My way or the highway

After a very long week last night I decided to open a bottle of Knob Creek to mix up a Bourbon and ginger. As you may recall I spent a little time with Bulleit in a previous post.  What happened was my wife purchased some ginger ale and I thought why not have a bourbon and ginger. I had some long-lost Wild Turkey 101 I had purchased 20+ years ago and mixed with that until I finally had drunk it all. My MO is about 1 part Bourbon to 3 parts ginger. Then I happened to be near an ABC store and spotted the Bulleit and figured why not give it a try, and it was quite nice so my next time in the vicinity of an ABC store I picked up on sale a bottle of  Woodford Reserve and a bottle of Knob Creek.

I had mixed a few drinks with the Woodford, but it just has not been scratching the itch like the Bulleit did. It has a drier and more tart flavor and seems to have more acidity. Also the aroma is more alcoholic. I already had posted about an experience in first class with Woodford, and it has now become clear this Bourbon has no place with Ginger. Knob on the other hand has a subtle sweetness that mixed with the alcohol and char works quite well in my concoction. I can see the purists rolling their eyes at the thought of taking mid-range Bourbon and using it for mixing a drink instead of drinking it neat or over ice, but in truth, I simply don’t care. If I find something I like, albeit unconventional, I can certainly do as I please in the comfort of my own home. Perhaps at their home they would serve it in a different manner and in my home I probably would serve you some Jack Daniels and keep the good stuff for myself!

So the bottom line, and the reason for today’s post, is don’t be that guy. You know the one, the one who says, “Bourbon is only meant to be drunk neat or on the rocks and not mixed.” It’s not your call, it the call of the person having the beverage. I know I cringed when someone mixed lime soda and beer to make a radler, but if they like it, more power to them. Same goes for citrus fruit being served on the rim of a beer, if you like it, more power to you. So should you ever visit and see me mixing something and find it appalling, try to bite your tongue. Like the old saying goes, It’s my way or the highway!

Ricochet Biscuit

So I’m not really going to talk about The Blues Brothers’ classic Rubber Biscuit, but it sure does make for a fun title. I was reading on a local forum and someone was complaining about a range where ricochets are happening frequently. It was obvious they had some personal gripe with the range since they were trying to gain support to have it shut down. In reality if the bullet hits a hard object at the right angle after impact it can ricochet and that bullet or fragment of bullet may be directed at you. It is extremely important to wear safety glasses at the range to protect from gasses released during shooting or from casings being ejected from semi-automatic pistols, but another reason is to protect your eyes in the event of a ricochet.

I was at my local range (a different range) when practicing for the qualification portion of my NRA Pistol Instructor and was bringing the revolver up after loading when I was struck by a ricochet. The bullet had mushroomed and stuck my right ring finger breaking the skin and causing minor bleeding. The force of the blow was quite hard and quite painful. I started to call a cease-fire, but had noticed the person to my left was on target with all their shots, the person to the right was on target will all there shots and most of the other lanes were empty. That meant the bullet had hit me as a result of a ricochet off the backstop. On this 25 yard indoor range the backstop is metal plate and the only conclusion I came to was the bullet was fired by another lane and hit the backstop and came back at the right angle to hit me in the finger.

The moral of the story is to be careful. If you are shooting at metal targets be sure to have them far enough away to avoid ricochet. If you are at an indoor range with a plate backstop be aware that a ricochet could occur. Any time the bullet strikes a hard object there is the possibility of a ricochet. Wear your safety glasses whenever you are shooting or observing shooting activities!

Just say no

Last night I was at one of my favorite restaurants and having a few beers. My first draft selection was a fantastic Belgian Pale Ale and my second was an excellent Bière de Garde so the night was moving along perfectly. For my third and final for the evening I selected a coffee RIS which was listed on the menu at 7.5%ABV. This was a not a new beer to me, but having it draft was the experience I was after.

So I receive the snifter and the aroma does have a good bit of roast and chocolate as expected with a strong coffee presence, but also something unexpected, a strong presence of alcohol. So I took a sip and yowza the beer had an alcohol punch like you would not believe. After a few sips more I realized the alcohol was very strong, surely in excess of 10%. A few minutes later it dawned on me what was wrong, the beer was fusel and had a strong presence of acetaldehyde.

