In that respects, it was a rousing success –

I built it for < $400, but it had a small problem. It doesn't want to shoot worth crap. It fails to feed the 2nd round, 1st one doesn't get ejected fully. This doesn't do me much good. A baseball bat would be more useful.

In addition to the upper, I also got the handguards and A2 sight parts from fellow ARFCOM members. I had the A2 stock from another build and added a blemished lower receiver ($90!), DPMS lower parts kit and barrel bought from another ARFCOM member. The BCG is also DPMS if I remember correctly.

I decided it was time to update it, an anodized upper receiver was 1st on the list. And if I was going to do that I figured I may as well add a Magpul MOE stock to make it easier for other family members to shoot. I ordered them from Del-Ton who I have dealt with before. The stock was backordered for about a week, but finally all the parts arrived.

The extra stuff there is a Brownells Upper Receiver Action Block and an AR15 Armorer’s Wrench. I also have a set of punches and roll pin holders which are helpful for putting together lower receivers.

Swapping the stock was simple, other than almost losing the buffer detent and spring.

I pulled the handguards off (nearly the hardest part of the whole operation), and knocked out the gas tube retaining pin. Note, pull the tube out and put it in from the front. Its easier that way. Trust Me(tm).

Removing the barrel requires clamping it in the action block and using the armorer’s wrench to remove the nut from the upper receiver. This was made alot easier because of some advice from Dino over on ARFCOM — User high temp bearing grease on the threads when you put it together.

When putting things back together you have to line up all the rings so that the gas tube will fit. It can be tricky to get the slots in the nut just right.

Put the gas tube back on from the outside of the receiver. I’ve already tried it the other direction. It doesn’t work so well. Make sure the gas port is aiming down and the retaining holes line up. Use a roll pin holder to drive the pin back in and finish it off with a punch.

And the final product. Hopefully I’ll make it to the range this weekend to see if the operation has been improved at all.

I noticed that Mr. Completely and his wife Kee Wee were going to be at the match. I’ve been trying to meet him for the last several years and can never seem to make it out to a match. Today things worked out perfectly, I was already planning on heading to the range with a friend — We didn’t compete in the match, but managed to see Mr. C shoot a couple of stages — his barrel holding technique has to be seen in action!

He and Kiwi are off to Holland for the European Steel Challenge Championships, Best of Luck to them!

We spent a couple of hours putting the new guns through their paces, everything worked out fairly well. As usual I was anticipating recoil with my 1911′s (hitting low to the left), holding on too tight and using the wrong part of my finger on the trigger. Gee, lots of things to improve on! The IMI Automag III was a BLAST to shoot as always. One of the nice things about it is that you don’t have to put alot of ammo through it to get a huge amount of pleasure out of shooting it. As usual the first shot left my friend grinning from ear-to-ear. I tried to catch a picture of the muzzle flash, but my camera wasn’t shooting fast enough.

It is interesting that when shooting the Automag I don’t have my problem shooting low-left, instead they string out straight to the left just a bit. The grip on it is noticeably longer than the 1911, and with its extra mass it moves around in my grip less.

My new Buckmark ran great! After tweaking the adjustable sights a few clicks to the right it was hitting right on. I think I’ll try my hand at the Fun Steel Shoot next month using this gun — its dead easy to clean and .22 is still pretty cheap to shoot. I’ll have to get some practice in beforehand, but at least I won’t be breaking the bank.

I also got to try out a Sig 226 in .22 and 9mm. Why Sig makes their .22 magazine 10 rounds and the 9mm 20 rds. is a mystery. Shot a Kimber Ultra Carry II as well. Tiny little gun which has a very noticeable amount of muzzle flip compared to my 1911′s. I wouldn’t want to shoot it regularly, but it makes an excellent concealed carry piece.

The weather was great, the guns all worked really well, the company was excellent and we had an excellent lunch at the Red Apple Diner on the way home (Prime Rib special for $8.95, who could pass that up?).

In the interest of full disclosure, not because the .gov tells me to but because its only fair to those reading, I won the chance to attend this class for free. I have attempted to make sure that did not affect my opinion of the class.

Shawn Mahood's Utah CFP Class

I highly recommend this class for anyone interested in being able to exercise their rights in as many states as possible. I plan on doing some camping next summer and this will come in handy for those western states that don’t recognize my Washington CPL. Shawn’s company is also running a NRA Basic Pistol and WA Concealed Carry Basics classes in February. Check his website for details.

