JAB

Well, it looks like Panera has joined other businesses that say, "We'd like it if customers don't bring guns to our establishments but we aren't going to do anything to stop you."  They say that they won't post signs and won't say anything to folks who are seen to be carrying.  Just another attempt to appease the members of Bloomberg's Mentally Deficient A**holes (aka Moms Demand Action) and allow them to claim a 'victory' without really changing anything.  Although functionally these non-commital statements don't make any, real difference I do find them annoying in that they present the surface appearance that the businesses in question are agreeing with the Morons for the Disarmament of Americans which could lend weight to that group's argument in the future.  You know how the adage goes - tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.   I honestly think I have maybe been to Panera once in the last three years.  Their stuff is okay but it isn't great and it is overpriced, IMO.  On the off chance that I do go there in the future I certainly won't go out of my way to not carry my gun.   http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--panera-asks-diners-to-leave-guns-at-home?gt1=33048&ocid=ansmony11

I ditched the terrible, horrible, no good Uncle Mikes boot grips that S&W put on my 642 from the factory in favor of a set of Pachmayr Compacs (not the Compac Professionals that leave the back strap exposed.) The difference is night and day and, while many are of the opinion that no one will ever say that a lightweight j-frame is fun to shoot, I have to say that with the Pachmayrs it actually is fun. More importantly, I can get a better grip and the covered back strap means that I no longer feel like someone is hitting my palm with a ball peen hammer when I shoot it. Until I changed grips I didn't even realize how much of a flinch I had developed when shooting this gun. That translates into more accurate shooting with potential improvement through practice (I was never going to get better - or even good - with it while it wore the original grips.) As for pocket carry, in the three pairs of pants (actually, one pair of khakis, one pair of denim shorts and one pair of cargo shorts) I have tried it with since changing grips, it was no more difficult to pocket than with the originals. In fact, although I use a pocket holster, it shifted a lot in my pockets with the tiny, almost vestigial factory grips while it stays in place a lot better with the Pachmayrs. Also, when I put my hand in my pocket it just naturally falls into a good grip position with the Pachmayrs. I think the Pachmayrs look better, too. Honestly, I believe these are the grips that S&W should be putting on the 642 at the factory. I also painted the sights on the 642. A little florescent orange along the top edge of the front sight and rear sight notch with a little florescent green behind the orange on the front ramp (to show when I am holding with the front sight too high) makes them a whole lot easier to see and line up properly. I used a black Sharpie to fill in part of the rear sight notch in order to give better contrast. Here is the 642 with first the original grips and then the Pachmayrs, lying on top of my Ruger GP100 to give some indication of the difference in size. Here is what the sights look like, now. No, the painted sights don't look 'cool' or 'bad-a**' or whatever but this is a case where I'll take improved function over appearance.

  Here is a link to part one of the webisode I was talking about on the AMC site.  You should be able to get to the other parts from there - I think there are six parts to this story, altogether.    http://www.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/videos/the-walking-dead-webisodes-1-a-new-day   If you have trouble getting the episodes to play from the AMC site, (I did just now - the pre-video ad would play but then the 'loading' animation just kept going over and over) it looks like they are all available on YouTube (I ended up going there to watch the last part again before I posted about it to refresh my memory about exactly what happened to the woman.)   http://www.youtube.com/show/thewalkingdeadtornapart   At this link, parts 3 and 6 don't show up in the list at the top but they do show up in the list at the bottom.  I think the webisode was done well and it is worth watching all the parts.  I think doing a spin-off in a similar manner could work (with the focus changing to different survivors from time to time, maybe revisiting some later and killing off others, so that some people/groups survive longer than others.)   Honestly, though, I would not be surprised if the focus of the spin-off is on The Governor.  There are already two or three novels that tell his back story and how the person he came to be (more or less the person Rick and the gang met) is almost literally a different person than he started out being.  As those novels are already a spin-off of the comics and/or television series (although they are different because in the novels he meets the sisters that were in last season of the series quite a while before he arrived Woodbury) I would think it would be pretty easy to spin them off into their own show - not to mention that the folks doing the show seemed very reluctant to let go of the Governor character (even when they should have.)   Another possibility for 'inspiration' for a spin-off could come from the video games - the ones that have nothing to do with any of the characters from the original group.  Heck, again with a possible spoiler, at the end of the first game (the only one I have played so far) the player character dies (or ends up as a zombie, depending on what you tell the main NPC to do.)

