BigFreddie

So I have a difficult dilemma... I was working with a good friend from UPT to have a LRB Arms received-based M14S built. We have had this thing on order since December. Unfortunately he was killed in a T-38 crash last week at Edwards. My question is what to do with this rifle we worked on together? It was going to be built to his specs for accuracy and he had been wanting to get this for a while. My initial reaction is to cancel the order. But the more I thought about it the more I want to continue the process. I don't have the cash to buy it myself since I just had a similar rifle built up. I have also thought about somehow selling it for a profit or raffling it off and donating the profit to his memorial fund (if he has one) or to some organization he would have liked. Any thoughts on this? I know this is highly unusual... Thanks, Big Freddie

Graz was a very good friend of mine from the Zoo and UPT. Let's see where to start the good stories... Small "bombs" made from 2 liter soda bottles and some chemical in the BBQ pits in the Laughlin dorms... Stopping on the way from Laughlin to San Antonio to "assess" the horsepower of his Honda Accord... Teaching him how to weld so he could build his monster trailer to move to the Forks... Writing "Stew is GAY" on every flat surface of the flight room in T-1s... He'll be missed - great pilot - awesome American - true friend. Memorial Day has a little different meaning this time around... BF

Glad to see it is changing for the better. I heard horror stories while I was in there of a Maj IP and a Lt Col student almost getting into a fight during debrief... BF

To be blunt - it sucks balls! Academics are like any CBT based course - work at your own pace. Sims aren't bad depending on the instructor. The flightline is a bear - pretty much 12 hours there working/studying/planning/flying and the other in crew rest. The instructors (in the 2005 period at least) had no touch with reality or the UPT flightline in the previous 20 years. Most flew when AMC was MAC and they had C-141s. The T-1 is fairly fun to fly and some instructors can be cool but that is not the norm! BF

I was mentioning the same thing on my last trip out in the lowly C-5. People are more worried about getting their masters and PME done than being a better pilot. Sad state of affairs... And there are freaking C-17s everywhere. How many does the AF have at this point? BF

I've heard of two other states following this same path: Alaska and Texas. I don't see California, New York, Mass doing this any time soon! BF

This is exactly what I did too. You can also get your buddies to chip in if you store some of their stuff as well to offset the cost. It is worth the extra cash to do it this way to have access to them when you want to go shooting. BF

Don't keep your gun in your dorm - you are just asking for trouble. I would store it at a friend's place first and at the armory as the last resort. No need for someone to mess with my guns if they don't have to. As for CCW - you are pretty much screwed doing this on an AFB unless you have a really good "in" with maybe the SFS/CC. The one possible exception would be living in base housing and carrying off base by saying you are going to and from the range located off base. You would probably be up sh!t creek if they found you carrying in a routine stop or one of the RAM checks at the gate. I know one guy at Laughlin who had SF called to his dorm because the base mail transfer people got a big reloader in the mail for him. It was pretty funny to hear him tell the story about explaining what a reloader was to the mail people and SF - no one had a clue what it really was but there was a picture of a gun on the box... BF

They seem pretty responsive - I sent them an email with a request and some images and they were back to me the next day. I am leery of the silk screen/print versus the embroidered style... BF

I think you hit it on the head - the economy drives some of these things... I've always thought a universal license for guns would be one way to go - you get one license and you are now allowed to own whatever you want and can carry concealed nationwide. That being said, it opens up the whole licensing issue - it would then depend on someone's interruption of the laws and if they want you to really own them. There are some who think the government has no idea what you have or where you live but that information is out there - as the SERE guy kept saying in our HRC class today... But licensing is the prelude to other more sinister things... If you want a good book to read about being prepared here's one: "Equal or Greater Force" by Kit Cessna. Former Delta Force guy turned Louisiana sheriff - lots of real world examples and some experiences from Katrina. I think it is a great book to convince others that the world is not as safe as it always appears. BF

My Grandpa was part of the Kiska invasion. He said it really wasn't much fun - especially after finding out your own guys were shooting at you. The Japanese evacuated all their men via submarine prior to the American assault. This followed action on Attu island - one of the first amphibious assualts of the war. The casualty rate was among the highest in the war mostly due to exposure injuries. BF

I just got my clearance interview less than a month ago. I asked the investigator what the deal is with bad credit and clearances. He said he interviewed a person who declared bankruptcy 4 or 5 times and still got a clearance. He said it really wasn't a deal breaker. BF

