Back from Ukraine/Czech

[visaveteran 1]

He probably will

I should add at this point that Alla likes skeet shooting! I bought her a Remington Model 1148S in 28 ga. And she does pretty well with it. On our recent vacation, I shot in a skeet competition and Alla was mad because she had to spend the day at the local library studying as she had some important homework paper due when we got back.

She also likes shooting the S&W .22/32 Kit gun and a Colt Police Positive Special .38. She is skeered of the .45. Too big and noisy. She hasn't shot any of the "big rifles" yet.

My wife likes going to the range too. She's definitely a novice but I like her attitude about guns and shooting. My ex American wife was very anti-gun. She pitched a fit when I started buying guns again after 9/11. And it got worse with her when I started takng our young son to the range. I think he was 8 or 9 years old when I started his gun training. Now he loves shootng and collects Russian guns. He has a great Russia SKS (hard to find now) that his late uncle willed to him. I gave him my Russian Makarov (a nice little pistol that allows goes "bang"). He bought himself an old Mosin rifle and traded a .22 pistol for a Tokarov. I guess there's an AK-47 in his future.

Anyway, it's good to have a wife who supports my interest in guns and shooting.

[slim 1,514]

Slim...where the hell are you? Please tell me you're not out buying flowers. Get your wife some ammo for your anniversary. Take her to the range...forget restaurants. We can't forget the long-term, wife training process here. Think man...think!

I'm on probation. Can't shoot for a while. But, my wife has been asking me to go shooting.

I didn't buy her flowers for our anniversary. I bought her cacti!

She is skeered of the .45. Too big and noisy. She hasn't shot any of the "big rifles" yet.

My wife really enjoyed the .45 but it was too big for her. So, now she says, "Probably I need like, .38 or maybe somesing like zis."

She shot my AR a few years ago and I told her to aim for a Mt. Dew can. She shot and it didn't move. I told her to shoot again. She did. Again, no movement from the can. One more time and she still didn't make it jump. So, I took the rifle, blasted it twice from off-hand and it didn't move for me either. Hmm. Sights must be off. So, we walked up to the can..... two holes spread in the top, three clustered dead center.

I'm staying out of her crosshairs!

I guess there's an AK-47 in his future.

A great gift for any occasion!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I have two ARs. One a pretty much off the rack Colt A2 standard rifle. The other is a Colt A3 match rifle which only resembles the military rifle in the receiver area, but it is an AR inside there. Alla hasn't shot them or any of the rifles but says "The Kalashnikov is better" Why? "Because it always works, sometimes the American rifle does not work. The American rifle is too expensive and fancy" She remembers all the lines from her Komsomol "military training"

She was surprised to see AKs for sale here. I have taken her in a couple of gun shops and she was amazed at the variety of guns and the fact that there were guns from "the Soviet Union" there.

[slim 1,514]

We like variety.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

We like variety.

Our company did a project for Century International and for a few weeks I was visitng their factory almost every day (imagine the need for that!) Where they are assembling AKs. She told me I should buy one (I was offered to be able to do so at the employee discount) I told her "Why? They are junk. I like Winchesters and AR 15s" That peeved her and I had to hear her tell me all about the great Mikhail Kalashnikov, Hero of the Soviet Union, poor farm boy who helped to save the motherland. AND she says she is tired of how Americans pronounce Kalashnikov. "It is Kah-lah-sh-nee-kof, NOT Ka-leesh-nee-kov" So there!

[slim 1,514]

Did you dare say something negative about the Soviet Union?

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Did you dare say something negative about the Soviet Union?

I guess thats what it is if you say an AK is "junk". It is one of those subjects where SHE can say bad things about it, but I cannot.

And you know that Mikhail Kalashnikov is pretty much a reverent figure. Along with Georgi Zhukov. When Alla gets on a roll I call her "Comrade Marshall Alla Zhukova"

Edited December 17, 2010 by Gary and Alla

[slim 1,514]

I guess thats what it is if you say an AK is "junk". It is one of those subjects where SHE can say bad things about it, but I cannot.

What's cool about my wife is she acknowledges the difference between "it works" Soviet engineering and "it works smoothly" American precision.

Either way, German stuff is best. At least that's what she tells me, anyway. I guess I better buy her a G-3. Waaaaay too big and heavy so it'll have to be an MP-5. But, that'll never happen since those are way too expensive. Guess we're back to square one. "Dear, would you like an M-4 or an AK underfolder for Christmas?"

