GARY'S GUN NOTES

What a crazy world we live in. People hacking one of the Justice’s credit card and charging a lot of money plus spreading his home address around all over. Then a young mother pushing a stroller shot dead in central park. Drive by shootings all over and the governors of several cities trying to defund the police. Then all the women screaming and protesting about the abortion thing. And I have a hard time believing there are so many women who want to kill an unborn baby. It just doesn’t seem right. The vote on a new gun control bill this past week to limit what guns and ammo we can buy and talks about confiscating certain guns in a few liberal states. And another verdict coming from the Supreme Court that will have even more folks protesting. I won’t go into that yet as I don’t know how they will vote on it but it could easily make the abortion verdict seem like childs play.

Is there any good news on the horizon? I sure hope so. At least enough to calm folks down. Maybe I can find a couple of things to go over to get our minds off all this mess mentioned above. One thing is our hunting seasons are just around the corner, well almost that close.

The ammo and reloading gear shortage seems to be calmed down a bit. We are finally getting some ammo that we haven’t had in many months. Why would have thought that 30-30 would be going for double retail at gun shows. I had a customer come in and he was happy that he finally found some 30-30 at a Phoenix and only paid $79.95 for it. Wow, what a bargain.

Some of the reloading supplies are easing down in price. Not a lot more of it out there but the scalpers seem to be easing off on their jacked up prices. Some of the powder and primer dealers have powder and primers but it is at over retail, so most gun shops don’t buy it from them. The reason being if I buy powder at $10 over retail then I have to jack the price even higher to sell it in my gun shop. Then folks will remember what a shyster that Reeder guy was when all this is over. It is a damned if we do and damned if we don’t situation.

We got another of the Girsan Hi Powers in today and what a nice gun it is. It is exactly like the original Hi Power and priced right too. There are 3 companies putting out the new Hi Powers. For what it is worth if you are thinking of buying one of them go with the Girsan or the FN. The FN is the same gun they have been making for over 80 years so they know how to make the gun. Speaking of Girsan , they also make an exact copy of the Beretta 92 called the Regard MC. A lot of folks still like and carry the old Beretta 92, especially those that carried it in the military. Well, now you can get a copy that is even better than the original.

One of the guns to go from a ho hum 1911 to a really nice pistol is the Auto Ordnance. Since they were bought out by Kahr Arms their quality had gone thru the roof. By the way did you know the folks at Kahr are hard core gun people. They ask the members of their church congregation to bring an AR-15 with them to church. It is really weird to see the photos of church goers all sitting in the pews with their AR-15s sitting between their knees. One photo I have shows several old couples, and I mean OLD couples each holding their AR-15s during the service. Weddings are something special as the people in the service have special gold plated or silver plated AR-15s in the wedding service. Those folks don’t have to worry about crazies coming into their church.

OK, back to what’s new. Speaking of what’s new and of AR-15s, Anderson Manufacturing have a whole new series of A4 (same as the M4) pistol ARs coming out. Now these days it is hard to get excited about an AR-15 as there are so many versions of it on the market. But these little 10.5” barreled ARs are really neat. They make a couple of pistol sizes and a couple of carbines. If you need an AR-15 check out the new Anderson. Also I had a fellow in the shop recently jumped me about calling the AR-15 an AR-15. He said we should never call it that. We should call it the Modern Sporting Rifle or some silly crap like that. He said we offend folks by mentioning the AR-15. It told him I thought he was a pussy who was afraid of the anti gun crowd. I said a few other things that I probably shouldn’t have said but I get so tired of trying to please the liberals in this world, so screw it. The gun is an AR-15. Period.

Mossberg has been THE company for shotguns for many years. And they keep putting out good products. I read somewhere that 80% of the law enforcement agencies use the Mossberg model 500. One of the new Mossbergs is their ATI tactical. Another is their 940 Pro Tactical autoloader. It is sort of a futuristic looking shotgun but with Mossberg’s name on it you know it is good. Also for you older shooters that remember how the Mossbergs were back in the early 60s Mossberg has a model 500 Retrograde. And it looks exactly like the guns the cops used back 50 or more years ago.

One thing I have been waiting for that hasn’t materialized yet is hunting rifles from our distributors. Now the Ruger American rifle are here and have been thru all this mess, but as gun shops have to depend upon distributors for our supply of guns and they have been slim so far this year. I realize that most folks that are buying guns right now are interested in guns for concealed carry but our hunting seasons are coming soon. Folks around here found out recently if they got drawn for elk or deer so they are slowly beginning to think about 7mm Magnums and 300 Win Magnums and such. We have been able to get a couple of nice magnum rifles but they are scarce. Last fall there were none to be had but I think this year rifles and hunting shotguns will be a little more available, at least I hope so. The hunting ammo is slowly coming in. We got a couple of cases of 30-30 and 30-06 today. These 2 calibers were almost impossible to find last year so maybe this is a good sign.

Another thing to mention is this falls HHC, the Handgun Hunters Challenge. I ran it for 23 hunts but due to age and some small health issues I gave it up a year or so ago Since then Alcorn Russell has taken it over. It is at the same place, the Wilderness Hunting Lodge in Monterey Tennessee, owned and run by Alan Wilson. There is room for 55 hunters and there were several times we filled the hunt up. Hopefully it will fill up this year too. A good friend of mine that was at a few of the hunts once told me the HHC isn’t a hunt. It is a gathering of friends. And that is exactly what it is. And I can’t think of anything better than spending 3 days with old friends in a hunting camp. The hunt is Oct. 6 thru 9. And consider yourself invited. In fact bring a friend or youngster. Everyone is invited.

Recently I was talking to good friend Steve Hornady the head honcho of Hornady Firearms. We got talking about some of my custom cartridges that are based on the 405 brass. I mentioned that I wished there were more of the brass around. He said “let me check and see if we have any in the warehouse”. He called back a bit later and said he had found 20,000 rounds of new 405 brass that they had set back for loading it into 405 ammo. But with all the shortages they needed to load cartridges that the customers were asking for, and if I wanted the 405 brass I could have it and at a good price too. So I have plenty of new 405 brass. The price is excellent considering what some companies are charging these days, at $1.75 per round. If you need 405 brass, I have almost 20,000 rounds of it. I say almost 20,000 rounds as we have sold about 7000 rounds since we got the first batch. Just give us a call at 928-527-4100.

For the last 10 to 15 years I have said I was going to take a day off during the week and do some prairie dog hunting and squirrel hunting during the fall season. But somehow I never got around to doing it. But this year I am going to do it. I bought a new 22-250 heavy barrel rifle last week and if all goes as planned I will get it rechambered into 22-250 Improved this coming week. Thanks to a couple of the Misfits out there I have some brass to load up and fireform it into the 22-250 Improved on Prairie Dogs. When we first moved here in the spring of ’94 I built 2 special prairie dog rifles based on Winchester model 70 actions. Those 2 guns were for Kase and me and I bought a Remington 222 for Colleen. We just about wore out those rifles but as I got busier and busier the hunting days came to a slow halt and the 2 Winchesters were sold off somewhere along the line. But this year is going to be different. Our Prairie Dog season (yes thanks to some liberals in our Game & Fish Dept we have a season on Prairie Dogs) opens on July 1st and weather permitting I hope to get out there and slay some prairie doodles.

That is about it for this month. Remember the HHC. If you like to hang out with gun folks in a hunting camp, try to be there Oct. 6 thru 9. Call the Wilderness Hunting Lodge to sign up and have a great time.

If you get a chance to get out and do some plinking make sure and take a lady or youngster with you. These days more than ever they are our future.

God bless,

Gary