{"id":8395,"date":"2014-10-23T20:38:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T00:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=8395"},"modified":"2014-10-23T20:44:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T00:44:00","slug":"new-rifle-old-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/?p=8395","title":{"rendered":"New Rifle, Old Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Training\"<\/a>It was a nice fall day and although I had taken some time off from work, I rolled out of the vacation sack early to put on some OD BDU’s and boots to join the SWAT guys for a range qualification day.\u00a0 I got a kitchen pass from the Missus!\u00a0 Man, reliving old times.<\/p>\n

When I came off the road and into detectives, I gave up my AR-15 to an ex-SWAT guy working Midnight Shift.\u00a0 I figured he needed it more than I did.\u00a0 I still have my Remington 870 with rifled sights, SpeedFeed stock, and Surefire foregrip light in the trunk of my unmarked.\u00a0 While the shotgun is nice, it’s no carbine.<\/p>\n

My bureau has an AR assigned to two detectives, but my LT said he wanted me to take it since I am tactically trained and they are not.\u00a0 Okay, Boss, whatever you say!\u00a0 In my office, I examined the gun, a Rock River Arms LAR-15 with aftermarket light kit.\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00a0 Only one 30 round mag in the bag–with 15 live rounds in it.\u00a0 There was exactly nothing else accompanying the gun in the nylon case.\u00a0 A shaky start.<\/p>\n

The AR was not all that clean and looked a little scraped up.\u00a0 The three point sling was set up wrong.\u00a0 Even the light’s pressure switch was just dangling loose on a strip of gummy electrical tape.\u00a0 I frowned through a function check.\u00a0 This Stoner was not the surgical instrument it should be.<\/p>\n

I arrived at the range and was greeted like an old warrior by the assembled shooters.\u00a0 I had been on the Team since the 1980’s and the newer guys called me OG.\u00a0 Others had worked for me while I had been Team Leader for over a decade.\u00a0 It made me smile to see them now in charge.\u00a0 Changing of the guard.<\/p>\n

I had cleaned up the AR and properly reinstalled the sling.\u00a0 I brought my own spare mags for the AR.\u00a0 I loaded them and waited patiently for the qual to start.\u00a0 I chose a lane on the far left end of the range.\u00a0 The line went hot and we square off against the blue B-21 targets.\u00a0 Pew, pew, pew.<\/p>\n

It had been more than a year since I broke sear on an AR-15.\u00a0 I swear it was an ethereal experience.\u00a0 From the familiar sight picture to the metallic ting of the shots, I was in a fantastical zone and internally content.\u00a0 I really felt like Luke Skywalker when he first held that Lightsaber.<\/p>\n

Word of caution: I had never fired this particular AR before.\u00a0 The initial course of fire started at the 50 yard line and moved progressively inward.\u00a0 I had no clue where my shots were hitting at first, though I was consistently holding at high center chest.\u00a0 I did not have any joy until we came down to the seven and I could see the holes.<\/p>\n

Ooooo, I was well clean in the 5 zone, all rounds qualifying.\u00a0 The windage was perfect; elevation about 5″ low.\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 In the latter stages of the qual, I was nailing headshots in controlled pairs.\u00a0 If you know where to aim, you can put the “lead” where it needs to go.<\/p>\n

I can tell you that I miss being SWAT.\u00a0 The guys still consider me a shooter, but they are the ones doing the heavy lifting now.\u00a0 I really enjoyed making hits with the carbine.\u00a0 Every trigger pull was tactical bliss.\u00a0 I feel good that I again have a rifle to take on stakeouts, warrants, and situations.<\/p>\n

Everything about shooting with the guys felt right to me…but I know my place.\u00a0 I left before lunch time.\u00a0 The TL’s and ATL’s need to be the undisputed officers-in-charge.\u00a0 I was just glad to have been welcome for my very short stay.<\/p>\n

Randall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a nice fall day and although I had taken some time off from work, I rolled out of the vacation sack early to put on some OD BDU’s and boots to join the SWAT guys for a range qualification day.\u00a0 I got a kitchen pass from the Missus!\u00a0 Man, reliving old times. When I came off the road and into detectives, I gave up my AR-15 to an ex-SWAT guy working Midnight Shift.\u00a0 I figured he needed it more than I did.\u00a0 I still have my Remington 870 with rifled sights, SpeedFeed stock, and Surefire foregrip light in the trunk of my unmarked.\u00a0 While the shotgun is nice, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firearms","category-swat"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28xkp-2bp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8395"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8405,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395\/revisions\/8405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinblueflorida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}