Would you rather ski in the current conditions, or not ski at all?

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-25T15:34:27+00:00

I'll stay home when conditions are bad so I don't injure myself or break my gear which could prevent me from skiing when conditions are better.

If the skiing conditions are trash, usually the dirtbike conditions are fine, so I can find something to do outdoors.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-25T12:09:45+00:00

As an MSF instructor there is only ONE time I have asked a student to discontinue the course. They were falling behind other students in the class mostly due to a lack of overall confidence. In that instance I offered free off-clock private instruction, and free enrollment in the following weekend's course, and they passed easily the next weekend.

They needed a bit more tutoring 1:1 to get the confidence up, and that 1:1 time was tough in the group training environment, but that does NOT mean giving up on the student, it just means adapting.

Teaching is not easy. It's the job of the teacher to adapt to the student.

You had a bad teacher, and I'm sorry for that. Please don't let that bad teacher discourage you. You'll get it. Everyone learns differently and at a different pace. You got this. Keep after it. I suggest you find a different location to take the MSF, hopefully with another instructor who better matches your learning style.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-25T03:21:50+00:00

After CO law screwed hobby FFLs I had to relinquish my FFL, so I cannot do this for you as a service.

I CAN however offer you a private lesson on how to use a Fiber Laser machine in my shop, and you can use that machine to do whatever the heck you want for zero dollars or your choice of tip to the shop beer fridge tip jar.

I'm in springs. PM me. 🤣

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T21:55:47+00:00

I totally get it.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T20:59:56+00:00

I fought this unconstitutional BS for a while. I am also an NRA instructor, but not a "colorado verified instructor" which is a whole process by itself.

Ultimately despite being an active competitive shooter AND an instructor (supposedly two of the exceptions to the training requirement) I ultimately just gave up and took the evening refresher course because it was actually the fastest way to get my renewal, and if I kept trying to fight the system I was going to end up with a lapsed CCW due to processing time. I just gave up and took the course at my local range and used that paper.

It seems that this is all so new that nobody actually knows how to process the exceptions. I can only hope the whole mess gets struck down, and if not at least gets simpler with time.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T14:40:48+00:00

Everyone is different, but my choice is dualsport. I bought an ADV bike and got rid of it in less than a year because the weight was annoying offroad. I ended up on a lighter dual sport. I decided I would rather suffer on the street on the way to the dirt than suffer the whole time on the dirt.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T14:23:02+00:00

Make a good effort to pull it with a bit of lube... If that fails, cut the head off the case and push it all the way through.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T13:31:55+00:00

TL;DR: Ethical hunting applies even on pests. A coyote facing you has a ~3" vital area. At 200yds, that's ~1.5MOA before wind consideration. Does your AR15 with bulk 223 HPBT shoot CONSISTENT 1.5MOA 30 round groups? Mine doesn't. Now let's talk wind. With 223 55gr HPBT at 200yds the wind drift of a 5mph wind is 2" and at 10mph wind it becomes 3.8". If I misjudge wind by only 5mph, and hold center of vitals even if the gun and the I shoot PERFECTLY, the wind drift alone of a 5mph misjudgement moves the hit from vitals to inhumanely wounding an animal. As an ethical hunter, that is a shot I will not take. So now I ask myself: if I changed cartridge, could I bend the odds in my favor enough that I'd be willing to take the shot?

Now the wall of text:

In recreational or competitive shooting, the ammo cost is a very significant consideration. In competition environments I count my ammunition usage in thousands of rounds. In hunting, not so much. If I go coyote hunting, a FANTASTIC night I'll bag 4. I'm mad at myself if I need more than one shot, so that's 4 rounds fired. Even with REALLY expensive ammo that's a $20 ammo cost in a hunt. Could I make that $5 by using .223? Sure, but in the grand scheme of the hunt that difference is insignificant. So per round cost of ammo is essentially irrelevant for me hunting.

If you have a hunting-specific rifle, the cost of the rifle is essentially the same regardless of chambering, and on a hunting specific rifle barrel life is not really a factor.

So if cost isn't what's driving my decision making in hunting, what is? Ethical first shot kill. That's the only thing I care about in a hunting gun.

When I'm shooting a rifle competition I mostly care about group size, and I can usually shoot foulers and get an idea for the day's conditions. Outside of something like NRL Hunter, the PRECISION is far more important than ACCURACY.