  They have done a little of that in on-line 'webisodes'.  Remember the dessicated, crawling zombie that Rick saw as he was leaving the hospital then later came back and shot in the head?  There was one, done in a few parts, that showed her as a living woman and told the story of how she became a ripped-up zombie (Spoiler alert:  She and her kids were being chased by a group of zombies while trying to make it to one of the military camps in the early days of the outbreak - she got bitten on the arm and told the kids to run while she stayed behind to slow down the mini-swarm so her kids could get away while they ate her.)  Pretty good stuff.   If they are going to insist on doing a spin-off (as spin-offs sometimes work and sometimes just 'water down' the concept so much that the original doesn't last much longer) I think it might work to do something along those lines with it.  Maybe not focus on the same survivor/group of survivors but, instead, show us a different group every few weeks.  Maybe even pick some of the more interesting zombies (like the young guy in the suit in Atlanta) and tell their stories.  Maybe even show that many people/groups wouldn't make it by focusing on a group for a couple of weeks then killing them all off while having other groups/individuals survive longer so that there is even less of a guarantee that a character will survive one week to the next than on the original.  That way there would be room to develop the characters and story while keeping the main focus on the action rather than getting bogged down in 'soap opera' storylines.

  I also belong to a forum dedicated to Heritage firearms (because of my Rough Rider.)  The administrator over there lives in Florida and (synchronicity) the topic of absolute concealment came up in a discussion this week.  I asked him if that had changed and he said that the concealment requirement was relaxed at about the same time that the law was changed to allow carry in their state parks.  How much it was 'relaxed', however, I am not sure.

Great looking pair.  I seem to be in the minority here in that I like the lighter grip inserts better but they both look great.  I will likely eventually look into custom inserts for my GP.  I have seen some pics of a GP with 'stag' inserts that looked nice and were kind of different.

  Almost the same as my 'pocket gun' options.  I have a 642 and a Kel Tec P3AT.  The 642 gets carried more often.  In fact, it gets carried the most of any of my carry guns.  Pocket carry isn't necessarily my 'favorite' way to carry but I have come to accept that it is the most unobtrusive method for carry when I am possibly going to be in what someone above called 'non-permissive' environs, especially in t-shirt weather (which, as a warm natured person living in east Tennessee, constitutes 9 or 10 months out of the year, for me.)  I also think that, as I believe that many of the small autos chambered in .380 and up are 'pushing the envelope' for reliability there is something to be said for 'five for sure' in a pocket gun.   I do admit to shooting the P3AT more accurately and consistently.  However, I think that is entirely an issue with the grips and hope that the Pachmayr Compac grips I ordered for the 642 this morning will help me address that issue while hopefully not hurting my ability to pocket carry it.

