Gun Show Fun

So this morning, most of the storm having past, J.R. and I went to the Nation's Gun Show at the Dulles Expo Center.

No, not that one. The one who lives down the road from me.

Anyway, J.R. and I went to the gun show, where we met up with The Most Interesting Man In The World and proceeded to walk the aisles looking at wildly overpriced stuff.

Sadly, it's obvious that the days when gun shows were places to go find bargains are long, long past. Now you just have dealers trying to target the "instant gratification" crowd and offering pretty much everything that you could want at prices noticeably higher than you could find the same stuff for elsewhere.

Old NFO mentioned an M-14 for "just" $16,500. Yeah, that wasn't terribly bad, considering, but the MP-5 on the table next to is for $32K...that's just being silly now.

I did score a find though when I found a dealer with several pounds of WIN 231 for sale, the first time that I've seen this wonderful pistol powder anywhere in almost two years. I grabbed four of them. It was nice to see primers back down to $33-$35 per thousand too, which is still a bite but nowhere near as ridiculous as the prices that gougers were trying to get for them a year ago.

Nothing else really jumped out at me though, and after a couple of hours, we adjourned to the local culinary establishment known as "Hooters" for some wings, burgers and in my case, a tall Guinness.
As we walked in, I saw Old NFO exchange words with one of the hostesses, and it appeared that they knew each other. This, of course, is not surprising as anyone who has gone anywhere with Old NFO knows that he knows people everywhere. One of the consequences of being old an extremely seasoned citizen, I guess. I was hoping that this familiarity would get us a table with someone at least as hawt as that young lady was, but somehow we wound up being served by a young woman who looked to be about ten months pregnant. Oh well...we were just there for the wings anyway.

The show kinda sucked, but it was still a good time with good people, and you can't go wrong with that.


Yukon Quest update: As of this writing, at 8 days and six hours into the race, Brent Sass is in the lead again, 8 miles ahead of Allen Moore. Dave Dalton has moved up to sixth place and is just 144 miles behind Sass.

And while real dogs that actually work for a living are out there dragging sled around and earning their keep, my two mutts spent the day divvying up an MRE that they got hold of. Ass-dogs.

Gun Show Fun!

So off we went today to the gun show. Proud Hillbilly, Joby and I met up with JayG and Old NFO and we rambled around the Dulles Gun Show for a few hours. As usual, Old NFO found and snagged something really good (how the heck does he do that at every show?!) and then we all adjourned for some fine dining at the local Chez Owl (Hooters).

Ammo is starting to come back down just a bit, and reloading supplies are starting to return to reasonableness as well. Primers were under $30.00 per thousand at most tables, and Joby and I each scored a pound of Titegroup for $22.00, not too shabby these days. Now the dealer charging $45/lb. for WIN 231 and $270.00 for 8lbs of Unique should have been taken out and horsewhipped, IMHO. With any luck, he goes home with everything that he brought to sell.

And there was, naturally, the usual assortment of rifles fresh from the CMP all jacked up to over a grand, beater Chinese SKS rifles priced at $450, tons of old Bubba'd military rifles priced higher than un-screwed up ones go for, and table after table after monotonous table of AR parts and uppers for sale. But again, much of the fun was had as we laughed at their prices. I talked with one dealer about selling my M60, and when he asked me prices and I told him, he shook his head and said that it was "too high" and I'd never get it. This was the same dealer with two beat-up non-Colt M16 rifles for $23K and $25K respectively and a West Hurley M1 Thompson for $25K. I'M asking too much?

All in all, it was a good day, but then any time when you're with good friends and surrounded by guns and then you go drink beer and ogle Hooters girls...that's going to be hard to top.

Even "Gun show therapy" can't improve my mood this week-end.

So I've been working downtown Washington DC this week, and I've had the occasion to encounter a number of out of town visitors who have come in for the inauguration. Now I missed the last one--the coronation of Barackus Immaculus--but I was here for the second Bush inuaguration and I can see a major difference in the crowds in that eight years ago, the visitors, when queried on what brought them to DC, would simply say matter-of-factly: "I'm here for the inauguration". I met many people who came from all over the country back then, and that was pretty much their response when asked.

