Between that time and now, Front Sight has increased their requirements for attendance in the course that I hoping to take this spring: I have to retake their basic defensive pistol course and graduate with distinction, then take an advanced tactical handgun course. Only then can I register for the advanced rifle course I had planned on taking this spring.

Two more trips to Nevada, one to retake a course that’s for beginners.

To say I feel like a victim of bait and switch is to put it lightly.

The Taurus PT92 is actually one of the guns that I recommend to people on a budget; it was the first gun I did any serious IDPA shooting with and one of the guns I carried the most. Mine was one of the first models with the accessory rail, which made finding holsters kind of tough, but since Beretta has producing M9s with rails for years now you can actually get a holster that will fit the PT92. Our friends at Blade-Tech make their excellent belt holster for the PT92 AR (Accessory Rail) and since the mags are the same size as Beretta 92 magazines, most generic double stack magazine pouches will fit them.

One of the first guns I ever purchased was a Taurus PT92 and I really, really have to disagree with Caleb on this one.

That Taurus was my first true understanding of the differences in manufacturing quality among gun manufacturers. At the time, those differences meant some FTFs and FTEs at the range – annoying and difficult to understand sometimes as a new shooter. Those differences and the resulting problems I ran into with that PT92 back in the day would be completely unacceptable to me now as I have zero patience for guns that don’t work every single time I pull the trigger, both from a personal defense and a competition standpoint.

Purchasing that gun – which I distinctly remember buying because it looked just like the cool Beretta 92FS but was cheaper – opened up a whole new world of learning for me, actually. It taught me to research the reliability of a gun, to research (unbiased and unpaid) reviews of guns, to just take a look around me at the guns that my peers own or carry, the guns on the belts of people I respect. As I use that yardstick today, Taurus handguns simply do not measure up to those basic qualifiers. In fact, I rarely run into gun stores I really respect that will even carry Tauruses (Taurii?). I ended up trying to sell the gun to a friend, quickly had to refund his money, and then literally pawned it off locally. I should have waited a few weeks to have Taurus look at it, taking advantage of their supposed stellar customer service, right? At least a company that finds itself having to fix a lot of its guns makes the process somewhat easy on owners, I guess. I just hadn’t learned that part yet.

If we’re talking about sub-$400 handguns for the new shooter, Taurus simply does not make the list. Not because they don’t make sub-$400 handguns but because I personally feel they make handguns that will confuse and befuddle almost any shooter that handles them. In a market where you can find Ruger SR9‘s, used Glocks, S&W SD9‘s and a Kahr CW9 for less than that price point, I don’t see any reason to sacrifice quality if you want to get out onto the range and then possibly carry your weapon of choice.

Long story short: I got a new, better-paying job and I had tactile feedback as to where our money was going. The result was a massive reduction in debt over the course of the following year.

Since then I’ve deleted my Mint.com account entirely.

Simply put, Mint fell on its face in a huge way. Living off of one income while we raise our amazing son, the idea of budgeting and knowing where our finances are is critical these days. Possibly due to its explosive user base growth or some banks’ competing technology, I found myself spending increasingly-frustrating amounts of time reconciling my supposedly-automated Mint account updates or waiting for temporary connection issues to fix themselves. The final straw came when I started documenting transactions that I had categorized reverting to other categories over the course of a few days. Reporting these to Mint support, with screen shots, resulted in… nothing. No feedback or even replies.

And yes, it’s entirely acceptable to complain about a free service – one that I had entrusted my financial information to and which used my financial profile to market services to me.

I’ve since turned to You Need a Budget (YNAB) – software that I’ve paid full price for desktop and iPhone clients. While some might see YNAB as having a steep learning curve or being too labor-intensive (every transaction is entered manually) it’s making a tremendous amount of sense to me. Mint was great – when it worked – in helping me to watch the overall trends of our debt going down, but where it failed me completely was in its budgeting tools. As soon as Mint started changing the categorization of my transactions my budgets became meaningless. We simply don’t have enough money to not assign each dollar a job (yeah, I can speak the YNAB speak) while still trying to pay down debt. YNAB has been great – the iPhone client is awesome in that it allows me to just enter transactions anywhere, then sync up and balance our checkbook when at home. There’s less fear on my part knowing that no one will be updating those accounts other than me – Mint’s automatic updates destroyed my trust in their service.

