.

August free shipping (for orders over $199) promotion code for DSG Arms = AUGSHIP

What I've Been Up To

I got some sights in from Richard Heinie on, er, Wednesday or Thursday, I think.  I got a tall front sight for my Glock 21, which was shooting high.  I also ordered a Ledge rear sight with tritium for the Glock 19, which I bought a couple years ago, but have mostly ignored, except for shooting 1200 odd rounds through it.  The old front sight from the 21 went onto the 19.  The 21 is now shooting to point of aim, and I'm ready to carry the 19.  The 19 will also likely go along for a carbine training class at some point in the future.

I also ordered a tritium sight set for the Kahr PM9, hoping it would fix my problem of hitting high with that pistol.  It didn't.  The pistol still shot 9 inches high (!) at 50 feet.  I can bring it down a bit by filing the rear sight, but probably not enough.

Heinie night sights for Kahr pistols

My Kahr With New Heinie Sights, and Custom Pocket Holster

I shot a Ruger Rimfire Match earlier today at Delaware County Field & Stream.  Although I didn't shoot all that well with the AA Glock conversion pistol, I did pretty good with the 10/22, and it was fun.  The same range is running rimfire pistol plate shoots on Wednesday nights, but I work nights and haven't been able to go.  I now have a legitimate purpose for the 10/22 that I've used to burn through 25-round mags of cheap bulk ammo.  See. . . I can shoot a rifle offhand. . . I just need 40 M.O.A. targets!   :-P 

UPDATE, 8/1/2010:  Looks like I took second in unlimited class somehow, placing just behind the gentleman who set up the shoot.  Don't quite know how that happened.

Oh, and my AA Glock conversion upper is now sporting LPA adjustable sights.  The rear sight holds a zero pretty well.  Although the front sight is much taller than the Glock front sight, and may cause holster clearance issues, I like these a lot better than the plastic Glock sights.  I can now see light between the edges of the rear notch and the sides of the front sight now.  Another issue may be the hinge pin of the rear sight, which is a cheap roll pin.  I've heard several stories of broken hinge pins in Bomar-type sights, and I don't imagine that roll pin will hold up to very many major .40S&W loads.  I'll post more on these sometime later.

LPA adjustable Glock sight set


AA Rimfire Slide with LPA Sights

LPA Adjustable Glock Sight

UPDATE, 11/20/11: The LPA sights are still doing well.  I don't recall ever adjusting the sights, after the initial adjustment just after installing them.  I'm quite impressed, and would buy another set in a heartbeat, if I needed them.

A quick shopping note:  DSG Arms is selling 5 PMags with 150 rounds of Fiocchi 62gr ammo for $109.  I've got lots of AR mags, and I'm reloading .223.  If not for that, I'd probably jump on this deal.  Scroll a bit down this page for a free shipping code I posted recently if you're buying.

I updated the Spike Network shooting/self-defense show post.

Update, 3/8/10

LaserMax UniMax (red)
I had it out on the M&P the last couple times I went out to the pistol range.  I carefully sighted it in the first time out, and by the time I took it back out again, I was shooting about 4" to the right.  I lost the teeny-tiny Allen wrench that came in the plastic box with the laser somehow, and I have to resort to using the teeny-tinier Allen wrench that was stored in the battery compartment of the laser.  I also discovered, by the way, that the teeny-tiny Phillips screw that holds the battery compartment door on is not captured, and very easily disappears into dark carpet.

Millet DMS 1-4X Scope and ADM Recon-X Scope Mount

Although I would not particularly recommend the scope mount for a military or defense rifle, because it takes a little more time and coordination to remove than a Larue mount, it is getting the job done.  I've put it on and taken it back off several times, and it's still holding a good zero.

The Millet scope is very clear, although it is of much lower power than scopes I normally use.  Although I haven't measured it, it struck me that the objective lens of this 30mm scope seems to be a good bit larger than the objective lens of many 1" scopes.  As I said about the scope mount, the combo is holding a good zero.  Although the reticle and lower power don't really help to produce great benchrest groups, it's certainly adequate.  I've shot several groups less than 1.5" at 100 yards, if you throw out a couple stray shots that were most likely due to the "nut behind the butt."  The lighted reticle is not bright enough for use in daylight, which seem to bother some people, but the reticle is quite clear without the lighting.  The scope does seem to have about an inch of parallax at 100 yards.