Fast-forward to this week. Now it's as if everyone has to make sure that I and everyone else knows that they are here for "the Barack Obama inauguration".

Always the emphasis on the name with these people, like just saying it is some sort of magical incantation that is supposed to wow and impress me and bend me to their will.

Me: "Hi there. You may not have noticed all those signs but can't park your car here."
Them: "But we're here for the Barack Obama inauguration!"

or:

Them: "Excuse me! I'm here for the Barack Obama inauguration and I'm lost!"
Me (under my breath): "You certainly are..."
Them: "What'd you say?"
Me: "Uh, I said 'Nice car'."
Them: "Oh, thank you. I rented it special for the Barack Obama inauguration!"

It's a blatant display of the Cult of Personality instead of just an event. In other words, it's all about "The One" personally and nothing else matters.

My eyes actually hurt from all of the constant rolling, and my tongue...oh, it is so bitten. But so far I've managed to avoid getting in trouble at work due to my rumored inability to keep my opinions to myself on such matters as the fate of my beloved country and the spectre of four more years under the Steve Urkel administration. I'm actually quite pleased with myself, and a few professional acquaintances who know me are impressed. But there's still Monday to come.

So to take my mind off all of the portents of doom for America that are so evident in DC right now, I accepted an invitation to join a few friends at a local gun show that's new to the area. What I got instead was a stark reminder of the fact that elections have consequences.

The show was small, at less than a hundred tables, including the obligatory jerky sellers and peddlers of crappy Chinese and Pakistani knives that no gun show would be a gun show without. (It'd be like a dog without fleas.) There were maybe three AR-15's in the place, all for over $2K each and none of them anything special. I saw only one SKS there, a stock Norinco, and when I asked what the seller wanted for it, he actually said "eight hundred dollars" with a straight face. Likewise, a fairly beat Smith and Wesson Model 66 .357 Magnum revolver that caught my eye was also $800 firm, per the obese seller slouched in a chair behind the table. Not sure if that was better or worse than the the old Universal totally non-mil-spec M-1 carbine that he was flogging for six hundred bucks right next to it.

One seller had PMag AR Magazines for sale at $49.95 each, limit two per customer, and after accepting a hundred bucks from one of my friends, I bought two of them at his request on behalf of a co-worker of his who was not with us.

Yes, I "straw-purchased" PMags. And just remembering it makes me want to go take another shower. Ugh.

Oh, and those PMags were all sold in the first twenty minutes of the show.

I needed reloading gear. There was none to be found save one battered and incomplete Lee progressive press for $115, a bunch of overpriced brass, and three cans of powder, none of which I could use for anything I load. One of my party went home happy though after snagging a couple of boxes of .308 ammo for $25.00 each, and another guy there bought the only factory Ruger Mini-14 mag in the place--a rusty 20-rounder--for $30.00.
I had ny eye out the whole show for a decent .38 Special revover for a nice young lady that many of you probably know, but alas, no joy. There wasn't one worth a damn to be had at a reasonable price.

We were in and out in well under an hour, me with a tear in me eye as I wept silently for my country.

On a brighter (I hope) note: The Chantilly, VA gun show is coming up Feb. 8th through the 10th. Maybe--just maybe--there will be a bit more normalcy there. Saturday morning, anyone?

Yesterday fun show, today range.

So yesterday, I managed to convince myself to get out of bed when the alarm sounded. (Damn that Murphy...he just raised his head and looked at me, then put it back down again to resume sleeping.) I met up with Proud Hillbilly and we took off towards Chantilly, VA for the Nation's Gun Show, aka the Fun Show. After a painfully slow and somewhat frightening drive in PH's car (OMG, OMG, OMG!), we finally arrived there and met up with Old NFO and Andy.

