Blackwater Blog Weekend: Woohoo!

Two excellent pieces of news have just arrived:

1. The other two boxes of pistols have reached ParaUSA in Tennessee. They will now be prepped for sale. They're going to give us four magazines for each gun, too, which Kerby did tell us about beforehand in a feeble attempt to keep Robb from smuggle magazines out of the Blackwater compound in his luggage.

2. The Crimson Trace Lasergrips we used are being included with the guns. The price of the guns is confidential, which is fine with me; Para's rules are Para's rules. But suffice it to say that I did not expect the Lasergrips to be included for that price. I was actually thinking about this tonight on the way home from school; I was thinking it was too bad that I couldn't afford the grips, but maybe in awhile I'd save up. Now I'm excited. BIG THANKS once again to the guys at Crimson Trace, who shot with us and gave us awesome grips. Seriously, if you found yourself transported back in time to a chow hall in 1917, and Sgt. Alvin York asked you to pass the hash, and you said, "You know, one day, people will carry a version of that gun with a trigger like a double-action revolver, only not, and it will have totally sweet grip panels that shoot lasers at your enemies," well, he'd look at you as if you were nuts, and not just because you'd failed to pass the hash. And yet it has come to pass.
I guess that means I can buy Lasergrips for the SIG instead.

Crimson Trace had already stepped up once at the Blogger Weekend. See, they put up a pair of grips (winner's choice) to the person with the best overall score through the shoot house scenario we ran Sunday morning. That's pretty nice and everything, all well and good. But as lunchtime approached, it seemed like we were moving through pretty fast, and maybe more shooting could be fit in, so we put the question to Todd: "Please, sir, we want . . . . some . . . more?"
It does not take a lot of peer pressure to get Todd Jarrett to chuck the schedule and shoot more bullets. He called the camera over, asked us loudly if we'd like to shoot it again after lunch, and got a "HELL YES" chorus in return. And so we did.


When we went back, Todd disappeared into the shoot house for awhile and came out chuckling. As a professional educator, I understand that when designing an assessment instrument causes one to chuckle, there's something tricky going on. Anyway, it was quickly announced that this time, there would be three prizes:

1. First Prize winner would get a set of Lasergrips for any pistol. Remember, this contest wasn't in the schedule, so at most, the Crimson Trace guys had had lunchtime to talk it over and decide to give away more of their product--and it wasn't like they were giving away hats and keychains here. These are pistol grips with fricking laser beams shooting out. They ain't cheap.
2. Second prize would win 500 rounds of the excellent frangible ammo we were using. This was a coveted prize, because that stuff is AWESOME. It'll get its own writeup soon. Imagine putting your muzzle an inch from steel plate and emptying the magazine--safely--and then backing out to 25 yards and shooting a personal best group.
   
3. Third prize would win 500 rounds of the excellent frangible ammo we were using. At this point, Todd Jarrett objected; the 3rd place finisher would get 499 rounds, he said, because he personally would take one. Robb won the third place prize, and at the end of the day when Dan the ammo guy gave him his half-case of .45, he removed one round and tracked down Todd to put it in his hand. Jarrett shared a good laugh with us for a moment, then got serious: "Let me tell you something," he intoned gravely, looking Robb in the eyes, "Third place don't NEVER get second-place money!"