An Interesting Turn Of Events

I went to The Boy's school to lock in the eight days you, my dear readers, have graciously funded.

I told them the story of your generosity and kindness.

"Just a moment..." I am told.

We're getting the entire month, including the transportation, for $525!

HUZZAH!

And it was because of your help!

The guy who runs the place has some discretion about billing and decided that they could cut the normal rate in half for someone with this much support.  In essence if strangers would contribute $400 how could the people who see him every day not match that?  The Lovely Harvey and I think we can scrape the remaining $125.

You guys effin ROCK!

Gun Raffle

This is a spleen vent rant.

JPFO is raffling off a Serbu BFG-50A rifle.

$20 for a chance to win a $6,700 gun?  "Sign me up!" you might exclaim.

There's a catch provided by the US Government.

A 25% tax rate on prizes exceeding $5,000 in value (less price of the ticket).

So this "free" Serbu will be a $1,670 rifle to the winner; due when before the winner accepts the prize.

That pisses me off all by itself.

I've watched more than one car raffle where the winner had no way of shitting 25% of the value of the pristine Hot Rod they'd just won.  Congratulations!  You've just won a $200,000 Chris Foose original!  Now just give us fifty grand and you can drive your new car home...

The organizers of these events are the next thing that infuriate me.  They most certainly do know that those taxes are due at the end.  They are also aware that they'd sell far fewer tickets if they gave full disclosure.

In short, it's a bait and switch.

When you ask you get the same answer, over and over.  (Paraphrased) "We appreciate your concern but don't see it as being a problem."

Of course it's not a problem, FOR THEM.  They've got their money and really don't care if the winner can afford the taxes.  Literally NOT THEIR problem.

Let's break down the JPFO raffle.

If Serbu donated the gun, $0 to JPFO.  1000 tickets at $20 per.

+$20,000.

Even if they had to BUY the gun from Mark, it's still $13,330 in their pockets.

If they stepped up to the plate and paid the taxes for the winner they'd have to shell out $2,233.34 so they'd still get $11,066.66 from the donations.  The price of the good will is immeasurable.

I'm willing to bet that Serbu donated the gun and even eating the taxes for the winner would net them $17,766.66.

The only reason not to is greed.

This is the sort of thing that makes you look at an organization seeking donations and say, "no, not today."

Marv's KSG

We've got pictures and we've attacked it with a fish-scale!

It is compact.

It's chunky and balanced just a little forward of the pistol grip loaded.

The safety is placed OK and the slide lock is well positioned.  The tube selector is simple and a bit hard to locate without looking.  Loading was straight forward, as was unloading.

The trigger is a surprisingly crisp 7 lb. 14 oz.  A bit on the heavy side, but without most of the creepy mush I've come to expect from bullpups.

It utterly lacks the cheap feeling I got from the SU-16 series.

With the Magpul BUIS and vertical foregrip loaded with 14 rounds of 12ga 2 3/4" it weighs just 8.6 lb.  That's a full quarter pound lighter than my 870 with seven rounds in it.  And the KSG is a lot shorter overall even though they have the same barrel length.

Disassembly is pretty simple without any real gotchas.  The manual gave us a couple of false starts because Marv's gun is clearly not the same revision level as the one pictured in the gorgeous full color manual.  We spent considerable time trying to figure out how to remove the "double feed eliminator" bar when we noticed that the picture didn't match the gun.  There's a warning about the gap between the barrel and the receiver when reassembling the gun, but it makes the impression that this gap should be gone before you begin tightening the screws at the front.

Speaking of those screws.  The take down screws look just like the caps to the magazines!  They are not.  We were extra special careful to not launch a mag spring and when the nose came free, we were looking at the actual magazine caps.  This gun would be very hard to make extended mags for.  WHAT?  You know you were thinking it.

More pics are coming.  Range report afore too long.

Seven Of Eight

I have the most epic readers of all!

You don't know me from Adam and you've opened up your hearts (and wallets) and pulled out all the stops to make sure The Boy has his summer school special days.

