Finally got out to the range and zeroed the new Ruger. But I’m not gonna tell y’all about it right now, because I have a horrible sinus infection kicking my ass. Once I’m back among the living, expect a range report and a little piece about getting zeroed quickly and efficiently.

Venture Bros. Season 3 DVDs hit the shelves today. I ran out and snagged mine as soon as I got out of work.

Somehow today’s scheduled “53 degrees, sunny and mild” got delivered as “40 degrees, overcast and gusty winds.” While the cold isn’t really a problem, I have very little interest in trying to zero a gun in high winds when every pull of the trigger costs me $4.

So, like Jane said, try again tomorrow…

As I’d mentioned earlier, the factory sights on my new Ruger No. 1 don’t really work for me. The combination of a tiny gold bead up front and a U-notch rear halfway down the barrel leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to precision, especially if your eyesight is less-than-perfect.

I replaced the little gold bead with a 3/32″ white bead from New England Custom Guns. The new sight is almost twice as large and a LOT easier to pick up. Here’s the factory bead on the right, NECG on the left. It’s a “no gunsmithing” part, but not quite drop-in. The dovetail base is slightly oversized, with two fitting pads on the bottom. 15 minutes of cut-and-try stoning produced a nice snug fit with no slop. The factory front sight was .330″ tall. I took a gamble and bought a .350″ replacement, figuring that I might need a taller front sight to go along with the new rear…

The rear sight is NECG’s quick-detach peep, which mates to the integral Ruger scope mounts. It’s a simple, high-quality machined unit that, unlike its competitors, doesn’t require drilling and tapping.

Windage adjustment is provided via a pair of opposing adjustment knobs; you loosen one side and tighten the other to shift the point of impact. The right knob can be locked in place with a set screw, allowing the sight to be removed and replaced by loosening the left-side knob only. NECG claims this can be done with no loss of zero; I’ll have to test that for myself.

Elevation is adjusted by turning a single screw that raises and lowers the elevation slide, then locked in by tightening the knurled aperture. I have the .125″ aperture installed right now. There’s also a .093″ aperture for greater precision at the expense of some speed and low-light usability.

I got the peep boresighted dead-on, which should put me within 3 or 4 inches of the truth at 25 yards. Weather permitting, I’ll hit the range and get zeroed in tomorrow afternoon.

Mike Watt’s “Chinese Firedrill” from Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, with vocals by Frank Black of the Pixies.

New sights for the Ruger No. 1 are on hand and will be blogged tomorrow. Hoping to get out to the range on Saturday, weather allowing. And since I’ve slept about 14 hours total in the past 4 days, that’s all I have to say right now.

Thumbing through the March issue of American Rifleman this afternoon, I realized I haven’t yet filed my ballot for this year’s NRA Board of Directors election; it will go out in tomorrow’s mail.

Sebastian and Bitter put a lot of work into compiling a list of six candidates they endorse for the Board. From talking to them and researching on my own, I agree with their choices. I’m also voting for John Milius, who I’ve always liked. Don’t recognize the name? You’ll recognize his work. Tam linked to a great interview with Mr. Milius last week.

I’m also pointedly NOT voting for George Kollitides and Grover Norquist. Let’s just say I’m deeply suspicious of them.

If you’re eligible to vote (you must be a life member or annual member for at least 5 consecutive years), I urge you to do so. Ballots are due by April 26.

The new Ruger came outfitted with an impossibly tiny gold bead front sight, so miniscule that I literally CANNOT see it inside the rear sight notch under most lighting conditions. Fortunately, New England Custom Gun offers a whole line of replacement front sights that slide right into the front sight dovetail.

That assumes, though, that you can get the factory front sight OUT of the dovetail. I couldn’t. It doesn’t help that the design is a bit awkward. The front sight fits into a longitudinal dovetail on the front sight base, sliding in from the muzzle end. At the breech end of the sight base, a spring-loaded detent plunger rises up into a hole in the front sight to hold it in place. Use any handy pointy object to depress the plunger and the sight slides forward and out of the gun.

At least that’s how it works in theory. This particular sight was apparently driven into the dovetail with a big hammer, wedging it in so tightly that I feared it had galled and cold-welded itself to the sight base. I could depress the plunger freely, but the sight refused to move forward. And since Ruger put the detent plunger BEHIND the sight blade, if I had a punch in place holding the plunger down, I couldn’t tap on the back of the sight blade to move it forward. Problematic.

A 24-hour soak in CLP, 2 hours of VERY CAREFUL and nerve-wracking work (nothing like taking a hammer to a brand-new gun!) and one ruined pin-punch later, I finally coaxed the sight free with no damage to either the gun or the sight. A few minutes of judicious work on the bottom of the front sight with an India oilstone reduced its dimensions just enough to allow the sight to slide in and out of its dovetail freely.

Hopefully I’ll have significantly less trouble getting the new sight installed…

I don’t have the discretionary income to drop on one of these right now, but damn do I want one. Dual-core Atom processor, discrete Radeon HD graphics, built-in UPS, 36W power draw, and all in a 9″x7″ package that can VESA-mount on the back of an LCD monitor.

That would make for a REALLY nice little home theater PC and lightweight desktop system. Oh, did I mention I have a birthday comin’ up in a couple weeks? I’m just sayin’…

Six weeks after I returned my brand-new Ruger No. 1 for replacement of a broken stock, the UPS man brought my gun back to me.

I’ll admit opened the box with some apprehension; a friend and fellow blogger had a horrible experience with Ruger’s repair department and warned me to expect disappointment. What’s more, I’d gone to some trouble (and put Bitter through a bit of trouble) to get a rifle with a pretty stock in the first place, and I was afraid the replacement wouldn’t match up to the quality of the original wood.

My fears were unfounded. Here’s the left side of the new stock:

And even nicer, the right side:

Still photos really don’t do it justice; the feather grain is iridescent and almost dazzling under strong light. Click here for a little animated GIF that shows what I mean. You just don’t see wood like this on production guns very often.

So, let me send out a big “Thank You!” to Ruger for handling this situation well and fitting such a beautiful stock. I’m a happy customer.

Anyone got a promo code for Midway USA? I need to order a bunch of stuff from them.