So what does one do with a nephew visiting from out of town? Why, you you take him shooting, of course.
Here he is trying out the .300 AAC shorty with full-powered rounds and no suppressor.
And here he is shooting it suppressed.
(And yeah...I belatedly caught the lack of safety glasses here and we had a discussion about that.)
Then we moved on to bigger things. Hell, he's been good enough to earn some trigger time on "the Pig".
After that, we put a box of sporting clays down on the 50-yard berm and went "Dueling .22 rifles" on them until they were gone. Here he is with my M&P-15 .22lr. (And yeah, he's got a muddy ass. Boys are supposed to get muddy...even this one.)
And since this is real shooting and not "Call of Duty", he learned some shooting positions today, both prone (above) and sitting (below).
He did great. No clays survived.
Then it was time to try some pistol shooting on the steel plates with the Browning Hi-Power.
He got off to a bit of a slow start here, but surprisingly, as soon as he started listening to what I was telling him about stance, grip, sights and trigger, the plates started dropping like clockwork. Funny how that works, isn't it?
We spent a few hours out there, and he was safe and followed directions. My only real complaint is that when it comes to policing brass, he's the slowest brass-picker-upper I've ever seen. But we can work on that. As far as shooting goes, I'm proud of him.
Gee, it sure is quiet around the Lair this morning. That usually means that a dog (or two) is (are) getting into mischief.
Sure enough. Gun safe's open. Something's missing. And the dogs are nowhere to be found.
But I think that I hear something in the guest room...the room with the balcony that overlooks the driveway and the street. And the approaching UPS truck.
"Big Brown truck in range...slowing for the curve...ready...--Oh, Hi, Human! We wuz just looking at this."
And the neighbors wonder why we can't keep a steady UPS driver on this route.
OK, it's Saturday night, and time to do what I should have done a few days ago: put some music on, crack a beer and clean "The Pig".
We shot it, and I put it up dirty, meaning to get back to it. I dithered a few days, but now it's time.
I apologize in advance for the crappy pictures. I ran out of batteries for my dedicated camera and I'm doing these off my iPhone. But the music's good. Tonight, we're doing Meatloaf.
And the beer: Yeungling.
Step one: Barrel off. Rotate this little catch 90 degrees and remove the barrel assembly.
Those of you familiar with the older M60's will see some differences here, this being the newer M60E4, or more accurately, the MK43 Mod 0. It's the upgraded version now in use by the Navy special teams. This one started out as a stock model but it was worn out and beat to the point of being unsafe when I got it (and the seller knew it but swore that it was in great shape) so I sent it out to Desert Ordnance, which is the civilian sales side of US Ordnance, the company the rebuilds the M60 for the Navy. They completely rebuilt my shot-out old junker and sent me this one back--a zero-time, brand new gun (with a factory warranty) and fixes for all of the problems that the old M60 was known for. So that being the case, if you are used to seeing the traditional 60, bear in mind that this one's going to be a mite different. And the barrel assembly above is a great example of that. It's tougher, lighter, shorter, and it comes with a fully adjustable front sight post, which means that spare barrels can be zeroed to the gun in advance. Plus, the carry handle is on the barrel, so you can grab it when changing barrels. Also, to reduce the weight of the spare barrels, the bipod is now mounted to the gun, not each barrel.
The buttstock is shorter and lighter, too. But it comes right off, and then you can pull the retaining clip out, take out the buffer assembly, and pull the drive spring out, just like the original.
Then the bolt and operating rod come out. These are seriously improved metallurgically, and good for about 30,000 round each now, instead of being virtually disposable like the old ones.
The top cover and feed guide come out just like always. The top cover is improved now in that is allows the cover to be slammed shut on an ammo belt without damaging it. It also has about 30% more pulling power on the belt.
Next, the retaining spring is removed and the trigger assembly comes off. This also is lighter and improved with the addition of an ambidextrous safety.