Now normally a little alcohol would not scare me away, but fusel alcohol consumption can lead to a nasty headache. As far as the acetaldehyde I’d suspect a bacterial issue is the culprit. Now it may be something as simple as cleaning and then transportation of the kegs since this beer came from overseas, but a commercial brewery should not have those issues. I seriously doubt most people would notice since they probably have not had that beer before and once upon a time the beer was highly hyped on the beer rating sites. I did check to see a few mixed reviews of the draft version so at least I am not alone.

In the end I did not send it back and I did not finish it. I just left it on the table to save myself the headache this morning, paid the bill and left. Moral of the story, if you don’t like the beer or find something off in the beer it is perfectly fine to push back from the table and just say no!

You cannot take it back

There was a poorly crafted news story gathering local opinion on an out-of-state incident which happened last month and while the story was mostly a useless waste of time, there was one fact which was stated in an interview which is worth repeating. A gentlemen was discussing squeezing (he called it pulling IIRC) the trigger and he correctly stated that once you do and the bullet fires, you cannot take it back.

Many times in life we get a second chance in the things we do. But with a firearm you only get a single chance in many instances. If you are careless with a firearm in some instances the consequences are lethal. Even if they are not lethal they can cause damage or pain. My own father was carrying an old style 22 pistol to clean it and it slipped out of his hand. This particular pistol did not have a hammer block and so once the hammer struck the floor the firing pin hit the rim of the 22 and caused a discharge which hit him in the back of the leg and lodged in his hip. On a forum recently a gentleman was building a 1911 and he thought he was complete and while sitting in the living room, loaded the magazine with live rounds and inserted them into the pistol and the gun fired into the room. He had made an error with the build which caused the firing pin to make contact with the primer cap. At the range while handing the firearm to a shooting partner they accidentally put their finger in the trigger guard and fired the pistol, luckily it was pointed downrange. Recently at a Charlotte range two gentlemen were shooting together one finished, but had not cleared the gun, turned from the lane and shot his friend in the thigh.

My point is you must always practice safety prior to squeezing the trigger. In my father’s case he broke two rules. The firearm was not pointed in a safe direction and he did not treat the firearm as if it was loaded. In the case of the 1911 discharge he did have it in a safe direction, but did not treat it as if it were loaded. At the range with my shooting partner the direction was safe, but the finger was not off the trigger until ready to fire. In Charlotte the pistol was not in a safe direction and the finger was not off the trigger. These were all accidental discharges of the firearm. Two were mechanical in nature, two were failure to adhere to safe firearm handling rules.

There is one other thing to consider. Let’s say you are in danger, in your home, and pull out a pistol or long gun for protection. Be darn sure of your target and that you want to pull the trigger before you do because you cannot take it back. The teenage mother in Oklahoma made the correct call when she shot an intruder trying to get into her home to steal drugs and potentially harm her and her infant, but she will still have to live with the fact she ended someone’s existence on the planet for the rest of her life. Perhaps the last rule to remember should be you cannot take it back!

Web-based BJCP Entrance Exam is now LIVE!

I’ve received dozens of hits on my post BJCP Exam – changes coming in April 2012. Last night the new exam went live and several documents on the BJCP website were updated. I believe the document entitled BJCP Exam Structure will be the best place to start for everyone interested in how the exam program is going to appear moving forward.

Another change is the BJCP Study Guide was revised and is now a pdf. It does not include the questions for the web-based BJCP Entrance Exam (entrance exam), but it does have the REVISED questions for the Written Proficiency Exam (written exam). The written exam question pool is 20 T/F which will count against you if you get them wrong, but will not add to your score. The remainder of the exam is five questions from the pool of S0 through T15.

For prospective judges entering the program you will take the entrance exam. The cost is $10 EACH time you take it and it is a 60 minute timed test with 200 questions so be sure to prepare adequately. Potential examinees can take a free 20 question 6 minute exam on the exam website. The question pool is not published and is randomly assigned from thousands of questions. If the exam was setup as planned,the multiple choice will also randomly be assigned so if the same question pops up on two exams the correct answer will not be in the same position. Information on the BJCP Entrance Exam is available on the BJCP website specifically in the BJCP Exam Center page.

Thanks go out to all those who helped make this a reality. A truly great step forward to the program!

Do not rack or dry fire!

