29 January 2010

Boneheaded Move

Bushmaster has just released the specs for their ACR.

Dead Link Because Cerebus Bought Bushmaster

And pricing. Basic version MSRP is $2,685. Enhanced version MSRP is $3,061. Dealer pricing is about $500 less.

A little perspective on this might help. The prices above have no optics or accessories.

My 6.8 gun totaled $2,486, including a $736 Aimpoint optic and $200 weapon light. The basic gun was only $1,550. This is significant because the oddball caliber makes a few parts essentially prototype priced. A non .223 AR is the most expensive way to do it, and this is the most expensive AR I own. Because I have a collapsible stock and a 4-rail handguard, it's more comparable feature-wise with the enhanced model.

It gets better, the ACR weighs in at 8.2 lbs without a magazine; 9.2 loaded. My 6.8 is 9.6 lbs loaded WITH an optic and light; not to mention that it's firing ammo that's 70% heavier!

Since the world is awash in AR-15 parts for dirt cheap, perhaps I am not being fair. Perhaps I should give them some slack because it's a completely new design. OK, how does the competition in "all new gun" stack up?

Robinson Arms is a boutique manufacturer in Utah. They make a gun called the XCR. Their gun is aluminum forgings instead of polymer (more expensive to make) and they manage an MSRP of $1,955.99 for a gun that's equivalent to the enhanced version. Empty weight is 7.5 lbs, which should give a loaded weight of 8.3 lbs. Dead Link Because Robinson Arms

FN-Herstal makes a competing product, the SCAR 16S. It's equivalent to the enhanced and has an MSRP of $2,696.56. FN is known for being a tad expensive, but this gun's full-auto version is the winner of the Army's SCAR competition and is being procured on a limited basis. 7.25 lbs empty for 8 loaded. Dead Link Because FN

SIG-Sauer's SIG 556 has many of the same features, they are known for being expensive as well. The 556 is noted for being heavy in several reviews and the Classic SWAT (equivalent to the enhanced version) tips the scales at 8.3 lbs without a mag or 9.3 lbs loaded. It's an old fashioned Swiss-way-of-doing-things gun and it's mostly steel with some aluminum and polymer. MSRP is $2,399. This gun is an M16 mag version of the SIG 550 which is current issue for Swiss troops.
Dead Link Because SIG

Even more fun, DSA makes a semi-version of the FN FAL. The SA58 Standard is 10.4 lbs loaded, and cost just under $2,000 ($1,700 MSRP) when I got it during the Obama panic. Just a pound heavier than the ACR and chambered in a far more effective caliber with the 50+ years of proven reliability under adverse conditions being used by "troops" that make an ad-hoc militia seem like the Swiss Guard. EDIT It should be pointed out that the FAL is notorious for being difficult and time consuming to machine, and there's hardly a part on one that isn't milled from a solid block. The FAL is the old school way, if the ACR is expensive because machining is expensive, why is the FAL cheaper? Dead Link Because DSA

Now that you can see your options, Bushmaster has posted this: Dead Link Because Cerebus thread on Arfcom (read the whole thing) attempting to do damage control on this. It should also be noted that FN and SIG have sterling reputations for quality, Bushmaster does not. Bushmaster also has a noted tendency to bring oddities to market and quietly dump them, like their M17S Bullpup.

The ACR started out life as the Magpul Masada. Magpul sold the rights to Bushmaster to avoid having to tool up a gun manufacturing capability from scratch. Magpul's representatives have maintained for three years the MSRP would be in the $1,500 range and the gun would use standard AR fire control parts and off-the-shelf barrels. Bushmaster managed none of that.

Considering that the street price for an FN SCAR 16S is running about $2,350...

28 January 2010

Abortion

I will concede that it's murder if, in turn, we are allowed to teach the kids in detail how to avoid getting pregnant in the first place. Once they are biologically capable of making babies, they tend to try.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

I've ranted about it before, but I have had some errant thoughts after reading Weerd's post.

The reason that men and women are billeted separately is to keep them from being ogled and having sex.

Homosexuals are impossible to billet this way. A gay man billeted with the women will be ogled by them, for example.

But I wonder if most of the heat and fury about this issue is more along the lines of "Why ISN'T my junk being ogled?"

I, for one, think if we allow homosexuals to serve openly, we end all segregated billeting. Everyone will get a chance to ogle and be ogled equally. I'm also not too concerned about sexual relationships in the ranks as long as we don't get kids from it. Homosexuals have a huge advantage here, don't they?

Car Stuff

It's been a banner week for doing some stuff I have been putting off on the Vette.

First I plunked down the $20 for a new mount for the radar detector. The one that came with it is just a bent pieces of sheet metal with two suction cups; and it falls off a lot. New mount is more like the kind that comes with GPS units with a lever that creates more vacuum under the cup and holds things more solidly.

