Category: Tacticool

April 29, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

Today is going to be a serious topic. This one was supposed to follow the April Fools podcast but you know, stuff got in the way. Today we are going to talk about firearm safety.

I the firearm circles, anytime a firearm accident occurs, the term usually used is ‘negligent discharge’. The reason it is negligent is because one of the primary rules of gun safety has to be violated in order for it to occur in the first place.

Various organizations have three to ten rules that essentially represent the same principals. I will write the version that I use below.

  1. Treat every firearm as it is loaded all the time
  2. Never point the barrel at something you are not willing to shoot
  3. Know what is behind your target
  4. Keep your finger off of the trigger until ready to shoot

https://www.military.com/video/guns/gunfire/firearm-negligence/1676955087001 I tried to get this to work as an embed, clearly I need to spend some more time trying to figure out the actual code to do it as it wouldn’t natively convert. But this is a short video on some examples of stuff that can happen.

I once had a negligent discharge and fortunately there was no serious consequences. It was definitely a life altering experience and made me completely re-evaluate safety and my approach. So what happened?

I once owned a pistol and periodically the trigger did not reset when I was shooting. The first time it occurred, I pulled the trigger back for a second shot and no action. I was messing around with the firearm trying to figure out what was wrong while it was still loaded and cocked and the gun fired in the air. In that case, I violated rules one, three and four and arguably all of them.

If you are around gun culture long enough, most people have a similar story. I know for me, it made me take safety much more seriously. If that were to happen now I would stop, unload and then try to figure out the problem. Most accidents occur because of carelessness or ignorance. In my case, I would say both were true.

I am so thankful that I was lucky the pistol was pointed in a safe direction for me. I cant say that I know what was behind my target but I was in the woods so the probability was extremely small. That could have easily been deadly because I was seriously not paying attention to the risks. It is one of the reasons that I advocate for a ‘Range Safety Officer’ with even informal settings because they can intervene when not everyone is paying attention.

In case you are wondering, I don’t own that pistol anymore because I couldn’t trust it to fire reliably.

April 1, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

It is April Fool’s Day; there can be some real fools in the Tacticool space. I thought that it would be fun to identify some of them today.

The Mall Ninja– The mall ninja type is a person that gets kitted up to go out in public. My definition would include swords and trench coats, tactical dress with the bat belt on and wearing a full on backpack out in public. It is not clear to me if they are wearing all that gear because they think it might be useful or whether they are trying to drive a reaction.

One time, I saw a guy in a local grocery store wearing a kilt with a bush knife and handgun on his belt. The kilt was obviously a statement, but then to be decorated with weapons I couldn’t help but wonder if that was provocative or not. I averted my eyes one so they didn’t get burned but also I didn’t want to get into any issues.

The Keyboard Warrior- I suppose this category isn’t limited to the Tacticool space, but to the internet in general. The keyboard warrior is someone that knows it all or done it all and likes to post about it. The majority of their time and experience is spent within the virtual realm. In reality, we are seeing the highs and not the lows (if it is in fact true). They may have an encyclopedic knowledge of firearms or weapons with little practical experience.

The Role-player- I am not one to judge ones interests but I think sometimes these people end up trying to live their fantasy. This category is on the fringe of Tacticool, maybe more like wannabes. They can also bridge into the Mall Ninja category as well.

The (un)Prepper- This is the person that calls themselves a prepper, but the only preparation they have made is buying firearms and ammunition. The so called plan when the Shit Hits The Fan is to take what they need, hence all the firepower. This person will likely end up dead in the first week or join a band of renegades.

Not Internalizing the Rules of Gun Safety- This is the adage of becoming familiar enough to be dangerous or familiarity breeds complacency. There are so many stories about this especially if you have been around this space for a while. Anyone can have an accident or even an equipment failure but if you are properly following the rules, a violation of one rule but not the others can have a safe outcome.

I went deer hunting with a guy one time and I heard a shot from his direction. When we got back together, he said I heard something and so I shot, it turned out to be a person. That scared the crap out of me and I never went out with him again.

There are others in the woods, at the range and in public like that. It is why I prefer to skip chances at deer hunting in preference of safety. Keep your eyes open for for other Tacticool fools, they roam among us.

