Plus Gas Gun Progress

I am now the proud owner of a Coyote Reaper XXL infrared illuminator.

I got myself an ATN night vision scope a long time ago, and I never got around to doing much with it. The idea was to shoot coons, coyotes, and pigs at night. There are no pigs here. I didn’t know that. I don’t have any excuse for not shooting coons and coyotes.

The scope amplifies light, including infrared, and it comes with a very small IR flashlight that works okay up to maybe 30 yards. Perhaps I’m being generous. Everyone says you need a bigger illuminator to get anywhere. You can spend a gigantic amount of money on one, but I don’t see myself investing heavily in things to make a low-end $600 scope work. If the Coyote Reaper won’t do it, then it won’t get done. If I get serious, I’ll have to spend several thousand dollars on a thermal scope, and the illuminator will gather dust.

I didn’t understand how big the illuminator was when I ordered it. It’s maybe 9″ long, and I would guess it weighs as much as a Coke in an old pint bottle.

For some reason, ATN put the illuminator rail on the left side of the scope, so when you attach a big illuminator, you get a huge weight pulling down on the left side of the gun. I found a solution. You can get a picatinny adaptor for your forward sling stud. You remove your stud, install the adaptor, and attach the illuminator to it. The adaptor has a little sling stud of its own, so theoretically, you could still use your sling. With your giant flashlight in the way.

When the adaptor gets here, I will try the illuminator out.

Maybe the smart thing is to put everything on my AR-15, which is made to hold lots of hardware.

My varmint gun, which has yet to kill a varmint, is a Thompson Center bolt action in .204 Ruger. It’s very nice, but Thompson Center Fudded it up with a 3-round magazine. This means I get 4 shots per varmint encounter, tops. Thompson Center does not make a bigger magazine, and neither does anyone else. They’re also pretty jerky about selling parts to consumers, so I’m all done with them. They won’t sell me upgraded trigger parts for this gun.

It seems to me that a smart person will want a big magazine when shooting pigs or other pests. You want to be sure you kill them, and pigs have been known to charge, so it can’t hurt to have reserve ammunition to help them change their minds.

Back when I got the gun, I didn’t understand the sporting potential of the AR-15. I thought people were winking and giggling when they called it a hunting rifle. Of course, I was very wrong. If I were shopping today, I would forget all about bolt action varminting. I would buy an AR-15 in .204 Ruger.

I can remedy my mistake if parts become available. I can buy a .204 Ruger upper for my AR-15 and convert it instantly. If I place an order today, my upper receiver should arrive some time in 2035.

If I have a second upper, I can leave the night stuff on it. Then I won’t have to worry about losing the zero on my regular scope when I remove it to install the ATN.

Nothing is simple.

I’m still looking into thermal monoculars for spotting and tracking. I have already learned that thermal would be great for finding wounded squirrels.

A popular Youtuber who calls himself Tactical Rifleman recommends the FLIR Breach PTQ136. This is a very small monocular which shoots pictures and video. They say it works very well. Problem: people say FLIR has officially abandoned the civilian market. They say FLIR’s customer service was disgraceful to begin with, and they expect FLIR to stop making parts for things they have sold to civilians. So you could spend a lot on a Breach and then have it turn into a paperweight.

It looks like competitive devices made by friendlier, more competent manufacturers cost about 40% more, at least. The Tactical Rifleman hasn’t recommended any, and that makes sense, because he probably has a business relationship with FLIR.

A German outfit called Andres makes a device called the Tilos 3Z, and it’s apparently better than the Breach, and Andres actually cares about customer goodwill, but you pay for the upgrade.

I’m interested in hunting, but a lot of the people who know a lot about night vision and thermal are interested in other uses, if you get my drift, so you have to filter the advice you get. Hunting equipment can be used for home security, but it’s not really what you would choose if you were serious. Some equipment swings both ways. Some is better for one use than the other.

There are some real fanatics out there, happily spending tens of thousands of dollars on this stuff. These are the folks who will utterly demoralize leftist mobs if we have a civil war. They’ll shoot them at night, from long distances, while the mobsters are feeling safe and doing bong hits, chuckling about the social justice they plan to deliver the next day. They’ll be looking forward to posting selfies of the conservatives they’ve beaten up (and worse), in homes they’ve invaded, and suddenly rifle rounds will appear out of nowhere and change their outlook.

