How to Paint your Carbine by Pat Rogers

The following is an article on how to paint a carbine by Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical. Pat Rogers is a a retired Marine Corp Chief Warrant Officer as well as a retired NYPD Sergeant with a wide and varied background in the CT Community.

Since 1992, Pat has been running EAG Tactical and is one of the most respected tactical trainers in the business. When it comes to a practical no BS approach to training and shooting, there are very few that can hold a candle to Pat and EAG Tactical.


Painting a Carbine.

We get a lot of questions about this, and we see a lot of people who spend a lot of money to have their carbine painted. The reason for painting is to make the gun less visible. Black is the absolute worst color for a gun. It makes the gun more visible in both day or night. A single earth tone color will partially accomplish this. Blending several of these colors together is better still.
Spending a lot of money for decals that replicate patterns (digital or otherwise) are expensive and certainly make the gun pretty however, they may not provide better camouflage than other methods.

Our priorities are:
Make the gun less visible
Minimal amount of time with the gun out of service
Minimal cost
Easy to retouch

We use only Aervoe paint. We find the Aervoe to be more true to color specs and be more durable. Aervoe is available at some of the larger gun supply sites. If you do not have access to Aervoe use whatever matte colors you can lay hands on.

Prep:

Ignore PEO Soldier- Painting Your Rifle 101. They were smoking crack when they wrote this.
Use SLiP2000 725 cleaner or whatever cleaner you normally use (eg Simple Green etc). If the gun is heavily lubed wipe up the excess inside the upper and lower receivers- this will leak out and cause paint not to adhere.
-Stuff some paper towel in the flash suppressor.
-Put the lens covers on the optic.
-If you have a white light on the gun, tape the lens and any rubber (push button, tape switch.
-Remove anything you don’t want painted.































Hint: the paint dries faster if the gun is warm. We use sunlight to accomplish that.

Use Aervoe 977 Sand (30277) or other light color tan or khaki for your base coat. Mist the gun with this paint. Use broad strokes to lightly cover the entire gun. Repeat with one or two more light coats. Don’t look for 100% coverage and don’t use heavy coats of paint.
Painting the exterior of the barrel will not hurt anything. It will not burn off under normal or even hard use.


I use a small strip of camo net as a mask. If not available, you can cut small holes in an old sheet or paper.
-Place the camo net over the gun and shoot a light coat of a brown through the net, I use Aervoe 480 Highland, but any similar color will do.
-Don’t shoot through every hole, and don’t try to cover every square inch of the gun.



Apply the net in a different location and shoot it with Aervoe Marine Corps Green (34052) This is a very dark green.

Apply the net in a different location and shoot it with Aervoe 932 Dark Green (34102)


Once finished, take a can of Aervoe 987B Olive Drab 34088 and lightly over-spray the entire gun. Use long, full power strokes from approximately from about 18”.

The purpose here is to blend the other colors together.

If available, overspray with a Matte Clear spray. These are generally hard to come by in Matte.
Again, misting will give a flatter finish. Heavy coats will leave a shiny finish.



The entire job- minus prep and drying after the Matte Clear Coat- should take no longer than 20 minutes.

The gun should be shootable within an hour. If you have the ability to leave it in the hot sun to dry for several hours, so much the better.


We have taken guns out and shot them within an hour of painting.

If you are lacking time or a variety of colors, use Sand for a base coat and Olive Drab for splotches and over-spray.
Brownish colors work almost everywhere (how many green animals have you seen?)

#31 is a little over a year old and has 13,000 rds downrange.



S/F

Pat sends
www.eagtactical.com



Thanks again to Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical for allowing me to use such an excellent write up and how-to. Click the EAG banner at either the top or bottom of this page to vist EAG and learn more about Pat and training with EAG Tactical.

LMS Defense Kent Mundell Memorial Carbine Course

On the evening of December 21, 2009 Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputies Kent Mundell and Sergeant Nick Hausner responded to a domestic violence call in Eatonville WA. The report stated that a man, David Crable, was fighting with his daughter and brother. After entering the home, the Deputies convinced the intoxicated man to leave the house when he produced a previously concealed gun and fired ten rounds at the officers.

