A new gun range in Oklahoma City slated to open this spring is aiming to be quite a bit different than anything else in the state. Wilshire Gun will be a state of the art facility that plans to have 24 firearm lanes, 10 archery lanes, a simulation room, classrooms, and a VIP lounge. But what’s raising eyebrows is the plans to have a cafe that will serve both food and alcohol. There are a few other ranges across the country that have a similar offering, but they’re still pretty rare. Co-owner Jeff Swanson said they’re working with some of those other ranges, who have never had a problem, to make sure Wilshire does it right. The goal is to make sure people shoot, then drink, not the reverse. The main aspect of the system to ensure that . . .
is that anyone who orders a drink has their driver’s license scanned, and that red flags them from entering the ranges as either a spectator or a shooter for the remainder of that day. The City Planning Commission voted 7-2 to allow the plan to go forward, and it will go before the Oklahoma City Council on May 27th. Here’s hoping the politicians are able to think rationally about this, because I’m a fan of letting adults act like adults.
Some rat bastard robbed a youth sports club in Crossville, TN last Sunday night, nabbing more than $3,000 in equipment and cash in the late night break-in. The goblins ransacked a safe (which looks more like a locker to me) at the Fairfield Glade Sportsman’s Club that contained 8 rifles, including a custom, one-of-a-kind rifle that was supposed to be auctioned off to raise funds for the youth shooting club. Also taken was a case of shotgun shells and a bank bag containing about $500 in cash. Cumberland County Sheriffs have already made a couple of arrests and recovered some of the ammunition, but the guns, including the presentation piece, are still in the wind. If you’re in eastern Tennessee and know anyone who suddenly ended up with an American flag-patterned shotgun by Ballistic Specialties, you might want to let someone know.
Remember the huge backlog of background check requests in Maryland last year, and how some dealers were actually following state law, which requires the releasing of purchased firearms after a week regardless of whether the background check was done or not? That backlog at one point reached over 60,000, and only last week was finally completely cleared. As it turns out, more than 300 people that are legally banned from owning guns obtained them last year during the rush. A total of 51,812 guns were released without a check in total, and of those, 364 should not have been released. (That’s a 0.7% error rate, for those who don’t want to do the math.) Maryland State Police say a team of undercover troopers has now recovered all but four of them. Of the 354 people who bought guns they were barred from opening, only nine have been referred to prosecutors as knowingly illegal sales. “They’re just not seeing that clear intent to be fraudulent,” said State Police spokesman Greg Shipley.
Apparently some firefighters in Hanover, Virginia don’t watch Mythbusters. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a brief story that firefighters were battling a fully involved house fire in Mechanicsville on Friday when “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition inside the house started to pop off from the heat. According to Hanover Fire & EMS Battalion Chief William Jones, firefighters fled the house when the ammunition went off. No one was injured by the ammunition cooking off. I’m not going to second guess them too hard, though, because firemen routinely don’t hesitate to run into situations in which they have no idea what they’re going to encounter, so discretion seems to be the wise choice, especially when the structure is already fully involved.
MattV2099 brings us his “World’s Best Gun Fails.” Even if you don’t enjoy his “Guns & Food” schtick, it’s still pretty funny to see when he screws up and accidentally covers himself in paint, or tomato juice, or honey, or soda, or… y’know, you think he’d eventually learn how to do this stuff without wearing his work.
Doing an entire bit into the wrong camera was pretty funny, too.
On this week’s episode of Guns I’ve Never Heard Of, hickok45 takes us on an extended tour of the Sphinx SDP 9mm pistol, made in Switzerland and imported by KRISS.
That two-tone 3000 model sure is handsome. And $3,000. That price probably accounts for the handsome.
A buddy of mine has a really nice collection of Sphinx pistols. At first I just thought they were another CZ clone.
Was I wrong. Racking the slide was like nothing I’ve felt/heard before.
Superlative craftsmanship.
Hmm, source of pistols, regular reviewer–where’s the review? I’ve seen these advertised recently and wondered about them. So far, I’m impressed, and the price point is the same as a lot of the 1911s. so get to work, Tom!
Is that an AMBI Decocker!? It is. Well, that’s me sold right there.