I live where Loudon and Roane Counties meet.  I work in west Knoxville (and can't carry a gun where I work due both to state law and employer's rules) but spend the majority of my 'off time', when not at home, in towns like Loudon, Lenoir City, Kingston, Harriman, Rockwood and Sweetwater.  Therefore, I carry based on my perceived threat level and the most likely threats in the areas I generally frequent.  To me, such threats would be comprised of one or two robbers, meth heads, etc. and not a terrorist cell.  Because of that, most of the time I feel plenty 'armed' with a J-frame in .38+P with a speed strip reload or a Kel Tec P3AT with a spare mag.  Even when shopping, dining, etc. in Knoxville I usually feel that one of those two is sufficient.  I have a couple of other carry options that I exercise, sometimes (a CZ 82 or a Ruger P95) either because I might be headed somewhere I think I might 'need' more or simply just because I feel like it but the J-frame is my most often carried followed by the P3AT.  Part of the decision for me is that such small guns are very easy to conceal in the majority of situations and styles of dress while at the same time I think they would be 'up to' dealing with any threat I am likely to face.   The sort of situation I envision would be something like what actually happened in Loudon last Friday.  The local cops were chasing a stolen vehicle on I-75 and On-Star slowed the vehicle as the thief left the Interstate at exit 72 (the Loudon exit.)  The thief jumped out of the vehicle at a gas station, hi-jacked another, rammed yet another vehicle and hit a deputy while trying to escape.  I get off at exit 72 on my way home every work day and was there in time on Friday to see the ambulances and fire trucks still in the Weigels parking lot while the cops had both entrances blocked and police tape up.  I don't think the perp threatened the person whose car he hi-jacked - my impression is that he just jumped in while they were out of the car and took off - but I am not sure.  As I do not leave my keys in the car while I get gas, however, anyone looking to take my vehicle would have to come to me for the keys and threaten me in order to get them.  Those sorts of small, fairly isolated but entirely possible (and, unfortunately, more frequent) occurrences are the situations for which I feel the most need to be prepared.   In fact, I can say that the thing that most provoked me to get my HCP were the Christian-Newsom murders.  I had been 'thinking about' getting an HCP for a few years before but the terrible events surrounding their slayings really made me go from 'thinking about' to doing.  I have often wondered how things might have been different if one (or both) of the victims had a J-frame or a little .380 in their pocket.

I am not sure if I have tried the .357 or not. I am usually not as big a fan of the things that have to be called 'food additives' instead of 'hot sauce'. I like a good, heat packed hot sauce - even one at the heat level of ghost peppers, scorpion peppers or so on. A little bit of pure cap to enhance the heat might be okay as long as the pepper flavor is still there. Once they start adding large amounts of pure cap and losing the flavor of pepper or other spices I won't enjoy it, as much. One of the first 'extreme' hot sauces I ever bought was Mad Dog Inferno Sauce. Their Inferno was supposedly the first sauce ever officially named 'world's hottest'. That was several years ago, though, and the Scoville rating for Mad Dog Inferno is only said to be somewhere around 90,000. Thing is, although it does contain some pepper extract, it is also made with molasses, garlic and cloves so it had a wonderful flavor. I used it to make hot wings a couple of times and ended up taking it to work to put on sandwiches - it was great mixed with a little mayo on a Chik-fil-a sandwich. Yep. Most of the local Indian restaurants have a heat scale of 1 to 5 to determine how how you want your food. I order "Indian hot" which is off the scale. It is really hot but, because of the other flavors, also really tasty. I have tasted dishes that other people ordered - people who ordered theirs to be around a 2 or 3 - and they honestly didn't taste 'right' to me. I wouldn't have enjoyed eating a whole plate of food at that, lower heat level. Same thing when I go to a Thai restaurant and order "Thai hot." I don't want to eat something that is so hot that I can't taste anything else but my tolerance is high enough that I probably can taste other flavors where some folks would just taste 'hot'.

  Yeah, I missed out again, too.  Oh, well, I hope you other fellers enjoy it!   For you folks who like various hot sauces, keep an eye out at your local Big Lots.  Yeah, Big Lots.  From time to time, they have some of the more 'premium' hot suaces that they have gotten in close outs and so on.  Recently, I have seen (and bought) Scorned Woman hot sauce at a couple of their locations.  Scorned Woman isn't the hottest of sauces (of course, this is the opinion of a guy who eats ghost peppers) but it has a nice, even, low burn and (IMO) a great flavor as it has some, other spices in it.  On the 'Net it runs anywhere from $4.50 to $5.00 a bottle plus shipping.  I think it is a little more than that in the hot sauce shops.  I have been getting it at Big Lots (several bottles at a time as I know it won't be there forever) for $2.50 a bottle.   Places like Ross and T.J. Maxx, of all things, also sometimes have good hot sauces at low prices.  I've seen Dave's Insanity varieties at Ross a couple of times at lower prices than at the hot sauce shops.

Nice.  You know, your comment about antler handle neck knives made me think of something.  If you went with a smallish blade knife (like about the size of the CRKT 'minimalist') and worked out a way to make the 'sheath' and handle both out of antler - or maybe attach a good bit of antler to the sheath - then did a little carving, etc. on the antler you could probably completely disguise the fact that it is a knife, at all.  Not for any nefarious purpose, of course, but just because that would be kind of cool.

