The Boogie Man Is My Friend Book Review

Shamelessly stolen from the author.

If you've read Momma Fargo's blog, you might be expecting this book to be nothing but funny anecdotes from her time as a peace officer in Gotham City. You would be wrong.

As funny as Momma Fargo is, she can be deadly serious when the time calls for it.  In this book, she takes on a very serious subject: the Boogie Man.  He is real and it takes people like her to bring him to justice.

This book makes us, as parents, confront the fact that he Boogie Man is not some mythical creature that hides under our kids' beds or in their closets, but is a family member, neighbor, or highly regarded member of society.  Or sometimes the Boogie Man is just some transient creeper who leaves destruction in his wake.

Just as reality gets to be too much, Momma's cop humor comes through, giving us some much-needed relief.  Suddenly, it's crystal clear why LEOs (and firefighters and EMTs/Paramedics) need black humor to survive.

In addition to forcing us to open our eyes to the possibility of the Boogie Man being much closer than we would like, she gives us things to be aware of: like how the Boogie Man "grooms" not only the child, but often the family.  And, more importantly, she addresses how to keep our kids from negative interactions with the Popo in her "top 9 reasons why our kids are at this dysfunctional place".

I totally respect her for admitting that she, herself, was an absent parent and is trying to make up for that.  I get it; I was an absent parent myself, just trying to better our lives, and in the process let some important things at home slip.  That was perhaps the hardest part of the book for me to read, because if I'd been home more often, maybe I could have headed off a lot of problems my youngest son has.  Maybe my boys would have stayed in school and graduated from high school. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

There are parts of this book that are absolutely hard to read, I won't deny it, but it should be read and taken to heart by all parents.

Besides, how can you not read a book by a woman who has thrown down a challenge to Phil Robertson?  Yes, THE Phil Robertson, the Duck Commander.

As much as I love and respect the Duck Commander, he's going down!

You've Heard About Checks in the Mail, Right?

This is sort of like that...

That last line in the green section is of particular interest to me right now.

Bye bye NICS background checks. It was nice knowing you. No...not really. Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.

Initial Review: Ruger 10/22 Deluxe Sporter

Cross posted at Daddy Hawk's Toy Box

Though not a true BUG (buy a gun) Day purchase, I may or may not have recently (within the last couple of months) acquired a new addition to the gun locker at Castle Erickson. More specifically, that acquisition may be a Ruger 10/22 Deluxe Sporter .22LR semi-automatic rifle. It might have been acquired via private sale using cash in a deal arranged through Texas Gun Trader that could have been mutually beneficial to the parties involved while simultaneously and symbolically giving the Federal .Gov the uni-finger booger flinging salute for having the temerity to think that they can infringe upon the God given rights of free people.

I say this tongue and cheek given the current nuttiness Congress is pursuing with respect to gun control. I realize that we have passed the hurdle of DiFi's thinly veiled attempt at registration/confiscation and the Manchin/Toomey backdoor reach around "compromise"; but, if you really think the fight is over, I have some other very attractive proposals to sell you courtesy of the Nigerian scammers who have been stalking my Craigslist ads.

Seriously though, for FTC disclaimer purposes, I received no compensation or consideration whatsoever from any source for the opinions you are about to receive. The FTC can refer to the uni-finger salute referenced above.

Now that that's out of the way, what else can be said about the Ruger 10/22? It's probably the best selling .22 rifle in America if not the world from the humble and robust carbine version to their heavy barreled target version not to mention name brand and home built custom rifles using the 10/22 action. A lot of ink has already been spilled and pixels burned on the 10/22. So, what's a few more pixels?

First off, let's discuss my qualifications to offer up my opinion. I have a keyboard, a brain and an overdeveloped sense of self worth. I shoot guns for fun. I've never won a shooting competition, hunted extensively, been employed by the firearms industry or taken professional level training courses in shooting. In short, I'm your typical recreational shooter with an hair brained idea and an internet connection.