So, with the trigger assembly removed from the gun, I naturally turned it upside down only to hear that sound that every amateur gunsmith fears: the clink of some mystery part falling out of it's place before you saw what it was or how it sat in place.
Yep, there on the floor sat the gun's sear. Fortunately function and wear patterns pretty much indicate how it's supposed to be, so after double-checking with the gun's spare trigger pack and having another beer, I put the sear back in where it was supposed to go.
With all of the components removed, all you have left is the receiver with the operating rod tube, rear sight and ammo hanger. It's pretty easy to clean this out.
Then I work on the barrel assembly. The bore gets cleaned and the gas system gets taken apart. Again, many changes to this area. The gas system has a nice retaining ring set-up which eliminates the need for the safety wire that used to be necessary to keep the gun from disassembling itself, and the gas piston has been modified--it can go in either way and still run, so no more worrying about putting it in backwards and creating a 23lb. single-shot rifle like was commonly done with the old style sixty.
Everything gets scrubbed and oiled, and then I put it all back together. Then I had another beer.
Perfect...oh wait--what's that on the floor?
Please God, please don't let that be an M60 part...please.
It was. It was a small plunger, with a spring beside it. I didn't have to be Kreskin to figure out where that came from. Sure enough--a quick check of the spare trigger pack showed me that I was looking at the sear plunger and spring. Yeah, just great. So the trigger pack came pack off the gun and the sear came back out, and there was an empty hole where the plunger assembly should have been. Derp.
Trigger pack re-assembled and re-installed on the gun again, and it passed it's function check flawlessly. Yay, me. Just as well, too. The beer's all gone and I'm starting to feel like a General Motors line worker here. So that concludes our Saturday Night gun cleaning session.
Took my houseguests shooting yesterday. Pretty much the whole range shut down to watch an 11 y/o girl take out her targets in full-auto style.
After a bout with the Mk 43, she decided to try her skills with the Uzi.
The poor target log never stood a chance.
Next, Papa Bear got on the big gun. If he looks familiar, it's because he's an Alaska State Trooper and you've probably seen him on TV arresting bad guys and punching out grizzly bears.
Excellent control and every round right on target. I had some great footage of him with the Uzi too, but like a doofus, I was holding the camera upside down, and since it was only an Android, there was no fixing that.
It was great having them here, and Murphy is missing his new young friend today. Here's hoping that they come back again soon.
"Range Card filled out and trip flares set, Boss!"
"Just waiting on the cats, or that terrorist in the big brown truck."
No, Murphy. I keep telling you that the UPS guy is our friend. He BRINGS us stuff. Let him pass. And hold off on firing on stray scout cats; they're only probing and you'll just give the gun's position away. Don't engage unless you've got at least six of them in a bunch. "OK, but the minute that Animal Control truck turns up our road, he's toast. Now how about you toss a couple of steaks on the grill? All this security stuff is making me hungry."
Just another day at the Lair. So how's your Saturday going?
Oh wait...there are a couple of BATFE Form 4s in my safe, so I guess that he's not.
Silly Mitt Romney.
Other than that, he was making Obama look petty and small, at least until biased moderator Candy Crowley cut in time and time again to pull Barry's chestnuts out of the fire.
Judge Andrew Napolitano has warned Congress not to act “like potted plants” regarding the increased use of unmanned surveillance drones without warrants over US skies by military, government, and law enforcement agencies.
Echoing the recent comments of his Fox News colleague Charles Krauthammer, Napolitano also said that “The first American patriot that shoots down one of these drones that comes too close to his children in his backyard will be an American hero.”
Well hell...I'm your huckleberry, Judge. Bring one over this way and I'll see what I can do.
So how exactly do I lure one of those things in range?
Did you ever have one of those range days when everything went right? For me at least, usually something always twists the day--a needed magazine or bag of ammo gets left behind, a new gun out for evaluation turns out to suck, or a trusted old one funks out.
Well today, it was a great day as Proud Hillbilly and I hit the range.
