Adventures on the Road to Sturgis

For those of you who have been following the blog, you know that this week I'm off to Sturgis, South Dakota to attend the Defense Training International (DTI) Urban Rifle Course, taught by John Farnam. My course starts on Wednesday morning, but I figured I'd share some of my adventures on the drive. So far, it's been a great trip, accompanied by my lovely wife, Laurie.

I'm breaking in two recent purchases on this trip: a Tantal AK74, which I'll be running at the rifle course, and a great condition Chevy Tahoe I just picked up. So far, the Tahoe has been a pleasure to drive, and we'll see how the Tantal holds up in a couple of days.

We left on Saturday morning with a plan to see some sights on the way out. Our first stop was actually an unexpected surprise – our route took us through Darwin, Minnesota – home of the World's Largest Ball of Twine!

Our next stop was De Smet, where Laura Ingalls Wilder (author of the “Little House on the Prairie” books) and her family had settled.  We got to tour two homes owned by the family, as well as a school Laura and Carrie attended.

 

We ended our day in Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the one and only “Corn Palace.” If you haven't been there, you're not missing much. It's essentially a large gift shop.

Dinner was prime rib at Chef Louie's – I'd highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in Mitchell.

The next morning we headed out towards the Badlands, but along the way we kept seeing signs for Pioneer Auto in the town of Murdo. Our original plan was to stop at Wall Drug after the Badlands, but the possibility of a classic car museum was too good to pass up.

Pioneer Auto advertised over 200 cars, and I think we saw them all. Initially we found a well-lit showroom style display, crammed with classic cars and odds-and-ends, in the style of House on the Rock (one of my favorite other roadside attractions, in Spring Green, Wisconsin). Among these was a General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard TV series:

And racer in the style of Richard Petty (I couldn't determine if Petty actually drove it or not, but he had autographed it):

In the next room were a bunch of...well, all sorts of stuff. A giant wooden chicken:

Cases of depression glass, old dolls, old typewriters, some Star Wars figures, and other oddities. Following this was a very large rock collection (which was neat, if you like rocks).

In the next room were some guns, which I know regular readers of this blog will appreciate:

Here's a BAR cutout, oversize for training. I've always wanted one of these, just because they are so neat.  I've seen them pop up for sale from time to time.

Some of the pistols were pretty rare, including this Roth-Styer and a pair of French Pinfire revolvers:

As well as an M1 Carbine training cutout:

I was so into the M1 that I almost missed it was hanging behind a Cord automobile! Those are pretty rare. There were two of these on the grounds, but this one was the nicest.

As we moved on, the quality of the buildings (basically old barns and stables) deteriorated, but the cars did not. Here's a 1930s Chevy – most of the cars you see in this era are Fords:

This was stored with a lot of other seriously old – and potentially valuable – cars in the shed:

The next shed held some interesting cars , including a 1934 Packard owned by cowboy star Tom Mix:

As a non-sequitur, in the same shed we found a bunch of old PCs – nothing historic, but they had clearly been there for a while.

Next was the “muscle car” display. Some very cool stuff in here, including a Plymouth Superbird, one of my all time favorite cars:

The next shed had a bunch of old motorcycles, out in the open. In a glass case, however, was a Harley owned by none other than Elvis Presley!

Then things started getting kind of weird. A wedding chapel was populated with mannequins and didn't look like it had been used for some time:

A horse drawn hearse with a Boot Hill diorama next to it:

A shed full of old steam tractors, some touring cars, and a 70s AMC Pacer:

Another shed held some nice classic cars, as well as a 1970s...Ford Pinto?

I didn't get any pics, but the solar-powered Odyssey Concept Car was in this same row. As the Pinto.

Another shed held a large collection of what I'd call junk, in a display that was more archeology than museum. I theorized that the owner of the museum may have bought out entire estate sales and put everything he got on display.

I really enjoyed Pioneer Auto, but couldn't help having some mixed emotions. I'd ballpark the total value of the collection at three million or more – but most of these cars are just sitting, collecting dust, upholstery and tires rotting, and probably haven't been maintained in years. If I were to wish the fate of these cars, I guess I'd say I wish they were at least getting washed and better protected from the elements. But they don't belong to me, so I have to just appreciate that someone's keeping them around.

Could be worse, right?  They could be in junkyards.

TOMORROW – Badlands and Mount Rushmore.

Let's see what this Tantal can do!

Tantal with chest rig, before adding some other stuff.

