Remington .223
info HERE
Recall of ammo
2
Calling out the liars
Yes, they do that. Debunking a debunker.
Worth the read. Interesting how some folks twist things to make themselves look good, innit?
Underwhelmed/Para update #2
I called Para again at 11:45 am Central time, since they did not call me back.
This time, I spoke to an actual person. This time my experience was actually good.
He offered to send me a new extractor. I accepted, as this is the easiest and fastest way for me to return the pistol to operation. He apologized for the failure, and also offered to send me new springs for my other LDA carry.
This is the sort of service one would expect. No issues, no problems, and no hassles. Helpful and friendly. Beyond the minimum.
Sadly though, it took 3 phone calls to get it. He did apologize for the failure to return my call, and said that they (Para) were training new customer service reps. IMO, I SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO CLL THEN MORE THAN ONCE. But I did. Hopefully, this is the end of things.
Hopefully, having given him model and serial number, they will send me the correct part.
Updates as appropriate. But you can bet that this WILL have an influence on my next purchase. (and I buy 2+ pistols and rifles a year, on average….)
Now if only they would give precise instructions as to the takedown of the LDA system, life would be perfect.
y’know
Now that things are “settling” in Japan…That is to say that the situation is stabilising….Those who are homeless have been brought to/found shelter and those who still have a home or shelter are learning to deal with no or intermittent electrical power and other utilities… All while the nights are below freezing.
Anyway, one thing I am reading reports of is that stores, even stores in the areas which are not housing refugees from the tsunami affected areas, are beginning to run low on food. Gasoline is, by all accounts hard to come by.Emergency rations are being…rationed. Only children and elderly are getting food right now in some shelters.
This is the reason that preps such as a weeks worth of food. and perhaps a few days worth of water are important. The Japanese society and government are well organized and will soon, no doubt, have the distribution of food and water and fuel quickly reorganized. Major roads will soon be passable. People in shelters will no doubt be clothed and fed very soon. Stores will soon be stocked. Gasoline will soon be available, even if it is rationed. But this sort of disaster recovery takes time: days, even weeks.
But in the meantime, those “lucky” folks not in shelters without food in the house or water stored, or a supplemental means of heating their house will be having issues. What do you do when your food runs out and the stores are empty? Or when the water distribution system is damaged by the earthquake and you are thirsty? I guess you just wait in misery until the system is fixed.
Or, you open your previously stocked emergency supplies and are comfortable until the system returns. If nothing else, you can help others until the authorities get organized and up to speed.
Or you can wait and be miserable until the stores are restocked. If they are.
You are stocked for a week or so, aren’t you?
If not, why not?
and they wonder
Underwhelmed
Called Para at 8:35 AM central time. Their system is set up so you have to leave a message and they will call you back. 🙁 ….I left a detailed message and a phone number.
Now they don’t promise you when they will call back, and so at 4:30 central time I called them back…same message. Perhaps tomorrow.
I am underwhelmed. It would have been nice to get a real person to speak to the first time……Failing that, a return phone call would have been nice…Perhaps they have had a great deal of calls as this is a Monday.
Either way, it strikes me as less than desirable levels of customer service.
Now I have to expect them to call back when I will not be able to answer. I do, after all, sometimes have to work and all that.
This, again, sucks.
On Penetration:
Once upon a time……many years ago, someone, I will not use his name (I promised), had an ND (Negligent Discharge*) happen in my house. Luckily, no one was hurt, nothing was damaged, and things went forward….
This Sunday, I finished removing the old carpeting from that room. As the bullet from the ND had never been found, and no exit or other bullet hole had ever been found, it was assumed that it was somewhere in the floor……I found it today.
The bullet, which was a 200 grain lead semi-wadcutter, was lodged in the particle board underlayment, beneath the carpeting and padding. I was actually surprised to find that the bullet had not penetrated farther.
Actual penetration (at a very shallow angle) was just under 3/4 of an inch.
This was a reload, 200g LSWC, loaded to about 750 FPS. I would have thought that it would be able to penetrate the floor, even at this angle….
But nope. just made it to the layer of plywood under the particle board….and it was between the joists. The plywood backing the particle board is also 3/4 inch… I really would have expected the bullet to have penetrated the flooring and gone into the basement.
The bullet was surprisingly un-deformed. I could load it and shoot it again, I think.
