Loud mouths… since when is that a bad thing?

Don’t think I don’t read the comments on my posts. And please do realize that when someone calls me a loud mouth that I take pride in the fact that I just got you to listen to something. I would be a crappy American, a crappy father, and a crappy Christian if I did not express my views. If you do not like or agree with them, than change the channel. It is a mouse click away.

For those that wish to continue to read, when I was 6 years old my mother’s mom was dying of breast cancer. Every weekend I went one of two places… either to Chicago with my mom to see my Granny or to Jackson MI with my dad to see my Grandmother who was in the beginning stages of Parkinson’s disease.  One time when I was in Jackson, MI with my dad, my cousin Matt and his friend from school, we ran into Ted Nugent at a grocery store in Jackson. I knew who Ted was from the records my father owned. My dad introduced me to him at that grocery store.

I forgot about that for a long time until I had the privilege of meeting  him on the set of Sons of Guns. The few hours I spent with him that day were priceless. What you did not see on TV is that we sat and ate lunch together for almost 2 hours and discussed a lot of things. I have never been an autograph person but i sure did pull my Gibson SG out of my truck and have him sign it. He also signed a Bible for me that I gave to a friend that is an avid hunter and was the first person to get me to actually go to church.

Ted and I talked about a lot of cool stuff that day. But the most important thing I learned from him was to stand up for what you believe no matter what. No matter who makes fun of it, and to value the future of America for the sake of our children and our grandchildren. This is America people. If you don’t like hearing the truth…. change the channel.

 

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In God We Trust

Ok, first off I am going to say that some of you will not enjoy this post. Many of you will make fun of me and many of you know that it is true but are not ready to accept the truth. I only ask you one thing. Before you type a negative response…. think deep and hard about the issue for 48 hours before you fire off a quick insult. That is all I ask.

I am not a good person. There is no such thing as a good person. There is only one kind of person and that is a person that has some form of sin in their life. I will never claim to be a better person than you because I go to church or believe in Jesus. I however would be a pretty lousy Christian if I didn’t use the resources I have at my disposal to share with you a thing called grace.  Grace is love, it is everlasting love that washes away the messed up stuff we have done and forgives us.

A lot of people I talk to have a lot of spiritual scar tissue from their experience with church as a young person. I can understand that. I have seen countless groups of teenagers promise in front of each other and their youth pastor that they will no have sex before marriage. Then a a year later, hormones get the the best of them and they feel like they let down the entire church, or that God is angry with them. The truth is that God is displeased with any form of sin. There are no trump cards in God’s deck.  That means that yelling at your wife is the same as having sex outside of marriage and thats the same as murdering a person.

We are in a unique situation though. Back in the early days, every time a person did so much as get a little angry they had to go slaughter a lamb and burn its bones in sacrifice to God so they might be forgiven.

I have gotten a lot of comments and emails telling me what a bad Christian I am.  They seem to be mostly from folks who have an agenda against the church. I’m not perfect y’all. In fact there are millions of people on this earth that probably behave way better than I do. However just like there is no scale to measure sin, there is no scale to measure grace. No matter what you have done, your debt is paid in blood, and it is finished. All you have to do is acknowledge the sacrifice, turn away from the old you and walk in a different direction.

I know this is the internet and people from all over the word read this….. so if you have questions about Jesus and grace and salvation please feel free to post them. While I don’t have all the answers, I can probably get you in touch with someone who does.  If I reach just one person with this post it is worth my time. Jesus went through a lot the day he gave his life up for us…… so don’t pretend he is just another bedtime story.  If a guy like me can recognize the reality of it than so can you.

 

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Kel Tec is a contender now?

Ok… I won’t sugar coat things. When I first started seeing Kel Tec products on the market years ago I literally looked at them with the same disgust I would have had with a Jennings or Bryco .380. I never owned any of their older stuff but the fit and finish was not what I would consider well done, and they looked and felt like plastic toys. So being the hard headed person I am, I have pretty much ignored everything they have been doing for the past couple of years. A few months ago, I made friends with Greg Carlson who designed the muzzle device for the Kel Tec KSG as well as one for the RFB .308 bullpup carbine.  I gotta say that when I first talked to Greg I thought the guy must have been huffing gas to have any interest in Kel Tec products.

Now bear in mind that I had not handled the KSG or RFB at the point of passing that judgement. In fact I had never even owned a Kel Tec. So I slowly started looking into the KSG and was rather fascinated with the design. In my mind it still had to be crap no matter how good it looked online. I tried to order one and no one had one in stock. Well a week ago today, I received a demo KSG and a demo RFB from Greg at Carlson Comps via UPS….. and I gotta say that I am now sorry for doubting these weapons. These things are not toys by any means. The KSG is just bad ass with its twin magazine tubes and the RFB is literally a solid contender against many of the high dollar bullpups on the market today. As a bonus, the RFB takes FAL magazines so one doesn’t have to spend 50 bucks on rare mags to keep it fed.

