Monday, August 18, 2008

Crazy Weekend

I am sorry for not posting on Friday, but the boss let me have a day off! Heavens to Murgatroyd! So I did nothing productive other than cleaning the house and slacking off for my Mental Health.

I was running out of what I felt was quality material to write about, but after the insane weekend I had, I have at least a months worth!

This weekend was a tax-free weekend here in Mass, where you don't have to pay sales tax on anything less than $2500. In my travels, I wound up hitting 4 gun shops looking for ammo for a new rifle (more on that in a minute) Every gun shop was mobbed with customers buying anything and everything. Now when passing by a furniture store, the parking lot was empty. Even Lowes parking lot wasn't any busier than normal when I passed by. Bass Pro Shops was very busy, and their gun counter, which is 60' long had customers 2-3 deep along it's whole length!

I had a bit of an adventure trying to buy a generator, I didn't get one because they pretty much vanished! The local one had 6+ generators, and they sold out of the one I wanted in 12 hours or so. I had them call around, and they found a store with 5, but in the 20 minutes it took to get there they sold 2, and they wouldn't honor the price at the other store, so I told them to pound sand. I'll be watching craigslist and ebay and get my generator used.

What do these 2 facts tell me? When I see a guy buying 1500 rounds of ammo, and another with 2000 rounds of 2 calibers I tend to notice these things. Combine this with the lack of business regardless of how many commercials run at the furniture stores, which last year were packed. Well I think the sheeple are not so dumb after all. They are starting to notice bad things are happening, and they are starting to do something about it. Well maybe the sheeple are not all smartening up, but a small percentage are going through the transformation into non-sheeple. Maybe not full preppers, but certainly not the sheeple they once were.

So in my many travels I bought myself a Mosin Nagant rifle. Although I was intent on staying with only a few different calibers, I could not resist. I am a bit of a amateur military historian, with WWII in particular. The Mosin Nagant is the battle rifle of the Soviet army (and the Russians in WWI). It's a 7.62x54R cartridge, with the R standing in for rimmed. It's only $100, how could I pass up a rifle made in 1941, with a kick-ass cartridge, and it was never issued? That's right it was made in 1941 and never issued! It kicks like a mule, and I think all the wildlife within 100 miles of the range is now hard of hearing, but DAMN that's fun to shoot. It's a bolt action with an internal 5 round magazine. Mine is the full-length version with a 28 1/2" barrel. Effective killing range is 2000 yards if you can hit it. The iron sights are a bit tough, but scopes can be mounted. The kits are cheap and available through ebay. I will keep iron sights on this, for now.

All the practice at the range has paid off, with the rife zeroed in (using a drift and a big hammer) I was hitting a gopher silhouette at 75 yards 75% of the time freehand. On a military silhouette, I was consistently getting 'b' shots in the body at 100 yards. This is open WWII era sights. Gawd I love that rifle. I took part in a tactical shoot, and used the rife. I'll make a full post on that, because A) it was so cool, and B) I was laughing my ass off at the mall ninjas.

I did pick up a .22 target pistol, I'll post how much of an effect it has on my accuracy with my Sig P220.

This post is getting a bit long, I'll break it into two sections before my rambling causes Blogger's servers to crash.

8 comments:

Sunfighter said...

I have two Mosin Nagants. Love them both. As to scope mounts, be careful. The one I bought ain't much good.

But the one they sell at

http://www.tickbitesupply.com/mos.html

RI-SCO-M4491SCOUT $19.99 should be OK, I haven't ordered one yet, but here is why I'll buy that one. Notice the picture and note the long little bolt. Other scope mounts have two tiny screws. You knock out the old sight pin and insert the screws. A long bolt should work fine. Two small screws will come out after you put about a hundred round through the weapon. The vibration loosens the screws and they aren't very strong. Get a long eye relief scope. The trajectory on the Mosins is not flat. The round raises about 5.7 inches at 100 yard, then will drop to 0 at about 300 yards. Need to understand the trajectory for long shots. But they are sweet weapons.

http://blog.linnabary.net

Western Mass. Man said...

Natog,
I'm a Mass. resident also. Western section. Maybe we can help each other out a bit?

Western Mass. Man said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Natog said...

hilljack33

Thanks for the info, I think I'm going to stick with iron for now. Check out these sights!
http://www.mojosights.com/index.html
drop me a note if you like that scope mount. The rifles are cheap enough I might get one for modifications. The bent bolt is the expensive part, or your going to have to go with a pistol scope, and those suck. If your good with metalworking there is instructions online on how to make your own bent bolt.

Natog said...

western mass.man, I think we might get a hurricane this year, more of a bigger deal for me, as I'm in the eastern half of the state. But I'm also hearing that this winter is going to be brutal. And with oil at $5 a gallon right now, I'm wondering if heating fuel will break the US economy for good. When was the last time we had a week of 70 degree weather followed by a week of 80 degree weather in August?

Maybe we need a Preppers Network, Northeastern Division? I'm sure Stealth Survival won't mind charging us a franchise fee.

Please keep swinging by, I'll come up with a secure (for both of us) way we can communicate. I wouldn't mind swapping notes with others. The more I think of it the more I feel there are many silent preppers that either need help, or that can help us.

Western Mass. Man said...

Will do.
Holy Crap! $5.00 a gallon? WOW.
At last check, which was 2 weeks ago, it was 4.20 in my area. I'm down to 1/2 a tank now. Thank god for the wood stove. Paid 500.00 for a load of log length fire wood in March. That will keep me going all winter.

Sunfighter said...

I personally prefer the long eye relief scopes. A lot of the bent bolt receivers are junk. My M91/30 shoots very tight groups. Once you get the left to right scope setting centered, you just have to aim low for 100 yard shots. Then calculate the distance and raise or lower the aim depending on the distance.Beyond about about a thousand feet you have to start aiming higher and higher.

I put a nylon stock on my M91/30 and it really cuts down on the recoil. My M44 kicks like a mule (my shoulder hurts just thinking about firing it) and the fireball that comes out of the barrel would likely scare someone half to death.

Great weapons for the price.

Ryan said...

Mosin Nagants are a gun for very little money. I got a Remington made 1906 for my WWII gun. It has a nice Lyman peep on it so I doubt I will every scope it. At some point I would love to get a Garand. If I ever find a decent Enfield for a fair price it will move to the gun cabinet also.