Still hunting. No luck yet though. But plenty of cold. This is the closest I have come to one so far.

The weather has turned cold so I am hoping for the rut to start.

Maybe (hopefully) I will get one Thursday.

The Boog in HK has reached a new level. It looks like the citizens have now crossed that mental line I speculated about a few weeks ago . The last four days has seen some crazy things.

CAMPUS PREPARES FOR SIEGE

The situation in Hong Kong went from bad to worse on Thursday, as the unprecedented weekday protests – a violation of the tacit agreement between the pro-democracy movement and the business community not to disrupt weekday commerce -continued for a fourth day on Thursday.

After a squad of HK police officers earlier this week raided the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, but purportedly found nothing, protesters accused them of unjustly harassing students, many of whom are simply trying to get through the semester. Just a day later, student protesters (the backbone of the increasingly radical movement) are openly making petrol bombs and have cordoned off their campuses, transforming them into literal staging grounds for the protest movement. 

In one video circulating on Twitter, students at CUHK have established check points around the campus’s perimeter to stop any undercover cops from entering.

As Reuters described it, “hundreds of young people dressed in black set about turning several of Hong Kong’s top universities into fortresses, well stocked with improvised weapons.”

At City University of Hong Kong, Reuters said protesters were using ping pong tables, potted plants, furniture, sports equipment, and bamboo to build a network of barricades to block roads and fortify the entrances to the student residence complex. Some took garden hoses and hammered nails into them to create rope-like lines that would rip up car tires. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters wearing gas masks and helmets accumulated piles of paving bricks and ceramic tiles to hurl at police, while others stockpiled dozens of petrol bombs to distribute to their forward positions.

With protesters wielding increasingly deadly weapons – and the HK police resorting to increasingly harmful tactics (they’ve shot at least three protesters as of Thursday evening, local time) – the situation in Hong Kong is threatening to spiral into a whole new level of violence.

One anonymous demonstrator told Reuters that the protests are just trying to even the odds between them and the police, who carry guns.

“It has never been a fair war zone,” said 23-year-old Josh, as he watched protesters practice shooting arrows at Baptist University (BU).

“We have nothing, only masks and the police have guns. We’re only trying to defend ourselves.” 

Another young student protester insisted that they tried the non-violent approach, but the police escalated.

“We try every peaceful means but we fail,” said Chris, 19, a student from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

“We would probably throw petrol bombs and bricks because we don’t want our friends to be injured,” he said, breaking into tears as he described police crackdowns.

“I’m willing to die for Hong Kong.”

Of course, incidents of violence by both sides have been increasing.

Down in the central business district, protesters had gathered to paralyze the city’s economy for the fourth straight day. Even more companies have asked employees to stay home, and according to Bloomberg, JP Morgan has cancelled its planned Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference that had been set for Nov. 18 and 19 in Hong Kong. Schools remain closed, and the city remains largely immobilized by the violence.

In another disconcerting development, the Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled tabloid, tweeted Thursday that Hong Kong’s government would impose a curfew over the weekend. The tweet was up for roughly 40 mins before it was deleted, with the paper’s editor later claiming that it was a premature editorial misfire.

But was it a trial balloon? A warning? or truly just an editorial snafu?

Is Beijing finally setting the stage for the PLA to arrive and forcibly restore order?

Shawn wanted me to write about this, but I wasn’t sure where to start. I’m kinda of a negative nancy and I find disappointed in most stuff. It would probably be quicker for me to list the things I am not unhappy with. I’ve probably liked about half of what I’ve purchased over the years. I like my Surefire silencers. I like most of the Colt and Larue stuff I’ve purchased. I like the ARs I have kept. Umm. . .

I had a HK P7. It grouped like a laser. Extraordinarily easy to shoot tight groups. It would also rust when I looked at wrong, and would get extremely hot fast. Not in a, “do rapid fire and get hot” way, but a “I was shooting groups and I burnt my self on it way.” At least it went up in value and I made a little profit when I sold it. It also requires a special scraper tool to clean that I didn’t have.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Beretta 92FS/M9. I don’t think it is a bad gun and many of the critiques against it are more just peoples personal feelings and opinions. Still, I feel like it is about 5-10% oversize for what it is. The grip and long double action trigger pull just made it not fit my hands. I could shoot it well but I couldn’t manipulate it well. I am glad I never had to rely on one to protect my life.

While I was in the military, I went to a range that had rental guns. Several times I rented their CZ75B in .40. It was such a nice smooth shooting gun. When I got out, I decided to pick up a CZ75B in 9mm. It never felt as nice as the .40 I had previously used. Both grips cracked and broke. I asked CZ to replace them, they wouldn’t. So I bought new grips which cracked and broke. Then I started reading stories about CZ slide stops failing. You couldn’t buy a spare. I finally decided to get rid of it and just stick with Glocks.

I’ve had a laundry list of issues with Eotech optics. I had a 512 where the battery contacts broke. I had a 552 where it lost the nitrogen purge and became too dim to use during daytime. My 553 had broken battery contacts and the lens started delaminating so you could not see the reticle in a vertical strip on the left hand side of the window.

The KAC SR25-EC was a bit of a disappointment for me. By the time I got one to try it was old news and already discontinued and the replacements for it already replaced with newer models. I had always heard about how light and handy the SR25-EC and EMC were, along with how soft recoiling they are. When they came out, they might have been the best on the market. But by the time I was able to try a SR25-EC, I was able to shoot it side by side with a Colt 901 and a Larue Ultimate Upper and it was just a fat pig in comparison. It just has been surpassed by newer options.

My biggest disappointment would have to have been my SLR106UR. Besides having many problems with it, I spent a whole lot of money trying to build it into something that it could never have done well it begin with. I wrote about it a little here.

I have a SIG Rattler to fill that role now. It is ok.

After having a good bit of issues with my first MK12MOD1 upper, I never really cozied up the setup. Stuff like the Larue barreled uppers out shot it and were handier.

And lastly, the MP5. But I will talk about that another time.

User ssimo over on the Barfcom shared some links to some pictures to seized weapons from drug cartels and other criminal groups. I screenshot cropped them to make them easier to look at and posted the best ones below.