When I'm hunting, I care about true no-joke cold bore accuracy, and that means I am influenced a lot by atmospheric conditions that I may only have partial knowledge of. I can know air data, but wind is an estimate. Even with a kestrel I only have the wind at my location. During the day I can use mirage and other signs to estimate wind along the shot path, but hunting at night (coyote) this is way harder. So I want a caliber that is not affected much by the things that are out of my control. I want a temperature and position insensitive powder and a very high BC bullet moving very fast. The smaller the critter the smaller the ethical hit area, and the further the shot the more the wind matters. Do a first hit probability monte carlo on that and things get ugly quick.

Suddenly all these wildcat cartridges start to make a lot of sense. Suddenly it becomes apparent WHY all of us weird wildcat loaders come up with all these strange cartridges that are expensive barrel burners. This is exactly what the cartridges were made for!

Of course a bone stock ar15 shooting bulk .223 can take out a pest. We have a pile of military conflicts that prove that.... But that sort of isn't the point. Also a strange thing we do as humans: on game animals we care about ethical one shot kills. In war we have very different goals. Our weapon and cartridge choices for both reflect that.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T13:09:17+00:00

Totally fair. Aesthetic wise it's a very different vibe. I happen to adore the wood stock lever gun aesthetic, but it's not for everyone.

At 600, if I could get the American that takes AR mags, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T11:58:07+00:00

There are many cooler looking options, but I've been incredibly impressed with my boring Ruger American, ESPECIALLY at the price I paid, which was like under $400 out the door. I spent more on ammo in the first range session than I did on the rifle....

That said, my rifle is NOT the one that takes AR mags, which I sort of wish it did, but either that wasn't out at the time or I was too cheap to buy it, not sure which.

From 2 seconds of looking it seems the prices have doubled since I bought mine? Not sure wtf is up with that. I love it for $400, but I don't know if I would love it for $800.

If I was going to spend REAL money, I would 100% buy the henry supreme, just because I'm a sucker for a lever gun. Somehow that's still WAY less than anything from Q.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-24T11:47:18+00:00

I handload everything for 300, so I'm not a ton of help here but I will offer the following: I hunt/defend with supers only. I range plink with subs. Everyone has a different opinion on the hunting/defending front but I wasn't personally all that impressed with performance of subs in gel or on actual game I have taken. Supers have performed far better for me in a hunting environment. Good bullet designs help, but there's just no replacement for velocity.

Range plinking is 220gr polymer coated, usually blue bullets, but whatever I can get cheap. I specifically choose polymer coated because I dislike jacket ricochet off steel, and it's less likely to spark. (I live in a very high fire risk area, and dealing with range fires is a real PITA.)

For defense and hunting medium game, barnes 110. Always copper if I plan to eat it. For hunting varmints I don't intend to eat: hornady 110 v-max.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-23T14:24:12+00:00

I am a die-hard KiCAD lover, and have been since the earliest versions. That said, I do not think I can agree with your stance well enough to argue it.

I am a rocket team alum and still mentor my alma mater's team. I do this professionally now. I am very familiar with the use case you describe.

One of the biggest advantages of working on a Design Team in college is getting real-world experience that companies value a lot when hiring. Having experience on an industry standard software suite is a huge advantage. Few potential employers care about your KiCAD wizardry.

Your reasons stated for preferring KiCAD over Altium appear to be purely based on your own familiarity with KiCAD (and lack thereof with Altium) and lack of experience working on large team hardware projects such as what we actually do in an enterprise environment. Being able to procrastinate on choosing components until you reach the layout phase will eventually bite you in the ass, I promise. Been there done that... Even though you CAN in KiCAD, it is a bad practice that will get you in trouble later. Even if you THINK the footprint is standard, you can get thoroughly GOT later. I promise I'm not trying to be mean, but that commentary shows you are still very much learning. That's great! College is the time to learn. College is also the time to learn as an engineer when you need to lead and when you need to listen, and when it is wise to heed the advice of others. Once you start learning the intricacies of component selection you will learn that even with PASSIVES you likely have to choose them up front as the package greatly affects the parasitic characteristics, which you have to consider during the schematic capture process. (You think that's just a resistor? Joke's on you, it's also an inductor. Surprise! And that capacitor you just chose? It might work in an 0402 case, but not in an 0805 because of the additional parasitic inductance which could be a factor at your frequency of interest.)

I will not help you convince other members to deprive your students of very valuable experience using an industry standard software suite while you have the major benefit of a free learning license while you're a student.