March 25, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

I have shotgun shells on the brain. Getting ready for the upcoming Trap season, I and some of the coaches were trying to get our strategy together to keep the team supplied with enough ammunition to do the five weeks of competition.

The first order was ‘you have to supply your own’. Even with me having some and buying a little, I cant find it reliably and in adequate quantity. The second idea was to try and buy reloading components. I wrote about that last week. When we were getting the club ready, we found we had a whole bunch of reloading components, but not everything. So I went down that rabbit hole of looking up loads that would work for the components we have and what that would cost. Finally, I have been working on a bulk buy of shotgun shells for the team and managing all of the moving parts that go along with that.

My contact that I have been working with said that he provided another local team with a pallet of shells. That is over 100 cases, in which there are 10 boxes per case and 25 rounds per box. That is over 25,000 shotgun shells. He was pretty sure that he could get us what we needed. I found some random picture of pallets of shotgun shells for perspective.

Needless to say, I am in the midst of negotiating a deal between the supplier and our teams’ board of directors. I still have on my long term goals to learn how to reload. I have a line on some powder, so I have all of the components I think I need for personal use.

You would be surprised at the dizzying array of component combinations for shotgun reloading. Not every primer, wad nor even hull combination allegedly can be mixed and matched. The thing about reloading is that chamber pressure is king (think safety), then accuracy. However, it seems that there is discrepancy between the flexibility of the plastic material in the wad and ambient temperature. Flexibility drives sealing and sealing drive pressure. Some hulls are tapered, some are not, so not every wad fits into every hull (properly).

All the component combinations have little known impact on the shot pattern. Every shotgun will perform slightly differently with every combination. For reloading, it is literally a matter of trying the different combinations until something works. As you can imagine, this can get expensive and time consuming.

I suppose I can talk about this some more some other time. Especially when I get more knowledge on the subject. My last item about shotguns is that I am planning on going to the range this weekend. I have a red dot sight that I want to get sighted in at 50 yards for slugs and then I want to test buckshot. I want to see the difference between what a field barrel will do and what a self defense length barrel will do. I may even try different chokes. I can’t get too fancy because I am only bringing 30 slugs (that was $100) but I would like to see the impact of different setups.

The point being that I want to be able to ensure the sight is somewhat accurate in case I ever needed a self defense tool. Just like shot pattern, every brand and weight, etc will perform differently with sight accuracy. What is dead on in one scenario may be six inches down and left in another. Looking forward to that.

March 11, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

I am already feeling the pull of the weekend, wishing it was here, longing for more freedom. I would rather be doing something else than reserving time from 4:30AM to 3PM for working. I know that even when I was at my last job there were times when I was engaged and happy to go to work and there were times that I was disconnected. I suppose when a human is in this position, it is a natural tendency. Even though the way I was working, of course not financially, felt more right. You do things because you have the opportunity or it absolutely needs to be done, not just clock 40 hours or more a week because you are expected to.

Regardless, that is not a Tacticool topic. Today I was going to write about what happens when my son is part of a trap team and there are no shotgun shells to be found. Typically there is a fee that covers shotgun shells or at least they are available for purchase through the team. This season it is bring your own. Irrespective of all the details, I need a minimum of 14 boxes of shotgun shells to make it through the season.

I suppose the good news is that I had six boxes already from last year and I just remembered that I have six boxes of steel shot for a specific fish and wildlife range. Plus if I really got desperate I have 20 gauge as well. I don’t really want to shoot it all up though.

I went to the local gun store here in town and talked to the owner. He is one of the coaches on the team anyway. He told me that he is buying shells at Walmart to sell at his store and that he can’t get any either. I asked about buying online (at four times what we were paying last year) and he said that even though inventory is showing in-stock, there is a high likelihood that it really isn’t and that it would be backordered. Shoot, my two best ideas were already dashed.

We went to a local box sporting goods store on Sunday. They did have some inventory. It wasn’t my preferred load but hey, we can’t be too choosy at this point. The biggest problem and the reason they still had inventory is that I could only buy two boxes at a time.

My next great idea was to reload. I already had primers and hulls but I didn’t have shot, wads or enough powder. I was able to get shot and wads but I still need powder. Looking online at auction sites, powder is going for $100/lb or more. When I do the calculations, 1 pound should yield at least 300 shells. When I do the math, for everything not including the primers I already have it is going to cost $10/25 to make. I paid $7 per box at the store last weekend.

