Tag Archives: guns

Mundane gun stuff

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I picked up a Thompson Encore package back in December at the Hamilton gun show. For reasons that make no sense, I’ve always liked the little single shot Contenders and the Encore scales things up to take real rifle calibers. Play your cards right and you can make a very lightweight rifle. For example, I have a Contender carbine in a Choate stock with a 19″ .30-30 barrel and it barely weighs five pounds.

The package I bought last December was for a .50 muzzleloading barrel and a 7mm Rem. Mag. barrel. I had no use for either barrel but I did have use for the Leupold scopes that were on them. I figured sooner or later I could wheel-n-deal into something I wanted. Today was that day.

First up was a 26″ .308 Win. barrel.Ā  Very useful since I canĀ  hunt pretty much anything with it, it shares ammo commonality with my CZ .308, Ruger Scout, Mauser FR8, and a half dozen PTR-91’s. But the other barrel…a 16″ .357 Mag barrel that is threaded. And since I have a few 9mm suppressors laying about this will make a delightful little suppressed backpack gun.

For whatever reason, the guys who made the barrel threaded it at 5/8-24 rather than the usual 1/2-28. I’ll order up a 5/8-24 tri-lug adaptor and this thing will get used with my Rugged Obsidian.

So….one barrel leaves, two more enter.

And, since it was the weekend, I figured I’d try and head up to the Beta Site but I was foiled by still-snowy conditions and, contrarily, some absolutely horrible mud. Post on that later.

 

Marlin Carbine II

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Right after I acquired the Marlin 45 Camp Carbine last week I put in an order with Midway. I ordered three extra 21# recoil springs and four stock buffers. It occurred to me today, as I was opening the package, that it seems I have already made up my mind about keeping this gun since ordering this many extras, and the expense involved, would suggest that ‘flipping it’ was never really part of the plan. So be it.

I’ll strip out the existing recoil spring and buffer, both of unknown age and condition, and replace them with the new. They may be just fine, but I don’t know that. They could have ten rounds in their history or they could have ten thousand. I just don’t know. So….replacements it is.

I also picked up a pic rail for it. Impulse purchase. But I bet a little red dot pistol sight like a Holosun of some flavor would be really handy on this thing.

One thing I hate about logistics is having to carry around spare parts for the life of my ownership of a gun. For example, I have a large .50 cal. ammo can with “P35” written on it in big letters. In it are spare parts, exploded diagrams, spare magazines, extra grips, extra holsters, etc, etc. And I have to keep that around for as long as I own that gun. (Yeah, technically I dont have to do anything…but if I’m holding onto a gun for the long-term it gets a support package like that.)

The Marlin was discontinued in 1999 and it’s propensity for eating stocks is a very well known issue. The treatment (because it isnt a fix) is to replace the buffer once in a while. Numbers I see call for replacing the buffer around 5,000 rounds. I don’t think I’ve shot 5,000 rounds of .45 ACP over my life. If that replacement schedule is to be believed, I’ve got enough buffers to last for 20,000 rounds and I’d surprised if I ever fire enough ammo through it to even make it to the first buffer swap.

But…maybe someday something will come across my path that I really want and the Marlin may come as trade goods. Or maybe I’ll keep it for the rest of my life. In either case, having the spares just makes the gun that much more attractive.

For those that have a Marlin carbine and haven’t laid in extras….I sourced mine from Midway and they were manufactured by Power Custom:

Marlin Carbine

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AĀ  lot of people would say the Scout rifle concept, today, is pretty useless. And that even when Copper dreamed it up it was of extraordinary limited utility. Perhaps, but I’ll go you one better. Theres another gun out there:

  • It’s too light for big game
  • Too heavy for varmints
  • Ammo too expensive to plink
  • Capacity too little for ‘serious work’

Behold, the gun no one needed but, once discontinued, everyone wanted:

Yup..its a Marlin Camp Carbine in .45 ACP. IYKYK. Right now, several of you are getting ready to tell me about the self-destructing buffers that led to stocks cracking like river ice in the spring. Way ahead of you guys. I also ordered a couple extra 21# recoil springs and several extra poly buffers.

I was minding my own business and stopped in at the gun shop on my lunch hour. This thing caught my eye because, for reasons no one seems to be able to articulate, people hold onto these things with both hands and they seldom seem to turn up on the used market. In fact, I just looked on Gunbroker and found 21 Marlin Camp Carbines and all are 9mm.

