Dos Vaqueros

I missed my Blogversary last Monday. Got the new 5-1/2 inch Stainless Vaquero out of the State’s 10-day wait clutches. So now I have a Light and a (short) Dark one. The matching Altamont grips look swell too. Now I don’t have to worry about multiple and various calibers at the loading table, it’s all one thing: .44-40 WCF.
Too bad about the Gunblogger Rendezvous, it seems to have gone away and I’m missing that get-together with fellow Gunnies. Except now I have new people to meet at my new Club.

Rendezvous Eleven – Med Class

After checking-in and unloading and unpacking, I took the down-elevator and in the lobby ran-into Mike and Kiwi and Bill and Lucky Gunner’s rep Anthony Welsch, then Aaron showed-up and later Miles. They all piled into Anthony’s rental vehicle while I drove solo in the F-150, and we headed out to Reno Guns & Range for our Emergency Medical Range Training class.
The class was lead by a well-experienced former EMT and former Flight-EMT and former Reno motor officer and EMT Trainer and former multi-deployment overseas warrior-EMT – all just one guy named Derek.
He made an important distinction between the “Medical Kit” and its components of: a Compression bandage, wound Dressings, Hemostatic agents, and a Tourniquet – versus a “First-Aid Kit” with band-aids, tape, gauze and eye-wash, etc. for minor wound care.
From my recent RSO class I also appreciated his re-iteration of the need for assigning or designating different people to certain specific tasks when an emergency-event occurs — and the importance of a short Range Safety Briefing when training activities are taking place, where you identify the Medical Kit, put it in a convenient place, BY ITSELF, and show everyone the location of the Kit so they won’t be sprinting around the range like a chicken when something Unpleasantly Medical happens.
2.) To designate a medic person you grab someone and say, “You are the Medic!” From the Briefing you should have already identified this potential medic-person, and they are not the one having the accident.
3.) Designate a phone-caller you grab someone else and say, “You call 911!” AND have a ready-scripted dialog for the EMS dispatcher to respond-to, so they don’t send police first and cordon off the area before allowing the EMS van on-scene. Say: “We have had a training accident.” They ask, “What kind of training accident?” Say: “We have a person with a bullet injury…” Also that phone-person must have the coordinates or a good description of your location. ALSO FYI if a patient has a penetrating wound to the: Head, Neck, Chest, Abdomen – then they are UNSTABLE and it would be good to include that information.
4.) AND designate an escort-person, someone to go to the location-entrance, meet the EMS van, and guide them to the medical-site.
And there were some more designations I forget.
Following that he discussed (and we Q&A’d) about wound treatment itself, the order of priorities and application of care. FIRST you must protect yourself. You must have barrier safety-equipment: nitrile gloves and an air-way shield. Then the application of pressure to control bleeding. With gloves-on comes direct pressure, then a sterile DRESSING directly onto wound, then another dressing as necessary if bleeding continues, and then a pressure BANDAGE such as the “Israeli Bandage” that wraps the dressing IN PLACE and ALSO applies pressure – and if bleeding still continues, then the TOURNIQUET…
It was a really good class, and obviously I could take it again in order to remember everything better.
But enough for now.

GBR XI thoughts: semi-sponsor

The Rendezvous is fast upon us!! There’s always the question of what gun(s) to bring, for show-and-tell, or for cool-factor, or for bragging rights at the 900-yard drum out at the Washoe facility. At the first Rendezvous I attended it seemed like people brought-out an amazing array of all kinds of stuff in mass-quantities, but that trend seems to have diminished in recent years with things getting more specific, and the weight-to-carry more burdensome.
This year I’m bringing the .44-40 Rossi 92 carbine, and the .44-40 Vaquero. I don’t believe/recall seeing a lever-gun at the Rendezvous ever before, but it could just be that I’ve missed something among the plethora of guns.
Also hitching a ride is my new #PewPewLife 9mm Shield. We’ll see how well that does at the steel games, HA!
In other news I’m bring a few contributions to the Raffle Table that may interest people. UPDATE: I have a couple of scope mounts for which I have no scopes: a .S.A.L.T 30mm (with 1-inch inserts) that’s as rugged as a brick, and a 30mm ultra lightweight Aero Precision 30mm mount.
Also I made-up a couple of blow-out kits that contain: a Sof-T Wide tourniquet, two Hyfin chest-seals (you need two), a compressed 4-inch gauze pack, and trauma shears all shoved into a in a nifty HSG molle pouch with malice clips. Included is a velcro First Aid patch. Some lucky persons could take these home.

