No replacement for displacement: 9, 40, 45, 223/5.56

A few weeks back, I dropped my Kimber off with Jim Hoag at Hoag Gun Works.  Jim Hoag is ranked within the top 100 pistolsmiths in the United States.  He is also one of the most reputable and legendary 1911 pistolsmiths.  He’s OG.  Just Google him; his shop has been open since 1965.  Here are a few pictures of his shop and him.  These weren’t taken by me.  I shoulda brought my camera with me.

Anyways, I’ve had some reliability issues (occasional failure-to-feeds & failure-to-ejects) with my Kimber that I wanted resolved.  I dropped off my Kimber with Jim for a reliability package.  Basically, he checks the tolerances on gun, machines anything out of tolerance, and polishes some of the parts for better feeding and ejecting.  He quoted me 2 weeks for the job and finished it in 1.5 weeks.  A lot of top 1911 pistolsmiths are backed up months, some years, and others aren’t even taken on more work until they finish their backlog.  So to be quoted 2 weeks by a renouned 1911 specialist and finish in less than that is a godsend.

Here are some up close pictures of what he did.  According to him, the barrel was over hanging the feed ramp.  See how now the barrel is no longer hanging over the feed ramp?  That millimeter of gap between the barrel and feed ramp is supposed ot be there.   He also polished the feed ramp and throat for better feeding of the rounds.

He also said I had no extractor tension.  See that claw thingie?  That’s the extractor.  It pulls/extracts the shells after the bullet is shot out of the barrel.  The breechface wasn’t straight.  He straightened it out and polished it for better feeding.

I haven’t tried out the gun yet so I can’t really comment if the reliability packaged worked.  It will probably be a several months of heavy shooting (~1000 rounds) before I can really come to that conclusion.  Anyways, I was pretty impressed with Jim Hoag’s work.  I’ve seen a lot of hack jobs when it comes to 1911 throat jobs and polishing.  As you can tell from the pictures, it looks like factory craftsmanship and work.  I guess that might not be a good comparison since I’m not that impressed with Kimber’s factory work.

I’m going to take a little tangent today and discuss something of immediate importance to me. The California legislature is considering the Ammo Sales Bill (AB2358). What AB2358 is attempting to do is force stores to obtain a special license to sell ammo. The problem about requiring a special license is that the government tends to issue them at their discretion. This means if you have an anti-gun mayor or police chief (i.e. Los Angeles & San Francisco), they’re not going to approve a license for, let’s say, Walmart or Big 5 to sell ammo. In addition to that, stores must fingerprint and submit them to the government.  That means when you rent a gun and pick up 50 rounds with it, your fingerprint will be taken and submitted to the government.

This is an extension of AB962, which already passed. Effective next year, AB962 is forcing retailers to keep records of ammo sales and require ammo to be sold face-to-face.  This effectively bans California from purchasing ammo online.

I’m confident (or at least hope) that the courts will find AB962 unconstitutional because it interferes with interstate commerce.  By banning California from purchasing ammo online, you’re interfering with interstate commerce.  Remember in history and government classes in high school, the US Constitution stops states from fucking with business across state lines?  Unfortunately, it’s going to take years for the courts to [hopefully] agree with that. In the mean time, it’s just going to substantially inconvenience us, waste our money, and waste the state’s money.  We do have the NRA and Calguns Foundation already challenging AB962.

How does AB2358 and AB962 affect you? Well, if you own guns or even like shooting rental guns at the range, it’s going to drive the cost of ammo up.  How much?  I don’t know.  However, it’s a reasonable assumption that many retailers (i.e. Walmart, Big 5, etc…) are going to stop selling ammo because they don’t want to deal with the headache of keeping and submitting fingerprints.  When supply shrinks and demand stays the same (or probably increases because of the rising popularity of recreational shooting), cost is going to increase.  AB2358 and AB962 will inconvenience you and cost you more to shoot your own gun or shoot a rental gun.

Anyways, if this topic concerns you, I suggest you contact your California state senator and urge them to oppose AB2358.  If you’re looking for more information on gun rights, you can find more information at the NRA or Calguns.net.  The NRA tends to focus on gun rights on a national level while the Calguns Foundation focuses on gun rights in California.

The end of my 10 day waiting period landed on a Monday.  Naturally, I took Monday off to pick up my AR.  Lynn and Big Alex came along for the ride and we made a pretty fun day of it.  We went to RifleGear in Costa Mesa to pick up my AR, stopped by Wing Nuts for lunch and beer, dropped by Ammo Bros to pick up some cleaning supplies, headed up to Burro for some shooting, and, of course, chilled at Sunday Bistro in the evening.  Here are some of the pictures from Burro.

.22 Long Rifle, .223 Remington, 12 Guage

Putting some lead down range for the first time in the AR!

I need to get a holographic sight.

And I also need a .22 handgun and/or rifle.  Shooting .45 and .223 gets pretty expensive.

Loadin’ up the 10/20 PMag.

Bloop, bloop, bloop…

Notice the shell getting ejected to the right.

Lynn shooting a P22.  She really liked it.

She didn’t like my 1911 so much… lol.

Magnum loads are not fun to shoot…

Oh, this isn’t going to end out well…

LOL

A few weeks ago, I walked into RifleGear in Costa Mesa, looking to buy a $99 lower receiver. Ten days later, I walked out with a Daniel Defense DDM4.

For the non-gun people, it’s the “civilian version” (no full-auto) of the M4, the standard issue rifle in the military and currently protecting our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Its Russian counterpart is the AK-47.

For those interested in purchasing (or building) an AR-15, I highly recommend you visit RifleGear.  They have a wide selection of AR-15s that you can play with as well as knowledgeable staff to make your AR-15 California complaint.  In some future posts, I’ll be discussing California restrictive (read: retarded) gun laws, how it relates to AR-15s, and how to “bypass” these restrictions while still conforming to California law (under current and widely accepted interpretations).

Picked up a few t-shirts from Karma Loop.

There is something badass about an all black 1911 that is ready to mate with a suppressor.  Too bad suppressors and threaded barrels aren’t legal in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia.  You don’t want to wake your neighbors when you have a shootout around the house!  Only $2895!

On July 4th, I participated in my first steel shooting match.  Steel shooting is a competition in both accuracy and speed.  Basically, you are timed as you run around a stage, shooting down steel plates.  Here are some pictures of the match.

I had to shoot from an elevated position and over a piece of wood.

Shooting from a crouching position.

Knocking down those steel plates.

“Load and make ready!”

Had to run and jump on the benches and shoot those steel peoples down.

The Texas stars.  Basically, as you shoot the steel plates off, the star starts to spin around.  I had a hard time shooting the last few plates on the furthest most star.  The front two stars were covering the last plate.

Craig was balancing himself on that plank while using a pump action on the plates.

Saiga 12 shotgun magazine.

Ray using a Benelli semi-automatic shotgun.

Caleb using a Glock.

Since my secret goal is to become the next Jack Bauer, the kill house was by far my favorite stage.  There was a handful of rooms, doors, furniture and a bathtub to make it realistic.

Here is a few pictures of Jim shooting.  Many thanks to Jim for his help and guidance!

Trying to ID the upper receiver.  Any ideas?