I started out with the M60 again as I'd just figured out after the last session out with it that the front sight on these new barrels are adjustable for windage and elevation. (This makes it easy to pre-zero all of your spare barrels before the big fire-fight)A few adjustments both ways and it was dead-on at 100 yards. Proud Hillbilly sent some rounds downrange with it too, and it took several minutes for her to quit grinning. It's quite the fun shooter. Next shooter on the line was the Norwegian (ex-German) K-98 Mauser that I'd bought a short time ago (discussed here.) I hadn't managed to get it out until today, and frankly, I wasn't expecting much as so many surplus bolt rifles just do well to hit the target itself and typically require a good deal of hold-over, hold-under, or "Kentucky windage" to put your shots where you want them. That being my experience, I'd have been ok with anything even close to the 8" target pasters placed on the 100-yard target, but Sha-zaam! The first round and every round following landed smack on the paster from the battle-sight setting! I'll add also that the trigger breaks light and smooth, and the sight picture is superb due to the Norwegians notching the rear sight out. Hell--come the revolution, I may just be grabbing this one off the rack or handing it out to someone I trust, because it's performance is right in the ballpark with my '03 Springfields and a couple of other select fighting bolt rifles.I'm in mad love with this one and I'll be taking it out to the range again real soon.
Then it was mouse rifle time. I'd planned on bringing the AR-15 out again and on impulse as I was heading out, I grabbed the Mini-14, too. This was a neat opportunity to shoot them both side-by-side.Best part about this range is you can shoot on the move, and use trees on the range for barricades. So I set up a course that involved taking cover behind various trees, shooting around right and left side of the trees, then running to the next tree to repeat, followed by some kneeling and crash-prone position shooting. I managed to put every round on target with both rifles and while the 15-round group shot with the iron-sighted Mini was actually a bit smaller, the AR with Aimpoint M3 Optics was much faster. And when it comes down to real-life shooting on the move at targets that will probably be shooting back, I'll take the enhanced speed over a slightly more precise shot placement, thank you very much. That being said, I'll take either of these in a real shooting situation. Both are accurate and reliable enough to get the job done and I'm secure enough in my shooter manhood that I can be seen in public with a stock Mini-14. (Hey, at least it's a GB.) We wrapped up the day with some pistol shooting. I loaned Proud Hillbilly a Glock 19 and a Glock 23 so she could decide which one she likes best (And yes, your opinions are welcome.) and I brought out the Smith and Wesson Model 58 .41 Magnum and some new loads I put together for it that put 15.0 grains of AA#9 behind a 215gr lead semi-wadcutter.As you can see from this video clip, accuracy was good from 25 yards, and the plates went down with quite a bit of authority. My thoughts on the big N-frame and this new load?
Then it was off to lunch and a few good beers, the perfect way to wind down an afternoon after three hours on the firing line before going home to Murphy. And Murphy was such a good dog while I was gone; he hardly got into anything. So that earned him a walk this evening. And now the sun is down and it's time to grill a steak and clean guns.
If you want to know more, go to Proud Hillbilly's blog and read her version.
It was a nice day out, so Proud Hillbilly and I went out shooting. She brought her pistols and that M-1 carbine that she's so deadly with, and I brought out a few of my pistols, plus a couple of other items. Starting out with the pistols, top left, the 9mm Heckler & Koch P7M13. Top right, Glock Model 19 (also 9mm). Bottom is Smith and Wesson Model 642 in .38 Special. I just got the P7 back from a rebuild courtesy of an H&K armorer friend of mine, and truth be told, I didn't realize what a sick gun it was. The fact that it has been shooting normally for months if not years with a gas piston so undersized that a gauge won't even seat on it any longer is a testament to that gun's solid design. As it was, the drop safety spring finally gave out due to the excess internal pressures, but even with that problem, the pistol continued to fire. As bad as I feel for not catching that problem earlier (I don't own the factory gauge used to catch the bad piston), I cannot help but be impressed with the pistol's ability to keep functioning well out of spec. But it's got a new piston and new drop safety now, so it's as good as new. And it shoots like new too, as the swinging steel target tree at the range can testify.
