Notes from the gun shop...

Yesterday was MUCH busier at the gun shop. We did over 10X the business of last Monday. The big topic of conversation was the attendance at this past weekend's gunshow. Apparently you couldn't stir 'em with a stick on Saturday and the parking lot was half-full Sunday morning before the church crowd showed up at about 12:00. Just as we've experience with the number of customers at the shop, people have suddenly come out in droves for the gun business. Why?

Some opined that folks were getting cabin fever, didn't have sports to watch on TV, or had finally recovered from the Christmas bills. However, last week was when the White House announced that they were going to make a policy statement on gun control. THAT gets a lot of folks around here in a tizzy and they start buying, selling and trading like mad to get what they think might be unavailable if they don't. It is very much like the rush to the grocery for milk, bread and eggs every time a snow storm is said to be approaching. Even folks who are lactose intolerant and who normally live on cigarettes, beer and pizza will feel a need for the staples. Guns are included and when you make a noise towards the rifle rack, folks' ears perk up and they start moving to stop you.

However, for me, the gun show wasn't anything really special. Prices were, unrealistically I think, "optimistic" and non-negotiable, at least for those things that interested me. That extended to the shop as there were too few interesting new toys. The best, most entertaining, part of the job is the customers. We had our share of interesting folks yesterday.

The best of these was a former medic from a former unit of mine. It does my heart good to see him buying shooting supplies but we didn't get to talk much.

The worst was a fellow who seemed intent on ignoring simple advice and/or justifying his personal decisions. Highly defensive, my co-worker was better able to resist the urge to actually become involved in his fantasy based shooting research, probably because I've got some actual experience trying to do what he was trying to do. That is, to move .30 caliber 220 gr. HPBT match bullets out at about 1000 fps. At least he thought he had a 1:10" twist barrel (so had I when I started) but it wouldn't stabilize even the 190 gr. HPBT. In my experience that means his barrel is really a 1:12" (and he noted his buddy with the same model rifle did have a 1:12" twist barrel). I tried to point out that but he tried to argue his way out of it. I tried to explain how I'd been through the same thing with my .30 Herrett but he firmly believed that because he was using a .308 Winchester my experience didn't apply. He couldn't accept that any given bullet, should have the same general behavior when fired at the same velocity from the same twist rate barrel regardless of cartridge. In other words, a 220 gr. bullet fired at 1100 fps from one 1:10" twist rate barrel is either going to stabilize or not the same as when fired from any other 1:10" twist rate barrel. My co-worker had to administer a sedative when this guy left the shop. What a way to end the month!