according to this article, the devil is living in the vatican.

i submit this without comment.

via joe.my.god, i’ve learned that the traditional values coalition is using the “men in dresses” meme to scare people into telling their congressmen to vote against enda. tallulha, in the comments, hits the nail on the head:

I’d rather have Rupaul in full drag teaching my kids than someone trying to tell them that the earth is 6,000 years old.

yeah, or that we spontaneously sprung up out from the dust, or were living along side the dinosaurs. i’m calling them out on nexy’s law on this one.

i received my uplula magazine loader from midway on wednesday, along with 3 magazines for my s&w m&p9c, 2 days ahead of schedule. ya gotta love midway. in any event, i loaded up my now 5 magazines using the uplula, and i am very pleased. although the instructions are poorly written and difficult to understand, once i figured out how it works, i can now load mags about twice as fast, and with much less wear and tear on my fingers. i highly recommend it.

i have a reservation at the range for 2:00 PM today. unlike the last few times i went, i made a reservation to avoid having to wait. this way, i can wait here and blog, instead of walking around the store looking at everything i can’t afford to buy…

why i still love my s&w 2206 .22 cal pistol:

best group at 5 yards, but the rest of them looked as good, with maybe a flyer or two. i’m not quite as good with the new 9mm yet, but getting there:

i did get one failure to extract, which was somewhat concerning. it might have something to do with the ammo i was using - winchester white box, which is the cheapest ammo one can get, or the fact that the uplula seems to slightly score the casing of each round. for self defense use, i’d hand load each mag, and of course use higher grade jacketed hollow point ammo. other than that, all went well.

i even had the opportunity to shoot an fn five-seven, as the gentleman shooting next to me asked me if i wanted to try it. i jumped at the chance. this is the pistol that was used in the fort hood shooting in november of 2009, and was also claimed by the brady campaign to be armor piercing, so called “cop killer”. of course, the actual ammo that has that capability is not commercially available, so only law enforcement and military can legally obtain it. i suppose that’s one of the advantages of being female at the shooting range, some men will strike up conversations with you, and let you try their guns. i think he may have had ulterior motives - he reloads, and asked if he could have my brass, which of course, i agreed since i would have just thrown it away into the brass buckets.

as far as the fn five-seven goes, i found it to be pretty accurate, featuring very controllable recoil, and quite comfortable to shoot. though the bullet is only slightly larger in diameter than a .22 caliber, the casing is a bit larger in diameter and “necked down” to fit the smaller diameter bullet, so there’s quite a bit more powder for higher velocities. there are pictures of both the ammo and the weapon on that wikipedia page i linked to.

it’s all about timing. i bought my s&w m&p9c on february 6th. i guess we’ll see how good s&w customer service is now…

update:
i received an email back from paul gazda from s&w in a very timely fashion. unfortunately, he states:

Hello, I am sorry to report, we can not extend the dates on the promotion.

i’m seeing a lot of sigs and glocks in my future.

2nd update:
well, i suppose it’s not so bad. i just discovered that midway is just now running a sale for the magazines at $30.49 each, which is only about $5 more than the cheapest (but backordered for 2 months) i’ve been able to find, and a lot cheaper than the $41 that s&w charges. I also ordered a uplula magazine speed loader. it by far had the most and best reviews. not that i need to load magazines faster - it’s just that the s&w m&p mag follower has this weird shape to it, and it’s extremely difficult to get the first round into it. on top of that, the spring is rather stiff. end result, my finger tips have been sore ever since i got this pistol. hopefully, this will solve this problem.

i came across this ar-15 lower receiver in the local firearm forum i read, arizonashooting.com. there’s a section in which dealers can post specials and general offers to the members. the above lower is a special run, with the “zombie” indicator instead of “fire” for the safety selector. it’s a limited run offered by arizona armory - his website’s not up and running just yet, but there’s a lot of good feedback on the forum.

anyway, i’ve spent some time thinking about building an ar-15 from parts, and this makes it very tempting. i’ve also added a “zombie” category to my blog - i’ve done enough posts about zombies that i think it’s warranted. of course, i’m wondering if i should go back an add the category to previous zombie posts, or if that will make the blog’s rss feed go nuts.

they had a special for today at the arizona ren faire, $10 per person, so we decided to stop by and enjoy a few hours of robing hood and renaissance goodness. no pictures this year, but i did buy a really cool athame at sabersmith.

since the schrade tactical pen came highly recommended, i thought i’d give one a try. in pink. along with a pink leek kershaw tactical knife. notice how no one bothers to match the different shades of pink.

update: i emailed this picture to daily gun pictures, a blog that posts pictures and videos of all kinds of weapons on a daily basis, and it was posted! i’m famous

in what i believe to be the conclusion of my search for the best 9mm carry pistol, i purchased a new smith & wesson m&p9c yesterday. it fits my hand very well, offers quite manageable felt recoil, features a good compromise between capacity (12 + 1) and size/weight, and well, it’s a smith & wesson, world renowned for their quality and customer service.

i cleaned it this morning, and armed with a variety of ammo types, i went off to the range. 212 rounds later, with flawless performance and no failures of any kind, i am quite pleased with my choice. while perhaps not quite as accurate as my sig p6 or s&w 5906, i did very well considering it’s shorter 3.5″ barrel, and the fact that this was my first outing. i can imagine i’ll improve with time.

cleaning went smoothly, as the gun comes apart fairly easily, and went back together without a hitch.

just as a comparison, i took this shot comparing it to my “j” frame revolver, which i’m not nearly as accurate. just slightly larger, with more than double the capacity.

and this was the best group at 5 yards. interestingly enough, the magazine without the finger rest performed as well as the one with the finger rest.

next purchase, additional magazines and a holster…

i don’t normally post about the politics of firearms - after all, i believe the 2nd amendment protects the right of american citizens to keep and bear arms. but i just had to post about this, because i can’t count the number of times i’ve gone into my local starbucks armed. interestingly enough, the first firearm i saw open-carried here in phoenix was at my local starbucks.

i have faith that starbucks won’t cave, because i’d be hard-pressed to decide between the two.

thanks to snowflakes in hell for the heads up.

and really, is that a cool starbucks logo, or what! i want to make them into arm patches only i’d change the question mark to something more appropriate.

i stopped by the range today and rented a smith & wesson m&p9. of all the polymer framed pistols i’ve tried, this one is by far the best fit. it was well balanced, featured very manageable recoil, quite accurate, and offers high capacity magazines. i liked it a lot more than the glock.

the center target was at 5 yards, the lower left at 7 yards, and the lower right at 10 yards. that’s about how well i can expect to shoot my s&w 5906 or sig p9, so the gun is more accurate than me.

while i was there, i handled a smith & wesson m&p9c, which is the smaller carry version. while i didn’t have the opportunity to fire it, the fit to my hand was actually better than the full size version. that may very well be my next firearm purchase.