The Ton on the legendary 10/22

As a select few of you may know, The Ton has a slight love affair for firearms. I grew up hunting, just like milions of kids, and I grew up doing NRA long distance shooting comepetions with my father and grandfather. I never stopped hunting and spent much of my life using a rifle to earn my daily bread. At one point, at an elite level but lately it has become a somewhat waining affiar. I still hunt but I do almost 0 tactical shooting because I am bored with it.

Mascuilne sovereignty requires proficiency with violence and firearms are one of the most important tools for a man to master. Money 1st. Guns second because gun skillz take cash to develop.  The Ton still loves to hunt and I still shoot a fair amount but my shooting these days consist of doing dumb shit with a .22LR or long distance stuff. I’m probably averaging 3k rounds of .22LR a month right now vs way less then 300 rounds of .308, .338 Luppa and .50 BMG. Probably less then 100. Partly becuase I can fire .22 where I live full time and have to travel for my long distance range.  Partly because I don’t care if I ever do another tactical anything but I have an old-school book on trick shots I am working through.

As The Ton goes, so does Clan Ton. Mostly because I’m an asshole that likes to throw money around partly becuase I am trying to establish a larger then life legend for my decendants to remember and partly because if we stay here my lineage wil be balls deep in the up coming shit storm…. Clan Ton is gunned the fuck up. I’ll be banging on about tuning  up one of my favoitre rifles,  the Ruger 10/22’s.

There are 2 reasons I customize them, and they are interdependent. Improve useability and to improve reliability. Which makes it sound like the Ruger 10/22 is unreliable. It ain’t. But .22 ammo is cheap and trying to fire large volumes of it will cause problems. You can address that with higher dollar ammo or upgrading certain aspects of the rifle. Improving the rifle is a one time fixed cost. Expensive ammo is a never ending cost.

Improving useability makes shooting more fun. Especially for chidlern and new shooters. The main focus on that is scaling the weapon to childern and reducing the decibels. Again to make it more kid friendly. Sound and kids is a werid thing. #1 They hate to wear ear protection, #2 kids are fucking weird. My 2 year old gets stoked of 12ga booms! Really dislikes rifle fire….. Fucking bastards are weird. Any rate, M4 style collapsible buttocks will reduce the effective size of the weapon. It also expand as the child grows. I also put rail systems on the rifle but don’t mount optics. That is something kids have to earn. When I do, it’s typically a small red dot. Not much recoil on a .22 so not much point in dropping a ton od money on a red dot. Scopes come later.  They need the basics down 1st. Suppressors are the only thing I have really standardised becuase I get a discount as a reliable customer. I’m not runing the most decibel reducing can around but it’s a quality product that is easy to clean. I still have the kids wear ear pro but the can makes it less critical if they are being shitheads about it. Bi-pod legz are hugely popular with the little ones. Helps them mange the size of an adult sized rifle but also dramatically improves accuracy.

An upgraded trigger will almost always improve accuracy. Ruger makes one and I like it alot. For the moeny. I don’t think kids really need the better trigger kit when they 1st start out but I want a rifle they can grow into. Physically speaking and as a shooter.

Large fingers, small mag release…. I put the extend mag release on them. For my sanity as their instructor if nothing else same for charging handle but really it seems to help kids with their small, weak hands manipulate the weapon correctly.

Last for me is tuning up the bolt. Two main issues here. #1 Is the extractor. Like I said .22 ammo is cheap ie dirty and fouls your firearm. Upgrade that extractor so it can deal with the mess and get your spent brass out of the way. .22 rim fire means the propellant is all around the rim of that fucker. Upgrade the firing pin to one that strikes the rim better…. Which will also help burn more of the propellant leaving less of a mess.

Notice I didn’t list which kits to use….. I’m not sure it matters. All of them seem to do well. And I don’t have bipod legs on my personal .22’s.

Not much else to say. They are fun to shoot, cost effective to run/ train with and they do an ok job as a farm gun out here in rural NC where we don’t have a large size predator problem

 

How many guns are enough

My son in law called me today. I don’t much speak about my family like I use to. Internet folks have made that unwise. Any rate my son in law is an ok dude. West point fucker, SF officer, combat vet, engineer, MBA,  regional manger for a huge retail outfit by profession….. all around normal, everyday, upper middle class,  BMW driving “conservative”. As in pretty fucking liberal and retarded but thinks he’s a conservative because he voted for Trump and mittens and mccain. He would die if anyone called him right wing.

Not the kind of guy you would expect to worry about the future because those sorts are idealistic beyond all reason, but he’s worried.

SIL is gunned up. Nothing I would call a majorly armed household, but surely a statistical supper gun owner… which I think means 7 guns or more. I’ve found more guns then that by accident while looking for the gun I wanted. Heck, I think I built like 7 FAL’s before I was doing a good enough job to keep them for myself vs selling them so I could build more.

