Sweet!

Ok, This doesn't have much to do with CAS. But if you are anything like me you will really dig this webpage. Blade Runner and Logans Run are a couple of my favorite sci-fi movies. Throw in some classic Star Trek and a couple of wanna be gunsmith's and you've got a recipe for entertainment.



Hat tip to Les Jones

Vanity

My Colt is now represented on KIMSON Handicraft Co., LTD's website showing off the Dragon hand-carved grips for the 1911. I think it looks great. Essentially, he reposted my blog entry on the grips (with my permission) and I am quite proud of the way the old Colt turned out.

Now I just need to find someone to buy my Kimber, because I doubt it'll see much use...

SCOTUS & Parker

For those living under a rock and may not know, the Supreme Court has decided to hear the Parker vs DC case where a lower court ruled that DC's ban was unconstitutional. This is the first time in 68 years that the court will rule on the 2nd amendment, so yeah, its a big deal. David Hardy over at Of Arms & the Law has some thoughts on the question that the court will rule on. He feels pretty positive about wording of the question if you can read anything into it at all and I think you can since they took their sweet time of it.

David also has some thoughts on the timing of when the case will be heard based on the timeline of when the parties have to file and the Court's schedule. Late March 2008. Make that 69 years...

BTW, if you aren't reading Of Arms & the Law, what's wrong with you?

Congratulations Copper!

Well he finally did it. After 3 years of shooting and lord knows tons of practice Copper Quincey managed to beat me last week at Thunder Valley. It wasn't like I shot bad either. I did pretty good with the exception of one stage and Copper shot well the whole match. He finished 15th which is pretty damn good since Vaquero, Indy Kid, Max Montana, Chicago Steely, Drew First, Clyde, Redneck, Cumberland Drifter, and Windy City Kid were all present.

Keep up the hard work, cause I'm not gonna let you do it again.

The Colt Meets The Dragon

Back in August after revisiting Xavier's post about the grips he purchased from Mr. Kim Son in Vietnam, I got to admiring the 1911 grips in water buffalo with the hand-carved dragon on them. I had to have them, you see I like dragons, they've fascinated me be it in my early days of RPG gaming or my love of aircraft. At the time I figured they'd look great on my Kimber Eclipse CLE II (they probably would), but they never got a chance to appear on the Kimber. A month later, I ran across the Colt MKIV at the PVR swap meet and picked it up as I've always wanted a Colt 1911 in stainless. The following week, the dragon grips arrived from Vietnam and thus the Colt meets the Dragon.

The first thing I noticed about the grips when I unpacked them is that the carving reveals the inner beauty of the water buffalo horn and gives the carving an almost golden appearance. I was pretty stoked about getting these grips on my newest baby, so I removed the stock Colt grips and dropped on the Dragons. To say they fit is understating the matter quite a bit. These grips appeared to almost suction onto the frame of the MKIV, I find that the come off just as easy, but there's no wiggle in them even without the grip screws installed. Like Xavier, I find this amazing given that Mr. Kim Son doesn't actually have access to a 1911 frame. The grips even fit over the new over-sized plunger tube I installed.

One thing I had hoped the carving would do is provide purchase to maintain a good grip while shooting and after shooting it last Saturday at PVR, I can say that the purchase is good, not up to snuff with checkered rubber, but then what is? It does allow clothing to slip over and off of the pistol while in carry mode and I don't see it ruining clothes like some of the agressive grips or skater tape will do.

As you can see in the pictures I took, the grips fit the frame VERY well and leave almost no gap with the grips landing just shy of the end of the grip frame. The only thing I find about these grips in particular that I don't really like is that the grip screws don't sit flush with the grips, they protrude a small amount, I don't know if there are screws available that have thinner heads and will sit flush, I might try some of the low profile grip screws to see, but it certainly doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for these grips.

In all, I think I've been very lucky to have ordered these grips and found a Colt that I've been wanting, perhaps I'm living right, who knows but I know that I'm pretty darned happy with this package.

Sheepdip Inn

Quite the name huh?

Like most strange things, there's a story behind it. The PVR clubhouse is the brainchild of a member who everyone knows as "Smiley" and since he was the main impetus behind the clubhouse, it is only fitting that it be named for or after him. Why Sheepdip? That's his real SASS alias, he goes by Smiley for some odd reason nobody can figure.