You can go to the inks for their versions of the day, but the long and the short of it as that Old NFO scored a couple of great deals like he always does, and Andy bought an Enfield #1Mk.3 that had been sporterized but not too badly. We wandered around a fairly empty show for a couple of hours, and then we went to a nearby restaurant that I'd heard had great wings and beer. Well imagine my surprise to find out that it was a Hooters. Still, we were there, so it only made sense to go in, right? After all, if you're just there for the wings, it's not really your fault if there's a bunch of hot gals roaming around too now, is it? As my arm was still really bothering me after yesterday's bite/sting by the Insect of the Armegeddon, we all went our separate ways after the show and I went to the urgent care to get a bunch of shots. Oh, joy. I'd almost rather ride with PH some more. Almost.

So today, PH and I headed back over to the range. She had her pistols and her M-1 carbine, and I brought my Smith and Wesson Model 58 .41 Magnum and my newest rifle, which also happens to be an Enfield, only this one is an Ishapore 2A1 in .308.
Here's my new Ishapore 2A1 made in 1966(bottom) below a .303 Ishapore made in 1963(top). (click on the pic to enlarge)



Note the squared box magazine on the .308 2A1 as opposed to the rounded box found on all standard .303 Enfields. The Ishapore factory made these 2A1 rifles well into the 1980's.

I will say the PH has gotten very good very fast with her pistols. She's practicing a lot and she retains and applies what she's learning. It's great to watch as she gives those steel targets the good news.

The Enfield still had quite a bit of cosmoline preservative grease deep down inside, and as I shot it and heated it up, it came leaking out from everywhere. Fun! Just like the old days when surplus rifles abounded in the marketplace and they all came packed with thew stuff. It shoots a bit high at 100 yards and I think I'm going to have to drift it's front post a bit, but otherwise it performs as advertised with the exception of a loose safety which engages itself with almost every shot. But that's an easy fix. The only downside to the whole day came in the form of "someone" (I won't say who, so as not to embarrass PH) who knocked my coffee over on the range, leaving me in the early stages of caffeine withdrawal. (Aaaarrggh!)

And because you came here to see guns and not listen to me ramble, here's another picture, this time with my 1916 Enfield below the other two.



Virtually identical and the .303 models are completely interchangeable despite being made half a world and 50 years apart. And all three of them shoot great today.

Gun show!

I went to the gun show today. Not just any gun show, mind you--it was the big one at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, VA. 700 tables, and all filled.

The show is great for collectors, because so many of the dealers are there selling actual collectible guns--nice WW2 stuff, civil war guns, etc. Very little junk. Of course there's still that one guy selling jewelry there. WTF? I mean, who goes to a gun show for that? And it was jam-packed with your stereotypical gun show crowd. If you've ever been to a gun show, you've seen these people:

--The guy walking around with a tricked-out expensive gun that he couldn't afford when he bought it a few months ago. He's trying to sell it now but no one's buying it because he's trying to get every penny back that he blew on the gun and it's accessories and he paid way too much. And every time a dealer offers him a low price, he whines "but I payed a lot more than that!"

--The guy with the military haircut and camouflage fatigues on who is also at least 50 pounds overweight. He's standing in front of any table where you want to talk to the dealer, not buying anything but just tire-kicking and trying to impress the dealer and anyone else within earshot with tales of his "tactical skills". Whatever.

--Then there's the typical young guy in his twenties who wouldn't be noticed at all except for the fact that he's dragged his girlfriend to the show with him and she's smoking hot and dressed in impossibly tight jeans and a t-shirt that's a size too small. He's ignoring her while he stares at all the guns, meanwhile everyone else in the show is staring at her. And she knows it and plays it. Day-um! Watching her was almost worth the show's $10.00 admission fee by itself. If I had me one of those, I sure wouldn't be wasting my day at a gun show.

I got out of there with about as much money as I went in with. I sold some junk I didn't need, bought a few books and a couple Uzi magazines, and I picked up a new barrel for the new gun that I have coming in. (I won't say what it is, but here's a hint: US Army Field Manual 23-45.)

I spent three hours there. I haven't been to a gun show in a long time, and unlike the old days when I rarely missed one, I no longer feel the need to go but once every couple of years now.