April First - April Fool's Day

April Fool’s Day, is not officially considered a holiday, is most definitely a notable day that is celebrated in many countries on April 1. The thing that is so special about April 1 (April Fools) is that it is the day for playing hoaxes and practical jokes of varied sophistication on others. The aim of these jokes is to bring embarrassment to the gullible.

Superstitions have it that the practical jokes are meant to be played before noon, and that those that are performed afterwards will bring bad luck to the perpetrator. This limitation is widely losing it’s value as a superstition as it is believed to have been conspired up by annoyed parents and school teachers who were wanting a respite from the day of pranks, as well due to the fact that many major hoaxes throughout history have appeared after noon. Another superstition is that anyone who fails to respond in the proper spirit of tolerance and amusement to the jokes played on them is also said to be liable to suffer from bad luck. Weaker sources indicated that being fooled by a pretty girl will be accompanied by marriage, or at bare minimum a friendship with her. That sounds like a good deal if she is truely pretty and it’s not just April Fools. Along the lines of relationships some people believe that being married onApril Fools’ Day is not a good idea for a man, and that forever in the future he will be ruled by his wife.

The origin of April Fool’s day is not clearly known, but it is generally accepted to have come about as a result to the changes in the calendar system. The New Year celebrations used to begin on 25 March and last for a week, ending on 1 April. In 1582, King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, in which the new year began on 1 January. Unfortunately, some people did not hear about the change, and many others simply refused to break the tradition. These people became the object of so-called ‘fool’s errands’ and tests of gullibility.

Copied with permission from: http://plrplr.com/44571/april-fools-day/

CLEAN YOUR GUN!!

So you are laying in bed and all of a sudden you hear the window in the living room downstairs break....you look out and see a masked and armed robber ransacking your possessions. You get your gun out, muster up all your courage, tell your wife to stay put, try to gather all the rage you are feeling into a calm, strong, determined approach to the situation at hand.  You then open the door creep over to the stairwell and manage to get down the stairs and just around the corner from the thug.  You pick just the right time to scare the holy crap out of him and then it happens....you step out and give your well thought out "Gotchya Line", he lifts his gun and..... 

If your gun fails to fire in that situation, you probably won’t live to regret it anyway. Neither will your family. (Of course, you can hide in your room and wait for your local overworked and understaffed police force to come to your rescue. But that’s another subject.) Clean Your Gun!

Cleaning Tips

Use a bronze wire brush for normal bore cleaning. When removing copper, heavy lead fouling, or plastic shotgun wad fouling use a nylon brush with Shooters Choice or similar bore cleaner. (Shooters Choice is a powerful bore cleaner, will eat bronze brushes.)

Some recommend to run the bronze brush through the bore once for every round fired. (I prefer Hoppes #9 solvent for light cleaning.)

If you are serious about the care of your gun invest in a coated steel or brass cleaning rod. Aluminum rods are soft. They collect grit and particles that can scratch the bore.

Wipe the rod off after every pass through the bore.

Use a brass jag to push patches through the bore. Dragging a dirty patch in a slotted tip back through the bore is not what I call cleaning.

Use a bore guide or brass “bumper” to protect the chamber or muzzle crown from damage.

Clean the action with a blast of pressurized solvent such as Gun Scrubber by Birchwood Casey. It cleans without leaving a residue.

Oil Lightly! Oil attracts dirt! If you can see oil, you probably oiled too much!

If you’re concerned that you’ve oiled too much, try storing your gun with the barrel down. This will prevent oil or solvent from seeping into the wooden stock.

Strip clean about every 800 rounds or so. If you don’t know how and don’t have an owners manual, take the gun to a Gunsmith. It doesn’t cost that much. (It’s cheaper than having him replace that spring that went flying into the recesses of your oh so clean garage or basement work room.)

There’s much more to gun care, but this info should put you ahead of the game. If you want to learn more, check out a hobby gunsmith course or talk with an expert In firearms.  You can visit reaperstactical.com and email them for further info. The guy there is Mike, he is good.

some of the content in the article was borrowed from the net.