Apex trigger – Toaster Parts.

UPDATE: For a wrinkle in time, all praises and thanks to Tam’s blog and her gunsmith friend for the notation, “toaster-parts.” After the events of the day I thought it was time to take the gun apart as far as possible, lube that which needed lubing, and install the metal trigger. I set the recoil assembly aside to marinate in a bath of slippery juice, and watched the Apex video closely. Hmm – not too hard.
With my Craftsman magnetic parts-holder as a catch-basin and a piece of thin birch-wood as a block, I got out my punches and little brass hammer and proceeded to get to the fiddly bits. Tap-tappty-tap! TAP-TAP-TAP! The main body pin was a bit tough, but the others were easier.

The way the trigger spring goes on and off was important (hook up on the small coil) and how the take-down lever fits in at 10-degrees off horizontal. Then the reassembly with the locking block and a bit of fiddling until it came back together.

The metal trigger movement is free and un-encumbered, and less spongy and more linear than the polymer trigger – no filing or use of an emery cloth was required. Image shown with take-down lever still to be inserted.
There was a lot less effort required than I imagined or feared.

The little green spud was supplied as a place-holder for the spring and trigger pin.
The trigger is still relatively heavy as I did not (yet) get the Duty/Carry Action Enhancement kit that requires removal of the rear sight, which is a royal bitch from everyone I’ve been told (including my buddy) as the base is Loc-tited and needs a bit of torch on it, and a BIG hammer.
We’ll shoot it and see.

220 Rounds, Day-1

UPDATED: After a week of carry it was time to run some rounds through the Shield-9. I had a TWO 50-count box of Wally-World Winchester 124 grain JHP’s (and I had already loaded my 6, 8-round magazines and two 7-round mags with the JHP’s), a 100-rounds of Winchester 115gr. FMJ – and a 20-count box of $$ Federal 150gr HST JHP’s. (end edit)
At the range we set targets at 7-yards and proceeded to load magazines and blast away, and see where the points of impact varied. The difference was slight between the 150-HST’s and the 124-JHP’s, and I seemed to be tossing everything low and left.
I was mixing rounds too. Some of the blunts with some of the JHP’s interspersed, just to see what effect that might make and where they might string. It was an experiment on my part with no scientific basis or scoring, with a factory-fresh gun with factory-fresh magazines.
Several magazines later I tried loading one, ejecting the magazine and re-filling it, and re-seating the magazine – and I got a light-strike. Stoppage! No Bang! Hmmm…
So rack the slide and catch the round, what do I see but a dimpled primer. Are they hard primers or seated low? I proceeded to fire-off the magazine and re-loaded the (FMJ) in another batch of rounds and everything fired-off OK.
More shooty goodness and several magazines later another light strike. Huh?
Thinking “Factory Fresh” I thought, “What about lube?” So to rectify that dry-feel, I took of the slide and got out my Brownell’s “Friction Defense” gun-oil with the pink tint that looks suspiciously like ATF and dribbled some on the barrel-hood and rails.
More shooting ensued, then another stoppage, a failure to eject. This is getting interesting!

WTF? My buddy in the neighboring lane had told me that his recoil assembly had taken a dump (it broke, and he had to get a new one) and that it required a lot of lube to make the double-coil springs run right. So the top comes off again and along with some Shooter’s Choice ere-grease on the rails, I re-oiled the barrel hood, and slopped a bunch on the recoil-spring assembly.
More gunny-goodness until the brass runs out and we depart. I need to buy more ammo.
One thing we noticed, the striker seems to leave a drag mark – or the pin is longitudinal shaped like a Glock? My buddies ejected brass had the same shape.