I purchased this one and it jammed when I tried to feed a round of FMJ ball into the chamber. No biggie, I know exactly what the story is. Previous owner must have disassembled it and failed to reassemble it properly. Its a ‘known bug’ that you can reassemble this thing in such a manner that the feed ramp is in the wrong position. So, I disassembled,Ā  consulted YouTube, reassembled, and things worked fine.

Im not a huge .45 ACP fan. I prefer a higher capacity magazine and I’ll take 17 rounds in a gun that fits my hand just fine versus half that many in a 1911. And while there are double stack mags out there for .45 ACP, most of them result in pistol grip sizes that are rather unwieldy for me. I will say, though, that the S&W M&P .45 do an excellent job of keeping the grip size small while accommodating a double-stack mag.

I own a lot of guns but I have exactly one .45 AARP pistol….a Springfield 1911 I bought many, manyĀ  years ago. I seldom carry it because anything worth shooting is worth shooting more than once, and a 17-rd 9mm makes me feel safer than a 7-shot 1911. However, it’s a fun gun at the range and sometimes I carry it in the woods. So I figured as long as I’m going to have a 1911 laying around I may as well have a matching carbine. So…I picked up this particular one.

Now, I should mention, I have a Ruger LC Carbine in .45 ACP and it’s not a great gun. It recoils heavily, is ergonomically awkward, and just looks stupid. It’s only claim to fame is the use of double-stack Glock .45 magazines, and the threaded barrel.

The Marlin, on the other hand, has a little bit of class, style, warmth, and charm. It’s a nice little throwback to the 1990’s. It’s a gun that doesn’t really, to me, seems to have a defined role in…anything. But somehow it has a charm to it that just makes it desirable. And we Americans have always enjoyed having a rifle/carbine combo that shared ammo. Having it share magazines as well just sweetens the deal.

Anyway, I picked this up today. Not sure if I’ll keep it in the long-term or not, but it’ll be fun to take to the range and shoot…especially beside the Ruger LC carbine. And, technically, Ruger could reintroduce these since they own Marlin. However, Ruger would be cannibalizing the sales of it’s own carbines, so its pretty solid that this will not happen.

 

Gradually and then all at once

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The brother of a coworker died last month and would I be interested in some gun stuff?

Thats how I get in trouble. But, I couldn’t say no. I won’t get into too many details about how many guns I got (cough*ten*cough), but the Beta Site now has a dedicated Marlin .45-70 (Pre-Rem) to keep around in case the bears decide that my place on the food chain needs reassessment. Or an elk decides to munch on the vegetable garden. I mean..y’know…once the place actually gets built.

(My usual bear-repellent, in longarms, is the PTR-91 with a mag full of soft-points.)

It followed me home

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A little bit of proof that not every gun I purchase is for tactical purposes.

I’ve always liked Marlin firearms over Winchester for lever guns. Sadly, Remington’s purchase of Marlin pretty much spiraled the brand into the ground. Quality went downhill in a very pronounced way. When Remington eventually imploded, Marlin got picked up by Ruger and they have done a marvelous job of bring the quality back up, as well as making some nice variations…most notably threaded barrels. (They are a bit more expensive though…but, Ruger’s gotta recover that capital outlay somehow.)

Anyway, pre-Remington Marlins bring a bit of a premium these days. I found this .30-30 336A at Selway Armory on my lunch hour. I already have a nice 336, but its a regular 20″ barrel version. This 336A has a 24″ barrel, Lyman receiver sights, and doesn’t have the annoying cross bolt safety. And Im a sucker for the long barrelled open-sighted guns. So, it came back to the office with me.

Once you get past .30-06 and .308, I think you could make an argument that .30-30 is the next most common big-game round in the US. Regardless, I just liked the looks of this long-barrelled classic. So…here we are.

Upcoming NFA tax change

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As you may know, after the first of the year the $200 transfer tax on certain NFA items (short-barreled shotguns and rifles, and suppressors) goes away. You still have the annoying background check and delays, but at least you won’t be paying $200 for the privilege.

The demand for those kinds of items (hereafter just referred to as ‘NFA items’) has always been tiny compared to the demand for non-NFA stuff. The reason, of course, is because most people don’t want to go through the hassle…this is evidenced by the fact we have ‘wrist braces’.

