An excellent new web-connected gun store

My friend Dennis Badurina, of Dragon Leatherworks fame, has just updated his store to make on-line sales. The site updates itself every 15 minutes, and is as close to live-time as they can get in inventory levels and availability. They also have an e-mail notification system where folks can get a system message the instant that something comes back in stock and is available

 

Everything from the distributor ships free, fully insured. And they don’t tack on an extra 3% credit card fee for purchases (this seems to be something that the bargain-basement places do to try to turn a profit because they are selling, literally, at three to five dollars above wholesale cost.)



Of course, Dennis still makes custom holsters and leather goods, both for consumers and for various television shows. His wife Rebecca (above), also helps with the store. Her holster is shown below — unlike cobbler’s kids, Dennis’ family doesn’t go without quality leather!

 

Dennis moved from the People’s Satrapy of New York to Tennessee several years ago. He’s a good friend and an admired artisan. I highly recommend his store.

Posted in interesting people, pistol, rifle, shotgun, weapon | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Why aren’t most muzzle devices attached like this?

When I first got vz58 in .223, it arrived with an effective but loud muzzle brake. I deemed it unnecessary and wanted to replace it with a flash hider. Fortunately,  at least four different options are readily available.

I got two of them, a very small and light variant (above) and a larger, more effective Phanton (below).

What impressed me about these wasn’t just the good quality machining but also the ease with which I was able to swap them. Press a detent pin, spin off the muzzle device, replace with another, release pin.

Simple, effective, toll-less, provides indexing. No crush washers needed. Why aren’t more rifle designs using this method?

 

Posted in rifle, weapon | Tagged , | 11 Comments

A windy day

Keltec RDB, Primary Arms 1-6x scope

Posted in rifle, weapon | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

38 Super as a submachine gun round?

Has US adopted 38 Super as standard pistol and SMG round right before World War 2, do you think 9mm Luger would have ever gained such high popularity?

(Update: I just realized that 38 Super would have had to evolved into rimless configuration first…)

Posted in ammunition | 12 Comments

Yugo SKS

The main difference between tolerating an SKS and enjoying it is a little bit of rubber over the steel buttplate. To me, SKS always had an unpleasant recoil despite the moderate cartridge…until this little addition.

Posted in rifle, training | 6 Comments

Suppressed 300 Blackout

Primary Weapons System Mk.1 carbine and Gemtech sound suppressor.

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Quality control

It would be nice to have some. Of the guns I worked with this year, perhaps 40% either arrived non-functional or partly functional, or failed within fifty rounds. While that’s skewed by the high percentage of prototypes I encounter, enough of the production guns are unusable to make me wonder. I am becoming a big fan of bayonet mounts for rifles and backup pistols.

On the plus side, certain companies consistently make guns that work. I suspect their QC process is organized to work on numerous stages and not just at the test firing before shipping. Conversely, I don’t see how some guns ever made it out of the door — they couldn’t even be loaded, much less fired! With the cost of each transaction in time and money, sending things back and forth isn’t the answer. And breakage during a defensive situation would be even more of a problem.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 21 Comments

In some times and places, slaves could buy their own freedom

When my parents and I left the USSR in 1989, we had to pay to get rid of the Soviet citizenship. At the time, that was viewed as an outrage, rather similar to requiring slaves to buy themselves out. And, in the fact of the matter, it wasn’t far from the truth — living in a country like the USSR was pretty far from being free. I don’t recall the exact amount required, but it was substantial relative to salaries.

US government, in its infinite and humanitarian wisdom, is adopting the best USSR practices but with greater flair. Giving up American citizenship now costs $2350, a good deal more than it did in the USSR. At least it can be done without waiting over a decade and taking all kinds of risks to be allowed to leave. France, with its insane tax policy trends, is on the same path. They appear reluctant to give up well off taxpayers to competing entities.

In general, the difficulties in being a stateless person just point out that the concept of owning people just got modified to favor government ownership instead of private ownership. Such progress!

The similarities between conventional slavery and being a taxpayer aren’t all that close in reality. The similarities I am noting are in the attitudes of government bureaucrats and lawmakers and the slave-owners of the centuries past.

 

Posted in civil rights | 7 Comments

New on CTD blog: AR57

At the range with AR57. The ammunition for this article was provided by Lucky Gunner.

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Guns on the rocks

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Upcoming Keltec carbines in the field

RDB

CMR30

Posted in rifle, weapon | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

One happy family

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Smaug, Jr

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Casting call: Cocoa, FL for November 4-9

I am looking for models of all ages, sexes and looks for photo shoots with Kel-Tec. Familiarity with basic gun safety is required. Proficiency with firearms is definitely welcome. Please send an email to casting@olegvolk.net with an introduction, available dates and a few sample images. The work will be paid.

Posted in camera and lens, weapon | 2 Comments

Three Musketeers

Posted in interesting people, rifle, training, weapon | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Magnified EOTech

TWS | EOTech

Posted in rifle | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Norden Performance 1-6x scope

Scope (and an informative review of it) | TWS optic rail (maintains zero even with 10x scopes)

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Idaho newlyweds

 

 

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Another flying life form

We waited for the future with flying cars. Ended up in the future with flying people.

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Keltec CMR30 carbines

With Gemtech 22wmr suprpessor (left) and PWS Triad .223 flash hider (right). Lucid red dots on both.

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