I like how it looks like it would be right at home in a museum with Civil War type artifacts - the patina is awesome.  I have to admit, though, that I think the 'gentleman's fighting knife' you made some months back is still probably my favorite that I have seen of yours, so far (is that a pic of it on the bottom of your last post?)

Missed it.  Dang.  Thanks for the info, though.

The real problem here is that the Second Amendment was largely intended to guarantee that the People have the ability to defend against a tyrannical government.  The ability to do so was used to allay fears about such a tyrannical Federal government using Federal troops to enforce their will upon the People when the decision was originally being made as to whether or not to have a standing military.  Therefore, the main intent of the Second Amendment was to support the ability of average citizens - the People - to defend against an organized military force.  As such, if these friggin' judges would actually look at history and base their rulings in reality, 'military type' weapons are exactly the type of weapon that the Second Amendment was originally intended to protect.

I saw a guy in Walmart one day carrying in a manner very similar to what the OP described.  He was wearing a tucked in, button-down shirt, tie and dress slacks and had a nice-looking pistol in the SOB position in what looked to be a leather IWB holster.  There was a woman (I assumed it was his wife) and a child with him and they were looking at merchandise on a shelf in the anti-perspirant section.  I didn't say anything to him as I do tend to try and mind my own business but it did occur to me as I was standing near and slightly behind him (I was also looking at the anti-perspirant/deodorant) that it would be all too easy for someone standing where I was to grab his gun and possibly even use it on him and his family.  In fact, I think it would have been easier for me to draw his weapon than it would have been for him to do so.  I was honestly bothered by that (obviously, as I still remember it.)   So, for me, it wasn't an issue of open carry vs. concealed carry.  Instead, it had to do with the ability to maintain control of the weapon.  I carry to protect myself and any family/friends who might be with me and the thought that it would be very easy for a potential assailant - exactly the type of person we carry to protect against - to take that weapon and use it to harm the carrier or his family, etc. is bothersome.  Even more bothersome is the idea that an assailant could have easily taken that guy's gun and used it to harm me or other people in the store.  It just seems irresponsible, to me, to carry in such a way as to make one's firearm both difficult to keep an eye on/retain and easy for someone else to grab.  I don't mean that as a 'bash' against the OP or anyone else, simply as a general statement.  As others have said, I sometimes carry in a manner that I consider to be 'lightly concealed' -  as in an OWB holster at about the 3:00 or 3:30 position with an unbuttoned shirt over it.  I usually don't outright open carry but if someone wants to do so that is certainly their choice.  I would just hope that they would do so in a manner that at least places their gun in a position where they can see if someone is moving to take it and could more readily retain control of their weapon.   For the record, I was also carrying at the time and I doubt it would have been very easy for someone else to snatch my pistol (from my front pocket) and use it against me, assuming anyone else even realized it was there.     Just to give a bit more specific info, it was SB1771 that was passed into law and that made these changes.  So, yep, any length blade is now legal for carry.  "Switchblades" and other, automatic knives are legal for carry (and the penalty for using such a knife in commission of 'a dangerous felony' increased.)  Balisongs are now legal for carry.  My take is that sword canes are now legal for carry.  Heck, if someone wanted to it might even technically be legal to carry a broadsword strapped across their back - although it would probably be a bad idea in most situations.  Ironically, you could still be arrested for carrying a big stick (club/cudgel) instead of that broadsword.   http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=SB1771

Making something right is one thing.  Allowing yourself to be screwed over if the gun was working when you traded and isn't working, now, is quite another.  No reason to be a patsy or allow yourself to be taken advantage of when you have no way of knowing what the other guy might have done to bugger up the gun since he has had it.  If it was functioning when you traded and isn't now, it sounds like a good bet that he has screwed the gun up, somehow, and wants you to eat his screw up.  That just comes down to how well you know the other guy and how much you trust what he says.  If it were a friend I trusted, I would do what I could to make it right.  If it were a stranger or someone I didn't trust then my feeling would likely be, "Too bad, so sad, buh bye."  Just my :2cents:  and the reason I won't sell or trade a gun I own in a private sale.  I generally don't turn loose of a gun once I have it, anyhow, and if I do - even though I might get a few more dollars out of it in a private sale as opposed to trading it at an LGS (or not) - it really isn't worth the potential hassle, to me.  Of course, that is also why I would rarely buy anything but a very low dollar gun in a private sale - because if it doesn't work properly I like to know that I can go back to the LGS to get help making it right.