Since demand is usually fairly mild it’s not too hard to imagine that production rates of these NFA items is also a bit dialed back.

So, what do you think is going to happen after January 1st when theres no $200 tax to deter people anymore? Demand will go up, of course. But production rates my not be able to meet that demand. So when you go to buy a nice shiny Mojave9 or Sparrow, your dealer might say “Yeah, those are backordered.”

It makes sense that if youre of the mind to take advantage of the new rules on January 1st your strategy should probably be to order the the NFA item now, pay for it now, and have the dealer sit on it until January 1st and then do the paperwork.

 

Switching over

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The gunternet is in a bit of an excited state because it has been announced (sorta) that Glock is changing the design of their pistols in order to make them less ‘convertible’ to full-auto using the slideplade-mounted ‘switches’ that are all the rage in certain places.

Here’s the part that has me scratching my head. The Gen3 version of the Glock pistol has hit the stage where manufacturers can make, generally, copies of it. Trademark protections are still there so you can’t make the gun look like a Glock, but you can copy it down to the smallest part. We see this in the Ruger RXM, Palmetto Dagger, and a few other off-brand importers and manufacturers. Additionally, Glock-style frames are 3D printed easily enough, and aftermarket Gen3 slides and components are also well represented in the market.

So, if Glock brings out this model that is designed to be incompatible with the already-illegal ‘switches’, why wouldn’t a potential bad guy simply switch to a Glock clone that apes the Gen3 design? Or will this be the ‘camels nose under the tent’ to create a rubric where a gun has to meet some sort of arbitrary ‘convertability standard’ to be permitted into commerce? (Much like California’s current ‘approved handgun’ scheme.)

Beats me. I’ve a dozen Gen3 17’s and 19’s sitting here, as well as a dozen clones from Palmetto. I’ve never been interested in a full-auto Glock so my only dog in this fight is about the precedent it sets. If there ever comes a time I actually need a full-auto firearm..there will probably be plenty of them laying around.

But…. this is a good example of how, for totally unexpected reasons, your logistics can shift. I’m a devotee of the Gen3 Glocks…and as such I stocked all sortsa parts. Most parts are not generation-specific….Part X from a Gen3 will most likely be identical to a Part X from a Gen4 which is probably going to be identical to a Part X from a Gen5, etc, etc. Not for every single part, but for enough of them to make logistics pretty easy. Now, the man who buys a ‘V’ series Glock may discover that the last five generations of trigger bar…or striker cover…or locking block….may not work in his new pistol.

The moral here is that whatever boomtoy you plan on running through Ragnarok with should have as complete and well-thought-out logistics as you can afford – spare parts, spare mags, etc, etc. And most of the time it won’t be a problem, but sometimes something will happen and the ‘tweak’ made to a particular boomtoy suddenly renders future logistics a bit uncertain. So…don’t hesitate to buy the support material (and materiel) as soon as possible when you introduce a new gun into your life.

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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I don’t know who asked for this, but…..
Admittedly, there arent very many 10mm carbines out there, although there are more now than there used to be. Ruger just came out with one on their LC platform which is doomed for failure. HiPoint, of all people, came out with one. And there’s a few oddball AR platforms out there. But…compared to the 9mm, and even the .40, the field of 10mm carbines is pretty small.

Not sure who the market is for this thing. I mean, the natural answer is that its for the man who owns a 1omm pistol, but if I’m carrying a semi-auto 10mm Im probably want a carbine that is semi auto and takes the same mags. On the other hand, there are 10mm revolvers out there so it might make a good companion for them….but if youre going to carry a revolver and a levergun, why not . 357 or .44 instead of a boutique round for a semiauto?

Will I buy one? Probably. Just for the novelty value. But I admire RugerMarlin for trying new things.

Blast from the past

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Sometimes, if what you need isn’t available in your present, and unlikely in the future, then you’re only choice is to mine the past for it. Case in point – Mini-14 magazines.

I picked up a Mini-14 a few weeks ago and while I don’t mind buying Ruger factory mags, they are expensive and while I’ve had no problems with the twenty rounders, their thirty rounders havent always been reliable.

A few years ago Tapco came out with a Mini-14 mag that was, in my opinion, the best aftermarket Mini-14 mag available. (Keyword: available) Unfortunately, Tapco got caught up in the Remington bankruptcy and it is, for now, ‘not a going concern’.