But I’ll keep it instead, as a reminder to be careful and always follow the Rules…Or I might send it to that person, perhaps cast in acrylic, just as a memento… and as a reminder of how stupid lucky we were that day that no one was hurt.
Lesson learned that day. One neither of us will ever forget.
—————————————————————————————————————
* ND (Negligent) rather than AD (Accidental) because the person, could have been anyone, even me….was field stripping an XD and when they pulled the trigger to get the slide off the frame, found out that they had not checked the chamber enough times…..
Para update
It’s broke.
As I wrote here, it died at 437 rounds.
The end (claw) of the extractor broke off. I am hoping that Para will just send me a new one. It’ll be easier (and likely faster) to strip the slide and repair/replace the thing than to send it back to them and wait for them to decide to fix it. It’s not like replacing the part will be hard to do or anything. This is a part of normal cleaning after every 300-500 rounds or so anyway…
I am disappointed though. I had expected better from Para. I own several other firearms from them, and some of these have round counts nearing 10,000, with nothing breaking, and only new recoil springs after 5,000 rounds or so.
This is a failure that should not have happened. And it shakes my belief that Para makes a good firearm. Perhaps the complaints about Para letting quality slide have some merit. Then again, maybe this was a fluke…. I dunno…. I have the alloy framed brother of this pistol, and it has 5,800 rounds through it with no issues, and no parts besides the aforementioned recoil spring(s). Below is the broken extractor, still in the slide:
 |
|||||
| Broken extractor (click to embiggenize) |
and another view:
 |
| broken extractor 2 (click to embiggenize) |
And here is the extractor from the other LDA, unbroken…Just so you can see what it should look like (this one has extracted over 5800 rounds with no issues):
 |
| unbroken extractor (klick to make big) |
This is why we should shoot our carry firearms. Not only practice……Find the weak link, and either get it fixed, or replace the pistol…or learn when to change parts that break regularly BEFORE they break when you really really need them (such as recoil springs).
The issue is that had this broken anywhere outside of the range, this could have been very serious. This was not something that could be fixed with “tap, rack, bang“. Failure drills do not fix this sort of issue. Essentially, this is (right now) an expensive single shot firearm until I get it fixed.
I hope I never need my firearm…I hope I never shoot it except on a range of some sort, and only in practice. But should I need it to, I want it to go Bang every time I pull the trigger….Not fail like this one did.
This sucks. And then I gotta shoot it some more (and then some more after that) to verify reliability after it is fixed.
Just got back
…….And re-tuned into the news cycle. Was out of decent contact with any real news except for radio, which was somewhat less than overwhelming in its coverage of….well, anything really useful. (All I had was net news via a cell phone, and I was driving, so reading news wasn’t really an option).
I am watching coverage as to just how badly the forces of nature have kicked the Japanese people in the testicles.
I hope they find most of the missing and that they don’t starve nor end up glowing in the dark due to the ever escalating issues at their nuclear power plants. The fact that they are flooding the reactor(s) with seawater (and by some reports, seawater deliberately contaminated with boron) tells me that they have a real emergency and are willing to write off the plants in order to prevent a catastrophe. This could be bad. Even for us in a few days.
This incident (yeah, I know to them it is a catastrophe, but to the rest of the world, it is just an incident) shows exactly why I preach (and practice) preparation for emergencies. Yeah, some folks have had their homes washed away, and therefore even if they had prepped, they would have none at this time. But many (most) still have homes, even if they are filled with foul smelling mud and water. Had those folks had preps, they’d be able to dig them out and open them and would at least have food and water for a few days or weeks. It’s better than starving or dying from dehydration.You have to be alive in order to be miserable.
Which kind of person would you rather be? one with options, or without?
How about if after that you had the additional fear of radiation? Just the not knowing (even if you were not directly affected by the destruction of the quake or were high enough that the following tsunami didn’t directly affect your home) if there was life threatening levels of radiation would affect your performance. Would you be as willing to help others?
Do you have a weeks worth of food and water? Do you have a means to detect radiation? How about durable storage of supplies? A tent or other shelter? KI/KIO3?
Bet that many folks in Japan would give you 50 times what you would pay for those things today, just to have them. Think about it.
And while you are thinking about it, thank whatever higher power(s) you believe in that it isn’t you, and that you have time to make better choices in your preps….and ask him/her/it/them to give the Japanese a bit of mercy.
Gone
Until at least Sunday morning: Funeral
more later