New Guns and Eating Crow

Gun shops are weird things. They are some of the last havens of manliness. Whether this is good or bad depends on the shop. Amybear went to X-ring in Newark with me and was decidedly uncomfortable. She had a distinct sense of not belonging. On the other hand I have gradually gotten to know the guys at Millers. I really like that shop a lot and it has a very nice atmosphere. It isn't uncommon to see women there and men will often bring their wives or girlfriends.

Occasionally it is the other way around. I talked to a nice older lady who brought her husband in to buy her some guns. They both shoot cowboy and clays together. She warned me that if I ever taught Amybear to shoot, she would probably be beating me in short order. Evidently her daughter is a much better shot than her husband. I told her that was a risk I was willing to take.

So I picked up my M1 at Miller's Friday night. The salesmen were all asking to take a look at it, since Auto-Ordnance just started making them and they are relatively new on the market. Plus a lot of them are old timers who actually carried the darn things in the military. The showed me how to strip it and noted that it was all new manufacture just as AO said it was. GI issue parts have contractor's marks on them, but the AO parts were clean. They told a few stories like "when I bought my first one of these they were $20 including shipping and handling from the NRA." Another was "we sold Chinese surplus guns like this for $80 in the 1980s." Oh well. The consensus is that my gun looked pretty good and was in a lot better shape than most of the surplus ones they have seen lately.

This morning I picked up some packages from the office which included a sling and oiler for the gun. I couldn't get the darn thing to go on, so back to Miller's I went. I figured there was a trick I must be missing and I was prepared to eat crow for not knowing it. The answer: nope no trick just put the sling around the oiler and pull like hell. I took it home, laid it on the carpet, braced the gun under my knees, and pulled as hard as I could. The darn thing popped in alright. Tomorrow I hopefully get to shoot it.