Today he was almost culturally enriched driving from one buiness meeting to the next. BLM was stopping traffic and harassing passengers. When he saw what was going down, he found a gap in the peaceful protesters culturally enriching the car in front of him, filled it with his sedan and got the fuck out of there.

Which is what any smart person should do. He called 911 once he was clear, 911 told him the law was already responding, and he made his meeting on time.

Any rate, we talked. About a lot of shit. He’s still not ready to leave America. Which makes him a dumbass. He thinks he can bunker up on their  4’ish acres, surrounded by other semi rural upper middle class white folks with big yards, sport sedans and mostly soybeans for neighbours. And they can for some unknowable amount of time because trouble won’t be looking for them out there. Until it is.

SIL is a combat vet. 12A and 18A, with 3 combat tours but he’s never been through a siege and he has some idea about bunkering up in his 3200 sqf, 3 car garage mcmansion…… Most days on the job your M4, 15 mags and maybe a side arm will get you through. You are with a group of guys who are armed and trained wth back up a raido call away. You don’t have to do everything yourself and I think a lot of folks would be surprised just how little shooting and how much directing and talking squad leaders and officers do.

Down to brass tacks. He asked me how many guns should he own to be ready for what’s coming.

I had two answers.

If that is a serious question, then the correct answer is getting the fuck out of Dodge and living somewhere you don’t expect to be a combat zone.

Answer #2) there is no answer.

Because records are impossible to keep and no one really remember any way, we don’t have any idea how many shots are typically fired when civilians use fire arms to defend themselves. All the various studies have huge flaws in them but most “experts” seem to agree it’s 4-5. Experts in quotes there because it’s a topic no one can be an actual expert on. To many variables, the largest variable being people don’t ever really know. As way of example, during training missions most men couldn’t accurately say how many rounds where fired until rounds remaining were counted. Let that sink in. Trained shooters in a non life threatening situation where unable to accurately guess how many rounds they fired while practicing reglaur every day stuff like clearing a few rooms. I had 10 mags on me for my 1st fire fight. I burned through 7 but could have sworn it was 2-3. and yeah I was heavy on the trigger until I settled in to the job.

Answer #2 will always remain unknowable.

I have been through countless fire fights but only one siege. Sure I have been on camps or ECP’s and what not that have been attacked but none of those lasted very long. I’ve been places that got hit nearly every day, and operations that lasted a few days with constant resupply and contact with the enemy but I have been through one balls to the walls non stop event. And that was as a PMC in Iraq.

I have no idea how many rounds I fired. My hands were raw and what not from loading mags. I stopped using my duty rifle. It was taking to much time to break down linked 7.62×51 to keep the mags loaded and they ran out of snipers. I was a dumbs ass for sticking with that rifle for so long.   Moved to  an M4 that wasnt mine, replaced a guy on a crew serve and went back to an M4 when an rpg fucked it up. Never fired my pistol. I know I got some sleep. Cant tell you how much. They were not real serious at night but they kept pressure on us. Probably just trying tomwear us down. I ate a lot. I remember 3 semi meals. Mostly just a lot of bullshit to keep from crashing.  It lasted 72 hours, give or take a few hours…. depending on which report you read and when you think the siege started. I was in contact before most guys. Nature of the job at the time and we were trying to be discriminate initially until things got out of hand. I had ammo dropped on me twice by helicopter. Cant say how many times we were resupplied. Almost all of us were injured. Generally nothing serious. But we were all cut and what not from spall. Brused and beat up from laying on cinder blocks and what not.  Lots of sprains, busted up hands, fingers, burns, bullshit in eyes, busted up ears etc etc. A few guys were hit pretty hard but not so bad it was worth risking an evac.

Point of all that  is….. this

You and your small nuclear family won’t surrive anything like a serious attempt to take your home. You don’t have the man power or resources. Heck 20 dudes and some Molotov cocktails and you are fucked.

If you think things will get that bad your plan has to be better then some lone wolf bullshit.

The 1st thing you should work on is location. (2nd thing if you don’t have a carry gun). The absolute best thing to do with trouble is avoid it.

If you are in someplace like St Louis and that one couple you’re going to need back up. Dial 911. That’s a must and helps protect yourself legally but you’re going to need friends and a plan

1 would suggest every man own an AR-15, (100) full 30 round mags, soft body armor, plate carrier, full-size 9mm with spare mag, a pocket 9mm a helmet, decent 1st aide kit etc and a couple of flashlights.

Scale it from there. Wife? Skip the rifle and 100 mags. Unless you habe the money to spend. Get her the rest of that shit 1st. Someone has to watch your back and the overall situation. Kids? Depends on the age. Have a plan to fall back into your house. A spot to make your last stand and a plan to get in the car and haul ass.

But mostly be somewhere you don’t have to worry about your home turning into a mini Alamo