Next, why go for the deluxe sporter version when you can pay less and get the carbine (which is actually the same action, sights and barrel with different stocks) or pay more and get the target version(which has the same action and sling swivels with a heavier barrel, laminated wood stock and no iron sights)? To answer that question, I need to break the rifle apart into its components and discuss my impressions and thought process. Along the way, I will bring in comparisons to the Marlin Model 60, the 10/22 carbine version and a custom 10/22. So, where do we start?

Let's kick this off in earnest by looking at the stock. In the Ruger 10/22 family, you have a range of stocks. The carbine version comes with either a black synthetic or hardwood (Birch or Walnut depending) stock which has a barrel band. The synthetic stock has some checkering in the grip and fore end areas while the hardwood stock has no checkering and a metal butt plate. I have some experience with the hardwood carbine version as my mother has one. The finish of the hardwood is actually quite nice for a "entry level" rifle; however, the lack of checkering and the way my hands sweat in the Texas heat argued against the hardwood carbine version. I further eliminated the synthetic stocked carbine due to the barrel band which I find aesthetically displeasing.

On the other end of the spectrum, the target model uses a black or brown wood laminate stock which also lacks checkering but includes sling swivels already installed. I'm not a huge fan of the look of laminated woods as I prefer the natural grain pattern of the wood. Having said that, I wouldn't mind having one eventually; however, this go round, I really wanted a rifle with iron sights as opposed to being limited to only using an optic.

The takedown version is kinda neat, but suffers the affliction of the barrel band. The compact version is too small for me. The tactical version is too...tactical for me. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against black rifles. My buddy has a Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22 which is a hoot. I just didn't want one at this point. I wanted a simple, lighter weight, wood stocked rifle with classic lines and some decent checkering that would be accessible to new shooters (thinking ahead to the day when I can introduce M&M to shooting) and not intimidate.

Enter the deluxe sporter. The deluxe sporter has a nice American walnut stock with cut checkering as opposed to pressed checkering. What's the difference? The easiest way to demonstrate the difference is to show you.

Here is the cut checkering on the 10/22 deluxe sporter:

Here is the pressed checkering on the Marlin Model 60:

The cut checkering is crisp and provides me with a very positive grip on the stock even with sweaty paws. By comparison, the pressed checkering on the Marlin is definitely less crisp and grippy which is to be expected since it is effectively the reverse of the Ruger's checkering; but, it is functional in its own way. My personal preference is the cut checkering.

There is one other minor difference in the sporter stock. Namely, length of pull. The sporter has a length of pull of 13.88 inches versus the 13.5 for the carbine, 12.75 for the compact and 13.75 for the target. While that may not seem like a huge variation to some, it is a discernible difference to me with my wingspan. The carbine feels like a Daisy Red Rider in my hands whereas the sporter feels a little more like a "real" rifle. 

So, we've established that I think the sporter stock is pretty and I can get a good grip on it. My exemplar exhibits excellent workmanship with more of a satin stain finish to the wood as opposed to a gloss finish. I like either finish depending on the application, and the satin finish is fine in this instance.

Okay, enough about the stock. To each their own. I like this one.

Let's move on to address the elephant in the room: The Trigger. It is heavier than I would like it to be for sure; however, it is consistent, predictable and relatively smooth for a stock trigger. It is non-adjustable short of the tender, loving mercies of a gunsmith or a Dremel if you are so inclined. For comparison's sake, it feels very similar to the Rock River Arms single stage "mil spec" AR trigger if you've ever messed with one. Maybe a tad lighter on the pull, but the take up is fairly short followed by a heavy pull to get to a crisp break while giving no hint of grittiness (to my touch at least). Once you get used to it, one hole groups are possible at close range (as evidenced by the photos to follow); however, having said that, I definitely want a lighter trigger. I am debating a replacement with Kidd and Clark replacement kits in the leading contender slots.

