Thanks for nothing, Ruger

So it was range day today. Took a new shooter friend and grabbed the old Mini-14GB out of the safe to plink with.

All started well, and the first string I shot, every round was on the 8" plate at 100M. I handed it to my friend, who is not a shooter yet, and every shot was a miss. Not really unexpected. New shooter. So I took the rifle back and fired again, and suddenly I couldn't land a round on the steel to save my life. Every round was hitting close, but only the odd one actually hit steel despite my firing from the bench with and using the sling.

So what's up? I've heard that these old rifles have wondering zeroes when they get hot, but I've never seen this before with this rifle. Granted I've only fired it up north. usually in the fall or winter months, and today it was 95 degrees on the firing line and the rifle barrel was generating visible heat waves during my second string, but this was ridiculous. And naturally I looked like a total wanker with it.

Fortunately I redeemed myself to an extent with my .45 Shield on the steel pates at 25m, but still...

Any thoughts?

Complaint over AR-15 pic

So I got a complaint after posting the AR-15 pics the other day.


It was a #metoo complaint.


Seems my Mini-14 felt left out.

What can I say? I apologize to my little Ruger friend and I want to reaffirm my commitment to diversity.

Mini-14 to the range

Just a quick little outing, between the rainstorms.

Today I took the Ruger Mini-14 out to help "recycle" some old reloads that I coveted the particular cases from for a new reloading project that requires brass with a particular headstamp. No real target obsessing today; I just tossed a couple of old laundry detergent bottles onto the berm and knocked them around until the ammo was gone. Fun. Just fun.

The Mini is an older one. It's a stainless "GB" government model with the flash suppressor and bayonet lug, originally built by Ruger for the Law Enforcement market and so marked on the receiver.

Ah, that whacky Bill Ruger.

But this one's mine now. I found it at a flea market a few years back, and I was so intent on buying it at the ridiculous stupid low price that the guy was asking for it that I forgot that I'd ridden my mountain bike to the show instead of having brought my car.

But this being West Virginia, I just found another vendor with a ratty sling for sale, tossed it on the Ruger, and rode home with it slung across my back. I got a few looks, but no one apparently had a real problem with it.

It shoots fine. People bad-mouth the Minis for not being "as accurate an as AR", but I suspect that most of those critics can't shoot to an AR's potential anyway. And to be fair, this isn't a match rifle, nor was it ever intended for the President's 100 match at Camp Perry. It was made to be a light, reliable, accurate carbine for hunting, plinking and self-defense and in that light it's a most excellent little rifle indeed. The laundry bottles today sure weren't complaining about being missed. It always feeds and fires, and come the day, if need be, I'll rely on it or hand it to someone that I care about without a second thought. That's the highest praise that I can give a firearm.

My only gripe? Relatively scarce and pricey Ruger magazines. But I have enough for it, and I got them before the recent panics set in.(Only buy factory mags for these. So many of those aftermarket mags are pure, unadulterated junk and the real source of most all Ruger reliability complaints.)

My Mini. A nice, light rifle for camping trips, home defense or just casual range trips. Yeah, I've got a safe full of ARs, but this little Ruger's a keeper despite being an oddball in the magazine department.

Shooting. And a kid with guns.

One of the high points of this past week-end's trip was an outing to the range with Aaron and da Spud. Aron and I both brought a number of weapons out. Here's my batch o' pistols:

Clockwise from bottom left: H&K P2000 in .40, Beretta 92 in 9mm, Smith and Wesson Model 58 in .41 Magnum, Walther PPK in .380 and Sig Sauer P229 in .40.

Aaron brought a few, too. We were well-armed and quite safe. Aaron's star of the show was this beautiful 1911A1 which he'd sent out for the full Robar treatment.

Those steel targets never stood a chance.

Gratuitous .41 magnum gun porn.

The Spud, with the Beretta 92, as he recited the four rules of gun safety prior to being given any ammunition.

He was also told that any range safety violations would be paid off by push-ups in the mud. I'm proud to report that he went home as clean as he was when he got there.

And here he is with Aaron's Glock.

Off to a slow start, kinda forgetting that sight-alignment/smooth trigger pull concept at first, but he got it back soon enough.