The Lovely Harvey is entirely too touched by your kindness.

Update:  All eight of the special days have been sponsored!

Coming Soon

Marvyn has procured a Kel-Tec KSG.

It's a delightfully silly toy of a shotgun.

I think we're going to give a full review of it in these spaces.

The most humorous thing about his buying it is that he wanted a "pump shotgun" since all he had were break opens.

Talk about jumping in with both feet on capacity!

He's got Magpul Gen 2 BUIS and a cheap Chinese holo-sight for it.

Pics to come along with a review.

Summer School For The Boy Update

You people ROCK!

Six of the eight "must have" days have been funded by your generous contributions!

Please take a bow!

Woo HOO

Day Three is now sponsored!

Just five to go.

Open Carry (Post 1776)

If open carry should ever come...

I think I shall use my M7 holster for a 1911.  So far it's the only holster I've worn for hours and hours that doesn't cause irritation in some minor way.

Plus, it encourages the use of a lanyard.  How's that for retention?

Fitting that I talk of increased freedom for post 1776, no?

Summer School For The Boy

Update:

Two days of eight have been funded!  25% in a few hours!

Someone rocks!  They can comment and claim it, but I won't out them without permission.

Target Markets

Manufacturers give out free product to people for review.

Often times, they are giving out the product to someone who is a likely customer of that product.  That's all well and good, but I don't think it might be their only route.

I think they should actively seek the reviews of those who are not convinced there's a need for their product.

If someone who doesn't think there's a purpose for your idea finds a use and likes the product, that's a far stronger endorsement than, "I was going to buy one anyway and here's one for free!"

A Bit Of Levity

I get tons of car related spam because I'm a Vette owner.

Got one today for some mats.

Passenger floor well and cargo area, just $230.

If I didn't want the cargo mat, it's $100 less.

If I don't want the floor mats; it's $70 less.

Near as I can figure since I don't want either I owe them $60?

Did I do that right?

Maths be hard.

Thanks For Nothing Pasco County Schools

The Boy is going to an adult learning center.

It's not government, but until now has been paid for out of the funding that is provided for his attendance with the county schools.

This funding is supposed to last until he turns 24, or four more years.

Today the school district informed the learning center that they weren't going to fund the summer break.

The learning center is a $50 a day proposition for us to pay for ourselves.  I sure don't have no spare $1,000 laying around to pay for July.

I know the school gets a break on that price, they're paying less than $50 a day (like $15).

Three things really piss me off about this.

1.  They had to have known that they weren't funding The Boy since the beginning of the year.  Waiting until today was low and likely calculated to do the most harm.

2.  The Boy is SUPER excited about the stuff that is on the schedule for the summer program that is now in jeopardy.

3.  We turned down opportunities for him to attend other summer programs that are funded by SSI and private donations.  This ties into #1.  If they'd told us two months ago we'd just be having him in those programs and all would be well.

I feel shitty for mentioning it, but there's the tip jar button over there on the top right.  Fund The Boy's classes for a day and get a special warm feeling!  Honestly need funding for eight days.  The stuff he's most excited about are just two days a week and if we could get that scrapped together all would be well in The Boy's universe.

Just Another Day At The Office

I'm really enjoying my DIY A-6 Mod.

Special thanks to the fine folks at Combat Ace who figure out how to do these mods and keep them organized for everyone else.

Head downtown.

Then we blow the snot out of Haiphong.

Return to Independence.

Break for overhead recovery

Then trap for an OK 3 wire.

Remember, fighter pilots make movies.  Bomber pilots make history.  Or so some hapless mud mover said in a movie once.  The movie was about him, ironically enough.

You'll Laugh So Much Your Sides Will Ache

Just for you, Larry!  F-14A from VF-31 Tomcatters.  Not sure if this is the correct paint scheme for 1986 or not, but it's a scheme they used.  This is how their planes appeared from mid-1985 thru late-1991 with CVW-6 off Forrestal CV-59.  Much to my shame, the modex is wrong, it should be 2xx.  Silly me and assuming the 1xx modex from their Phantom days with CVW-3 still applied.