When people first hear my name (and usually mispronounce or misspell it) a common question I hear is “Where is that from?” The answer is, it's Polish (or more appropriately, Prussian). Even today, there is a small cluster of Pakiesers in Northern Poland.

In fact, one Pakieser – to whom I am sure I'm probably related to, but not sure how – is the “Assistant Defense, Military, Naval & Air Attache” for Poland to the US State Department. Cool!

Humorist Dave Barry says this about Poland:

FIRST GERMAN: How many Polish people does it take to change a lightbulb?

SECOND GERMAN: I don't know. Let's invade Poland and find out.

MILLIONS OF OTHER GERMANS: Okay!

While it may have worked in 1939, anyone invading Poland during the Cold War would have found themselves facing the KbK wz88 Tantal, Poland's version of the AK74.

Not satisfied with the design of their Soviet “brothers” the Poles refined the Tantal by adding a burst fire mechanism and streamlining the design. Today, these rifles have been replaced by the Beryl (a 5.56 version of the Tantal, since Poland is now a NATO member) but in its day the Tantal was a highly sought after collector's piece for AK fans.

I recently picked up a Tantal, mainly because it was cheap to buy, and cheap to shoot. The rifle was about $418 out the door at Fleet Farm and I picked up a 1080 round “spam can” of 5.45x39 ammo for just $140. Compared to owning (and shooting) my AR15s, that's a steal.

In its original form, a Tantal cannot be imported into the US. Arbitrary and capricious laws require that the gun's receiver be torch cut into three pieces (destroyed) after which the gun's parts can be imported as a “parts kit.”

Importer Century International Arms (which I like to call CIA) takes these Tantal kits, rebuilds them on a NoDak Spud receiver, and installs additional parts to make them compliant with Federal import laws – aka 922(r) – another bureaucratic hurdle to owning one of these rifles is it must be assembled with a specific number of US-made parts – which, fortunately, are readily available.

Out of the box, my Tantal was a solid, reliable shooter, but I did a little bit of tweaking to make it mine. The wire stock leaves something to be desired; it's not comfortable to shoulder and has a poor cheek weld. 

Two accessories fixed this: the Tantal cheek piece from AMD65Tech and a Tantal grenade launcher buttpad from FSE USA.

Grenade Launcher? Well, the Tantal was optimized for using rifle grenades, which you can't get here in the US - but the buttpad makes the Tantal much easier to shoulder properly.

The AMD65Tech cheek piece is very simple, yet really adds a lot to getting a proper cheek weld on the gun. Installation requires carefully measuring, centering and drilling a single hole. Once installed, it puts a cheek weld right where you want it. While the cheekpiece comes with padding, I opted to make it a little more comfy with some paracord wrap.

Another improvement on the stocks was the addition of US PALM's AK Battlegrip. This grip is larger and has better ergonomics than the stock grip, and is easy to install (just remove the old grip and replace it with the new one). Those of you familiar with TangoDown's AR15 Battlegrip will like this one too.

The other area where the Tantal (and most AK rifles, I think) can be improved is the sights. The AK's rear sights don't have much potential for precision adjustment and the front sight can be hard to pick up rapidly. To fix this I installed an ULTIMAK rail with a Primary Arms MicroDot.

Installing an Ultimak on a Tantal requires some permanent modification; you have to cut the upper part of the handguard retainer to make it fit (you don't have to do this on other AK rifles). I used a Dremel and cleaned up with a file, then added some high-temperature paint on the bare metal.

The MicroDot sits just low enough to allow a co-witness with the irons and is well oriented for “shooting out of the tube” as well. In a pinch, you can center the front sight assembly in the MicroDot tube and get pretty solid hits. AK shooters refer to this as “Caveman EOTech.”

Tantal is just about where I want it.  Plum lower handguard is on order.  I'm getting the plum handguard 'cause it's cool.

So now that this rifle is where I want it, what am I going to do with it?

I'm glad you asked.

Next week, I'll be travelling to Sturgis, South Dakota with my Tantal to take JohnFarnam's Urban Rifle Course at the CorBon Law Enforcement TrainingCenter (CLETC).  On Wednesday and Thursday I'll be running the Tantal through John's Course, then returning to Minnesota on Friday.

Then, on Saturday I'll be running this rifle at the DPMS Outbreak Omega V zombie fun shoot in Morristown (joined by the rest of the QSI crew).

I figure when all is said and done, the Tantal will eat about 1000 rounds over two days of shooting, a day of travel, and another day of shooting. I'll keep the blog updated with a range report on the Tantal, John's Urban Rifle Class, and Omega.

We'll see how well the rifle (and I) hold up!