  Actually, it has happened.  Not necessarily a self defense case but there has, apparently, been such a case (New Jersey v. Danny Bias) where the inability to recreate gun shot residue from hand loads resulted in a man being charged with murder in what was probably a suicide.  Apparently, the guy's wife was going to shoot herself in the head, he attempted to grab the gun and it fired.  Because the hand load he had in the gun was a light load (ironically, so that his recoil sensitive wife could use it for HD, if necessary) it didn't leave appreciable gsr so the authorities felt there was no way that the gun was next to her head - or even in her hand - when it was fired.  Further, because the guy had used a few, slightly different recipes and different types of brass for the ammo he had loaded the results weren't duplicated even when his hand loads were tested (the tested ammo taken from his house was, apparently, in brass with a different headstamp than that which was in the gun and so was likely a different recipe.)  Massad Ayoob was involved with this case and uses it as an example for why, in his opinion, loading a gun with other than factory loads when the intended use is self/home defense is a bad idea.   All that said, if I needed to defend myself and all I had on hand were my hand loads, I'd stoke up and take my chances.  As others have said, I imagine that if a shooting is justifiable, otherwise, then I doubt that the ammo used would make much difference in most cases.  Still, I prefer to carry only factoy ammo.  Given that, once I have tested for function and so on, I am unlikely to fire more than a couple of boxes of each caliber of carry ammo per year I consider the cost difference to be negligible. 

  There is 'gouging' and then there is 'market pricing'.  I agree with not buying ammo from profiteers and scalpers who buy ammo at Walmart for the same price you or I would pay and then re-sell at an exorbitant rate.  However, the fact is that right now .22LR demand exceeds supply, which naturally drives prices up on any product.  This does not just mean that the retail price goes up but also that the prices that retail outlets pay go up, as well.  For instance, the owner of my LGS recently told me that his supplier quoted him a price of $20 per box - meaning the store would have to pay $20 a box - for some Remington Accu-Tip .22 WMR ammo.  Before this nonsense started, while it was one of the more expensive .22 Magnum rounds, that ammo could be had for around $17 retail price.  This means that the LGS would now be paying $3 more per box for it than what was the retail price a couple of years, ago.   It sticks in my craw to pay $4 or more per box for ammo I bought for less than $2 no so long ago.  However, until and unless demand balances a bit more with supply, these prices are likely the new 'normal'.  For that reason, I'd say that those folks who are standing in line at 5:30 in the morning just to buy a couple of boxes (and especially those who bring 25 people with them so that they can be sure to empty the shelf) are as much a factor in perpetuating the problem - by keeping demand high while supplies remain the same - as anything else.

Good to know.  Based on having called to check with them a couple of times over the last week or two, I don't think the Knoxville Academy can yet say that they have .22 ammo pretty much all the time, yet, because they haven't had any whenever I have called.  Still, if it is regularly available at an Academy that is as close as the Chattanooga/Hixson area maybe it will start being more plentiful around here, soon.   I wonder if the Aguila folks have gone into production overdrive or something.  The owner of my LGS gave me a good handful of those Aguila Super-Extras to try out and see what I think of them.  He said he expects to be able to get a fairly steady supply of them, soon.  I haven't gotten around to it, yet but expect it to be just fine.  I don't think he is the kind of shop owner who really 'gouges' people but being that it is a small shop, etc. I expect his price to be about like Academy's.  According to him, Aguila is planning to streamline their production of rimfire a bit, at least for now.  He said that he doesn't think they are going to be producing the Super Maximum any longer, for instance.

