I feel like I need to post something firearm related today and just cannot come up with a suitable topic. There are a myriad of ideas at any given moment running around in my brain, but if I forget to start a post in draft they will be gone in an instant. So since I cannot come up with anything miraculous this morning, lets discuss something which happened this week and it’s really a pet peeve.

This week I was out-of-town and so I went with a friend to a very nice range in Richmond, VA. They have a smorgasbord of rental guns so I typically rent what they offer when there. The last time I was there we rented a Springfield XD and I got a light strike on the primer. Well this time we rented a Walther PPQ. The magazine held 12 rounds of .40S&W and the first round off the magazine chambered correctly all but a single time and it lodged on the feed ramp. That was irritating, but the real irritation was every time we shot the gun the second round off the top lodged on the feed ramp. So out of eight full magazines, one jammed on the feed ramp with the first cartridge and all eight jammed with the second cartridge. The interesting thing was after the magazine was down to 10 rounds we never had an issue. The magazine release sucks on a PPQ, but that is a topic for another post.

So off to rent another firearm and get rid of the Walther jammaster. We selected a Glock 22 in .40S&W to eat up the rest of the rounds we had purchased. I shot first and my group was nonexistent. Now I am the first to admit I am not the best shot on the planet, but with the Walther PPQ I made a group less than half a fist at seven yards with the very first magazine even with the jam issue. With the Glock my shots were to the left and scattered. To me the trigger felt “gritty” and by the end of our shooting session I had rubbed a spot on the skin on the side of my trigger finger. My shooting partner was heading left as well and he agreed the trigger sucked. Everyone should know I am a Glock fan and my position has always been you can bury them in the backyard, dig them up years later and the gun will fire. Well this POS had some trigger issue and on top of that the sights were off. I’m not even sure how the sights can be off on that far at seven yards with a Glock, but they were. By the end of the session we had both tightened up our groups and figured out where to aim, but if this was my first exposure to a Glock I would just say no.

So I can see you are thinking my pet peeve is rental firearms. Bzzz, wrong answer! My pet peeve is the snotty guy at the counter. When I took back the Walther the person at the counter was very nice and said they would have the gunsmith look at it. I think the nose was slightly flattened on the range ammo and the angle made with the magazine on the 2nd round off the top was just enough to catch. A little polishing of the feed ramp would probably fix the issue or use ammo with a round/smooth bullet. The next guy was just a joy. Some snotty mid-20’s puke whose comment when I returned the Glock and told him the trigger was gritty went over to the side, pulled the trigger and said, “That’s just a Glock trigger.” I left without telling Captain Know-It-All that two experienced shooters found the trigger to be crap and the sights to be off significantly left. My pet peeve is people like our young friend who shrug off what others are telling them and do not listen or act on what they are saying. Maybe I should have flashed my NRA credentials, but this guy was so apathetic it would not have mattered. I hope this gentleman is offered the chance to find new employment soon if this is his normal attitude. He could have been having an off day, but that was not the vibe I was feeling. I think he probably goes through life in this manner and I wish him well in the future when I will no doubt encounter him at jobs which mandate his level of expertise, knowledge, and customer service. When I do I will gladly tell him, “Yes, I would like fries with that!”*

*Note: Most fast food employees exhibit better customer service than this gentleman. I’m not sure he would find long-term employment in that industry.