Free Republic

The Shot Show staying in Las Vegas through 2018 works well for me.  If anyone who has an interest in guns can wrangle a ticket to the show, I recommend that they do.   The show is for industry only, but vendors and retailers often need help setting up displays or canvassing the show.  It is simply too big for a person to cover with any amount of rigor in four days.  From an NSSF email: SHOT Show® to Stay at Sands Expo through 2018 LAS VEGAS -- The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®) followed up its recently concluded, record-setting...

It's almost IRON DOG time! This is one of the busiest times of the year for us with lots of guys wrenching in the shop and training on the trails and frozen rivers. Todd and his partner are full speed ahead gearing up for the world’s longest and toughest snowmachine race traversing over 2,000 miles of frozen Alaska. This year we’re very excited that Todd’s SkiDoo team and three other teams riding SkiDoo are racing for a very worthy cause! They’re launching the “Bring Home the Pink” campaign to raise money and awareness in the fight against breast cancer....

John Dobson, 1915–2014 The long-lived master of sidewalk astronomy died peacefully on January 15th. Emerging from obscurity in 1968, he introduced simple ideas that revolutionized how amateurs make and use large reflecting telescopes.

Toby Obermeit shows the new RMR30 Carbine at the Shot Show in Las Vegas Kel-Tec extensively  used 3D printing to prototype the new RMR30 carbine, a .22 Magnum that uses the same magazines as the PMR-30 pistol.    The carbine has a retractable stock, a 16 inch barrel, and uses a straight blowback action, instead of the delayed blowback of the PMR-30 pistol.   The RMR30 required a redesign of almost the entire firearm, even though the magazines are interchangeable.   Here is a view of the RMR30 lower receiver alongside a PMR-30 pistol.  The changes were prototyped with 3D printing.  As...

Let me tell you why you can't find any .22 ammo. Yes, people are buying it and selling it online. Yes, people are hoarding it. But these alone are not enough to make the supply at gun stores as low as they've been. The manufacturers are cranking out .22 as fast they can. 24/7. Wide open. Some are still backlogged for over a year. Where is it going? Why isn't it reaching the smaller stores like it used to? Here's the secret: IT IS.You see, when your local gun dealer tells you he only got a few boxes of .22,...

US intelligence officers feared that terrorists would create an online avatar of Osama Bin Laden to continue to preach the late Al Qaeda leader’s message for centuries. A study predicted that jihadists would use images and recordings of Bin Laden to put together new speeches and fatwas which would be broadcast online even after his death. Its theories also included terrorists infiltrating virtual reality worlds such as Second Life or online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft to recruit new members.

credit: calguns.net Dealing as I do in the fetid fever swamp of politics, I often confront ideologues, people who are absolutely convinced of the supremacy and rightness of their position, no matter what.  My favorite Bookworm recently wrote an informative article on this very subject, via the gun control debate.  If you’ve not read her work, it’s surely worth your time, particularly so because while she still lives in California–Marin particularly–she is a recovering Progressive (she’s recovering nicely, thank you).My former Confederate Yankee co-blogger, Bob Owens, incorporated this observation into the CY masthead: Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state....

Since the Sandy Hook shooting, I’ve written several posts about interactions with liberals who refused to believe the facts I cited them about guns.  (The facts I rely upon are here; a good example of a fight with liberals is here.)  Clearly, I am not persuasive.As I learned today, though, when you’re arguing with an ideologue, nothing is going to be persuasive.  Today was the day I opened my “real me” Facebook page and saw, much to my surprise, that one of my uber-liberal friends (someone with whom I was once very close, so I continue to “friend” on Facebook),...

As a student of history I was interested in the new Beck book Miracles and Massacres and was wondering if anyone had read it yet and if it was good history.

*** Since this column was written, Mike Houghton, the President of RARA has been let go. The Board of Directors will be taking over the day to day operations. We plan to continue coverage of the Future of Air Racing. Keep the faith, fans.  Since the Galloping Ghost crash of 2011, the Air Races have been plagued with financial concerns and rumors about closing the doors. In the last few months, Mike Houghton, RARA President, has been talking about this year’s event being in jeopardy if $500,000 was not raised by December 15th. Just in the nick of time, we...

