MacGyver

Glad she’s home. Hopeful for a smooth recovery.

Sweet.

They did a good job getting that RDS low on the bore. Seems like with a name like Hellcat, it’s obligatory to put some teeth somewhere on it, though.

For department acquisitions, you can probably apply the old adage, “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” to the Colt 6920. It’s a fine, you know what you’re getting platform. For the casual user, you’re likely better served from both features and price perspectives - and maybe a quality perspective from any several manufacturers.

Yeah, so would I. Today's CCI shotshells really aren't the equivalent of the old crimped shotshells. I think you can still get the old Super-X crimps? That said, this is a well understood design. There have been thousands and thousands of these things sold historically. I don't really have much of a need for it, either. But I can imagine a time in my life where hearing, "take this and go wear out pests in the barn" would have brought me a heck of a lot of joy.

I’d have fully expected Henry to have done their homework here. That’s cool. I don’t know that I’m crazy about that ash furniture- but I’d like to hold one.

I’d love to actually test one side by side with a normal rifled model.

Welcome back!

This was prior to their exit from bankruptcy in 2016. I expect at this point, they've got the financing they've got. Short of us getting in a shooting fight with Iran or hard times befalling FN, I don't see them as terribly relevant. Remington has stepped up their AR game and has won contracts of late, too. They fought and won the Colt & FN award in 2016 - noting that the DoD hadn't taken into account Colt's financial situation. The courts agreed. They also won a decent carbine contract last year.

Certainly when it comes to private equity, yeah - that’s pretty much it. Lord knows y’all have lived that story.

Sciens Capital - the private equity group that has the majority stake in Colt doesn't care the first thing in the world about the 2nd Amendment. They care about maximizing the money they can squeeze out of the place. That's it. It's the reason they separated off the consumer division from the defense division and left the former to languish back in 2005 when they took it over. It's the reason they used over $100M of the debt they originally raised to pay distributions to the private equity investors. It's the reason that they almost didn't come out of bankruptcy in 2016 - because Sciens Capital had a hard time raising the capital cushion their other lenders required. They're not innovating. They're simply trying to ride that pony for as long as they can before it's finally worthless.

It’s worth noting for the record that over reliance on military contracts was what put them into bankruptcy last time.

Range ventilation can be one of the first things that goes when finances start turning south at a shop. Scrubbers are really expensive to maintain - so those schedules often get stretch - sometimes a lot. Think of the ranges you've been to where they can either condition the air or clean the air. I've talked to workers in a couple of shops lately who've had to quit working the range because their lead levels had spiked. If you can run your finger down a surface in the range and it comes back black - the air probably isn't being scrubbed appropriately.

You probably ought to just start loading reduced load .223 and call it a day

cool

No, you're fine Mikey. This spread far and wide. It's worth a thread. Even if it's not true - it makes you question why you'd trust a rep like that in the first place.

This letter is evidence of something David and I were talking about yesterday. A lot of the gun industry’s woes are self-inflicted by a bunch of folks who work in it opening their mouths when they’d be better off just keeping them shut.

Whether we like it or not in principle, the AR market has become completely commoditized, and margins are razor thin. And only even then when everything goes just right and there is no disruption to the supply chain. Colt’s finances - even post bankruptcy - are sketchy at best. Seems like there ought to always be room for the 6920, but I get it. They’re trying to survive.

That’s a great question, Greg. I’m going to stub this out here - and I’ll update as I continue to think about it. Maybe we can all process some ideas together.

See attached - with signatories including Jared Kushner's brother: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1699-gun-control-letter-to-the-sena/3258ed616a016f80dfa3/optimized/full.pdf#page=1 It's interesting to watch the groundswell of corporate action - that I'm not sure will abate anytime soon. Last year was the first year on record that gun control groups spent more money than advocacy groups (guess who politicians listen to?) As responsible gun owners, we've got an interesting road ahead of us. Advocacy is going to look different in the future than it has in the past. Personally, I'd love to see a strong second amendment with a lot more room under the tent. We're going to need more voices. They're going to need to be well reasoned. It's going to be a tricky needle to thread - but we've got to be a part of creating a future vision of gun owners that people want to be a part of.

I watched Jon Stewart in tears on September 20, 2001: I watched him again in tears earlier this summer: The official FDNY response time on the morning of September 11 was five seconds. From that moment through months in the red zone - you saw people giving their absolute all, everyday. For their comrades and for America. It took your breath away. Every. Single. Day. It humbled you every time you set foot there. Man, we've lost so many good people since then. There are so many empty chairs around dinner tables tonight. I'm thankful for people like Jon Stewart who have put real legs under "Never Forget" for the last 18 years.

I don't know. I'd love to forget it. I'd love to not feel the sense of guilt when it comes around every year because I got to go home that day when a bunch of other folks didn't. I'd love to not feel the sense of dread about having to make sense of explaining what happened to my kids - and I'd love to not have to watch them struggle with the realization that really, the only reason I'm still here is a few minutes worth of luck. A bunch of us would love to close our eyes at night and not remember - or maybe at least not in so much detail. Or all the things that have come after. I'd love it if one of our nation's biggest tragedies hadn't become our surest and most marketable means of displaying your patriotism and civil religion. I'd love it if we hadn't followed the loss of 2,977 American lives with the loss 2,400 people in Afghanistan and 4,400 people in Iraq - with no more idea of what victory on the battlefield looks like than we had 18 years ago. I'd love it if the average American actually had any connection to this never ending war. I'd love it if we treated all the vets we've created and their families with the integrity they deserve when they get out. I'd love it if we lived up to the best version of ourselves - that our nation has no permanent enemies. That like Japan and Germany, you can go from bitter enemy to most important trading partners in a generation. I'd love it if I could get on an airplane without having to take my shoes off in the name of security theater. For that matter, I'd like to clip my Spyderrco back to my pocket after going through the metal detector like I did on the morning of September 10, 2001. But, to each their own, I guess. It's America after all.

All of the research going into the hypersonic vehicle testing program is cool. At the opposite end of the spectrum is this: My favorite part of this video - is watching the engineers watch it in awe. These guys work here everyday - and still are fascinated by the drop. I'd love to have a high speed camera.

I loved that the high speed camera - even slowed way down - didn't even catch it.

That's also, incidentally probably a big part of Walmart and Kroger's decision making process. They know that it really doesn't matter a whole lot what you think. You're not likely to be the one buying the groceries week in and week out. And, the person who does - is probably still coming to Kroger or Walmart.