Tag: Miscellaneous Gun Stuff

Building an AR Lower from Bolted Together Flat Pieces of Metal

While manufacturing an AR lower on a computer numeric control (CnC) machine is possible most people still lack a CnC machine. Fortunately Zerg539 alerted me to a forum post detailing how an AR lower can be manufactured from bolted together flat pieces of metal, which can be done with tools that are more commonly available than CnC machines. Detailed blueprints can be found here [PDF].

Blueprints like this make implementing Plan B even easier. Decentralized manufacturers could pull together the tools necessary to cut and drill flat pieces of metal easier than they could pull together resources to acquire a CnC machine. Furthermore the tooling for an AR lower build from flat pieces of metal could be spread out between multiple locations which would make shutting down a manufacturing ring even more difficult. I believe manufacturing an AR from flat pieces of metal would also be much cheaper and therefore AR pattern rifles could be made even more readily available to those with few funds.

Reliable Like an AK-47

Mikhail Kalashnikov has been on this planet for 93 years. The reliability of his body has only been matched by the weapon he designed, which is why this news doesn’t worry me:

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the 93 year-old inventor of the world’s most popular automatic rifle, has been admitted to a cardiology hospital in the Russian city of Izhevsk, in the Urals.

The engineer’s health is said to have worsened during a routine check up on December 20, and Kalashnikov has stayed in intensive care ever since.

According to his biographer Aleksandr Uzhanov, the weapons designer, who has until recently regularly attended work at the military plant in named after him, “feels good and plans to leave the hospital in the coming days.”

Doctors confirm the life of the increasingly frail Kalashnikov is not in immediate danger.

Although he may seem troubled now his is assured if the doctors merely kicks his rusted bolt open again. Here’s wishing well to one of the best weapons designers in history.

Panic Buying in the Twin Cities

Last night I went to a couple of gun stores and was able to view the panic buying first hand. The first gun store I stopped at was the newly reopened GunStop in Minnetonka. There were a couple of customers in there but it wasn’t as crazy as I had expected. GunStop still had some Colt ARs in stock, likely because they are extremely expensive ARs (which is why I don’t have a Colt). There were no AK pattern rifles. Overall it didn’t seem that out of hand there.

The second gun store I stopped at was Cabela’s in Rogers. That place was a zoo. There were likely 10 to 20 people waiting in line for their National Instant Criminal Background System (NICS) check and at least another 10 to 20 looking at the guns. All of the modern semi-automatic rifles were sold out as were the standard capacity magazines. Cabela’s was raking in the money.

I was going to stop at Gander Mountain in Maple Grove but they apparently closed sometime between last night and the three or so years it’s been since I worked in the area. Too bad for them, if they were still open they would be making bank right now. In fact they could probably get away with inflating their already overinflated prices.

Seeing all of those people buying guns made me smile. My girlfriend is likely annoyed because she has been planning to pick up an AR for some time now but I take solace in knowing all of those guns are out there. Even if an “assault weapon” ban goes through the market will be flooded with rifles and magazines. Prices will go up, that’s beyond a doubt, but things will be available so long as the state doesn’t try to ban currently owned rifles and magazines (in which case I will simply say come and take them). Seeing record sales has to piss the gun control advocates off.

A Reminder About Rule Four

Firearm safety are of the utmost importance. We sometime forget that firearms, although enjoyable for recreation, are weapons. In order to avoid tragedy various rulesets regarding firearm safety have been created, the most prevalent of which would be Jeff Cooper’s four rules:

  1. All guns are always loaded.
  2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
  3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
  4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Failure to abide by rule four lead to a tragedy in Rochester, Minnesota when a grandfather shot his granddaughter after mistaking her for an intruder:

A 61-year-old Rochester man shot his granddaughter at the patio door of his home late Monday night, telling police he had armed himself with a pistol to investigate a suspected intruder, police said.

Authorities are still investigating the incident involving the 16-year-old girl, who lives at the house with her grandparents. Shot in the upper torso, she was taken to the hospital in critical condition but was expected to survive, Police Capt. Brian Winters said.

When the couple went to bed Monday night, the girl was at home, Winters said. When they woke to a noise outside around 11 p.m., the man got a 9 mm pistol and went to investigate while the grandmother called police.

The man saw a figure at the patio door and fired two rounds, striking his granddaughter once, Winters said. He declined to give the family’s name.

Luckily the granddaughter is expected to live but this story should remind us all that it is our responsibility to be safe with firearms. Firearms are mere mechanical devices that are incapable of discerning friend from foe. We must make that decision and making it incorrectly could cost an innocent person their life.

The Dawn of Simple Home Firearm Manufacturing

Individuals have been working on 3D printed AR-15 lowers for a while now and one of these printed lowers was finally tested:

Earlier this year, amateur gunsmiths got together to see if they could print out some parts that could be used to construct a fully functional AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Last weekend, a 3D-printed lower receiver was tested to failure shooting real bullets, and made it through six shots before suffering what you could legitimately call a catastrophic structural failure.

