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Kudos to Raven Concealment Systems

Last fall at the Steel Challenge Indy State meet, we won a couple of gift certificates for Raven Concealment holsters.

At first I thought, yeah, uhm, well OK.   Just what I need another holster.   I need that like I need another hole in my head.   Years ago when we took our CCW class the instructor said, “There are 8 million holster possibilities, and you’ll probably go through, on average 8 per gun, until you find one you like.”.   Yeah, sure what ever.   Turns out that’s not all that far from the truth.

Let’s see for the Glock that I normally carry, I have:

  • A custom leather inside the waist band holster from a local firm.
  • Multiple paddle holsters from various manufacturers for IDPA and what not.
  • Even the Cheapie Glock $14 Duty holster, which for on the belt use is the best value out there hands down.
  • And of course a Cross Breed super-tuck, which I initially hated, but it grew on me and I now find it very comfortable.
  • Plus various other IWB holsters of ebay.  You do get what you pay for.

So when we got these gift certificates I thought great, just what I need.   Then I looked at their website.  $80 for a kydex holster, are you kidding me?  That thing is HUGE and ugly.

And it is:

PhantomSlick1260-500x500-500x500

On top of that there’s an 18 week wait?  You can’t be serious with this real lenders here.

So we looked at how we’d best spend our award.   Ordered a holster for the G19/G26.  One for the P238 and one for the LCP. 

We received them Saturday and I’ve worn it for two days.   Wow.  It hugs close, and is super comfortable.  Easy to draw and re-holster.     I hate to say it, but it’s worth the money and worth the wait.

Well done Raven, well done.

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Emma Update

So our little pup that we got back in August:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is getting all grown up.

Emma_Nov2012

She’s now well over 60lbs, in only 3 1/2 months.   We recently had her spayed by Mike’s Mobile Vet.

Emma_Vet

Which I highly recommend.  Yeah he costs a little more, but it’s worth it.  You don’t have to drag your dog to the vet, or bring them home so it saves time.   I will warn you though that when you take your dog to the vet for surgery, they usually keep them for half a day or maybe overnight.  What you don’t get to see is them coming out of the anesthesia.  It’s not a pretty sight, but at least it happened at our house.   Even with that experience which was new to us, I’d still do it again.

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Claudine’s new heater.

Claudine has hinted around, asked for, and basically used passive aggressive techniques to indicate that she wanted her “Own” Glock 34, which is what she mostly shoots when she shoots production, IDPA, or what ever.   She was also quite clear that she wanted a pink or purple gun.  Of course I always told her; “Hell no, that’s dumb, once you paint it you can’t ever go back, why would you do that?”

So for her birthday I decided to hook her up.

ClaudinesBirthdayHeater

How this all fell into place.

1) I used my GSSF Annual purchase discount to buy a Glock 34 ($695 list but they can generally be found for around $600).   The GSSF price was $507, so that’s a pretty darn good deal.  If you’re not aware, GSSF is Glocks Sport Shooting Foundation It’s Glock’s sporting arm.  In order to shoot in a Glock sponsored match you need to join the GSSF.  One of the benefits is the ability to purchase 1 gun a year per membership after your first year at a reduced price.  What they don’t make clear is that nobody knows how to do this.  Most dealers don’t.   What you are essentially buying is a Glock “blue label” gun, or a gun for and at law enforcement discounts.    There aren’t many Glock LEO dealers around.   Of course there is TargetWorld, but when I asked them about it they looked at me like I had 3 heads, even though they do the indoor GSSF shoot there.    Skipping to the chase, you can also buy them from Miami Valley Shooting Grounds.  So I talked to Dana the owner and made the trip.   The purchase was simple.

2) Even thought the Gen 34 has a better ‘trigger’ than most, I still did my magic.  Connector, polishing, springs.   Trigger is at a true, solid 3.2 lbs.

3) Added the green high-viz sight that Claudine says she prefers.

4) Converted this Gen 4 to use a Gen 3 recoil spring.   New guide rod, spring and adapter thingy.   We tune our loads and need/want tune-ability and that’s not currently readily available for the Gen 4 with their new double-recoil spring set up.

Once I had prepped it and done what I do, I handed it off to my buddy for paint. He used Duracoat Firearm Finish (paint), hard ass enamel like paint.

