The Hobbit Hole XXXVIII - There and Back Again!

[ExGeeEye]

RIP Ernest Borgnine.

Yep, just saw that.

Thanks, PE.

[ExGeeEye]

Possible Mootage Re-Ping to The Hobbit Hole.

[SuziQ]

Absolutely!!

[300winmag]

In celebration of the successful landing of Curiosity on Mars, this is a special Monday edition of Saturday Night Gun Pron. It has nothing to do with Curiosity except allowing me a personal HOOOAH, and getting caught up with a few weeks of quiet.

As usual, life has an agenda different than mine. The buddy who swapped me the tricked-out Uzi Model A for a Mfaux has admitted that the arthritis in his hands makes it almost impossible to pull back the charging handle. He asked for suggestions on something that he could use better.

After some research, I suggested something with a reciprocating bolt handle, like an AK47, that he could grasp a number of ways. Oh, he's my age, so it's not really arthritis, but rather from four years of high school hockey. He's still proud of the fact the he still holds the school record for time in the penalty box, nearly 50 years later. :)

I decided building another AR57 using my substantial-but-not-complete stash of parts was the most economical, and produced what I consider the ideal "suburban carbine". Here's mine at the top of the photo, compared to his, using the next-generation AR57 upper, beneath it.

It's about 95% complete, still needing final decisions on optics and some furniture and accessory tweaking. But it's good enough to fire for accuracy and flash hider tests. I found out the original M16-type flash hider on mine did a poor job hiding the flash of the little 5.7x28 round, so I went with a pricey PWS flash hider. It would be nice of the new flash hider works properly out of the box.

Another reason the build took so long is that it's getting hard to find lower receivers, stripped or not. Not only was my dealer out of them, except for a few fully-built ones, but so many brands online at various sites were marked at "out of stock". Fortunately, I got a Twin Eagle from Brownells. Even common pins and springs took a lot of hunting. Fortunately, I have enough of mags and ammo to share with my buddy. Having bought the stuff when it was plentiful, if not exactly cheap. They're probably a bargain now.

While picking up a few odds and ends at my dealer, I caught a whiff of "new gun", which is becoming rarer and rarer these days, despite every gun and ammo manufacturer running at top capacity.

The H&K handgun case was significantly thinned-out, but I noticed something new. The owner said two came in, with no idea when they'd have more. My instincts kicked in, and I said, "I'll take it. What is it?"

It turns out to be a spiffy H&K 45C compact, with a couple of dweeby 10-shot extended mags, rather then the more practical and elegant 8-shot, as shown on the cover of the manual.

There are a number of cool and not-cool (mainly because I have to pay through the nose for them) features. The threaded barrel is cool. Having to pay $28 for a 16x1 LH thread protector is not cool. Buying 8-shot magazines at $58 each is not cool.

The modular fire-control mechanism is vey cool. As it exists today, this is a long-pull/short-pull mechanism with a decocker. Replacement modules include cocked-and-locked, like the M1911, long-pull-only with no external safety, and a couple other combinations.

I ordered the LEM (law enforcement module) version, which will turn the weapon into a partially-tensioned action, like the Glock and my S&W 4586. The decocking lever goes away, leaving the ambidextrous slide lock the only external control. Even the vaunted H&K can benefit from additional idiot-proofing for my own use. I looked at a "traditional" setup on another H&K, and that rear lever had tiny "safe/fire/decock" markings on it. Not for me, if I can do better with newer concepts like the Glock "safe action". The fewer failure modes that could bite me under stress, the better.

More news as my productivity increases. Meanwhile, I advise everyone to BLOAT now, if you haven't started already.

[300winmag]

Managed to get enough time by myself to put the first box of .45ACP through the 45c. This is stuning accuracy (for me) for the first ten rounds from a weapon just out of the box.

I'll really look after its potential after I put the LEM trigger on it. But for now, it's just very nice and "plinkable". My H&K PSP is like that, too, except for overheating after a few mags of rapid-fire. Fifty rounds with the 45c, and no problemo. Recoil is mild, and I didn't even notice a trace of discomfort, even though my wrist is as old as the rest of me. I love my Glock, I love my Kimber, I love my Smith, but I may have to marry this one. :)

[Squantos]

Have you ever used or tried a P9S Hk in .45 ?

Very nice carry rig.