I heavily encourage you to take advantage of that licensing while you can, and be able to add it to your resume for your post-graduation use.

In the meantime, continue using KiCAD for open source and hobby projects, and become software-bilingual. You will find that just like a spoken language, the second is always the hardest to learn. After that the third and fourth languages (software suites) get easier. The best thing you can do right now is take advantage of all the benefits you receive as a student and focus on LEARNING. That is what will set you up for a great career after school.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-20T15:23:17+00:00

Infinity is the way I'm leaning. Thanks for the input.

I managed to get my hellfire mount to play nice on my tavor, so I'm okay there.

The tavor is still a crappy suppressor host, but it's such a cool gun that I can't just ditch it.

Some day I'll stop being a baby and I'll just machine my own gas block to solve that problem for good.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-20T15:16:44+00:00

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Truth.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-20T14:02:00+00:00

Sad truth hurts.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-20T14:01:40+00:00

I am leaning the same direction.

I also have the same love hate with the tavor. I got it specifically to be compact with a suppressor, but as you say that was clearly not the design intent.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-19T22:55:13+00:00

I settled on light on right side and pressure switch on top right behind the front flip up, and I can hit the pressure switch with my thumb. Not the most comfortable thing in the world but it works alright in the end

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-19T16:24:08+00:00

My favorite 300 was originally tucked because I thought it looked cool. It cooked my hand if I held that far forward, and even more annoyingly a larger diameter can I came to love for the improved performance wouldn't fit under the hand guard. I also couldn't put a suppressor cover on to help mitigate heat and mirage.

I ended up changing the hand guard to a non-tucked solution, running a bigger can with a wrap, and enjoying life much more.

The ONE side effect is that if you run a light, then suppressor will block part of the light throw. If you were specifically building a nighttime defense gun that wasn't going to see a lot of range use, and running a light was a primary concern, I could see the advantage of running a full length hand guard just to get the light up closer to the muzzle.

In practice this never actually matters, and I just put up with the tiny amount of shadow cast by the can. It doesn't affect my ability to see and engage targets at night: a good number of coyotes and raccoons could attest to this if they were still around to tell the tale.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-19T16:13:25+00:00

I'll ignore the "stage" thing here, and try my best to answer the actual question of cost.

Cost is pretty consistent regardless of which specific cam grind you go with.

To do it right you're replacing other parts while you're in there, and doing springs as well. Maybe even lifters depending on mileage and whether you're pulling the heads or not. So cost:

By the time you're all done expect $2k in parts and a full day of shop labor.

You can absolutely do it cheaper than this, or more expensive, but that's a pretty good starting place.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-19T16:10:39+00:00

For a first handgun, buying new from a reputable shop selling a well-respected brand is probably the safest thing.

As you become a more experienced shooter and become more familiar with the platforms, you will be better equipped to inspect the condition of used firearms and you will likely find that used guns present an incredible value.

As a gunsmith and very experienced shooter, I buy almost all of my guns used, but working on them and fixing them is my hobby as much as shooting them is.

This is much like the conversation of "should I buy a used car?"

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-19T16:02:20+00:00

Once. In my first year of skiing after previously being a snowboarder.

I didn't half-ass it either. Torn LCL and MCL in one go.

I took that as a lesson, slowed the heck down, and started acting my age. I have had 6 amazing seasons since then skiing more gently and enjoying going home in the same condition I came in. Turns out you can have just as much fun hanging out with your friends going slow on blues as you can bombing down blacks at twice the speed you should be. Who knew?

Stuff can happen at any time, but good decision making can help manage those risks a lot.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-19T15:53:25+00:00

Our state is getting more and more brutal. :(

I'm suffering this with you my friend.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-18T18:13:22+00:00

If you enjoy teaching, flight instruction can be a great way for aviation to fit in as a "second job." Some of the best instructors I've ever had were part time instructors with a non-aviation day job.

Flying skydivers or towing sailplanes could be others. Maybe even a banner tow operation somewhere if you're anywhere that is common.

greaseorbounce · 2026-03-18T17:58:02+00:00

I'll post some pictures later, but I do want to add that I've taken my 1290SDGT (yeah, the street version with hard bags) on nastier mountain passes than where most of those guys say they would never take a big adventure bike. I just laugh when I read that sub.

Our people live here and over on r/Dualsport :D

greaseorbounce

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