I saw a review of a local gun shop which is sporting a sign which reads:

Rack it or Dry fire, you just bought the Gun

This is possibly the most asinine thing I have ever heard. As an NRA Pistol Instructor I am actually offended. Now admittedly there are firearms which you should not dry fire, but that information is generally provided in the owner’s manual. Let’s peel the onion a little further as to why this is ridiculous.

• Safety – if one cannot open the slide on a semi-automatic pistol (ie: “rack it”), then it is impossible to show the firearm is unloaded and safe. Simply dropping the magazine does not ensure an unloaded firearm, there can still be one in the chamber. Also a mechanical safety is a mechanical device and it CAN fail. Never rely on a safety, ALWAYS inspect EVERY firearm.
• Dry Fire – as was mentioned, some firearms should not be dry fired and some should not be dry fired under certain conditions. Dry firing is an excellent way to gauge trigger pull and to troubleshoot grip issues. If you can hold the sights on target and smoothly squeeze the trigger during dry fire you will do better when the gun is loaded. Now on a Ruger SR9C you should not dry fire without the magazine in place. On a Glock you MUST dry fire or you cannot disassemble the pistol (of course that would require you to semi-rack it as well). There is no practical necessity to dry fire a pistol in the store unless you have some snap caps and the shop owner’s consent.
• Racking – as I understand it the contention was racking would wear out a pistol. Now there is a slight bit of truth to that, after about 2000 rounds the spring MAY need to be replaced. If you go through 2000 cycles before purchasing a gun you have more issues than one. I practiced far too much when getting ready for my CHP permit course and my NRA Pistol Instructor course and still have not hit 2000 cycles with any one pistol. I have seen some say it is more like 5-10K cycles. So racking two or three times in the store will certainly not damage the pistol.

Now what is really ridiculous is on the website for this particular establishment the owner is a certified gunsmith. Perhaps he did the online Phoenix State University course for $99. Maybe he also can do weddings as an internet minister? But seriously, I have not been into the shop and do not know the gentleman who runs it. It is his shop and he can do business in any manner he pleases, but he probably will not be doing business with me.

Best Beer Competition

Yesterday I judged in a best beer competition for LoneRider and was surprised by the entries which appeared in our flight. This was the 4th Annual Brew It Forward so you would think by now people would have figured it out.

The rules were simple:

Beer Entry Guidelines

Any beer can be entered in this competition, as long as it meets the criteria described in this section:

• Lonerider must be able to brew your beer (grain to glass) in no more than four weeks.
• Lonerider is limited to Wyeast Laboratories’ professional beer yeast strains as described in:http://www.wyeastlab.com/com_b_yeaststrain.cfm. Wild yeast, brettanomyces, lactobacillus, bacteria, etc. cannot be used.   (Lactic acid may be used).  Homebrewers should pick yeast that very closely matches the allowed professions yeast.
• Hops are limited to pellet form, but there are no restrictions on hop variety. If a certain hop variety is not available at the time the winning beer is brewed at Lonerider, then the homebrewer must pick a substitute hop variety.
• There are no restrictions on malt. However, home smoked/toasted/roasted malts are not permitted.
• Spices and flavorings are permitted. Aging on wood chips is permitted, but barrel-aging is not.
• Entries must be brewed at home from start to finish on a non-professional, homebrewing system.  Beer brewed in a commercial brewery or a brew-on-premises facility (BOP) is not allowed.  Fresh malt extract from a brewery is not acceptable.
• Dry or liquid extract intended for homebrewing is acceptable.
• The alcohol cap is 8% ABV.
• A single-temperature infusion mash must be used.
• Beer must be able to be reproduced in a large quantity. Homebrewers should keep meticulous notes.
• Beer entries falling outside these restrictions or otherwise not suitable for production at Lonerider Brewing Company may be disqualified and the entry fee promptly returned.  The actual beers will not be returned.

Each entry must be delivered with its completed recipe form.  Entries without a recipe cannot be selected as the BOS winner.

Yet in our flight of 17 beers we had one pseudo porter, one poorly crafted Witbier, several brown ales, two APAs and the rest were bitters. One of the APAs would have been a very nice Belgian Pale Ale with the use of Belgian ale yeast and probably would have done very well in the competition.

When entering a best beer competition you must strive to adhere to the rules, but also try to create an interesting and flavorful beer. I have no idea why anyone would even enter a brown ale into a brewery competition where their brown ale took a GABF medal in 2010. Also why would you enter a Porter when their porter took a GABF medal in 2012. The APA is a rotten choice since they already have a APA in their lineup. I also cannot see a bitter being judged as a standout with over 150 other entries in a best beer competition. Perhaps in a BJCP competition, but not best beer. A Witbier was a good choice, but this one had issues.