The Glock is my ex-Washington DC Police Department pistol that used to belong to a detective friend of mine until he decided that he wanted an Enfield rifle that I owned about as much as I wanted that Glock. We're both much happier today, even though I'm still unable to smooth out it's trigger pull no matter how many times I swap the disconnector out. But even with that gritty trigger, it still does the job on the swinging steel, even if it lacks the style of the P7.
The 642 was just in my pocket, like always, so I fired some of the .38 rounds that always seem to be in my range bag, just to stay current with it. So often we forget to practice with the ones that we carry the most, and those are likely to be the ones we're going to need to be the sharpest with, just by virtue of the fact that they're most likely to be at hand when trouble brews.
And in that vein, I took out the old Remington 870 house gun and ran 45 rounds of slugs and buckshot through it. This is one that I rely on for when things go bump in the night, so practice with it is always a good thing. As you can see, this gun has been modified with an extended magazine tube, a sidesaddle shell carrier and a speed-feed stock. It holds 16 rounds now, both buckshot and slugs, and the Surefire light on the fore-end makes for 100% target identification.
Then it was time for some heavy metal, and the M60 came out to play. I wanted to put a proper zero on it's barrel and also zero it's new Elcan M145 optic, but alas, I did not bring enough ammo with me to compete the job so I'll have to bring it out again...oh, darn.That Elcan is nice. 3.4x magnification means I can see the look on the target's face just before I send a burst into his right leg because that's as close as I got to centered before running out of ammo for the day. Please note that I'm not blaming my spotter, hereafter referred to by her indian name M'uuluk-atu'uka-look-i-not, which translates as: "I-didn't-see-where-those-went-either!" She honestly tried and her good shooting this trip out more than made up for my lack of same.
It was a good day out, made better by running into another mutual gun friend of ours on the range, followed by lunch at a favorite pub that boasts an awesome coffee stout beer. A good day, to be sure.
Old NFO stopped by today. And after he played with Murphy and got him all wound up, we headed out to the range. Initially we were going to go to one about 50 miles away, but on the way there, we passed another one--probably the only range in the area that I didn't belong to--and I joined it for a year so that we could shoot there because it was much better than where we were headed. This one has got a pistol range with steel targets, a 50 and 100 yard line, and a 400 yard line (with more steel). Even better, they let you practice realistic drills, including rapid fire and drawing from the holster, unlike the range I usually shoot at.
Once I was signed up and we shot qualifying targets, allowing us use of the 100 and 400 yard ranges, we put the "new" M60 through it's paces, and other than a minor sight-alignment issue, it ran flawlessly. I don't have any video footage of it, but hopefully Old NFO does. I did, however, get a nice picture of our rifles on the bench. Here's my Rock River AR-15 with the Aimpoint in front, and behind it is his very nice FN SCAR in .308. The ACOG optic he's got mounted on it just makes the weapon, and he was ringing the gong at 400 yards with it repeatedly. Now that I'm a member there, I'll be out there with my Savage Tactical regularly. Gotta be prepared, because, as they say, the 21st century is when everything changes, and you've gotta be ready.
We also shot much pistol in .45, .38 and .22. and then, moderately chilled, we adjourned to Marios in Berryville for some quality Italian cooking. (Italians...lousy ship captains but great cooks.)
Then it was back to the Lair to discover that Murphy had figured out that I'd thrown away a couple of his favorite old bones and a ratty tennis ball and vetoed that by dragging the whole garbage bag into the living room, tearing it open on the rug, and digging through all of the coffee grounds and other trash until he was able to locate and remove his possessions.
Damn dog.
But garbage on the floor notwithstanding, it was still a great day out and I'm looking forward to the next one.
