I doubt many in the RTP area are following this, but if you are and have interest in a Range Safety Officer Course in the North Raleigh area, please let me know. I am thinking Saturday October 6, 2012 might be a good date.
What is the course you ask? The RSO course is a nine-hour course which covers the RSO’s roles and responsibilities, range SOPs, range inspection and range rules, firearm stoppages and malfunctions, and Range Safety Briefings including emergency procedures. With that certification you can amaze your friends and impress your neighbors. You’ll be better looking and people will comment on how nice you smell.
Anyway, if you have interest in attending the course, please leave a comment on this post.
As I was perusing the aisles of a really nice gun store and talking with the clerk a customer came off the range and was excited about shooting his first Glock and was looking to purchase. I was listening to the conversation and when it came to disassembly the clerk knew that you had to pull down the slide lock, but I’m not sure he really knew all that was involved. The customer wanted to see it taken apart since he had heard how easy it was, so I volunteered to give him a quick demo. I thought it might be good to detail it, although almost every Glock owner can field strip their pistol in a matter of seconds.
After removing the magazine and checking the chamber is empty, point the Glock in a safe direction and pull the trigger. This is something I detest about a Glock. I don’t like pulling the trigger on a gun unless I am training by dry firing or at the range. Now take your dominant hand and place the Glock in it with the backstrap against your thumbpad and your fingers lying across the slide. Take your other hand and place your thumb on one side of the slide lock and a finger on the other side. I typically use my index or my middle finger to manipulate the slide lock. Pull down on the slide lock and with the dominant hand use your fingers to pull the slide back about a 1/2″. Now push the slide forward and it should come off easily. It is an odd-looking position and may take a time or two for you to get it down, but once you do this is a piece of cake. If you take the slide back too far you will have to dry fire the pistol again. If you forget to dry fire the gun you will not be able get the slide off.
I often find myself in situations where I am asked what someone would like. Typically it is because I have tried darn near everything on the beer menu, or I overhear a conversation nearby and offer some suggestions. Last night was no exception, the table near mine was having trouble finding a beer for one in the party. I asked what they typically liked and made two suggestions and then a third and as generally happens they go with my first suggestion. In this case I had stacked the deck since all were awesome brews, but the patron selected the Hardywood Park Singel and later mentioned how mush she enjoyed the beer.
I got to thinking it is too bad you can’t get paid for offering this type of advice. I cannot even count how many times I’ve assisted with beer selections in bars, restaurants, brewpubs and breweries. I guess it is part of being a beer judge, but it sure would be nice to make a buck or two for the suggestion. I wonder if I could get a gig as a plant in beer bars and get a payday when they order a brew with more margin? I guess that would be cheating is some way and might skew the suggestion since you would be aiming for the cash instead of actually helping select the beer they might most enjoy.
Oh well, one can dream. At the very least if someone gives you a great suggestion and you can afford it, buy them a beer. While helping others with a beer decision might give a warm fuzzy feeling, nothing says lovin’ like a nice cool anonymously donated brewski. Who knows, that guy you buy the beer as thanks for their great suggestion might be me! 😉
So last week I came across a Ruger 22/45 Target with a 5.5″ barrel for a steal. There was one caveat, the owner decided to clean the pistol and had disassembled everything but the magazine release button. He had always hated cleaning and disassembling the pistol and thought it was time to get it out of his house. It was a smorgasbord of parts and my gunsmith abilities are rudimentary. I figured, what the heck, for the price he was asking even if I was missing parts I could purchase new ones and get the firearm back together.
The first problem I ran into was the Ruger manual. The parts were not clearly identified and it was difficult to tell just how they went together. My next thought was YouTube and I found a plethora of videos showing how to remove the parts, but none clear enough to see exactly how they were placed before they were extracted. Finally I decided to just try what I thought I saw in the Ruger manual and of course that didn’t work out. I tried another configuration and once again failed as the magazine was extremely difficult to extract and the parts just did not work out. After several more tries I went back to YouTube and located this video of a reassembly which helped me orient the sear.
It should be noted in this video the bushing position he shows with the original bushing is incorrect. The hammer bushing should have the magazine disconnector and magazine disconnector spring positioned and then the hammer assembly is inserted on the bushing. This will be flush and the bushing can be inserted into the disconnector assembly and then the entire shooting match positioned against the safety with the sear spring sandwiched against the frame and finally the hammer pivot pin can be pushed through the frame. It is ultra important to push the sear forward against the spring to have it in the proper position with the safety and to accomplish all this only takes about five hands. Of course now I have executed the procedure enough I could do it in my sleep.
The previous owner told me he had problems with assembly and I had some similar sticking points. I believe the sear spring, a $2 part is bent and needs to be replaced for the pistol to function properly. That spring also retains the hammer pivot pin and I noticed when test firing yesterday the pin began to back out slightly. It was a royal pain to get the safety, sear spring, hammer assembly and disconnect parts all positioned due to the sear spring being bent slightly out of shape.
What the video above does very well is demonstrate how to assemble the 22/45 and forget all that magazine, pull the trigger, turn around, do the hokey pokey, etc nonsense. Just be aware where the hammer is and keep it in the right position to get the bolt and mainspring housing latch assembly in place.