The one hope that I have is that Kel Tec continues to bring more products to the market like these two weapons. Yes, the KSG is an answer to a question that was never asked, but its a damn good answer nonetheless. And the RFB is just cool. Its the answer to a question that has been asked for years which is ” why is everyone putting out .308 battle rifles that takes proprietary magazines that are hardly available?”

Watch out FN…… looks like you have a contender on your hands with a better price point thats made in the USA.

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Zen and The Art of Zombie Survival

OK… i have been making the zombie joke for years. A lot of people have. Back in 2004 a guy I knew wanted to make AK receivers that said ZOMBIES in the fire position of the selector and RELOADING when the weapon was on safe. It was funny at the time but just like everything else in the world…. once it becomes mainstream trendy, it kinda gets ruined. The Zombie joke has jumped the shark big time.

Nonetheless… here are my tips for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse….

1. don’t tell people you are coming to their house if the Zombies strike. Especially if you don’t know them that well. Its rude and no one wants to think about you coming to borrow the stuff they spent years collecting because you are too lazy to collect the gear yourself.

2. Food is more important than ammo. Its really hard to eat a case of 5.56. Plant gardens, raise rabbits and chickens, etc. Its really inexpensive to start this project and its basically a never ending source of food if managed properly.

3. Gas masks are a waste of money unless you are a weirdo like me and just think they make good decorations in your house. They barely work, and they are not designed to keep you alive for very long…. they are designed to keep troops in a fight a little while longer. Besides, we are talking about zombie not world war one.

4. Avoid paranoia….. yes Alex Jones, I mean that.. its not healthy

5. Invest 3 dollars in a canteen…. Zombies don’t like to run and would prefer to munch on dehydrated people that move slowly.

6. Don’t rely on your vehicle. They take gasoline or diesel to be able to move and if you have ever been anywhere that recently had a hurricane, you know that gas is a luxury not a right. Plus it degrades over time. Time to start a power walking routine.

7. Buy a sleeping bag of some sort. You are gonna look stupid dragging a 3 thousand dollar memory foam mattress down the street.

8.Learn how to cook if you don’t cook now….. nothing is more  degrading than being forced to eat jerky for the rest of your life cause you can’t boil water properly.

9. Pump shotguns are amazingly versatile weapons. Its a rabbit gun, a squirrel gun, a bird gun, a deer gun, and a zombie gun all in one easy to carry package. Good luck hitting a rabbit with an AR-15… its possible but not all that easy.

10. DON’T be there. There’s this thing called the rapture that happens before the dead walk the earth. I would highly suggest making friends with Jesus before all of this happens cause its gonna be a lot cooler than the alternative. If you accidentally miss the rapture, make sure to yell “dont mark me bro” at the beast… cause you might still have a chance then.

 

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Who killed JFK?

Due to being asked very respectfully by someone I actually respect, I pulled my last blog entry as not to open a giant can of worms that he may have had to deal with… HOWEVER….. heres a new can of worms that is WAY more relevant than a TV show.

Lee Harvey Oswald in the Book Depository with a Carcano?

Fake cop on the grassy knoll?

CIA? Cosa Nostra?

Having personally set foot in Dealey plaza and stood in a shooting stance at various areas of the plaza…. I still have no real idea of what exactly happened.

Just like politics and religion, I have very strong beliefs about what I THINK happened and at the same time I have no proof that my theory is right.

I am not a conspiracy theorist in the sense that I think everything that could possibly be a conspiracy is one… but I gotta say that I truly believe that more than one person planned out the JFK deal.

In the end it does not really make any sense because we all  know that Carcanos cant shoot straight, no one has ever impersonated a cop, the CIA doesnt operate in the US, and the mafia doesnt actually exist.

 

I hope everyone is now happy that my relevant post has been replaced with this piece of trash.

 

 

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The Unholy Church of the inbred

There are a few things you just don’t do in life. One of them is protest the funeral of a solder who was killed by an IED while faithfully fulfilling his contract with the US military. Another thing that is way out of line is the language used on the signs by this group of so-called Baptists. I won’t even repeat the language but to use God and then a curse word on the same placard is  not anywhere near the right way to do things.

Let me tell you people at the West whatever fake church a little abut my history.

My grandfather served in World War Two. He was a machinist mate on a Patrol Torpedo boat in the South Pacific and died in 1959 from leukemia possibly brought on from exposure to the Manhattan project testing in his area of service.

When I was about ten years old I had the honor and privilege of standing at his grave in San Diego California at the Naval Cemetery  with my younger brother and having my father take a photograph of his two sons standing at the grave of of his father who we never knew.

