Had a new member (and new shooter) at the range a week ago ask me to take a look at his newly purchased Ruger MkIII.

He couldn’t seem to get decent groups with it. So, being the helpful sort that I am, I loaded up some of his  .22 LR and stepped up to the the firing line (who doesn’t like to shoot someone else’s gun with their ammo?????).

I shot poorly with his new firearm too….like 6 inch groups at 50 feet. (I normally shoot 2 inch or so groups).

This brand new firearm had the most atrocious trigger I have ever seen in a Ruger firearm. Creep, slack, and enough grit to seem like it had been dropped on a beach….several times….like dragging a brick over gravel.  A trigger that broke like warm oatmeal…Now, I own several Ruger products and they, like most production guns, can often use a bit of work in the trigger department, but I have never seen one that was so bad that the gun was all but unshootable out of the box.

Detail stripping showed that this was not the most well finished firearm that Ruger has ever produced. Tool marks galore on the inside of the frame, the bolt needed polishing to function smoothly, the trigger group stampings were only marginally (if at all) polished, the pivot pins and their respective holes were…less than what one might expect from Ruger. Likely there will be an aftermarket trigger in this gun’s future, as the trigger group was so bad that it is likely that polishing the mating faces enough to make a good break will result in an unsafe trigger. Basically, this gun is a piece of crap.

While it is possible that this is a one off gun, made on a Friday afternoon and passed by QC on a hungover Monday morning, I think that it is indicative of the fact that Ruger is pushing their wares out the factory door as quickly as possible…even to the detriment of quality.

I do find it sad that they are selling substandard products. I think that it will, eventually, hurt them. Cosmetics are one thing, functionality is another.

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My favorite meat animals eat nothing but plants.

Unverified, but interesting.

Read.

If true, it explains a LOT about our money issues.

I am. apparently, “Neutral Good“….on this test.

Funny, I thought I was more evil than that.

Guess I am getting mellow as I age.

How is your alignment?

via

Seems that one of the cops shot in the “exchange of gunfire” the night that the ‘splodey Tsarnevs got cornered and “Suspect #2” drove over “Suspect #1” (the elder brother), was likely shot by one of his brother officers.

Now, this is NOT an indictment of the police at the scene. Things got really, really sideways really fast, and they followed their training. Sadly, one of their fellow officers got hit by friendly fire. Luckily, he survived, but barely.

High energy, armed BOMB trowing suspects…in the dark.

Just shows how quickly things can go wrong.

The elixir or life….

If true, I should live to 217 yeas old…..

(and it appears that it is)

Then things like this make it important that you get a prepaid cell phone and pay cash for it now. Make sure that the batteries for that phone are removable. Activate it, make sure it works. Do so as far from your home and work area as possible. Take the batteries out of the phone.Don’t get a smart phone, get a really simple dumb one (or two or three).

Have your friends do so as well. Do so now, so that any video records at the store are overwritten before you need to use them.

Exchange numbers (but write them down, don’t program them into the phones) and keep the minutes paid up. NEVER call anything but another throwaway phone from your “burn phone”. Ever.

Refresh them with cash (yearly if possible) as far away from your home as possible)

Take (and keep) the batteries out  of the phone.

Just in case.

You’ll probably never need ’em, but what is $20 a month for secure, untraceable-to-you communication?

(You can be tracked, but not until you put the battery back into the phone).

Think of getting a “one time pad” setup….like paperback books, for coded texts. (google it if you don’t know what I mean). Might come in handy.

You’ll likely only be able to use those particular phones for a few days, if and when. Maybe a week or two at most. Set up a code word that you can text to people of like minds to alert them that you will be using your new phone and leaving your old one. Never use the new phone at your home. Never even close to you home. Never put the batteries in the new phone anywhere near your home or work. Once the new phone is powered up, there is a record of it’s location and movement.

And remember this:
Never say anything on any phone that you don’t want recorded and reviewed by the government. Never write anything on the internet or in an email that you don’t want read by the government. Only communications face to face are (sort of) secure…And that is iffy if someone cares to pay attention to you and the people you meet with..

Yeah, I am paranoid.
I have reason to be.
Now you do too.

I only hope that the feds have bigger, badder people to look at, and I get lost in the clutter.

Via Wirecutter

Via Insty,

I’ve come to realize after the Sandy Hook shooting that the reason we can’t have a rational gun debate is because the anti-gun side pre-supposes that their pro-gun opponents must first accept that guns are bad in order to have a discussion about guns in the first place.

And that is exactly the issue.  You cannot “have a conversation” or Compromise” or “come to an agreement” when the other side cannot respect, if not agree with the other side’s point of view.

But really, no matter what we agree to, they’ll just move the goalposts and try again.

’cause statistically, they are the most likely to use ’em for nefarious purposes…….

But I bet that they waste countless man hours checking NRA members and such.

ATF offers $5k reward for information.…..

Wonder how big a pressure cooker you need for all that?