Category Archives: Real Steel

Enjoying the sun!

Brandon, a friend of mine and I went to Silverdale and what an absolutely beautiful day it was, I love sunny light jacket weather!  My friend Andrew got his license last year and I helped him zero the optic on his Ruger 10/22 at 10 then 25 yards.  Even with bulk ammo, it was shooting very well and he was happy with everything.  Brandon enjoyed shooting the handguns and our Ruger 10/22, sigh I wish I could shoot my AR15s but that doesn’t look like it’ll happen anytime soon. 🙁

Love capturing the brass eject out of the handgun!  Brandon prefers the Glock 19 over the HK SFP9, bah what do kids know lol…  If handguns are ever unbanned (not looking good with the Liberals leading in the polls but we find out tonight) I’ll get a full size Glock 17 again in the future as well as bunch of other guns.

Quality time with the boy is always  good. 🙂

Get out of here

These types of articles drive me nuts, it’s been well known for decades that criminals get their guns from the US and don’t bother with the licensing system we have in Canada yet the only solution the Liberals ever have is banning guns from legal owners.

The data from GTA police is in line with what research has shown for many years, says Jooyoung Lee, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto who studies the underlying causes and long-term consequences of gun violence.

“One thing we’ve known for many, many generations is that the U.S. is a global exporter of firearms and the vast majority of crime guns in Canada are originating in a very small kind of handful of U.S. states that have much more lax and porous gun laws,” he said.

Source: CBC

If our news organizations were truly objective, they’d question the powers that be why they’re enacting policy that doesn’t do anything and is all for show.

There’s no way I’m voting Liberal (probably ever again) but I take a lot of pleasure to see all the candidates in the leadership race to replace Trudeau are running as fast as they can away from his stupid policies.

TOUGHSOUL TF9044IR Review (kind of)

I was browsing Amazon for some random stuff and the TOUGHSOUL TF9044IR showed up on my recommended list so I took a look and man, $105 for an IR laser/light combo seemed cheap, I wanted to get some IR devices for my GSG-16, perhaps this would work out.  Thank you Amazon Prime, it got to me in 2 days from Florida and I didn’t have to pay customs. 🙂

The TOUGHSOUL (shortened to TS moving forward TF9044IR came in an non descript box with the brand’s name on it and inside was the unit itself, two CR123a batteries, M-LOK accessories and a small manual.  The TS TF9044IR is made of aluminum, has two buttons (one for the laser & the other for the IR illuminator), on one end is a battery cap and slot for two batteries and on the other were the IR is emitted from.  Overall it’s ~200 grams so it’s pretty light and has a pretty small formfactor.

As you can see next to my Steiner DBAL-A3 civilian LAM (boo, I know) it’s very small and if it’s mounted on the top rail, would not be visible to any optic you may be running.  The aiming laser is IR only so you’ll need night vision to zero the device, but that’s not too difficult as the laser is inline with the mount so the offset should be minimal and easy for people to take into account.  The illuminator is fixed so it can’t be focused and designed to be used at close ranges.

I don’t know how legitimate the IR laser numbers are on the sticker as we’ll see a bit later the laser is significantly more powerful than my DBAL-A3.  The mounting mechanism is M-LOK only and initally I wanted to install it on the left side of the GSG-16 but then it’d interfere with the charging handle and I already have a Surefire M300 on the right side.  At the moment I’ve mounted the TS TF9044IR on the bottom, may move it later but for now this will work.

I’m sorry not the best photos and even though there’s no moon at the moment, it’s still an urban area with a lot of snow cover.  When the weather is better I’ll update or post new photos of the unit in a darker area, I just wanted to get something up.  In the first two photos you can see the power of the IR illuminator, in the second photo specifically the illuminator doesn’t work well beyond the fence though again the environment is not very friendly.

The 3rd photo shows the laser (in the center), the 4th shows the dot difference between the TS TF9044IR and my civilian DBAL-A3, I don’t know if the TF9044IR is eye safe…  5th and 6th pictures show the difference between the TF9044IR and the DBAL with illuminator and with laser/illuminator on.  Note the DBAL A3 is at its widest setting and again the environment sucks for taking photos right now.  Finding a good LAM up here in Canada is difficult but there are a lot of compelling options coming to the market and some are making it up here too. 🙂

I can’t talk about how the TS TF9044IR handles recoil as my AR15s and GSG-16 are currently banned by the federal Liberal government but they should fall soon and hopefully we’ll have sensible gun laws again soon.  That’s a story for another time so the review really is incomplete but when I can shoot again, I’ll definitely talk about my experiences and if the TS TF9044IR could maintain zero.

For $105, even if it sucks I really can’t complain too much but I do have some high hopes so crossing my fingers and will keep this thing mounded on my gun till I can bring it to the range. 🙂

Ouch!

I’m off Tuesday-Friday this week so I could spend some more time with Brandon and this morning we went to Silverdale.

Shooting is great bonding time and he enjoyed himself as well as starting to get better, just needs more practice.

On the way home though we definitely had a bit of a shock.

This was on the QEW just before Mississauga Rd, it was stop and go traffic and well the big truck couldn’t stop in time, hit the black van which then hit the back of my car.  The van slid into a white van in the passing lane (we were all in the middle) so it was a 4 car accident, ugh!  I feel lucky the black van was in between because if it wasn’t that truck would have hit me and the damage would have been a lot worse.