Bonus Pic!  Forgot to add this to the post, so it gets added in an update.

Light Posting

Sorry about that.

Fully half of my regular readership came into town for a visit!  FuzzyGeff and Anglave.

Played some GURPS Traveller.  Rode some coasters at Busch Gardens.  Flew some kites on the beach.  Ate and drank entirely too much.

Laughed not quite enough, because it's sad when friends depart for home.

Special thanks to Anglave's missus for dealing with the disruption of a solo vacation.

Faster Than A Speeding Skull Interior

Jennifer got a one to examine.

Her mere mention got me to order one, especially after Marv's M&P was vastly improved by an Apex kit.

Installation went just like the video.  Trigger pull is smoother and noticeably lighter.

Update:

Trigger pull has been measured by Marv's scale.  9 lb. 8 oz.  That's an improvement of 2 lb. 3 oz.

Why Do I Always Do This

Failure To Fire comic has a bloglette at the bottom.

Comics with bloglettes are often entertaining and offer insight into the creative process.

Yeah, about that...

I really don't like the author now that I've seen how he interacts with the commenters.  It's going to make it damn hard to enjoy the comic now.

Danegeld

Just in case you're curious...

I posted Danegeld because that's exactly what we're paying with welfare.

It's what we're paying by not fixing illegal immigration.

It's what we're paying by not confronting all manner of things squarely.

How Big Are They In Texas

...if they're this big in Florida!

Holy snot!

Doesn't Fit

I hate being pigeon holed.  But I've long known that my reasoning is unconventional on many gun topics.

I carry a 1911 because I shoot it well and it's narrower than a double stack nine.  Confidence does matter.  I carry in .45 because my .45 1911 is parkerized and that's more tolerant of being IWB than the blued .38 Super.  I actually prefer the .38 Super to .45...

I have on occasion carried my Glock 21, but that sucker so damn wide it just doesn't ride well for me.

With modern ammo there's just not much difference 'tween 9mm and .45.  Carrying more shots is better than fewer, but everything is a compromise.  I carry a spare magazine or two to compensate.  The flat-narrow 1911 mags are a plus here too.

If .45 kills the soul, do they pass harmlessly through gingers?

R Kipling

Dangeld

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

"We never pay anyone Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Mod Madness

I've been making changes to my copy of Strike Fighters.

There's a huge community of people who make add-on planes for the game and I am availing myself of the resources!

Pics below the fold to save people some loading time!

Limits

The owners of subwoofers have convinced the courts that their obnoxious throbbing is a first amendment issue.

OK.  Fine.

So be it.

However your rights to speak in public end at my private property line.

I have more jurisprudence on my side.

You don't have any right to intrude into my private space or home.

And that's where I will fight you.

And when your pockets turn out to be infinitesimally small, I will aim right at the installer of your beat box and bleed him dry too.  Then we'll aim at the makers and manufacturers.

I don't care what you do in your own home on your own property, but if it comes onto mine, fight's on.

Said It Before

Rewatching Star Wars.

Wedge Antilles is the only BY GOD fighter pilot in the whole damn Rebellion.

Denis Lawson did an excellent job with the role, I am convinced he's got a pilot or two as a close relative or friend of the family.

If you watch his performance and compare it to footage taken from pilots during training you'll see what I am talking about.

Additionally the FX people did a great job setting up the fangs-out mode.

When he takes care of the TIE padlocked on Luke he makes a HEAD ON guns attack right past Luke's fighter.  Effectively he's using Luke as a mask to make his own attack.  Grab your favorite combat flight sim and try it!  Shit ain't easy.  It's a lot easier to merge into the turns your wingman is making and then get behind the baddy.

It starts at about 1:49:00 on the DVD I have.  Mr Lawson sells the performance.  He's LOOKING at both Luke and the TIE and working the angles to set up the shot.  Well what's in front of him isn't a space battle, it's a sound stage and a camera crew.  I'll bet his ship ends about a foot in front of what we can see in the shot.