And you know that Mikhail Kalashnikov is pretty much a reverent figure. Along with Georgi Zhukov. When Alla gets on a roll I call her "Comrade Marshall Alla Zhukova"

It'd be nice to have real heroes like that here. Reverent figures for us are actors.

[visaveteran 1]

It'd be nice to have real heroes like that here. Reverent figures for us are actors.

My hero...John Browning.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

What's cool about my wife is she acknowledges the difference between "it works" Soviet engineering and "it works smoothly" American precision.

Either way, German stuff is best. At least that's what she tells me, anyway. I guess I better buy her a G-3. Waaaaay too big and heavy so it'll have to be an MP-5. But, that'll never happen since those are way too expensive. Guess we're back to square one. "Dear, would you like an M-4 or an AK underfolder for Christmas?"

It'd be nice to have real heroes like that here. Reverent figures for us are actors.

True. I bet not one in a thousand grade school kids know who John M Browning is , or Eugene Stoner, or David Williams or John Garand. A few more may know who George Patton is, but probably not many. But every kid in Ukraine KNOWS who Mikhail Kalashnikov is and Georgi Zhukov also.

[visaveteran 1]

True. I bet not one in a thousand grade school kids know who John M Browning is , or Eugene Stoner, or David Williams or John Garand. A few more may know who George Patton is, but probably not many. But every kid in Ukraine KNOWS who Mikhail Kalashnikov is and Georgi Zhukov also.

Maybe Samuel Colt tops them all? Our love of western movies and TV shows makes Colt more famous than any Russian gun-maker...despite the numbers manufactured. Everyone's heard of a "Colt."

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Maybe Samuel Colt tops them all? Our love of western movies and TV shows makes Colt more famous than any Russian gun-maker...despite the numbers manufactured. Everyone's heard of a "Colt."

True, if only in hollywood fantasy. The Colt SAA was never as popular in the old west as it is portrayed. It was always an expensive gun. More of them were sold after 1956 than before, for example. The gun is very much an artificial icon of the old west. I would have liked to seen the S&W get more publicity. I have one of the Schofields made by the S&W Custom shop and will take it all over the Colt any day. For one thing it ejects all the empties at once...a 19th century speed loader!

I have occasion every so often to drive by the old Colt factory in Hartford with it's Blue Onion Dome, looking very Russian. The Blue Dome was put there to impress the Grand Duke of Russia who came to the US in 1871 for the purpose of killing buffalo and buying guns for the Imperial Russian army. Colt tried to sway his opinion but when he went up to Springfield, Mass he ended up buying Smith & Wesson's product (a good choice in my opinion)chambered for the .44 Russian, which later morphed into the .44 Special and the .44 Magnum

Also, one the best lever guns ever made (also designed by JM Browning) the M1895 eneded up being more popular in Russia than the US. More than half the M1895 rifles made by Winchester ended up in Russia chambered for the 7.62x54R cartridge.

And while all the RUB school kids know about Kalashnikov, Alla is not buying it that most of the Red Army's Moisin-Nagant rifles were made by Westinghouse. The rifle Vasily Seitzev capped all those Germans with was made in New Jersey!

[slim 1,514]

Maybe Samuel Colt tops them all? Our love of western movies and TV shows makes Colt more famous than any Russian gun-maker...despite the numbers manufactured. Everyone's heard of a "Colt."

Maybe of your generation and even into mine but today's kids and young adults are more likely to know Glock than Colt. Blame it on the rap music.

[Brad and Vika 129]

Maybe of your generation and even into mine but today's kids and young adults are more likely to know Glock than Colt. Blame it on the rap music.

I own a Glock .40 myself. When I lived in SC I saw a rep take one out of his trunk at a police demo, throw it across the parking lot and into a mud puddle. He picked it out, loaded it, stepped over to the range (maybe twenty feet) and fired away. Then he showed a film with the same gun being split out of a block of ice and immediately fired. I was impressed.

[slim 1,514]

I own a Glock .40 myself. When I lived in SC I saw a rep take one out of his trunk at a police demo, throw it across the parking lot and into a mud puddle. He picked it out, loaded it, stepped over to the range (maybe twenty feet) and fired away. Then he showed a film with the same gun being split out of a block of ice and immediately fired. I was impressed.

He didn't show this one though, did he?

I have a buddy out in Kali who had one do something like this in his hand. They are a fine piece, but like Russian wives, they're known to blow up sometimes.

Edited December 22, 2010 by slim