Taking a friend to the range.

Took a friend shooting yesterday. She's a local police officer but they don't issue or train on long guns so this was her first time with a long gun of any sort. She liked my AR, and I soon had her hitting steel at 100 yards with it.

Then I put her on my FAL.



She did pretty good. Liked my AR a lot better than the FAL though.

We did some pistol work because she's having issues and qualifications are coming up. It doesn't help that her job issues a Glock with the heavy NY trigger but her wrist keeps breaking and putting rounds high on--or over--the target. Other than dry-firing, anyone got a suggested fix for this?

Then we took played with the Thompson a bit. This she liked.



And yeah, the stance is not the best.

Evantually the Tommy gun brought down one of the Range Safety Officers who used to be in the sub service in the Navy and he told me how they had M1A1 Thompsons on his boat. And when he handled my gun you could tell that he still remembered how to use it.

It was a good afternoon.

Yesterday...Busy but good.

Got up early Saturday morning and headed for the bar. (This is New Orleans, folks...it's seriously how we roll.) Just had a couple of cups of coffee--no booze--and headed out to Pear River to do some more shooting.

I took these two out to fine-tune the zeroes on them.

Top is my Springfield Armory M-1A, which I purchased new back in 1988 in response to George H.W. Bush's famous "Assault Weapon" ban. It was my "go-to" rifle for many years, and it was my competition rifle as well as my prime defensive tool before I came around to ARs. But now the circle is complete and I've once again embraced the .30 round for most social purposes.

The lower rifle reflects my philosophy modernized--it's that custom FAL that I had done by the nice folks at DS Arms. It's shorter and more utilitarian than the M-1A and much handier for work in an urban setting, IMHO. It's got it's new Blue Force Gear Vickers sling on now.

Using the 25 yard range, I zeroed both for 200 yards, and then played around on the 100-yard steel plates at the range. I think that they're actually 8" discs, and impossible to miss with the M-1A. I could hit them regularly with the FAL too, but I needed to use just a bit of hold-over and really concentrate on trigger press since the sights aren't as adjustable as the M-1A's and the trigger is definitely not as smooth. But that's the difference between the two. The FAL is a fighting rifle, period. It's made to put rounds on man-sized targets out to a reasonable range and do so even when wet, muddy, frozen, etc., It's not quite "AK-47" rugged, but it's a lot closer than the M-1A, which is more of a precision weapon with it's crisp, "break like glass" tuned trigger and superior adjustable sights.

Both rifles functioned flawlessly and put the rounds pretty much where I wanted them to go. I wish that I could have gotten another turn on the FAL front sight tool to get it down to 100 yards, but it bottomed out at 200 and a touch high at that. So it goes...

They do handle totally differently. The FAL is more ergonomic and comes onto point quicker, but the M-1A has sights and a trigger to die for.

Now I'm thinking seriously about a Springfield Scout. or a SCAR Heavy, which I also have a bug for, thanks to Old NFO letting me shoot his. I want compact and reliable and fast-handling and precision all rolled into one. The search for the perfect rifle goes on.

Then it was home for at minute to lock up the rifles and change, and off to a free self-defense seminar put on by a guy who is setting up a new MMA and self-defense school here. Hey--free and a chance to pick up a trick or two--what's not to like? (Esp. the "free" part.) Did that, came home again, took a nap on the couch, then joined my neighbors down the street for a block party that they'd kicked off because--hey, it's New Orleans...it's how we roll.

Then as I was walking home, all full of good food and beer, I looked at the front of my house and saw this:

Eff'n dogs. This is how THEY roll.

"Next time leave the blinds open so we don't have to open them ourselves."

My new favorite rifle

Today I had to get out of New Orleans for a bit and go reconnect with America.

I headed out I-10 past Slidell until I reached the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area and the Honey Island Shooting Range. It was here that I gave the new FAL a try.

I came out skeptical, but came home seriously impressed.

The sights needed a bit of tweaking but she consistently hits a six inch steel gong at 100 yards and the function is flawless. 80 rounds fired today (and twenty kept loaded in a mag in reserve for the trip home) and no defects, failures or surprises.

I LOVE this rifle!

And a FAL with brass marks below the ejection port is a happy FAL indeed. Don't ask me why they all do this. They just do.

