East_TN_Patriot

Aw, come on Dave! The PPS is made in Germany and you know the Germans always make good stuff!

^^^ This.

Again, more good info. I have the all-in-one Lee die right now, so I'll get the separate dies and run the brass through them instead. My rifle is a competition rifle made by Compass Lake Engineering, so I'd be shocked if it had a loose chamber. I want to reload to try and get the most out of the rifle that I can. I am considering trying my hand at some service rifle competition shooting, so it will be worth getting the proper reloading setup.

I like that idea.

This is all great info for me since I am getting set up to reload .223 for my AR. I've added a headspace gauge and now this case length gauge to my shopping list. Don't feel like dealing with any busted cases in my rifle.

Yeah, I'd jump all over that one.

I carry a Walther PPS in 9mm and I love it. It's one of my favorite handguns I have ever owned (and I've owned a lot of different guns). It's very accurate, well-built, slim and compact, and I like the different mag sizes available. You can get a flush fitting 6 round mag, a 7 round mag with a bit of a finger extension, or an 8 round that has a much longer extension. It has a rail so you can add a laser if you so choose. The down side is the cost. It's a bit pricey, but if you shop around a bit, you can find them at a price that are a little more tolerable ($500 - $600 range). They are currently made in Germany and imported by Smith & Wesson. The Kel Tec PF9 is pretty popular and it is definitely slim and compact. It's also quite a bit cheaper than the PPS ($300 range). If I didn't have my PPS, I would likely have a PF9. It's not as pretty or refined as the PPS, but Kel Tec generally puts out a reliable product and has great customer support. It's also made in America. Many folks seem to like the Ruger SR9 series pistols. I have never shot one, but I am sure that they are fine pistols since Ruger has a history of putting out quality stuff. For me, they seem a little too bulky for concealed carry as far as my personal standards go, but their popularity certainly suggests you should give them a look. The Cadillac of compact 9mm pistols is the Rohrbaugh R9. They are very pricey (many times pushing the $1000 mark) and I've read mixed reviews on their performance. They are definitely very compact and concealable. There are plenty of other compact 9mm handguns out there, so the best bet is to narrow down a few that you prefer and go from there.

Some interesting info: Ballistics by the inch

Of course, not all cops open carry. Plenty of plain clothes and undercover cops carry concealed, sometimes deeply concealed. It's because they and everyone else knows that open carry of firearms is not the typical behavior in our society. I'm not aware of anyone here claiming that it's not easier to access a firearm when it is carried in the open. The debate is the actual wisdom of such a decision. Simple fact of the matter is that most people in our world agree that concealed carry is more appropriate based on the social norms of the day. I get the point that this won't change unless more people open carry, but as we've already agreed, making a production of it isn't a good idea and won't win over anyone.

I have a W tattooed on each butt cheek so when I bend over it says "WOW." Wait... did I just tell everyone that???

:doh:Don't ya just hate it when a douche bag gets what he has coming to him?

Well at least ol' 10mm4me made for an entertaining afternoon.

Done and sent to my Facebook friends. That should annoy the anti-gun folks on my friends list.

What. A. Douche. On the up side, some folks on that forum have a bit of common sense and are telling this guy to tone it down and noting he is violating their forum rules by being a drama queen. However, my favorite quote over there is this: Pot calling the kettle black if you ask me. Perhaps we can reword this: "Todd Green has many fan boys that I don't think know any better than to lap up his slop." Like I posted earlier, I didn't see anything on the guy's website that lists his credentials. For all I know, he attended the Evelyn Woodhead Pistol Instructor School. I do know that I was a Florida Department of Law Enforcement certified police firearms instructor, I've never seen or heard of Todd Green, and even if he does know his stuff, it's only one person's opinion and he sure isn't the god of defensive firearms use.