[osagebowman]

Morning Win-Mag - that’s a great side arm you have there. Glad you like it and based on the target, it likes you. Didn’t know about the LEM trigger, that’s a welcome improvement from what I hear about the HKs at the range. Congrats. I’m waiting to try out a SW Shield, none in the rental rack yet.

[300winmag]

Morning Win-Mag - that’s a great side arm you have there. Glad you like it and based on the target, it likes you. Didn’t know about the LEM trigger, that’s a welcome improvement from what I hear about the HKs at the range.

The latest H&K series offers about seven different flavors of firing modes, depending on the module selected. There should be something for everyone, including cocked-and-locked for M1911 fans.

One box of ammo is just a quick spin around the block, but I had no complaints about anything during that quick tryout.

[300winmag]

Morning Win-Mag - that’s a great side arm you have there. Glad you like it and based on the target, it likes you. Didn’t know about the LEM trigger, that’s a welcome improvement from what I hear about the HKs at the range.

The latest H&K series offers about seven different flavors of firing modes, depending on the module selected. There should be something for everyone, including cocked-and-locked for M1911 fans.

One box of ammo is just a quick spin around the block, but I had no complaints about anything during that quick tryout.

[g'nad]

so...whazzup?

[300winmag]

so...whazzup?

While still scrambling to find a few more minor parts, I have enough assembled to take my buddy's new AR57 out for a beta firing. Time was tight, and this won't even be the final optics, so I shot just enough to assure that things work, and accuracy at 50 yards was acceptable. After he decides on the optics (he may just want to swap out what's on his M-faux already), I'll deliver it after about 200 more rounds of break-in and accuracy tuning.

I've been having a hard time finding a lot of small parts, like rail covers, BUIS, and other items. Not in the stores, and even my online sources list $2 items as "out of stock". I've had to dig deep in my parts stash for some things I'd have bought new.

The guys at the EBR emporium have also commented that their wall of odd parts is getting thinner, as are the number of handguns on the shelves that they keep rearranging to hide the diminishing numbers. For a lot of firearms, what's on the showroom floor is all they have left of that model. Even the left-handed CZ453 was sold last week, after sitting for seven years.

Losing that Colt Anaconda six months ago taught me a valuable lesson for this year. If I've got it in my hands, I buy it. It may cost more, but hurts a lot less than kicking myself later for letting it go by. For instance, the store got in only six of those take-down Ruger 10/22s, with none lasting more than three days.

And I followed the big hints the GSA is giving from its own ammo-buying spree, and BLOATed today. a thousand rounds of .357Sig Speer Gold-dot defense ammo. Around here, shopping for .357Sig either gets you blank stares, or a couple of boxes of FMJ at about $40 each. So the thought of this ammo at $25 per box doesn't seem so bad.

[osagebowman]

Well, hey there G’nad; it’s been awhile alright. Let’s see MoJAM came and went, MVACA show came and went. Got a three day shoot coming up in October; plan to shoot in revolver class as well as pistol class. We’ll see how that turns out.

How bout you?

Win mag - Watched a lot of ammo get wheeled in and carried out at the show. Did score a few items but nothing that went bang. I’ve noticed the dreaded out of stock on more than one item on line. Yep, if you see it and hold it in your hand you might as well get it ‘cause it won’t be around a second look.

[300winmag]

Tonight's Saturday Night Gun Pron is a quick update on the AR57 that I'm building for my buddy. One more trip to the range for a better attempt at sighting-in, and it's ready for its new home.

It's been a while since I sighted-in 1x optics. I had forgotten a few things, including the fact that I'm due for a new set of glasses, with new corrections needed at all ranges, including reading. Anyway, with tweaking the diopter on the Leopold Prismatic, I got one group that indicates potential, despite the many toe-stubbings on my part.

The group under the barrel was five rounds of 28gr ammo at 25 yards. The center dot of the reticule is bigger than the orange dot at that range, so I was guessing where it was, hidden under the dot in the scope. Now I remember why I usually sight in with a 4x scope. But accuracy shows promise, and the rifle seems to be adequately broken-in, since the trigger pull has stabilized to a crisp seven pounds, with a variation of about one ounce either way. My friend has already blessed the trigger pull, since his arthritis in his hands forces him to use the second joint of his finger to pull the trigger. He also chose a vertical foregrip rather than the Magpul angled one I prefer on my weapons. Always keep the customer happy.

