Guns, Hunting, and anything else remotely related...

Lol, whenever you said that I was picturing myself drivin on this TX road listenin to Lenerd Skinnerd (Lynyrd Skynyrd) on my way back to good ole Alabam' lol

Yes, many people cannot understand how big Texas is.... you can drive for a couple of hours and still be in the same county..

Here in the metroplex, when people ask how far something is, the reply is in time, not miles, though. It might be 10miles away, but a 40 minute drive.

Now, when you get out in west Texas, the roads go on forever.... the temptation to, um, bend the speed limit is overwhelming. I'll be cruising along at 75-82 mph (limit is 75) and people FLY past me, looking at me like I'm having car trouble..

People fly past me when Im doing 75-80 on the freeways here but its because there's never any cops around.

I have packages coming in Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week. My 10/22 receiver, my trigger assembly, and my BX-25 magazines. I hope to have a functional weapon by the end of next weekend. Then, the fun can begin:

[video=youtube;0zpPiQbbL0g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zpPiQbbL0g[/video]

Bullpup is together. I have some issues to sort out. Failure to extract, failure to feed primarily. Frustrating.

At least it looks cool. Hope I can get it working right.

I've been getting my Dad's rifle set up. No more than he can get around, I don't know why he wants a rifle, but he does so it's fallen to me to get it set up for him. The optics came in today for his rifle, and it's a combination of a red dot sight and a 3x magnifier. Somewhat of a pain to get set up in terms of eye relief and focus, but it's kind of a nice package all things said.

I've wondered how those magnifiers work.... does it pivot down out of the way when no mag is needed?

This magnifier came with a solid, Weaver-compatible mount that sits right behind the red dot sight. I guess a person could loosen the thumb-screw and remove the magnifier if they wanted to. The only thing I don't particularly like about the magnifier is that since it magnifies everything, it takes what is normally a crisp, well-defined dot and makes it into a large, kind of fuzzy blob. Also, the brightness a person uses on no magnification is sometimes way too bright when magnified. It's not my rifle though and I don't have to use it, so as long as the old man is happy, that's fine by me.

My red dot, and old tasco propoint has a range of dot intensities... I wonder if you went to the lowest intensity would make the dot any clearer when magnified?

I had thought about a magnifier, but if it's going to blur out the dot, I'm not going to do that.

Lower intensity brightness is definitely a must when magnifying. Usually, the old man has the brightness way up on 9 or 10, but he can see it just fine at 4 and 5 without it being too globular looking. Now take into account, the red dot he's using is not some Trijicon or Aimpoint that has very high quality glass.

I might check into one... My red dot is ok for general shooting out to at least 100yds, but it's definitely not for "precision" shooting. I might put it back on the AR, since I know now what accuracy the rifle is capable of.... which is why I put the scope on it in the first place. The dot is much quicker for close-up stuff...

I did manage to follow up on my 10/22 barrel woes... the Mag Research barrel wouldn't group much smaller than 1 3/4" at 50yds... no joy. On Wed afternoon, I put the factory tapered barrel on the same setup... same stock, scope, etc... And once I got it hitting at point of aim, I shot about 6 or 7 groups, most 5 rounds, but a couple of 10 round groups. All groups were 1" or under, with the best one being .55" for 5 shots. One of the 10 round groups was 9 into .75" with one "operator error" flier that opened it up to 1"....

I'm very pleased with the factory barrel, and have initiated email discussions with Mag Research as to what they will do about their barrel...

Here's the target... my buddy Shane shot the group in the lower right... his first time to shoot that rifle...

Here is a pic of the set up on the Savage A17:

...and just because I absolutely love my bullpup, here's a picture of it from today after mounting my compact scope on it's rail:

The bullpup looks good... did you get the issues worked out yet? CDNN had a sale on Ruger 25rd mags... two of them for about $30... I got two, but haven't tried them out yet.

I had a savage 17HMR bolt action, but just never could get excited about the caliber. An autoloader might be another story...
except for the ammo cost, of course...

The issues with the bullpup were kind of a silly affair. With that aftermarket barrel having a nice and tight Bentz chamber, cycling ammo under a non-fire condition resulted in the bullet being pulled from the casing just a bit. Under a live-fire situation, the weapon functions absolutely flawlessly. I've already shot through my supply of 22lr and need to track down some more.

Ammo prices are ridiculous, and I own among the cheapest calibers with my 22lr, 223, 9mm, 45ACP. Guys who shoot long-distance competitions with 6.5 Creedmoor or other rather exotic calibers obviously have more disposable income than I do.

I'm finding CCI MiniMags at Academy for $7.99 a box/100.... That's do-able for me.

I load for my .45 acp and my .38sp, but have been buying 9mm when it's on sale. I usually find it for around $10-11 a box. I'm set up to load the 9mm, but it's so cheap to buy, that's usually what I do.

I also load for the .223, since fmj ammo is not allowed at the range I go to....

Reloading is something I am curious about learning to do. I think it's a skill set that would serve me well when I go off-grid. Anything that increases my independence I see as a positive thing.

Absolutely...get a good manual that explains the basics, and if you know an experienced reloader that you trust, get them to walk through it with you.
Its not difficult, you simply need to be detail oriented, and able to follow a "recipe".

Definitely a great off-grid "prepper" type skill. Even better if you learn to cast your own bullets..

I've got some bits and bobs coming my way for my 1911 and once they show up, I will have upgraded that pistol as far as I can justify.

Having a full-size, steel framed pistol is nice, and it makes me look at my baby Glock in a sad way. I still want a good 9mm, so I think I'm going to start keeping my eyes peeled for a Beretta 92.

Welp. Gonna go pick up the newest edition to my gun collection tomorrow. The Hi-point .45 has got to be the ugliest gun I've ever seen, but it was so cheap, and I hear they are reliable as they come. We shall see.