        My mom has been shooting for most of her life.  She probably had as much to do with me learning to shoot as my dad did.  Thing is, most of her experience was with rifles and the pistols she had owned/shot were mostly little, 'mouse gun' types.   At one point, a few years back, I decided to attempt to get her to try out something in 9mm.  I didn't think she'd make the leap, herself and at the time I didn't have a 'spare' 9mm to loan her so I wanted to buy her one to get her started.  However, I didn't want to spend a lot of $$$ in case she didn't like 9mm, at all.  I found a used (honestly, like new) Hi-Point at the LGS and figured that would get her started.  My thinking was that, after a month or two of owning it as a 'start up' pistol, she could trade it toward something 'better'.  Yeah, that ain't gonna happen because she loves the thing.  She shoots it better than any, other pistol I have seen her shoot (including my 5.5 inch barreled S&W 22A.)  When I convinced her to get her HCP she used it to qualify (she has since bought a Kel Tec P32 for carry.)  Apparently, she shot better than anyone else in her class and said that people saw how well she did and were asking what kind of gun she was using.  She likes it so well that when she saw a used Hi Point .45 pistol at the LGS, she bought it.

Not just the gore but I think saying words like 'shi*', which they do say on TWD, probably will not allowed on broadcast television.  Like I said, I consider the cursing 'mild' but whoever makes the dumbass decisions that this word is allowed on broadcast television and that one isn't probably won't allow some of those words to get by.  It probably won't be as bad as trying to watch something like "Goodfellas" on broadcast television but I would be concerned about screwing up the continuity.

Last night I saw an advertisement stating that "The Walking Dead" will be coming to MyNetwork TV (Channel 8-2 in the Knoxville area) in October.  Of course this will be the old shows, starting with the first season, in syndication or whatever you call it but for people who don't haven't had a chance to watch it, before, this will be a chance to see what the talk is about.  I no longer have cable (it isn't even available where I live, now) but have seen all of the episodes to date.  Still, I will probably watch it on MyNetwork just because reruns of The Walking Dead - even with some of the shortcomings in the recent seasons - is still better than 99% of the programming - and better than 100% of the Surviving Dancing with the Bachelorette's Big Brother - crap that is on.  The show does include a good bit of blood and gore, sometimes, as well as (pretty mild, IMO) cursing so I just hope that they don't have to 'cut' and 'censor' so much that it ruins the feel of the show.

      Well, as I was coming in to work late today, anyhow (had to stop on the way in and renew the license tags for my car) I thought I'd check and see if there was any .22 ammo at Academy, thinking I might go by there before work.  I called and was told that they have none, didn't get any in this morning.  So I 'bit the bullet' and called Gouger Mountain.  Nope, no .22.  Turkey Creek Walmart?  Nada.  I checked Lenoir City Walmart on the way home yesterday.  Nope, no joy.   I do not doubt that people are finding .22 in the Knoxville area.  I just think that people who do are simply getting lucky.  Very lucky.  While I am happy for their good fortune, I still believe that finding .22 ammo on a store's shelf in the Knoxville area is an aberration.

You know those t-shirts that some motorcycle riders wear that have a message on the back that reads, "If you can read this message, the bitch fell off?"  Well, maybe in this case there needs to be a sticker to go under the shotgun mount.   http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-shotgun-off-police-motorcycle-20140731-story.html

  Yeah, I can't find the pics right now - honestly not even sure if I took any - but I was surprised how much difference the ammo type used made in my Marlin when I tested several side-by-side.  As I said, before, the most accurate/tightest groups I got were from the (fairly expensive) Remington Accu-tip (which have a polymer tip which I suppose makes them a 'spitzer' type bullet.)  Next, kind of surprisingly - and very close in results to the Accu-tip - were some Fiocchi rounds I had that I would call semi-jacketed flat nose.  If my memory serves correctly, the next most accurate were Winchester Supreme followed by Winchester Super X HPs.  The bottom of the heap were CCI Maxi-mags, both solids and HP.  Honestly, Maxi-mags have been the least consistent, accuracy wise, out of every gun from which I have done comparisons (the Marlin 925M, my Rough Rider revolver and my NAA mini revolver.)  The Rossi pump seems to be pretty accurate with them, though, and even in everything else they were 'good enough' that I would buy them if I actually saw some..