While I did not have a carbine model on hand for a side by side comparison, I will go out on a limb and say that they are identical. Based on other reviews I've seen, I believe the target model gets a better trigger. Maybe one day I will get to verify that. My buddy has a custom 10/22 with an after market trigger that was very smooth and extremely light by comparison. I did shoot both side by side and going from the heavy sporter trigger to the custom aftermarket trigger was eye opening to say the least. I cooked the first shot off early because I wasn't expecting how light it was. He didn't know which brand it was since he had it built for him by another friend who put in a spare trigger "he had laying around" (must be nice), and there were no marks on the outside to give me a hint. It was a straight instead of curved trigger shoe. That's all I can tell you.

For what it's worth, I think the stock trigger in the Marlin 60 beats the stock trigger in the 10/22 sporter. Personally, I think this is stupid and borderline moronic on Ruger's part. When you shell out extra money for an "upgraded" model that costs at least twice what a competitor's model sells for, you should get a better trigger. I'm just sayin'. One man's opinion. Then again, people like me keep shelling out cash for these things knowing full well we are going to have to tinker with them to make them the way we want them. Who's the stupid one now?

Just to respond to the trolls and haters real quick: if I'd wanted another Marlin Model 60...I would have bought another one (or a model 795 for those like me that prefer the detachable as opposed to tube magazine fed option). There's nothing wrong with Marlin 60s. I have one. I didn't need or want two of them. Besides, the 10/22 satisfies my need to tinker.

Moving on, let's talk about the sights. The front sight is quite nice in my opinion. Gold bead post dove tailed onto the end of the barrel. Don't like gold bead sights? Push it out and insert one of your choice. The rear sight...weeellll.... It's functional...it's cheap...it's no worse than any other rear sight installed by manufacturers these days. It's adjustable for elevation (albeit not easily) but not windage. Drifting the front bead in the dovetail can address windage as necessary. It's on the list of things I'm going to change on this rifle as soon as I can figure out what the best aperture sight option is. Seriously though, the rear sight is perfectly adequate for Sunday plinking and casual target work. Spend enough time with it, and you'd probably be able to get it to bark like a dog and impersonate a feral cat. And you can teach a pig to sing eventually too. It's just not the best use of your time and money.

The good news is that Ruger spends to time and money to drill and tap the receiver for a Weaver mount. The rifle is supposed to come with one. Since I did not obtain mine new, I had to go buy a Leupold Weaver mount which was very reasonably priced at $8.00 at Academy. That means mounting a scope is relatively easy. Which I already did. It works like a charm.

So, a word about accuracy: pretty darn good. During the first range outing, I zeroed the rifle at 25 yards with CCI Stinger ammo (32 grain hollow point smoking along at 1650 feet per second) to get it on paper and function test it. First shot of a rest with a Hawke 3-9 x 40 AO scope was about eight and a half inches low but mostly centered horizontally. After dialing in about 140 clicks on the scope, shots were going where they were supposed to be.

I had five flavors of .22LR ammo in my range bag to play with, and I did what any self respecting gun geek does and started testing to see which one was the most accurate. Now, some people may quibble over whether to clean the barrel between groups to obtain the most accurate results. I had neither the time nor the patience to clean the gun that many times in one range outing. Besides, my philosophy is that a dirty gun is a happy gun and real world accuracy is going to deteriorate as you shoot so it's better to know how it shoots when it's fouled anyways.

Let's a take a look at the groups from worst to best. These are five shot groups, shot from a rest at 25 yards with something like a second or two or however long it took me to get comfortable with the sight picture between each shot.

Winchester Super X 40 grain bullets at 1300 feet per second. I picked up a 100 round box of these at Academy back in February before .22 disappeared from the shelves completely. To say that I am disappointed in their performance is an understatement. Seriously, it didn't group. It patterned. It did worse than Remington and Federal bulk pack ammo, and that's saying something. it may function well in other rifles, but this one consistently shot a 4ish MOA group with this stuff.

Remington Gold Tip bulk pack ammo. These are leftovers from a pack I bought at Walmart or one of the other big boxes ages ago. It's been so long, I don't even have the box anymore as the bullets have been moved into old plastic 100 round boxes. These are probably 40 grain bullets in the 1250 feet per second range based on Remington's website (though they could be 36 grains at 1288 FPS). True to my prior experience with them, my one dud round for the day came from this batch. It had a good, strong primer strike on it but no bang. Just under 4 MOA for this stuff is about all you can expect because of the consistency issues in the ammo.