Colors used on this gun:
Frame: Lars Larson Commie Pinko
Slide:  Goddess Purple

My buddy Jeff painted it up and it was done a few weeks ago.  If you’d like a gun painted reach out to him:  jeffsteley[at]gmail.com  His standard pricing is:

Single color 100.00
2 tone 150.00
Revolvers (needs quoting)

The picture doesn’t really do the purple justice.   It’s a sweet nice dark purple.  I felt like a pink slide would be too distracting hence the darker color up top.   Some people find Glock frame’s a bit slippery and the DuraCoat doesn’t help hence the grip thingy.

So there you have it.  Yes men, I bought my wife a gun for her birthday.  No I did not buy a vacuum cleaner, which is what we really need.   She genuinely seems to like it.  I have not been threatened or penalized in any way for doing this. Smile

But Claudine is a special person/wife.  So that might have something to do with it.

Love you honey.  But yes, your gun was in the house under your nose for the last 3 weeks.  And yes you came downstairs and sat next to me and carried on a discussion while I did the trigger job.   Though it wasn’t yet pink.  Smile

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Reloading, with new components.

montanagold

Reloading is fun and economical.  I outlined why I wanted to do it in an article a while back, almost a year to the day:  Reloading 101

For the last year we’ve mostly shot ammo that we’ve reloaded.  Except for maybe 300 rounds of factory, everything we shot this year was reloaded.

So here are the things I’ve learned this year.

1) Cast Lead, while economical, pretty much sucks.  I’ve shot it for a year now, about 12k rounds through various guns (All Glocks), some with aftermarket barrels but we’ve probably put 6k rounds down the Glock 34 this year alone with no ill effects.   Accuracy is fine, it’s just dirtier.

Disclaimer:  Glock says don’t do this.   I’m convinced the reason they say that is because people don’t clean their guns.  I do, before and after every match and generally speaking every time I shoot them.  Yes, I have shot a GSSF match with my LEAD reloads.  I could also give my gun to the Glock Armorer after cleaning and they’d never know it had lead through it.  You just have to keep it clean.

Cast Lead, even good bullets from SNS Casting are dirty.  Speed shooting through a smoke screen is no fun, and in fact I’m kind of tired of it so I’m switching.

Cast Lead is dirty, you will need to clean your guns more often if you use it.  You should clean them anyway, which is why the dirty gun part didn’t bother me.

Cast Lead with a compensator sucks though, the comp will lead up and it’s a bitch to get off.   Another reason I’m switching up.

It’s dirty when you reload, and well, it’s lead.   I’m very diligent about washing my hands after I reload or shoot.  But reload 400 rounds and your bullet handling hand will be frickin dirty, scrub brush required dirty.   Reloading with plated bullets eliminates this.

I’m about 2/3rds the way through my first order from Montana Gold Bullet, Inc. and I’m really liking the results so far.

Reloading is cleaner, shooting is cleaner, and no smoke screen after things get heated up.  

So if you have $340 just laying around, hit them up and order me a box of 9mm 115gr FMJ’s.   You’ll find them here. 

Your purchase will help further my shooting as well as further promote “Super Molly” in the shooting world.   She needs your support cause I can’t afford her alone Winking smile.

Here’s Molly on one of the stages.  Strings 3 and 5 where her best, but it wasn’t her best day by a long shot.  We’d all been sick and struggling with bronchitis.  So that kind of sucked.

Molly, Glock 34 @ Steel Challenge 2012

I just finished reloading 800 rounds tonight which will get us through Friday Night Steel and the GSSF Match this weekend.  Yep it’s work, but the cost is still about half of factory.

I have never bought new brass.   From the day we started shooting I’ve been saving it.  So when we started reloading, I already had a bunch.   I was given a bucket load by a fellow shooter who had more than he could ever use.

We’ve pretty much maintained that quantity all year long.  We pick up the brass we shoot when we can, but there have been plenty of lost brass matches.   We pretty much volunteer at the local shoots, and if you get your hands dirty setting up or tearing down, you’ll likely be able to pick up some brass.    Again, we’ve bought absolutely ZERO casings.

So, CASE CHECK YOUR AMMO.