It does look a bit like the CZ line but the decocker only option is more Sig like and they seem to emphasize the short and crisp reset that the Elite Sigs have in the SRT.
Basically, equal intrigue as the elite 229 series with a bore axis that doesn’t need you to set an anchor then repel off of the rear sight to aim. I’ll pencil it In as a gun to get…down the road.
I don’t know if it is quite like CZs in this regard but: With a CZ putting the hammer in half-cock gives you a good “index” for how far to pull the slide back before pushing the slide stop out. (When the slide touches the half-cocked hammer, it’s in the right spot) and you don’t have to do anything to the hammer to get the slide off after removing the stop.
Hickok45 had the hammer all the way back, and thus had to hold the slide in exactly the right place with nothing to “stop” it in that place (and I have noticed it tends to shift whenif you flip the gun over to push on the pin. Discovering the half-cock trick was a huge relief. But I also think CZ could put the alignment marks on the right side of the gun too, so no one unfamiliar with the half-cock trick ends up checking their lineup on one side and pushing out the slide release on the other.) Then he had to thumb the hammer down to get the slide the rest of the way off. All unnecessary with the CZ-75; you can do the whole slide removal with the hammer at half-cock–which is conveniently also the place where the decocker style leaves it.
I don’t know if a Sphinx works the same way, but I’d imagine the Swiss engineers kept that feature unless they had a very good reason not to. (I do know the Tanfoglio doesn’t work that way.)
I’ve seen the videos from SAAMI, and I feel safe enough keeping ammo in my house even if there’s a fire.
That said, I don’t blame a fireman one bit if they want to let the ammo burn off before running into the room.
My thought on ammo in a house fire is that if there’s ammo there’s likely to be guns. 1 or more of those guns could be loaded. Fire causing an open round to cook off is one thing, but a chambered 12 bore is another thing all together.
It may be very unlikely that an uncontained round will be able to do significant damage, but the inside of a structure that is engulfed in flames is a hostile enough environment that I wouldn’t ever fault someone for avoiding it altogether, especially if it’s uninhabited.
As a devout practitioner of Murricuh, I must now procure an American flag-patterned shotgun.
Like
The “Planning Commission” AND the entire City Council get to have an opinion and get to dictate the operations of a lawful private business? Sounds like Ct or Md or NY. But OK??? Build it in free America.
Where is this free America that has both a population (i.e. someplace a business has people to sell to) but no zoning board full of old busy-bodies ready to tell you your lighting is the wrong color or your parking spots are too wide? That’s a feature of life everywhere. There aren’t many states freer than OK.
This is actually typical. Planning Commission is the administrative review, and is the only level of review unless someone “appeals” to the City Council–which is a more political review.
Hopefully the firearms prices at Wilshire will encourage H&H to reconsider their markup on firearms sold there.
H&H’s prices can be… High at time.
I doubt it, the place is going to be more high end with a VIP area upstairs. To me that screams that their prices are going to be higher and the range fees will be higher as well.
i only go to h&h to do p2p xactions… sometimes check out reloading components.
their prices on everything are so far beyond redonkulous that i dont even look at any of their guns as they are so. freaking. high. its offensive…. used disgusting guns for over new price. whatever.
as far as wilshire goes, i am stoked, supposed to be 100yds indoors. competion is always good.
I don’t see the problem with alcohol. Even the Fort Bliss Rod and Gun club has a bar. With the way the military is with booze and guns it is amazing that it is allowed. If I remember, if you’ve had a drink you can’t go back out to the line. You can have a drink after you are done shooting, or just drink a whole bunch and not shoot at all.
Matt does his videos for science. It will really help me out in the future knowing that 5.56 goes clear through a bottle of honey. I’m not sure what it will help me with, but I am sure I will figure it out.
At least two shotgun clubs near me in TX sell alcohol or allow you to bring it, but only for after shooting.
thanks for sharing my silly vid 🙂 appreciate it! and enjoy your articles!
Painting in the thumbnail for the vid (upper left small blue painting) is an original by epic artist Allen Jaeger
Mattv2099,
I may have a bit of penis envy going here.
By my count on a freeze frame while you were eating, you might have more glock brand GLOCK magazines than I have.
