Use the navigation bars along the top and right of the page to visit the various articles, guides, and photo albums I’ve put together.  I hope you enjoy the website.  Please feel free to contact me a cdouglasn at gmail if you have any questions!

I had a day off, so I decided to spend one of the last truly nice days Michigan will see for the next six months at the range.  I ran some errands, then loaded up the car with 4 M1 Garands and my repro sniper K98k.   I wanted to take my time and really sight in the rifles well since I’d only fired one of them before (and even then it was only ~20 rounds).

The range was peaceful and quiet with a few people coming and going while I was there.  The rifles cooperated beautifully (except for one that wouldn’t cycle, but I think that’s my fault) and sighted in very quickly.  The K98 shot very very tight groups and ran like a champ as always.

As a bonus I met a couple really great guys today that were a lot of fun to talk with.  One guy really enjoyed shooting the M1′s.  The other let me shoot his muzzleloader and at 200 yards I managed to hit the upper “v” of the “X” bullseye.  I assure you, I could have put a thousand more rounds through that gun today and not duplicated my feat.  Either way it was beautiful rifle to shoot and I really enjoyed the opportunity.

So, in the end, great guns, great company, and great weather have helped lift my sagging love of the firearms hobby.

I wanted one for me so I could take it out and shoot it, and the second I’ve put into long-term storage for my kiddo.  He’s probably one of the youngest M1 Garand owners in the world.  I tell him this often, but at 2½ months, I don’t think he much cares.

Anyway, my timing was perfect as the CMP has recently stopped accepting orders for service grade rifles.  I made the cut by under a week.  To say I was happy when I got them would be an understatement.  They were just beautiful rifles.  Like new wood and metal.  Can’t wait to get some time to sneak out to the range.  But, with a new little one around, that’s easier said than done.

Here’s the Service Grade Springfield Armory M1 I recently received from the CMP.  I’m calling this one mine and have set the HRA M1 aside for the little one.

The link to the old photo gallery has been removed, so if you see some dead links out there, that’s why.  I have, however, decided to try to integrate the new photo gallery directly into this site, so it should make photo browsing a lot more streamlined.  I hope.  I’m still testing it, so we’ll see how it works, eh?

Anyway, check back soon for updates.  I hope to get everything up and running within a month or so.

“We price at the lowest possible price. We will NOT consider any offers lower than our stated price. We will NOT answer email about this subject. It is just as easy for us to block you as it is reply to your message.”

Really?  Is it really necessary to threaten your potential customers?  I saw that line on a gunbroker auction today and I find it kind of offensive.  Sure, I’ve had my share of tire-kickers through the shop, but it’s part of the business plain and simple.  There are sooooo many other ways to say this without threatening to block your customers’ emails if they should upset you.  I wonder if their shop’s front door has a sign on it reading, “HAGGLERS WILL BE SHOT.”

Actually, this is a pretty good encapsulation of why I started my own gun shop.  I couldn’t stand the crusty, mean-spirited attitude that permeates a lot of the local gun shops and gun shows.  That “holier-than-thou, you should be so lucky to as even touch my wares,” attitude just burns me.  So, with that in mind, I founded Southern Michigan Arms on the basis of good customer service and – hopefully – superior pricing.  My hope is to treat all customers fairly and justly – even the tire-kickers.

And now for some other gun-related news.  The MG42 is in the care of Bob Naess at Black River Militaria.  He’s one of the – if not the - best MG42 guys in the country.  If he can’t fix the issues the gun is having, no one can.  In which case, I suppose, I have a very elaborate, heavily-regulated paperweight on my hands.

I’m hoping to expand SMA into the world of suppressors here shortly.  I’ve never done it simply because FFL dealers are the only people in MI who can possess suppressors.  That, of course, wouldn’t leave me with much of a local customer base.  But, hopefully we could price competitively enough to move  out of state sales.  At this point, I’m still researching this idea and how well it’ll play out, so nothing’s certain yet.  But, it’s at least a direction I’m seriously considering.

Hope you all have been having a great summer!

Yesterday was “The Day of the AK.”  A friend of mine just returned from studying abroad in Russia, so we celebrated his arrival (all be it a month late) with the Day of the AK.  Not a bad showing for our little group.