Federal bulk pack that was old before I inherited it from my grandfather. I have no idea when he bought them, but it is probably from the same lot that I used when he taught me to shoot over 30 years ago. I've never even seen the original packaging for this stuff. So, I am guessing these are Federal Champions in the 40 or 36 grain weight in that 1200 to 1300 FPS sweet spot that most .22 ammo seems to fall within. Again, performance is as one would expect with bulk box bullets.

CCI Stinger 32 grain moving at 1640 FPS. These were my favorites coming into this range trip.  Truth be told, I'm a big fan of CCI rimfire ammo. But for a called flyer due to lack of focus and yanking the trigger, the Stingers would have turned in a one hole group (I actually did get a one hole group with them earlier before I started shooting for groups). I love this stuff, and I can't wait until I find some for sale somewhere soon.

CCI AR Tactical 40 grain round nose at 1200 FPS. This was the surprise of the bunch. CCI markets this stuff as being suitable for the current crop of AR pattern .22 trainers. Whatever. I have no idea what makes this stuff ideal for AR pattern .22s that other 40 grain/1200FPS bullets don't have; but, then again, I'm no marketing genius either. Technically, this is "bulk pack" ammo since it does, in fact, come loose in a box of 375 rounds. Performance though was no comparison to the Remington, Winchester or Federal offerings. It does shoot a 1/2 inch to an inch lower than the Stingers at 25 yards, but that's due to the slower velocity. But who is going to argue with .87 MOA from a mediocre shooter using a new rifle? This is my new favorite plinking round, and I will be buying more as soon as it appears on a shelf near me (or not so near if the shipping cost is reasonable). 

So, what is my overall impression of the 10/22 sporter? Good...borderline excellent. In terms of accuracy, it shot at least as well as my friend's full custom 10/22 though his admittedly has a nicer trigger. It offers some advantages that the Marlin 60 and Marlin 795s do not possess (namely easier scope mounting, better grade stocks, better after market support, etc.). Is it worth twice what the Marlins go for? It depends. For the same money I spent to get the 10/22, I can get a Marlin 795 AND all the tweaks to get it to where I want it to be AND several boxes of ammo (even at current prices). So, from a strictly dollars and cents value proposition, the answer would be no. From an overall aesthetic, quality and feel point of view, I take the Ruger every time. It feels better to me. It feels more solid and rugged to me. It looks better to me.

At the end of the day, that's what's important to me. Your experience may vary.

Sporting a New Look

My Para's almost nine years old (she was "born" on my birthday according to her paperwork) and she's been well-used.  So well-used that she was beginning to look a bit rode hard and put away wet.  Before Christmas, I won a $50 gift certificate from 13 Zulu so I thought I'd give my faithful 1911 a bit of a facelift.

Poor, haggard looking Para

The problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to do with her.  13 Zulu has done some amazing DuraCoat jobs, including a Zombie Hunter theme for my brother Junior's gun.  I spent a lot of time looking through their photo galleries, both on their website and Facebook page, but couldn't come up with an idea.

I kind of had maybe an idea, but was open to suggestion.  I dragged Jay along with me to drop off the Para and to help me come up with some ideas.  My problem is that I'm not super passionate about anything in particular.  Junior loves zombies, so he had blood splatter and a zombie put on his gun.  Mrs. Junior fell in love with a "tribal" design and had one put on her gun.  But I have a 1911, I wasn't going to put a 1911 on my gun, that would just be silly.  A great deal of the guns 13 Zulu has DuraCoated for women were coming out of the shop pink, but I'm not a pink kind of girl.  That was the one thing I was certain of - absolutely no pink anywhere on my gun.  I was going to go with matte black and threw out the idea of putting "GunDiva" on it somewhere.