Hat's off, Mr Lawson!  The only character and actor other than the main cast to be in all three original films.

PS: He's also the only pilot in that trench who goes, "who came up with the tactic of flying in a straight line between the lead and the enemy and why am I still doing this stupid shit?"

Suleiman

A Type-S made from Lego would be 0.86m long, 0.62m wide and about 0.2m tall.

I have nearly 20 cubic feet of Lego in assorted bricks and I don't think I have enough to make it.

A Little Cold, A Little Hot, Sing It With Me

The Starks couldn't plan a wedding to save their lives.

When In Doubt Panic Immediately

Just in case anyone wondered what the initial warning looked like.

It's dreadfully disappointing compared to a tornado warning, stuff is happening all around in one of those.

Three Generations Of Rogue

I am a Lego geek and a Star Wars fan.

Lego keeps making their X-Wing better, and I keep buying the new version.

They're still not quite there, but they're getting SO close.

The scale on the first one was all wrong.  The second is better, but disproportionate; correct landing gear height though.  The third one is closest in scale and proportions, but the nose seems too stubby and  it doesn't park at the correct height.  Plus the R2 socket is sideways!

I can fix the gear.  I have the parts and technology.

The sharp eye will notice that the 1st gen model is modded.  I flipped the bottom wings so that they were mirrors of the top wings; something that Lego didn't do themselves until the 3rd gen.  Now that I'm in a Lego'ing mood I might just do the same mod to the gen 2 bird.

Of note, I have a different pilot and astromech droid in each one. Luke and R2-D2 in the first, Biggs and unknown in the second and Porkins and R5-D8 in the third.

Stainless How Does It Work

Little known fact.

Most stainless steel guns are made from a grade of stainless steel that a magnet can stick to!

Try it at home!

I originally thought it was because of the Undetectable Firearms Act (Thanks Again Hughes!) but further reading leads me to think that gun makers were going for the superior mechanical properties of martensitic stainless steels.

Confession

Dancing Monkeys declare that they, too, are traitors.

This is my shocked face.

I say we add a few slots to the gallows at Fort Leavenworth.

Curtis LeMay

"If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting."

What if that's all of them?

Turns out; "enough" is a variable not a constant.

It can be as few as one and as many as all.

To win, you must be willing to kill as many as it takes to reach enough.  You won't miss it when it happens either.

You should also not worry that you're killing too many while the fight still rages.  If the fight is still on, you've not gotten to "enough" yet.  Again, you can't miss it when you cross the threshold.

Intervention

Fix Syria?

OK.

I'm in, send the Marines, and FIX Syria.

That's going to mean eliminating the cultures that are presently holding it in a broken state and replacing them with a culture that isn't brutally dangerous.

This is why Iraq is not fixed.

We didn't do anything but knock over the people in charge and hand control over to people with no cultural heritage of democracy to be democratic about it.

For Fuck's sake, people, this had even been tried before.  Die Weimarer Republik.  A republican form of government takes some education on the part of the voters and it's damn hard to leap into it cold.

German commoners couldn't make the leap in one step and that gave us a brand new word!  Genocide.

I propose that the US foreign policy be that we will buy what you have to sell, we will sell what you will buy and we will otherwise ignore you.  If it becomes impossible for us to ignore you, you're gone.  The place you used to live will be a new US Territory and eventually a state and part of the USA.  It seems the only way to get anywhere with the middle east is to eradicate the toxic cultures that thrive there.

Or, you can just make sure we can ignore you.

Look For The Union Label

So you'll know who to blame when you walk out into the garage and find this:

That is condensation on the inside of my headlight capsule from someone of UAW Local 2164 who forgot to press the rubber lid on the high beam bulb all the way forward.

It has to have been like this since October 2007 when the car ran off the line, but this is the first time there's been this kind of condensation.

My car is a strike car, and this is the second little thing like this I've found that could be attributed to an interrupted assembly process.  The headliner being improperly adhered to the roof panel being the first.