Anyway, the Sheepdip Inn is pretty much done, structurally anyways. In two weekends worth of work the entire thing got built by the hard-working PVR members and of course Smiley who not only thought it up, but had the skills to build it. That's always nice to have. I believe the club has about $1,000 in it and a lot of labor. The structure is 24'X16' and is pretty sparse inside, but that'll change when the women folk get to the decorating. As it is, it is a fine place to hold up in cold weather and shoot the bull, have a beer and do some karaoke.

Not Quite THAT Versatile

I know most gunnies think the venerable 12guage is a very versatile firearm and it truly is, but it does have its limits. For instance, don't try to remove a lug nut with double-ought at arms length. I've been frustrated working on a car before, but I usually reach for the penetrating oil or mechanical leverage when I encounter a difficult to remove nut.

3:10 to Yuma

Well I finally managed to free some time up to go see 3:10 to Yuma. It just happened to be the very last showing of the movie in our local theater. I'm glad I managed to go and see it since it met most of my expectations.

In short it's a good movie. If you get a chance see it our pick up the DVD when it comes out. The acting is solid and better then the first version. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale continue to impress me and the best parts of the movie are when these two great actors interact.

The story follows the first movie and I can only assume the original work pretty closely. I need to pick up a copy of Elmore Leonard's short story and see which version is more true to the work. One of the things I really enjoyed about the first version was the fact that the Dan Evans character was pretty much an everyday man. He was down on his luck, but not any more then most people and while he needed the 200 dollars to get by and needed it badly doing the right thing was more important to him. In this version the character is truly beat down with a missing leg from the war and a son with TB and an evil neighbor trying to steal his land. It's almost like Hollywood doesn't believe in the everyday man...what am I saying of course they don't.

The movie adds a few action sequences like a dangerous apache pass that wasn't any more dangerous then Dan Evans ranch and a run in with some other railroad people both of which seemed to be in there for the MTV generation. The only thing that really bugged me about the movie however was the overt approach to telling the audience that putting Ben Wade in the 3:10 to Yuma did not mean that he would get hanged. At one point Russell Crowe has to say that he's broken out of Yuma twice before. It just dumbs it down to much and generally pisses me off.

The action was solid, the acting was great, the costumes and guns were fun and the movie was enjoyable. Ben Foster did a great job playing the part originally done by Richard Jaeckel and definitely stole a couple of scenes. It's not the best western I've ever seen, even in the modern era, but it is well worth the price of admission.

Tags!

For future reference here is a list of Tags used so far;

CAS, non-cas, PVR, TVR, CCW, cap n ball, zombies, 1911, Colt, Gunsmithing, humor, Wild Bunch, Shotgun, reloading, Guns, 97, buying, AK47, Shooting, Fast draw, movies, SASS, Competition, scoring, Westerns, 2nd amendment, video, clothing, Revolver, Grips, Custom, advice, police, safety, defense, Glasses

Wow, that's a mouthful. Perhaps we should limit our tags a little to make them useful. For example make sure that all posts are listed as CAS or non-cas (yes it looks like they are case sensitive) Then we can further divide them into Gunsmithing, reloading, safety, advice, training, Competition, scoring, etc. After that we can put down the type of gun like Revolver, Shotgun, Rifle, or 97, 1911, AK47 etc.

This list is just to help us refer back to what we have already done so we can standardize a little in the future.

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More Zombies!!!

I like they way Oleg thinks. The S.T.A.R.S. patch cracks me up. Wish I could find one.

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Will Work For Beer

Last weekend, several members of the PVR club descended upon the range to erect a clubhouse in the cabin area of the range so shooters can get out of the weather after a shoot for scores and socializing. I got there just before 9am during the lumber gathering stage and helped load up the wagon with fresh cut poplar. Even though the weather wasn't cooperating, we got the deck layed by lunch time and four walls up by 4:30pm, not terribly bad I think.

The crew consisted mostly of unskilled labor with one of the club members, Smiley, appointed as foreman since it was his baby and he has the knowledge to build a building. Another pard Billy Bucharest is a carpenter, so we had enough supervision and we were an enthusiastic bunch (the promise of beer at the end had a little to do with it).

The near constant drizzle was annoying, but you can work in it. The freshly cut lumber was heavy since it was cut to actual dimensions and was wet after several days of rain. My muscles cried for two days afterward. I posted my favorite picture here, you can see the rest that one of the ladies took at the PVR website.

I know this is going to be a great addition to the range and provide us with a way to get out of the bad weather after a shoot to continue our socializing. The clubhouse isn't completely done, I wasn't able to show up for Sunday to put the roof and siding on, but it looks to have got done, now we need to build the porch, then it will be a proper clubhouse.

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