Oh, well...

It looks like this is the best outdoor chronograph weather I'm going to get in the next week or two. So be it.

There'll be snow in the pistol bays. I'm debating whether I should bring the tripod and mount the chrono on that, or just set it on the table like usual.

"Hurr durr a bad day at the range beats a good day at the office!" Yeah, no. I'd rather stay here and write and futz around on Facebook than go out there and get my nose froze off getting chrono data. You can turn anything into work, ask a porn actor.
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Deadlines...

I seem to be up to my ass in deadlines post-SHOT. On the one hand, it's good to have the work. On the other, staring at the blinking cursor on the blog after sweating out a couple thousand words to make an editor happy is daunting.

My skull is positively devoid of anything to write about. Well, that's not actually true. I have things I want to write about, but I can't put them to text. It's a weird feeling.
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I wrote a thing...

"Yes, that is a guy running around and blazing away from the hip with a semiautomatic shotgun while wearing a ghillie suit. No, we don’t know why he’s wearing it, either. It would seem to be rather counter to the principles of stealth and camouflage to be jumping through doorways in a shoot house, doing 12 gauge mag dumps, but we’re not marketers."

New 2k Test Gun...

So, if I switch to AIWB carry of the P30L, as appears to be underway right now, this little fella is a strong contender for a more-concealable backup. It's got the LEM trigger (V1 style). I have a temporary holster solution in the form of a Blade-Tech Klipt with Melody Lauer's little life hack done to it, but I'll be ordering a better one if this turns out to work.

I lubed all the indicated spots with Liberty Gun Lube and ran fifty rounds of Aguila 115gr FMJ through the gun on Monday morning. There were no malfunctions of any type to report.

As you can see, despite the last time I shot an LEM trigger being ToddG's HK45 test gun back in 2010, the gun shot pretty okay for me.

This makes 50 rounds since the firearm was last cleaned or lubricated with no malfunctions. 1,950 rounds to go.
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Still Standing...

Despite being exposed to the muzzle blast of a thousand rounds of .357SIG generously donated to the cause of science by Lucky Gunner, the Surefire XC1B is still working fine. I'm thinking that whatever durability issues the original XC1 had, they're pretty well worked out in the new version. Plus it's half again as bright.

The Glock 32 is probably due for another cleaning and lubing, and I guess I'll move the light over to my Glock 29 and see if 10mm Auto does anything to it. (And if that doesn't rattle it, I have a 9x25 Dillon G29 barrel and some Double Tap ammo sitting here...)
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Will you look at that?

I leave the blog alone for a day to catch up on some paying writing and the stock market craps the bed. This would have been prime blogfodder and yet here I am with my word tank on "E".

I need to refill it.
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E'rrbody loves an underdog.

Poor #TomBrady. As the clock ran out he looked so...deflated.#SuperBowl

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) February 5, 2018

I'm just watching for the commercials. Honest.

Best surprise #Superbowl end zone appearance against the Patriots since Refrigerator Perry ran one in.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) February 5, 2018

This. This right here. A thousand times this.

Kathy Jackson is spot on here:

"When you hear someone try to talk women out of firearms ownership because the gun a woman purchases might be “more likely to be used against someone you know”, remember that [number] many women are killed every year by someone they know.

Self-defense isn’t just about protecting yourself from random strangers who jump out of the bushes to grab you off the sidewalk in the middle of the night. It’s about protecting your life from a violent attacker, no matter who that attacker might be or where that attack might happen. Someone you know can kill you just as stone cold dead as someone you don’t.

That’s the harsh reality we need to face whenever we talk or think about self defense."

Go and read the whole thing and share it widely.
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Post Title Goes Here

 Thursday's session used up another hundred rounds of .357SIG from Lucky Gunner.

950 rounds in and the Surefire XC1B continues to function just fine, with all switches and levers working correctly and the mounting screw hasn't even loosened.
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It's not lying...

I have to get chrono data for a magazine test gun. It's not going to happen today, I can tell you that.

The downside is that looking at next week's forecast, there aren't many balmy days in the near future, and we're into the part of the season where anything north of freezing feels pretty doggone balmy. By early February, 35°F and no wind is practically sunbathing weather.

