Public Service Announcement (and a personal request)

When shopping at your local purveyor of firearms, feel free to browse as long as you like.
Feel free to take products off the shelves to compare one to another...if you don't want either, feel free to bring them to the counter and the staff will re-shelve them for your convenience.
Feel free to handle as many firearms as you feel like. We know "fit" is a big part of the purchasing decision.
Feel free to ask many questions or engage in conversation about dang near anything.
HOWEVER... Please do NOT lean over the counter to sniff the employees. Really... it's just bad form. Don't do it.

Lemonade on a cold February day

When I got the Rock Island, I had an issue with it not fully seating my .452 diameter bullets.

Armscor decided to give me a new barrel rather than re-chamber the original.
When I got it back, unfortunately, they gave me a 3” barrel… the gun is 4”.

After they rectified that, the very next time shooting it, the C-bushing broke and twisted up the spring between the slide and the barrel.

That was a mess.
They fixed that.
I changed the grips to a much more comfortable “slim grip”

(which meant a change of not only grips, but screws that fit the pilot holes…and then bushings that fit the screws).


On the next trip to the range, I didn’t know until the end of the day that the vibration had not only kicked out a screw…but took the bushing with it. The screw was tight into the bushing, but I should have used Loc-Tite on the bushing in the frame.
Instead of ordering yet another set of screws and bushings…I just ended up rigging it to work. I found a pack of tiny washers and put one behind a totally different screw and that did the trick.



I have to admit, for as much trouble as it seemed to give me, Armscor was ALL OVER trying to make me a happy camper.
The last time I sent it to Nevada, the master smith called my cell and was talking to me FROM the test range while he worked on it. He was keeping me informed step by step on what they were doing (and why) and asking me pertinent questions about ammo I’d be using, so they could test it with that specifically, before sending it back to me.

The day before yesterday, I happened upon a GREAT deal for ammo.
This Match stuff for $240 bucks.


The "WCC" on the headstamp is "Western Cartridge Company", which is "Olin"...that's Winchester. Good stuff.
I decided to hit the range close to where I work after I clocked out yesterday. After unexpectedly working super late, a couple hours later their range was crawling with people. Bummer.
I decided to head home...and I was in a grump.
About halfway home, I decided to skip the turn to my house and try another range where I have a membership.
I had the place entirely to myself.
I spent over an hour in sweet solitude getting reacquainted with the Rock and shooting Match ammo at the only targets I had (since I hadn't brought a stand for this range)... Clays that I happened to have in the back of my van...and a bunch of lemons that someone else had tossed all over the berm and apparently missed.
Me and my little Rock made LEMONADE!!
I'm a happy camper.

Why "All Guns Are Always Loaded"

Which one of these mags is loaded?


Working in the gun store, I'm very disciplined about opening the action of a firearm before handing it across the counter.
Occasionally, an older one will cross my path that I'm not familiar with, and I have to ask someone how to open it. Once in awhile it's the customer, who usually knows more about the specific gun they're searching for than I do. They're always glad to help, and I'm always glad for the lesson.
It's just good practice to treat every gun like it's loaded, because until you verify FOR YOURSELF...it is.

Last week someone filled out a federal 4473 form to buy a Colt 1911. While they were finishing up the paperwork, I went in search of the Colt's box before I called in for the background check. When I returned with it, the customer and I were putting all the Colt's belongings in its case and we noticed there was a Kimber magazine in the magazine well.
Thinking that someone accidentally switched them, we went looking through the Kimbers to see if there was a Colt magazine in one.
Not having found one, and also establishing that the recent Kimber sales all had Kimber mags...we determined the cause of the switch to be a previous customer testing his mags in potential guns to see if a newly purchased gun could possibly share mags with what he already had.
The kicker is that if he'd done this with a loaded magazine, even to test for fit, there could have been a loaded firearm on display.
Although I always rack the slide to verify the chamber, I never look at the bottom to see if the appropriate mag is with the correct gun.
We've even found a Ruger in the case with the magazine inserted (and jammed quite stuck) in backwards.
It always pays to check, because when things get overwhelmingly busy, and there aren't enough hands and eyes to supervise from one side of the counter to the other...things can happen. Bad things.

After finding that mag in backwards and finding the Colt with the Kimber magazine, it adds a step to the self-imposed rule of checking the chamber..."check the mag, too".
Thankfully, it was no big deal, other than a switched name brand...but it could have been. And that's what should keep us all on our toes; the "could have" part.

