Category Archives: Shooting Sports

TACCOM

So today Laura and I went to TACCOM hosted by Firearms Outlet Canada and it was a lot of fun!  Lots of small guns, big guns, prohibs, etc to look and drool over.  For once I’m not in the gun buying mood so but I did browse many of the retailers looking for accessories.

I actually bought a TriggerTech Adaptable AR curved trigger online yesterday and was hoping to pick it up from the store but they weren’t ready for pickups due to the show so that was a bit of a downer but I understand.  I did end up buying a Vortex Crossfire red dot, it’s a very good copy of the Aimpoint T1, at 1/3 the price and that’ll replace the Bushnell TRS25 on my CSA vz58.  I also grabbed two Lancer Tactical 5/30 AR mags and another 1k of 9mm CCI ammo as it was a great price.

It’s a shame I didn’t get my trigger so this will have to suffice for the time being and I’ll probably pick it up Thursday so I can play with it on Friday at the range. 😀

The rest of the day we stuck around the house, Maggie is busy since it’s tax season so I played with the boy and it was very relaxing.

Rod Giltaca of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights had an excellent reply to the government introduction of bill C71.

Gun control in Canada is more about fluff than substance, adding more restrictions on someone like myself does nothing to stem gun violence.  The root causes of gun issues here or anywhere in the world are multifaceted, there are no easy answers and I’d say it’ll take even longer than 10 years, it’d probably require a generational shift in thinking in order to persuade people to not take up a life of crime.

Better opportunities, a living wage & less systemic racism would go a lot more way in terms of solving gun violence than banning guns would.

Wow from the CBC!

There was an interesting story in the CBC about why the Liberals picked 2013 as the baseline year to compare gun related crime & deaths.

That’s because 2013 saw Canada’s lowest rate of criminal homicides in 50 years, and the lowest rate of fatal shootings ever recorded by Statistics Canada.

In 2013, Canadians killed each other at the lowest rate since 1966 — 30 per cent below the average of the previous three decades. Statistics Canada’s homicide report for 2013 clearly identifies it as a record-breaking year.

“To be worth much, a report based on sampling must use a representative sample,” wrote Huff.

But 2013 does not represent any kind of Canadian norm. Choosing it as a baseline could be seen as an example of what statisticians call “selection bias.”

Source: CBC

Get out of here, politicians and governments cherry pick numbers that suit their purposes?  I don’t have any problem with reasonable control of anything but the key word is reasonable and the Liberal bill C71 will do nothing to address crime.

0.6% of all crime

So this is a power point slide from the government and it shows that gun crime in 2016 makes up 0.6% of crime in Canada or 3% of violent crime…

Of the 0.6% of crime committed with a gun I wonder how many were perpetrated by licensed gun owners, considering we get RCMP background checks daily, I think probably very little.  If this doesn’t show people that we’re focusing on the wrong things, then they’re ideologues who do not listen to reason.  If one truly wants to deal with crime (or even violent crime), there are many other avenues that will get results much quicker and as I mentioned yesterday, complicated issues require a whole bunch of issues to be addressed at the same time.

Good intentions, horrible bill

I get it that most people don’t give two shits about gun owners or our concerns but man the way Bill C71 which was just proposed by the federal Liberal government sucks. Most of it is window dressing and stuff that’s already being done like checking people’s PALs before purchasing firearms, more background checks (I guess once a day through the RCMP database is not good enough?) but what really irks me is the ability for the RCMP to classify firearms anyway they want.

In 2014, the RCMP classified the CZ 858 & Swiss Arms rifles as prohibited, even though both were available legally for sale for over 10 years.  At the time the only options given to gun owners were to turn in the firearms for destruction (with no compensation), now the Liberals are creating a new prohibited class just for those rifles, that sounds good except in Ontario the CFO doesn’t allow most ranges to fire prohibited weapons.