Especially before a match.   I’ve had a few ‘issues’ but only about 3 and never if I case checked it.    I get in a hurry and sometimes don’t and I’ve had two rounds stick in the camber that had to be pounded out with a squib rod.  WHOLE rounds mind you, no squibs.

I have had 2 squibs this year with FACTORY FEDERAL .22 ammo that we shoot in Rimfire.  Too bad I can’t reload that.  These were show stopping, bullet stuck in the barrel squibs.  From FACTORY AMMO.  So I’m convinced, do it right and you too can have better ammo than factory.

I’ve used Federal Primers exclusively.  We’ve ‘slicked up’ our Glocks and they can be prone to light strikes with CCI primers, so I just don’t use them.  I’ve had 0 failure to fires this year with my reloads with Federal primers.

Powder, still using Alliant Bullseye.   I like it, it works.

So yeah, if you shoot, you should reload.  It’s fun, and far more economical.  We honestly couldn’t afford to do it if we didn’t.

Happy shooting.

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Apple, your support is lacking.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone on a RANT about poor customer service but here goes.

Last Thursday, the Cincinnati Reds were in a Do-Or-Die Playoff game, at 1pm.  We recently moved into a new building, and don’t have any Cable TV installed yet.  (TimeWarner, your RANT will be forthcoming).

Obviously we wanted to get this game which was on National TV on some of the TV’s in the building for folks who love the Reds could watch and keep up with the game.

We have a couple conference rooms equipped with AppleTV’s.  So we thought, “Oh, this will be easy, we just need someone with an AppleTV/MLB subscription to log in.

LJ was already watching the game live on MLB.com using his MLB account.  We tried his account with AppleTV but it wouldn’t work.   So we did the next best thing.  I purchased an MLB subscription, in an attempt to bring happiness to our beloved fans.

AppleTV/iTunes, did everything right.   Showed me that the game was available then prompted me to buy the subscription.  So I did.   After the subscription was processed it let us know that “Oops, Sorry, this game is blacked out in your area”.  Huh?  It was on broadcast national television.

Thanks for that.

So today my iTunes statement comes in and looks like this:

image

See that link right there ‘Report a Problem”.

I decided I’d click it, cause, yeah, I have a problem.  I don’t want a recurring MLB.TV subscription that I’ll never ever use again.

So I click it.   What does it do?  Opens itunes:

image

See that “Report a Problem’ text, that’s a link in iTunes.

So I click that.

What does that do?

Opens a browser, which is what my email invoice should have done in the first place.

Except, I’ll be damned if you can actually dispute an individual charge.  It’s just the generic iTunes Support Page:

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/

This is not helpful.

Apple is so good at so many things, but this is one area that’s been horrible forever.   No wonder they are as profitable as they are.   If we could force our customers through a maze that doesn’t ever let them fix their issue and we got to keep their money…  We’ve all be millionaires.

After all it’s just a $0.99 app or in this case a $3.99 subscription.   I’ve already wasted more than that is worth to me.  No wonder.  I bet most people just give up.

Now I get to make a phone call, which I can assure you will be super special.

Update: After jumping through the 87 hoops on apple.com and expresslane.apple.com, I was finally able to talk to Heather, who took care of this for me.  But it just shouldn’t be this hard.

Update #2:  I purchased a retina iPad as an update to the original iPad that I got pretty much on day one.  I do love my iPad, I use it every day.   Since IOS6 left iPad(1) in the dust, I was compelled to upgrade.   Less than 3 weeks later they announce a new 4th generation iPad.  Same retina display only 2x faster and better.

I read on the web where Apple usually allows people to swap if their purchase was made within 30 days.   It appears this isn’t policy but it’s a good customer move.   I mean my iPad looks like new and if someone bought it at ‘refurb’ pricing, they’d be happy.   Anyway a few phone calls to my local Apple Store pretty much discouraged me.  Apple Genius ‘DeAndre’ pretty much blew me off.   Spouting out the 14 day return policy, though he admitted they do often stretch that to 30 days in some cases.  At the end of the day, I was left without a confident feeling they’ll make it happen.  I asked for a Genius appointment for launch day (Nov 2nd) and was denied.   I’ll be damned if I’ll stand in line.