In years past, one of our favorite features on the NRA Blog was the Friday Feast Recipe of the Week. In the past, the NRA Blog offered up a new delicious food recipe each Friday. Sadly the Friday Feast has not been updated for quite some time, but you can still see dozens of past Friday Feast recipes with this link:
Today’s featured Friday Feast combines two things we love — Italian pasta and Elk meat. Article author Emily Rupertus shares our passion for pasta: “I love pasta. I can’t get enough of it! So when I came across this Classic Elk Lasagna, I couldn’t resist sharing with you! You have to try this perfect twist on a classic comfort food.” After assembling your Lasagna in a big cast-iron skillet and covering with tin-foil, bake the Elk Lasagna in a 400° oven for 30 minutes. Then remove the foil, add more cheese and continue to bake uncovered for ten more minutes.
Ingredients
1/2 Package of Lasagna Noodles
1 lb Ground Elk Meat (you can substitute ground venison or antelope)
1 Medium Sweet Onion (chopped)
2 Cloves Garlic (chopped)
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
3 Cups Tomato Sauce
32 oz. Ricotta Cheese
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 8 oz. Fresh Mozzarella Cheese (sliced)
2 eggs
AR-platform rifles are fun and versatile, but the standard, mil-spec triggers leave much to be desired. They tend to be gritty, with creep and heavy pull weight. One of the easiest, most effective AR upgrades is a trigger group swap. An improved fire control group makes a huge difference. There are many aftermarket trigger options for the AR platform rifles. Choose single-stage or two-stage, either standard trigger assembly or unitized “drop-in” trigger, such as those made by Timney or Triggertech.
When upgraded with a precision trigger and match barrel, AR-platform rigs work great in NRA High Power competitions (Photo from NRA Blog, at Camp Perry).
Two-Stage vs. Single-Stage Triggers
Two-stage triggers have two separate movements. The first stage offers a light, spring-loaded pressure that works against the shooter’s pull until stopping at the second stage – this is called “take-up”. If there is no spring pressure, it is known as “slack”. Should the shooter continue to pull the trigger once he’s arrived at the second stage, the mechanism will operate like a single-stage trigger from there until engaging the sear and firing the gun. Good trigger reset requires the shooter to keep pressure on the trigger, even during reset, to minimize movement of the muzzle.
Single-stage triggers feature no take-up or slack, as they begin engaging the sear as soon as the shooter begins pulling the trigger. Some competitive shooters prefer the two-stage trigger because of the feedback it provides during its first stage, while other shooters, including those using their rifle in tactical scenarios, may want the surety of a single-stage trigger, ready to engage and fire once their finger is inside the trigger guard. Regardless of preference, a good trigger will feature minimal creep and should be free of grittiness, providing a smooth, even break.
Drop-In Trigger Assembly vs. Standard Trigger Group
Once you decide between a single-stage or two-stage trigger, you can choose between standard and drop-in trigger groups. Standard trigger groups feature all the fire control group parts separated, and need to be pieced together and installed much like a mil-spec trigger, while drop-in trigger are pre-assembled and contained within a casing that simply drops in to the receiver and accepts the pins, hence the name.
After-Market Trigger Comparison
Some shooters prefer drop-in triggers due to the ease of installation, while others opt for standard groups so they can access the components individually for cleaning adjustment or replacement. If one piece of a drop-in trigger fails, you’ll need to either replace the entire unit or send it to the manufacturer for repair, whereas you may be able to simply replace the broken component of a standard trigger without needing a whole new trigger set.
Trigger Terminology — “Creep”, “Stacking”, “Overtravel”
“Creep” or “travel” is the distance the trigger moves between the end of take-up and when the trigger breaks to fire the fun. Too much creep can affect accuracy, but no creep can be unsafe, as the shooter may not be prepared to fire. “Stacking” occurs when the trigger weight actually increases during travel — this shouldn’t happen. Lastly, “overtravel” is the distance the trigger continues moving back after the gun fires.
This article is based on a longer story in the NRA Blog.
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At the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Louisville, the Exhibits Hall may not open until Friday morning, but there’s still plenty to do Thursday. If you have some free time, check out the NRA Blog’s helpful guide to 48 Hours in Louisville. That Travel Guide features recommended Restaurants, Family Fun Activities (such as the KY Derby Museum), Music Events, and even Bourbon Tours.
Registration
You can register in the lobby on the Kentucky Expo Center from 2:00 pm through 6:00 pm on Thursday, May 19th, as well as during all normal show hours. NOTE: Online registration has closed.
Free Airgun Range
Beat the crowds and get in some target practice at the Pyramyd Air Gun Range! The range, located at Expo Center Room #2684, will open at 2:00 pm on Thursday.
NRA Country Sound Stage
The NRA Country Sound Stage presented by Beretta will offer free music in the Beretta Lobby. Stop by to hear Ian Walters and Mark Wills perform starting at 3:00 pm. They’ll kick off the event Thursday, but every day will feature a new lineup of popular country musicians and singers.
