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Gunday Sunday: A Gratifying Spectacle
By Lt Col P
I spent the afternoon at The Nation's Gunshow. Didn't get any guns, but I did do some lookin', and I came away with some quality ammo and a few other things. It had been a few years since my last gunshow visit; I beheld the spectacle and pronounced it good. That's America for you, I thought; like Ted Nugent says, you can't do this in France.
Want ammo? You got it. By the case, the box, the single round, whatever. Look for the banner marked, "AMMO," and you've got a good place to start. The gamut ran from the high quality brand names to the unknown remanufactures to the peculiar but not necessarily bad. Try some half-sized 12-ga birdshot training rounds, fifty cents a piece. Not a bad idea if you have a pump gun or a double. Sealed battle packs of .308, 5.56, and 7.62x39, of Lithuanian and Yugoslavian manufacture. I snagged a hundred rounds of 5.56 Winchester white box, thereby fulfilling my duties under Natl Ammo Day. ($46, by the way.)
Also grabbed a handful of M1 Garand clips (you can never have enough), and one (1) new Magpul PMAG. I have read in more than one place that some Smith & Wesson M&P15s will take them, and some won't. I wanted to see for myself, since I have one of those rifles and I have read some good things about that magazine. It was only $15, and I figured that if the rumors were true I could unload it-- no pun intended-- pretty easily. OK, well, I'll be unloading tomorrow because it won't seat in my M&P15T. That's fine, because all of my USGI mags work well. Just wish I could run the PMAGs.
We saw and handled some guns that I had wanted to take a closer look at for a while. I found the SIG 556 to be a nice piece after an admittedly cursory handling, but none of the ones I saw had sights. (What kind of rifle comes without sights? On a serious gun you should be able to take out of the box, load it and fire it.) Same-same with the AK-47 WASR-10, but of course that has sights, and with the WWII German K98 from Mitchell's Mausers. Both are well worth the very modest price. I'll have one or both of them in short order, I predict.
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Comments
Mule:
Thanks, I was hoping you'd chime in. Any kind of work like that is beyond me, since I don't have a dremel tool! I just gave the mag to a friend. Pity they won't work.
Reported in the other post, but today I did my part for 2 1/2 folks in support of Nat'l Ammo Day...
FYI, CTD has 600 round cans of Igman 62 gr. SS109 green tip on sale for $299 a can. I've put about 1/2 a can through my M&P15 so far and have had zero issues with it.
I just ordered a Mitchell Mauser through my local fun shop, I can't wait to give it a test drive. I can definitely see how collecting WWII small arms can become addictive very quickly.
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There's a "fix" for the P-Mags but it includes some Dremel work and a short prayer to the firearms gods if I remember right.
$9.20 per 20 for Winchester white box? Thank God for Dillon.