One of the misleading things in our industry is aftermarket grips.  I get questions about it all the time.  For a revolver the aftermarket grips really add some style and uniqueness to your gun.  The semi-auto can get dressed up as well, but there are some considerations.

• What will the gun be used for?  If it is a show piece that comes out of the safe to impress friends, and the aesthetics are increased by aftermarket grips  that makes sense.  I have ivory on an engraved 1911 to increase value and aesthetics.  Not so great for a carry gun.  They get slippery when it is hot, and they are too pretty to bang around.
• Will this change my grip?  A lot of people add Hogue sleeves to their Glocks because they believe they really need them.  For my hands they are terrible because they change my grip out of the proper grip.  You have to check each grip on your firearm.  Don’t buy unless you get that chance.  I recently bought a Beretta 92 that came with Hogue wrap around grips.  I could barely hold on to the gun.  I found some Hogue panel grips for it that make it perfect without changing the proper grip.
• Do you really need your wife’s name on your gun?  There are a lot of grip makers out there doing some cool things.  They can put a picture of you on the grips.  They can laser engrave your wife’s name on the gun.  Again, form needs to meet function.  It may be cool, but if it doesn’t serve your purpose get rid of it.

Guns can be enhanced by aftermarket grips, but your shooting may go south.  Take the time to check out the grips before you put them on your gun.

You have probably heard me say that your Glock trigger will never feel like your 1911 trigger.  The two systems are so radically different in form and function that it is impossible to replicate that wonderful 1911 feeling.

I recently had a customer come to me for help with the overtravel on his Glock.  He is an avid 1911 shooter who didn’t know if he could make the transition to the Glock.  He was interested in the Ghost Rocket Trigger because the overtravel can be adjusted.

As you can see from the above photo there is a tab that can be adjusted to precisely stop the overtravel that can hurt accuracy.  The Rocket cuts the pull to a very smooth pull of #3.5.  I actually think that the Rocket is probably the best connector that Ghost offers as far as the actual feel once it is installed. We generally don’t use it because of the extra cost to the customer ($75 for a trigger job with the Rocket installed), but it definitely makes a noticeable difference.

If you have a good 1911 setup but are a little frustrated with your Glock, give it a try.  You might find that it really does make a big difference in how you think about your Glock.

Many of you are familiar with IDPA, but for those of you who are not it is the International Defensive Pistol Association.  Shooters must shoot basically factory guns that can only be modified lightly.  Magazines are loaded to 10 rounds maximum and you shoot with a concealment garment.  In short, it is about as fun as gets.  Being in Nashville, we have the luxury of shooting IDPA almost every week at a different match.  If you are looking for a Nashville match, check out the Music City Tactical Shooters.  These are great guys who run solid matches.

One of the great questions that exists is whether or not IDPA is simply a game or whether is actually good for training.  I think the answer is actually YES!

IDPA is a game.  There are rules, points, and timers.  You are shooting made up courses of fire that may or may not ever happen.  You are competing against a clock and your fellow competitors.  If you don’t think so go watch the bantering that takes place between friends at these matches.

No doubt some of the rules are argued about in the “tactical” community.  A word about such community is in order.  Just because you read it in an internet forum doesn’t make it true or tactical.  There are plenty of places to get tactical advice, but keyboard commandos are not who you want to listen to.  Get some training.  But I digress.

The rules can be argued about, but they work for the game, while being generally sound practice for your private world.  Remember that at the end of the day you are participating in a competition.

However, IDPA does give you some training.  It teaches you to shoot faster and more accurately.  You must remember stage protocol, reloading your firearm different ways, shooting from cover, and it gives you a little pressure.  Nothing like having 40 of your new best friends watching you flub a stage.

I encourage all you to check out some form of competition in the next few months.  You will discover quickly that it will be a wonderful learning experience.  Check the rigs people are using.  Check out their shooting styles and learn as much as possible.  Above all, have a great time enjoying your sport while getting better.

I am working with a customer on what will eventually become the SM-2, a pistol grip 870 that is awesome.  Same high quality components, but a Speedfeed pistol grip.

If you are thinking about adding a pistol grip to your shotgun there area a few things to remember.  The first is that you must have an barrel length of at least 18″ and the overall length of the gun must be 26″.  This last one is a little known fact, but ATF is serious about this one as well.  Make sure you don’t overlook this one.

A true pistol grip will only work on the 870, not the 1100 or the 1187.  The recoil system on the semi-auto shotguns runs through the stock.  The 870 doesn’t have this.  Speedfeed offers several pistol grips on full stocks if you need one, but not a true pistol grip.

When you run a pistol in your every day life, it happens that they jam frequently.  This goes for rifles as well, but it seems like pistols tend to be a little more finicky for most of us.  In fact, most of my experience with malfunctions come in pistols.  If you are having malfunctions here are several things to try to solve the problem.

1. Clean the pistol.  I know it sounds like a silly thing to say, but most semi-auto systems that start to foul up have to do with cleaning.  Scrub out everything really well, relube and go.  If you shoot a lot (a thousand rounds or more every year) have your gunsmith tear it down and thoroughly clean it.
2. Check your ammo.  Some ammo is simply junk.  It won’t run.  Some high quality ammo won’t run in your pistol.  Every pistol is different.  When you find a load your pistol likes, spend the money right then to get some set aside for future use.
3. Use a high quality magazine.  Factory mags work best in most cases, but the 1911 can benefit from a good magazine like those from Wilson Combat.  Yes it will cost you less than the gun show special, but guess what they run.
4. If your gun is super old or has been shot a lot, change the springs.  Recoil springs and magazine springs are very cheap and easy to get from Wolff.
5. You may need your magazines tuned.  I was recently fighting with a CZ 1924 in 32 ACP.  After trying to get the gun running with all of the above, I decided to tune the magazines.  By adjusting the feed lips it solved the problem.  This one is best left to your gunsmith, but it isn’t an expensive problem to remedy.