I’ve learned that hog hunters practice shooting on a timed signal. That’s bad news for mob thugs. If one person fires multiple rounds at you, and the first round misses, you can look for cover. If 5 people shoot at once, it’s different.

I don’t know too much about the war-preparation scene, but it looks like there will be very serious and unexpected problems for leftist aggressors. There are people out there who own large numbers of automatic weapons, including .50-caliber machine guns. There are people who own Barrett .50-caliber bolt action rifles. A rifle like that is mainly intended to kill things like cars and trucks. They’re not very accurate, but how accurate do you have to be to hit a Prius?

A business near me has a .50-caliber machine gun on display. Ready to load into a pickup and take wherever it’s needed.

Rapture me now, before it happens. I don’t want leftists shooting at me, and I don’t want conservatives abusing me because I won’t shoot at leftists.

Trump says he will not go to the inauguration. I’m trying to decide whether that’s a good move. Showing up would take more character than staying home, it would make him look less childish, and it would be a conciliatory gesture. On the other hand, conciliatory gestures don’t work well on leftists. George Bush tried to appease them over and over. Every time he offered his hand, he pulled back a stump. His opposition had zero class, and since then, they have gotten worse. A lack of grace is one of the left’s defining characteristics.

It probably doesn’t matter if Trump tries to make peace. In order for that to work, you have to be dealing with people who want peace.

We are in for some nasty times if Biden actually takes office. Imagine the loss of liberty, the taxation, and the environmentalist oppression. Gun rights may be damaged extremely severely, in a time when leftist mob violence is the norm. Leftists will do their absolute best to disarm us, and with two branches of government under their control, they may be able to pass some very sick laws. Biden will try to weave us into the Antichrist’s “family.” Leftists want us to be a colonial organism like the Borg. Privacy and autonomy are going to shrivel, fast. Freedom of worship will continue to be destroyed. The government will dramatically expand its role as a sponsor of persecution.

I’ve been right, right, right about this, for years. That bothers me, because the things I foresee now will be extremely unpleasant. Conservatives who don’t know God will live in humiliation and defeat, every day, unless they resist by force of arms. Then we’ll have war, and can we characterize that as success? I don’t think so.

Even when you think something big is going to happen, it’s still shocking when you see it come to pass!

Guess I should go out and shoot a few rounds. Writing blog posts is not improving my marksmanship.

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Went out and shot 40 rounds of 55-grain Australian Outback ammo from the AR-15. I used my new Adaptive Tactical buttstock, which has recoil padding. I shelled out the princely sum of $25 for it, at Joe Bob’s Outfitters.

I am quite happy. My average group size was 1.5″, including all flyers except for one I made after I turned a turret the wrong way. My worst groups were 2.02″ and 2.13″.

The wind was gusty, it blew hard enough to be unpleasant, and it changed directions by at least 180 degrees while I was out there. With a very ordinary AR-15 and non-match ammo, I think I did fine. I was fiddling with the buttstock to get the length of pull right, I caught technique problems, and things still went well. The credit must belong to the gun, the people who made the ammo, and the guy who made the training videos I watched, because I made errors.

I still need to learn to use a DOPE book. I have no idea what to put in it. “It was hot today. I didn’t shoot too well. The Dairy Queen by the range doesn’t sell banana split Blizzards.”

I learned more than you would think from a quick session. I found out I was pulling the trigger with the tip of my finger, so I stopped doing that. I think that causes horizontal stringing because you have to work so hard to make the gun go off. I learned that my zero was two clicks too low. I got my new buttstock adjusted. I got better at recoil management, per the instructions I picked up from training videos.

This is not a bad gun at all. The best AR on earth might shoot what? Three eighths of an inch, in perfect weather, with ideal ammunition, clamped in a vise? I’m using a $790 gun intended for self-defense, and I don’t have match ammo or handloads. The bullet manufacturer says this bullet’s wind drift at 100 yards is about 1″ for 10 mph, I was definitely getting crosswinds higher than that, and I still shot and average group of 1.5″ at 104 yards, where 1 MOA is 1.09″. The weather people are quoting 13 mph right now.

If I can do this well on a bad day while making mistakes and learning new methods, I would hope to do a little better on a good day with more practice. Maybe this gun will average below 1 MOA without a new barrel or fancy ammo. If so, is there any point in thinking about upgrading it? I don’t know that I care much about the difference between 1″ and 3/4″. I think it would cost me hundreds of dollars to get it.