Some people are pointing at this test as a failure because the lower failed after six rounds but I see it as the dawn of a new age. Technology, as a rule, has a tendency to improve. Even though this first lower failed after six shots it proved that the concept is workable. Now that the concept has been proven viable it’s time to improve the technology. This may involve using different materials or making design changes to reinforce weak points. It is my hope that someday future generations will look back at today and say “Man, they had it hard back in the early 21st century. Did you know that most people had to buy their firearms from dedicated manufacturers? It’s crazy! I’m glad we can just print up our firearms at home, going to the store would be such a hassle.” Decentralization makes suppression impossible. If anybody can simply print a firearm at home controlling firearms becomes impossible.

Amazon Prime is a Great Deal

I subscribe to Amazon Prime because it ends up being cheaper overall than paying shipping on the individual orders I make throughout the year. What I didn’t realize is how good of a deal Prime really is:

While sending off something as a light as an 0.8-ounce pack of feathers doesn’t cost the company much, analysts say Amazon may lose hundreds of dollars covering the cost of lugging around heftier items, such as 149-pound sofabeds or 300-pound treadmills. Shoppers, on the other hand, can more than make up for that $79 Amazon Prime enrollment fee with a single purchase.

[…]

So what’s the heaviest item Amazon will ship for free? The company declined to say, but the makers of a 1,509-pound safe (shipping weight: 1,672 pounds) claim the prize for biggest bang for one’s 79 bucks. See Cannon Safe CO54 Commander Series Premium 90 Minute Fire Safe

$79.00 to ship a 1,672 pound safe is quite the deal:

“We charge customers around $700 to ship this safe, but when they buy it through Amazon they get it shipped for free,” says Pasquale Murena, marketing manager for Cannon Safe. “As a result, we get orders through Amazon every day.” In fact, Amazon will pick up the tab for shipping the safe even for non-Prime members, if they are willing to wait a few extra days for delivery. Like many items priced over $25, it qualifies for “Super Saver Shipping,” which usually take five to eight days to arrive.

If you’re in the market for a Canon gun safe you can’t go wrong with an Amazon Prime subscription apparently.

Rocket Scientist of the Year

There are bad ideas and there is raw utter stupidity. This story is an example of the latter:

According to reports, 26-year-old Brian C. Wayner rented a gun from Don’s Gun and used it at the attached shooting range, burning through three boxes of ammo. Then, Wayner went to the restroom to wash his hands before heading to the counter to ring up the total. Bizarrely, without giving any warning or saying anything, Wayner pulled out the gun that he had rented and opened fire on Ben Chance, the clerk behind the cash register.

Chance did pretty much exactly what you would expect a gun store employee to do: he fired back. Chance proved to be the better shot, though, because the wounds he inflicted ultimately proved fatal for Wayner. Chance was later rushed to a hospital where he was placed in critical condition, but he survived treatment and is currently recovering.

Attempting to shoot up a gun store is right up there with attempting to bungee jump without a bungee cable attached to your person. On the upside Mr. Wayner won’t try that again.

Make the SCAR 17 More Affordable

The SCAR 17 is a rifle that I’ve had a lot of interest in. It’s chambered in my favorite rifle caliber, 7.62x51mm, and has several evolutionary improvements over the venerable AR platform. What I don’t like about the rifle is the cost. Everything about the SCAR 17 is expensive. The rifle is expensive, the ammunition is expensive, and the magazines are expensive. Instead of setting up the SCAR 17 to use widely available cheap SR-25 magazines Fabrique Nationale (FN) decided to use a proprietary magazines so supplies are extremely limited and when you can find magazines they’re in the $50.00 range. Fortunately Handl Defense has developed a solution for the magazines by developing a SCAR 17 lower receiver that accepts standard SR-25 magazines:

Handl Defense has developed an aftermarket aluminium lower receiver for the FN SCAR 17 to replace the factory polymer lower. Their SCAR25 lower (urgh, FN is not going to like their trademark being used in this way) allows the use of SR-25 and M-110 compatible magazines made by Magpul, XS , DPMS and POF. They have also made some modifications that compatibility with a greater range of AR-15 grips.

While the solution isn’t ideal it’s certainly a worthy improvement. Recovering the costs of the lower ($300.00) would be accomplished quickly considering PMAG LR20s can be found for under $20.00. On top of that you can actually get PMAG LR20s so you would no longer be relegated to having a fancy rifle with only one magazine.

Add Brew City Shooters Supply of Milwaukee, Wisconsin to the Blacklist

If you live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and have shot at the Brew City Shooters Supply range know that your personal information was given to the local police:

Wisconsin -(Ammoland.com)-Wisconsin Carry has learned of some concerning information that we would like to pass along to our membership and right-to-carry interested folks in southeast Wisconsin.

In a recently published Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article which you can read here

It was reported that the former Badger Guns (now Brew City Shooters Supply) http://www.brewcityshooterssupply.com/ has, since 2009, been reporting the names of every customer that comes in to use their firing range to the West Milwaukee Police Department.

In this time over 25,000 customer names were reported to West Milwaukee Police Chief Dennis Nasci who ran a background check on each through “his system”.

So far in 2012 it was reported more than 8,800 customer name records have been supplied to West Milwaukee Police by Brew City Shooters Supply to have a criminal background check run on them.

If there’s one thing I hate it’s a company that treats its customers like suspected criminals. At least I’m lead to believe that Brew City Shooters Supply suspects all of their customers are criminals since I can think of no other reason that they would report every one of their customers to the police. Either way I’d refrain from giving them any business as their behavior, if nothing else, is an effective means of creating a local firearm registry.