Sigh when will people acknowledge that there are no simple answers to life’s problems, gun crime in Canada is already extremely low, you’re 10x more likely to die from a drunk driver than be killed by a gun yet it’s not politically expedient to tackle that issue.  Let’s see how this plays out, something tells me that it will not be fun to be a gun owner for the next little while…

Why spam me?

So over the last week I’ve started receiving spam bots posting anti gun, funny since my reach is near nil but whatever.  I’m about as left as one can get on many issues (equal rights, environment, fiscal, domestic, & foreign policy) and I try to be as intellectually consistent as possible.  While I understand why people don’t like guns, I’ve always been a proponent that one should be able to do whatever the hell they want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else.  I don’t use recreational drugs but I recently applauded that the Liberal party is at least talking about legalizing all drugs as the current war on it has been a colossal failure.

I find one of the biggest problems in politics these days is that the sides only yell at each other and are not willing to listen to reason.  I love debating, post some facts, I’d love to see them and counter with my own.  Why do I have to justify my one of my many hobbies, we don’t ask people why they need a Ferrari or Rolls Royce when a Honda Civic will get one from point A to B in the same “legal” time frame.  There are many things that are bad that people do everyday, some even kill and at a much higher rate than guns but we don’t seem to be talking about banning alcohol for instance.

Totally willing to have a conversation on gun crime and the root causes of it but to blame it on guns I feel is wrong.  There are no easy answers to many of the ills that affect society and the sooner we recognize that the better.  I don’t think banning anything is helpful it’s a position I’ve always taken, I’m ok with tight regulation though and as a gun owner I jump through many loops already.  How many people out there can say they get a background check everyday?  Well I do.

Let’s have a talk as adults, there’s no reason why one should be an ideologue on any issue as nothing is ever black and white.

Stupid DST

I think I complain about it every year and I’ll do it again now, I freaking hate day lights savings time!  Perhaps it still serves a purpose to someone but I hate it…

Anyway this weekend was rather relaxing, we didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, Brandon did his activities yesterday and we hung around the house today.  Aleksandra came over, I’ve known her for years but it was the first time she been by because she needed Maggie to help her with her taxes and it was nice to catch up. 🙂

Brandon drew and painted Charizard, he loves Pokemon and I think he did a rather good job.

The black lines on the left are the flames, unfortunately we didn’t have any red so he made due and I think it looked pretty good.  On the right I really like his sketch before colouring, ahh my little Picasso!

I also worked on my belt kit, I did quite a few gun classes last year and I’ve adjusted my belt to better suit my body mechanics and movement.

Right now it’s set up for a rifle class where I’ll also be wearing a plate carrier, but if I’m just working with my handgun I’d replace the double short Esstac Kywis rifle mag pouches and the Gerber AR multi tool, with additional pistol mag pouches.  The big black pouch near the middle holds my first aid trauma gear though I really want to replace it with something else.  It’s not removable so I need to take my whole belt off to access it, it’ll work for now but ideally I’d have something that I can tear off or remove so I can get to it faster.

Have my eye on the Blue Force Gear micro trauma kit, it’s expensive but it should hold two chest seals, some combat gauze, gloves and my tourniquet.  I’d like to carry a second tourniquet somehow, I guess I’ll figure that out later lol.

Sigh back to the grind tomorrow too bad I didn’t win the lottery. 😉

Great day!

Today was a lot of fun, in the morning I went to Silverdale with Brian & Brayden, haven’t shot with those guys in a while so it was nice to see them.  We went to the competition range and ran some drills, the pistol Dot Torture was a lot of fun to do, first time we tried it and for the stuff we practice often it was easy but the single handed shots (both strong and support) were quite difficult.  Later we busted out the ARs and did some movement drills, basic stuff nothing too hard as the ground was uneven due to the ice and snow.

Yes there was about 10-15 cm of snow/ice at the range which made it more fun. 😉  I’ve been thinking about swapping the stock DD MK18 AR15 trigger and after playing with the Geissele SSA in Brayden’s NEA I think it’ll be one of my next upgrades.  It’s a two stage and when dry firing, it was so smooth I pulled the trigger a few times without expecting it.  The one in the MK18 isn’t bad, I’ve shot it enough that it’s crisp but it’s pretty heavy so if I can help myself shoot better, why not right.

