Tag: Rendezvous

Psssst! Hey, Wanna Win One of These?

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Psssst! Hey, Wanna Win One of These?That’s ParaUSA’s new GI Expert entry-level 1911. The specs are:

Caliber: .45 ACP
Barrel: 5 inches, stainless steel
Twist: 1 in 16 inches, left-hand
Action: Single-action, Semi-automatic
Sights: Dovetail Fixed, 3-White Dot
Receiver: Carbon Steel
Trigger: Medium length
Hammer: Skeletonized Spur
Magazine: 8-round with removable base pad (two provided with pistol)
Overall Length: 8.5 inches
Height: 5.75 inches
Weight: 39 ounces
Finish: Covert Black Para Kote™
Stocks: Checkered Polymer
Safeties: Slide Lock, Internal Firing Block, Grip
Additional Features: Lowered and flared ejection port, beveled magazine well, flat mainspring housing, grip safety contoured for spur hammer
MSRP: $599

I handled one at the NRA convention. It looks like a good, solid piece with just enough enhancements to make it a great shooter.

Keep checking in here for more details.

Rendezvous!

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Rendezvous!

You’ve probably noticed this over on the left sidebar:

http://www.criticallayouts.com/Generators/cd-vacation/show.swf?clickURL=http://www.criticallayouts.com/&clickLABEL=MySpace%20Countdown&flashLABEL=Critical%20Layouts&skin=http://www.criticallayouts.com/Generators/cd-vacation/skins/8.jpg&text=Gun%20Blogger%20Rendezvous%20IV&untilColor=6724095&textColor=0&datesColor=0&year=2009&month=8&day=11&hour=0&minute=0&second=0&x=4&y=92

Yes, the Fourth Annual Gun Blogger Rendezvous is fast approaching.

What is the Rendezvous, you ask? It’s a gathering of bloggers, readers, and a few industry people for a weekend of eating, talking, shooting, drinking, eating, talking, a little gambling, and damned little sleeping. Mr. Completely and the lovely and gracious KeeWee host the GBR each fall, and each Rendezvous has been bigger than the one previous. This one will run from September 10 through September 13 (Thursday through Sunday). The first three Rendezvous were held at the Circus Circus hotel and casino in Reno NV, but since we did most of our eating at the attached Silver Legacy, this year we’ll be staying there instead. Room reservation information is available here. You don’t have to be there all four days (I’ll be showing up Friday afternoon, I think), but you can if you want!

Mr. Completely tries to schedule some activities for us each year. Last year we took a guided tour of the Reno Cabela’s (free fudge!), on Friday night we do a “what did you bring” get-together, and on Saturday we always go to the very nice Washoe County Parks Department Public Shooting Range where we throw a lot of lead downrange with the stuff we showed around the night before. But the primary attraction of the Rondy is the people. Each year the hotel provides a hospitality room where all weekend we can sit around and imbibe adult beverages and talk until the wee hours of the morning.

On Saturday after the range trip, we will be having a pizza dinner and raffle for the benefit of Project Valour IT, Maj. Chuck Zeigenfuss’ project to provide laptops with voice recognition software and Wii game systems (and other technology) to wounded veterans to help speed their recovery. Maj. Zeigenfuss attended the second GBR and on that Saturday evening he told his story of getting blow up by an IED and his recovery process. The Major was a blogger before he deployed, and when he arrived back in the States he had only one unbandaged finger with which to punch a keyboard. Soldier’s Angels set him up with a laptop, a reader gifted him with voice-recognition software, and he was back online. Instead of sitting in his hospital bed punching the morphine button while watching Wheel of Fortune, he was traveling the Matrix, chatting with his friends, dictating blog posts, and leaving comments.

We adopted his ass right then and there. (How can you not love a man, seriously wounded, who after being dragged out of the stinking ditch the IED blew him into, pops up and asks “Am I still pretty?“)

We also raised about $600 for his cause. The next year we did without a speaker, and raised $2,030. I hope we top that this year by a fair margin.

And did I mention the raffle? Mr. Completely has lined up sponsors for the Rendezvous each year, and the list keeps getting longer. Brownell’s has been a sponsor from the beginning, and I have a damned nice range bag thanks to Larry Weeks and Mr. Completely, and Larry brings a lot more swag than that each year. Last year’s sponsors included Hi Point Firearms, Dillon, ParaUSA, Remington and Nosler. This year Glock, excuse me, GLOCK is added to the list. Trust me, everyone goes home with something. the registration form for the dinner and raffle can be found here.