I called the police, two officers showed up an hour later traffic was terrible so not surprised it took so long.  They talked to us individually then told me I can drive home if I wanted to so I did.  The Lexus drives straight and felt fine (except for the error message about the parking sensors not working) so I hope it can be repaired though when I got home and opened the trunk I could see the rear was pushed in a bit, not sure if that’s bad or not.

Called insurance, gave them all the info and told them I have a dashcam with video if they wanted to see the accident but I think it’s pretty clear what happened so let’s see how long this one takes.

Quality time!

Took Brandon to Silverdale this morning to do some shooting and it was great!

Brandon got to shoot his GSG-16 rifle, he enjoys it quite a bit and even though he didn’t initially like the recoil from 9mm pistols, he enjoyed shooting the Glock 19 on the steel plates. 😉  The ting from striking steel is very satisfying and I’m glad I can share this wonderful hobby with him.

Thanks Andrew!

My friend Andrew made me three helmet display stands and they look freaking awesome!

Allows me to balance the helmets out and it looks great on the shelf behind me during video calls. 😉

Thank you airsofters, more to do

So the Liberals are pushing the ridiculous Bill C21 which only addresses legal guns and with the help of the NDP, airsofters were able to get an exemption for the hobby.  Score one for common sense but we have so much more to do, C21 should be scrapped altogether and my hope is that the bill fails to become law before the next election, I guess we’ll see.

One set is free, the other is still banned so yeah there’s still more work to do.  As a legal gun owner (and former airsofter), I am tired of being used as punching bag, whenever criminals use guns the Liberals try to placate the masses by adding more rules or banning guns that are used by legal owners.  It’s a farse and I hope that people realize that the Liberals have absolutely no answers to any of society’s problems.  They’re pushing gun control because at a time of high inflation, an economy teetering on the edge of recession, Chinese political interference (that benefits the Liberals) and their governing record is abysmal and they have nothing to run on.  Their last 8 years has been a complete failure, they’re personally corrupt and only have wedge politics, that’s it.

The next election can’t come soon enough and I would love nothing better than the total destruction of the Liberal party.  It doesn’t stand for anything and this incessant team politics will ruin Canada.

Oh to anyone calling me a simplistic Conservative, feel free to look through my previous blog posts and you’ll see that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Special day

This morning I took Brandon to shoot for the first time and it was amazing.  While Maggie has enjoyed shooting in the past, she was against Brandon participating till he was older and more mature and well that time has come. 😉

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Silverdale and they’ve changed a few things up.  We went to the action range and Brandon mainly shot Maggie’s Ruger 10/22 and her S&W M&P22.  He did try some 9mm out of my HK SFP9 but found the recoil a bit too heavy for him so he stuck having fun with 22LR which is fine.  Whenever I bring a new shooter out it’s always about their comfort level and I do not push them to shoot anything beyond that.

Like every new shooter, Brandon held the S&W M&P22 hard, hard enough that sometimes he was shaking but that’s common from many new shooters to squeeze the gun super tight.  I’m glad my 22LR guns eat the cheapest crap though the Remington Yellowjackets did vary in power a lot, sometimes while the bullet exited the barrel (I’d do my ACTS & PROVE) it wasn’t enough to cycle the slide and we had a few FTEs.  I don’t think it’s due to the M&P22 being dirty, I cleaned it beforehand.

I’m glad he had fun, I really enjoyed taking him out and he was all smiles the whole time he was there. 🙂

Ready for SHTF!

LOL kidding but I did get two new toys and mmm I can’t wait to use them!  First is a set of Opfor Night Solutions BNVD 1431 night vision googles.  They’re a Canadian exclusive (due to American ITAR laws) which blend the PVS31 body with Photonis ECHO tubes with PVS14 optics.  This mishmash was created by one of the leading Canadian suppliers with hand picked tubes and the resolution, brightness & clarity is certainly much greater than with my old PVS-14.

Delivered today too was my DBAL-A3 civilian laser system.  My old PEQ15 was giving me some problems so I got rid of it a year and a half ago and frankly it never felt right that I didn’t have an IR laser so I’m glad to be equipped with one again.  I haven’t shot or played airsoft in like forever so will need to rectify one (or both) of those things soon, I’ll keep the PVS-14 as you can never have enough night vision and Brandon can use it.  Just need another helmet now lol…

Only optics

So yesterday the federal Liberals announced some new gun control measures, which make me wonder are these designed for domestic or international reactions?  Seems like he wants to be seen as the “adult” compared to what happened in the US.  I absolutely hate it when politicians justify measures based on what happens in other countries and while I think this is a pretty ridiculous comparison, more countries in the world ban LGBT rights than support them, should a government in the future legislate based on that?  Sounds silly when you extend the thinking doesn’t it?

The bill would create a new “red flag” law allowing courts to require that people considered a danger to themselves or others surrender their firearms to police.

Source: CTV News

See you can tell the Liberals are pandering because this framework already exists as does the ban of “large capacity” magazines.  This government only cares what makes it look good rather than doing good, maybe I’ll buy another handgun or two before this ban comes into place.