Not a typo - I think they both have their merits and really would not feel bad about using either one. Both cost about the same so that really isn't a factor. The PMAG won't flatten like an aluminum mag if you are foolish enough to drive your truck over it. The aluminum mags won't have cracking issues or be susceptible to the cold like PMAG have shown to be (although very infrequently). PMAGs are great and the company backing them up is even better. They continually upgrade their products and if you get something that is defective they gladly swap it out with a good product. I had some early generation of PMAGs that were improperly cooled or something like that. They set up a place on their website where you could swap them out and they paid the shipping both ways. I get mine through BravoCompanyUSA for about $14.20 for the non-wondowed versions. Another great company. BF

I took one of Pat's classes last year and it was probably some of the best gun money I've ever spent. He is an excellent instructor - he would make a great UPT instructor with his "fear, sarcasm, and ridicule" format. That being said, he gave out a couple PMAGs and also passed around a couple that had broken in his class. All things humans make break and magazines are expendable items - the original AR mags were supposed to be one time use items but that was too spendy. I would rank mags in the following order 1) USGI with MagPul followers 1) PMAGs 3) USGI stock mags 4) HK mags 5) Others

There are a lot of things in place to ensure that guns are not easily modified to full auto. ARs have a shelf in them that does not allow you to drop in full auto parts, AKs are missing holes in the receiver, and the HK 9x series have a bunch of things changed so they are not easily converted. That being said, anyone with a mill in their garage with an iota of technical background and knowledge could change these things easily enough - but - GASP - they don't because they are law abiding citizens. Furthermore, there are provisions that allow people to buy RPGs and machine guns and silencers and short barreled rifles and shotguns. To get your RPG all you need to do is work with the ATF and get a tax stamp for a Destructive Device - $200 plus the cost of the weapon. Each rocket would also incur a $200 tax stamp so the cost would become extreme very fast. I was reading something yesterday about Pelosi saying that a new AWB wasn't even on the radar and that we should enforce the existing laws out there. I would actually have to agree with her on this. Why do I, a law adibing citizen who pays my taxes and serves the country become an instant criminal because there is someone out there who is insane and wants to kill a bunch of folks? Does my owning these dreaded "assault weapons" make me a threat to society? I think politicians like gun bans because it really looks like they are doing something. If they want to decrease deaths in the country outlaw cars and doctors... And all this when we were starting to see prices creep down and supply start to come back up... Here we go again...

That's what I've decided as well. It is interesting to look at this age old question in the "international" light. The .45 ACP is uniquely an American round. Sure, it was invented here and used abroad but we're to only ones to use it in mass quantities - 1911s, Thompsons, Grease Guns... The rest of the world has been killing people for many, many years using the 9mm. Another way to think about pistols is their primary use is to allow you to fight your way to a rifle! BF

I've got a couple buddies that were in a similar situation... Both are doing well because they worked hard... But the things I took from them are that you need to be very good at your primary job and prove your worth early on. This allowed them to branch into other areas - the non-flying areas. Both ended up being some sort of execs. So, I hope you don't really, really like flying because you're going to need to take jobs that don't include a lot of that...

www.usstandardissue.com Oakleys cheap... From Oakley no less...

You answered your own question - some people call that tilting bolt bounce. And look at the end of the bolt carrier - I've see several different methods to keep everything in line back there - some have enlarged that whole part of the bolt and others have just added a couple pads in strategic locations.

