Well I am about back from our third Hot Wheels Redline show in Las Vegas and as a sidebar to the main event a couple of guys and I take people out into the desert and have a range day before all the official Hot Wheels stuff starts. The other two guys brought the usual ak, ar, and Glock type stuff and I try to mix things up a little bit with what I bring. I brought my Ruger American Ranch in 300 Blackout with my Silencerco Omega 36M, Sig P226 with Silencerco Osprey, Ruger MkIV Lite with Silencerco Switchback and the Ruger No.1 in .458 Lott. Before all of the festivities started I gave a brief demo on the effectiveness of the silencer on subsonic 300 Blackout so shot a round through it without a can and then around through it with the can and got the usual laughter and amazement. You basically had people lined up to try it at that point. I then gave a demo of the elephant rifle and actually had four or five guys shoot it and laugh hysterically and how much it moved the plate compared to all the other calibers. All throughout the rest of the range day and for the next few days of the Hot Wheels show I had people coming up and thanking me for bringing the silencers and the elephant rifle and they also asked me how they could get a silencer themselves. Needless to say both were a hit.
I also got to experience my first California AR-15 and all I can say is a whole bunch of f*** that. A guy from California brought it and he had borrowed it from a friend so he had no idea how to work it and it does not work the same as any AR that I am used to so I had to figure it out before we could try shooting it. On top of that he brought hex mags that had limiters in them and to say they were unreliable was an understatement. We ended up using my lancer mags that I keep with my bolt gun for subsonic blackout in his AR and it ran fine with those. The whole notion of a bolts not holding back on the last round, having to tip the back of the receiver up via the takedown pin before you can use the mag release, and only holding 10 rounds is absolutely Insanity to me.
Each year we get a few more guys it wants to go and join so next year we will probably have 20 people out there and I will see what assortment I can bring next year to let people try something a little bit out of the norm. Stuff that I brought that was somewhat different seem to be more popular than the ARs and AKs that the other guys brought.
One last thing I learned is don't take your good Target stand out to the desert and let a bunch of people shoot at it. I have had that thing for five or six years and only had one incident with it where someone shot one of the legs but this go around someone try to show off and bonfire from the hip they're AK pistol and now my whole freaking stand is shot up. It is somewhat frustrating but that is I guess the cost of business sometimes.
I also got to experience my first California AR-15 and all I can say is a whole bunch of f*** that. A guy from California brought it and he had borrowed it from a friend so he had no idea how to work it and it does not work the same as any AR that I am used to so I had to figure it out before we could try shooting it. On top of that he brought hex mags that had limiters in them and to say they were unreliable was an understatement. We ended up using my lancer mags that I keep with my bolt gun for subsonic blackout in his AR and it ran fine with those. The whole notion of a bolts not holding back on the last round, having to tip the back of the receiver up via the takedown pin before you can use the mag release, and only holding 10 rounds is absolutely Insanity to me.
Each year we get a few more guys it wants to go and join so next year we will probably have 20 people out there and I will see what assortment I can bring next year to let people try something a little bit out of the norm. Stuff that I brought that was somewhat different seem to be more popular than the ARs and AKs that the other guys brought.
One last thing I learned is don't take your good Target stand out to the desert and let a bunch of people shoot at it. I have had that thing for five or six years and only had one incident with it where someone shot one of the legs but this go around someone try to show off and bonfire from the hip they're AK pistol and now my whole freaking stand is shot up. It is somewhat frustrating but that is I guess the cost of business sometimes.