Loading Rifle Ammo

The sub-1.5" groups I mentioned were shot with my 16" LMT M4 upper, and my reloads.  I could just about put bullets into a 2" 10-ring all day long with good bullets.  I've loaded a lot of pistol ammo, but just started loading rifle ammo.  The transition has not been an entirely smooth one, as I've primed brass a couple times, forgetting to trim the brass to length first.

The Midway Dogtown 55gr Spitzer bullets are shooting just about as well as the Sierra MatchKing and Nosler Custom Competition bullets.  The Midway bullets have flat bases though, and won't fit in the mouth of the brass, which makes loading with them more tedious.  They are a lot less expensive than the match bullets though.
Information on loading rifle ammo in load books is a little lacking in detail, and I spent several hours doing research before I started pulling the press handle.  I'm still taking notes.

I learned pretty quick that my idea of a "light spray" of Hornady One-Shot case lube must be different than Hornady's idea of a "light spray."  Removing stuck bottleneck cases from sizing dies sucks.  I have the RCBS tools for removing stuck brass, but it doesn't help much when the decapper rod/expander button are still in the case and won't let you drill all the way through the case head.

I've mostly been loading .233Rem, but have done some .308Win.  The .308Win ammo has not been performing as well from my AR-10, but that rifle currently lacks a free-float tube, and I'm unsure of the scope riser that I bought cheap at a gun show a couple years ago.  At least I now know that the AR-10 is capable of shooting better than 6" groups, like what I was getting with the crap surplus ammo.  The AR-10 seems to have developed an ejection problem.  The problem being that it doesn't eject.  The round fires, and the bolt carrier goes back, and the empty brass stays in the ejection port.  The ejector seems to be fine, I'm not sure what the problem is.


More detailed reviews will follow later, but I wanted to get something posted for you all to read for now.

New Year's Resolutions

Put pictures in more of the posts. (I'm getting better!)
Set-up some kind of light box so that my photos look better.
Post more reviews this year. (Tapco G2 trigger, Green Eyes and Black Rifles book, fiction books, more optics)
Cover things I learn as I get more into loading rifle ammo.
Keep the Articles and Reviews pages updated. (I'm a little behind)
Post links to manufacturer's websites, and other relevant links.

Update, 12/5/09

GunBlast has a review of American Tactical Imports (ATI) T-14 .410 AR-15 Shotgun Upper, which I mentioned back in July. It looks like Mr. Quinn was using the 13-round magazine, so they must be available somewhere in the U.S.

Also from GunBlast, a review of the Taurus TCP .380 pocket pistol, which I mentioned back in July. I kind of forgot about that pistol. I still don't think I've ever seen one in person. Unlike some other similar pistols, the Taurus locks open after the last round, and the pistol reviewed had a trigger pull that measured around 4 pounds (compared to the usual trigger pull of around 8 pounds). This one might be interesting.

I gave up trying to fix the M&P, and had the shop send it back to S&W for warranty work.

Got another Millet DMS-1 Scope from Midway to replace the dented one. As soon as I can get my hands on a American Defense Manufacturing Recon-X scope mount, I'll get to testing the scope and mount. I made sort of an interesting observation while fiddling with it, that with the power ring set to 1x, the scope actually seems to make things look smaller. True 1x seems to be somewhere between the 1x and 1.5x markings on the power ring.

I still have a couple or few reviews to post. Should have them put up by next weekend.

Tripped 100,000 Visitors! Cool!

I just noticed that the Visitor Counter is reading over 100,000. That's not too bad, over the course of a year plus a couple weeks, considering that I didn't actively promote the site.

Updates 11/22/09

The Magpul UBR stock I ordered from Streichers sale on August 15th should be coming in tomorrow.

I got a Millet DMS 1-4x scope from Midway, but it was dented, and I had to send it back. Hopefully they'll have more American Defense Recon-X scope mounts in stock by the time the scope gets back to them.