I Got This...

"I got this." I'm sure that's what the driver of a great big pickup truck with great big tires was thinking when he was barreling down a snowy/icy road this morning.
I was on my way to work, and he was in the other lane, oncoming.
He started to fishtail a little and then slid over into MY lane and ended up sliding right on into the guard rail on my side of the road. I had enough space to stop...and I waited. The dude rolled down his window and gave the "I'm OK" thumbs up, so I slowly pulled way out and around him. That was a tense moment!

My Day Was Covered In

Best. Day. EVAR.

I got to shadow different people doing a little bit of everything from sales to smithing. It was way too much fun! One of the best parts was calling people waiting on deliveries or repairs and tell them their stuff was ready to come pick up. I felt like the gun fairy granting wishes.

I was talking about wanting to bring in my Winchester and put it on consignment...a guy wanted to buy it sight unseen for close to what I was thinkin' for it...

When I got home tonight, I picked up MiniMe and took her back with me so I could drop off the Winchester, fill out some papers for it, and let her look around and meet some of the guys... and then I let her in on the second-best part; Two doors down - - - DONUT SHOP!
So we walked over there and had celebratory donuts before heading home.
I swear to Bob I wanted to pitch a tent and stay...

How it all went down...

First I was all...



Then I was all;



Then I was;




But I just kept thinking;





But I just kept looking, and then;



Turns out, it's going to be;




YAY!!!

*Yawn*

Getting up and going to work at O'dark Thirty sucks.
The bonus is that I'm done around 2pm and still have the afternoon to call my own...but the bad part is that I'm so tired, I don't want to do anything with it.
I hope my sleep patterns adjust soon. Yargh.

Georgia on my mind…and Florida, too.

I didn’t blog about this when I thought about it…but there’s no time like the present.
Georgia and Florida expanded state gun laws. People can now bring guns to work, so long as they leave them in their parked cars. That brings the list of similarly legislated “take your guns to work here” states to:
Alaska
Kansas
Minnesota
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Georgia
Florida
Tim Beardon, a State Representative who wrote Georgia's new gun law, said “It's about time that we started standing up for the innocent, law-abiding citizens instead of making excuses for the criminals all the time”.
RIGHT ON!!

Back to the Grind

OK, I don't really work inside a bomber fuselage. But it WAS really hard to get back into the swing of the routine after so many days of staying up late and sleeping as long as I wanted. I'd forgotten how nice it is to have the day to yourself. If there's a task to be done, do it when you feel like it. No schedules to beat you down. Ahh...that's the life. You "work at home" types remind me of how it was to be a "stay at home mom". I miss it! I appreciated it when I had it, but sometimes life can turn on a dime. Either direction.

Blergh Blog

I arrived at work this morning, clocked in and instantly noticed the coworker who opened an hour earlier was frustrated and exasperated over some problem. She’d been online at FedEx trying to track a shipment and retrieve a proof of delivery signature for the better part of an hour, but she was coming up completely empty handed. It seems the corporate office was calling and emailing and faxing and calling again over a company who used a credit card to purchase product, already had their bill paid, and still no product in their possession. My coworker was digging and digging in our system trying to turn up documents. I went to the other computer and clicked into virtual ledger cards and *bam* there it was; all nice and tidy with a big fat “confirmation completed” tagged to it and her initials on the header page. Apparently, she couldn’t get past the notion that “confirmation” of the paperwork doesn’t always equal physical completion of the job. I went into the stock room and looked on the shelf. Two of that product looked back at me. I went back to the computer and looked up our inventory quantities for it. Our branch showed “1” in stock.
Obviously, the paperwork was completed, but the product never shipped. That’s why there was no available tracking of the shipment that she could turn up. When I pointed out that fact, I might as well have been struck by lightning and left as a greasy little oil spot on the carpet judging from the look I got. I pulled the product duplicate off the shelf, stuck it in a box, slapped a FedEx label on it, and sent it out the door with a note of apology inside.
While I was boxing it up, the coworker made a phone call to the people that were inquiring and this is what I heard (as near verbatim as I recall):
“Hi. I finally found the problem. Someone here confirmed it, but never shipped it, but I’ve taken care of it. I made sure it went out this morning.”
Excuse me?? She did?? Um....what?
Wtf?
I looked at the clock. Only fifteen minutes of my day had passed, and it never got any better.