I think I will ultimately remove the magazine disconnect and put in a Mark II style bushing to allow the magazine to drop free as opposed to catching. I had thought about putting on a slide rack, but after my trip to the range yesterday I can see no reason to need it. I may also decide to modify the frame to accept 1911-style grips.
After all the struggling I did find a photo array with the proper alignment of the parts and perhaps someone else working with a Ruger 22/45 will find it useful for disassembly/reassembly.
Saturday was the Bottle Auction for Jarrad Wilkinson held at Triangle Wine Company in Morrisville and organized by the local homebrew club CARBOY. The proceeds are still being tallied, but over $15K was raised in a single day and every single penny is being given to Jarrad and his family. Thank you to everyone who supported the fundraiser and if you would still like to donate to Jarrad’s recovery fund, the address is:
Jarrad Wilkinson Recovery Fund
Fidelity Bank
2538 Lyon Station Road
PO Box 457
Creedmoor, NC 27522
A recent Huffington Post article on alcohol market share indicated beer is losing ground to spirits and wine although still reins supreme with just under 50% market share. Beer gross revenues are increasing each year so while the market share is losing ground, the overall amount of sales is increasing. What does all that really mean to you and me, not much except the overall market share of craft beer in the beer market is on the rise, so the decline must be coming from those leaving the macros behind, or at least I would like to believe that is the case. 😉
Yesterday a man executed a former co-worker in New York City shooting him five times according to reports. Afterwards he walked away and was engaged by two NYC Police Officers. He turned to the officers and aimed his pistol and was shot and killed by the officers. One report indicated the police fired 16 rounds. If you would like to see the video of the shooting it is on this page.
What is troubling about this incident is one person was executed, the executioner was killed by the police and nine people were wounded. The last indication was the person with the pistol did not discharge his pistol, although it can be seen in the video he certainly aimed it at the police officers. So 16 rounds fired by police, one dead assailant who was reportedly hit seven times and nine innocent people wounded.
This demonstrates the importance of knowing what is beyond your target before you fire the gun. There can be no doubt the police needed to stop this man, but was is necessary to injure nine other people in order to accomplish that task?
All NYPD service pistols are “double action only” (DAO), meaning they have a two‐stage trigger pull for each round fired (unlike single‐action weapons, which can be “cocked,” resulting in a one‐stage trigger pull, which is smoother and easier). Additionally, all NYPD weapons are also modified to have a heavier‐than‐stock 12‐lb trigger pull; this diminishes the likelihood of unintentional discharges but also affects aiming.
Someone needs to seriously rethink a trigger pull which affects your aim. It saddens me to think 9 people might not have been hurt if something as simple as a lighter trigger had been implemented.
Back in May I posted about our house white, Meridian Chardonnay. Last night as I was perusing our wine storage in the bottom of the bar I spotted several bottles of our other house favorite white, Riondo Prosecco. We actually were introduced to this wine thanks to the abundant supply at our local Costco. Generally the price point there is less than 10 bucks per bottle and the slightly effervescent quality (frizzante) of the fruity, light bodied, and off-dry wine make it a crowd pleaser. Riondo Prosecco is 100% Glera grapes and I especially like the packaging with the exposed cork, but lately it has been appearing in screw-top bottling in some stores.
The wine pares well with almost anything and is very clean on the palate after consumption. If you haven’t tried Prosecco before, give this a try. You’ll be glad you did!
A few days ago an article came out on Guns.com regarding a scam targeting firearms instructors. This one hits a little close to home since I received the very email in question and smelled a rat. I actually passed it along to another instructor and they suggested I forward to the authorities, which I did. So if you are an instructor or an inspiring instructor take the time to read the article and make sure when dealing with email solicitations you don’t get scammed.
Here is the email I received:
I want to book for 2 weeks firearm training, 1 or 2 hours each day Monday to Friday (morning or evening hours) for a group of 10. We will be coming to your country for one month vacation/holiday from 28th Sept. 2012 and in line with our plans we will require 2 weeks firearm/safety training in your place just for the experience as we require no certificate at the end of the session and also to make our stay fun. We have been working for months without vacation so would want to add some fun to our upcoming vacation as this training will also help us in overcoming the fear of gun generally as most members have not touched a gun before.
The sessions should basically be a fun training experience for my group, please let me know if you can organize the training for us from your field of profession so i can finalize arrangements with my group and get back to you with more clear and specific details. Also confirm if you can arrange one on one exercise for us each day or if its better in group.
So last night I land in a Taco Mac and notice immediately the glass is no longer the standard tapered pint glass you see day in and day out. It has been switched for a Tulip Imperial Pint, but of course it is a 16 ounce glass. I originally thought it was a Nonic, but then remembered the shape of a Nonic is slightly different with a bulge down from the lip.
The Taco Mac glass is very light and at first I wondered if I was getting a smaller amount until I noticed the verbiage on the menu (photo below). Since it may be difficult to read, the first line talks about the head and they are correct, the shape of the glass does affect aroma and flavor, maybe one day I’ll put up a post with more on that topic. The next two lines are about the thinner glass and thinner base as well as the center of gravity being lower. The last statement is about nucleation sites on the bottom of the glass. Sam Adams etched their signature glass and Duvel has been etching theirs for years.
Anyway, the glass is much, much lighter for sure and I found it easy to drink from so perhaps the thinner glass does perform as they suggest. Anyway, pop into your local Taco Mac if you have one and give it a whirl, or several spins of the wheel. 😉