Start with the simple and work to the complex.  Most of the time you will fix the problem.

The last two days have been crazy.  We received 18 inches of rain!  2 out of 3 interstates were closed in the city.  Houses were destroyed, and many lives were forever changed by the flood of 2010.

I want to thank you for your support and prayers during these times.  Our shop, home and family are all safe, as are any items we have in our possession right now for custom work.  The only casualty of this mess was my cell phone.  Please email me if you need anything.

We will be behind on work for about 3-4 days.  It is not because we were directly affected by the water, but there is literally no where to go.  Our private use range is not reachable, our public range is closed and the indoor ranges were not reachable because of flooding.  We have tried to contact all of you to let you know this in person, but obviously that is a large task.  If you ordered anything through the website, please be patient.  Everything was shipped out at the end of last week.  If you have not received your stuff by Friday, please let me know.  We will get you squared away.

A final thought; As I was helping a neighbor get his house dry, I was reminded about how temporary all of these things are.  It doesn’t seem like it sometimes because we work so hard for the things we have, therefore we place great value on them.  The truth of it is that it can all be gone in the morning.  What will last through eternity are relationships.  “Don’t store up treasure on earth where moth and rust (and water) destroy, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  The italics are mine, but it seems appropriate tonight.

For now we are grateful for the relationships we have with our family, neighbors, and you our customers.  Thanks for helping us do what is so fun for all of us.  We will continue to do a little underwater gunsmithing until the water recedes.

Gun Rust is an owner’s worst nightmare.  You have saved for a long time to finally be able to afford that great shotgun for the bird season.  You took your time picking it out.  Of course you had your favorite gunsmith fit it for you.  Everything is a go.  Before you left the store, you decided to get a fancy case to keep your gun  safe as you travel.  You go home, put it in the closet and are devastated when you pull it out to find surface rust on it.

This is one of the recurring mistakes that I see every year.  I have written about it a lot, but I had a customer pull out a Winchester 1200 16 ga, that he wanted to hand down to his 17 year old son, only to find it almost ruined by rust.  For 20 years he left it in a gun case, not realizing the rust was slowly eating it away.

You have to understand that any type of moisture is the enemy of your gun.  You want to get away from it quickly.  If you shoot on a rainy or drizzly day you come in and tear it down for a good cleaning, finishing it off with an oil cloth.  When you finish up, put it in a gun safe with silica packets or a Golden Rod.

By the way, the stainless steel gun you have will rust.  It is not impervious to any of the things we have mentioned.  Please, don’t ask me how I know.

Every year at this time, the leaves change, the deer begin to rut, and muzzleloaders across the country begin to rust.  Call a sign that fall is here, or that the Christmas season is upon us.  This mysterious phenomenon has made many a gunsmith a little extra Christmas cash.

To be truthful, I was a victim of my own neglect one upon a time as well.  I had taken my first deer with a muzzleloader, and in the excitement I simply put it away in my safe.  Two months later it looked like something that my kids had left outside to rust for a year.  I learned my lesson through a very long cleaning session.

Muzzleloaders use black powder of course which is much more harmful if not cleaned than the modern powders that are available today for rifle, shotgun and pistol cartridges.  If left uncleaned you will find yourself with a burnt orange mess on your hands.  The key is to clean soon after you are finished shooting.

You can use any type of cleaner you want.  I have even known a few country boys that filled the bath tube and used soap and water.  Hoppes, Bore Butter, Break Free, etc. all work fine.  If you are going to be sighting your muzzleloader in at the range, make sure to clean it every few shots.  This will make accuracy and loading a lot easier.

One final thought, your breach plug should be removed at least once a season and thoroughly cleaned.  While all of this is a lot of work, the muzzleloading season is well worth the extra effort involved, and for about $50 your gunsmith will clean it for you.  Hope you have a great deer season this year.

As I am sure you know, the weather affects many things in shooting.  A cartridge left in the sun during the summer will build pressure adding another variable to the shot.  This is why so many precision shooters keep dope books (not that kind, dope means information in the shooting world) for every rifle that they have.  They want to know what bullet is going to do on a cold bore or a rifle that hasn’t been fired.

Now that the weather is getting colder you need to make sure you know how your weapons systems will respond.  It is good to test your ammo again.  It might be important to test your lubrication methods.  I have a friend in Alaska who generally uses a dry lube because about this time of year it starts getting seriously cold.

Cold weather also may mean gloves for those of you behind the shield.  I always wore a Kevlar glove to prevent sticks.  I can’t over state the fact that you need to practice with the gloves on.  Make sure they give you enough dexterity to operate your weapon.

Finally, the cold weather brings out jackets which make your CCW options exponential.  I guess for many this is the most wonderful time of the year!

We haven’t updated the price list to include this area of work yet, but will asap.  If you are interested in getting a J-Frame trigger job or equivalent on your Taurus or Charter Arms, it is $100.

This includes the tuning of springs, polishing the plungers, polishing the trigger itself to a high polish, and cleaning the inside of the gun.  This also includes a test fire of 38 special.  Other calibers will be charged cost of ammo.

If you are interested in getting your gun ready for CCW or simply more comfortable to shoot, email us if you have any questions.