Christy Moore and Shane MacGowan performing “Spancil Hill”

“i notice a lot of your female friends feature huge boobs with not enough support in their bras”

- Squeaky

 I do the best I can…

I don’t have a whole lot to say at the moment, so… eye candy!

These grips will be going on my CZ 85 when it comes back from Coal Creek Armory. They’re thin cocobolo panels from czcustom.com, and they’re… alright. The quality isn’t up there with, say, Craig Spegel, but they also don’t COST like Spegel grips. Given the reasonable price ($50), I’m quite satisfied. They’re actually not particularly thin, but they do away with the huge palm swells on the factory plastic grips and look about a thousand times better.

Speaking of my CZ, I’m already fighting that little-kid “Are we there yet?” urge to call CCA every day and ask if my gun’s finished. And it’s been gone all of 2 1/2 weeks. Gonna be a loooong summer…

Legend has it that late in his life, a syphilis-ravaged Al Capone liked to while away the hours by fishing in his swimming pool. And I’m reminded of that story every time I look at this photo:

So I was TRYING to save money this month, and now I have to go and spend $250 on a complete set of Venture Bros. T-shirts. :sigh:

BTW, the first episode of Season 3 premieres online at adultswim.com this Friday, followed by the TV premiere on Sunday, June 1 at 11:30 PM EDT.

Go Team Venture!

There seems to be a tentative date of June 22 for the Indy BlogBash, said event being arranged by Miss Roberta X. I plan to attend, schedule and finances allowing…

I think the following is a reasonably-complete list of gunbloggers I met over the weekend. If I left you out: (A) it’s not a snub; I suck at remembering new people and (B) please comment or email to let me know.

• Bitter Bitch
• Call Me Ahab and his lovely wife
• ThirdPower of Days of our Trailers
• Joe Huffman
• Michael Bane
• across-the-state-neighbor Murdoc of Murdoc Online and GunPundit.com
• Sailor Curt
• SayUncle
• Robb Allen of Sharp as a Marble
• Kevin of The Smallest Minority
• Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell
• Roberta X
• Yosemite Sam and Denise of The Ten Ring
• US Citizen of Traction Control
• XRLQ
• Mike of Another Gun Blog

Plus the folks I already knew:

• Squeaky Wheel
• Tam
• Rustmeister

It was truly an honor to meet you all. Gun people are good people!

Michigan’s first Sonic Drive-In opened up this Monday, just around the corner from my house. As of mid-afternoon today (Friday) the line is still over a quarter-mile long and cops are on the scene to manage traffic.

Random things that caught my eye at the NRA Convention:

CZ USA was displaying a (prototype?) CZ 75 SP-01 Phantom, which is essentially a polymer-frame, decocker version of the SP-01. The reduced weight is nice, but I won’t be interested until/unless they make a version with a regular safety instead of the decocker.

Some time ago I picked on the revived Winchester Model 70, based on the company’s early publicity photos. After seeing the guns in person… Meh. Metalwork looked alright, but the stocks are BAD. Every gun on the floor had seriously flawed checkering in at least one area. It was odd; 3/4 of the checkering would look decent, but the rest would be a bloody disaster. I’m not talking about minor overruns or flattened points; I’m talking about entire checkering panels that looked like they were stippled by an icepick-wielding crackhead. And don’t get me started on the way they’re installing the sling swivels on the Super Grades.

To Winchester: Guys, I love the Model 70, I love the Winchester marque, and I really want this gun to succeed. But if you put those guns on store shelves in that condition, you’re going to blow it.

On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Remington’s 798 Safari. The action was smooth and well-finished, the stock was nicely executed (though not in my preferred style) and the iron sights are suitable for a big-bore. If I was in the market for a .375 H&H, I’d give it a very hard look.

Rating extremely high on the silly-but-insanely-cool scale are the miniature Sharps rifles made by Armi Chiappa and imported by Taylor’s and Charles Daly. WANT.

Over at Colt’s booth, the Delta Elite was back, albeit with a bull barrel, full-length guide rod and reverse plug. I’m slightly tempted. I’d be much more tempted if they had just reintroduced the original gun.

I am not at ALL tempted by the Colt New Agent DAO. Rather than using a partially-precocked design like most competing guns, Colt went with a conventional double action mechanism that delivers a truly atrocious trigger pull. It stacks gradually throughout the pull before abruptly climbing to 15+ lbs right before the break. Thanks but no thanks.

Equally unappealing to me was the FN FiveseveN. I know it’s not a new design, but I’d never played with one until the NRA show. Awful trigger, cheap feel, unergonomic grip, horribly-designed safety, and an anemic, oddball cartridge all add up to a package that leaves me completely cold. I simply do not see the appeal.

More NRA Convention/Blog Bash stuff to follow…

Not long before Squeaky and Rusty hit the road on Sunday, we stopped by the airgun range to do some actual, you know, shooting. Here’s my handiwork:

I know, I know… I’m awesome. But then again, I was shooting a scoped, bipod-equipped airgun at a target all of 10 meters away from me. As I told the other gunbloggers, all I had to do was show up and the gun did the rest.