Both Mundell and Hausner were hit but despite being wounded, Deputy Mundell managed to remain focused, return fire and killed Crable. The suspect's brother and daughter even put themselves at risk to pull help the wounded Hausner out of the line of fire by pulling him into another room.

Deputy Mundell was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he remained on life support in the intensive care unit for the next seven days. On December 28^th, 2009 with his wife and other family and close friends by his side, Kent Mundell passed on. He left behind his loving wife, two children and many other grieving family friends and colleagues.

While still reeling from the loss of another Officer here in Washington, Kevin Williams a primary instructor of LMS Defense in Washington came up with an idea to help raise funds for the family but also to help train others to possibly avoid a situation like this in the future. With the LMS Defense training team on board Kevin started to organize the event for February 2010 and announcements went out to LE agencies, past LMS Alumni and across message boards like Lightfighter.net that help connect many of these professionals from all across the globe.

Support poured in from all across the country in the form of monetary donations as well as raffle prizes in support of the memorial event. The typical course tuition for an event like this would be $190 but for this event, all the money that was collected went to the Kent Mundell Memorial Foundation. And with a class size of 26 and hundreds more offering support it’s no wonder that this one day even raised nearly $8,000 for the Mundell family.

On the cool early morning of 27 February, 2010, 22 shooters gathered at a shooting range nestled in the foothills of mount Rainer. But we all came together with one goal in mind and that was to honor Kent Mundell in a special way: Train hard.

Kevin started off the morning with introductions around the group which included Officers from many different departments, Firefighters, EMTs, Soldiers industry professionals and civilians. Some were SWAT, some had combat experience, others had real world trauma experience, previous tactical courses and experience contracting overseas in theatres like Iraq and Afghanistan. From there Kevin gave a range safety brief and then laid out how the course would unfold throughout the day. The training plan included:

-Pistol and rifle qualifications

-Shooting from standing, kneeling and prone to include barricade shooting

-Shooting while moving, box drills and the infamous Roadhouse Rules

-Lunch and Prize Raffle

- Transition drills, malfunction drills, reload drills

-Tactical Trauma and life saving skills

You could tell after this course brief that the pace of the class was going to be fast and the bar set high to perform well. Not only did you want to shoot your best but Kevin said there would be certain events where there was some quality prizes being donated by some of the tactical industries most reputable names.

The training day began with pistol and rifle qualifications. For me being a .mil guy, shooting rifle from only as far as 100 meters and closer was a no brainer. Having done this for years with only iron sights was easy but doing it with a micro-dot on a well tuned LMT rifle made it very easy. I managed to hold my own pretty well and shoot accurately, smoothly and consistent.

Next up was the pistol qualification evolution. For me, I knew this would be more difficult since I have only seriously begun pistol training and drills over the last few years and never anything 50 meters out for record. I had confidence in my Glock 19 to keep me from looking like too much of an ass and after it complete, I scored well and was even told by a few of the LE guys that I did a lot better than many LE guys that have the chance to shoot this course monthly at a minimum.

After all the scores were tallied up Kevin brought out the first of the surprise prizes. A DB-L knife to each winner donated by the good folks at Strider knives. If you know anything about Strider knives you know they are top notch kit coveted by many as the hardest working knife out there and they are not cheap or easy to get.

Over the next few hours Kevin put us through many scenarios and drills including reloads, transitions, barricade shooting, multi-target and shooting on the moves. It seemed as we learned something we just kept adding another step and making it more advanced until the evolutions culminated with many shooters moving quickly, acting confidently and engaging with professional accuracy.

Being a lefty I do things differently than most when it comes to shooting. Not only is it the fact that I shoot rifle left handed but couple that with me shooting pistol right handed. Many have pointed out during training that this is a very odd way of shooting. The amazing part was there was not one, but two shooters in this class that also suffered from this ‘affliction’. One of them, a Pierce County SWAT guy who has been on the job for a long time and the other was Scott, a regular at many of the LMS Defense courses. It was nice to see that though we had never met before, we were all using the same technique with a subtle difference here and there due to body types and gear setup.