And here's a father and daughter shooting an AR-15 together. Because America.

Almost everyone on the rifle line seemed to be shooting some type of AR today. I remember not too many years ago when I was often the only AR shooter on the range and was even mocked by other shooters for having one.

Great range at Honey Island. Just a 100 yard rifle line and a 25 yard pistol line, and a bit more restrictive than I like, but the Range Officers were all polite, professional and non-asinine. Two of them came over to see the FAL, asking what it was and admitting to having never seen one before. It sure beats dealing with "know-it-all" types, most of whm really don't know jack. And the mix of stands for paper targets and steel gongs available to most shooters makes for a good shoot spot for just $6. I'll definitely be back out here.

When one becomes two

Not quite two years ago, I acquired This FAL from a seller out of state.

Nice enough rifle, but not quite what I wanted. I wanted an 18" folding-stock model and I got one with a 21" barrel instead because the seller didn't know how to work a tape measure. But it was nicely built otherwise, and it shot wonderfully, so I kept it on. But it wasn't quite what I'd wanted so I was never completely happy with it.

Actually, I really wanted two, because while I liked the utility of the short folder, I also really appreciated the full-length straight-stocked "traditional" FAL. And this one, thought a great shooter, was right in between, neither fish nor fowl.

Then last year, DS Arms had a really nice sale on new FAL receivers so I bought one and decided to fix the problem once and for all. I took an extra FAL lower assembly that I had floating around and put it on the receiver with the long barrel. I also had to replace the bolt carrier, because the carriers for straight-stocked rifles and folders aren't compatible. A bit of fiddling around and I had this nice traditional straight-stocked FAL, just half of the combo that I wanted. And once I'd tweaked the gas regulator and re-zeroed the sights. it shot just as good as it had before, which is to say that it shot excellently.

Then I took the folding stock assembly from the old rifle and mated it to the new DS Arms receiver and the old bolt carrier. I was all set to send it off to DS Arms and have them build it onto a new 18" barrel assembly and had even called them and gotten a quote for the work when suddenly I got the nod to move down here. Time and money got tight so the project got shelved for a while, and the parts came with me and just sat around until the recent Democrat screaming for gun control and the banning of "assault weapons" started getting loud again. I read that writing on the wall, coupled with the specter of a Hillary presidency, and I shipped the parts off to DS Arms along with the quote they'd given me and I sat down to wait for the "5-6 weeks" that they said it might take.

Three weeks later, I got a UPS ship notification and an e-mail from DS Arms stating that it was on the way to me. Even better, from my point of view, was the price. Between the time DS Arms gave my the quote and the time I sent it in, they'd bumped their prices on the barrel assembly and a few other odds that it needed. But being a class act, DS Arms honored the old prices in the quote AND turned it around and got it done even cheaper than quoted. Nicely done, DS Arms!

It showed up today in a nice new hard case, and I'm in love.

Not only is it shorted, both with the stock extended and with it folded, but the balance is much more to my liking.

Here they both are, the original "traditional" FAL top, and the new para model below. Quite the pair. The shorty has a brand new barrel and the original style has a barrel that gauges as near-new. And they share magazines and other kit.

I got the new one done for a lot less than DS Arms would have charged me for a factory-assembled "New in box" model and it looks almost as good. the only used parts on it are the folding stock lower and the bolt and carrier. The barrel assembly and all of the internals are brand new.


So how short is it really? Well here it is above an AR with a 16" barrel and the stock fully collapsed.

It is a bit shorter than the AR. And although it's a bit heavier, it also fires the 7.62x51 round, and that's a plus to dinosaurs like me.

So after starting out with one FAL that didn't quite please me and adding a few new components to the mix, I now have two FALS, one in each configuration. And I can't wait for a range day.

Shooting the new rifle on Labor Day.

So it was off to the range today with friend John. He wanted to work with his new DPMS Recon, a truly nice rifle that I neglected to get a picture of. Not to be outdone, I brought out a new (to me) 7.62x51mm shooter, this being a Para-folder FAL that I just acquired.

Once upon a time, I had four FALS, all builds that I did. Needing money, I sold them all, and I've lamented letting them all go ever since. I truly love the FAL as a combat rifle and believe that if it had better sights and a better trigger, it would have been the perfect fighting rifle.