Update: It's fixed.  Cost to McThag $0.00 and a few hours.  To access the lights on a 6th Gen Vette you remove the wheel on the side you want to work on.  Pop off the access cover.  Pull off the rubber covers, then you can get at the lights.  To dry things out I put a 40w clip-on desk lamp in the capsule and let it sit for ten hours with the bulbs removed.  There's a little 1/4" vent that would have eventually allowed the humidity to equalize, but a bigger hole from the bulb and some heat from the light cleared it up much quicker.  In theory, with the cover properly in place, this will not reoccur.

Furry

This article is a great example of why I hate Grendel fans.  Lying with the facts is still lying.

The author hates the AR because of its gas system.  Um, show me a Grendel gun that's not based on the AR.

The 6.8 is better than an M4, but it doesn't fit in an AR magazine.  Really?

Which one is the 5.56 magazine?

The author also implies that 6.5 works in a USGI magazine.  It doesn't, for the same reasons that 6.8 doesn't.

He impugns the M249 in his article too.  While advocating the 6.5 he's also forgetting that there hasn't been any belt fed development of the round.  Bill Alexander has openly stated that he wasn't interested in that road and gave no consideration for accommodating links.  As far as I know, there's been no work to adapt 6.8 to a belt gun either.  I stand corrected.

In all honesty, he gets one thing right while not realizing it.  To really fix the problem, you're going to have to issue a whole new weapon, not one derived from and compatible with the M16 family.  A totally new round with totally new magazines and belts in a totally new rifle and SAW are what is needed.  Designing them together would be the ideal way to do it.  Being constrained by the dimensions of the M16 magazine is a severe limiter on developing a new cartridge.  It makes a lot of economic sense for commercial sales to we armchair heroes, but they are a kludge at best for an issue infantry rifle.

Say Hi To Satan

Frank Lautenberg has croaked.

It's blood dancing, but I can't help but be elated that there's a name we won't be seeing attached to any new gun control legislation.

Tech Keeps Marching Along

A 1942 Rolls Royce Merlin 61 engine is carburetted, 27 Liter displacement and makes 1,580 hp with the full supercharged setting selected (about 9 pounds of boost) at around 3,000 rpm.  This requires 100 octane gas.  58.52 hp/l.  It also weighs 1,640 lb. dry (0.96 hp/lb) and I am not sure if this includes the supercharger.

A 2008 Chevrolet LS3 engine is electronically fuel injected, 6.2 Liter displacement and makes 436 hp naturally aspirated at around 5,900 rpm.  93 octane fuel is required.  70.32 hp/l.  It's about 415 lb as a crate engine (1.05 hp/lb).

Adding a supercharger to an LS3 (Edelbrock E-Charger) runs approximately 7 pounds of boost and ups the power to 599 hp using the same 93 octane fuel as before.  96.61 hp/l!  The kit is 125 lbs, but parts are removed from the base engine, so the total is less than adding 415 and 125; but...  Even at 540 lb total, it's 1.11 hp/lb.

Ribbit

This little amphibian charged me when I attempted to get it out of the dog's reach.

It rode on my shoulder to a safer location then jumped into my bathroom window, where it posed for the camera.

The flash from my cell phone camera seemed to mess it up but good, it was lost and aimless in the sill for a few minutes.

Mexico

You know, I think that if Canada had done to us what we did to Mexico during Fast and Furious, we'd have considered that an act of war.

If they decide to take it that way, what happens if they draft all the illegals?

Whole Lotta

The Boy transitions from the public schools bosom to the private sector officially today.

He's getting his special education high school diploma.

This doesn't change the situation on the ground even a smidgeon.  He'll still attend the private school he's attended the past two years and it will still be paid for by the school district for the next four.

Graduation party tomorrow!

Been flying the electrons off my flight sim.  The A-6A is so choice.  If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

The latest patch cures a stutter that had made one of my other favorites unflyable, the English Electric Lightning.  I say, "super cruise"?  We had that in the fifties, Old Man.

The A-6 comes into the game via a simple modification.  The same sort of mods have also added Canadian CF-5A's and a stable of Starfighters.