The morning flowed so well that everyone kept pushing to learn and shoot at an insatiable rate. Finally Kevin called a working lunch and everyone gathered under the overhead cover to eat some food, drink up, dry off and reload. Kevin used this time to start the raffle. There were donations from many great companies, gear makers and distributors. Probably the most coveted item that everybody wanted to win was a Primary Weapons System MK-1 series piston upper assembly. If you are not familiar with PWS then you really have no idea what you are missing. The good folks at PWS make some of the best weapons and accessories out there. Not only did they donate such an awesome item but two members of the PWS Team drove all the way from Idaho just to show their support and shoot with us and brought some nice little goodie bags for all in attendance. There were also gift certificates for training with the great Pat Rogers from EAG Tactical, a huge selection of gear from Tactical Tailor, holsters from Blade-Tech, knives from SOG and much, much more.

After the raffle and lunch wrapped up, we began the Tactical Trauma evolution. Kevin had reached out to his fire fighter brethren and arranged for two EMTs to give us this block of instructions. These guys were nothing short of professionally passionate about what they do. One of them has nearly 20 years on the job and the other is also a Special Forces medic who has seen combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This was not a full blown trauma course but rather a condensed block about saving your partners life. Most gunfight wounds have one major thing in common: blood loss due to extra holes in the body. This was all about being able to stop that bleeding and moving your partner to safety. From pressure bandages, to wound packing with Kerlix, to applying tourniquets-it was all expertly covered. Then the big surprise came out with the introduction of live tissue to apply everything learned.

In the final few hours of training we covered more shoot and move drills and malfunctions. Malfunction drills hold a special place in my heart as I feel this is a skill that everyone who makes a living behind the gun needs to not only know how to shoot but they need to be able to problem solve and fix their gun when it goes down. It was said to me once years ago and I say it often: If your gun goes down in a gun fight you have the rest of your life to get it working again.

Kevin teaches some very solid methods in getting your gun up and running to put get you back in the fight. It wasn’t just a show and tell either. The practical application part of this was the Blue Falcon drill where you set your partners gun up with a failure and then they have to work through the problem. Everyone really took a liking to this evolution since it gave you the chance to be creative and really mess with your partners head.

By the end of the day everybody was dirty, tired and a little wet from the occasional showers well known in the Pacific Northwest. More than 20,000 rounds had been expended and the ground literally glowed with a brass hue. After we assembled for a final class photo Kevin gave us some finals thanks for helping out the Mundell family and honoring his name and sacrifice. However we were only a small group of 22 that represented a much larger group from all over that helped make this event possible.

Thanks to the LMS Defense team and Kevin Williams for putting on such an event. Without their effort this event would never have happened. To all the vendors that donated so much: Primary Weapons Sytems, Pat Rogers of EAG Tactical, Strider knives, Blade-Tech, Magpul, LaRue Tactical, SOG Specialties, Tactical Tailor, SLiP 2000 and many others I know I am forgetting we all thank you. This was a great day spent training for a great cause.

The loss of Officers lost in the line of duty happens far too often in our country. Mindset, training and preparedness can give that much needed edge when it comes to being the Last Man Standing in a fight. Train hard, train often.

Train with LMS Defense!

Tula .223 55gr Ammo Report

As an avid shooter who likes to spend as much time training as possible I am always trying to get the most for my money. It’s a delicate balance between quality and value. For the last several couple years I have been running SPEER Lawman or BVAC 5.56 ammo through my gun. I came across the Tula .223, 55 gr. ammunition at my local Cabela’s so I started doing some research on them.

Tula ammunition is manufactured at the Tula Cartridge Company in Russia. They are a large supplier around the world and sell a lot to militaries as well as the private sector. They make several different calibers and bullet weights (grains). The one that grabbed my interest was the .223 55gr as it was only $3.79 per 20 round box. When I do the math that’s only $190 per 1k rounds. Normally I have been spending nearly double that for quality brass ammunition.

Tula ammunition boasts a 55 grain FMJ bullet in a steel case with a non-corrosive boxed primer and the bullet themselves are a full metal jacket. Basically perfect for training ammo where you may expend several hundred or more during one training day. I have heard that some variants from Wolf mfg have had a very rotten egg smell as well.

