Tag: Rendezvous

Cool!

KevinLeave a comment

Back in September, Midway USA offered discount codes to bloggers attending the Gun Blogger Rendezvous that we could post on our sites for our readers to use. These discounts garnered 10% savings for any order of $100 or more. I just checked in with Colin Anthony, the marketing specialist for Midway, and he informs me that 45 readers of TSM took advantage, and that 17 of you were new customers. I hope your experience with Midway was as good as mine have been. And thanks for reading!

I wish they were still active. I need to order some stuff!

MidwayUSA Discount Codes (repost)

KevinLeave a comment

Another bump on this one. MidwayUSA is offering discounts to my readers through October 17:

To receive your Savings:

1. Place in-stock products in your shopping cart totaling:

$10 off $100 – Use Promotion Code 19310
$20 off $200 – Use Promotion Code 29310
$30 off $300 – Use Promotion Code 39310

Enter the promotion code in the box entitled “Promotion Code” on the shopping cart page.

2. You will see the discount on the Confirmation page before placing your order.

3. Remember, this promotion code is valid for orders placed on MidwayUSA.com.

4. Limited to in-stock products, one per Customer and one promotion code per retail order.

5. Excludes Gift Certificates and Nightforce products, Sale priced products and Clearance products.

6. Offer valid for retail Customers only.

7. Offer cannot be combined with Birthday or Special Pricing.

8. Hurry, offer ends at 11:59 PM CT October 17, 2010.

New Shooters

KevinLeave a comment

During Saturday’s festivities, Bill Brassard talked about what the National Shooting Sports Foundation does. Among its many functions, the NSSF is active in getting people into the shooting sports. This is crucially important, as the political power of the gun rights movement is dependent on a populace that is not ignorant of firearms. England’s gun control experience is a history of making gun ownership more and more rare by making legal acquisition and possession progressively more difficult and expensive until only a tiny percentage of the population there has actually seen a firearm “in the wild” as it were, much less fired one.

Familiarity is what we have to preserve. As Teresa Nielsen Hayden once put it so brilliantly:

Basically, I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.

Amen.

A lot of us in the gunblogging community are in on this idea. Shortly after I started TSM I put up the invitation at the top of the sidebar. I wasn’t the first, but I’m far from the last. A couple of years ago, Mulligan from Do Over set up a web page (also linked at the bottom of my offer) where he lists at present about sixty people around the country (and one in Canada) most of whom make essentially the same offer I do: we’ll provide the range fees, targets, protective gear, firearms, ammunition, and instruction. All you have to do is show up.

We need to add to this list. Will you help?

Blogroll Additions

KevinLeave a comment

I met some new people at this year’s Rendezvous. First, GG from Girls {Heart} Guns, who is a newbie shooter, and very enthusiastic! She’s also very safe, as she relates in this post.

Next up was Olav and his wife Patricia from Firearms and Training. Olav is a fine shot, and QUICK. On Saturday, the last run we did was five shots on a single steel plate at 7 yards as fast as possible. I watched Olav put five rounds on target from his 9mm S&W M&P in just over a second. You could have covered the group with a playing card. I told him I didn’t see the happy-switch on his pistol!

Two guys from CS Tactical made their first trip to the Rendezvous, Mike Cecil and Andrew “Mase” Mason. CS Tactical has a forum, too! Not only that, but Mike’s a helluva competitor. He won the Cowboy Fast Draw match on Sunday, beating out “Millisecond Molly” by literally milliseconds.

True Blue Sam made it this year. Zeke of Engineering Johnson couldn’t make it due to work (he was in Viet Nam showing ’em how to make pop-top cans), but his grandmother Bea was insistent that she was going to her second Rendezvous, so it was up to Sam, her son, to provide escort duty! Bea is 79 years old and has been shooting for just a couple of years, but she handloads her own ammo – .357, .44, and .45 Colt.

Making his second trip to a Rendezvous was D.W. Drang of The Cluemeter. I haven’t had him on the blogroll before, but I will shortly!

This was also Molly’s second Rendezvous. She’s going on the roll as well.

Also new this year was Dan Hall of GUNUP.com, a new site (not quite ready, but soon!) that aims to be THE place for people to go for gun-related information on the web. Sounds like they have a plan and the people, let’s wish ’em luck!

Mr. Completely Really Delivers!

KevinLeave a comment

When Mr. C sets up a Rendezvous, he goes all out! This year somehow he got a lot of balloonists to come to Reno just for us! Here’s the view out my hotel room window two mornings in a row. (Click the pictures for the full-size versions.)

And if you were in attendance, you were certain to go home with some T-shirts and other great swag. Here’s some (blurry) shots of some of the piles of stuff that were given away:

Seriously, if you can make it next year, DO IT.

MidwayUSA Discount Codes

KevinLeave a comment

As promised, Mr. Colin Anthony, MidwayUSA‘s marketing specialist has provided some discount codes that you, my readers, can use! I’ve been doing business with Midway for over a decade, and I spend on average about $750 a year there. I think they like me. Anyway, here’s his email:

To receive your Savings:

1. Place in-stock products in your shopping cart totaling:

$10 off $100 – Use Promotion Code 19310
$20 off $200 – Use Promotion Code 29310
$30 off $300 – Use Promotion Code 39310

Enter the promotion code in the box entitled “Promotion Code” on the shopping cart page.