I should have asked for a Labradar for my birthday. Being able to shoot my mandatory 25-yard groups in indoor comfort just down the road at Indy Arms Co has done wonders for foul weather testing, but I don't have an indoor chrono solution yet.
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Hey, look!

I wrote a thing.
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Overheard in the Kitchen...

Me: "'♫♪Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, stronger than the Old Man Joe!♫♪' When I was little, I always wondered who the Old Man Joe was, and why was he noted for being particularly strong?"

RX: "He's the cousin of Round John Virgin. I think one of them was the guy Jimi Hendrix kissed."

BOOM!

In what has been a daily tradition this week, Wednesday morning saw me at the range with another hundred rounds of .357SIG, generously donated to the cause of science by Lucky Gunner (so go buy stuff from them), in an attempt to break the Surefire XC1B.

Also along for the ride was a magazine test gun and some ammo I'd purchased to feed it. While Lucky Gunner occasionally sponsors some ammo, I also buy a ton of it from them. The reason for this is because not only are they good folks with whom I enjoy doing business, but also that when I put my order in before 3PM and select FedEx Ground delivery, the ammo shows up on my front porch the next morning before the range opens. That's handy.

Anyway, the test ammo for the other gun was Speer Lawman 200gr FMJ +P. If I knew this load existed, I'd somehow forgotten about it. If you carry 200gr +P JHPs in a .45, it's definitely handy having an FMJ practice load that's a ballistic twin.

I shot one box of .357SIG in big, lazy mag dumps at the lower A-zone, keeping the light on the whole time. The second box I used up doing Mozambiques, checking the light's function after each one. The light continues to function normally and hasn't loosened on the rail. This makes 850 rounds of full-house .357SIG muzzle blast that have failed to cause issues.
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And so it goes...

A train full of congresscritters derails and who gets killed? Some poor random taxpayer.
If I had any religion left to lose, this would do the trick. pic.twitter.com/g1xc3Ke3kE

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 31, 2018

Zero Context QotD...

Zero Context QotD: "The Venn diagram of people who own "drone" trainer blades and people who own pistol bayonets looks like the business end of a coach gun."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 31, 2018

Another hundred...

Another hundred rounds of Lucky Gunner's .357SIG ammunition got sent downrange yesterday morning in the ongoing effort to make the Surefire XC1B say uncle.

Also seen in the picture is a review gun for an upcoming Shooting Illustrated piece.

Four back-to-back mag dumps of .357SIG leave the slide too hot to touch, for what it's worth. The XC1B continues to work, and the mounting screw hasn't loosened.

Yesterday's shooting brings the total round count on the light to 750 rounds. There's another three hundred rounds from Lucky Gunner yet to go, and if the light's still running after that I'll just have to bolt it to my Glock 29 or something. If .357SIG won't do the trick, maybe 10mm Auto can.

It still lights...

Monday morning was back to the grind with the Surefire XC1B-equipped Glock 32 and a hundred rounds of Lucky Gunner's Remington 125gr FMJ .357SIG ammunition in an attempt to see if this light will wilt in the face of all that muzzle blast.

I had wiped the grease (and powder residue) off the lens after the last session and I was too lazy to head down to the basement to get more, so as I headed out the back door, I dabbed a fingertip in the bowl of congealed bacon grease in the fridge and dabbed that on the lens instead. I figure that if Pam and Crisco both work, why not bacon fat?

With the fresh recoil spring in the gun, it ran fine. I function-checked the light at several points during the range session, and it continued to function normally.

With this session, it has put up with six hundred and fifty rounds of .357SIG with no hiccups.

Also, the mixed smell of burnt gun powder and bacon fat borders on intoxicating.
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Overheard in the Office...

RX: "Organic yogurt? I like it a lot better than that inorganic yogurt."

Me: "I hate mechanical yogurt. Also, Mechanical Yogurt is the name of my next band."

"Black is the New Pink"

Wherein the guys from InRangeTV host a panel of experts discussing the best way to pander to a very important market demographic...
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