I got a chance to give Hornady's Critical Defense rounds in .380 a bit of a test on steel. Typical .380 FMJ or hollow points generally won't knock steel plates over very well, but those 90-grain Critical Defense rounds smacked them down like I was using a 9mm. I was impressed, and glad to see that they fed 100% reliably through the Walther. I like them very much, indeed.

When we hit the rifle line, I broke out the Ruger brothers: Old faithful 10-22 with newly added peep sights(bottom), and a stock but well-worn Mini-14GB
(top).

I also had one of my AR-15 carbines, shown here next to the Mini.

And giving Spud a pop quiz, I asked him which of these two was the more dangerous weapon. He immediately pointed to the black AR-15. When I explained that they both fire the same ammunition and have identically-sized magazines, he was unable to explain why he felt that the black rifle was "more dangerous". I'll have to watch him, because he appears to have the potential to grow up and become a mainstream media commentator or a Democrat politician. Ugh!

But he redeemed himself by shooting the rifles and shooting them well.

Not bad, kid. And in the background of the second picture, you can see Aaron with his sweet new .300AAC Blackout AR-15. It's most excellent.

All in all, it was a good day with a good friend and a good kid. And lots of good guns. What more could you want?

Rockin' range day

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.

A Mini day at the range

So I took my new (to me) Mini-14 GB out to the range today to get it properly zeroed and see what it would do. It came with no magazine, but luckily I have a dozen new in-the-wrap Ramline universal mags that fit the Mini as well as the AR-15 and the old Armalite AR-180 that I'd originally bought the mags for. I sold the Armalite a few years ago but wisely kept the mags after the rifle's buyer declined to buy them as well.Like it's big brother, the M-14, and it's grandfather, the Garand, the Mini has nice, solid feel to it that only comes from a wood stock. The two-stage trigger breaks crisply and cleanly and pretty delightfully lightly, but there's virtually no take-up in the first stage, and to be honest, I'd personally prefer a bit more. But the peep sights are sized about right for what this rifle's made to do, and the rear adjusts for windage and elevation easily using a bullet tip as a tool. It didn't take long to get it right on at 50M, and it only needed the smallest tweak to zero it at 100M. Firing from a bench, as I must do at this range, I rested the rifle on my range bag and found that it grouped nicely with my own 55-grain reloads at 100M. turning my attention to the paper plate I'd put up at 200M, I was pleased to see the rifle put 24 rounds of 24 fired on the paper plate. Could I have gotten better groups with my AR-15s or Garands? Probably. (With my M-1A? Definitely.) But this isn't a match rifle--I bought it intending it to be a camping gun/truck gun/all-around beater brush rifle and plinker.

That being the case, I'm now confident that it'll hold "minute of bad guy" well past 200M if need be. I didn't try to heat it up and see what effect that has on it's group size; I know that it'll only go downhill, but this isn't a weapon designed to put down suppressing fire--it's a varmint rifle and plinker that was modified slightly in the GB version to fill a police and security role.

These rifles also have a bit of a personal draw to me as well. A government agency that I worked for briefly a couple of decades ago issued me one of these and I'd always enjoyed shooting them even despite the lead instructor's best--and failed--attempts to convert me to shooting right-handed (I'm a proud southpaw and always will be) that resulted in nothing but sore arms and chest muscles from punishment push-ups--first for me alone, and then for the rest of my class--until finally he gave up and let me shoot left-handed. (I went on to place as the third-highest shooter in that class, but that's another story for another time.)

Bottom line: This Ruger Mini-14 GB is a quality shooter. It's light, reliable, aesthetically pleasing in a way that no black rifle will ever be, and more than accurate enough to do the job that it was intended to do. New 20-round factory mags are a bit pricey when compared to AR mags, and spare parts are harder to come by (Thanks, Ruger!) but with firearms, as with anything else, you have to take the bad with the good. And I'm happy to take this rather shopworn GB into the Lair's armoury.

Oh--and for those of you wanting a hint on the inbound replacement for the Browning, let me say just this: It's lighter, and while it can benefit from a tripod, it doesn't require one. It also doesn't have that damnable headspace issue to deal with. Guesses will be entertained, especially if they're entertaining.

Bike riding can get expensive

Since it was so nice out today, I took another bike ride, this time going up along the Shenandoah River. The leaves are just starting to turn here, so it's nice and scenic...except for the "No Trespassing" and "Keep Out" signs which now adorn more trees than not between the roadway and the river. And many of them are printed in Spanish too, which has been made necessary by the large number of mostly-illegal latinos who turn up here every week-end from neighboring Maryland and Virginia.

