I love the CMP part the second

The rifles arrived not long after my last post. The Carbine is pretty clean, but the Garand is pretty gunked up with cosmolene. Condition seems to be good at first glance; bright shiny bores with sharp rifling. The wood is pretty good; scratches and dings, but I didn't see any cracks or anything. I'll look them over further when I have more time. I was pleased to note that my IBM Carbine has a matching IBM barrel. The adjustable sights cover the maker's name on the receiver, so the barrel stamped IBM Corp will make it easier to show off to non-gunnie friends.

I love the CMP, part the first

The software just arrived on the FedEx ground truck. The hardware should be arriving shortly on the express truck. The driver came to my door, confirmed my address and asked if I could open the garage because he had a 'bunch of heavy boxes'. (My garage is at ground level, while my front door is up a hill.) Said heavy boxes included 3 cans of 192 rounds of .30-'06 in Garand clips and bandoleers, 2 cans of 400 .30-'06 in boxes of 20, and 1 box of 500 rounds of .30 Carbine. Assuming the hardware arrives as scheduled, I should be set for the first wave of zombies.

Priority Overnight My Ass

No CMP rifle pics today, thanks to the wonders of FedEx. They were shipped priority overnight yesterday, picked up by FedEx at 1:42 PM. I worked from home this morning to be there to sign for the package. FedEx's tracking site showed that they were to be delivered by 10:30 AM. They arrived at Boston at 9:23 AM. I figured at this point that they weren't going to make 10:30, since I'm about a 45 minute drive from Boston(with no traffic). Then at 11:12, they arrived at another fedex facility which is half an hour from Boston, and 45 minutes from me. The tracking now says Delivery Exception: "Package at station, arrived after courier dispatch" At this point, I headed into the office since I had a 1PM meeting, and there was no way they'd make it in time.

I'm not sure if they'll attempt delivery some time this afternoon, or if it'll get bumped to tomorrow. How often does FedEx totally miss promised service like this? I use them at work to overnight stuff semi-regularly. I do product development, so generally it's not absolutely critical that the package arrives overnight. I remember one case where the package got delayed to the following day. It seems pretty rare that they hit the promised 10:30 AM delivery time.

Has FedEx service always been this marginal, or is it a more recent thing? Obviously, waiting an extra day for my rifles isn't the end of the world, but it does hurt my confidence in FedEx. What do businesses do when something is critical to operations and has to arrive the next day? Put the low man on the totem pole in a car and make him drive all night?

Civilian Marksmanship Program Excitement

I just saw the charge on my credit card account for my CMP rifle order. I ordered a service grade Springfield Garand and an M1 carbine. My first choice was an IBM service grade, since the idea of an IBM rifle is awesome. The trouble is, my order hasn't shown up in their e-store yet, so I can't tell if I got the IBM or not. I ordered an IBM SG as first choice, with IBM RG and Standard Products SG as backups. The credit card amount points to a service grade, but the IBM and SP are the same price, so I can't tell which I'm getting. I'm trying to figure out if cc hit before estore order is normal before I contact the CMP. I don't want to waste their order processing time if there's nothing to worry about.

The M1 Carbine is a fun little gun. I shot one in the range safety qualification at my club (basically making sure you could hit the paper and weren't a total bonehead). I haven't even shot a Garand yet, but I'm sure I'll love it. I've got a pile of ammo for both on the way. Now I just need to find some pre-ban USGI carbine mags, since the CMP rifles come with no mags. Part of my 30-'06 ammo order comes on Garand clips, so I'm set there.

UPDATE: Rifles shipped today! Supposed to be delivered tomorrow morning.

QoTD

"They say drinking and driving is one of the most dangerous combinations out there. With notions such as above, I’d say it’s probably much more dangerous to give me a couple beers and set me off about hippies."

Stingray at Atomic Nerds RTWT

Happy Birthday to me and a new blog

I've been considering starting a blog for a while, and I was inspired by Jay G's Northeast Bloggershoot to finally do it. I'm not sure what the content will be, but as I told a friend, "probably guns, politics, beer, and funny shit on the internet". A post about the shoot is forthcoming once I have some time to sit down and write it. I just wanted to get started while the inspiration was striking. Back to work for now.