During the first part of December a group of firearm writers, including myself, were invited by Remington to the 2014 New Defense/Tactical Products Seminar held at the Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Arizona. To say I was excited to go would be an understatement!As it turns out I would have been even more excited if I had known what was in store for us. Each day we would meet in a classroom and discuss products before heading to the various ranges for a day of shooting. This particular morning a presentation was on the screen and there was a pistol IÂ’d...

For the newest generation of drivers, and even those with years of experience, the skill of driving a manual transmission is one that few possess. With less than 10 percent of new cars produced today being equipped with a manual transmission, there’s far less opportunity and need to learn how to operate a clutch and shift gears. The Hagerty Driving Experience Powered by Ford aims to help steer that outcome down a different road. Pairing a classroom session with closed-course driving lessons, the Hagerty Driving Experience provides a unique and exciting opportunity for young drivers to learn how to operate...

I’m not a very good Christian, but even a backslider such as yours truly can observe and comment on the sick sacrilege of having a president who professes to be a Christian (Jeremiah Wright has gone on record saying Bathhouse Barry never really converted), yet speaks and acts as if he’d have taken the Virgin Mary straight to Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s chop-shop upon learning of her “condition” related to her “reproductive rights.” Well, if it would’ve been fine and dandy, in the Democrat playbook, to have Jesus Christ Himself aborted, what would be the big deal about Barry Soetoro (or...

So, one of the Christmas presents I got for my wife is a wax warmer. My 6-year-old son was walking through the living room today as I was moving it and he asked, "Daddy, where did you get that for Mommy?" So I said, "What, this?" "Yes." "At the store." "Oh." He walked a little further and asked, "What store?" And I said, "A store that sells these." "Oh, okay!" and he walked off completely satisfied. My wife, who had been reading on the couch, began to laugh and said, "What kind of conversation was that?!" And I jokingly replied,...

Life is strange. I want to finish my life elsewhere. I am seriously thinking of moving to the Philippines. I will go there in 18 months. I intend to sell my antiques, motorcycle, and everything else. Tell me where you would recommend I land. What are the costs?

The U.S. News and World Report noted Monday that the Obama administration, perhaps frustrated at its inability to impose yet more restrictive gun regulation through the legislative process, is once again doing everything it can by executive diktat. This time, the infringement on that which shall not be infringed is to come via proposed new regulations barring hunters and target shooters from millions of acres of public land. Gun owners who have historically been able to use public lands for target practice would be barred from potentially millions of acres under new rules drafted by the Interior Department, the first...

Some handguns turned in for $100 at a Phoenix event in May.  Note the nice Ruger and Colt. Charlotte, North Carolina, will be having a gun turn in event on Friday and Saturday, 20 and 21 December,  2013.  While these events are commonly labeled with the propaganda term "buyback" the guns were never owned by the people attempting to buy them.  The rewards are rather unusual at this event: $25 to $50 for handguns and $100 for shotguns and assault rifles.  They will not accept more than five guns per person, and you must leave as soon as you...

My nephew has a Toshiba Satellite A205 with Windows 7, 3GB RAM and 200GB harddrive. We were downloading "Marvel Heroes" and had gotten down to the last few packages when it went black. Nothing was working. The light indicated it was "on" but there was zero activity for a very long time. Rebooting.. nope it did not reboot. The "on" light turned on but there was no booting whatsoever. I had just cleaned the harddrive out of all malware days ago, it was purring like a kitten before this. Now it doesn't even attempt to boot. I need help resetting...

The clip at the rear of the trigger group shows rust from the water damage  I recently found that a Remington 700 rifle was water damaged in storage.  It was stored butt down, with a gun sock around the rifle.   The sock wicked water from near the floor up toward the action.  Outside, there was no indication that damage had been done, as the composite stock is impervious to water. The rifle has always had an excellent trigger, in the range of 1.5 to 2 lbs.   It was set up for target shooting, and did not appear to be...

We have this Toshiba Satellite A205-55879 with dual-core processor and with 3gb RAM and Windows 7. The problem is that when I turn it on all kinds of programs start up and then the thing is basically frozen. I cannot figure out how to get rid of all these processes running in the background. Everything from Steam, Norton 360, 24X7 Help, PC Speed thingy I don't understand, Google Drive and some other stuff. Something like 80 processes are running in the background, the CPU is more than half used just sitting idle. Move the mouse and it pauses to think....