From the top down, we have:

• Ohio Rapid Fire AKM-74 (5.45×39)
• MTM-MFG AKS-74U Krinkov (5.45×39)
• Arsenal, Inc AKM-74 (5.45×39)
• Century AKM-47 (7.62×39) – On right

Also present were a few non-AK’s.  The MG42 and a pair of Lugers made the trek as well.

The AK’s all performed flawlessly, as expected.  If your AK doesn’t run, you’re doing something very wrong.  My friend and company had a great time firing the full-auto AKS-74U.  The little Krinkov is just too much fun, and, true to form, it runs splendidly.  It’s just a joy to shoot.

The Lugers were both something of a surprise.  I was actually test firing them both for customers to make sure they ran before completing the sale.  Happily, both cooperated nicely.  The 1917 DWM ran 100% – the first Luger I’ve ever seen to do that – and was a lot of fun.  The 1941 Mauser Banner Luger ran very nicely too but had a couple of stovepipe jams.

The only real downer for the day – and it was a big downer – was that the MG42 choked again.  It ate about the first 200 round successfully (see video below), but after that, it just gave up.   A whole slew of problems occurred and I’m not even sure yet what to attribute them to.  I’ve had nothing but problems with this MG42 and I’m not sure where to even look for help.  I’m sure a place like Ohio Ordnance Works could overhaul it and get it running top notch – like they did for my MG34 – but it’d cost me an arm and a leg (+ a kidney) to do it.  So, maybe I’ll just shelve that gun for a while until I have nothing better to do than the singular, unique pleasure of setting thousands of dollars on fire.  Ugh

Anyway, below is a video of us at the range.  Not shown:

• The deer targets my friend was shooting at which provoked the comment, “I’m killing that deer.”
• The grumpy ultra-hardcore target shooter that got pissed off at us for making a lot of noise despite the fact that we were there first (and obeying all the rules, and being very polite, and, etc, etc, etc).  My favorite was when he walked up to me and snidely said “Um, this may be a dumb question, but are you guys members here?”  Nevermind my membership badge hanging from my shirt.
• 30+ minutes of my friend and I screwing around with the MG42 trying to get it working again.  Again: Ugh.

Yesterday, I took my friend and fellow guitar player to the range for his first time. He’s never handled a gun in his life. After about a half hour at the house here going over the basics of firearm safety, we drove to the range. We started off with pistols – a Sig Sauer P6 and a RIA 1911A1 – in a closely supervised environment. It became quickly apparent that my friend would be a safe and conscientious firearms user. He remembered the basic safety rules and obeyed them to a T.  I was very impressed.

So, after we shot pistols for a while we moved on to long guns.  We started with an old Winchester Model 195 .22LR that I inherited from my dad.  He enjoyed that, then moved on to a Mossberg 500A 12ga that I also got from my dad.  After the first shot, I believe his response to the recoil was “Holy shit!”  We were using light target loads, but even they have a lot more oomph to them than .22lr (doesn’t everything?)

The high-power rifle category was fielded by an AR15 comprised of a CMMG lower and an Addax Tactical GPU (Gas Piston Upper).   He really enjoyed the AR as it performed swimmingly.  I can’t stress enough how nice the Addax GPU is.  100% function, 100% reliability.  It’s an awesome setup and I have to thank the guys at Addax for hooking me up with a great upper.

As a final bonus, I brought along an H&K G36k for my friend to try.  This is a legally-registered Post-86 dealer sample gun registered to my company.  He tried it on semi-auto, then on full auto with only 3 rounds in the mag, followed by a 5 round mag.  As it was his first time out, I wanted him to get the feel for the muzzle rise before giving him a full 30-round magazine.  Before long, he was burst firing with the best of them.

By the end of the day, we both had sore shoulders – thanks to the Mossberg – and smiles on our faces.  It was a really great time and was made all the more worthwhile when my friend said afterwards, “Man, now I’ve got the bug!”  It’s always nice to introduce a new shooter to the sport.  Hopefully we’ll see him again.

Anyway, just wanted to post a quick note wishing you all a Merry Christmas (belatedly, of course) and a safe and happy New Year.  Best wishes, all!