The Big Brown Truck just left. Murphy is still grumbling, having refused the latest "let's be friends" entreaty of Mike, the UPS driver. (Murphy does take his offered cookies, however. He just devours them quickly than resumes barking and snapping at Mike as soon as his mouth is empty.)
Last month I sent my M60 out to Desert Ordnance, the civilian sales side of US Ordnance, the company that rebuilds M60 machine guns into new Mk43 guns for the US Navy. They rebuilt mine so thoroughly that the only original part left on it is the trunion and the rear sight assembly. The gun needed a rebuild because it was tired and unreliable, so I sent it off to these folks for a refurbishment, and now it's back, lighter and more reliable with a new-gun warranty--a zero-time gun with all new parts made using the latest processes and incorporating all of the upgrades; a totally mil-spec machine gun that should fire for decades and outlast me if properly cared for.
And for the pics: BEFORE:
AFTER: It's shorter, it's lighter, and it's infinitely more reliable. Most of the "old" M60's faults have been corrected in this new version, which also boasts 30% stronger belt-pulling power and a spiffy rail for the mounting of optics.Much of the size/weight savings comes from the replacement of the old heavy barrel with it's attached bipod (meaning that each spare barrel that the operator carries has to have these too) with a lightweight barrel and a redesigned mounting system that puts the bipod on the gun itself. The new barrels are superior to the old ones in terms of their ability to absorb heat, and the front sights are now adjustable, meaning that each spare barrel can be zeroed to the weapon in advance. .Also, it has a new gas piston designed to work no matter which way you put it in so that you cannot foul the gun up by putting it in backwards like operators of the old ones sometimes did. That clunky heat shield is gone, too. Best not to touch that barrel. But the new barrels now have permanent carrying handles attached, meaning no more asbestos glove needed to swap out hot barrels!
This machine gun is currently in use by US Navy SEAL teams due to it's size and weight advantage over the M240 weapons system. US Ordnance has the contract to rebuild the Navy's M60 systems into these new Mk43 weapons and I couldn't pass up the chance to have mine totally rebuilt by them for less than the cost of what a couple of big-name commercial machine gun gunsmiths wanted to just fix what was wrong it.
Here's the article about the Mk43 written last year by Defense Review. It even comes with videos, which should work to hold those interested over until I can shoot some of my own.
Ever have one of those days when nothing works right? Well this has been one of those so far. Keads, of Another Day...Another... was here today after spending the week-end doing...well he can tell you on his blog when he gets home what he was doing here. I won't steal his thunder. But we'd planned to do some shooting today, and I brought out the Uzi, the M60, and a still-classified "secret weapon" that hasn't been blogged about here. Little did I suspect that two of the three weapons would go "Tango Uniform" on me almost right out of the gate, leaving us standing there on a range that we'd driven an hour to get to. (The "secret weapon" worked fine, but I only had a little test ammo left for it and we quickly exhausted that.) The Uzi started choking on the commercial Remington ammo that Keads had brought, and it wasn't even shooting totally reliably with the high-powered stuff that I reloaded specially for it. Needless to say, Vector Arms is about to get this one back for a check-up. I've tried everything to get it to run 100% reliably like it used to and frankly, I give up.
So we put that one up and went to the Big Dawg, the M60. I fired a belt and other than one stovepipe, it gave me no trouble. But then when Keads took a whack at it... A case separated and shut the gun down. Naturally I had no broken case extractor with me.
In a perfect world, I'd have just swapped barrels and kept shooting, but there was no spare barrel to be had either, in large part because every time a barrel assembly pops up for sale on Gunbroker at a reasonable price, a certain dealer whom I won't name buys it up to flip it at a ridiculous price. But that's not relevant to the problem we had where we now had a 23lb. paperweight sitting on the tarp doing pretty much nothing. Big sigh.
Well now I'm back at the Lair with a ton of unfired ammunition, Keads is on his way back to Keads land, and I'm contemplating ditching all of this high-tech full-auto felgercarb and just getting a bolt-action Mauser that WORKS!