We were sharing the comp range with a few other people, two IPSC guys who didn’t stay long and another guy as we were wrapping up, anyway it was great to shoot with those two and I can’t wait to do it again, though I have a feeling it’ll be messier next time out.

I got home just past 2pm, Maggie and Brandon were out so I took the opportunity to clean my stuff and when they returned it was painting time for Brandon.

Brandon loves art and I do my best to encourage him as it’s a great way for him to keep up with his creativity and while he draws a lot, I thought it’d be fun for him to expand and try painting.  He really enjoyed himself, he drew a picture of two sea serpents in the water (lighting in the background) and painted a bird house. 🙂  I love it all, his artwork is probably my most prized possessions and I’ll figure out a way to hang the painting in the basement shortly.

A fun weekend, too bad it was so short and I didn’t get quite enough shooting in but it’s ok I’ll just go and wrestle with Brandon after dinner to work off any extra energy I have. 😀

Lighter but better?

I love my Elcan SpecterDR optical sight, it’s served me very well over the years for both airsoft and real steel shooting but at the end of the day my arms are always like jelly.  I have a ton of crap on my DD MK18 and I do use everything on it so lightening it up is difficult but I wanted to see if I could get by with a red dot and magnifier combo.

Last week I picked up a used Aimpoint T1 micro 2 moa red dot and yesterday I dropped by Brayden’s place to trade for his 3x Aimpoint magnifier.

Each set up is a compromise, the glass quality on the Elcan is better but the 1x setting is a bit slower than a dedicated red dot and the Docter sight I have on top sits super high.  The Aimpoint T1 micro is really fast with CQB work but the 3x magnifier’s glass while good, is not as good as the Elcan (smaller field of view too), doesn’t zoom as far (Elcan does both 1x & 4x) but saves almost 200 grams which is pretty significant.

I think this year I’ll try using the Aimpoint combo and see how that goes, it does seem to be a waste though to have $2k in optics just sitting on my shelf.

Safe and sound!

Maggie and Brandon returned home last night but before I get to that I want to talk about my day at the range.  I don’t always post about range trips anymore and wouldn’t have talked about yesterday’s trip except Mario, Laura & I witnessed some pretty stupid actions.  Laura was doing her club level restricted class (required if one wants to move restricteds around) while Mario & I did some pistol work at the action range.

When taking out one’s gun from the case they should always orient the case so the muzzle faces down range. It’s what I always do as I don’t want to point my gun at others but the fellow next to us not only took his Beretta M9 out of the box with the muzzle facing us he was busy toying with his gun in that direction too.  Mario and I simply stopped shooting and stepped back from the firing line, there were no others to our right while this idiot did his thing.

To make things worse while I was off shooting steel, Mario witnessed this person had an accidental discharge right in front of the table and into the ground.  To me guns are toys but they’re toys that demand a lot of attention and responsibility.  If one doesn’t want to respect them they should not be playing with them.

Laura mentioned that her class was filled with people who should not be operating with guns too, pointing them in an unsafe direction, finger on the trigger when not shooting, etc.  Sigh to any Canadian out there who want to try shooting sports, it’s a heck of a lot of fun but please respect them and other as we don’t want anyone to get hurt.

Overall though I had a good day, shot the HK SFP9 relatively well and did zeroed my Aimpoint T1 micro red dot.

After dropping my companions of, I went home cleaned the house a bit then went to pick up my mom to go to the airport.  She wanted to see Maggie & Brandon return and the wait was agonizing.  LOL whenever Maggie & Brandon are away I can only think of the worst things, like plane crashes this time around.  Needless to say they arrived safely and it was really great to see them.

Not sure what we’re going to do today, Maggie is really tired since she didn’t get much sleep on the plane but Brandon seems pretty energetic so maybe I’ll take him out somewhere.  Definitely happy the family is back together again. 🙂