Genghis

Apply for a grant through the Friends of NRA State Fund Committee. They meet once a year to split up the local half of the money raised in Louisiana during the previous year. NRA lists Dick Kingsafer <jkingsafer@nrahq.org> as your field rep. He helps coordinate the local banquets and presents the grant requests to the state fund committee. FNRA gives a bunch of its money to 4-H Shooting Sports (more than half of the money raised in the North Texas area). The committees only meet once a year, though. It would really help if your 4-H people had a presence on the local FNRA committee and helped organize the banquet. PM me if you want more info. I've been involved with FNRA since 1993, including serving on the N TX State Fund Committee.

True when you look at the Penal Code, but there is a LOT of discretion in a self-defense case. You have to believe your use of force is immediately necessary to protect yourself against deadly force or one of a specified list of crimes. Your belief has to be reasonable. You may in some circumstances be required to retreat instead of using force. These elements leave a lot of room for someone to go after you. The prosecutor can go to the grand jury and spin it to try to get an indictment, or to try to get a no-bill. The grand jury (or petit jury for that matter) can focus on one minute detail and use it to conclude that you weren't acting legitimately in self-defense. An unfavorable judge can admit or exclude evidence and affect the outcome, or can subtly hint to the jury how he thinks the case should come out. If you're "judged by twelve," the attitudes of those twelve will strongly affect your future. And keep in mind that while Texas is generally pretty gun-friendly, like every state, it has pockets of people who are dead set against your right to defend yourself.

If the part of Texas you live in is anti-gun, or even neutral, you might want to go with something more mundane. Don't want to take a chance on a jury thinking you were just waiting for the chance to go Rambo on some poor underprivileged guy who had to do some self-help redistribution of wealth to balance out social injustice.

Thanks, guys. Could be either one. The bullet may be a bit bigger than 7 mm - it barely fit in the 7 mm circle. The casing seems to be very thick, and almost has a reverse crimp (belled out). All in all, it's a peculiar looking little fellow.

A friend had a rimfire cartridge I haven't seen before. He found it with his mother's things after she passed. The bullet diameter is around 7 mm. The cartridge is entirely unmarked. The cartridge diameter is around 8.5 mm, and OAL is about 30 mm, 19 mm of which is the casing. I'd like to ID this so my friend continues to revere me as a gun guy. Any ideas? I have a few other pics if it would help.

Shooting against Harmon as he works his way up the ranks, I feel like the "other player" on the Michael Jordan posters. ; - )

I love my Glock and my 1911s - kind of like blondes and brunettes.

A friend of mine who came out and shot his first match on Sunday asked me about this. My first reaction was that you'd have to crouch to reach the gun, which would slow you way down. My second reaction was that if they worked, someone would have won with one, and everyone would be using them. He suggested that it might put the gun right by your hand, thus eliminating motion. If he's right, instead of "Up - Grab - Present," you'd just have "Grab - Present." Anyone try this?

I had a battery die during a trip. Stopped by a local Cingular store, and bought a battery. The local guy talked Cingular into giving me a credit to pay for it!

The kicker is, if they can't produce the agreement, they'll have a hard time fighting you in court. I'm sure they have a clause in there that chooses some remote court in the event of a dispute. Doesn't help them if they can't put their hands on it!

Or, "WARNING - EXIT ONLY!" on the inside of a door. Or, "This page intentionally left blank." No, it isn't!

When do they play Boise State?

The two stories do have some things in common . . .

PPK is his trademark. How 'bout a highly customized one? Docter sight, some sort of carry comp, maybe converted to a better caliber. If not a PPK, it has to be something exotic. Five seveN?

Ruger Mk II with a bull barrel has done very well for me. If I was buying now, I'd buy the Mk III with fluted barrel and fiber optic sight. Also, the Russian IZH-35M is a helluva gun. Mine is super accurate, and I got it for around $300 new. Have had a few reliability issues, though.

Try this guy: http://www.michaelkelsey.com/ He won the 2004 Guitarmageddon contest and was named the best unsigned guitar player, and played at Clapton's Crossroads festival in Dallas. Without a band, and with an acoustic, he absolutely stole the show. Basically plays drums on the guitar, while playing it as a guitar and singing. Reminds you of Bugs Bunny with the one man band setup.