But anyway, here's Keads on the Sixty before the stoppage.
At least I got to meet Keads, and I can say that meeting Keads was truly a pleasure. He's a class guy all around and the next time he's up this way, we will burn the rest of that ammunition and then some.
Got a new rifle yesterday, I did. Well not exactly "new"...it's one hundred and twenty five years old. It's a Martini-Henry MK. IV, a single-shot breech-loading rifle that took a black powder cartridge in caliber .450-577. It's old but tight and it appears to still be fully functional. (They built them good back then.)
I've wanted one of these for a long time, ever since I first saw the movie Zulu. These rifles were the backbone of the British Commonwealth military for quite some time, although this particular one is a bit too young to have been used during the Zulu War in 1879. (The Mk. II was the issue version back then.)
This was a military arm, as evidenced by the Royal Cipher (the crown) and the initials "V.R.", which represented "Victoria Regina" (Latin for "Queen Victoria"). Below that is "ENFIELD", which is where this one was made. Below that is the dtate of manufacture, 1886, followed by a lock inspector's approval stamp, placed there by the expert who inspected all such military arms upon his approval of that particular rifle: This one is interesting in that the Mark IV was produced for two years, in 1888 and 1889, yet this one is clearly dated 1886. This indicates that it was converted from an earlier Mark I pattern, as many were. Further proof for that comes from the fact that the Mark Number ("IV") is off-center. The receiver was originally stamped as a Mk. I and the "V" was added later when the rifle was converted to Mk. IV specs.
For those not in the know, in the mid-1880s, the British developed a new cartridge, the .402, which was superior to the .450 round. Accordingly, they began building martini-Henry rifles in this caliber, designating them EM Mk. I models. But about the time that they got going with this project, along came the .303 Medford cartridge, which was vastly superior to even this cartridge, and the Brits switched to that round instead. Since it was a serious logistical pain to try to stock the new round, plus the old .450-577 round plus this .402 round, about 64,000 of these .402 rifles were converted back to the older, less-effective .450-577 cartridge and used to arm the troops of British colonies. This is one of those rifles.The "KK.A" stamp on the lower edge shows that this rifle was "Sold out of service" or surplussed out from the Kirkee, India Arsenal, apparently in November of 1908. Like most of it's kind, this one was sent to the then-British colony of Nepal (The stock bears a faint Nepalese acceptance stamp dated 1908 as well) where it was stored and forgotten for many, many decades. The buttstock is a mish-mash of Nepalese markings and older British and Indian markings that were stamped out, most likely when it got to Nepal.According to the seller, a great guy whom I'd do business again with in a heartbeat, this particular rifle has been in the country well before IMA imported the bulk of the Nepalese guns,so it was almost certainly brought in as part of the first batch of Nepalese arms that were imported in the 1970's by Interarms, that great company built and run by the legendary Sam Cummings. (Thanks, Sam!) Now it's here at the Lair and it'll assume a place of honor in my gun room, waiting on the arrival of some vintage .450-577 ammunition and/or the tools that I'll need to reload ammunition for this old veteran. The breechblock is open, the barrel and chamber look great, and this rifle's voice will be heard again before too long, count on it.
Meanwhile, if you want to see Martini-Henry rifles in action, you can watch some being used here, in "Zulu".
I guess if I had a couple dozen equally-armed friends standing next to me, this rifle could come in handy during the next flash mob or London-style riot. Since it's likely to be just me and one or two others though, I think I'll echo the sentiment of poet Hilaire Belloc:
"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not."
Granted, I don't have a Maxim gun (darn it...), but I do have an M60. It'll do in a pinch, I suppose.They should have had a few M60's at Isandhlwana. Maybe then they wouldn't have gotten shellacked so badly. (On second thought, courtesy of Lord Chelmsford's incredibly poor tactics, they'd have probably still been massacred even if every soldier there had been armed with a Minimi.)