Hangs head in shame….
He certainly has my pitiful count of 9 of them beat. But then I usually don’t carry Glocks.
That’s great, I always shoot first, then put up my weapons, sit back and have a cold beer, sounds good to me. Is anybody taping this!
Simple solution for the range vis a vi alcohol issue. In order to shoot, you get a wristband (color coded for the day, whatever security measure) that grants you entrance to the range areas. When you go to the bar, the wristband is removed. No wristband, no shoot. It’s easy.
I was thinking of a pass card of some type. Scan it to get into the range = go anywhere after. Scan it at the bar = no access to the range. Pretty simple if the two are segregated in some way.
That wristband idea works so long as someone doesn’t exit the bar, then decide to go back to the front door to shoot. The passcard seems more big-brothery but is a bit harder to defeat this way, as long as it “remembers” you for at least X (usually eight, though commercial pilots have a 24 hour rule) hours after exiting the bar.
The private gun club I belong to here in RI has a bar. No one violates the shoot-then-drink rule because no one wants to lose the bar…or the club. Been that way since 1926.
We have an awesome new indoor range in Saint Louis, on Gravois, http://sharpshooterstl.com/ they have a truly state of the art facility with lanes wide enough to accommodate two people at one time.
On one side are the lanes, and on the other an awesome BBQ place, but no booze.
I was a bit surprised when I saw you could not order a beer but then realized maybe the logistics and PR of that were a tad daunting.
Seems like the place in OK has an … sorry … OK policy on how to deal with this.
If folks are unable to get back to the pew-pew-pew side of the operation after having a few, then why not have a place that serves booze? I wish them well.
“360 no scope”
LOL, that was funny!
I’ve been to high dollar gun clubs which had restaurant/bars in the clubhouses.
No more problem than a state having concealed carry permits and taverns in it.
Man, OKC gets all the fun….
ya you poor guys have NO good options even in terms of guns stores. bad times!!
we have a high end range like that in the Dallas TX area it’s in Frisco and is much the same as ok’s club but the restaurant is allegedly 5 star and membership fee is $5 – 7,000 per yr per member they serve drinks there I’m sure they have some safety measure in place not to mix the two….by the way…this place is for the rich and famous that rules me out….
Man, you guys just keep giving the antis potential (unavoidable pun) ammunition, don’t you?
What? Clarify please, I didn’t see any statement in the above replies that the anti’s could use. All said responsible gun use is acceptable. Adults should be adults and so forth.
Because antis are known for paying attention to details? What they’ll see is “herp, derp, I want to have booze at the range”. Frankly, it doesn’t dispel the “ignorant, irresponsible gun owner” myth/stereotype.
No it doesn’t. But walking on eggshells trying to dispel a stereotype doesn’t either. They’ll just change the narrative.
If we walk the line we still lose. Biting back gives us ground to gain and something to fight for. Acting like children when we are adults isn’t going to solve anything.
Jug, no one needs your permission to have a drink after some shooting at the range.
Don’t like it, don’t go.
Have a nice day, pumpkin.
@DerpOnHellChild
Nice try, carrying over your little snide comment-fest from the other thread: I never said that anyone needed my permission to do anything, I said I didn’t need your permission to post something because you deemed it “rather off-topic”.
Thanks for playing.
I like you, jug, you’re fun.
You remind me of someone.
Your real name wouldn’t be James P. Barnett III, would it?
I personally don’t give two shits “what the antis will see.” They’ll see what they want to see, and if what we’re doing isn’t good enough, they’ll just make stuff up. The truth has never, not once, gotten in the way of them telling the story the way they want to tell it.
Rounds will cook off in a fire, I’m
Not sure as to what the round is ballistically capable of.
The Sphinx series of pistol looks cool, is buy one but I’m inable to find one for a decent price.
I don’t see what the big deal is, other than knee-jerk (guns and alcohol don’t mix!) hysteria, with serving alcohol adjacent the gun range. They swipe the I.D. so you’re on the no-entry list if you’ve been served alcohol. What’s the problem?
If anything, it funnels guys’ shooting activities to this range where they can shoot, then drink in the same general environment, as opposed to going off into the woods drinking and shooting together.
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