YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Well, HOT DAMN that was a fun weekend! I got to fire the M.A.R.S. unit, (Multiple Assualt Rifle System), I met some good people, and just had a great time.

The Raging Girlfriend and I headed out at the crack of dawn Saturday, met up with Analog Kid and Mollbot in Issaquaw at around 6:00, had breakfast, and then drove to the Tri-Cities. At this point, I would like to say that AK drove like a bat out of hell, but I can't. Nope. A bat out of hell would look like a sloth on Valium compared to AK. My poor little truck was screaming just to keep up with him. But we made it (in record time) to Benton City where we met Ivan, the man who researched, created, and now demonstrates the M.A.R.S. unit. I hadn't realized it when I was invited, but I guess this is an annual get-together for Ivan, and we were lucky enough to be asked to come. So I met quite a few people, all of them pleasant. There wasn't a bad/nasty/rude person in the group. We set up on Ivan's range ("I bought land so I could walk out my backdoor and shoot!") and settled in to blast some targets.

Ivan hauled out the big guns. And I do mean BIG guns. First there was the AK-47 marketed to the ladies (dusky rose stock and buttstock, rather fetching when paired with a pistol of any kind). Then there was the .50 caliber bolt action rifle. (Ivan's hunting rifle. I guess there's nothing like taking down an elk at over 1000 yards) One gentleman had brought his M1 Garand which he had never fired before. Ivan had a 10 gauge shotgun that he brought out. (And the Raging Girlfriend popped off both barrels at the same time. Heh. She rocks. Literally.) There were various other guns. I brought my 30-06, .22LR, and my .45 pistol. The girlfriend had her .38 Special. Mollbot and AK brought their respective arsenals, and the other folks all had a few guns of their own. Two gentlemen had AR-15's that they had customized a bit. Mollbot had his 30-30 repeating rifle, and was tossing lead downrange all day. Mollbot was also hitting the 125 yard target with his .357 PISTOL. Yow. Do not piss that man off. You will get hurt.

But the M.A.R.S. Ah, yes, the M.A.R.S. It's a modular system designed to hold any kind of Kalishnikov style rifle. AK 47/74. SKS, you name it, with a minimum of effort on your part. The bolts and rods fit into existing holes in the rifles. It's a two rifle setup, and you can hook any number of them together to operate at the same time. We just had the two rifle setup yesterday. It has a crank that can be turned by hand (as we did), or by any kind of mechanical device. Electric drill? No problem. Remote controlled motor? Yep. A cord attached to some other device? Absolutely. You turn the crank, and trigger actuators start hitting the triggers. It'll fire as fast as you can turn the damn crank. We were using 30 round magazines yesterday, but we got to see un-edited video of the M.A.R.S. with two 75 round drums in full on rock-n-roll mode. 150 rounds. 9 seconds. One destroyed car. HOORAH! And spitting out 60 rounds in less than 20 seconds? Priceless. Getting photos of the Raging Girlfriend spitting out 60 rounds in less than 20 seconds? Frigging awesome.

I got quite a few pictures of the people who had a go at this thing. And I think the girlfriend snapped a few pics of me as well. So, we'll be having some pictures once I get them developed.

Oh, and I can't forget the food. It was a potluck style event, so everybody brought something. I brought a case of Dr. Pepper and some fruit, Mollbot brought double chocolate brownies, AK brought prawns. There was chili good enough to make you pass out, cornbread, peach cobbler, ice cream, ohmygoodsuchgoodfood.... We had to sit around burping for half an hour after lunch before we could stagger back to the range. Like I said, good people.

We also pissed off the neighbors a bit, from what I could tell. But that's what they get for building their house next to a firing range. Heheheheheh.

If I get any pictures from other people, I'll put them up. It's time to take a stroll and stretch out my legs.