I stumbled across this one a couple of weeks ago. The dealer who had it knew nothing about FALs and didn't normally handle them, and I got it off of him for a good price indeed, although I was a bit miffed to find that it sported the full-length 21" barrel instead of the 18" barrel that I'd thought was on it. (Apparently friend dealer measured it without taking into account the barrel inside the receiver and the flash hider.) He's willing to take it back and cover shipping, and I was going to send it back, but after looking it over carefully, I realized that whoever had built this one had done a nice job indeed, even to the point of using a part set with all numbers matching except on the receiver, so I decided to see how it shoots first.

Before shooting it, I broke it down for inspection and lube. I couldn't find a bit of dirt or grime on it; whoever owned it last either got insane about cleaning or else they never shot it. I also noticed that the adjustable gas system was set on 7, which made me look askance at it. My builds all needed to be dialed down to around 4 to shoot reliably. If this gun was smooth enough to shoot on 7... Just to see what would happen, I left it set at 7. And sure enough, it functioned flawlessly, ejecting the brass and throwing it well clear of the rifle but without damaging it. (OK, I was impressed.) And after a bit of fiddling with the sights, front and rear, I got it centered up pretty nicely at 100 yards.

Not the best target ever, but considering the sights and trigger on a FAL, I'm pleased. That inner orange circle is 6" across. (The nice little group at twelve o'clock was shot with John's DPMS. It shoots pretty good, too.)

After shooting it, I think that I'm going to keep the rifle. The only question now is do I keep it as a 21" para folder, cut the barrel to 18", or buy a new 18" barrel and keep the 21" for another rifle build because I would like a full-size full stock version too. Decisions, decisions...

I don't really another full-sized .308, because I've already got the M-1A. The shorter folder would be nice for back-country hiking where I want the reach of a .308 but not such a bulky carry rifle. And admittedly, even with the 21" barrel, this folder's neat. It's not the shiny new DSA para folder that I've dreamed about for so long, but then again, it was half the cost of a new DSA.

And now I've got a use for all of those spare FAL mags that I had sitting around.

It feels good to have a FAL back in the gun safe again.

Ah, the plans of mice and men...and FALs

I was going to take my FAL out to the range today and re-zero it with the new front sight I'd installed. The rifle'd been back in the safe for quite a while until I finally got around to ordering a proper "1" sight post from DS Arms for which I had to pay $25.00 plus shipping.

Thanks a lot, DSA. Next time, how about you at least buy me dinner first?

Anyway, I installed the post and went to break the rifle open for a bit of pre-shooting lube, but the damned thing wouldn't open--it was frozen tight. Even the bit of ball-peen coercion that I tried wasn't enough to get the catch holding the receiver halves to part, so I wound up having to take the stock off and go at the catch that way.

You ever take a FAL buttstock off before? I really don't care to do it even though I well know how these days just because of the mess involved with that oily spring and the trauma associated with my first attempt at removing a FAL stock many years ago when I was much less experienced in the mechanics of such firearms. That time, I'd taken the butt pad off and discovered the large screw head beneath it. Curious as to what behind it, I naively unscrewed it, expecting to find something neat like a cleaning kit. What I got instead was that screw head smack in the face with all of the force that the compressed springs coiled beneath it could launch it with. (Once again, thank God for safety glasses...) And re-installing it was another adventure indeed until I discovered the trick of using a cleaning rod as a guide to re-compress the springs back into the tube. These days, I know how to take that thing off without losing an eye, but I still don't care to do it unless I have to.

This time it was necessary, though. I took the stock off to get at the catch behind it, applied some CLP, gave it a few minutes, and then rapped it a few times with a hammer and punch and it promptly resumed normal operation. I quickly lubed it and re-assembled it, but alas, all the time spent messing with it pretty much closed out the possibility of my getting it to the range this evening. So stand by, because barring unforseen circumstances, it's going out tomorrow. I do love the FAL in general and this rifle in particular because of it's unique history with me, but it sure can be cantankerous sometimes. But because I'm fond of this particular rifle, I put up with it instead of just tossing it up on Gunbroker.

