Saturday morning was spent watching my son play flag football (something I'm actually really beginning to enjoy and look forward to), and although I was chomping at the bit to get to the gun store, I acceded to my wife's request to jam over to Costco first.
Finally, we made our way to the gun store where my wife dropped me off (she made a beeline for Barnes and Noble).
I went straight to the counter, whipped out my receipt and waited as the guy went in the back to get...
The manager.
Uhhh... where's my rifle?
Apparently the warehouse had not shipped it to the store. Unbelievable.
The clerk who saw me first then started telling me that the gun was iffy as far as DOJ goes, that they hadn't decided whether or not to proclaim it as an assault weapon yet. This kind of talk really started to make me a little nervous, if you know what I mean. I do NOT want to blow it with regards to CA gun laws. He suggested that I roll the money I had over into a Springfield M1A, which was the second choice on my short list.
The clerk who had originally sold me the gun overheard this whole conversation, and finally broke in with an exasperated,"Guys! That's a legal gun! The DOJ agent who gave the store so much grief had to make a formal, public apology to the store!" He went on to point out that he could forward me some correspondence showing that the DOJ had in fact attested to the legality of the gun I was buying. I'll post the link here, for anyone who's interested. Be warned - it's 26 pages...
Bottom line, my gun was unavailable for pick-up, and I was not happy (and a little bit spooked by the first guy).
The manager told me he'd jam out to the warehouse Sunday morning and have the gun here for me by noonish. I couldn't really do much else than say OK. Didn't care much to throw a fit, it wasn't his fault and throwing a tantrum wouldn't get it here any quicker anyway...
Sunday rolled around, and I got a call...
"Do you know what I'm looking at right now?"
"Hope its an STG-58"
"Yessir!"
"Be there in 30 minutes!"
Shot back to the store, checked out my rifle (I'd bought it sight unseen), signed off on it, got a free box of ammo for my trouble and left with a shit-eating grin and a new rifle...
The magazine is fixed in place by both a screw and a spot-weld I was told. That's the way it'll stay, too, unless I move out of CA (or at least get some property out-of-state).
Now, if anyone's got a line on some cheap .308 ammo, I'd certainly appreciate a heads-up.
6 comments:
Crumbs, everyone knows us Brits can't shoot for toffee - have you warned the neighbours yet?
Sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but cheap .308/7.62 NATO has been as plentiful as hen's teeth for the last couple of years.
The South African stuff was the last of the imported stuff that was brought in to the country and everyone who has a mil-pattern .308 was buying the stuff left and right at the time. Demand has been pretty high for ammo, worldwide, as you might imagine, and .308 has been no exception.
The commercial Winchester White Box stuff is sometimes available and I've found it's performance and cost acceptable, all things considering.
Dog around at all of your local gun haunts and if yours are like mine here, they are piled high with junk and sometimes don't know what they have stored under certain areas that have been collecting dust for years/decades. I found some rather choice Santa Barbara (Portugese) mil-surp stuff that was loaded by Hirtenberger about a year ago at one of my local stores. An excellent find, I think.
Good luck, sir, and happy shooting!
Just watch out for corrosive primers, Checkout Ammoman Cascade or J&G Sales - HTH!
Thanks for stopping by, guys...
SWS - It's probably best if I don't mention it to the neighbors, seeing as how I'm in poor odor with right now, having flooded their yards last week (sprinkler operator malfunction)...
B&N - Thanks for the tips - I picked up some of the SA surplus over at Outdoor Marksman for $70/140rounds... that's about the cheapest non-corrosive stuff I've found yet.
DC - I've been meaning to ask you about getting into reloading - I have no idea where to start, and it might be prudent to do so now that ammo prices are so high
I went by WalMAart andf bought a box of .223 - they had .308 too. :-)
I have left my reloading gear stand idle while I did other things this summer.
The results are better quality ammo but to get there it's finicky and time consuming, especially with a single-stage press - like everything in Life, the key to good results is preparation. Having said that, the .308 case is more efficient than a big ol' cavernous .30-06 and produces marvelous accuracy.
This year there is a whole separate NRA/Springfield M1A Match at Camp Perryr with some big prize money involved - it's taking place next week, Aug 6-10.
Geeze andf I should learn to speel...
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