Looking at the optics of the situation, reloading might be a position of having versus not having. I already have enough shells to barely finish the season and I am not sure that I want to commit to $100 worth of powder yet. Even though reloading is on my long term to-do list, that is why I didn’t have what I needed I don’t think that I can justify the cost at this point. The truth is, reloading shotgun shells has not been economically feasible in the recent past either.

  • 25lbs of shot
    • 25# = 355, 1 1/8oz loads/bag
    • $42 per bag = $0.11 per load
  • 1lb of powder
    • 7000grains/lbs = 466 loads/lb @ a nominal 15 grain charge
    • 7000grains/lbs = 280 loads/lb @ a nominal 25 grain charge
    • $100 per pound = $0.21 – $0.36 per load
  • 500 wads
    • $12 per bag = $0.02 per load
  • 1000 primers
    • $35 = $0.04 per load
    • Note: this is the price I paid, not the current price. I have seen 1000 primers going between $100 and $150
  • Now the truth
    • ($0.11 + $0.21 + $0.02 + $0.04) * 25 = $9 a box at the low end
    • ($0.11 + $0.36 + $0.04 + $0.15) * 25 = $16.50 a box at the high end

Shooting trap at this level, we are buying the cheapest thing we can get. Last year, I paid $5 a box on sale and $6 a box regular price for run of the mill target loads. There are other grades of shells however. I think Remington STS was more along the lines of $8 a box. I really don’t know what the true difference is but I heard a podcast about shot makeup and supposedly the alloy makes a difference in how many pellets deform leaving the barrel which in turn impacts patterning. In theory, reloading could make a more premium product at an affordable price. I just don’t think the trap season is the time to experiment yet.

March 4, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

I finally made it to the range last weekend. It was the first time since August and I had some goals that I wanted to accomplish. For one, I have had a rifle that I have owned since 2016 and have only test fired, not sighted in. I also made changes to some of the parts and I didn’t really know if those changes effected the function or not. This trip was planned for April of last year before the pandemic closed the range so I have been looking forward to this for quite a while.

One of the problems for a reloader with a semi-automatic rifle is that spent brass is flung out of the rifle as it is fired. In the past, I have been able to find most of the brass, but sometimes it is muddy or you step on them as they are fired which is less than ideal. Fortunately in the AR platform, Caldwell has a solution for this. This range trip was also a first for this gadget as well.

I have to say that it worked pretty well. I didn’t get close to the 100 rounds before it was full. I would say that by about twenty or so, the weight was heavy enough to pull it out of place but it is pretty easy to unzip the bottom and empty it. I could have made some effort to make sure that the device was mounted more securely but I was mostly shooting off of a bench and working on sighting in so I rolled with it.

One downside I would say is that the brass catcher interfered with visibility of the action. I cant say for sure that it actually interfered with the function but I did have a few issues.

On two out of three magazines, I had issues with initial charging. That very easily could have been the magazine. I have heard that people typically load 28 instead of 30. Again, this is the second time I have shot this and I haven’t even tried all the different magazines I own. I did experience one failure to eject. At this point, I am going to attribute that to the brass catcher. I suspect that it can interfere with the flight path of the empty casing.

In the following years to come, I will pay more attention to all of these variables. The goal of this trip was to function fire all of the changes and get the sight reasonable at 100 yards. A firearm that is not sighted in is really not useful beyond point blank range. Plus, with the ammo shortage, the cost is astronomical at this point so I am going to put off more heavy shooting until things calm down a bit on the market.

My plans for the next range trip is to spend some time on shotgun slugs and sights. I have some new sights that I want to get sighted in and I figured that zeroing on a slug would be the best way even though I would primarily plan to use buckshot with it. After all, a shotgun is most advantageous with shot because I have better rifles.

Even though I have the shotgun interlude planned for next month, my goal this year is to get my Rossi 92 tuned up. It needs sighting in as well as it shot 10 inches to the right at fifty yards. I didn’t have a punch to make the necessary adjustments as this was the first time I have shot it beyond 25 yards. I need to spend some time deburring sharp edges and probably will spend some time smoothing the action as well. Those will be iterative efforts. Both this one and the AR were supposed to be more plinking toys with inexpensive ammo. So much for that.