I need the one extra trip to the range so I can shoot at targets with big bullseyes with this scope, and because I redid the mounting after firing this group.

That brings me to the second part of this report, the Leupold Prismatic scope that I had overlooked for the past couple of years. The benefits of ruggedness, clarity, eye relief, and adjustable diopter eyepiece convinced me I need another one, so I have one more on order since I will replace my trusty Eotech with the equally-trust Prismatic. That holographic set of crosshairs out at infinity doesn't do me much good without glasses. The Prismatic lets me shoot accurately without glasses, and the LaRue QD mount lets me mount it vey low on the rails.

His scope is on the left, mine is on the right. I had just learned that GG&G had discontinued their Prismatic QD mount, but LaRue makes good stuff, so I bought two. It seems to be almost a quarter-inch lower than the lowest mounting I can get with the GG&G mount.

My scope already had the built-like-a-bank-vault Leupold Alumina lens caps, which had me puzzled at first, since I don't remember how I found the right size caps in the first place, and there is no documentation of it in the docs that came with the scope, or the Leupold web site.

I emailed their service department, and they said they had no information on it, and didn't think it could be done. Then I finally remembered that I had stumbled on the answer myself, and just had to do some hard rememberin'. Leupold only makes two types of Alumina eyepiece caps, regular and Ultralight. I borrowed the Ultralight off my CZ453, and it was the right kind (50% chance of a win on the first guess). The front lens cap is for a Leupold 20mm lens. It works just fine, although not quite "what the Leupold doctor would order". I ordered two sets, and emailed back to the service guy the part numbers that I discovered. I don't think this particular type of scope (it comes in about five different color/reticule combos) is very popular, but it wouldn't hurt to update the one-page set of special instructions for this scope.

So now I have some virtually-bulletproof scopes, and a new AR57 that just needs to be sighted in, again. It's been slow, but the results are really coming together. The only downside is that the Korean clone magazines may need tweaking, and I have a couple of things I'll check out on them.

A gunsmith's job is never done, thank ghod. :)

[osagebowman]

Afternoon Win Mag - great SNGP, hope your buddy is appreciate of your efforts.

Shooting without glasses, wow, that sure takes me back to my youth...1 power, kinda like a red-dot without the red-dot. :-)

The TLC of my new (to me)Ruger New Army continues..A 1977 vintage. Was able to persuade five of the six nipples out of the cylinder. The sixth will likely either stay put or will be drilled out (with attendant ez-out and re-tap). I reckon it’ll stay put. The hammer needs a repolish, heavily stained. I think the previous owner shot it once, gave it a once over clean, maybe tried to remove a nipple, wiped it down and put it away. I have a few spares in my stash that Imay be installing in the ROA. It will continue....

[Ramius]

Nice. Thanks again for the ping. :-)

[300winmag]

Afternoon Win Mag - great SNGP, hope your buddy is appreciate of your efforts.

This project is one of my labors of love. We've known each other since 1970, and he's my oldest friend on earth. We do lots of little favors for each other all the time, but this was a "special needs" project.

I was unsure of what configuration he might like best, so I took enough in the way of accessories with me to let him try everything out, and for me to answer any questions or requests he might have. It's been a most gratifying project for both of us.

Sorry about the rusted-in nipple. Percussion ain't my bag, but I'd try a bit of heat with a shop torch, or a rust solvent bath in an ultrasonic cleaner. My last resort would be drill it out, open the hole, and put in a Helicoil. Or go with an oversize-thread nipple (if those critters exist) for all six chambers. YMMV.

[300winmag]

Tonight's vey-belated edition of Saturday Night Gun Pron brings us to the finishing touches (Yaaaaay!) of my friend's AR57. The biggest challenge was one I never experienced before. Try focusing, and zeroing, a 1x scope intended for someone else, and add on the fact that my eyesight has gotten noticeably worse in the past year. The doctor said my eye health was still excellent, but vision changes can come quicker when we get older. (Older? What's this "older" business?)

So this was my final sighting-in at 25 yards. At 1x, at that range, all I saw was the central yellow diamond, and I aligned the crosshairs on the corners as the only way to get close to the bullseye.

I have no doubt that with a good 4x-or-better scope, this rifle could shoot minute-of-varmint all day long. I even guessed at the dot on the bottom of the target good enough to say the backup sights were working well enough for their intended purpose.