Next I took the heater controls apart to clean up the sticky from a spilled bottle of NOS Energy Drink. The cute little bottle that looks like a nitrous tank doesn't fit in the cup holder well enough to withstand the deceleration load of the brakes.

While I had the center console all taken apart, I relocated the microphone for the hands-free function of the vette's stereo. I had it by my right knee because the wiring was easy. Today I moved to the right of the instrument cluster and people can now hear me when I talk. Bluetooth finally works the way it was intended.

25 January 2010

The Religion Thing

It's an empty tooth socket I can't keep my tongue out of.

There's a wrongness about what some of the atheist groups and the ACLU are achieving. I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like less freedom when the goal is more.

It might be as simple as me hating the tyranny of the minority.

UPDATE:

I think I have figured out what's been bugging me about this. The Militant Atheists, despite not believing in God, ARE religious about non-religion. They are attempting to impose their religion on everyone by using the 1st Amendment as a weapon; not because they truly believe in the freedom of religion.

I feel better, and I think I can drop this.

24 January 2010

On McCain-Feingold

There's two main prongs that are touched on in several other blogs; I'd link but I forgot exactly what and where I read the germs to this.

Government is too influenced by corporate money.

There are two things here.

One: Corporations need to be able to influence the government to prevent government from ruining them.

Two: Corporations see government as a means to stifle competition.

The solution to both is simple in concept: Eliminate the government's ability to meddle with business. If they cannot stifle competition, the corporations will not be able to pay them to do so. If government cannot ruin a business, then corporations have no need to pay government to prevent it.

The Constitution is really quite simple and it's not written in legalese. It means what it says in plain english and there's hardly any hidden meanings or things that are not explicitly stated.

Make Up Your Damn Mind

Do not tell me that there's nothing we can do about Islam while you attempt to eradicate all mention of Christianity from any place not actually owned by a Christian church.

Anti-Theism is not the same thing as Atheism.

Do not preach to me about the horrors of Christianity while ignoring those of Islam. Especially when the Christian horrors are no longer in living memory and there's video of the Islamic.

A nativity scene is not equivalent to an honor killing.

I am also becoming increasingly convinced that despite the 1st amendment, the founders clearly intended the USA to be Christian and for the most part it still is. I am also becoming convinced that our Christian based culture can tolerate a certain, but finite and small, number of who are not. Atheists, like me, are essentially free-riding on the cultural norms that are generated by Christianity. Because we are free-riding we should accord them a bit more respect and a tad more latitude than the organized anti-theism groups have been showing. Those same groups need to start confronting other religions too, and I don't care if it's Islam, Judaism, Hindu or Buddhism.

Americans need to start asserting our culture on those who come to live here from a different culture.

American culture might be founded in Christianity, but it includes things like titty bars. Christians would be well advised to remember that. We are christian based, but not a theocracy. If you don't like strip joints, convince your daughters it's a bad idea to work there and don't patronize it. And that's all you get to do.

Atheists; if they leave the titty bar alone, you should let the nativity scene on the court steps alone.

Deal?

I just hate when people ignore history.

The culture in the US is based on Christianity. I've noticed, for the most part, that Christians are extremely tolerant of those of us who are not. Eliminating their influence from every aspect of our culture seems a mistake and since nature abhors a vacuum; something else will rise to fill it in. Atheists don't bring a culture to the table. They, in fact, actively reject the culture that spawned them and it's going to hurt the US.

I mentioned that our culture can handle a small, finite number of people who are members of this culture without being part of the actual religion.

I am an Atheist. I am not threatened by a creche on the court house lawn. I have never felt that such a display was a State endorsement of religion. Especially since such displays are completely funded by the people who construct them, all the city or county is contributing is space.

I think you are right in there would be fewer militant atheists if there were fewer militant Christians. I know that FuzzyGeff and I were defined about faith in a lot of ways because of the efforts of Boke Desmond. He felt that he should be saving us sinning D&D players. He was also an idiot; making us wonder if all people of faith were also idiots.

My point is the culture that made this nation great is Christian. To eliminate Christianity completely from it will also destroy it. I don't believe the culture that would replace it will be near so tolerant of non-believers.

Need

"Nobody needs a machinegun."

"I don't need it; but I want it, I can afford it, I'll get it," is a core component of personal freedom. A parallel core is "What's mine is mine," or personal property rights.

Too damn many laws are affronts to those two core principles.

22 January 2010

Turns Of Phrase

The first place I heard this was on an episode of Babylon 5; and I don't think it originated there.

"If you cannot say what you mean, you cannot mean what you say."

No matter if you are forbidden or just inarticulate.

Some things require precision and language is no exception. When what you mean matters, you must be precise in what you say. If you are not, you will be misunderstood. These misunderstanding can, and have, gotten people's lives ruined and sometimes even killed.