2. You will see the discount on the Confirmation page before placing your order.

3. Remember, this promotion code is valid for orders placed on MidwayUSA.com.

4. Limited to in-stock products, one per Customer and one promotion code per retail order.

5. Excludes Gift Certificates and Nightforce products, Sale priced products and Clearance products.

6. Offer valid for retail Customers only.

7. Offer cannot be combined with Birthday or Special Pricing.

8. Hurry, offer starts at 12:00 AM CT Sept 17, 2010 (that’s tomorrow) and ends at 11:59 PM CT October 17, 2010.

Colin B. Anthony
Marketing Specialist

Thank you again, Colin!

And for a great review of the pistol case that Midway gave to all the bloggers who attended GBR-V, go read Anthroblogogy’s post on it.

THIS is How You Shoot “Smoke-n-Hope”

KevinLeave a comment

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

That’s “Millisecond” Molly Smith, 14 year-old 2010 World Steel Challenge Champion in both Lady’s Iron Sight Revolver and Junior Revolver. She won six of eight stages to take the overall championship with her S&W 627, and you can see why. On the round where she missed the stop plate once, her time barely broke four seconds!

As someone observed, normally it would be considered kinda creepy for so many old guys to be filming a 14 year-old girl, but we all want to grow up some day to shoot like she does!

Next Up, THANKS!

KevinLeave a comment

There are a lot of people to thank for their contributions to the fifth (!) annual Gun Blogger Rendezvous, none more than Mr. Completely and Keewee for their efforts to pull it all together. As Mr. C put it, for him it’s not a lot of fun, but it sure is rewarding when it’s all done.

For the rest of is, it is a lot of fun, and we really appreciate it.

Others who contributed involved many in the industry:

Bill Brassard Jr., Director of Communications for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The NSSF provided the pizza dinner Saturday night, and Bill is the gateway through which bloggers can get media credentials to attend the annual SHOT show in Las Vegas.

Rachel Parsons of the NRA, who provided a very nice breakfast for us Friday morning before we headed off to the range, but was unable to make it herself due to illness.

Randi Rogers AKA “Holy Terror” of Glock, who provided a certificate for any standard Glock handgun.

Charles Brown of Hi-Point Firearms and MKS Supply, who provided a certificate for a 9mm Carbine.

Kerby Smith of Para USA who provided a 35% discount coupon for any new Para pistol

Lori Petoske of Ruger Firearms who provided very nice briefcase-style range bags for all of the bloggers, plus cups, hats and other swag.

Larry Weeks of Brownell’s, who unfortunately couldn’t be with us as this year he was a range officer at the USPSA Multi-Gun Nationals being held in Las Vegas. Brownell’s provided AR-15 mags (I scored two), one of their top-of-the-line range bags, and other great stuff.

Colin Anthony of MidwayUSA, who provided shirts, a stack of excellent pistol range bags and other stuff, plus a discount code for blog readers (and another one to come!)

Patrick Harlan of Crimson Trace, who provided a certificate for any in-stock Lasergrip, and some very nice pistol rugs and other swag.

Leupold, who through Allen Forkner of Swanson*Russell, provided a damned nice VX3 scope.

Jamie Klund and Gary Shank of Cabela’s who hosted a tour of their 125,000 square-foot Reno store, and let us fondle the rare firearms in their Gun Room, (including a $30k Single-Action Army!) Cabela’s also gave us some discount coupons that most of us made immediate use of.

The Cowboy Fastdraw Association, who put on a match for Rendezvous attendees Sunday at absolutely no cost to us. It was, to coin a phrase, a blast. Special thanks to “Quick Cal” Eilrich and the Sage Hills Reno Rustlers Cowboy Fast Draw club who ran the match.

The Palomino Valley Gun Club who run a fine range, and the Western Nevada Pistol League who let us shoot their steel on Saturday.

Richard Brengman of Special Interest Arms, who brought some of his stuff to Friday’s Show-‘n-Tell for us to look at and handle. Richard lives an hour or so away in Gardnerville, NV, and said he thought some other local manufacturers might be interested in attending next year.

Derek of The Packing Rat, who donated an Air Venturi Bronco break-barrel air rifle. Derek is also the unofficial photographer for the Rendezvous.

And the Silver Legacy Resort and Casino who treated us well all weekend.

And thanks also to all the attendees who helped us raise money for Project Valour-IT. I met a bunch of new people this weekend, and my blogroll will be growing.

Home

KevinLeave a comment

I left Reno about 1:20 yesterday afternoon after dropping Mr. C, KeeWee, and U.S. Citizen off at the Silver Legacy following the cowboy fast-draw match, which was a hoot. I got my butt handed to me in two consecutive matches, but the finals were pretty exciting. I’m glad I stayed for it this year.

I got to Las Vegas about 8:30PM, but didn’t end up getting a hotel room until after 10:00 (don’t ask). I didn’t wake up until 8:00 this morning, and was on the road gain at 9:00. I pulled into my driveway this afternoon at 3:30. I am wiped out.

A Rendezvous Recap (with pictures!) will fill the next few days’ posts. And links. Lotsa links.

I can’t wait for next year!