Once you have completed the class and received the stamp on your application you have 1 year to submit it to Utah along with a passport photo, a fingerprint card, copy of your driver’s license and $65.25. They are supposed to process them within 60 days, but because of the popularity they are running at about 65 days or longer. Once you have your permit you can then legally carry in states that recognize non-resident Utah permits. You can use sites like Carry Concealed as a guide to which states recognize your new permit — but you really need to verify directly with the state, as well as familiarize yourself with that state’s laws. Internet sites are not always up to date. For example Nevada no longer recognizes the Utah permit, but Nebraska now does.

I tried to find something about the class to complain about. The only thing I can come up with is that it would have been nice to have some extra time for more ad-hoc discussions. I’d like to thank Shawn for the chance to take his class. I encourage you to tell your friends and family about this excellent resource that we have available to us.

…and I speak as someone whose car was carjacked and whose house was broken into, with us in it, listening to his every stumble.

When my husband chased the robber down the street, the dutiful police officer advised us to install even more expensive security.

I can only hope that at some point our friends in England will realize the error of their ways and allow their subjects to arm and defend themselves as all people should be able to do.

H/T to John Lott

Back in March we packed the land use hearing, and on Monday there was a meeting (that I missed) of the County Commissioners to vote on selling the land to KRRC outright. All of our pressure worked! Because today we have this:

The Commissioners signed an agreement to sell the 72 acres that the club sits on to the club! No more lease hassles!

The quick summary of the situation is that the land KRRC is on is leased from the DNR, who wants to swap the land with Kitsap County for some other nearby land. The Lease would then be transferred to the County, which has a spotty track record with upholding leases.

There were lots of good questions for the State and County officials there. Questions like “why wasn’t KRRC told about this proposal until just this month?” and “why has shooting been left out of the county’s proposed land use plans”. The last one is especially telling, given that the club has been there since 1928 and by some accounts the area has been used for recreational shooting since the late 1870′s — before Washington even became a state.

The KRRC executive committee is standing their ground on their insistence that there be a legally binding contract ensuring the continued existence of the club before they will support the proposed land swap.

In other words we don’t trust our government, at the State or County level, to do the right thing, unless we have it as a legally binding document.

Scoutten’s reply was essentially that he doesn’t want to put those kinds of events on TV because it could alarm the anti-gunners!

Here’s my reply to him:

Scoutten: But our greater purpose is to do no harm to our gun rights, to put nothing on TV that could alarm the anti-gunners.

That, Jim, is the core of what is wrong with this country right now. Don’t alarm the other guys. Don’t do anything that might make them mad at us. Don’t publicly support anything that might make them dislike us. That kind of appeasement only leads to our side losing. We don’t have anything to hide! We are not second-class citizens! We do not have anything to apologize for, so why kowtow to them?

If you don’t already understand that the anti-gunners hate us and our gun sports then you will never get it. They have no reason behind their attitudes, it is all emotion. There is nothing we can do to convince the majority of them that being pro-gun is the right philosophy.

Who is your audience anyway? Is it the anti-gunners? I highly doubt that. Who buys all the products you advertise and review? Not the antis, that’s for sure!

Thanks for your show, but you are way off track in only covering events that the antis would approve of. I must say that I am very disappointed in you.

Maybe you should add a disclaimer at the start of the show ‘This show should be in no way construed as supporting guns, gun rights or gun sports that may alarm or challenge your sensibilities’.

Joe Huffman, SayUncle, Snowflakes in Hell, Random Nuclear Strikes also have something to say about this.

Salem, Oregon—Today, the Oregon War Veterans Association (OWVA) publicly announced its decision to file a lawsuit against Western Oregon University (WOU) for its violation of the Second Amendment right to carry a gun and its decision to expel veteran Marine, Jeff Maxwell. The university suspended Maxwell for a year upon discovering he carried a concealed handgun onto campus.

Read the rest of the story here on the OWVA blog

One should not be required to obtain a license or pass a government-administered test to exercise any constitutionally-protected civil right. If the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s taught us anything, it is that all civil rights are sacred, one is no less important than another, and all of them are worth defending because a threat to one puts all rights in peril.

Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week as well as an excellent holster maker.

The full news release is available from the doi.gov website. I think (IANAL) this becomes a law as soon as it is published in the Federal Register — which seems like a silly way to do things, but they are the Federal Government after all. They don’t have to make sense.

“The Department believes that in managing parks and refuges we should, as appropriate, make every effort to give the greatest respect to the democratic judgments of State legislatures with respect to concealed firearms,” said Laverty. “Federal agencies have a responsibility to recognize the expertise of the States in this area, and federal regulations should be developed and implemented in a manner that respects state prerogatives and authority.”

I can only hope that this isn’t the last victory before the Obama administration starts stripping away our rights again.

The NRA has an announcement on this, as does the CCRKBA.