Time to check my focus

Found a really good article on several techniques on setting the microfocus adjustment on my 5d.

 AF microadjustment for the 1Ds mark III, 1D Mk3, 5D Mk2, 7D 

Nordic Components NC22 First Impression

Last November I picked up a certificate for an NC22 rifle off the prize table of the Area 2 Desert Classic. I didn't really know what it was but I thought it'd be fun for my Son to shoot since my real AR is still a bit big and heavy for him.

Well the rifle arrived last week and I was extremely pleased to find how well made this rifle is. It appears that Nordic components fits a custom upper, specifically designed and optimized for running 22lr rounds to a standard AR lower. The upper to lower fit was nice and tight without a bit of slop or rattle.

The rifle came with one BlackDog 10 round magazine. I fitted it with a spare CMore sight (that I also picked up off the prize table) and went to the range to sight it in.

While I didn't shoot any groups as with a CMore, I wasn't setting this up to be a target rifle. But what this rifle is is FUN. A well balance AR platform shooting .22lr rounds just doesn't recoil and makes double taps and rapid fire strings a blast to pull off.

I shot about 700 rounds of a mixture of Federal and Winchester 36gr. copper plated bulk ammo through it and it never skipped a beat.

Ryan and I shot it this week in a local tactical rife match that was half close range rapid fire targets and half long range work - I took fifth which I thought was pretty good considering I didn't know what I was doing and a 12MOA red dot CMORE isn't the right tool to be pulling off long range work.

The one down side of the rifle is that the trigger leaves MUCH to be desired, but that could just be that I haven't shot a stock trigger in years. It does appear that they're just standard GI parts so I may have a go with some polishing compound and some spring cutting to see what happens.

So my bottom line on the Nordic Components NC22 Rifle? One hellova fun gun that's built right.

Android goes old skool...

It's been almost 12 years since I used Graffiti on my Palm X, but when I saw it land in the Android marketplace, I loaded up and all the gestures came back to me. It's very true to the original graffiti but it seems a bit faster and more accurate than I remember.

It is quite a bit more motion than just typing on a standard keyboard or using something like SWYPE but I find it much more accurate. I recently gave up on SWYPE and went back to the standard Android keyboard which I found much improved in the latest Froyo update. One of thing that I find great about the new Android keyboard is that its predictive text is excellent I usually only have to type a few letters and the correct work pops up for selection so I usually find myself only needing 3 or 4 characters per word which really lessens the strokes. SWYPE requires that you trace the entire word out before it can predict the your intent (and it gets VERY aggravating when its wrong). Graffiti doesn't have any predictive text so you don't get any annoying corrections but the downside is you have to type the entire word. I think if they can add predictive text as good as the stock keyboard - this will be my new full time keyboard.