A good day for shooting

Today was a good day to go shooting.
Of course ANY day is a good day for shooting. But I had business out near the range today so I grabbed a couple of rifles at random and took them along.

First was my favorite FAL.
This one is a mix of Brazilian, Argentine, Belgian and South African parts. I call it my "We are the World" rifle. (Not to be confused with that stupid 1980's "group hug" song done by all those liberal entertainers.) Built by me from parts of destroyed surplus rifles, then destroyed again after a burglar stole it and buried it for a year, I've got more time invested in building, repairing and customizing this rifle than any other firearm that I own. But on the positive side of the ledger, I know it intimately inside and out, and even though it's not a beauty queen, when I squeeze the trigger, it always shoots.
This time the FAL is out just for fun, since I haven't shot it in a while. With it's European-style sights and trigger, it'll never be a match rifle, but it still put 23 of 25 rounds into a 4"x6" group at 100 yards, and the two flyers were totally my fault.
Not as light or precise as an AR, but the 7.62x51mm round hits a lot harder and it's ammo-compatible with my M60 so that's a plus. When I need a truck gun or a rifle for some rugged outdoor toting, this is still the first one I grab.

Then there's my MAS 36-51. You talk about a beat-up rifle with a hard luck story, this one takes the cake if I can believe half of what I was told when I bought it.

Yeah, yeah...I know. "Buy the gun, not the story." I don't put a lot of stock in the alleged histories of most firearms that I buy, but in this case it seems to make sense.

I got this one through a dealer that I know personally and trust. I believe him when he tells me things. He took it in from a Vietnam vet that he's dealt with for years, and the vet said that he picked this rifle up in Vietnam and brought it back home. He has no idea where it's bring-back paperwork went, but things do get lost over 30 years or so, and the dealer that I believe believes the vet. The rifle is beat to tar and virtually every part on it is a mis-match, but it all shows the same hard wear that comes from use and being out in the weather for a long time. It has no rust or pitting or signs of neglect though. Whoever put that wear on it obviously took care to keep it cleaned and oiled. Being a French rifle, it's quite believable that this rifle was captured by the Vietnamese from the French in the 1950's or otherwise left behind when they left Indochina. If the vet's tale is true, this rifle was used against American forces until it was captured again in battle, this time by the US Marines. Now I can't prove or disprove it, but just looking at this rifle, you know that it's been somewhere and done something. This is one of those instances where you take the story with a grain of salt but then you look at the rifle itself and you have no problem believing it just because of it's condition. If firearms could talk, and I could ask one any of mine about their history, this is the one I'd ask. There's no doubt that it has some stories to tell.

And that aside, 20 for 20 on a silhouette target at 200 yards. No real group to speak of, but they were all on the rings and that's good enough for me in the case of this tired old survivor.
After that, I shot a bag of .45 ACP through my Springfield Armory 1911A1 and called it a day. Now I'm tumbling brass and after I go for my evening run, I'm going to grill a steak then drink beer and clean guns on the deck.

And life shall be good.

The 100-yard fly

So the other day, I went out to fire some test loads and just play around with my trusty FAL and an old #1Mk3 Enfield.

The FAL has just undergone a refinishing so that it's finally all the same color, and I replaced the sights, which required a re-zeroing.Since I was trying to zero the sights, I was shooting the rifle with the aid of a bipod. Consequently, I was able to put the rounds into a pretty tight group, especially since I was only firing at 100 yards. Every hole was visible as a little black dot through my spotting scope so I could tell exactly where I was hitting.

However, upon firing my sixth shot, I looked through the spotting scope and saw one black dot on the target way out on the rim at 2 o'clock, several inches away from the rest of the holes. What the...? Usually I can tell when I'm going to have a flyer of some sort, but that last shot felt perfect.

Then I counted the holes. Six in the group, and the little dot on the rim made seven...or did it?

I took my eye away from the scope for a second, to recount my empty brass, and when I looked back, the seventh "hole" had moved from 2 o'clock down to the bottom of the target. It was just some stupid flying insect on the target.

Sounds silly, but I've seen that exact same thing cost two really good shooters that I know some points in slow-fire matches. They shoot, check the target, mistake a bug for the last impact point, and correct for it, putting the next shot way off into the cornfield on the other side of the target.

