Quiet night here at Rancho Ballistica. I napped during the day so I am taking advantage of the quiet (girlfriend is off rousting bad guys) to put away accumulated gear that has, well, accumulated. See, new gear is always showing up…magazines, knives, backpacks, freezedrieds, ballistic nylon of some kind or another, books, radios, etc, etc. Its supposed to get squared away in the bunker but many times it winds up sitting next to my computer as I play with it and look for interent aricles/reviews about it. (or write some as the case may be.) After a few weeks of this, the computer room starts to look like the bunker. So, Im resolving to get a handle on this and get most of this gear put away.
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Found someone who may want to take my FAL and some mags for a decent price. If this occurs, I’ll be picking up another PTR for the girldriend. (However, I will be getting the telestock version for compactness in storage.) This means that Ill also have to order up another fifty mags but at around $1.75 that isnt too bad a hardship. Speakig if the PTR, I have eight battlepacks of SA on the way to squirrel away specifically to feed my lovely new Evil Black Rifle. Notice that surplus .308 is a bit hard to find lately? Plenty of .30-06 floating around though…..
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Started watching the new season of ‘Jericho’ today. The first ep of the new season was basically a rehash of all of last season as told in flashback. What those in the trade would call a ‘bottle episode’. The second ep of the season, however, shines alot more info into my favorite character, Robert Hawkins. So, Im still interested in the series and will be watching it regularly for the rest of the season. All hail TiVo!
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REMINDER: Stripped AR lowers – get ’em while you can.

I had a long post about the re-appearance of bird flu in the media all ready to go but, as events would have it, I felt more compelled to comment on a few gun-centric things.

Firearms are usually the dominant image people have when they think of preparedness. The image of the pot-bellied camouflaged middle-aged man with an assault rifle shooting at his neighbors from behind his porch. The fact is that, for better or worse, guns have an undeniable place in being prepared and that means that sometimes people who are heavily into being prepared are going to seem to harp on guns an awful lot. One reason I mention them so often is that there are very few preparations you can make that are as conditional as your ability to acquire firearms. There usually isn’t any legislation floating around restricting how many freezedrieds you can buy, how much first aid gear you can own, prevent you from buying kerosene lamps through the mail, etc, etc. But if youre going to buy firearms and firearms related items, its entirely possible to wake up one morning and find that youre prohibited from buying mags, ammo and guns.

So, I harp on it….because if you don’t buy the things you need when you can youre gonna hate yourself when you need them and cant get them…especially when they jump in price by orders of magnitude. Don’t think so? I just paid $172 for 100 HK91 mags that, ten years ago, would probably have cost me several thousand dollars.

Which brings us to today. Last week a noted gunwriter shot himself in the foot and said that the evil black rifles have no place in a hunters life and should be banned from the hunting fields by responsible state game agencies. (He is, as we speak, now unemployed on several levels.) His statement was picked up by the antigun people and used to say ‘See? Even gun owners think these things have no place in a civilized world!’ (Im not going to recount the whole story…you can find it everywhere in the blogosphere by searching for ‘zumbo’ and ‘outdoor life’ on most gun boards and Yahoo).

Then HR1022 is making the rounds. It’s a bill that brings back the Clinton assault weapons ban and adds even more nasty provisions. The fact that this is even being considered should be warning to all foresighted individuals.

If you don’t have all the “high capacity” magazines you can forsee needing for the next thirty years, you need to get them now. Ditto for evil black rifles. I just spent a half hour hunting down used 9mm LEO Glock mags and they are not to be found. New mags are available but I guarantee you that their availability will be changing as people start stocking up ‘just in case’. Feeling youre set because you’ve got four mags for your Beretta 92 is going to seem very shortsighted in the near future.

I really cannot stress strongly enough that if you were planning on buying an AR, AK, FAL or similar gun and magazines you should advance your timetable and get what you can now. If HR 1022 dies on the vine, as can very easily happen, all you’ve done is purchase things that you were going to buy anyway…and if it does come to pass, you’ll be forever pleased that you beat the deadline.

I learned my lesson after the sunset of the original AW ban in 2004. While I made damn sure to pick up as much as I could, I never really had as much as I want. Honestly, I could use another couple dozen mags for the AR and AK and at least a couple dozen Glock mags..(esp. since we have multiple Glocks and AR’s floating around here.)

If you cant afford a nice shiny new AR at the moment, you might wanna think about jumping in on the stripped AR lower group buy that Im managing.

Not a bandwidth killer, but not dialup’s best friend either

So tomorrow I’ll go out and vet the PTR-91. I actually used to own a genuine HK93 carbine when I was a kid. It was a fantastic gun. Never bobbled a round and took abuse like a trailerpark housewife. Sadly, mags were prohibitively expensive even twenty years ago. So, I traded it off for a CAR-15 since mags were only $5. I wonder where that gun is today. It’s the first gun I ever regretted trading off. Sure, there are others I’ve regretted trading off since then but that was the first one. Price? Guy had it for sale in the paper…for $600 I could have had either that or the Uzi. I took the HK figuring it was more practical in terms of accuracy and range.

So why the PTR-91? Well, the CETMEs and various HK clones cobbled together by outfits like Century (especially Century) and Hesse have left me cold. Reviews are mixed but usually negative. On the other hand the PTR’s seem to be getting a good reputation and after examining one it seems like a solid gun. More importantly, I feel that if I have a problem with it the GunPimp will work with me to get it resolved or refund my money. So, just like drugs, it pays to know your dealer.

Anyway, HK91 mags are less than $2 so for $100 I can have at least fifty mags. Put that in another perspective – $100 gets you:

4 M1A mags (if youre lucky)
7 AR-15 mags (new or used)
10 AK-47 mags
10 Ruger 10/22 25-rd. mags
20 FAL used mags (from DSA)
50 HK91 mags

Of course, its not exactly as clear cut a ratio as you would think. To be able to buy the $2 mags you have to buy a $1000 rifle. So which is the better value? The $1000 rifle that takes a $2 magazine or the $500 carbine that takes a $10 magazine? Cant say because then other issues come into play …reliability, ergonomics, parts availability, power, penetration, etc.

So, and I’m sure you can see this conclusion coming, its really subjective. I like the idea of plunking down the greenbacks and in ‘one fell swoop’ getting my magazine supply needs completely filled with excellent condition OEM mags for one crisp $100 bill. In actuality, it’ll be more like 70 mags for $100 but I like round numbers.

So the plan for tomorrow? The good Captain will be bring his genuine pre-ban HK91 and some accessories for it. Ammo will be out of an SA battle pack. We’ll shoot for groups using his HK claw mount with a Leupold of some type in it. Objective is to see if, given same scope and mount, both rifles will shoot groups of equal size. After that it’ll be open sights at fifty yards. Then swapping parts (such as stocks, slings, etc..swapping bolts is never a good idea). Of course, comparative functioning and reliability will be observed as well….distance of ejected brass, perceived recoil, etc, etc.

The Captain was also nice enough to turn me onto a few websites for spare parts and the like. Although the HK has a reputation for handling neglect and not breaking (“The Mexican army carries them if that tells you anything!” – Bostons Gun Bible) I would like to err on the side of caution and I don’t mind spending another $50 for a firing pin, a buncha springs and some pins.

I very much hope this rilfe compares favorably against the genuine article. I want to like it.