So make plans. I’ll be reminding you from time to time in blog posts, and that countdown clock will remain on the sidebar until the Rondy starts.

See you there!

UPDATE: USCitizen RAWKS! And if he pulls this off, I will literally prostrate myself before him and worship at his feet! I will not be worthy!

Another Trip to the Range

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Another Trip to the Range

No new loads for the Encore yet, but I wanted to shoot the Remington 700 some more. When I went to the Gunblogger Rendezvous last October, David of Random Nuclear Strikes gave me some of his Black Hills 175 grain .308 Sierra MatchKing commercial ammo, and I wanted to test it out as a baseline against my handloads. It was another trip to the Casa Grande range to make use of their 300 yard facility. Here’s an average group using the Black Hills stuff:


By my calibrated eyeball, Mk. I, that’s about 4″ CTC.

Here’s my 175 grain SMK handload:


The bottom most hole is two holes touching. I’d put that group at a hair under 2″.

Here’s my 155 grain Lapua Scenar load (typical) with me throwing a flyer (also typical):


What you can’t see there is that this group is about 5″ higher than the point of aim, which means it’s hauling ass compared to the 175 grain SMK load. Now, if I could just stop throwing flyers . . .

I think I need some more of those bullets.

(Sorry about the crappy quality. These were taken with my cellphone camera.)

HOME!

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HOME!

Just got home a few minutes ago. It’s nice to travel and see friends, but there’s no place like home.

With high-speed internet service.

I’ve been disconnected for two days. I think I’m suffering from severe withdrawal. I’ve got some catching-up to do, then maybe some more posting.

L8R!

UPDATE: DirtCrashr has an after-action report.

We’re Either Dedicated or Crazy

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Well, we held the 3rd annual Gunblogger’s Rendezvous shoot at the Palomino Valley Gun Club range today, and it was FREAKING COLD! AND windy. It wasn’t so bad when the wind wasn’t blowing, but when it was. . .

I think I may still have toes.

I came back, unfortunately, with a lot more ammo than I expected to, but I was able to easily hit the 400 yard gong with the Remington 700, and I whacked one at a bit over 600 yards a couple of times, despite the wind. Still, I’m not up to the skill level of Phil of Random Nuclear Strikes who can consistently dust pool cue chalk cubes (about 7/8″ on a side) at 200 yards.

I’ve got to try that.

I hit the 400 yard gong (rather easily) with a .308 pistol too. More on that later, but I’m finding this idea very intriguing. I also hit the 55 gallon drum at over 950 yards with US Citizen’s Barrett M82A1. That thing is awe-inspiring and sinus-clearing at the same time.

We have only two more planned events – both involve stuffing our faces. Dinner tonight at 6:00 followed by a bull session into the wee hours, and then breakfast tomorrow morning before we break up and head our separate ways.

This Rendezvous, despite the lack of a couple of previous attendees, is still the best-attended one so far. I think next year will be even better, especially now that we’re getting more industry attention. Sponsors this year were Brownell’s (their top-of-the-line range bag, and a lot of other stuff – 3rd year), Hi-Point firearms (a pistol – 3rd year), Crimson Trace (T-shirts & hats -1st year) and Para-USA (another pistol – 1st year), FrontSite ($2000 worth of training – 1st year), Dillon Precision (Border-shift ammo bag – 2nd year), plus the NRA gave us a bunch of great swag. Cabela’s gave us a guided tour of their Reno store, and let us play in their arcades for free. It’s been a great weekend.

Excuse me, one of my ears just fell off. I have to go find some superglue and put it back on now. . .

“Slight Chance of Snow” My ASS!

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“Slight Chance of Snow” My ASS!

The weather weenies predicted earlier this week that there would be a slight 20-30% chance of “snow flurries” on Friday and Saturday.

I woke up to snow flurries this morning.

But we just drove back from Cabela’s through a freaking snowstorm.

Pictures and a little bit of video to be attached to this post later, when I have a bit more time. Mr. Completely has our days scheduled in 15-minute increments, and I need to get back to the hospitality suite for the NRA’s presentation.

If this keeps up, I’m wondering if we’ll be able to get to the range tomorrow.

UPDATED for those of you unfamiliar with the falling white stuff. This is what I saw out my hotel room window at 7:00 AM:

http://img.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v99/smallestminority/DSCF0813.flv
And this is what I saw out that same window about 4:00 PM:

http://img.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v99/smallestminority/DSCF0817.flv
Others have taken a lot of still pictures of the mountains around Reno covered in snow, but I wanted to give you a sense of the intensity.

