Thanks to this thread I’ve learned that some departments require carrying rifles in “cruiser ready”:

‘Cruiser Ready’ – no round in chamber, hammer forward, magazine inserted.

Learn something every day.

Apparently, security at federal buildings sucks; I already suspected this, as I’ve seen people bring in items that simply should not be allowed into a ’secure’ building.

The issue is, of course, it isn’t secure; it is only meant to appear secure. You already have a portion of the population walking around the metal detectors and ‘badging in’; these would be the gun-toting IRS and FBI agents. How hard is it to fake an ID badge?

I imagine the lines at the door will be longer and slower Wednesday as the cops try to be extra bad-ass.

There have been two incidents with ALS uppers in the last year; they are both referenced in this thread. Both resulted in serious injuries; needless to say, an out-of-battery event in a 50 BMG rifle is a very serious safety hazard.

I was at the FCSA World Match this past weekend at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. On Friday, 3 July 2009 an ALS rifle fired out of battery (the bolt was not fully locked). The shooter was seriously injured.

As soon as the incident occurred, the line was called cold for an emergency cease fire. After the shooter was rendered first aid and evacuated, the FCSA and NRA Whittington Center issued a stand-down on all ALS rifles at the match. No ALS rifles were allowed to continue in the competition.

Pending further investigation, ALS rifles will not be allowed to compete in FCSA competitions or be fired at the NRA Whittington Center.

As an ALS owner, I have decided not to fire my ALS rifle until the cause of this incident is known.

FCSA representatives and the manufacturer are working to determine the cause of the incident.

-David
Edgewood, NM

from the first incident:

Alleged incident!
Bull Shit.
I’m just trying to survive. I was trying to be a good guy and not cause trouble for Darrin, he told me he didn’t have insurance and I didn’t want to put him out of business. When I called him and told him what I thought the defect was with his upper he hung up on me and never checked back to see how I was doing.
I’ve got $150k in medical bills. I also lost an eye and permanently fucked up my right hand. I still have 25 pieces of shrapnel in my hand. and because my right pectoral muscle was cut through I have limited strength on my right side. I suffered nightmares every night for months, and still have them occasionally.
I wish I hadn’t of been a good guy. If I had been an asshole another person wouldn’t have been hurt.
I’m sorry for the language, this idiotic statement just pissed me off.

didn’t stop them from taking away 1, 4, 5, or 8.
Yup!

If you watched any of these individually, you might think they are real; in fact, when I saw the first one, I was pretty sure it was.
Ricochet takes off guy’s hat
However, watching this other video, you begin to wonder if they might be very [un]lucky:
Shot in arm with 270 caliber
The third video, though, is just… well, it could be true, it could not be.
Guy loses bet, stands in front of 30-06

sitting at the beach with the girls; they’re in the water wading. I’m listening to the two most aggro divinity students you can imagine; picture Alex Baldwin’s character from GGR giving the ABC speech. I’m impressed by these two SPU students planning the next five years; the surfer slang combined with hardcore tattoo planning is producing some cognitive dissonance, though.

Dude! Isaiah 5:53 in the original language would be tight!

I’m getting the apostle’s creed on my leg right here, but I’m taking one line out. I’m doing it in Aramic.

I want a letterman’s jacket with “brothers of thunder” in Greek

No, you need that on your back.

Ah, the exuberance of youth.

“lolvtec” had a form 4 approved in eight days.

Eight days! That’s almost less of an infringement of the second amendment than the multi-year waits of the late 90s, or the (current) six month-one year waits. As pointed out in thread, it’s certainly an abberation, but congratulations regardless.

When you buy barrels for most guns, you care primarily about brand (as a proxy for quality), length, and twist. Perhaps some other features are important, like chamber tightness, metal, or finish. Quality of the threads is usually down the list, if on the list at all. Most muzzle breaks are designed to be open enough to not impede the development of sound (I’m only aware of two that aren’t); many precision rifles have no muzzle device at all.

Talk to people about barrels, and the same makers float to the top; however, among people that shoot suppressed rifles, different names populate the list.

LMT wasted some of my money with a fucked up barrel, so I’d trust ADCO too. I would have thought from reading all of Wes Grant’s posts that they were gold plated miracle sticks, but my barrel thread is so far out I’m afraid to shoot cans on it now. On a .275 bore it apears to lean far enough to nearly be parallel with one of the sides.

It comes down to how perfect your threads are, or how much meat you have left to re-thread. If you’re building an AR15 to suppress, the best bet is to buy a non-threaded barrel and have either a well-known company (ADCO) or your suppressor maker (Gem-Tech) thread it. They know how important it is that the threads are aligned with the bore, not the exterior of the barrel.

Another metric that is supremely important for suppressor owners is ammo quality in terms of run-out; you need to inspect each round you send down the pipe. Period. If you don’t, you could end up with an endcap strike on your brand new suppressor:

If you ignore the light strike, you might end up with this:

That’s a pile of $100 bills thrown on a fire; the ATFE no longer allows you to repair a suppressor tax-free if it involves modifications to the “can” portion.

In the old days, you built suppressors in certain ways (with wipes) because they worked and were cheap. Once the ATFE changed what a wipe was and what was allowed (wipes verboten), the market evolved from loose tolerances and wipes to modern wipeless cans with tight tolerances. If you had a strike, you re-serialized a new can and no additional tax was paid. The ATFE changed those rules; now the trend is toward cans that may be disassembled and repaired without welding. Furthermore, they’ve relaxed the rules on wipes a little. The market continues to react to what the ATFE says is legal today; you should pay attention to the type of can you buy and adjust your metrics for quality appropriately. Threads that work for a flash hider will destroy your suppressor, and ammo that’s fine for blasting (XM anything) will do the same.

Looks like Rand wanted Fawcett to play Dagny; as well, Rand was a huge fan of Charlie’s Angels. Who knew?

It does look really cool at night when someone drops flares and I totally understand that it is just to say hello, but those things are not as reliable as you fancy them and the burn out distance can be much greater than they are rated it. It is horrifying when you drop them on us and they burn out ~20 feet from your fuel point or next to you. It is bad enough already that the Iraqis think buzzing us at unsafe heights to show off is terribly amusing. I did 14 months and about 3 weeks before I was going to leave I almost got hit by a flare. Really, we all know your choppers are cool and what not and we can hear you coming, just quit dropping the fucking flares.

A pilot replied:

They are automated countermeasures…
The crews simply turn the system on or off…
They are not intentionally fired at you…
They save lives…

from here