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I'm a "gun guy", AMA

A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:

Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.

Technical questions

Gun control proposals for feasibility

Industry

Training

Wacky opinions

General geekery

Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173

https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE

https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xVh4CjbgK7s

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0IK2RUxVq3A

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I love listening to mike "hazzard" and his campfire stories about military. One of them was about "best military experiences" which as it happens were not that many compared to the negative ones. Would you say that your time in a military was similar?

I had a lot of good times in the military, lot of bad ones, and a shitton of just bureaucratic fuckery. The bad ones stick with you more than the good ones, I think. Either in a "listen to the shit I lived through" sort of way, where it's kind of funny in retrospect or a traumatic sense.

But yeah, lots of good times, crazy stories and all that. Barracks parties, brawls with neighboring units, Zonk days, long weekends to Vegas, Venice, Budapest. Some of the training is awesome, if difficult. Even deployment and combat have their charms, for some of us. All the best days of my life were bringing my guys back in, all in one piece.

Considering that you and mike are both small arms repairman for a second there I thought you were the guy )

Nah, I was never the armorer, that was a terrible job :P