I’ve mentioned them before, but years and years ago Eagle made some Mini-14 mags that I thought were just amazing. The Eagle mags were 35-round instead of 30, used a constant-force ‘windowshade’ spring that made loading mags a breeze, and I found them to be utterly reliable. They also havent been made since the ’94 weapons ban. I was scouring gunbroker for more Tapco mags and stumbled across a stash of NOS Eagle mags. Hmm. Okay, lets make a deal for all of them.

As I’ve said, the Mini-14 is barely on my radar as a ‘run out the door’ kind of gun. It’ll do in a pinch, but I can’t think of too many situations where I’d not have one of the three dozen AR’s sitting around here to use. But…who knows what the apocalypse is going to look like? Maybe there’ll come a time to tuck this thing in a case at the beta site with a dozen magazines. Who can say? Better to have and not need…

So, if you have a Mini-14 (or Mini-30) and you’re a little annoyed at current mag selections, I can recommend the Eagle mags if you can find them, and wholeheartedly recommend the Gen2 Tapco mags. (The Gen 2 have the still reinforcement tab at the mag lockup point.)

I should also point out that in a housecleaning frenzy the other day I discovered an old tactical vest from the late 90’s/earlt 00’s that still has six Eagle AR mags, fully loaded, in it. An excellent experiment to see how leaving a magazine loaded for 25 years winds up working out.

 

50th anniversary model Mini-14

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I’m a bit of a Ruger fan boy but it’s not really about brand loyalty, its mostly because Ruger, in my opinion and experience, makes guns that are brutally rugged and durable. And thats kind of a quality thats important to me. I love me some Smith and Wesson, but I think that, over a lifetime of medium- and heavy-handloads, the Ruger product will hold up better. Is it as nicely finished as the Smith? No. Is it bulkier than the Smith? Usually. But when handguns have been illegal for twenty years and getting spare parts is not part of the equation any more, I suspect Ruger will the the boomtoy that’s still chugging along.

And before anyone chimes in, yeah Bill Ruger stabbed gun owners in the back. But..he’s been dead for almost 25 years and every restrictive policy he had has been quietly relegated to the dustbin of corporate history. If you really want to boycott Ruger from something from 25 years ago, be my guest…but be consistent. Smith collaborated with the feds on restrictive firearms policies too. And Colt knocked the bayonet lugs off their AR’s long before the 1994 Assault Weapons ban. So..be consistent.

Anyway, I’ve always had a fascination with the Mini-14. Back in the day, if you wanted a .223 (or 5.56) carbine to face down the invading Red hordes with, you were either gonna have a Colt AR or a Mini-14. (Yes, there were other .223’s out there…Valmet, HK, etc….but they were rare and expensive exceptions). The Mini-14, back in those days, was the cheaper alternative to the AR. Nowadays it is wildly reversed with a regular Mini-14 dealering out at around 1/3 to 1/2 again as expensive as a mid-tier AR.

But…I’ve always kinda like the Mini-14 for its old-world style. As such, I couldn’t resist but pick up Rugers 50th anniversary model of the Mini.

The walnut stock is a nice touch. Unfortunately, with the demise of Tapco, the number of readily avaialble, and reliable, aftermarket mags has dropped to zero. Fortunately I stocked up on the Tapco’s when I had the chance. And, with a carefully thought out buying plan, I can probably swing a factory mag or two every month for the next year or so.

Does this thing do anything better than an AR? Well, it flies under the radar a little better, but thats about it. But, not every gun has to be for serious situations. Still, while it would never be my first choice for running out the door, there are far worse choices. Nah, this thing is just for fun and a bit of nostalgia…although, I suppose if worst comes to worst, it could be pressed into yeoman service and do the job.

By the by, I guarantee you that the comments will include something about how someone bought a Mini-14 in 1989 and couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn if they were standing in it. The oderl Mini’s definitely had a reputation for….shall we say….’questionable accuracy’. However, the new barrel design and assembly has alleviated that problem. To my old eyes, its about as accurate as an open sighted AR.

This’llĀ  be the last Mini-14 I buy unless I come across a used one at a very good price. These things are simply too expensive for what they are to buy new. But…I really liked the looks of this one with its walnut stock, M1 sling setup, flash hider, and bayo lug.