And before anyone gets on me about race, let me be perfectly clear--it's about conduct, specifically the incredible quantity of trash that the latinos typically leave behind. Lots of people camp and picnic along the river here, but when groups of white or black picnickers are here, they don't leave behind the piles of trash that these latinos always seem to dump: Fish guts, empty food containers and beer bottles, dirty diapers...you name it, the latinos always seem to dump it by the truckload whenever they come out here. And every week, the landowners or county work crews clean it up, only to have more latinos (or the very same ones) come back again next week-end and leave more messes. Now you add this to the fact that they never bother to get fishing licenses or respect our fishing laws, and factor in the fact that they've been known to pull knives on locals who comfront them or otherwise try to document their behavior, and you can see why many of us here are calling out to ICE to save us.

Oh, and the signs don't work either. On my ride today I saw two separate groups of latinos having picnics on privately-owned riverside parcels that are clearly marked "Keep Out". They really just don't care.

OK, that rant aside, my ride was about a fourteen-mile round trip, but it was made quite a bit more challenging by numerous steep hills that really taxed me even in my bike's highest gear settings. I finally terminated the outbound leg at the flea market near Harpers Ferry. After years of coming here with Lagniappe pretty regularly, I'd sworn that I would not patronize this flea market again after they posted a HUGE sign announcing a new "No dogs" policy. That is, of course, their right, but if they don't want my buddy there, then they can do without my money as well.

This time though, I made an exception because it was hot and I needed water. So I went in just as far as the concession stand and bought a couple of bottles. It was as I was on the way back out through the parking lot that I saw them--the couple unloading the rifles from their car trunk, obviously about to take them into the market.

OK, this warranted a closer look, "no-dog" policies or not. "Hi! what'cha got there?" I asked.

It turned out that they had five long guns that they were trying to sell. Four were basic flea market fare--an old .22 rifle, two single-barrel shotguns, and a beat-up .270 without a bolt or sights. It was the fifth one that got my attention as soon as I saw that distinctive Ruger buttstock.
"Lemme take a look at that one," I said casually.
"It's a Sturm Ruger Company gun," the guy said.
Yeah, I knew what it was. It was obvious even with the confederate flag stickers that someone had plastered on the stock and on the receiver. It was a rifle that I'd wanted to add to my collection for about as long as I've been shooting.
"What do you want for it?" I asked, trying to sound only marginally interested.
"We're hoping to get three fifty for it," he replied.
I almost dropped my bike. That's about half what this thing's worth and they're darned hard to find at any price these days. Must...sound...disinterested...
"It's awful beat up," I pointed out.
Yes, yes it was, he agreed. But he was sure that one of the dealers in there would buy it from him.
"It's missing it's magazine," I added.
Yep. But someone'll have one for it somewhere.
I shook the operating rod. "Seems to have a bit of slop in here," I pretended.
"Well you know...it's used," he replied. "What do you want to give me for it?"
I offered him $275. He said that he'd try to shop it around inside first. I pretended to think about it for a minute, then offered him $300. He accepted, we shook on it and headed to the flea market's ATM so I could get the cash. (Yeah, I know...candy-bar lunches for the next few weeks...again.)

Cash turned over, I had to hunt around to find a case for my new acquisition. After all, I'd ridden here on a bike. No joy, though. I combed the show and there wasn't a single rifle case available. I had to settle for a sling, which I installed on the rifle back at the concession stand. Then I rode the seven miles back with the rifle slung across my back, just waiting to ride past the police car that I'd never see otherwise.

Forty minutes later, I got back home with it. I hadn't run across the police, but I had gotten a few funny looks. But this is Vest Virginia, after all. With hunting season coming, surely I couldn't be the only guy riding around on a mountain bike with a rifle.

So here's my new baby. The stickers have been removed, restoring it's dignity. The stock definitely needs some refinishing, but winter's coming and I'll have the time. What do you think? Did I do ok for three hundred bucks? According to Ruger's Serial Number table, it was made in 1995 and it's barrel has the faster 1-in-7 twist.




Hell, it was worth it, just for the bike ride back. But next time I go out riding, I'm leaving my wallet behind.