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seadawg221 wrote:This thread reminds me of a day a a few months ago. My wife and I had just left the Pasadena gun show and decided to drive to the Texas City Range. As I was driving down Hwy 146 marilyn was loading magazines for me. I got into a yelling match with a guy on a motorcycle while he was next to me at a stop light...he kinda stood up and I guess he could see Marilyn loading those mags...he sat down, looked straight ahead and did not have anything else to say.

That's pretty funny! and brings back memories...

I used to ride motorcycles back when I was in CA. When you are in full leather and kevlar you feel pretty invulnerable. But I can see that once seeing ammo, anybody should realize that his/her kevlar is only a couple of layers.

I still remember coming back from a ride and couldn't go down the mountain pass because some motorcyclist crossed the double yellow earlier, hit an oncoming car, and bounced off the cliff. The whole section of the road was sealed off (on Hyw 17 between Saratoga town and Skyline Blvd), so I had to detour to Page Mill Rd in Palo Alto on Skyline. It used to be I'd hear 1 death every 3 weeks or so, but the above death somehow sticks out all these years.

I remember the times when we headed to track days... and pushed our bikes into our motel rooms. Boy, if those motel management ever finds out:) We were poor and could afford a trailer, and we didn't feel safe leaving our bikes out. It's fortunate that none of us crashed on the track... or we'd be in a pickle. Young and careless, but we survived.

Actually, even before the above incident, most of my spare guns are already kept in the garage.

The good thing about having _all_ your stuff in the garage is that you'll spend some time making improvements to the garage... like me :) The first thing you'll do is put in good lighting, next comes the shelves and closets (initially to block the public's view of my gun safe when the garage door is open), then comes a really nice work bench.

Right now, I'm trying to decide if I want to replace my garage door w/ one that have windows...

[quote="sparx]
... is there any particular reason that your wife doesn't like you to bring guns into the house? I'm sure you've tried to reason with her, as an unloaded gun is nothing more than metal and wood/polymer and no more destructive than a hammer (but sure is a heck of a lot prettier!)... I'm just curious. [/quote]

Actually there is, and it isn't entirely my wife's decision. We have an autistic son who's really curious about new things. In fact, he's the reason that I always use a locking gun case as a range bag (very difficult to stuff too many things in, not convenient).

For matches, I use a soft range bag because I can put more things into it (like my ear muffs, some cleaning supplies). I usually pack everything into the bag and leave it in my trunk the night before. However, one day, it was very late, so I left the packed bag next to the front door instead of the car's trunk.

Well, the next morning, my son's sitting in the foryer with my entire range bag emptied. There's my gun (still in its holster) and loaded mags on the floor. He was more interested in the boxes of ammo. It was very scary, so as a punishment to myself and to help calm wife down: no more gun stuff in the house.

AOPAPilot wrote:

j1132s wrote: Basically, when I go to the range these days, in order to save time, I've been loading my mags in my car while enroute during traffic light stops.

Thanks.

Quit being stupid and keep that activity to the range or a private environment (i.e, your home) If you dont have time to load a couple mags at the range then you need to try managing your time a little bit better.


You are welcome

Actually, I load about 10 mags on each range trip and bring only 1 pistol. And try to keep my door-to-door range trip times to ~30 minutes. Sometimes, I'd load in the range's parking lot, but generally I really hate being inside an indoor range.

Usually, my range trip goes like this these days:
1. load about 5 or 6 mags on the road;
2. load the other 4 in the parking lot;
3. try to shoot just 1 target (to safe time)
4. leave

All that, my record is 30minutes door-to-door (i.e. leaving my house's front door and coming back). Usually I get it in about 40minutes.

I hardly ever clean my guns anymore. New guns gets cleaned after each trip for breakin, etc. But I find that they function just fine w/o cleaning after a many trips (each trip runs about 100 rnds thru them). I now only shoot 2 pistols, so they are getting a lot of use (trying to become proficient).

The problem I have is that my gun stuff is in the garage and it's really uncomfortable to work on them now. I cannot generally have guns in the house... although I sneak them in sometimes to clean at night when wife is sleeping... like now :)

It is so humid and uncomfortable in the garage.

isa268 wrote:http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ ... MBI+LOADER

get one of those.

i have something like that for my 1911 mags, loads them in about 5 seconds. i only have 4 mags and they are always loaded with my carry load so i have to unload and then reload at the range.

Do you mean loading your 4 mags in 5 secs? That's amazing.
Or is it 5 secs/mag ?

[quote="longtooth
...
You do not give a location nor the mags you are loading at the traffic signals either. 8 rd pistol mag in you lap or 20 rd AR. or do you have one of those 30's ...[/quote]

The locations have much traffic and generally on the highway entrance and a shopping center entrance. There are 5 lights between me and the range and 2 of them can get kind of long (enough to load 2-3 mags of 10 rounders).

I only load preload pistol mags.

Thanks for the advise guys. Yes, I've been thinking along those lines too, and definitely any calls to the police from other motorists would probably delay me a lot.

I shoot much more often now and just wanted to save some time. But probably not worth the risk.

BTW, I just load small pistol mags. I almost always load rifle and rifle mags at the range.

Hi,
I don't see any reference regarding ammo and magazines in the CHL handbook. So, using my common sense: if it isn't outlawed, it's legal.

Basically, when I go to the range these days, in order to save time, I've been loading my mags in my car while enroute during traffic light stops. Since I drive a regular car, I'm worried that other people in higher vehicles SUV/Truck/Motorcycle/etc. can see me loading.

Just wanted to make sure I'm truely legal; in case I missed something in the books. Also, in case somebody reports "seeing a gun", I put my gun in the trunk.
Thanks.