Guest Blogger: Jerry Cooper

I met Jerry at the 2010 Writers' Police Academy - he was the instructor for FATS, the firearms training simulator.  I have him to blame for falling in love with firearms sims, so when my friend Double Tap started looking into one for training, I was all about it.  So, by proxy, Jerry was an enabler for Double Tap, too.

I'm not sure Jerry remembered me from my time through the sim, as he was putting through 4 to 5 writers every half an hour or so for two days.  But then, I whined on Facebook when I saw that Jeffery Deaver got to shoot the M4 and I didn't.  Believe it or not, after that bit of whining, Jerry and I became fast friends (albeit long-distance friends).  Since that time, we've been bouncing ideas off of each other and I'm thrilled to host him as a guest blogger.  He does not yet have his own blog, but it is in the works.  Until then, I'm excited to call him one of my visiting "GunDudes".

Jerry P. Cooper

Jerry Cooper earned a B.A. in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is a graduate of the Police Supervision Course, Central Missouri State University, and is a graduate of the North Carolina Public Manager Program.  Jerry has been a sworn law enforcement officer for more than 41 years.  Law enforcement agencies include Caswell County (North Carolina) Sheriff’s Department, Burlington (NC) Police Department, and North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE).  While working with ALE, Jerry supervised enforcement agents in a ten-county district, and was awarded the Governor’s Award for Excellence.  He retired from the State of North Carolina November 1, 2005 after serving for eight years as the Basic Law Enforcement Training Coordinator at Guilford Technical Community College.  Jerry is a Certified Human Behavior Consultant, and has recently started Performance Excellence, a business that provides consulting and training in areas of leadership and supervision, use-of-force, interview and interrogation, workplace violence, and anti-terrorism.  He also serves as a Reserve Officer with Cleveland (NC) Police Department.  Jerry has a wife who is an RN, and a daughter who works at the Institute for Defense and Business in the Depot and Arsenal Executive Leadership Program.  Jerry and his wife reside in Graham, NC.

Review: Right Now Range

While we were at Industry Days at SHOT Show, we got to handle a portable range system called the Right Now Range.  The founder/designer and I had been in contact before the show and I was looking forward to seeing it with my own two eyes.  Once I got to handle it, I fell in love.  It's such a simple, yet beautiful design that I'm kicking myself for not coming up with it on my own.

She offered to send us a sample to try out and there was no way I was going to say no to that offer!  It arrived shortly after we got home, but we had to wait for a decent weather day to test it out.  (I'm old, I don't shoot in the cold and snow unless I have to anymore.)  Finally, late March came around and it was nice enough to spend some time outdoors.

The Right Now Range sets up quickly; under five minutes even if you have no idea what you're doing. It is a whole lot lighter and takes up less space than my wooden target stands. Plus, it's completely reusable and recyclable.

It was breezy, but not windy, the day we went out, and the provided stakes did a good job of keeping the target stand in place.  I'm not sure how well it would stand up to Wyoming "breezes", but it did well on the Northern Colorado plains.

I was feeling under the weather, so Jay and Mez took it upon themselves to try to destroy it.  I shot a few rounds at it and loved it, but they really went to town on it.  Jay shot it with 12 ga slugs and 12 ga Multiple Impact Bullets.  Truth be told, it held up well enough that we could have saved it and used it again just by stapling targets over the holes they put in it.





I love the Right Now Range so much that I'm willing to give one away.  The contest will open on June 15th and run until 12:00 am on June 22nd, so be sure to enter soon.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bullet Bouquets

Note: this is a completely unsolicited review - I saw the product and fell in love.

While waiting for the Garth Brooks concert to start a couple of weeks ago, I was flipping through Facebook and saw the coolest thing ever. A flower pot with beautiful flowers that would never wilt or die, made by Bullet Bouquets.

Photo cred: Bullet Bouquet's FB page

I had to have one of these bouquets, so I told Jay that's what he needed to get me for our anniversary next month.  But I just couldn't let it go - I mean, look at how cute that is!  The .22 brass "soil" and perfectly "bloomed" copper jacketed hollow points.  It's perfect.

Because I couldn't let it go, I placed an order to give to a friend.  You know, to just see if I liked it in person as much as in the picture before I told Jay that he really, really needed to get me some of these flowers that will never wilt.

I literally placed the order on my way home from the Garth Brooks concert.  I couldn't even wait until the next morning to place the order, I was that impatient.

I placed the order early, early on Wednesday morning and had it by Monday.  I probably got lucky in the quick shipping because they are a Colorado company, so the distance was pretty short.

Even though I bought it as a gift I had to open it.  You know, just to make sure it wasn't damaged in shipping.  They had it packaged carefully in bubble-wrap, with the "dirt" in its own little bag to add after the flowerpot was unpacked.  I shouldn't have worried about the packing, because these bouquets are actually very sturdy.

