RichardR

I've been using an old western style Liberty rig (holster, belt w/cartridge loops) for years, it has held up extremely well & iffin they are still in business that is where I'd start looking.

Several years ago an incident like this ended a long time friendship of mine, one of my shooting buddies was in his late 70's & had started to get sloppy with safe handling & one afternoon experienced a stopage, set his rifle in his lap, barrel pointed directly at me in the next shooting lane, to which I reacted like anyone else with a loaded rifle pointed at them would have reacted. His response was "what are you getting so worked up about? I've been handling guns & shooting since before you were born!" I calmly packed up my gear, said my goodbyes to him & his wife and never showed up again for our regular Thursday afternoon range outings. It was a hard thing to do because I really enjoyed the time I spent with them, I got a call from his wife a few months later letting me know that he had passed & asking me to come say my final-final farewell's. He had been handling & shooting guns so long that he had simply forgotten just how dangerous that they can be. I loved that man (no homo) but I simply couldn't risk being around him while firearms were present anymore, not when his reaction was like it was, things might had been different if he'd appologized & immediately started being more careful but unfortunately that's not what happened. So it's not only the newbies that we've got to be wary of, every single one of us has to be careful not to get to comfortable or to confident, we've always got to remind ourselves as well as remind others to always always always follow & obey the 4 rules. A.) Treat all guns as if they are always loaded, whether they are unloaded or not. B.) Never point the muzzle of a firearm at anything that you are not willing to destroy. C.) Keep your finger off of the trigger until your sights are aligned on the target. D.) Always be sure of your target & what is behind it. Please be safe folks! & please do your best to help other people be safe! I (much like the rest of our fellow TGO'ers) am very thankful that Dolo was there to prevent OhShoot from being accidently shot in his back, hopefully the newbie learned a very valuable lesson & will be much more careful when handling firearms from now on ... Stuff like this makes me want to offer up free firearm safety classes.

If you consider being detained, questioned, background checked & having your personal property destroyed as being "treated with respect" than yea I suppose so ...

In Amerika 2.0 everyone is treated like a criminal.

^^this^^

Wow just wow.

Intersting design that is fo'sho! It's a bit cost-prohibitive for most folks budgets but it's coolness factor is definately pretty high.

Colt 1911's are a bit more plain-jane compared to some of the other brands (even their fit & finish is often lacking) but they tend to work & shoot extremely well, I've owned a multitude of various 1911 brands over the years but my plain-jane Colts (tool-marks and all) have always been my favorites. All of the fancy "bells & whistles" sure do look nice, but they are really not necessary, I can & do appreciate a good looking, well fitted, completely decked out custom 1911, but if my or my families life ever depends on one of my 1911's ... I'll definately be reaching for my Colt Combat Commander.

Welcome to TGO Tenngurl, I'm in Ripley which is just down 51 a bit. If you need help setting up a shooting range just give me a hollar, there are various ways of constructing shooting backstops but the best/safest way involves moving dirt & bulldozing up a nice big berm of earth. I am not sure how much time, money or effort your looking to out into the project, but I've built all kinds over the years, everything from basic large earthen berms to more complex steel reinforced rail-road tie lean-to (deflect downward) type backstops. All I ask is that iffin I help to build it, I get to come use it occasionally.

Welcome to TGO Sam

This appears to be a case of a couple LEO's harrassing a law-abiding citizen because they didn't like the fact that he had chosen to open carry his handgun. Nothing "reasonable" about it IMHO.

Congrats on your new pistol, M&P's are darn-fine handguns, I'd own a couple myself if the trigger had been designed differently, I just can't get used to how "squishy" they feel.

Without closely examining them it's really hard to say, iffin I had to guess at the most likely cause with no signs of illness or injuries it'd be they were probably egg-bound.

Without more details (bullet weight, velocity, range from target, autopsy reports, etc) It'd be difficult to say. Granted the 5.56x45mm isn't the best choice for long-range engagements, which would have been more typical in Afgan than in Iraq, but could literally happen just about anywhere. Neither is it the best choice for short barreled applications, but it is widely availible & realitively common, it's effectiveness is limited, but for CQB purposes there is still more than enough oomph out of an SBR to cause a great deal of cavitation, regardless of the absence of any fragmentation, expansion or tumbling. Shooting a milk jug or two-liter soda bottle filled with water, make sure the cap is on tight, if it "violently explodes" on impact that is a very good visual indicator of the level of cavitation with the round in question, at a similar distance. Plus it's a lot of fun!

