Snagged a copy of the ‘10 Ruger catalog at the local funshop yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to find a new must-have offering: the No. 1 in .300 H&H. Ruger built a run of these guns this year, but they were part of the Craig Boddington limited edition series, which (A) cost more than I’d like to spend and (B) honored a guy whose writing I’ve never much cared for. I will, however, be ALL OVER a standard production gun at the usual price.

Ruger’s building ‘em right, too; the guns will be in 1-S Medium Sporter configuration, with iron sights and the traditional Alex Henry forend. The barrel’s listed at 26″, which will boost velocity a bit without making the gun too long or muzzle-heavy. Since the action of the No. 1 is so short, a 26″-barreled No. 1 is the same overall length as a typical bolt-action rifle with a 22″ barrel.

Given Ruger’s annoying history of waiting months or years before actually shipping a newly-announced item, I’m betting the guns might start hitting shelves a full year from now, at the soonest. I’ll be waiting.

Last week I took advantage of a coupon code at MidwayUSA and picked up a few items I needed:

• Got the red Decelerator pad I’ve been wanting. The actual color is a nicely muted orange-ish red that should look just fine. I’ll need to have it professionally installed, since it’s a grind-to-fit pad and I lack both the requisite grinder and skill to do the job properly. It’s also a half-inch thicker than the factory pad, so I have to decide if I want the stock shortened by the same amount. It’s almost too pretty to cut.
• Nice new stainless steel Lyman dial calipers to replace my craptacular plastic ones, since I actually need precision better than .050″ now.
• The correct shellholder for the .450/.400, which I forgot to order when I got the dies those many months ago…
• … as well as the correct pilot for the case trimmer (.410″, meant for the .41 Magnum).
• A nice Redding powder trickler, since it’s a big honkin’ chunk of machined steel for only a few bucks more than all its plastic and aluminum competitors.
• And a can of Wipe-Out bore cleaner, which I’ve been meaning to try for a few years now. John Barsness, whose opinion I value, says it’s good stuff.

Oh yeah, there’s also a few items for a future project, but that’s staying sooper-seekrit for now…

With the Great Black Rifle Panic Buy of ‘09 over and prices plummeting everywhere I look, I’m starting to toy with the idea of surrendering my status as the only shooter in the country who doesn’t yet own an AR. It hasn’t helped, I’ll note, that Stingray did such a good job of explaining his own AR build, or that Tam had to go and show off her super-secret-squirrel (and very cool) quick-change-barrel upper.

So I started trying to make sense of barrel contours, twist rates, A1/A2/A3/A4/A^n uppers, T-marked uppers, F-marked front sights, M4 feed ramps, 2-position, 4-position, and 6-position stocks, CAR-length, mid-length, or rifle-length gas systems, .223 vs. 5.56 vs. Wylde chambers, agonized hand-wringing over the presence or absence of parkerizing under the front sight base, and all the other minutiae that AR fans obsess over.

…

That way lies analysis paralysis.

Basically, my current thinking would have me stick a Rock River Arms mid-length upper with a chrome-lined lightweight barrel on top of a Cav Arms complete lower. The goal being an ultra-light and very handy little gun, one that goes along with my idea of what an AR is for.

To me, the AR is more M1 Carbine than M1 Garand, but with better long-range potential due to the velocity and trajectory advantages of the 5.56 round. So there’s no reason why a recoilless little thing like that should weigh 9 lbs; I literally have an elephant gun that doesn’t quite hit the 8-lb mark on my scale. No, keep it light, keep it simple, and avoid covering 95% of the surface with rails you’re never going to use for anything other than self-inflicted hand lacerations.

The Cav lowers seem to enjoy a devoted following and offer a full pound of weight savings compared to a regular A2 lower assembly, which I really like. And Rock River also has a fine reputation as well as being the only apparent source of an off-the-shelf upper in the configuration I think I want.