Mike was incredibly patient with me and gently guided me away from the plain old black. (I think it offended him to do something so boring.)  He kept offering up ideas, but I was luke-warm about most of them until he told me he could make it look like stone.  Oooo, my ears perked up.  Finally!  We had a starting point.  The more he and Jay talked, the more excited I got about her facelift.  I left the shop so excited I could hardly stand myself.

Mike was great about sending me updates, starting within an hour of leaving her in his care.

Fresh out of the blasting cabinet

In order to put "GunDiva" on the slide, he had to get rid of the maker's stamps on each side.  I didn't even know that was possible, but he did a great job of filling them.  You can't even tell they used to exist.

...and the marks are gone.

Before I knew it, I was getting pictures from Mike of my completed gun.  Which I then showed to everybody at work.  I carried my phone around and if anyone made eye contact with me, they got stuck seeing pictures of my baby, even if they weren't gunnies.

I can't believe it's the same gun.  She feels the same.  When I pick her up, it's like she's home, but I can't get over the transformation in her looks.  There's a Defensive Pistol match coming up on Sunday and I can't wait to show her off.  Mike recommends not putting her in a holster for about four weeks, and I love the job he did, so I'll be following his recommendation and shooting her from low-ready - all the better to show her off to everyone at the range. :)

I already have plans to have him do a matching job on my shotgun once I get it finished; I think the matched set will look extra bad ass.

I highly recommend 13 Zulu to anyone who is interested in having their gun DuraCoated.  Mike was unbelievably patient and helped me come up with a design I not only could live with, but love.  The turn-around time was a matter of days; in fact, she sat in the shop longer after she was done while waiting on me than it took Mike to finish her up.

If You Have Children...

...you need to read this.

And then you need to share it with your non-gunny friends.  No, it's not about how scary guns are around kids, it's about teaching your children about safety.  Gunny or no gunny, we all want to protect our kids; that's our commonality.

Ammo Shortage - An Example By The Numbers

Okay, I know some out there really hate the new math especially when it translates into a 50 round box of Winchester White Box 230 grain .45ACP going for 40 of my hard earned dollars, and I know many of us would like to blame the evil government like any good conspiracy theorist would. We can blame the government INDIRECTLY all we want. BUT, let's take a step back an look at some real numbers for a second.

According to the May 2013 issue of American Rifleman (that'd be the NRA's membership magazine for those of you who are not NRA members), somewhere between 1 billion and 1.5 billion rounds of .22 long rifle ammunition is produced by all manufactures ANNUALLY. That's up to 1,500,000,000 .22 pills of all sizes and flavors from my personal favorite CCI Stingers to your cheap, dud infested, big box store, bulk pack stuff made to supply the whim and demand of every man, woman and child over a 365 day span of time. And, last I checked, the goobermint wasn't sending out orders for .22 bullets by the ship load.

So, assuming for the moment that the smallest size box you can buy is a 50 round box of formerly cheap fun in a gun, that's 30,000,000 (30 million for those getting tired of seeing zeros like I am) boxes of .22 caliber satisfaction hitting the streets every year.

But, wait, that amount of ammo doesn't hit the street all at once. There's twelve (12) months in a year. 30 million divided by 12 is 2,500,000 boxes hitting the streets a month on average. If we assume that there are an average of 30 days in each month, we get that narrowed down to 83,333.33 50 round boxes of ammo arriving on store shelves somewhere every day (setting aside the fact that deliveries don't happen every day).

And where is all that ammo going? Well, the USA is a big place. There are literally millions of gun owners spread across 50 states clamouring for a piece of that action every day. I know that reality is different, but let's assume that the 83,333.33 boxes a day gets spread equally among the states. That leaves us with 1666.66 boxes per state per day.

What's the likelihood that you're going to be one of the lucky ones to snap up a box or two on any given day when every other Cletus in town is waiting at the gun stores doors on delivery day with cash in hand? Um, yeah. Not good. Do those per purchase limits make a little more sense now?

What does all this mean? That's an excellent question. I'm glad you asked. I don't know much, but I do understand basic economics.