I wound up picking up 500 rounds of the Tula to give it a try in my gun. Presently I am running an LMT 14.5 with a PWS FSC-556 compensator. The gun had about 3,000 rounds prior to this and I use SLiP 2000 Gun Lube. My first impressions were that the coatings on the steel casings were nothing like I heard from the old Wolf lacquer horror stories which caused chamber seizure. The Tula ammo has a very thin coating of polymer (so I have been told) which caused no issues for me. I also like to inspect my ammo before I buy and out of all the boxes I looked through (around 100 or so) I found no bad primers or miss-seated bullets.

Testing:

I loaded 4 Magpul P-Mags with 28 rounds per for a total of 112 rounds and put it through my LMT gun in under 5 minutes leaving 1 round chambered at the end. My intent in leaving one round chambered was to see if I could induce chamber lock due to the coating on the casing. After letting the gun cool down for nearly 20 minutes I slowly pulled on the charging handle to see if it was locked in. The round easily ejected with no signs of chamber lock. I fired the rest of the 500 rounds over the course of the day and broke the rifle down once I got home to inspect it.

What I found upon inspection is the ammo was a dirtier then SPEER or other US ammo. However it never got to the point where it affected the performance of the gun itself. Also, I had no failures while running the Tula ammo and every time I pulled the trigger the gun worked just as it should. I keep my gun well lubed at all times and do very minimal cleaning. After such a positive test result I went back and purchased 2,000 rounds for future practice and a carbine course I had scheduled through LMS Defense.

Over the course of the next few months I put nearly 4,000 rounds through my LMT carbine with no issues to speak of. I had 3 failure to fires within all that time but they were all during a carbine course and it was just a rack and re-fire and I never stopped to dwell on it. I am now over 5,000 rounds through the gun with no issues that would raise an eyebrow.

So here is a brief synopsis:

PRO:

-Very affordable to shoot at an average of $190 per 1k rounds. That’s about $200 less then most US brass ammunition.

-Boxed primer and non-corrosive means the ammo is not going to hurt your gun if you neglect it.

- .223 caliber in 55 grain means it is a pretty light round and easily manageable for long days on the range and has decent accuracy in a carbine.

CON:

-Not made in US which can result in poor quality control issues.

-Steel cases are not reloadable

-Tends to be a dirtier ammunition overall.

Bottom line:

If you are on a tight budget, the Tula may be good ammunition for you to shoot. It is reasonably priced and readily available through Cabela’s who will ship to most states. You can really add to your training time spent pulling the trigger compared to working more just to afford more ammo.

However, if you are looking for a clean running, super accurate, reloadable brass case then the Tula ammunition is not for you. It runs dirtier than most, the steel casing are not reloadable and from my experience it’s not a tack driving round.

-Op4

Noveske...by the pint

Like most here, we have a passion for many things and one of those is our beer. I'm not talking about the watered down piss that gets high school kids drunk but rather full bodied beers that truly quench the pallet. For me, nothing makes the end of a hard day better then enjoying a nice cold beer and though I am fine drinking from a bottle I really prefer to use my pint glasses.

You can pour beer in any glass or even a plastic cup but there is a definite satisfaction when drinking a fine ale from a quality pint glass. I have collected quite a few over the years but I do really like traditional conical versions. So enter the Noveske pint glass:



Noveske went with a traditional conical pint glass which always fits well in the hand. The nice thing about this style of pint glasses is the lip is very chip resistant and they stack well without becoming stuck together. Basically you can pile several on top of each other in the cabinet even if wet and have no worries about needing to rip them apart. A simple design that has proven effective for generations.

Noveske has had there name etched in the glass: One side is their Noveske name with cross


while the other side has their .com name with what I believe is one of their Afghan rifles



The quality of the etch is very good with clear lines. However, many may think that the etch is not even when they first see it since if you rub your finger across it the etch almost seems to lighten or fade. This is a normal thing with etched glass as the oils or perspiration from your body cause it to fill and almost make it transparent. Personally it adds to the beauty of a fine pint glass that very few will ever truly appreciate.


So after a long day of range work or shooting and you feel like enjoying a fine pint of your favorite ale, why not pour it into a quality pint glass to better enjoy it? It's a true custom pint that can can hold the best ale, opened with a LaRue Dillo and enjoyed by knuckledraggers everywhere.




I got mine from Noveske direct for only $8 which is a bargain for a quality pint glass. They would also make great gifts for friends during the holidays or after a deployment to toast their return.


-Op4