February 25, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

Another Thursday has rolled around, seems like we were just here. I have little to report as of the last week, I have spent most of my time adjusting to my new schedule. I am trying to target better bedtimes for appropriate rest. This is one of the things that I have identified as a success criteria this time.

I know that I was in a state of chronic fatigue. It definitely took some time, I would say probably a month to six weeks to begin to feel rested again. That is not typically a luxury that a working person has, taking a month off to recover. It definitely plays a role in what I am going to accomplish moving forward as well. Night time has overflow capacity to spill what you are working on into time that you should be getting ready for bed.

Maybe sleep patterns are ‘Tacticool’ to some, but they don’t fit my definition. This week, I have been advising my dad on some reloading tips. He is a reloader from way back. Reloading goes along with frugality, hunting and the rural lifestyle so it seems to fit the bill as something I was exposed to as a youngster. I should say too, we weren’t big shooters growing up, needless to say that we didn’t do it often.

That is why when I shot some of the loads he made up thirty years ago, I had some issues. I had bullets that weren’t well seated and cartridges that didn’t chamber to name a few issues. I mentioned it a few years ago and now that he wants to load some rifle cartridges, he was asking my opinion about what was wrong. Reloading is not difficult but does benefit from a meticulous approach. I would also say that it does require a minimum level of equipment to get started. Even the various starter kits don’t provide everything necessary to get started.

Take calipers for example. While not strictly necessary, case length and overall cartridge length are critical measurements to properly chamber a round. No kit that I know of contains calipers. And what if the case length is too long, how do you correct that? Brass has to be trimmed. My dad does not have a trimmer (good luck finding anything these days) so I loaned him mine.

Reloading is an entire hobby unto itself. Some obsolete cartridge brass can be manufactured out of others. You can get into bullet casting from lead. Then there is what load/bullet perform best for your firearm. Wildcatting is making your own cartridges.

Even if you have zero interest in reloading, having a manual can be useful. I have several and I also use online manufacturers sources as well. There is always cartridge information, specifications and loads showing what is popular and potentially available. These days, the internet can do many of these things but I think that it is helpful when developing a load to cross check multiple sources because errors can have serious consequences. It should also be noted that there is a warning to only use current, professionally published data is recommended. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.

I also keep a log book of my loads because each firearm potentially performs best with a different load combination. I am not at the point where I can say that I have mastered all of those variables for each firearm so I keep track and make notes after shooting. The thought is that at some point I will aggregate all of the data points and refine my loads to the best performing suggestions.

Everyone in the firearms community by this point knows that everything is in scarcity and reloading components and tools are no exception. So, unless you have been collecting all of the materials pre-pandemic this is not a time that you will likely get started. I would say that I had all of the tools for four years before I made my first cartridge.

My long term strategy was to 1) set a minimum factory ammunition goal 2) shoot enough factory ammunition to build a brass cache for reloading 3) build enough reloaded ammunition to maintain a sufficient inventory (for times like these) and then 4) build enough components stock to weather a long term outage. You will probably never have everything that you want, but I would say that I have some. I think that I talked about the last shortage being only primers which I do have plenty for now but not bullets or powder for experimenting.

If you think that you might want to get into it at some point, save your brass, buy a manual and build a workspace. Secondhand reloading equipment is good value as well if you can find it. Maybe you know someone that does it and can teach you or help you or share equipment.

February 18, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

My official transformation has begun, and no it’s not becoming a woman. I officially left my last day at Amazon on Monday and I started my first day at my new job yesterday. Things haven’t gone entirely smoothly or at least the way that I expected. The recent weather has thrown a monkey wrench into delivery services like Amazon and Fed-Ex to name a few.

I have been waiting for my computer to get started since Friday of last week. The tracking site has literally not change in over a week. So, in lieu of working right now I am am going to shift my day later and work later. That means I can do this right now.

Today, I was thinking about carrying my stuff around. I was thinking about this as I unpacked my work pack and put all my stuff away that I was using while I was a delivery driver. Some things went back to where they were before I was a delivery driver. Some things were specifically for that job and I am not sure if I will ever use them again and trying to figure out how to move on.

The backpack on the left I use to hold my computer. It was company swag. I switched over from a Swiss Army Pack because I thought that it was the right thing to do, showing the colors with the logo. My Swiss Army pack was quickly repurposed by my nephew who needed a new backpack and gone forever. I went along with this pack for probably three years at work.