Everything you've heard about the Starfighter is wrong concerning maneuverability.  This is first time I've flown a 104 in a sim where I walk away thinking what the pilots had be saying.  Hot ship!  The nice thing about SF2 is that it tones down the reality just a bit so that the sim-pilot gets an effective 500 hours with any of the planes.  You can still get into big trouble, but you have to try.  Not modeling every little oddity and twitch leaves you free to pursue the tactics.  And you have to use the tactics that were successful in the real world to be successful in the game world.

It's the first sim I've played that has a crutch to compensate for the fact that your ass and inner ear can't feel a thing where the plane could still be employed in a realistic manner.  It means I can't use some of the famous departure tactics that the guys at TOPGUN came up with for the F-4 though.

Am I Intruding?

Well, I do have an Intruder!  I had to buy the cockpit art, but the rest was freely available on a forum dedicated to discussing the game.  Pictured is an A-6A but I also have A-6B, A-6E, A-6E TRAM and A-6E SWIP.  Included in the package was a rework of pretty much all of the Navy/Marine campaigns for the game too.  Win, win, win!

Ready For War In The Streets!

I've got seven magazines for my Ruger Mk.I here!

I am prepared for the charging hoard of rabid bunnies!

Good magazines for the MkI are surprisingly hard to find.  These are actually the factory convertible units from Ruger from when they changed the follower button from the right to the left side.

On an original magazine, the button is just on the right side, after 1971 the button moves to the left.  On a Mk2 this is to clear the slide stop.

Top to bottom:  Transitional rigged for A100 and Mk.II  Transitional rigged for Mk.I.  Original Mk.I.

During the transition they made magazines that had the slot for the button on both sides of the body and you swapped the button to the side you needed it on.

Transitional with button removed.

I have two originals and five of the transition.  Marv's spoken for three of them, leaving us both with four good mags and him with two of the crappy plastic based Ruger brand "universal" Mk1-2-3 magazines that work OK, but not always.

Hand feeding sure chews up the rounds too!

Fuel Revisited

Traveller is famous for using gigantic amounts of hydrogen as fuel for the jump and maneuver engines (well the power plants for those maneuver drives).

It's also famous for not explaining why you need to refine the "wild" fuel you obtain from places like gas giants.

I noticed on my own that hydrogen is a miserable material to keep around.  It seeps through just about any material that can take the pressure and or cold of storing it.  A hydrogen atom is literally small enough to slip between the atoms of the container wall.

Then there's the storage strategies.  You're left with cryogenics or pressurizing it to the point where it liquifies.

Canon Traveller ship designs pretty clearly aren't using pressure in their bunker design, lots of sharp angles and the tankage takes up stray void spaces.  That's asking for a rupture.  Even with better materials, using the stray space method is heavier than proper rounded containers.

Cryo is implied in several sources without them saying it outright.

So...

The jump drive and power plants include the cryogenic systems to keep the fuel cold enough to remain liquid.  This makes hydrogen a super pain in the ass should a leak occur too.  Stuff at this temperature gets brittle and fragile.

The sublimation through the tank walls I'm handwaving away by saying at TL9+ they've come up with a way to "charge" the walls of the tank material to repel the hydrogen atoms so they can't seep out.

Last is refinement.

It's a multi-step process.  First it's mainly refrigeration.  Most wild sources of hydrogen are gaseous.  Second it's separation of impurities, while you can burn the impurities, they might not be aneutronic and those stray neutrons can be hard on the machinery and disrupt the delicately balanced geometry of the fields generated by the jump drive.  Third it's enrichment, protium fusion is lower yield than deuterium + tritium fusion so adding some neutrons to each H as you're storing it effectively improves your fuel density and protium fusion emits a stray neutron (we're trying to stop that).  Included with the refining machinery is a plasma heater that will rip water apart to get its hydrogen.

PS: DT fusion makes neutrons too, but give a higher yield so there's some energy to spare in breeder reactions to suck up those neutrons and using some of the energy making He3 and that will give nice aneutronic 4He with some easily captured protons as exhaust.