My family has fought and bled for this nation since its birth in 1775. I won’t sit here and be the judge of which wars were smarter cards to play than others, but it tends to annoy me when I get an email from the Patriot Guard Riders announcing another ride because a certain bunch of cross eyed inbred sister fornicating morons are protesting another funeral of an American serviceman who came home in a box.

You have the nerve to carry signs that say ” Thank God for IEDs”

Maybe I am alone on this one but I still love my country, I know every word to the National Anthem, I still say the Pledge of Allegiance, I pray with my kids, and I still fly both the American Flag and the DONT TREAD ON ME Gadsen flag.

I think Judy Garland said it best…. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

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Its a ceramic gun!!!

So once again I learned a lesson. Do not make posts titled part one or everyone wants you to finish them with a part two, all the while you feel like writing about something else. This has absolutely nothing to do with vintage firearms or ammunition. In fact most gun folks over the age of thirty will probably find it boring and repetitive…….. but there is a whole new generation of shooters who hardly remember the 90s. So if you older folks wanna read on for a laugh down memory lane feel free… if not, you can catch the newest episodes of Jersey Shore on MTV pretty much playing around the clock… or you could walk the dog or something.

So in 1990 a movie called Die Hard 2 came out. For those of you who have just reached the legal handgun ownership age, you probably didn’t see it in the theater. You really didn’t miss much except one simple line that sent the gun control lobby into a frenzy. In the film there is a scene where Bruce Willis claims that the Glock pistol carried by one of the bad guys is a ceramic gun that can get past an airport metal detector. I was 11 years old when this movie came out and I knew he was full of crap. Less than a year before that I saw my first Glock in person.  My Cub Scout pack took a tour of a local sheriffs office and jail and the deputy who gave the tour showed us his Glock 17 service pistol, demonstrating how it had to to be put in a lock box before entering the cell block area. At age 11 I was by no means a firearms expert but I could clearly see the pistol had a plastic frame and that most of the other parts were made of metal. The deputy told us that the company who made the firearm was called Glock and that it was made in Austria. I was a bit fascinated by the weapon but it wasn’t until I saw Die Hard 2 that I started noticing false claims about these weapons made left and right.

First off the Glock model 17 is the first model the company produced. Its model number is based on the 17 round magazine capacity. The frame of the weapon is injected molded polymer ( plastic if you will) with metal rails, a steel barrel and slide, and a majority of its thirty-something parts made of metal. So for the folks out there ( ahem..Sarah Brady) that realistically think that it can pass through airport security undetected…well let me just say as nicely as possible that you need to repeat 4th grade science.

The movie Die Hard 2 actually ( and I wish I was kidding) sparked a witch hunt against Glock. Overnight you had senators claiming that it could get past airport security.  In 1990, a Glock was a rather expensive pistol and not at all the weapon of the common street criminal or gang member. This did not seem to matter to the anti-gun lobby. As far as they were concerned, if Bruce Willis said it was the tool of a terrorist, then it was. I often wondered if these same folks thought the scene where his character John McClain used the ejection seat of a grounded aircraft to successfully parachute away from a cockpit full of grenades was realistic.

It seriously boggles my mind that the gun control lobby believes crap like this. I believe the movie Dick Tracey came out that same summer. The film had a several minute gun fight where Tracey never reloads his Thompson but fires constantly. Anyone who has ever fired a submachine gun know the magazine no matter how large is empty in seconds. And yet the Brady Campaign and others feel the need to use Hollywood as their text book for firearms information.

For those of you just old enough to own a firearm… DO NOT take for granted the fact that you can buy an AR-15 with a flash hider, bayonet lug, pistol grip, and a 30 round magazine. When I turned 18, that was only an option if you bought an insanely priced “pre-ban” rifle.  Until I was 25, buying a new pistol with a magazine over 10 rounds was not happening. And the sad part is, that the gun grabbers in congress used movies like Die hard 2 to get their way.

Now call me crazy, but if I recall correctly, on Tuesday September 11th 2001, there were no Glock pistols in the hands of the bad guys. Just simple razor knife box cutters we can all buy with five bucks at any hardware store. It would have looked pretty stupid for a senator or congressperson  to propose a bill banning those. Instead, they pushed for a renewal of the Clinton crime bill, but thankfully lost that fight.

Every one of us has a family member or friend who believes the lies and the hype forced on us about firearms by the media and those who seek to further their political careers by demonizing firearms. They probably were scared to death about the evil plastic terrorist pistol in Die Hard 2. In fact if they knew you had one the might even call the cops to report you. And they probably wouldn’t even notice the firearm on the hip of the officer taking the report was an evil “ceramic” Glock.

If you haven’t noticed by now, the 2nd amendment is something I take very seriously, and I urge those who oppose it to stay home from voting, pop some popcorn, and spend their days watching Die Hard 2.