Let me say, I hated it from the day I switched. The divider arrangements, the overall capacity (volume), the depth of the zipper opening all were not adequate. It was fine for light use and carrying a computer around, but not for carry-on travel or everyday carry (EDC). On some business trips, my backpack would be the only luggage I would take and I didn’t have the room for a book plus toiletries plus a change of clothes.

When I started working at Amazon, I said “I hate this bag but I can make it work because I don’t need to spend extra money right now”. And it is true, there is a bit of first world syndrome in my thinking. I got my lunch and water bottle and raincoat in there. But I could never get out what I wanted without pulling everything out. It was crammed and difficult to close. When I wanted to clock out, I had to carefully repack everything and squeeze. I couldn’t just stuff and dash to get home.

I started immediately dreaming about what I would want in a daypack. I wanted outside water bottle access, a sunglasses pocket, full access to the inside, one small item organizer compartment and no waist belt. I also didn’t want a huge logo or at least a globally recognized brand. Nothing says tourist or maybe this bag is full of cash like when the entire back says Oakley on it. When I was in China, I had a Dell backpack and I always felt self-conscious like that just added a little extra target on me.

I thought about life after Amazon and how I might use a new pack. Infrequent day trips or family vacations would be the primary mission in the future. I looked at very ‘Tacticool’ packs with concealed carry pockets and gear loops and things. But, I wanted to be the gray man, plus I don’t think that is the best way to carry anyway.

Another thing I have learned is that everything is a compromise. More pockets generally mean less space because everything still has to fit in the same overall volume. Once the bag becomes segmented, it restricts the amount of gear in each pocket in order to retain the integrity or function of the particular pocket. For example, either exterior water bottle takes from interior space for rigidity or it relies on some sort of elastic material to keep the bottle restrained. The latter design ultimately doesn’t hold up to hard use because the elastic stretches out of shape and then your water bottle starts falling out. My hunting pack has that problem.

One last consideration, it is fairly difficult to find a ‘Jack of All Trades’ bag. The hunting bags are camouflaged, the computer bags are made for pens and computers and tablets, the hiking bags are made for overnight trips, the school bags are made for textbooks and such. Stores that are oriented towards particular markets carry items that are oriented toward their customers and market. Online is the best option for model and color.

I found some packs that I almost bought that I would have gotten near lifetime use. Mystery Ranch was my top pick but it was $200 everywhere I looked. If I am going to spend that kind of money, I really want to see what I am buying because it is difficult to visualize the difference between the 24L and the 28L and the 32L sizes. I had some second choices with Patagonia and The North Face, but everything was above $150 that met most of my requirements.

I was very frustrated with my computer bag. After looking at REI and other outdoor stores on the more high end side I went to the discount store Sierra Trading Post and I found this Thule bag for $70. It met most of my requirements, so I bought it. It is 28L and has one compartment. It is sleek and doesn’t have a lot of straps and things to get hung up. It had a removable waist belt and it held all of my stuff I wanted when I was on the road.

It did not have an organizer compartment. But, I have a Maxpedition ‘NeatFreak’ organizer that I carried inside of the bag. I could put my pens, spare batteries, tire gauge, charging cables, etc into the organizer. Again, everything is a compromise and those things take up space too. But, once I switched over I felt immediately better. Getting to my lunch didn’t require a complete un-pack. I could grab my water bottle on the road. I had cold weather and wet weather gear with me at all times.

One thing I have been guilty in the past has been ‘make due’ attitude. Many times, that is to my advantage (from a financial standpoint at least) but sometimes it is not. I quickly bought quality footwear and then changed my bag and added a few things to make my life better while I was delivering packages. I can confidently say that it was a good decision because then I could focus on doing the work rather than the other perceived distractions.

Admittedly, this was a want more than a need. Consider how mood and attitude effects productivity and outside work activity. I think that it is worth evaluating your situation and making changes that could be relatively inexpensive for those ‘quality of life’ scenarios. Items like quality cookware, a comfortable bed or pillow or items used in your profession for safety and comfort can turn a miserable day into just another day.

February 11, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

If anything is constant, it is change. My routine is going to get more consistent in the next week. That is because my schedule is going to be predictable; Monday-Friday. It is going to be a little unique in that I will be working Central Time. But that is OK because I will be working 6AM-3PM, I have always preferred to start and finish early.

