Ten Feet Tall And Bulletproof
By Patrick E. Kelley, G2G4GG (www.multigunmedia.com)
To finish any one stage at the MGM Iron Man match is a fair accomplishment, to finish at the top can make you feel ten feet tall! Bulletproof is what your gear has to be before you enter that arena, and that is the subject of this G2G4GG tale.
In episode number six, MGM’s Travis Gibson mentions that many shooters “use this [match] for a proving ground. If their gear can make through this match they figure they are pretty much good-to-go any place in the nation.” I can only agree, my friends.
The “Top Guns” in the game are continually working to improve their shooting skills. They may make small changes in equipment as new gear is brought to market, but I would venture to say that most of them have a set pattern for checking and maintaining the guns and gear that make up their 3-Gun battery.
OK, G2G how in the heck do we assemble our kit and ... “Get-ready-to-RUMBLE!!!” Like everything else, you start at the beginning.
Chicken or the egg? ... Gun or the ammo?
I start with first-quality ammunition. Handloads, remanufactured or factory fresh, it is imperative that whatever your poison, it feeds … and fires … every time. Provided the gun has not been unduly altered by some hack, most malfunctions can be traced to ammunition or magazines. Never, ever scrimp on magazines. This is not the place to save money! Buy a cheaper scope, eat mac and cheese for a week, but don’t buy guatymotto-cheap-junk magazines!!! You can’t go wrong with AR mags labeled MagPul, Brownells or Lancer. Polymer pistols need good mags too! Here, I would lay-in a supply of magazines wearing the same label as the manufacture of your piece. Pistoleros sporting 1911’s and 2011’s have a greater array of choices, and the gang at www.brownells.com is sure to please.
Shotguns have more than one ammunition feeding device. One is from “outside the gun into the gun” and the other is from “within the gun to the chamber.” For now we’ll figure the “internals” of your pellet spreader are in working order. The problem is, a shotgun’s always empty! The fix is reloading the dang thing and for that we look to our belts, arms, chest and shotgun-mounted shell carriers.
These once obscure devices, originally holding a few spare shells on the buttstock of your shotgun while in the field, are now a mainstream product designed to lower your elapsed time on a stage! You will find some of the best stuff offered by names like Choate Machine & Tool, Mark Otto and Man Mountain Engineering.
Next ... On Right, Stays Tight.
Practical 3-Gunning is an action packed “shoot ’em up” sport! We put a bunch of rounds down range accurately in a short period of time. This brings with it torque, recoil, vibration and heat ... and that’s cool! However, those four items added together also equals loose parts.
You can play this game very well with a less than $300 scope. Hit the web pages of Leupold and Weaver and you are sure to find something that suits. However, please put it in a high quality one-piece mount! Warne Mounts makes an excellent unit, as do JP and LaRue. I say this because the bargain scope in a quality mount will hold zero until the scope fails. Conversely, saddle the best in optics with a crappy mount and you may never know where the problem lies. Besides, scopes come and go, but a good mount lasts forever. Sounds like a country song, eh Mr. Wills?
At some point in your 3-Gun adventure you will, by interest or necessity, learn “how-to” perform many gunsmithing operations to keep your kit running properly. I strongly suggest you buy and read several books on the subject. Look for authors Kuhnhausen and Sweeney as a good place to start.
For now, I will consider you armed with a few good tools and a basic understanding of how to take down and assemble your 3-Gun guns.
We 3-Gun guys (especially the new kids) love to debate the muzzle-brake-of-the-week! Brand “X” is better than “Y”. Whatever. Just be sure the one on your stick is installed on clean threads with a heat-resistant thread locker. Same rule applies to the buttstock and buffer extension, only here, heat is not a factor so a lesser grade of thread locker is advised.
Due to the more invasive nature of the process and the limited scope of this article, we will forgo any instructions related to your AR’s barrel nut. It suffices to say that if in the beginning it was on right, it’ll stay tight! That does not apply to most every other fastener in your shooting kit! From buttstock to front sight, and boots to eyewear, check for loose connections. Let the only loose nut be YOU!
Got Gas?
Chili and eggs again, eh G2G? Nope, I’m talking about two other gassers here. AR gas blocks and tubes. If your block is pinned, leave it be. That method is Marine proof (right, Mr. Adams?) and will soldier-on for tens of thousands of rounds. The setscrew or clamp-on type may not. If your gas block is “screwed” then check the security of those screws at regular intervals. If you find them loose, remove them one at a time, cleaning and reinstalling each with a drop of the same heat-resistant thread locker you used on the muzzle brake.
I know and you know how to clean the spiral tube and wash and reassemble the bolt carrier group, but did you “test” the condition of the gas rings? Extend the bolt out from the carrier, place the bolt face down on your bench and release the carrier, letting it rest on the bolt face. Did the assembly collapse? No equals ready to race. If yes, then time to replace. Gas tubes too are generally a thumbs-up or thumbs-down kinda part: either they work or they don’t. The end of the tube that goes inside the bolt carrier key is of a slightly larger O.D. for better sealing with the I.D. of the gas key. If you are having gas-related cycling problems and all else looks good, check here. And for crying out loud, quit sticking pipe cleaners in the gas tube! If that 50,000 psi blast of gas from each round being fired ain’t keepin’ your pipes clean, that pipsqueak cotton-wrapped piece of wire isn’t going to either!!!
“Fire Control, what’s your vector?”
Again, we are only hitting the “high points,” so other than cleaning the bits of debris from around the trigger components, please leave a working trigger ... working.
Pistol Performance
Whereas the AR platform dominates the 3-Gun scene, pistol choices run the gamut. Capacity is the only common thread among the front-runners from Glock, Springfield Armory, Smith & Wesson and a pile of factory and custom 1911-style guns built on the high-cap 2011 frame. All of them need some love and care to keep you shooting, rather than cussing, at your next match. We are lucky to live in an era when most every top-shelf factory handgun just flat out works! Just feed it a good diet and all is well….until you figure you need to “modify” it because you are getting beat at the local “dirt shoot.” Wrong-o Mary Lou! A better gun didn’t beat you, a better gunner did! Sure, a couple of ergonomic tweaks may be in order, and I’ll grant you an upgrade in sights. But the single best thing you can add is…ammo and lots of it! Now let that “burn-in” and drive you to get out and practice!
Springs and Things
Springs are a replacement item. Get that? A replacement item. You can “run-to-failure,” but I’ll be running right by you to the winner’s circle with my freshly-sprung gun. It is cheap insurance to replace most springs every year or 5,000 miles, whichever comes first. That includes those in both your rifle and pistol magazines AND your shotgun mag tube spring. The internet be damned, springs lose “sproink,” not by being compressed, but by full cycles of compression. Load a mag, unload a mag and repeat that several hundred times. You get the idea.
In the ramp-up to a major match or when training local law enforcement, I handle my guns a lot! This can lead to cuts and scrapes and that is fine so long as it ain’t my guns making me bleed! I have no problem filing and sanding off every offending edge, and you shouldn’t either. This applies to all of your kit. I have seen a couple of pretty nasty tears in human flesh from shell retention spring(s) in belt-mounted shotshell caddies. We get rather intimate with our shotguns during the reloading process, sticking our thumbs into holes meant for shells. Ask around about “Benelli Thumb.” The description is rather gruesome. Again, the remedy might be as simple as sanding and smoothing or it may require the professional’s touch.
Kids, I can’t transplant this knowledge, but if you stick with us here at 3-Gun Nation I’ll do my level best to provide you with what I can, when I can. So until next time, G2G4GG ... Out!
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