I assembled it by pouring the "dirt" into the pot and let it sit on my desk for a couple of days.  When I started to think that maybe the present I'd gotten for someone else looked really good on my work desk, I packed it back up so as not to give into the temptation of keeping it.

I gave it to Tara to keep on her desk as she's writing and she was every bit as delighted with it as I was.

The quality was great, it wasn't flimsy at all, and I got it in a timely manner.  I definitely recommend this company to anyone who wants to give a great gift to the shooter in their lives.

Kitchen Adventures with GunDiva

While at SHOT Show, Mez and I talked to the folks from Multiple Impact Bullets.  I was intrigued.  Having been in medicine for the better part of my life, I wanted to know what on earth the tethered fragments would do to a body.  I had seen videos of people shooting paper targets with them, and the targets always ended up with a neat little Y-incision like in an autopsy.  I wanted to know what it would do to tissue, only I didn't want to know badly enough to get shot with one.

I considered testing them on a pig body, but came to my senses when I priced what a pig would cost.  Same with a side of beef.  Way too much money for something I wasn't going to be able to eat when I was finished with the testing.  That left ballistic gel.  Ideally, and in a perfect world, I would have bought one of these, but I'm pretty sure that if a dead pig or cow was out of my budget these would be too.

That left me with making my own ballistic gel, as the blocks you can buy weren't big enough to do what I wanted to.  The spread of the Multiple Impact bullet in a .45 ACP is 12", and out of a 12 ga shotgun is 24".  The 6"x6"x16" FBI blocks weren't going to be big enough to catch the spread, and at over $100 a piece I wasn't willing to buy enough to stack to make a big enough block.

So to the Google I went and found this recipe.  It look simple enough, and I had some time on my hands.  I wasn't worried about the depth of penetration of the rounds, I wanted to see how or if the tethers tore through the soft tissue.

I bought enough of the ingredients to make four gallons of the stuff, to be divided into pans that were 19"x11.5"x3".  I figured I could stand them side-by-side and it would almost be big enough.

All the mixing bowls I could find - and I still didn't have enough!

My fridge was taken over by the blooming gelatin.

After allowing the gelatin to bloom for two hours, it needed to be reheated to be poured.

Four gallons only filled two of my pans.  I was hoping for more, but glad to get what I did.

Back in the fridge for thirty-six hours.

Oops, I broke one.

I did not adequately plan for the amount of fridge space that making so much gel would require and condensed all of my food to one small shelf and the crisper drawers.

It was a fun experiment and if I ever decide to do it again, I'll decrease the amount of liquid in the gel to firm it up a bit more and use a better size form.  I think it would have been more stable in a block rather than a sheet.  It mostly served its purpose and we were able to get some video and pics (which will be posted later, as I have a lot of footage to edit and I'm very slow at it.).

Freedom

I've been absent from writing for close to two years now, and my New Year's Resolution was to break that streak.  I will ask for your patience, and forgiveness, as I try to remember the English language, grammar, and attempt to keep my resolution.

Earlier today I read an interesting proposition regarding our firearms freedoms.   Why shouldn't all prospective gun owners be forced to submit to a mental health screening and firearms safety classes?  The writer of the comment had allowances for the poorer among us so they wouldn't be left out.  There were many responses to this inquiry, all of which were civil and well reasoned.   I was a late arrival to that thread, but the big blaring, missing argument was freedom.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom

noun

1.

the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint:

He won his freedom after a retrial.

2.

exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

3.

the power to determine action without restraint.

4.

political or national independence.

5.

personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery:

a slave who bought his freedom.

6.

exemption from the presence of anything specified (usually followed byfrom):

freedom from fear.

7.

the absence of or release from ties, obligations, etc.

Freedom is a simple word with a very powerful meaning. I am particularly fond of the 2nd definition. "Exempt from external control, interference, regulation, etc."  As gun lovers,  the definition of freedom should become our first and foremost argument when confronting the Anti gun argument.   However, when we use this explanation it can't be with the simplistic "Because I'm free".  That argument would be correct, but falls short of educating the public about the rights reaffirmed by the Constitution, and not granted by it.  

First common  mistake - the bill of rights are not granted by the Constitution, but reaffirmed by it. The Constitution prevents our own Government from taking away these liberties, but it does not keep the politician from trying.

"The Power to determine action without restraint." If I am free, how do I reconcile freedom of firearms ownership with seeking permission from the Government to purchase a firearm?  Why is the Government qualified to determine what guns I can and cannot own.  Why is the Government qualified to tell me what accessories I can or cannot have?

Have you ever looked at the ballot for an election, any election, and looked at all the amendments and ballot measures and thought to yourself that too many people want to save you from yourself?  I understand protecting the young, the immature, the elderly and those that cannot protect themselves, but have ever thought of this as the public execution of your freedom?   