I think SWAT raids are highly overused. They were originally intended for very unique circumstances, but have now become so common that they are used for just about any old search warrant where they think someone may have a gun. The "Special" part of "Special Weapons and Tactics" has become "Standard" and it's not a good thing or particularly necessary. At my first department, I was on the "high-risk warrant execution team" and that basically meant if there was a warrant to be served on a drug location, we strapped up and headed in. The worst firearm we ever got out of one of the places was a shotgun or a junk pistol. I'm not saying that these teams don't have their place, but they are waaaaay overused and there are very tragic mistakes associated with it.

Well, you know me, and I am surrounded by gun-hating liberals all day every day, so that .0001% seems more like 50% or more.

Perhaps you are right about that point. And Erik makes another good observation that most people don't pay that much attention anyhow. Heck, maybe I'll try it next time I head to Starbucks. I kind of like the idea of sipping on my triple shot latte with my PPS in its crocodile trim holster. It may bring some class to the place. I'll be sure to wear my Axe body spray too and maybe some freaky hippie chick will hit on me.

When in uniform, I totally agree. I never said that concealed carry was tactically better than open carry as far as ease of access to the weapon. However, having a shirt over your belt rig or carrying an easily accessible pocket holster is only slightly more inconvenient than open carry, especially if you consciously practice accessing and drawing your firearm from one of these concealed locations. When it comes to bad guys, I can see it being a good thing and a bad thing. As far as deterrence, I can buy that argument, but I can also see it as making yourself a target. I also can see the problem being that if open carry were the norm, bad guys would just look for people with guns and if they didn't see any guns, then it's fair game. Concealed carry is a far better deterrent overall IMHO because it leaves the bad guys guessing. Maintaining vigilance, displaying confidence, and being wise about your surroundings and your company is far more effective towards not becoming a victim than open carry. I am not a cop any longer, but most cops are against open carry, not because they think that people who would carry are bad folks, but because they know that keeping a very low profile is generally the best way to live tactically when you don't have a radio and backup nearby. Also, since concealed carry is the preferred norm for society, I'm sure that some officers see open carry as a sign of someone who is showboating and/or looking for a confrontation. Not saying it's necessarily a correct stereotype, but it does exist, and even applies to sworn officers who open carry off-duty. In fact, both of my previous departments (one in KY the other in FL) both prohibited open carry when not engaged in official duty-related activity due to the possible problems associated with public perceptions of open carry. The crime reduction issue is moot in my book since violent crime has been on the decline for over 30 years and has nothing to do with open carry by civilians. This is really the bulk of my argument. I personally don't have any particular issue with open carry other than the fact that there are too many stupid people in society and it's only a matter of time before some idiot makes an issue of it, the cops show up, and then you end up with some cop that wants to make an example out of you. Do I wish society were more open to OC? Sure. Maybe it's better where you are because I am in Knoxville and I can see other parts of the state being much more open-minded regarding open carry. Sometimes I really feel like strapping my 1911 on just for the hell of it, but I REALLY don't like the folks who want to do it to make a political statement.

OK, so I did some more searching on this Todd Green fellow. He apparently runs the website pistol-training.com and I guess he hosts pistol training classes. There's nothing on the website, as far as I can tell, that lists his qualifications. It's also pretty clear that he pushes this multi-thousand round torture testing idea. The home page talks about his Glock endurance test that has over 14K rounds fired through it. So I guess for a gun to be deemed "reliable" you have to shoot it until it's worn out and then say "yup, that was a really reliable gun."

I think the following parts of that Starbucks press release says all we need to know on this idea of en mass OC in their stores: As I said before, there will be no better way to convince Starbucks to "review their procedures" regarding carry in their stores than to try and make a political statement by intentionally organizing groups of people to show up at the local coffee shop openly carrying guns on their hip. All it will take is one employee who hates guns and either doesn't know about the corporate policy or articulates a complaint that she felt threatened, then the cops show up, the issue is blown all out of proportion, and the company changes their position. If you want to open carry, fine. I generally think it is a bad idea, and thought it was a generally bad idea when I was a cop. I never open carried as a cop unless I was in uniform or on a plain clothes assignment where I had my badge and ID clearly displayed. Open carry leads to far too much potential to draw attention to yourself and I firmly believe it's a much better idea to lay low and fly under the radar. That said, if you do choose to open carry, you have to know that using open carry as a tool to protest and make a statement is a very very bad idea, because the desire to make a political statement usually includes some flagrant actions to draw attention to yourself and this makes people more likely to challenge you in some way. Open carry in protest is not going to win anyone over. I'm sure of that.