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A Small World

Well…. I was going to finish up The Dark Side with a part 2, but TV got in the way. I don’t really watch much TV nor did I watch the program in question this evening, but I received a few calls from friends concerning the content. Just yesterday my wife gave birth to our fourth child, one of three daughters and I am home trying to get some rest before I bring them home in the morning. So being home alone I decided to write a blog dealing with a topic I find concerning to the firearms industry.

For those in the business, you know this is a small world. We see one another on a regular basis through industry functions and we peacefully coexist…. even those parties in direct competition. For someone who is only 33 years old, I have spent a lot of time in this business. I have seen companies rise and fall, friends become enemies, and enemies become friends.  I have been blessed with the wisdom of many older men who chose to take me under their wing and impart their knowledge on me. Some wiser than others of course but most of them left me with the basic respect of how to conduct ones self within such a small industry.

I have definitely met my fair share of people who do no hold any code of industry honor. These are often those who are self proclaimed game changers, people who slept in their gun room one night and woke up believing they were gun gods. These types often fail to see the small bubble that we as an industry exist in. And like in many circles, no one likes a self proclaimed miracle worker who produces little and berates those around him.

So this evening, I found it rather low class for someone who is in the national firearms spotlight to insult me personally just because I parted ways with his business. I found it quite counter-productive to the overall well being of the industry and to the 2nd amendment rights movement. I was brought up in this business to believe that we were all here to promote our firearms culture and to secure legislation or supreme court decisions to pass that very right to our children and grand children, not to fight amongst ourselves.

Conversely, I was also brought up to defend myself when attacked. While I shall forgo the mudslinging tactics used by my assailant, I will gladly list my credentials so that the general public may see for themselves who is actually qualified as a firearms builder and member of the firearms community and who is shall we say less than qualified.

 

Pennsylvania Gunsmith School, Pittsburgh, PA – Graduate

NRA Certified Instructor

Life Member National Rifle Association

Life Member Gun Owners of America

 

SO… before using my name riddled with obscenity from your broadband cable TV pulpit, please feel free to list the credentials you possess that make you an expert in firearms. If you cannot, I kindly urge you to hush, and leave the firearms business to those who were trained not only in physical skill but also in social etiquette.

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The Dark Side (part 1)

No I am not talking about Star Wars, however I could annoy you for hours on that topic. I’m talking about black powder. Black powder cartridge shooting and hunting to be specific. And I mean real black powder, not those in-line pellet eating so called black powder rifles everyone and their second cousin buys to squeeze another couple weeks out of deer season. I don’t mean a black powder substitute of any kind. It’s not that I have anything against the substitutes as a lot of them got more guys interested in shooting something other than their regular deer rifle every year. They have their advantages when it comes to cleaning and ease of loading, but something is lacking for me. I guess for me it goes back to my first vacation as a child. When I was 3 years old, my parents took me and my infant brother to Arizona to visit old friends of the family who had relocated to the Phoenix area. I remember 4 main things from that trip: my first close up look at a real motorcycle, my first airplane flight, the grand canyon, and my first set of “real” six guns.

That trip contains all of my first truly vivid childhood memories. I remember what I ate on the plane on the flight there, the amazing colors of the canyon when viewed from different places, at different times of day, the log cabin style lodge that we stayed in, and probably most telling of my future…. my first wild west show. Now I don’t remember much of the show. I have seen plenty of them over the course of my 33 years, but I left that show armed with the finest brace of single action roll cap firing peacemakers a 3 year old has ever held. On a scale of 1 to10 these must have scored an 11 on the flea market crap scale…. but I was 3 and I was sure I needed these to defend my family for the duration of our stay.

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An Addiction?

We have a heard it from someone in our lives. Someone who doesn’t share the passion for shooting sports or collecting that we do. Sometimes it is said jokingly and other times compared to a gambling or drug problem. If you are new to shooting and collecting firearms, you may not have heard it yet. It is not a matter of IF but a matter of WHEN. Undeniably someone in your circle of family and friends will make the remark that you have a firearms addiction. I have heard it countless times. Those who say it usually do not take consideration into the fact that my career and livelihood for my entire adult life has been gunsmithing. However it’s not me that I want to talk about. It’s the guy who breaks his back all week working overtime so that his family can have what they need and when he has some extra cash, he adds to his gun collection or takes his collection to the range on a day off, in the process burning through hundreds of dollars in ammo.

I happened to be blessed with a wife who has embraced firearms culture, and children who are interested in guns and shooting. My parents both support my love of the industry and my father has become quite the gun enthusiast himself. Unfortunately I know a lot of guys my age and older who do not have family supportive of their passion. Some of these guys I feel bad for, and some I do not. The ones who I feel bad for are the guys who go to work every day, keep their bills paid on time, take care of their family first and foremost both financially and through spending quality time with them. These guys deserve not to be hassled by loved ones about how many guns they own or why firearms are such a part of their pastimes.

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