Ammunition manufacturers and their suppliers are and have been working at or near capacity according to every report I've gotten a hand on including perusing some of their websites. That means that supply is pretty well maxed out; or, at the very least, it's as good as it's going to get for the near future. That leaves us with two options: increase supply or lower demand.

As long as the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania is in office, lower demand is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe ever. As long as there are gun banning politicians clamouring to relieve us of our Constitional rights, people are going to be stockpiling ammo. Truth be told, I don't blame them. If I had the extra cash in my budget, I'd be stockpiling too. Which makes me part of the problem.

On the other side of the coin, supply is harder to predict. For the near term, we can expect it to be relatively constant. In order for there to be an increase in supply at this point, one or more manufactures would have to invest in additional facilities, equipment and the manpower to staff the production line as well as getting their raw material suppliers to ramp up too. The likelihood of those stars aligning comes down to a cold, hard, cost/benefit/profit/loss calculation. If a company foresees that investing the necessary capital to increase production by adding another plant will yield a net profit over a period of time that makes sense to them, it will happen. If not, don't count on it. 

Don't ask me to figure out what that magic profit/loss number is...I don't have enough information to figure it out. For example, if you assume those 30 million boxes sell for an average of $8.00 a box (don't quibble with me about prices for match ammo...this is an example), that's $240,000,000 ($240 million) in gross retail sales. A guesstimated SWAG of the manufactures net profit out of that would be 10% or $24 million. Split that among however many ammo manufactures there are based on market share, and the picture gets even bleaker for the chances of a new ammo factory sprouting from the earth anytime soon.

Now, go ask your buddy who's bragging about his 1000 round score to sit back and let the rest of us have a shot.

Tactical Carbine

Yesterday, I finally got to take the class that Jay previewed last fall from Double Tap.

Like him, I was a bit nervous to take the class.  I always get jitters before any training class, but I had very little experience with an AR-15.  Like, less than 100 rounds in the entire time I've been shooting, and even then, that was more of the "hey, wanna try this gun?" kinda shooting.  No formal training, just plinking.

My nerves got a lot worse before they got better.  When Mez and I rolled up, I was a bit intimidated by the guys and their gear.  Did I have the right stuff?  Was I going to make a fool of myself?  You know, the normal pre-training jitters.

Double Tap's instructors, Casey and Mike from the DuraCoating and custom holster company 13 Zulu, are awesome and made me as comfortable as they could.  They've obviously worked together a long time and their class flowed well.  I feel lucky to have benefited from their experience; it's not often that students get to have instructors with real world experience.

I'm not gonna lie, I spent the majority of the morning fumbling around and feeling way out of my depth.  It was not their fault - they are excellent instructors.  I, however, tend to over think everything.  I was getting in my own way.  Once I realized what I was doing (getting in my own way), I was able to relax and things started getting better.  I started being able to manipulate the gun and its controls so much better.  Funny how, when you stop fighting, you can start learning.  I had to trust that I did actually know what I was doing and that they would correct me if I did something wrong.  Much like my students in real-life, I wanted to be perfect the first time.  I wanted to pick it up immediately.

Casey and Mike were super patient with me, even when I got so frustrated with myself that I just stopped, let out a heavy sigh and re-composed myself.  They rocked.

The morning was spent on drills: basic functions of the gun, clearing malfunctions, reloads, scan and assess, etc.  After lunch, the fun started and so did my grinning.  I quit trying to over think what I was doing and just did it.  Amazing how that happens.

The afternoon drills really brought everything together for me and they were fun!  Even the dreaded nine-hole was fun.  I did have a few moments of hesitation at the nine-hole, because the first hole I had to shoot from looked to be too tall, and it almost was.  However, I found that if I stood on my tippy-toes, I could get just enough of a sight picture to get that round off and move to the next hole.  I mistakenly thought that the last three holes on the ground would be easiest, because I had the lack-of-height advantage.  Boy was I wrong.

I came away from the class grinning like a fool and having accomplished my goal of becoming much more comfortable with the AR platform.  I went from being a fumbling fool to feeling competent.  I've got a ton more to learn and a lot of practice, but I feel like they gave me a great start and I'll be taking the class again in June.