It also means that I will be shifting my writing time from the morning to the evening because I doubt that I am going to want to do too much that early in the morning. But, in the mean time, I am going to launch into another project. This project will be to build an office.

When I was last employed, I always worked at the dining table. I worked infrequently from home, it was the couple of snow days a year, the days when the car was in the shop or there was some kind of appointment mid-day and it didn’t make sense to do a lot of driving back and forth. My new job is 100% remote (for the foreseeable future) and everyone is home, it makes sense to have a dedicated space.

The location is less than ideal. It will be in my sometimes wet basement and is superseding the space that holds my fishing rods, firearms, shooting supplies, tackle boxes, frame packs etc. Which means that stuff needs to find a new home. On the bright side, I hope that I can make a podcasting setup, integrate some more secure storage and will be comfortable with heat and adequate lighting.

This is also a priority for me. It means that I am going to put dedicated effort and time into finishing it as soon as possible. Reading between the lines, it means that I am going to prioritize that work over writing for the duration of the project. My guess is that it is going to take at least a month to finish on nights and weekends.

Since this is ‘Tacticool’ Thursday, lets take a minute and fanaticize that I am building a “safe room” rather than an office. What attributes should I build into to make it happen? First what are the threats? In my area, the biggest threats are earthquake, flooding, fire.

Each threat might have different design considerations. Take fire, the best structure for fire would be one that doesn’t burn. Or for an earthquake, a wooden structure that can move but the framing elements are strapped so the parts don’t slide apart. Flooding would want to be sealed or at least have water management capability. So, from that standpoint, no one single structure is going to meet all of those requirements adequately.

But also in the room is going to be some supplies to wait out the emergency such as food, water, sanitation and entertainment. Depending on the duration of the event would be what to prepare for. My scenarios would range from a few minutes to several days.

I have always thought that if you were in the situation, you may need tools to get out of the safe room. Imagine that the house around you collapsed, you would want to escape from the place or at least be found, so some demolition tools and shut-off capability.

The Hollywood set would have you believe that this is the place to ride out the Zombie Apocolyse. This room would be hidden and fortified against outside threats. There are such things as ‘bullet proof’ panels (of fiberglass) or steel plates but they are heavy and expensive. You could add steel door frames with hidden doors. I think that in reality, those things are adding extra time until they are breached rather than so much as ‘proof’ anything.

Sometimes I see Youtube videos of fallout shelters and I watch because I am interested in seeing how problems are addressed. You can generate some power as long as you have fuel or you can have a bank of solar panels strung up somewhere. Many of them have some sort of charcoal air filter. My view is that you can probably survive some acute event, but sooner or later, the filters are going to fail. Charcoal is great at absorbing until it is full. Some sort of power source would be needed to refresh it. It would be impractical to live more than a couple weeks in that kind of setup.

So, I guess what I am saying is that everything is an act of compromises. The perfect structure for one scenario is largely imperfect for another. Building a structure for one type of scenario is potentially possible and could be successful. This office won’t be a saferoom, but if I lived in a tornado prone area, I do believe that having a place to go for that sort of thing would be on my list of wants.

February 4, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

Well now… it’s been a while. It seems like I am always working on Thursday and today is no exception. But I am writing on Wednesday to post on Thursday because I can. I created the draft placeholder over a month ago, now I have no idea what I was going to write about at the time.

So, I am going to go a different direction today. I am going to talk about what I see and what we can do in this ‘Tacticool’ space. What do I see? A lot of nothing. In the great firearms buying frenzy of 2010 that cleared briefly and then went from 2012 to 2016 there were some differences than today.

The first is, firearms minus the AR15 variants were abundant. That is not the case today. Many stores that I see have less than full shelves. It looks like you can buy a bolt action hunting rifle or some really inexpensive 22s.

Even the ammunition looks different than the Obama years. I could buy as many shotgun shells as I wanted to. Now, the only thing I see on the shelves at the local store is 28 gauge. I could buy match grade 22LR like Eley where I was paying $6/50. Now we can only dream of finding that. I saw Remington Thunderbolt at $50/500 by a private seller. That is crazy. Someone bought it at $15 or less more than likely.