DO NOT plan on reloading the American Ammo (A-MERC) brass. I tried that about a year ago when I got my first Open gun, and had all kinds of velocity variation. OAL was varying hugely, and I kept tinkering with the 550 to try to fix it (adjusting the seating, crimping, etc.). Finally I noticed that the bullets were very loose in the cartridges, to the point where you could often pull the bullet with thumb and forefinger. This brass is not reloadable.

USPSA makes an introductory video. Supposedly it got sent to every club. I haven't seen it.

My dad and I both had Radians Pro Amps electronic muffs. I like the electronics very much. But both of ours went bad after a year or two, possibly from sweat messing up the electronics. I bought another set and they broke in the middle the first time I put them on. If the piece that goes over the head was made of metal, I'd drive to the store and buy another set today.

I use a Starter windbreaker that's slightly longer than waist-length, with my keys in the right pocket. I hit the keys with the heel of my hand, and they stay swung out of the way til I have the heater out. Only problem is that it gets a little hot in the Texas summers. [EDITED TO ADD:] I thought about getting a vest then using electrical tape to spell out "HE'S GOT A GUN!" on the back and to add a big arrow pointing down on the right side, and maybe a target on the front. But I figured that would be redundant.

I looked at one at Area 4 (I had a lot of time since I DQ'd after 1 1/2 stages!). The STI guy told me the frame is made by Armscor, and the only fitting done by Armscor is the barrel (I don't remember if Armscor makes the barrel). All the internal parts are made by STI, and all the rest of the fitting is done by STI. There was very little play in the slide. Trigger seemed pretty crisp. At $670 MSRP it seems like a no-brainer. And at this point I feel like an authority on no-brainers.

Interesting that the poll omits 0%.

A friend and I set up a short field course this weekend so we could do a demo for some boys during a special hunting weekend. We used NRA targets intended for .22's at 50 feet (about 8" by 8"). During my run I had a Mike but made it up pretty smoothly. During the drive home I was listening to the podcast of Brian on Matt Burkett's radio show, and they talked about calling your shot. I have always understood what calling your shot means - it's just knowing where the shot will go based on where the sights are pointed when the shot breaks. But I've struggled with putting it into practice. Once in a while, if I concentrate, I can actually see the shot lift then drop back into place. That makes it much easier to break the shot the instant the sight is centered on the A zone. I can't yet do this consistently, even when I concentrate. I know that I often have a target focus rather than a front sight focus. So when I shoot, my sight picture includes a clear view of the target with an unfocused shape of the gun and sights superimposed. That means I don't have much visual confirmation that the sights are aligned - I have to rely on grip and feel, which isn't precise enough. Sometimes I start with a target focus, then shift to the front sight as the gun swings onto target, then look back to the target after the shot to see where the shot landed. Shooting at those small .22 targets this weekend, I simply did not trust my shooting enough to look from the front sight to the next target. I made up that shot because I looked back at the target and saw the miss, but I probably would have cut a couple seconds off my time if I'd known where the shot was going when it broke without having to look back. At least I know what to work on. Thanks, Matt and Brian. BTW, if you haven't listened to Matt's shows, you need to grab them. It's like having this forum on your MP3 player. Much more interesting than whatever's on the local radio station.

“Okay, you win the pissing contest . . . [bLAM!] . . . and I win the shooting.” - From the movie “Gunshy” by Oliver Plat, as he shot the guy’s testicle off from the next urinal

I thought this was going to be another joke: One morning at breakfast, a boy seems to enter into a trance, and says, "On June 20, my mother will die. On June 30, my father will die." At the time the parents just laughed it off. On June 20, they wake up and the mother is laying in bed, dead. The father freaks out. Quits going to work, stops showering, lives like an animal as he awaits his fate. On June 30, he wakes up. Shocked, he pinches himself, and runs through the house yelling, "I'm alive! I'm alive!" Then he opens the front door to get the newspaper, and the milkman is laying there, deader than a hammer.