Drip…drip…drip…

.22LR ammunition has been impossible to find for a few months.  That shouldn’t surprise you.

Occasionally a few boxes of standard-velocity ammo were available, which is fine for target guns and bolt actions.  But semi-autos usually need high-velocity ammo to function reliably.

Well this past week some quantities of high-velocity ammo have been showing up on store shelves (and disappearing almost as fast).  One was WalMart, the other was a local dealer.

Centerfire pistol ammo is still spotty.  I have seen (and bought) some .38SPL, and there has been .40S&W and .45ACP on the shelves sometimes.  Nothing for 9mm FMJ however.  And in every case, the prices are much higher than they used to be.

For long guns, hunting ammunition and shotgun shells (for birding/skeet/sporting clays) are usually available.  Buckshot is harder to find.  And .223 has been available sporadically.

UPDATE:

Mere hours after I posted this, I walked into a WalMart on a whim and found 4 boxes of PPU (Prvi Partizan) 9mm.  2 for me and 2 for Crapgame.

Smart Guns Redux

A company in Georgia is claiming to have technology to make Smart Guns viable.

Computerworld: Smart gun company aims to begin production soon

“According to Miller, had smart gun technology been available to Nancy Lanza, she could have programmed her guns so that only her fingerprint could have activated them; she could have enabled her son to shoot them at a firing range and disabled them upon returning home, or she could have enabled them for her son to use all the time, Miller said.

(more)

Idiot-in-Chief

I apologize for the sparse postings lately, but we have been extremely busy fighting the gun grabbers and making preparations for the worst-case scenario.  By now you have probably heard the news.  The worst-case scenario has come true.

In a knee-jerk response to Sandy Hook, Connecticut’s Democrat-controlled legislature passed a comprehensive array of vague, contradictory, unconstitutional and virtually unenforceable gun laws in the dead of night.  Somehow, these idiots think that they can register high-capacity magazines!

The police report on this incident has still not been released.

We still have not seen the autopsy or toxicology reports on the killer.

None of the proposals address mental health.

None of the proposals address school safety.

And the Asshole Governor rammed the law through the legislature under bogus emergency protocols, avoiding public debate and committee review of the law.  Someone must be pulling his strings, because Dan Malloy’s former secretary says that he was too stupid to turn on his own computer while mayor of Stamford.

The law took effect immediately, when it was signed by the Asshole Governor at 12:30 at night, but the specifics of the law were not spelled out for dealers or citizens to read.  Result: gun stores are sitting on unsaleable guns because this Frankenstein monster of gun laws neglected to exactly define what was and was not permissible under the law.  Ammunition manufacturers like Nutmeg Sporting Cartridge can no longer sell to police departments because police departments are not considered a FFL.

Lawsuits have been filed.  This will be fought.  Many CT-based gun companies are planning to relocate.

Pinching Pennies

I like Savage as a company, and I like their guns too.  Inexpensive and accurate.  You don’t have to be a skinflint yankee to know that there’s a difference between “inexpensive” and “cheap”.  One quality is admirable, the other is to be shunned.

Savage used to make a handy .22LR/.410 over-under called the Model 24.

Handy and versatile, and easy to feed.  A lot of prepper/survivalist types sang their praises.

I was disappointed to learn that Savage discontinued the Model 24 a few years back.

The only other gun which combined these useful calibers was the also-discontinued Springfield Armory M6, which was more portable but less ergonomic.

Baikal also makes a .22/20ga or .223/12ga over under.  (I might have to consider one.)

But now I see that Savage has replaced the Model 24 with a new gun, the Model 42:

Model 42

Available in .22LR or .22WMR over a .410 shotgun barrel, the Model 42 boasts a more-modern design of synthetic stock than the Model 24, thus increasing its street cred among preppers.  I looked forward to seeing one, and perhaps adding it to my arsenal.

After examining a Model 42, I realized that Savage cheaped out on this new gun in one significant way, with 3 specific effects.

The ejector is manually-activated, unlike an original Model 24 which partially extracts the shells when you break the gun open.  Not a dealbreaker; and I can see some scenarios where it would be an advantage to leave the shells in the chamber until you decide you want them out.  But for fast firing this change is a step in the wrong direction

The ejector mechanism is made of plastic:

MIM would be an upgrade!

The extractors are made of straight pieces of razor-thin metal, and look extremely fragile:

While I like the looks of the Model 42, I am disappointed with this lowering of quality.  I think I will look for a used Model 24.  Or maybe look at a Baikal.

More, Please?

Apparently it isn’t just civilian shooters who are having trouble finding ammunition.

Police departments in Tennessee and Oklahoma say that they are having trouble getting ammo as well.  Guns are also hard to come by.

What will the net result of this be?  Less live-fire training for police personnel?  A reluctance to conduct SWAT raids for trivial offenses?

And this is happening while the Department of Homeland Security is alternately denying that they bought 1.6 billion bullets and refusing to comment on the matter.

Where will this all lead?