At home I decided to change the trigger…

Ten Days to Cow-Town

Simply could not resist the little 20-inch barrel Rossi Model 92 clone-carbine at my local Happy-Gunstuff retailer, something to keep my .44-40 Vaquero company, and at very reasonable price. Comes with the original box (that says Interarms) and manuals, and is un-fired. Older NOS gun with No weird safety on the receiver. Looks a lot like this (but is not this) with a black-ish stain on the wood: (not my picture). Ordered-up a bunch more ammo from Lucky Gunner, this is coming to the Gunblogger Rendezvous XI with me. Woot-Howdy!

Low Profile

We had a nice night at the Gun Club banquet, and met some neat people who provided enjoyable conversation – and so I missed out on the 9mm Shield and the other raffle prizes but it went to a good cause. Went to bed late, about 10:30pm, and slept in until 7:30 – awakening to bright sunrise and greenery. Woot!
Nice to be out from under the damp blanket for a day, so I threw open all the windows as the temps rocketed up to 71-degrees and brought-in some fresh air. With a dry spell forecast and neighbors working outside with blowers and various yard-implements, I vacuumed up all the wood splinters and junk in the Garage then set-to the real mischief.

Oops, now I need a low-profile gas-block to fit under the Troy rail. I was unhappy with the Magpul plastic set because it did not allow me to put things where I wanted them. The M-Lok screw-down fasteners interfered with each other at the various available positions where I wanted them, and I was unable to close the clam-shell onto the standard handguard snap-ring because of the metal heat-shields kept getting hung-up on the interior bits.

I loosened up the gas-block before realizing I had to remove the roll-pin, then I realized I had to remove the muzzle-end flash-hider/compensator. Good thing for the soft-jaws on the bench vise! Now I can also put-on a jazzy compensator-thing too, since flash-hiders are Evil in California. Good thing they are practically indistinguishable from each other and Politicians are inherently stupid people.
The Troy Omega free-float Rail was on-sale and perhaps was a loss-leader and obsolete with current trends, but I always liked it and again it was at a substantial discount. Now I need to get the old handguard Delta-ring off so I can mount-up the float-tube…

Happy Gunstuff

UPDATES: Various switcheroo and moderation for the hothouse flowers of political correctness: the #Idiorati&Ignorati:

After just twenty minutes at the show and a couple of interesting conversations with neighbors, I came across this for sale at the State of Jefferson table that called out my name. At first I didn’t even notice that it was a slick-side. Woot! Story: the Guy who built it switched to a 6.5 upper for deer hunting from his trail-bike. M4-feed-ramps and BCG included, with scope. The only identifying characteristic is the DoubleStar gas block. $375 out the door.
I’ll have to see what difference the shorter gas-system makes in regards to recoil impulse, since my other AR’s all have rifle or medium-length gas circuitry. Also I want to swap the black glacier-guards for FDE and maybe the new Magpul ones as the grip they provide is very large and round.

Fun Show!

Looking forward to the upcoming Fuunshow at the County Fairgrounds, and the night-before-dinner-and-raffle at the American Legion Post. I could win a Glock – something I had never considered before – becoming a hunter doesn’t change that, but buying a raffle ticket opens up the prospect. The “Pick A Glock Raffle” offers the Weiner a choice of (notice the gaps in the lineup): 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39. I ave no idea, they all appear to have those “finger divots” on the grip that need to be removed with a Dremel tool and re-stippled with a soldering pencil. Since this is a fantasy-camp exercise thing I’m leaning towards the leetle ones in standard caliber, 26, 30, 36… The .45GAP and .357Sig could be interesting too. Not sure about a teeny .10mm but that could be fun too!
UPDATE: No Banana-glock — but the banquet was fun and done by 9:30, in a smaller and more intimate setting than the Big Friends show, and I sat-in with a nice group of local people and had a good time for a good cause.

Family Photos

Of my neighbors, that is…


In hunt related news: We’re going out again tomorrow, we have only a few days before the Seasons’ End, but there’s rain forecast from tonight through tomorrow and the truck is pre-loaded with gear and everything.