31 March 2007

DTC 2007


Follow the link above to see all the great pics that Rob Robbins took of our squad at the 2007 Double Tap Championship in Wichita Falls. Some really good stuff there.

29 March 2007

A follow up for the good Congressman

I wonder if I will be granted a response??

Dear Dr. Burgess,

I wrote you on the 12th of March in response to reading your emailed reply, asking you what your position was on HR 1022. As of tonight, 3/29/7, I have yet to receive a response from your office.

I posted your original response, as it appears below, on my blog on the 12th as well, as you can see in this link: http://mysite.verizon.net/jimroth/2007/03/you-know-i-somehow-expected-more.html

I would really appreciate the courtesy of a response from your office. Considering that our blog is fairly popular amongst the shooting crowd, you can rest assured that your response will be read by a wide range of shooting enthusiasts from across Texas, including your District.

As I'm sure you can tell, I think that HR 1022 is an abomination that should never leave committee. But if it does, I'd like to know how you will vote on it.

Regards,

The Fish

Care and feeding of guns

Other than my infamous "nasty gun" post a while back, we really haven't much discussed the care and feeding of our pistols. Considering what happened to me at the Double Tap Championship this past weekend, I thought we'd dwell a bit on some basic maintenance items, and that is when to replace key parts of the pistol due to wear.

Everything I say will be based on the 1911/2011 platform, based on an annual round count of 18,000-20,000 rounds.

Using slide glide as my main lubricant, I'm able to get a minimum of 1,000 rounds between serious cleanings. Every 2,000 rounds, I'll break down the top end and pull the firing pin, extractor, and firing pin stop out and clean all the gunk out of the two channels.

Every 5,000 rounds, I'll change out my recoil spring. I personally like a recoil spring in the 16-17.5 lb range. Others like much lighter. It's personal preference, really.

I'll change out my firing pin spring annually. Mainspring annually. I'd like to never have to mess with the leaf spring that works the sear, disconnector and grip safety. Unfortunately, I've had to do that twice in the last 7 months; mainly because the part was too lightweight for the abuse that I was heaping upon it.

And that really has been it, up till now.

I need to set a maintenance schedule for the trigger components as well - the hammer, hammer strut, sear, disconnector and leaf spring. These components failed me miserably this weekend, costing me a decent finish to an otherwise great weekend of shooting. I just wasn't thinking that those parts would wear out, and I believe it was a little naive on my part!

I got to thinking that I've had the frame of my 2011 since about 2001. At a conservative guess of 15K rounds a year, that's 90,000 rounds through the frame. (The top end is newer, I've probably only got somewhere around 50K through it.) Add to the live fire a minimum of 10 trigger pulls for each live round; approximately 900,000 times I've pulled the trigger of that pistol since 2001. No wonder the damn trigger system broke!!

To keep it from breaking again, I plan to replace the components every two years. That should keep everything fresh, working fine and keeping the gun chugging along like it should. I think with proper maintenance and care, I can get at least another 50-75,000 rounds through the pistol with no problems....

So, when you start working on your maintenance schedule for your firearms, it's not just springs and lube!!

28 March 2007

A Tale of Two Houses

Yes, it's true.
LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.
HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it's truly "an inconvenient truth."
Sensationalism, commercialism and hypocrisy, all rolled up with an Academy Award. Ladies and gentlemen, Al Gore.

26 March 2007

Shootin' Fools

Sorry we've been slow on the posts recenlty. We went shooting this weekend, to the Double Tap Championship in Wichita Falls, TX. Check out these great pics taken by our friend Rob Robbins. We got full representation for the Tattler at this match, and got Pimp Daddy in here to boot.
Big D
BradC
Dan
The Girl
Catfish
JR
The Pimp













As for a match report, well - it was dusty. Really, really dusty, and it played hell with a lot of guns. In fact, I think more guns just plain broke than any match I've ever seen before. In spite of that, we had about as much fun at this match as any in recent memory.