Quote of the Day

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From someone who should know. . .

This is Mrs. Ly Chho, born of Chinese parents in Cambodia, raised and schooled in Taiwan, naturalized American citizen for fourteen years, and new NRA member, along with her husband who couldn’t make it with her to the NRA press conference yesterday evening because he had to work late.


Unfortunately, Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox were a bit late arriving, so the TV cameras left in the middle of their announcement in order to make the 6:30 news deadline, but (unsurprisingly) the NRA has officially endorsed McCain/Palin.

But that’s not, precisely, what this post is about.

After the announcement, Wayne and Chris took comments from the audience – mostly white people over the age of 40 (mostly well over) from what I could see – but this diminutive asian woman stood to ask her question and was recognized.

She asked, as best I can recall:

I am a new NRA member. I have been a citizen for only fourteen years. I believe in the Constitution and the Second Amendment, and when I see Obama, I see Communism, and I am afraid. I believe he is going to win the election. Do you have any plans in place if this happens?

Wayne LaPierre responded that we all have the blood of the patriots who threw the tea into Boston Harbor and stood on the bridge at Lexington and Concord in our veins (metaphorically speaking), and that the NRA would never rest, yada, yada, yada.

But that was a powerful statement from Mrs. Chho. I caught up to her to ask her about herself so that I could write this post. At the moment, the Chho’s do not own a firearm, but they are planning to get one as soon as they’ve gone through some NRA basic training. Mrs. Chho explained that she was educated in Taiwan, and had studied the U.S. Constitution, and had chosen to come to America and become a citizen because of that document. She loves and respects what America is, and Obama frightens her deeply.

And she should know.

Thank you, Mrs. Chho. You are another example of someone who is an American because she thinks she’s an American. It doesn’t matter what her ancestry is, or where she was born or where she was educated. She’s an American, and was one long before she made her citizenship oath.

Damned straight I’m a believer in American Exceptionalism.

On the Road

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On the Road

Made it to Bullhead City, AZ in 5.5 hours. Used a half-tank of gas in the Altima. I’ll figure out the mileage tomorrow when I fill up for the trip to Reno.

I’m kinda interested in the fact that we bloggers will apparently get to meet both Chris Cox and Wayne LaPierre tomorrow when they make their big announcement.

At least I will if I can get there early enough.

Leaving for the Rendezvous Tomorrow

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Leaving for the Rendezvous Tomorrow

I’m going to work very early tomorrow so I can get out in the early afternoon, then my wife and I are headed out. We plan to stop in Laughlin, NV tomorrow evening, then head up to Reno bright & early. Apparently there’s a big to-do the gunbloggers have been invited to attend, so I have to do my best to get to the hotel by 5:00PM Thursday in order to make it.

Meanwhile, I need to load some .308. One of the guns I’m bringing this year is the 5R.

C’ya!

18 Days Until GBR-III!

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18 Days Until GBR-III!

If you haven’t made up your mind whether or not you’re coming, do it NOW.

Mr. Completely reports that Hi-Cap Gunworks will be bringing out samples of their handiwork to the range on Saturday for us to paw and drool on. FrontSight has provided a certificate worth $2,000 for your choice of one of several courses they offer that will be used in our fundraising for Project Valour-IT, and FrontSight’s Dr. Ignatius Piazza is going to try to put in an appearance at the Rendezvous. On top of that, Ashley Varner and Glen Caroline will be there representing the NRA and willing to take your questions. Dillon has provided a range bag and possibly other goodies. Hi-Point has again provided a 9mm pistol. Crimson Trace is providing some swag. USCitizen from Traction Control will be bringing his brand-new Barrett M82A1 semi-auto .50BMG rifle, and I’ll be bringing 160 rounds of his match-quality ammo. (You don’t think he’s going to shoot all of that up himself, do you?)

Plus, if you haven’t made it to the first two Rendezvous, you’ll get to meet all of these other lovable gun-nuts:

Mr. Completely himself

KeeWee, from KeeWee’s Corner

Phil & David, from Random Nuclear Strikes

Ride Fast & the Commandress, from Ride Fast – Shoot Straight

Mr. & Mrs. JimmyB, the Conservative UAW Guy

Lou from Mad Gun

Dirt Crashr, from Anthroblogogy

Chris & Mel Byrne, from The Anarchangel

Larry Weeks, from Brownell’s

The Packing Rat

And, well, me of course!

You don’t have to be a blogger to come, so get off your duffs and make your reservations!