Justin Buist

The Taurus Judge gets a bit of ribbing in the world of gun blogs and I tend to agree that it’s an awfully silly product that leaves gun nuts scratching their heads wondering who the hell is buying these things. I often wonder about their 2.5″ barreled .454 Cassull myself. Just further proof that if it’s a gun of any kind there’s a market for it in the USA. Nothing against Taurus in general, just saying.

Well, ran across a valiant defender of the Judge on Al Gore’s Tubes of Internets the other day. He was touting its awesome ability to fire flechette rounds to defeat body armor, flamethrower rounds*, and best of all that he’s managed to fit a .45-70 round into his and it’ll fire that too!

I sure hope he’s joking. If not, well, now we know what kinda market the Judge is hitting.

*: I can’t imagine anybody actually ever doing that more than once. Cylinder gap anyone?

You can find it here now.

Since the site has been sluggish all afternoon I’m also going to mirror a copy of the PDF. Link.

1) Please don’t show up to shoot a shotgun game when you’re on Vicodin.

2) Please don’t show up with a mixed bag of BB, #2 shot, and whatever else you found at home in 12 gauge. You’re the reason some clubs make people buy ammo on site. Glad they caught it and enforced their rule.

3) Keep your action open when not shooting. I can see how it’s easy to miss the sign since you’re doped up and all, but that rule is there for a reason.

4) “It’s unloaded” is not a valid excuse for violating the above rule and, really, you shouldn’t be a dick when somebody calls you on it.

Other than THAT GUY I’d say we had a pretty good bachelor party sporting clays outing. It also reinforced my opinion that if you’re even entertaining the idea of keeping a shotgun for home defense you need to get out there and run the thing on a regular basis. I saw plenty of guys that had problems loading their guns, taking the safety off, slow to work the pump after a shot (lot of 870’s in this outing) etc. As for myself I hadn’t run my 870 in about 3 months and I short stroked the sucker on a couple of shots in the later stations.

- Got a bachelor party this coming weekend. Starts off with some sporting clays at a local club. That’s my kind of bachelor party. Unfortunately I haven’t hefted a shotgun in about 2 months and probably won’t get a chance to brush up this week on the trap line because…

- Our dishwasher took a dump lately. It’s only 18 months old which pisses us off pretty good but we did buy the cheapest thing on the market. Armed with some Consumer Reports advice we hit the local Sears and ordered a new one. Kudos to the for actually honoring the price match guarantee too. We told them we thought Lowe’s had a better price, they looked it up, verified it, and beat it by $5. Not bad.

- Baby Eleanor is doing good. She’s over 9.5 pounds now and growing in all the right places.

- The cloth diapers are working out well. They’re really not that much of a pain in the butt and I like not having to run out to the local mart to busy disposables every week.

- The dogs have regressed to their puppy stages after having the baby here. They chew on crap when we’re not home which means back to crate training for them. Also, they decided to bust out of the fence a couple of weeks ago and raid the neighbor’s chicken coop. Wasn’t fun hauling them home, don’t think they actually killed anything, and left a note with my neighbor so they knew I was in the backyard. They called later and said it was of no concern.

Sebastian (SIH) ran across a good one today.

A MA college student decided to show how lax gun controls are in our country so he travels to NH, attends a couple gun shows, and after repeated attempts to buy a handgun via private sale^* finally finds somebody that’ll sell him a double barrel shotgun.

In Sebastian’s follow up he ran through the relevant portions of United States Code and determined that the purchase wasn’t technically illegal as he never took it back to MA but also didn’t turn it over to an FFL before leaving the state which makes it illegal. Police departments wouldn’t technically count which is where the gun ended up he says.

Not sure how the ATF would proceed in such a case. From their FAQ:

Q: May an unlicensed person obtain a firearm from an out-of-State source if the person arranges to obtain the firearm through a licensed dealer in the purchaser’s own State?

A person not licensed under the GCA and not prohibited from acquiring firearms may purchase a firearm from an out-of-State source and obtain the firearm if an arrangement is made with a licensed dealer in the purchaser’s State of residence for the purchaser to obtain the firearm from the dealer.

They don’t appear to have anything in the FAQ related to buying it out of state and then ditching it before you cross state lines.

*: He was turned down by the handgun sellers because they all asked to see a NH driver’s license. That’s not required of them but he thinks it is. In reality it’s just a CYA move most guys do when selling guns at a gun show in private sales. Been through that experience myself.