That is a common misconception, however even without fragentation or tumbling or expansion the temporary cavitation, (ie: trauma & shock) caused by a 55 grain FMJ travelling at 2350fps would most likely be instantly incapacitating even if not ultimately fatal, if we are talking a COM hit on an attacker. Granted both the temporary cavitation & permenant wound channel are both much greater if the bullet tumbles &/or fragments, but it is not absent from terminal equasions even if the bullet doesn't. I am not sure if I explained that as well as I could have, but essentially it boils down to there is still plenty of "shock/trauma" caused at those velocities to immobalize (if not outright kill) regardless of (or absent any) tumbling/fragmentation/expansion of any bullet of any caliber of any weight, I'll try to find the term paper I submitted while back in college which closely examined the terminal effects of temporary cavitation of high velocity bullets vs the permanent wound channels of larger, heavier bullets. It is interesting stuff, which is of course is also the basis behind the trend of militaries around the world developing smaller caliber higher velocity rounds in the late 60's & early 70's (not my term paper, just the theory my paper was based on). Of course the smaller caliber, higher velocity rounds are even more effective when factors such fragmentation, tumbling &/or expansion are added, even in the absence of those factors the terminal effects of temporary cavitation are still quite effective in neutralizing a threat. So basically we're not just talking about a .22 sized "through & through" hole, that may or may not hit something important, we are talking about millions upon millions of instantly ruptured capularies, torn nerves, massive internal bleeding & organ bruising caused soley by the temporary cavitation surrounding that .22 sized hole. Nasty stuff to think about, I certainly don't ever want to experience it first hand, but for HD/SD I still prefer 00 buck ... nothing else even comes close in effectiveness for CQC in my opinion, except for maybe 000 buck LOL ...

Kuddo's man, that rig looks very well constructed & as a fellow spelunker the design also looks like it would work very well for it's intended purpose, I especially like the add-on dust/scratch protective cover, that's a great idea & should help keep any potential damage to the holster & handgun to a minimum.

Yup closed my account w/them too.

Welcome to America 2.0

I've built a few AR builds using Model1 parts, you'll never hear a complaint from me about the quality, in fact I still have the very first AR that I ever built (20" A2 standard service rifle HBAR) that was built using Model1 parts & it is still one of my favorite, most accuate, reliable AR's that I own. Granted I haven't ordered anything from Model1 in probably 13 or 14 years, so things could have changed between now & then, but I always had good luck with regards to the qaulity of the parts that I received from them.

I'll have to give this some thought ... I guess I'll start with melee, my 22 oz Estwing framing hammer is what I would probably grab, not only would it be a serious weapon if needed, I would also already have the main tool required to be able to easily "board up" windows & doors in order to fortify/secure a place. Bonus if I sharpened the shaft (which is fairly long, totally solid, and made from hardened carbon steel) that way if I needed I could use it to "lop off" zombie limbs like a machete in an emergency. For my long-gun I'd definately grab my Mossberg 590A1 it holds 8+1 in the tube w/+4 more 00buck in the speedfeed stock, +25 more 00buck on a belt bandoleer, that is 33 rds of 00buck "immmediately on hand" + a couple ammo cans of a couple hundred more 00 buck & slugs in reserve that I'd toss in a pack. 12 gauge 00 buck is both weighty & bulky, but it's effectiveness in CQC is unquestionable & I'd be looking to put down threats as quickly & as reliably as possible. Sidearm choice would probably be my G17, I have more magazines for it than I do for any other handgun I own (by far) .. plus I own several 33rd magazines for it as well. My main goal would be to get my family to the river, use my small fishing boat to find a larger barge or tug to anchor in the middle of the Mississippi to use as a base of operations, to both search for other survivors & scavange for supplies. Plenty of fresh water to drink (once purified) and plenty of fish to eat (once caught) so that takes care of the three main survival needs, safe shelter, fresh water & food. All of those tugs are required to keep first aid supplies & emergency marine radios on board, and being anchored in the middle of the Mississippi should keep the zombies from swimming out to us, unless there are swimming zombies who are smart enough to start swimming from upstream of the boat and strong enough to swim out to the middle in that current without being swept away. *shrug* sounds good in theory anyway.

A bit of batter & a quick dunk in deep frier makes everything taste better!

Yup, apparently that's why she wandered indoors, she was looking for a spot to spin up her egg-sack. I'm just thankful I found her prior to her sneaking off behind the washing machine or dryer or something, that would had been very bad to have had a bunch (hundreds?) of little baby black widows running loose inside of the house. Seems like all of the local wildlife come here to have their babies, we've had two stray prego cats come and adopt us & have litters since I've lived here, got a litter of 3 kittens that are right at 6 weeks old now, finally got them weened, litter-box trained & socialized enough that they are ready to rehome, awesome fun but I am severly allergic so I can't keep them, but I've really enjoyed having them as temporary house guests ... Anyone in the Ripley area want a free kittah?

I use a Lowrance Elite-4 DSI sonar/GPS combo, it is also very clear w/regards to detail & it takes a lot of the guess work out of it, it has some really nice features but it's not cheap, I will say that you get what you pay for in "fish finders" so I'd say if you are serious about fishing that you should buy as much fish finder as you can afford.

Dave, I am not entirely sure that Chuck was attacking you personally, I think he's just frustrated with the seemingly endless tolerance for totalitarianism that many of his fellow Americans constantly exhibit. So your "comply or go to jail" type comment just sort of pinched a nerve so to speak. I'd try not to get to worked up over it, we all have different views, different comfort levels w/regards to how much despotism we are willing to tolerate, etc.

Yup, they'll probably cannabalize the crap out of each other, I'm going to try to get & keep enough small, soft, easy prey in there for them to minimize some of that but it is going to happen regardless. I am just really glad that I caught her prior to her laying her egg sack in a cabinet or behind the washer/dryer or something ... that would had been bad ju-ju to have had all of those widows running loose in the house without knowing about them.