At least in my case, I wasn't shooting for score. No harm, no foul.

And the FAL is now 10-ring zeroed at 100 and 200 yards using a .308 load that I originally worked up for the Browning MMG.


As for the Enfield...

Thanks to a neighbor who swapped me a considerable quantity of .303 brass in exchange for a couple cans of .40 that I didn't want, I'm now working up a great load for my .303 rifles.

The test rifle today is my oldest Enfield, and the one with the most interesting history. This one was made by Birmingham Small Arms in Britain in 1916. I'm sure that they put it to good use during the First World War, and at some time in it's service life, this rifle made it's way to Australia, where numerous Australian military stamps were applied to the gun in addition to the British proofs. The gun was re-stocked in 1939, per a date on the buttstock, and judging by the overall look of this gun, it saw some hard use, conceivably in both world wars.But even 94 years after it was first built, it still holds a six inch orange target disc at 100 yards, off-hand from a bench. How can I ask for anything more than that? As I recall, it cost me $59.00 back in the pre-Clinton days when guns were cheap and plentiful.

And with the possibility of an Obama Presidency looming over America like a plague, every shooter who enjoys the sport and remembers what happened the last time we had an anti-gun President and a Democratic Congress should be seriously looking to pick up any guns and ammo that they've been putting off.

Today was a man day

I'll carry on with the Ray-Nagin bashing soon enough. For those of you who want to read that, scroll down because there's plenty. But I took a break from it today because it was one of those days when it felt good to be a man and do manly things.





I started off with a trip out to the airport, where I rented this nice plane.







Everything checked out nicely during pre-flight so off I went.












Look--it's Lagniappe's Lair! You can almost make out Lagniappe through the window. He'd better not be on my couch!










If you click on the pictures, they will get bigger.


I overflew Harpers Ferry for a bit. You're looking at three different states here. The town in in West Virginia. Across the river to the north (left in this pic) is Maryland, and down the Potomac River, the land on the south (right) side of that far bridge is Virginia.




Here's where the Shenandoah River comes into the Potomac. Note the pilings of the old bridge, washed out decades ago by floodwaters. The rivers and their periodic floods have practically erased the Harpers Ferry that Thomas Jefferson, Merriwether Lewis, Robert E. Lee and John Brown knew.




To the right of the river you can make out the old C&O Canal and it's towpath. It's dry now, but it used to carry commerce 184 miles from Cumberland, MD all the way into Washington, DC. The towpath still goes the entire way and it's a great hiking/biking trail.





After this, I flew out to Hancock, Maryland and shot some touch-and-go landings on their runway. Then I took the plane back to Martinsburg called it a day from flying.

From there I went to my gun club for a bit of shooting. Men fly and men shoot. And this was a man day.

I shot this nifty FAL that I built from spare pieces and parts a couple of weeks ago. Took a bit of fiddling with the gas tube assembly to get it shooting, and a bit more flddling with the front sight post to get it shooting where it was aimed, but it's dead-on now. I know...it looks like hell. But now that I know it shoots, I'll pull it back apart and re-finish the whole thing so it's all a nice new parkerized gray. I'll probably replace the plastic stock and handguards with some nice walnut too. Real men shoot guns made with wood.


And since I wanted to shoot some more, I broke out the CZ-85 and the H&K P7M13 and thoroughly killed a few more paper targets. These two guns are both 9mm. Normally I'm not a fan of 9mm. I know that European police and military forces have used it for close to a century now, and it's a good cartridge if you're only shooting Europeans, but for defense against American bad guys, the .45 is still king. When you hit someone with a .45, they stay hit. But I didn't have a .45 today. I had these guns. And I like them enough that I don't mind that they're only 9mm.


After that, since I was done flying and shooting for the day, I stopped off at the local bar and had a manly burger and a few beers, served to me by some seriously fine specimens of womanhood wearing tight shorts and even tighter t-shirts. Alas I could not take photographs in there so you readers will have to use your imaginations, but I can tell you that looking at them was worth every penny of the extra few bucks added to the price of the drinks.

All in all, it was a good day to be a man and do manly things.


And Lagniappe says that it was a good day to play basketball. We did some of that, too