Category: Gadgets

Posted on

Glock Race Gun–Phase (1)

OK, We just got back from the PSA Shootout and had an absolute blast. 

Unlike the local gigs around here where I’m able to shoot both my G19 and G34 in ‘stock auto’, cause, well they are basically stock (except for some trigger work).. In Palmyra I could only shoot one gun in each class.  

I elected to shoot the G19 in stock auto, and the (stock) G34 in Open Auto.   At every stage I’d whip that thing out and the RO would say “Hey wait, we have you down for Open Auto”.   And I’d tell them, no, that’s right, but I don’t have an open gun.

Anyway fast forward to the results.   I shot extremely poorly the first day with the G19.   Nothing wrong with the gun, I just laid an egg.   I was nervous, and had some mental break downs as well as fundamental break downs.

Friday I shot the G34 ‘respectable’  Not great but considering the previous days events, oh so much better.   Enough that I would have scored well in stock auto with that gun.   There is mucho room for improvement across the board.   But I can easily see, with some adjustments getting a Glock Race Gun in the top 25 in Open.

That’s right a ‘bottom feeder’ Glock Race gun.

I know what you’re thinking, this has been done, you should just go buy an STI or something.

Well I’d love to do that too, but I don’t have the funds.   I think I can build what I want out of parts I already have, with a few additions, and some bartering for under $400.     That’s the goal, heck I can probably do it for less than that even.  So here goes.

I’m starting with my G17, which was a GSSF won handgun so my cost there is literally the $25 FFL fee that I paid to get it to me.

Trigger work has already been done to my satisfaction. It comes in at around 2.8lbs. Let’s call that $40 in parts, plus a lot of polishing. That includes the connector, the trigger stop and some springs, some of which I already had.

I already had a C-More 6MOA red dot that I picked up last year, I just needed a mount.   $40 later via ebay and I have a nice external/frame mount.

This probably won’t be the be-all-end-all.   I think I really want a slide mounted small optic, but that would immediately blow the budget.   But I’m shopping on ebay and have some targets in mind.

With just those items we have a good start:

Glock_RaceGun_Phase_02

Yeah the mount, I don’t like it, but it’s a start.  I’m going to shoot this a few times and make some decisions.

Next up will be a barrel/comp combination.  Again, ebay and online auctions will be my source if possible.

Then slide lightening/milling.   I’m hopeful that will be low cost through one of my machinist friends.

I already have a plethora of Magazines (haha, thanks Jeff) which helps keep the costs down.   If I picked up another race gun I’d be faced with buying another bunch of mags for that one gun.  

I’ll post up more as this develops.  It could be a HUGE mistake, but then even if it is, it won’t cost me much to find that out as I’ll be able to re-use most of the parts.

More as this develops.

Posted on

Annual New Years Eve Wii Bowling Tournament

Tonight was the 2nd annual Wii New Years Eve Bowling Tournament.

I didn’t fair so well.  I actually expected Maria to give me a run for the money, not Maggie or Michael who whopped up on both of us.

We had prizes for high game, best total and best average.  It was a complete sweep for Michael.

results

Posted on

Viore TV’s What a shame…

In November of 2006 we grabbed a Black Friday special…  a 42” Plasma TV for $999.

Brand: VIORE…  There’s plenty of speculation on the Internet as to what this really is under the plastic.

Feature for feature it was a great TV for the price at the time.  Its biggest shortcoming was a single HDMI input.  But again at the time that wasn’t uncommon.  The only complaint was it was really slow switching inputs.

I really enjoyed this TV, it was bright, and sharp.  Colors were good, but it was reflective as hell which made watching TV in the daylight with the windows open troublesome.

16 months later it’s dead as I suspect most VIORE TV’s are.  It also appears that we got more use out of ours than most people did.

Viore as a company is pretty sad.  They don’t answer their phones or return emails.  We had a hell of a time finding someone to service it.   We finally did and the results are in.

It needs two boards replaced:  $200-$300 each, plus labor at an estimated $200.

So: $600 to $800 to repair a TV that we paid $999 for.   That really blows.

I understand it’s pretty expensive to repair just about any TV these days, but this brand should be avoided if at all possible.

Posted on

The tale of the non-surge protector.

So a colleague brought up the fact that if I had a good surge protector (and I believed that I did) that it probably has replacement insurance with it.

He once had Belkin replace a TV because their surge protector failed.

Which really got me excited.   During the recent DVR troubleshooting, I recovered my surge protector that looks just like this TripLite:

TLP808.jpg

TripLite provides $75,000 of coverage with this unit.

Only that’s not my unit.  It’s some knock off no-name brand made over in Asia. I looked it up by UL listing number and it’s not really a surge protector at all.  At least it doesn’t have a UL listing as one.   It says surge on it, but no company name, no web site.  Nothing good.

So this looks like a dead end and a hard lesson learned.

The TV isn’t super special, though it wasn’t cheap by my standards.  I can certainly get something better for the same amount of dollars these days.

I’m half tempted to take the risk to repair it.  It doesn’t look like these are very repairable, but there is a site online with parts.  So we may go there.