TGO David

I will say this, Mars. There are some seriously dumb people in this world and a few of them own firearms and don't have any business doing so. For those people, RSOs are a necessity on public ranges. One guy came into Joe's shop yesterday and proceeded to muzzle rake Joe and everyone else in the room with what ended up being a loaded firearm that he had brought in to trade. Hornet Handler and I immediately went to the other side of the building and put a few walls between us and this bozo. Gun shop owners should wear kevlar just because of the Stupid People Factor.

http://israelmilitary.net/showthread.php?t=13 Conscripted service, for the win.

This argument is flawed. So, you say that you'll never be back. How much do you think that really hurts the business? Open carry patrons probably represent less than 1/10th of 1% of to the total patrons of any business. Do you really think that they notice what they lost when they tally up the books at the end of the month? I doubt it. Maybe they would notice more if they were a store that sold nothing but red, left foot, New Balance #708 shoes in East Moosefart Nebraska (Pop. 53) and you were one of their regular customers... but I guarantee you that a company the size of a Wal-Mart doesn't notice and doesn't care. I'm not saying that this behavior from companies is right. I'm just saying that people who brag about voting with their dollars are seriously over estimating their worth to that company. And I'm not saying either that you should keep giving that company your money if you feel that strongly about the issue or any other issue. It is certainly your prerogative to tell the manager or owner that you're taking your business to a competitor who respects your 2nd Amendment right to carry a firearm whether it be concealed or openly visible. This is why I don't call our Prohibited Carry Locations Database something silly like "Gun Owner Unfriendly Businesses" because I think it comes across as being fairly pretentious. Those businesses do want your money, after all. They just don't want your guns on their private property, and that is their prerogative and right as well.

I can neither confirm nor deny Joe's presence at the store today. Dude... you blew his cover.

I had a chance to do some shooting at an unsupervised facility this afternoon. There were full-auto and suppressed weapons in use and people were trading up firearms quite a bit to shoot whatever struck their fancy. Amazingly... none of us shot each other. No RSO and yet no one assumed room temperature! Thankfully we all knew enough about each other to trust each other's abilities and gun handling etiquette. But I think that's the key. If you don't play well with others or don't know how to, then having RSOs on hand is a good idea.

You're all a bunch of posers who never do anything but wipe your weapons down with diapers, aren't you? [reference to some stupid claim made against me a while back] Hell yeah I do it. I'll even take them out load up some snap caps and dry fire them if the mood strikes me. It's... training. Yeah! Training!

There was a case in the past 5 years where one of the Wilson County police departments raided the wrong house in the middle of the night. The startled elderly home owner was rousted from his sleep by the door being busted in. He came up from his bed, armed, and the police shot him dead. Wrong house... wrong guy. Dead. I need to find the news articles regarding it because I am fairly sure that the police more or less got away with it too.

And the good news is that like you in your past life, not all police officers are pricks. The more involved with shooting that I've become down here in Tennessee, the more LEOs that I have met and the majority of them have been average guys just trying to do a job without getting killed. A few were mall ninjas and a few others were just Alpha Dog jerks, but most have been good regular folks. BUT... if Buford T. Justice pulls me over on the highway and asks me if I've got anything cool in my black bag in the back of the vehicle, my answer to that's just going to be "No Sir... just a rifle, properly locked and secured, ammo kept separate. I'm on my way to/from the target range. Here's my handgun carry permit and I would like to let you know that I am presently armed and that is on my right hip at this moment. I'm going to keep my hands on the steering wheel for you now and await your instructions." Why? Because I like breathing and don't like the sight of my own blood.

This will be the first time I have ever even given a second thought to carrying my ammo separate from my AR15 or keeping a lock through the bolt while I travel... but I'll be doing both today when I go down to visit the guys at Hero Gear and maybe stop to do some shooting on the way back home. Prior to reading this thread, I had never really given any consideration the notion that Tennessee's permit is a handgun carry permit and that an officer might get his shorts in a knot if he were to somehow discover that my AR15 was nestled inside it's bag in the far rear of my SUV, magazine firmly inserted into the mag well. :-\ Today I've got a cable lock threaded through the action and the mag well and I'll keep magazines tucked away in their pockets on the case. You know, the shameful part of this is that the State of Tennessee trusts me to carry a concealed weapon. It would only seem logical that a police officer would extend that same trust to me to carry my rifle and ammo in the vehicle w/o having them locked up in such a ridiculous fashion. This is totally absurd.