Fortunately, I bought ammo when it was available. Do I have as much as I want? No. But, since my shooting has scaled way back this last year as I have focused on working and finding work, I have way more than I ‘need’ because I haven’t shot anything since September.

Another thing that is different is that primers were scarce during the Obama buying, but powder and bullets were not. Now, there is none of that. The prices for private sales are three times what they were a year ago. Just crazy. I do have reloading components as well because I started focusing on buying only on performance type ammunition and loading all of my range ammo several years ago (minus shotgun shells cause I didn’t think I would need to). So I have bullets and primers and powder.

So, you are not going to buy ammunition, nor reloading components or probably firearms unless you are willing to pony up the cash to pay the market rates. What is the ‘Tacticool’ guy to do? Here are my suggestions.

  • Optics- these are still available at the the normal prices. I am going through and looking at all of my platforms and tightening up the places where I would like to make enhancements, like adding red dots and saddle mounts for my shotguns.
  • Magazines- I still see AR magazines on the shelf. I have always encouraged having more than you think you need because they break sometimes. You also never know when the standard capacity magazine will be outlawed.
  • Accessories- Barrels for that shotgun, new grips for that handgun, holsters, range bags, tools and equipment like spotting scopes, range detectors or wind meters. There is also targets that can be fun..
  • Quality over quantity- Since a lot of things are not available splurge for the things that will make you happy. Some day, I want to change out the grips on a revolver from black rubber to elk antler. I think it will look really sharp but they are $180, a little hard to justify at the moment.
  • Field time versus range time- I like to hunt. With the exception of waterfowl or predator hunting, usually this involves a lot less shooting. The biggest problem is that this is not a season where I live other than waterfowl or non-game species like rabbits. But some states have squirrel still. Heck some states still have big game at this time. It is the time of year to start planning for hunting season, looking for antler sheds is about to start and general scouting can begin if you are not snowed in
  • Maybe it’s a good time to take up fishing- That is sort of tongue and cheek but I tend to focus on other things when I can’t get ammunition. I plan to get back into fly tying at some point in my life. I would like to try cross country skiing or snow shoeing. All things can sort of be related to general fitness and preparedness and hunting and enjoying the outdoors.

With all this said, I don’t know if it will ever be as good as it was the last couple of years with supply and pricing. Since this is a pay to play world, this might be the new normal. I would bet it is for the next two years at least. So, we might as well get settled in for a longer term strategy. I encourage people to look outside the lines for participation into their hobbies. I know for myself that accessorizing has been a pacifier for not being able to do. That is a story for another day.

December 17, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

I am a tactile person. I am also a frugal person but also a value oriented person. I want to ‘buy once and cry once’. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any one holster shopping solution.

Inside the Waistband or commonly called IWB seem like the best compromise in concealability and function. However, they require coordination with your clothes. Pants need to be at least one inch or more bigger than you normally wear to accommodate the holster in your pants. But then, what do you do when you are not wearing a holster, your pants don’t fit well. Or what do you do when you gain weight or lose weight, again, your pants don’t fit.

It can be pretty uncomfortable to squeeze into pants and then have this extra bulge to contend with. Not to mention, keeping that kind of holster concealed can be a challenge. I have had it fall out. I have had my shirt come up and get hooked over the top if it is a little short.

As I was saying at the beginning, there really isn’t a way to to look at the different brands or try one without ordering from the internet. But, I tried something completely different, called a ‘belly band’ colloquially. It is a big strap that you put around your stomach, so it eliminates a lot of the problems with IWB and clothes.

I tested it while I installed the floor the other day. Everything stayed in place like it should and I was able to keep working fairly physically with it on. The velcro can be a little scratchy until it warms up to body temperature and seems to soften a little bit.

This is a good solution for several options. It offers the deepest of concealment so it will fit in with almost any attire that is not skin tight. It is also the best solution for active people who do things like running for activities.

It is also one of the cheaper options at $20. Since it is flexible material, it is also universal fit for firearm and body and you don’t need a bunch of holsters to change out firearms. I still believe that you probably need options. Not every platform is the best for concealed carry. My 5 1/2″ barreled Colt 45 is probably never going to get carried concealed, that will go out in the woods, outside the waistband, open carried.

I never considered this type of holster before but after using it a couple times, I really like it. If you are looking for a solution like this, I can recommend it.