The M&P 9 Pro is still pelting me with brass about 80% of the time, no matter what I do to it. I don't know what more to do with it besides send it back to S&W and hope for the best. It seems to be an extractor related problem, and the extractor is neither a user-servicable item, nor a readily available spare part.

Oh, and the pocket knife ban saga continues, apparently. There was a short article about it in Guns Magazine or American Handgunner this month, so I guess we're not out of the woods yet.

I did a small update to the Ares 22RCU posting. Estimated price, and a better picture.

Updates 11/14/09

I updated the AR-15 Magazines article with information on 9mm AR mags.

Lengthening the ejector for the M&P 9 Pro didn't change much. I was able to stretch it out 0.025", through heat and hammering. Chopping down the ejector, and working the extractor some seemed to have done the trick, but I wasn't able to test it too much. It got dark on me too quick today, and I didn't get a chance to do any more live-fire testing.

A while back, I reported that the Border Patrol wanted assisted-opening pocket knives to be classified as automatic knives (a.k.a. switchblades), and regulated as such (Article - Sigh. Pocket Knife Ban In The Works?). This legislation could have affected many one-hand-opening knives. This ban attempt has failed, either through common sense or the efforts of "Knife Guys" to get this killed.

I've noted in the Civilian ACR/Masada Coming Soon? thread that the Wikipedia ACR Article states that the suggested retail price for the semi-automatic ACR is anticipated to start around $1200. I wonder how long it will take for street prices to come down to the retail price. I would expect the first few thousand to sell for over $2000 easily judging by Gunbroker auction bids on the SCAR rifles when they first came out.

Oh, and I finally updated the Articles and Reviews list pages.

Updates, 11/1/09

Added some AR-15 and .223/5.56mm ammo links to the Links Page.

Picture of Magpul PMag added to AR-15 Magazine Article.

I'll have updated the Pet Loads Article, and Hogdon TiteGroup Powder Review, by the time you read this.

The 1911 has been getting some range time, and is doing well. I'll post more details later.

The M&P 9 Pro has a new ejector coming soon from Brownells. Will have it out at the range next weekend, and hopefully will not get beaned with brass the whole time. It's been sitting in the GunVault (another review I'll have to write someday) for months now. Every time I went to put in an order from Midway, they were backordered on the ejectors.

Stuff for reloading .223 ammo inbound from Midway, though they sold out of the shellplates before I could place the order, so I still won't be able to do much. Planning on upgrading the Hornady press with the EZ-Ject parts, so maybe I'll order the shellplate direct from Hornady then.

I need to get around to updating the Articles and Reviews pages. It's been a few months. Oops!

Lack of Posts Recently

Sorry, haven't had a whole lot to post recently.

After having been kept from working overtime for months, and being cut back to 32 hour weeks now and then, we're being offered all the overtime we want to take. So I've been hitting it HARD, working late, and on weekends.

The upside is that I'll be spending some of that overtime money on stuff that I'll review for the site at a later date. I'm trying to complete one of my AR-15s. When I'm done with that, I'll get into reloading for it. The little bit of free time I have, apart from eating and sleeping, has been spent doing research and shopping around for stuff that I didn't think I'd be able to afford for a couple years. Don't worry though, I'm saving the lion's share of the OT money, and I haven't been shooting the pistols all that much, because it's still hard to get primers.


I've been working on some longer articles that I will start posting shortly.


I've added a short update to the Burris FastFire review.

Updates, 1911 Build Progress

1911 Build Index

I've been going through posts and updating them, cross-referencing posts, adding links, and trying to make the site easier to navigate. I've gone through about 75 of 115 posts.

1911 Build
I'm working on fitting the slide to the Caspian frame, wearing out a plastic deadblow hammer in the process. You'll get a look at the slide when I'm finished. I put in an order with EGW for the last of the parts I need to finish the pistol. Well, not quite. I'll need a longer barrel link to get the timing right, the barrel is hitting the top of the frame without the barrel's lower lug hitting the vertical impact surface of the frame.

Added Pictures To A Couple Reviews

Picture of my Kahr PM9 added to Short Kahr PM9 Review.

Picture of my racegun with the J.P. mag funnel added to JP Glock Mag Funnel Review.

I should take pictures of the business end of the funnel someday.