I like the mid-length idea since it gives you a bit more sight radius, a little longer gas system, and a slightly better-looking end result. I should also admit that, while I’ll probably win the lottery before I ever need to use a mounted bayonet, it annoys my inner perfectionist that you can’t actually use the bayonet lug on a 16″ upper with an M4-length gas system. Yes, I’m fully aware of how silly that is. It still bugs me.

As for sighting, well, I dunno. I could probably get along just fine with a regular A2 upper, or a detachable carry handle on an A3. I’d rather not drop $900+ on an ACOG. EOTechs are certainly nifty, but they’re also spendy and heavy. I’d probably get an A3 with the handle, in case I change my mind down the road.

But I’ve shot an AR exactly twice in my life and readily admit my lack of expertise regarding the platform. So am I completely full of shit, or does my thinking make a little sense?

LabRat’s description of me:

“He IS cute. He’s like the Sesame Street sex-positive muppet. He has a little song about fisting and everything.”

TD the sex muppet. I like that.

• Thoroughly excellent weekend. It was badly needed and did not disappoint.
• Project for the week: get the reloading bench set up.
• Venture Bros. Season 4 is off to a mind-bending start. Between Hitler in the bulldog’s body, Sgt. Hatred as the new bodyguard, Hunter possibly being a man after all, and the crazy nonlinear presentation… Well, I’m going to have to watch that episode a few more times to really get a handle on it.
• Grabbing lunch with Eseell today at Miller’s Bar.
• Gotta get up early to make an airport run, so i really shouldn’t be up and blogging at 1:30 AM…

Late last night I dropped Breda a note about “The Rape Tunnel“, which she suggested renaming as the “Shoot the Artist in the Brisket Tunnel“. Carrying her excellent idea one step further, I’d like to see the artist, post-ventilation, become the centerpiece of a new Damien Hirst project.

pgrep and pkill are so damned simple and useful that I’m always a little shocked to find them missing from some modern UNIX-ish OSes. I’m lookin’ at you, Mac OS X.

Kevin Baker’s beer bread recipe is made of awesome and win. I baked up a few small loaves with some Leinenkugel’s Red Lager and the batch may very well not last until morning.

Wow, I hit “save” instead of “publish” and didn’t realize my mistake for nearly a week. I am a really lousy blogger.

The new reloading press arrived on time and undamaged. I got everything unboxed and inspected, though I haven’t actually set up the reloading bench yet. I’m probably going to mount the various components onto small plywood platforms and then C-clamp the platforms to the bench so I can rearrange at will.

A brief rundown on all the bits:

Crusher II press An appropriately massive, cast-iron O-frame press. Looks plenty big enough for comfortable reloading of long cartridges. Three mounting holes, so it should bolt down nice and stable. The spent-primer collector is a little plastic diaper-like thing that snaps around the body of the press. It looks like it might be fidgety, but I’ll have to try it to be sure. Worst case, I can always discard it and park a little trash can under the press.

Universal Trimmer Like the press, a massive, cast-iron piece of equipment that should last just short of forever. Lyman includes 9 pilots for all the most common bore sizes, and of course, given my exotic taste in calibers, I can use exactly none of them. I’ll need to buy pilots in .366″, .410″, and .416″.

Pro 500 Scale I was under the impression the scale would be another heavy chunk of iron, but the base is actually a plastic injection molding. Still, I put it together and dropped a 180-grain X bullet in the pan, and got a reading of 180.2 grains. I think it’ll work just fine.

No. 55 Powder Measure Arrived a bit greasy and grimy, so a thorough cleaning is in order before I actually start using it. The three-slide adjustment mechanism took a bit of figuring out and might be a little fussy. Not sure yet if I want to mount it in the press or bolt it to the bench.

priming arm/auto primer feed Design looks reasonable, and I’m holding out hope that I may some day find primers to use with it!

Lyman reloading manual Comprehensive, decently well-written, should be useful.

Overall I’m quite happy with the kit. I looked at pretty much everything on the market and I don’t think you can do better for $240.