I’ve seen the story first hand and I’ve also seen it online I don’t know how many times. It goes like this:

“So, I was out shooting my new Remington 870 Express and it locked up. After firing a shot we couldn’t get it to eject unless we slammed the butt on the ground with significant force. What’s wrong with this gun?”

When you ask what ammo they were using it’s always going to be Winchester bulk-pack ammo. Not Federal, not Estate, Winchester. Always.

Here’s the problem: The 870 Express chambers that they’ve been shipping the last few years are rough. That doesn’t help any with extraction. Now, combine that with the shitty Winchester Universal hulls that they use in those bulk packs and you have a recipe for a failure to extract.

I don’t know exactly why it plays out this way but it does. I suspect the Winchester Universal hulls are using a softer steel than most others out there and that aligns nicely with my experience reloading them. Yes, I’ve reloaded those stupid things^*. The resizing process just feels a bit different on them than other steel bases.

Now, why is it so common? That’s easy. The Remington 870 Express is the most popular budget shotgun out there. The Winchester bulk packs are also, in my experience, the most common cheap shooting fodder on the shelves. You can find both at your local WalMart most likely. The two often get mixed together for economic reasons.

The solution? That’s also easy. Either buff out the chamber of the Express barrel or start using better ammo like a Remington STS, Gun Club, or Winchester AA load. The former takes a little work while the latter takes a bit more money. Weigh the options and proceed with what suits you best. If you opt for just buying better hulls I’d suggest saving the spent ones and trying to resell them. Hell, I’ll buy ‘em!

*: It’s usually not recommended to reload the cheap Winchester Universal hulls but I have it on good authority that you can do it using the same recipes you’d use for Winchester AA hulls. The main problem with reloading them is the plastic isn’t real keen on keeping a crimp. It’s not uncommon for me to load up 25 rounds, set them on the bench, and the next day find 4 or 5 of them have crimps that resemble pyramids. So, I shove them back into a final crimp before I box them up. That usually does it. The secondary problem is that because they’re crap they wear out pretty quick. They’re beat up pretty bad after 3 reloads.

TD has a nice little round-up that I’m going to use for the basis of this post.

I agree with the universal consensus re: pricing for the Masada/ACR/whatever-they-finally-call-it. I’m also sure they’ll sell every copy they can make, with early adopters paying a premium over MSRP. Then, in a year or two, Bushmaster will roll out a revised Gen 2 version, correcting the real-or-perceived faults of Gen 1, and all the fanboys will again (1) bitch up a storm but still (2) line up to buy it.

Agreed. I’m also suspecting a slight up-tick in traffic to RobArm’s XCR page since it does the same thing and costs a full $1000 less than the plain version from Bushmaster.

The inexplicable success of the Taurus Judge still depresses the hell out of me. Taurus keeps cranking out new versions, each more grotesque, hideous and nonsensical than the last, and people KEEP BUYING THE GODDAMN THINGS.

Again, agreed. I believe he’s referring to the polymer framed Judge that they just announced. The thing is never going to be a really lightweight revolver so I don’t understand the polymer frame. Further, who wants a lightweight revolver in.45 Colt? Then again, this is the same company that produces a snubby 2.5″ revolver in .454 Cassul.

Speaking of 1911s, Dan Wesson is producing some very impressive-looking guns, albeit with equally impressive price tags. If I were in the market for a $1500 1911, I’d look very hard at their offerings.

This one depresses me a bit. When they were kicking out $1000 1911’s they were pretty much alone in the marketplace in terms of quality per dollar spent. Now they’re just another “me too” $1500 1911 maker.

The other Wesson has one new J-frame without the key lock, a nifty little 640 with tritium sights. They also seem to be going out of their way to only show the RIGHT side of their revolvers. They just might be getting the hint, verrrrry slowly…

Indeed. More no-lock guns, please, S&W. I was a bit irked to see that my 442 came with a lock when I believe the first batch of them didn’t have the lock. I thought they were seeing the light but maybe not.

The other thing S&W announced that has me, and Jay G, tickled is their new Bodyguard line. A pocket .380 and pocket polymer .38SPL with an integrated laser. If they can get that revolver into shops with a $500 price tag I might seriously consider one.

I shot two lines tonight and the last one was a 5. That’s never happened to me before.

There’s two things I figure could have contributed to that.

1) Today is my wife’s due date. Getting a little excited and distracted about the whole baby thing really bad today.

2) Call of Duty. I’ve been playing the new Modern Warfare II quite a bit lately and like pretty much every other video game out there you don’t have to lead your targets. That’s kinda important in trap. I’m actually starting to think that these games are reinforcing some really bad shooting habits that are carrying over into the real world with relation to sight picture.