It is also interesting that the bluntest way of saying something is also often the most precise. Be wary of people being overly verbose. If it takes them a paragraph to say what a sentence can express, they are not expressing what that sentence would say.

Never, ever, trust someone who drafts language that greatly affects others lives who is imprecise and sloppy with their language when it does not matter.

Interesting Story

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes/story?id=9575794&page=3

I really don't care if someone I intend to shoot is offended by my beliefs, once I am to the point of shooting someone, I their opinion on everything no longer matters.

I cannot help but to think that if there was a PBUH on the optic there would not be a single news story covering it even if the owners of Trijicon bought full page ads bragging about it.

I also don't think this is a separation of church and state issue. This is part of the ongoing "We must eliminate all mention of Christianity while ignoring mention of all others in the process of making Atheism the State Church."

The manufacturer puts those little coded messages on the scopes. The military didn't demand they be there. This is not the government demanding that we worship a Christian God. This is a waste of time worrying about tangential religious affiliation while ignoring the active recruitment of terrorist within the ranks of our own military. Whisky Tango Foxtrot Over.

This is as close to the US Government creating a Christian Theocracy as allowing government funded roads to lead to churches. Or is the ACLU against public funding of roadways that are adjacent to churches?

20 January 2010

Wow

Massachusetts (if I have spelled that right) has elected Scott Brown to fill in the for the remainder of Ted "Crash-Dive" Kennedy's term.

Not only does this kill the filibuster proof majority in the Senate, it is the first time in over thirty years there's been a republican senator from Massachusetts.

18 January 2010

Criminal Behavior

Libtard Lenny is a criminal.

He and the company he works for have defrauded the unemployment compensation people for the last six months. It's called double dipping.

It turns out he's also a pot dealer, which bothers me far less, but still.

I am really getting sick and tired of having my life legal and above board and being fucked while assholes like Lenny break the laws with impunity and get ahead.

The police aren't interested. The unemployment people can't do anything unless I have his SSN.

Explain to me, again, why going vigilante is a bad thing for society.

16 January 2010

Something Else...

If my house is ever flattened by a hurricane, I am 100% certain that there will be zero aid from Haiti coming.

Considering all the money that has disappeared into that wretched place over the years, why don't we just let them deal with it on their own this time?

There Are Videos At The Link Worth Your Time

The Making of the Military’s Standard Arms, Part II

In the first video it's an early M4A1 with the lighter contour barrel. I would like everyone to notice that it only had one stoppage in 535 rounds fired at Player Character™ rate-of-fire. 1 minute 51 seconds of sustained fire to burst the barrel under the handguards.

The second video is a later M4A1 with the heavier barrel the spec-forces dudes demanded. It keeps up the PCRoF for 911 rounds and starts being a straight-pull bolt action when the gas tube melts. 4 minutes 47 seconds of sustained fire to burst the gas tube.

I want to see a test with an M4 and see how many rounds it takes to do this with the 3-round burst instead of full-auto.

15 January 2010

Interesting Dilemma

The entire point of punishing someone for breaking the law is to encourage people to obey the law and follow the rules.

When the government decides that following those rules made you too successful, and punishes you for that success, where is the incentive to follow those rules in the first place? Especially since the success garnered by breaking the law is by and large untaxed.

14 January 2010

I Am A Callous Bastard

I don't care that bunches of people died in Haiti.

I just don't.

It's full of folks I don't know or care about.

On the other hand, I also would not care if something great happened to them.

It's not a case of wishing them ill will.

Comments

10 January 2010

My Global Warmering Is Broken

This is ICE!!!

Our birdbath has become a bird rink.

I don't think I even OWN an ice scraper anymore.

06 January 2010

A Dread

I fear that I have been wasting my time with the soap and ballot boxes.

Only one box left.

My conviction that the last box will work is only reinforced by the Islamists using it and getting the government to be afraid to say boo to them.

05 January 2010

Rumination

I wonder how far a 13th Amendment defense would fly for refusal to pay taxes.

The people on welfare aren't working.

The taxpayers are.

If the taxpayers stop paying taxes, the government punishes them.

Sounds like the taxpayers are enslaved by the welfare types and the government is playing the roll of overseer.

Comments:

03 January 2010

Other Than The Ticket...

"There was no single piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy is going to get on a plane.'" John Brennan, White House Aide, top counterterrorism expert.

SEALs In 1/35 Update

Remember this guy? Ensign Carl Dietrich?


He's painted now!


02 January 2010

How About A Nice Hot Cup Of STFU

I have decided that if someone is going to call me a racist for saying a minority is incompetent, then their opinion is meaningless on all things. I am not calling that guy a CENSORED, I am saying he's not doing his job and you would agree if he wasn't black; which is far more racist than what I actually said.

Dead Trees

One brilliant thing about having real, printed, books is you know that they have not been altered should a fact, thought or idea contained within become politically incorrect.