 "The state of being free or at liberty rather than confinement or under physical restraint" 

You are undoubtedly familiar with the phrase "Freedom is not free".   We usually associate that saying with the lives of our troops lost in battle.  However, I believe it also ties directly to the lives lost when criminals use guns to break the law, or when drunks drive on suspended licenses...for the 3rd time.  Furthermore, it is a price we pay for living in an open society where offensive speech is protected, where under the guise of religious freedoms organizations display hatred and protest the lives of our fallen heroes and rant about the sexual orientation of other citizens.  Freedom does come with a steep price, but the cost of loosing freedom is steeper still.

Tomorrow - Live Free!  

The day after that....buy a 30 round AR Magazine just because.   You know where you can get them.

Presbyopia

I had a very rare free night last week that enabled me to go blow off a little steam at the range. It had been a while since I had had a chance to play with my Ruger 22/45. Several months, in fact. I had upgraded the sights to the fiber optic front/v-notch rear sights that come standard on the Mark III Hunter sometime since the last range trip, and I was anxious to get it zeroed and see how they performed.

More importantly, I was anxious to see how I would perform. And not just because of the cobwebs that accumulate on the skills from lack of use either. The reason for the anxiousness (and the upgraded sights) is that my eyesight has been slowly getting worse, and I needed to see if the new sights would help or make things worse.

After reveling in perfect to near perfect eyesight all my life, I was slightly dismayed a few years ago to get the verdict from the eye doc that I was now farsighted with 20/25 vision. Okay, that's not the end of the world and well short of being legally blind. What he didn't tell me (or, perhaps, I didn't hear) was that presbyopia comes with the aging process.

Why is this important to shooters, you might ask? (you really should be asking, by the way)

For those not yet initiated or familiar with this "harmless" condition, presbyopia "is a condition associated with aging in which the eye exhibits a progressively diminished ability to focus on near objects." (source Wikipedia) See where this is going yet (no pun intended)? Yep, for me, everything inside of arm's length (and I've got a pretty generous wingspan), more or less, is a blur. That includes the front sight on most weapons.

Yes, my love affair with parentheticals marches on gleefully unabated (I would seek therapy, but where's the fun in that?)

Anywho, the sight upgrade was an experiment to see if the fiber optic front sight would stand out better to my, now less capable, eyes than the standard black front blade sight since focusing on the front sight is one of the cornerstones of proper marksmanship fundamentals.

And the short answer is...not so much.

In fact, if anything, the bright red front fiber optic sight was BLURRIER than the standard, black, front blade sight. Of course, that could just be my perception/memory from the last range trip many moons ago.

The blurriness made sighting in a chore until I bowed to the inevitable and put my cheater readers on under my safety glasses. It was a little awkward, but man was that front sight SHARP with the cheaters on. Of course, with the cheaters on, there was no distinguishing the point of aim at the target except in the most general sense of the word. There was a target shaped blob down range. Beyond that, it was put the front sight in the general middle and hope for the best.

So, no, there will be no photos of targets today.

I will, gratefully, tell you that all rounds found the target. I could manage a quarter sized hole at 3 yards. At 7 yards, the dispersion was not hideous with some rounds touching and others at least in the same zip code. At 15 yards, things were starting to really open up a bit (though not quite to shotgun pattern status), and I didn't press my luck at 20 yards.

That brings us to the $64,000 question of what do I (or anyone else with a similar problem) do about it.

The most expensive option is Lasik surgery. Not in the cards for me right now.

Next up is eyewear. Progressive (i.e. bifocals and no line bifocals) lenses are supposedly a viable workaround for the problem. I will be discussing this with my eye doc the next time I see which will be after I get a full time job again with the associated health and vision coverage.

Another option is to go with optics. The 22/45 has a rail on it which Ruger thoughtfully included in the box. I have a cheap red dot that I bought for it. Let's just say I was underwhelmed (perhaps I need to revisit it again with a renewed interest).

Red dots have their pluses and minuses like any other system. All but the best can be prone to washing out in bright sunlight. They require batteries (unless you want to drop over $1000 on an ACOG). Depending on the dot size, they are less precise than scopes. On the plus side, they put the target and the reticle on more or less the same focal plane which is where they become of interest to me. For a competition or bedside gun, this may not be a bad option.

Since this is not a home defense or low light gun, a handgun scope may be a better solution for this particular gun. Scopes are great for precision. Speed...not so much. Perhaps with practice, speed would improve. Then again, perhaps speed is overrated since the objective is to put rounds on target with precision.

Bottomline, if you are middle aged or getting there as fast as you can, it's probably a good idea to start thinking about how your eyesight is going to change as you age and how it will impact your ability to shoot. There are solutions, but you need to think about which will be the best for you for each application.

Podcast with Molon Labe Forum

Mez and I were lucky enough to spend some time talking with the gents from Molon Labe Forum.  One of my favorite things about SHOT Show is that we're surrounded by friendly, like-minded people.  Making that trip every year is like attending a family reunion.

If you're interested, and have a bit of time to eavesdrop in our conversation, click here.