For now I feel like I’ve started over – I only have three months of budgeting under my belt, and it feels like I’m trying to budget during the most financially unpredictable time of the year. But I strongly believe YNAB is one of maybe two or three personal finance tools out there that’s worth the time and effort you put into it, and will help us mature financially in the years to come.

I’ve often wondered what it would take to build my own AK from a jig recently – mostly ’cause I think it’d be cool to understand how to build a fairly destructive firearm from a piece of sheet metal, and because I like the idea that I can supposedly build firearms for my personal use at home. Legally. I hope.

But how would the ATF view all the tools and shop setup necessary to build out an AR lower via printing technology? Thingiverse.com is currently hosting an .stl file that would allow someone with proper printing gear to crank a composite lower out apparently.

The Lower Receiver is the frame that holds together all the other pieces of the firearm. In the States, all the other pieces can be purchased without a permit – over the counter or through the post. The Lower Receiver is the only part which requires a background check or any other kind of paperwork before purchase.

Typically this part is made of aluminium. A rifle with a Lower Receiver made of plastic can be perfectly functional.

Apparently this file has been posted to test out Thingiverse’s stance on weaponry and is causing a bit of a dust-up over there:

What about the other components? What about a high-capacity magazine? What about parts for a full-auto conversion? At what point does Thingiverse classify something as a weapon? Personally, King Ludd does not care where the line is drawn, but he thinks it would be nice if Thingiverse clarified where that line is.

I honestly don’t know what it takes to machine a metal AR lower, but we’ve all seen composite lowers that function fine – Bushmaster and Plumcrazy come to mind. I’d be super-interested to see if this really would produce a functional firearm (although I don’t want to be the one to test it…)

Springfield XD

Talk to us when you’ve put more than 1,000 rounds down range.

Zing! Although I do lust for an M&P just so I can set it next to my MacBook while syncing my iPhone. Just to admire it.

PS: I’ve got a few thousand down the pipe of my gen2 XD , Ms. Rae.

I’ve been a member of my local gun club for a while now, and have managed to use my membership for some great practice. An indoor 100yd range comes in handy in the middle of the winter, I tell you. But finding that there are only so many drills and ways of practicing that I can muster on my own, I decided to stop in for their Thursday evening Combat League. Why have I not tried this sooner?

Combat League is held every Thursday evening, year-round, and allows anyone (like myself) to join in whenever they’re able to. This appealed to me since I am oftentimes unable to predict my work schedule and was hesitant to commit to a season of league shooting. It’s also 15min from my home, easily accessible after work. And who doesn’t like shooting after work?

I’ve been twice so far and it turns out I’m somewhat good compared to my peers. The first week I was able to shoot with my AR and was roughly 3x faster than the nearest competitor (!). I’m still awaiting results from last week, but indications were that I’m in the top 10 for speed and accuracy with my standard XD9. My only complaint is that running a single stage takes less than a minute – and that’s it for the night. But I do get to shoot some decent problem-solving games once a week.

And now, only two weeks in, I find myself researching where the nearest IDPA matches are…

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — A Denver police officer shot himself in the hand Tuesday while examining a gun in the bathroom of his home in Jefferson County, according to the Columbine Courier.
The newspaper said Detective Bret Starnes fired his gun without ammunition in a bedroom to test it.
Starnes loaded the gun, but said he forgot it contained live rounds when he pulled the trigger again in a nearby bathroom, hitting his left hand, the newspaper reported.

Rule number two: Never let the muzzle of a gun point at anything you do not want to destroy or kill.

Rule number three: Keep your finger straight and off the trigger.

The incident happened just after 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Power Wash at 3730 Randall Drive, police said.

A man was sitting in his car, which he had just finished washing.

Another man walked up, pulled a knife on the victim and demanded his money, police said.

“The victim reached for what the suspect thought was a wallet, but was actually a semi-auto handgun,” a police report said. “The victim pointed his gun at the suspect, who immediately fled on foot.”

Kudos to whomever that was, for not only deterring the crime but also having the level-headedness to just let the guy run. Although I suspect that the would-be robber might be looking into upgrading his weapon…