One of the features we enjoy on the NRA Blog is the Friday Feast Recipe of the Week. Each Friday, the NRA Blog offers up a new delicious food item as the Friday Feast for hunters. This week’s Feast combines two things we love — Italian pasta and Elk meat. Article author Emily Rupertus shares our passion for pasta: “I love pasta. I can’t get enough of it! So when I came across this Classic Elk Lasagna, I couldn’t resist sharing with you! You have to try this perfect twist on a classic comfort food.” After assembling your Lasagna in a big cast-iron skillet and covering with tin-foil, bake the Elk Lasagna in a 400° oven for 30 minutes. Then remove the foil, add more cheese and continue to bake uncovered for ten more minutes.
Ingredients
1/2 Package of Lasagna Noodles
1 lb Ground Elk Meat (you can substitute ground venison or antelope)
1 Medium Sweet Onion (chopped)
2 Cloves Garlic (chopped)
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
3 Cups Tomato Sauce
32 oz. Ricotta Cheese
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 8 oz. Fresh Mozzarella Cheese (sliced)
2 eggs
Our friend Lars Dalseide of NRABlog.com was covering SHOT Show 2014 with camera in hand. This is a big undertaking. As Lars writes: “SHOT Show is a fluid beast. Almost like riding the tide[.] Unless your name is Moses there is little chance of the ocean stopping.” Here are four NRA Blog slide shows covering highlights from Days 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Click the button in the middle of each day’s slide show to view all the photos (there are dozens of images for each day).
DAY ONE
DAY TWO
DAY THREE
DAY FOUR
View All Images on NRA Site
You can also view all these images in an iPad-friendly grid format on the NRA’s Google Plus Photo Page. This allows you to quickly scan hundreds of photos simply by scolling down the page. You’ll see a grid like the one below, but with hundreds of images top to bottom.
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Report by Lindsey J. Morgan for the NRA Blog.
The NRA Smallbore Three-Position National Championships commenced today at Camp Perry in Port Clinton, Ohio. The first event, the prone stage of the Metallic Sight Matches, got off to a rainy start Thursday morning. The prone phase consists of two 20-shot stages fired in twenty minutes each, at 50 yards with metallic sights— a total of 40 shots. A light rain started while relay one was shooting, and after about ten minutes, a cease-fire was called due to lightning threats. After about fifteen minutes, the tower announced shooting could resume with a one-minute prep period. Competitors went back to the firing line, set up their equipment and resumed shooting. The weather forecast calls for rain and scattered thunderstorms the rest of today.
At the Smallbore practice session on Wednesday, well-known shooters filled the line: Tarl and Reya Kempley, last year’s 3-Position Champion Joseph Hein, and USAMU paralympic member Joshua Olson. Olson will compete at Camp Perry before heading over to London for the 2012 Olympics. The slide show below features photos by NRA Blog Editor Lars Dalseide, taken during the practice session.
Story based on report by Lars Dalseide for the NRA Blog
The NRA National Firearms Museum will soon showcase the historic Theodore Roosevelt collection in a major exhibit. One highlight of the upcoming exhibit will be a high-grade 1886 Winchester rifle owned and used by Roosevelt before, during, and after his presidency.
Teddy Roosevelt loved Winchester lever guns. In his book Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, Roosevelt wrote: “The Winchester stocked and sighted to suit myself is by all odds the best weapon I ever had, and I now use it almost exclusively[.]”
According to Senior Curator Phil Schreier, this Winchester was highly customized and upgraded for its famous owner. Notable custom features include Monte Carlo cheek piece, checkered pistol grip, flat metal buttstock, and deluxe color case-hardening. Given its beauty, one might doubt that President Roosevelt actually hunted with this rifle — it looks too shiny and new. There’s a reason for that — he kept sending it back.
Records show that Roosevelt’s rifle went back to the Winchester plant on five separate occasions. Each time to be refit and refinished to the President’s specifications. That’s why the rifle remains so pristine more than a century after it was crafted. For more information on this rifle and the Roosevelt Collection, tune in to Curator’s Corner on NRANews.com and Sirius/XM Patriot Satellite Radio.
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Technology keeps moving forward, and the NRA is moving with it. You may be surprised, but now the NRA has its own App that runs on iPhones and iPad tablets. This App provides instant access to the latest gun-related content from the NRA News, the NRA-ILA website, the NRABlog, and NRA social media sites (such as the NRA’s Facebook page). You can also download and watch NRA videos, search for NRA activities, check event schedules, and much more.
NRA App is Free for a Limited Time
If this sounds like something you’d like to add to your digital arsenal, then head on over to the iTunes store and add the NRA app to your collection. But don’t hesitate — this NRA App is FREE for a limited time only. As with other opportunities in life, you snooze, you loose.
Note the link above only goes directly to the NRA App order page if you already have iTunes installed on your computer. Otherwise the link sends you to the iTunes home page.
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AccurateShooter.com’s coverage of SHOT Show showcases products and vendors we think would be of greatest interest to our readers. We visited close to 200 exhibits in four days. But there is much, much more that we don’t have time to cover. At the 2011 SHOT Show, there were nearly 1,600 exhibitors, who collectively occupied 630,000 square feet of booth space (the equivalent of 11 football fields). To get the full SHOT Show experience, check out these photo collections from The NRA Blog. These and other photo collections are found on the NRA Blog’s Picassa Public Photo Gallery.