I swapped him for the original M4E(economy) I built, and he admitted that the chemotherapy took away so much of his muscle mass that he couldn't even operate the charging handle. With that in mind, I put an extra eight hours fitting and tuning every moving part on the AR57 again. He pronounced the final results as "smooth as melted butter on a glass doorknob. That made both our days. Now to arrange for a real sighting-in.

All of this testing allowed me a closer study of the three types of P90 magazines in my inventory. The good news was that one FN factory mag that I loaded and marked two years ago worked flawlessly. All the FN and AR57-branded magazines worked perfectly. FN recently made some cosmetic changes to their magazines, and may have even sold the old tooling to the other company. Careful shopping can now get either brand at a bit under $30, a far cry from the $75-100 demanded during the Great Magazine Shortage.

The Korean P90 clone magazine turned out to be a piece of carp (nine pieces of carp, in my case), with weak springs that caused stoppages about every 10 rounds. Even with swapping in quality FN internal parts for testing, with only the Korean magazine body original, there were fewer stoppages, but "zero" is the only acceptable number.

I found this strange, because I've had good results with their clone M14 magazines, made on original US tooling, and my limited testing with their clone H&K M16 magazines looked good, with no problems.

I learned at the store that they stopped carrying the Korean clone Glock magazines due to high failure rates, but I figured zero-for-nine for the P90 mags was a vey bad omen.

I stripped all their mags, and cut the springs in half. Then I cut each magazine body in half on a bandsaw. I care for the safety of whoever combs through my trash.

That gave me the idea to try an experiment with a California-legal ten-round mag. I dug a few parts out of the trash, and came up with this little cutie, with a proper FN magazine for comparison.

Full disclosure: I'm pulling y'all's leg with that stubby. It can't work, but it held together long enough to take the picture. I salvaged my dummy rounds from it, and threw the scrap out a second time. :)

Plenty of other deferred projects to get back to, and another trip to the range to introduce my old eyes and new glasses to the Leopold 1x prismatic scope.

Oh, and September is officially National Preparedness Month, with plenty of good advice from FEMA and other alphabet agencies, other than mention of edged or projectile weapons, which apparently don't exist in their universe. And September 4 was National Camouflage Day, but I don't think it appeared on many calendars this year. Next year, we'll remember, and double down.

[Ramius]

Anybody got a ping list?

Looks like things Hobbit-like are starting to heat up...

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey trailer released
 
The second trailer for the first film in The Hobbit series, An Unexpected Journey , has been released. The two-and-a-half minute clip gives viewers a glimpse of what to expect in the first installment ... More
 
Link:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/movies/news/article.cfm?c_id=200&objectid=10835261

[300winmag]

Tonight's Saturday Night Gun Pron cleans up a few more loose ends. I realized I have enough "little" loose ends to add up to be a major project, itself.

First, I took my AR57 to the range, along with the new Leupold 1x prismatic scope, and my new eyeglasses, and tweaked everything to the level of "good enough for suburban varmints".

At 50 yards, everything went into the black, with just a few 9s. Again, this is just a 1x scope, and some new eyeglasses. One reason I use a scope set at 6x-8x is so I can see a bullseye enlarged enough so I know I'm exactly centered. The reticule of this scope at that range is almost the exact size as the bullseye, so it's a matter of guesswork as to how perfectly I have things aligned before squeezing off the round.

I have noticed from some of my earlier photos that I am shooting a slightly smaller group, probably because the crisp lines of the scope reticule take a bit more guesswork out of the sight picture compared the the slightly fuzzy, but very easy to acquire, sight picture from the Eotech holographic sight. I think it's more challenging to find the right 1x sight for an individual than a magnifying telescopic sight.

Another project being wrapped up actually involves wrapping the firearm. Since Mcnett now makes Multicam stretchy wrap, I thought I'd update the look on my old Charter Arms AR7. That, in turn, reminded me I have an original Armalite AR7 that should take its place as a working "contingency tool", and stop being a safe queen.

So I bought a generic AR7 stock (now with crinkle paint finish), which will get its own sling, and its own wrap of camo tape. Meanwhile, the original brown marbled stock, and what's left of the original box, can go back to the safe.

In today's world, even the old warhorses are being brought in from their pastures, and getting tacked-up for the work they are still capable of doing.

[Overtaxed]

I’ll have to send Frodo and Bilbo a belated birthday card. Looks like I missed The Party.