They will discover issues with the piston set-up here soon. I went to an AR class and the two guys to my left were both running LWRC piston guns. One worked and the other one didn't. 40 years has allowed folks to find all the issues with the gas guns so there is a well known set of remedies. The piston guns are so new that darn near every issue is a new one. Look at the bolts on piston guns - they have beefed up the end that goes in the receiver extension to prevent bolt bounce which was never an issue with the gas guns. My friend had an LWRC with a 10.5" stainless barrel - after 50 rounds it would choke so bad he had to tear it apart and scrub the chamber. So the whole piston thing is probably a solution to problem that will only really be cured by a new rifle not a new operating system. All that being said - I would probably buy the LMT piston set-up before many of the rest. I've been running an MRP for over 5 years now and they work great. LMT is a great company that does their homework before they release any products - it takes time but their stuff is really well executed when it is released. HK would be another interesting piston upper to have but I'm not about to pay $3500 plus for an upper alone... Rumor has it that they'll be release an American made version soon. I also think there is a lot more to the AK than just pure numbers. Sure, there have been between 50 and 100 million AKs built. They are cheap and reliable... Not to mention the USSR practically gave them away to their favored friends. Then they forced them down the throats of their satellite countries. That is one of the reasons the AK users outnumber M16 users in the world. Heck, the much vaunted Israelis use M16s - but that's probably more of a function of US aid than anything - very similar to the Soviet example above. The M16 got off to a rough start in the Vietnam war. First - the bean counters decided to change the type of powder used in the ammo causing them to malfunction more. Second - no chromelining of the chamber or barrel. Third - no training and no cleaning kits. Fourth - Eugene Stoner designed the mag to be a disposable item - when you ran out of ammo you got a new fully loaded mag instead of ammo on stripper clips or cardboard boxes. PMAGs are probably one of the best mags out there now - and they are reasonably priced too. The HK mags are overrated - my Border Patrol friend had a 6 or 8 new ones he took to a SWAT school class. He was impressed with them until the instructor told him that they would be worthless by the end of the week - and they were... BF

The story I heard while there was that the guy filed via DUATs and never went by base ops. Base ops sees a guy get in a jet, fire it up but there is no flight plan. They figure someone is stealing a jet since no one talked to them or gave them a flight plan. The sky cops stopped him before he took off - I bet that story will live forever in the sky cop world... The T-1 commander down there owned an airplane and used DUATs for that but wouldn't allow the IPs or students to use it because it basically gave the FAA all the info they needed to bring the big violation hammer down on you much easier than fighting with the Air Force for more than "On File" or O/F.

Standard grade 1911s are a little painful to shoot. No beavertail grip safety and other modern enhancements. Then folks want to tighten all the tolerances and make them more accurate - which causes them to be less reliable. I went to a pistol class last year with Larry Vickers (www.vickerstactical.com). The guy is more than qualified to comment on guns - was a Delta force guy for a long-time, was one of their premier trainers, also is one of the most sought after 1911 gunsmiths in the world (I've seen his guns go for $10,000+), and has advised several major companies on how to build the most reliable combat pistols in the world. His direct quote during malfunction training was, "If you have a true ball of shit, which means if you’ve shot a 1911 for more than about a half hour, then this is how you clear the malfunction…" That being said, there is a reason the 1911 is going on 98 years of continuous use in the military, police and civilian worlds... BF

I'll stand by what I said - unfortunately there will be very little data about the 10 year commitment guys until at least the end of FY10. However, there is another dynamic in there as well that will come into play - with an 8 year commitment, you're probably at the 9 or 10 year point in your career when the choice needs to be made. With the 10 year commitment you're at 11 or 12 or even more years - you've gone over the mythical half-way point. I think that is a mental hurdle for some as well. At any rate, his paper was interesting. Unfortunately, the data he needs and we need is always influx and there will be different factors coming into play in the next couple years that can completely change very quickly... My opinion though - with a shortage of 1300 to 1500 pilots, ACIP will be around for a while. BF

This guy is missing the boat... There are so many other things that people use in the decision to stay in the AF or get out. I would say 98% of the people I know who took the VSP got out for family reasons - too much time away. At the end of their commitment time they would have been gone ACP or not. Some of those folks hated the AF BS that is becoming so widespread - they got out - hell, they would have likely left if they were offered no money... Other folks like the stability of an airline job - well at least the fact they have a set schedule, can get some extra work or decline it too, HAVE NO OTHER CRAP TO DEAL WITH EXCEPT TO FLY A DAMN AIRPLANE... I'm still in the belief that the real effects of the 10 year UPT commitment have not yet been fully felt. I believe that the folks who are in this category will probably bail at higher rates than before. If you look at these folks, they are the ones who were the junior cannon fodder in 2001 - right as the AF got really busy. Too many deployments, too many reflective belts - I think they're going to leave at pretty high rates starting in about 2010 or 2011. The only thing that might slow them down is the crappy economy... BF

Great choices all around. I love the SOPMOD stocks - too bad they're so expensive. You can't beat a Noveske upper. Good optic in the best mount available. The SF X300 is a great light and very, very versatile. One question - how are you going to activate it? Unless you naturally run your hand out that far it might be difficult to do. The last thing I'd pick up would be a good sling. Either a Vickers Tactical or a VTAC sling - great slings that are more than just carrying straps. BF