Who Designed This Thing!!??!! And Appreciate All of Y’all

Greetings and Salutations!
So the gig with GunGal is not happening.
Not enough biddness to justify hiring me.
Damned shame that. She -is- selling the place, and doesn’t know if the new owners are going to keep the staff on, however… Sapper is the only full-time paid employee, and the others who work there work for the discounts on the weapons.

If the new folks want to have a master gunsmith/DotMil qualified Depot Level Smol-Arms repairman on hand, who ALSO could sell damned near any weapon to anyone, I’d be the go-to-guy IMO.

Either way, I have other ‘fish on the griddle’ so to speak.

“I’m not ded yet!”

So… either way I went down to see about a job there as well as putting one of the Lee Enfield rifles on consignment. Only to find out she’s so close to a sale of the biddness, she’s no longer getting or doing consignments. Meh. Not a biggie. Gunbroker is a thing if I need to.

I mean I still have all my vay-kay (50+ hours) to be paid out, plus a month severance. Add on I had to cancel the Mexico Cruise (dammit!… DC did get one more ‘fuck you’ in on me the fucking bitch <hawwwwwwwk-SPIT!) Which ALSO means the $200 in Pesos I got BEFORE the trip (to avoid the usual ruinous tourista exchange rate when I was there) I can turn into the bank and get back some of it for a smol fee…

The cruise company DID fuck me however.
I got only a 1/3rd of the invested $$$ refunded…
Fuckers.
That’s what I get for declining the travel insurance amiright?

Some is better than none…
“It is what it is!” as I’m so fond of declaring.

Now, to the title.
Today at the Gun Shoppe, Sapper started showing me some of the new toys that came in. One of which is a Daniel Defense Short Barreled 9mm Carbine. At first glance, it’s kind of cool looking:

It takes CZ Scorpion mags, as well as a bunch of other aftermarket mags. Officially it’s the DD-PCC-SBR, which stands for the Daniel Defense Pistol Caliber Carbine, Short Barreled Rifle, which is a fucking mouthful. It retails for about $1800 and change. That being said, on my handling and inspecting it? Let me ask: can anyone tell me what -I- saw that made me go “Oh HELLS No!”?

Here’s a close up of both sides of the upper and lower receiver and functional switches so to speak:

Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller? Bueller?
The Magna Carta….

So… let me explain here. It’s got an ambidextrous mag release, as well as a bolt catch/release. If you’ll notice, to ‘lock the bolt to the rear’ you have to pretty much push down on the bottom part of the release, as I have circled here:

Guess what ELSE you’ll ‘hit’ while you’re trying to lock the bolt to the rear?
Yep.
The fucking MAG RELEASE!!!
Talk about a fucked up design.
Now, granted, this is a rarity, BUT having had a in-real-life OMFG Moment with an M-4 that required me to lock the bolt to the rear during a firefight, this is a thing of badness. See… I had a misfeed one time… meaning I had one too many rounds trying to chamber at once (caused by a bad mag with a cracked feed lip I found out later).

In the Infantry, we had a drill pummeled into our heads when you had a jam. ‘The immediate action drill to clear a jam on an M-16/M4 platform is SPORTS (Slap, Pull, Observe, Release, Tap, Squeeze), designed to fix 99% of stoppages. The “Pull, Tap, Release” segment refers to pulling the charging handle, tapping the forward assist, and releasing the bolt (if locked) to chamber a new round.’ (H/T goolag AI)

So… when the weapon misfed, I looked,(observed) and realized that I needed to lock the bolt back, so as to shake the ‘extra’ misfed round out of the chamber. I did so, and was able to shake the round out, release the bolt, and Charlie Mike.

With this thing?
Under pressure?
You’re going to 90% if the time is my guess, drop the mag while trying to unfuck a jam, and leave you with your dick in the wind.

0/10 Would NOT recommend.

Not sure who came up with that, but it’s obviously someone who’s never been ‘in the shit.’ I mean the idea is sound, but the placement? That’s about as wrong as two boys fucking, with a third waiting in line. I mean people talk about KelTec… sheesh… And as far as the placement, they have no other place to put it… although I do have an idea… it would involve turning the release 90 degrees to either the front or rear, away from the mag release, and leave it on only one side. Enlarge the locking paddle juuust a wee bit, and have it completely away from the mag release. Here’s a crude quick photoshop of what I mean:

Make it so it’s a larger button that can be depressed so as to allow a quick and dirty bolt lock. YMMV…

So yeah…
Then, on other fronts
G is doing OK. Not as haunted, but I think that’s because the both of us are exhausted. Poor Muldoon is so used to being picked up the second he starts crying, we’re in for a few loooong weeks with breaking him of that… just like how he expects to be fed every. single. time. he throws a fix, hence why he’s the chunkiest monkey -I’ve- ever seen:

Makes me feel better about my own beer gut lemme tell ya…

Now to be fair, I took that right after he’d torqued down his lunch, hence the insane gut… which also covers the drool factor.

Blonde and Bloo-eyed… the same hair color as the Nukular Powered Red/Strawberry Blonde Gran. He’ll get back in shape eventually (round is a shape innit?) and he IS good natured and smiles and giggles a lot. He does seem to know that DC ain’t around anymore, but as he’s so young, it’s not a big deal as she’ll fade with time. Right now he’s grooving to having me around, as I can tell he knows that a male figure is here, which has been absent from the scene since the get-go.

And G is completely focused on him, so as I’ve been telling her, focus on the future, and not the past. “Just keep Swimming” as Dory said… which also brings to me the realization I’m going to be rewatching a LOT of Pixar animation over the next few.
Pray for me
That being said, I do want to thank ALL of you, the Studio Viewing Audience for all the kind words, both positive and negative so to speak, when I needed them. It’s why I haven’t either gone on a Crocodile Dundee “walkabout” (i.e. disappearing into the woodline forever) or suck started my gauge, not that I’d be apt to do that having seen what I saw this week… It’s been since 2006? 2007 since I’ve seen brains like that, and I’m good for another 10 years thanks very much. I’m also sure G has seen enough too…

But seriously… I appreciate all the support… Tactical Hermit, Concerned American, Mike Hendrix, Phil from BustedKnuckles… all sorts of weird and wild fuckers have been calling me and making sure I haven’t lost my shit, as this sort of shit would break lesser men. TBH, at this point in my life, this’s just another “Tuesday” amiright?

Best to keep a sense of humor, even a dark black one.

So More Later
Big Country