I did not stay to the bitter end to see which beer won the day, but with competitions like think you should brew near the edge and then make it something the brewery does not already have in their repertoire. And oh, try to have the best beer!

Gun Shortage?

No, there is no gun shortage, however on March 21st Ruger announced they had over 1 million orders in the first quarter of 2012 so they have suspended distributor orders until at least May.

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael O. Fifer made the following comments:

• The Company’s Retailer Programs that were offered from January 1, 2012 through February 29, 2012 were very successful and generated significant orders from retailers to independent wholesale distributors for Ruger firearms.
• Year-to-date, the independent wholesale distributors placed orders with the Company for more than one million Ruger firearms.
• Despite the Company’s continuing successful efforts to increase production rates, the incoming order rate exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders. Consequently, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.
• The Company expects to resume the normal acceptance of orders by the end of May 2012.

Smith & Wesson has also received more orders this year than last and the backlog is double that of the previous year and they are struggling to keep orders filled. So while there is no shortage of guns, just like there is no shortage of ammo, the manufacturers are having a difficult time keeping up with demand. Ruger introduced the American Rifle earlier this year as well as the SR22 and have had difficulty keeping up with orders. The SR1911 was released in April 2011 and Ruger has never been able to keep up with orders and retooled to take production from 300 per week to 600 per week. I know I have been on a waiting list for that gun for almost two months and suspect it will be several more before I finally get the call to come pickup the pistol.

While this is bad news for someone like me anxiously awaiting that new firearm or someone who has placed an order for one of the new or current models, this is great news for the firearm industry. I’m no economist, but when demand is higher than supply that is an excellent place to be for manufacturing. All I hope is no one decides to raise prices and in this case I do not think that will happen.

So if you want that new Ruger product, keep your shirt on and be prepared to wait. Keep in mind the old saying, “Good things come to he who waits!”

Failure is not an option

I met up with an old friend last night and we discussed the rate at which new breweries are popping up and how all seem to currently flourish. There is a finite amount of tap handle and shelf space, yet each time a new brewery opens their doors it seems as if demand immediately exceeds supply. So what is actually causing the success for the new breweries? We philosophized about it for quite some time, but never came to the answer.

In case you did not know, I am a bit of a beer snob. If if a beer is merely acceptable or is less than stellar I pass over it for something else. Last night one of the beers sounded good and then I discovered the brewery (not local) which made it and decided to try something else. I am glad that breweries have loyal followings and even when they make something I don’t prefer, they have a patrons who line up to buy their beers. This loyalty is certainly one reason breweries with beers which are not well crafted can keep on trucking. That and the fact there is a beer out there for everyone, just because I do not like it does not mean someone in beer land doesn’t consider it well crafted or their favorite beer.

If you are one of the breweries who is not putting 110% into crafting the best recipe and putting out the highest quality product, I propose you strive to get there. Currently failure is not an option, but the beer world tends to be cyclic in nature. We are certainly on the upside of the curve, but when the downside comes (and I hope it never does), be ready for survival of the fittest.

38 S&W CTG

I noticed a post on a local forum where someone had purchased an old S&W revolver marked “S&W 38 CTG” and had purchased some 38 Special cartridges for the firearm. To make it even worse he had purchased +P. Let’s start there with a quick lesson. Only guns marked for +P ammo should be fired with that ammo or guns which state it is ok to use in the owner’s manual. The safest thing to do if you do not know is to NOT use +P ammo.

This person found the ammo would not chamber in his pistol which is a good thing. Mike Hudson has a superb article on the cartridge entitled Consider the Forgotten .38 S&W which does a much better job of covering the ammo that I could ever do.

The photo above is from Wikipedia and one of the issues with this cartridge is finding the ammo. I checked a few web based retailers and those who do have the ammo in stock generally only have one single manufacturer and type so there is not the wide variety found in other calibers. Bottom line is if you purchase a firearm, be positive about the ammunition it requires before you purchase anything. Ammo is generally not returnable so that poster is now stuck if he does not already have a 357 or 38 special. On the bright side it will give him an excuse to purchase one so he can shoot the ammo!