Welcome, Tim. I've got in-laws down there around that part of Chattanooga and scattered places here, there and between. Glad to see you saw something worthwhile here that made you decide to join up. That's an interesting consideration that you present for choosing a firearm. Off the cuff I would say that a revolver definitely sounds like it might be the better choice for you since it sounds like you have at least marginal difficulty racking the slide on automatics. For a counterpoint, I'd say though that autoloaders generally have a higher round count capacity than revolvers so you will find yourself reloading less often with an automatic. Especially if you're talking about one of the several high-capacity 9mm models that carry anywhere from 15 - 17 rounds in a single magazine. Hmmm. The more I think about this, the more I might have to change my initial recommendation. I can see where an autoloader might be difficult to reload, but I can also see where a revolver wouldn't be much easier. And really, as long as you have good strength in your right thumb, you can probably release the slide on an automatic with your shooting hand via the slide-stop lever just as easily as you could slap the cylinder shut on a revolver. The most difficult point would be racking a closed slide to chamber that first round. But if you change mags before you run it dry and the slide locks back or if you just release the slide with the stop lever, that becomes a lot easier one-handed. Like I said... interesting considerations all the way around. Hopefully you'll find some good answers from folks here. In the meantime, I think I'll try to put myself in your shoes a bit and do some completely one-handed shooting with my 9mm Springfield XD today and see if that helps me make a better recommendation. How about loading magazines? Do you have enough manual dexterity in your left arm and hand to easily load rounds into a mag?

You know it.

Ya know... I guess it's possible for a few pansies to slip through the Crucible every know and again, but I've never met a former Marine who acted like as much of a whiney little bitch as this guy did. He needs a free pass back through Parris Island to get his world re-aligned.

You are very right. But this was... 1994 I think and while I was a serious gun nerd, I hadn't been spending my own money on them for very long. My next gun was a Smith & Wesson 3913. I miss that one.

I had a Ruger P89 once. In fact, it was the first handgun that I ever bought for myself. A big, clunky, butt-ugly 9mm. I sold it within a month.

Ok, I just changed my mind...

David, welcome to the group! I was just reading that story this morning and nearly puked in my shoes at the pathetic way that particular cop handled things. It's surprising that ColtCCO doesn't own a nice chunk of Knoxville now.

Or this one... [ame] [/ame]

I've fired a few. Really liked them but didn't favor the DAO. Since SIG has a SAO version of the P220 Carry now, that almost hits my soft spot for the 1911s.

And I happen to be going there tomorrow... and will have tasted the "improved" P2000 by that time.

If my P2000 doesn't suit me after I test it tonight with the lighter LEM trigger springs, I may end up with a P220 Carry of some design.

I wouldn't kick a SIG 220 out of bed for eating crackers, that's for sure. The P220 Carry Elite Two-Tone makes me want to whip out a cloth diaper and start polishing a firearm just for Triggertime.

I've been using some new stuff lately that I really like a lot. It's called "Weapon Shield" and is available from Steel Shield Technologies. The proprietor is the guy who invented Shooter's Choice FP-10 when he worked for a previous employer. He was (may still be) giving away free samples if you emailed him at gcfennell@steelshieldtech.com and requested it. I'm really impressed with the product and will be ordering some soon from one of the distributors.

What... you guys don't think that maybe Jodie Foster took the role knowing good and well that not only would she get paid for it, but that it would also stir up anti-gun sentiment among the feminist elite?

Nah... the 1911 works great if a competent smith goes through it and sets it up to be a workhorse rather than a showpiece. Kimber makes a decent enough starting point and most run well out of the box, but there's a reason why most SWAT teams and such have their 1911's fully worked over. Were I in K191145's shoes, I would have had that firearm's chamber reamed to SAAMI specs and probably ditched the stock Kimber extractor for a Wilson Bulletproof extractor. Those two things would probably fixed a lot of the feed problems he experienced. A 1911 set up as a fighting pistol will generally run as well as any Glock on the market and be just as receptive to abuse and neglect. No need to oil them to the point that they drip all over the place.

OK... so it's that time again... What can we do to further improve the site NOW? The databases are up and operational. We've got a quick way to clear out the unread posts per Mars' suggestion, and we've got a better facility for tracking what posts are really read and which are unread between each visit. What about our photo gallery? Do you like the way it works? I for one have always had a love/hate relationship with that gallery software but it's the best one for the vBulletin forums right now. That doesn't mean I can't pressure the software's author to improve upon things though. Any other areas that you guys see needing work? Or maybe it's not a functional improvement but something that we can improve about the atmosphere here? Let 'er rip. I want all suggestions, even the ones that might leave a welt.