A buddy of mine posted these pics of a case separation he had with his AR-15. He said the round that failed actually fired properly and he didn't notice the problem until the next round failed to chamber properly because it nosed into the front half of the broken case that was still in the chamber. I personally have never seen anything like this before, but another friend said he thought it was due to a headspace issue with the rifle (possible because my buddy builds his own rifles). These were reloads, but he said that it was brass that he sized several years ago and put away so he is unsure where he got it or the condition of the press it was sized on. This likely contributed to the problem. I also personally suspect a dirty chamber may be partially to blame as well. In any case, interesting to say the least.

I think one comment left in the second link you posted earlier explains what many of us believe about the round count argument: And I do think that 200 rounds is enough to determine whether a firearm is reliable. If a gun has problems out of the box, they will manifest themselves within that amount of time. Reliability and durability are two totally different things. Reliability is a matter or mechanical soundness and proper function. Durability is associated with build, design, and material quality. Obviously, the two are interconnected, but a 2000 round torture test tells you something very different than the initial 200 round break-in and familiarization. Also, I've been in the gun world for over a decade and I've never heard of Todd Green, so to me Todd Green is nothing more than some idiot on the Internet. In fact, I Googled "Todd Green" and all I found were pages on a musician with that name, a reference on Huffington Post about a Todd Green who is a professor of religion, a guy named Todd Green who sells real estate, and a Todd Green who wrote a paper called "Bag equivalence of bounded symmetry degree conjunctive queries with inequalities." These references don't help change my opinion that the Todd Green you refer to is anything other than some idiot on the Internet who likes to talk about guns. Sorry if this hurts your feelings.

OK. Call me crazy here, and maybe someone mentioned this and I missed it, but... If there was a disaster so massive that city water would be disrupted, it's very likely that the power will be disrupted as well. Well pumps typically run on electricity. How do you plan on pumping all of that water without power? If you plan on using a generator, that's another big expense, and then you have to store gasoline to keep the generator running. I think I'd rather just install a cistern and store some containers of water myself or buy some land near a water source.

If you are looking at the high-end painted metal roof, it's usually around twice the price of the average shingle roof (depending on how much labor is involved in the installation and what kind of shingles you are comparing it to). That said, it's worth every penny. Most painted metal roofs are so durable that just the color paint layer has a 50 year warranty. They are very quiet if installed properly, don't get as hot as asphalt shingle roofs, and last a lot longer. They were very popular in Florida when I lived there and never heard anyone say they regretted paying the extra cash.

We agree completely on this issue. I agree that I think the government is constantly gaining new power and our privacy rights are eroding before our eyes. I'm furious about it. I think the Patriot Act, while useful, has also given the government unprecedented and unconstitutional powers. Are these essential for protecting our nation? I'm skeptical, very skeptical. I just think it's important for all of us to make sure we understand the issues and not waste time and energy on issues that aren't really issues at this point. As I mention in response to Leroy's post, I totally agree on the concern for police power and the 4th Amendment. I believe that DUI checkpoints are a clear violation of the 4th Amendment and case law because the criteria laid out by the SCOTUS is pretty clear on what circumstances are required to justify these checkpoints and the police generally don't follow them. I believe that the TSA is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment. I believe that the police regularly overstep their authority and violate our rights, not because they are power-hungry thugs, but because the general tone of policing encourages it and reinforces the behavior. The cops don't really know the difference because they are a product of the occupational and agency subculture they are a part of. Like I've said a couple of times before, if you disagree with the decisions in the case in a "I didn't realize the cops could do that! That's a bunch of crap!" sort of way, then we can definitely have that debate, and I can see that point, but there really isn't anything new here on these decisions as far as I can tell. We're on the same team here for sure and good intelligent debate is good for all of us on these issues.