Not That Shocked

Reason magazine reporting on ATF's back door gun registry made from digitizing out of business FFL's 4473's.

The only way to keep ATF, or others, from accumulating the information and making a registration database from it is to outlaw the collecting of it in the first place.

They'll NEVER do that. 

Department Of Redundancy Department

I've been posting about things I'm doing and updating and bringing forward old posts that relate to the things I've been doing...

Which puts two very similar posts right next to each other...

For now.

Many of them will be updated again and brought forward, putting distance between the posts later.

I makes me wonder how many of my readers delved into the archive from the beginning.

I look back from time to time and see that my position has changed on a couple things, and not at all on others.

Some things without changes have gotten new posts where I try to better mean what I am saying.  Sometimes I do a better job with successive iterations.  Other times... 

History of Dottie

Dottie has seen almost as many changes as Kaylee.

Dottie's name derives from a line in the movie, "Armageddon". The amateur astronomer who discovers the planet killing asteroid wants to be able to name it after his wife, Dottie, because she's a life sucking bitch from which there is no escape.

Dottie is a "franken AR", her parts are from everywhere. The lower is Spike's Tactical, the lower parts kit is CMMG. The upper is a mid-length Dissipator upper from Palmetto State Armory.  Handguards are Brownell's Retro.  Optic is a Vortex SPARC AR.

SPARCly

It would appear that Vortex is either discontinuing the SPARC AR or is getting ready to replace it in the lineup.

Either way Palmetto State had them marked down from $270 to $70.

I already had an American Defense mount that's compatible with it laying around, so...

Dottie gets a red dot!

That, of course, means the fixed rear sight needed replaced with a Magpul MBUS3.

Still quite handy at 9 lb. with the optic.

USGI 30-Round M16 Series Magazine Comparo Part One

51 years of magazine history here.

Left to Right:

Colt p/n 62667 gray aluminum body, emerald green 62665A follower
NSN 1005-00-921-5004 gray aluminum body, black follower
NSN 1005-00-921-5004 gray aluminum body, light green follower
NSN 1005-00-561-7200 gray aluminum body, tan follower
NSN 1005-01-615-5169 black, windowed PMAG-30 M3
NSN 1005-01-630-9508 tan aluminum body, sky-blue follower
NSN 1005-01-659-7086 medium coyote tan, windowed PMAG-30 M3

As you can see, the Colt design from 1967 is really still in service.

The original has a plain steel spring and a very dark green follower.

62665A follower on left.

It's stamped with Colt's part number.

The first 30-rounder to rate a National NATO Stock Number (NSN), in 1972, is very much the same magazine as the Colt 62667.  The coating changes from a plain, clear anodizing to a light-gray anodizing with a dry-film lubricant both inside and out.

The, now black, follower is virtually identical to the dark green Colt.

NSN 1005-00-921-5004 on right.

The spring was changed from plain steel to a coated/plated steel:

Colt on left, black-follower on right.

Desert Storm showed there was something wrong with our magazines.  There are several theories as to what exactly was the reason for failure, but the Army decided that it was because the black follower allowed too much tilt and that allowed it to bind up inside the magazine.

So the light green follower was issued under the same NSN.

Service in Iraq and Afghanistan show that the green follower wasn't fully solving the problem.

A teeny start-up in Colorado, Magpul, adds a product to their line-up in 2004.  A replacement follower that fits in a standard USGI 30-rounder and uses the standard spring.  It's use is both banned or grudgingly accepted (sometimes both) depending on unit and commands.

Magpul enters the magazine market in 2007.  Their original PMAG was marketed as a cheap, training magazine and not sold as a "bet your life on it" service magazine.  Many of them find their way into Soldier's and Marines' ammo pouches.  The troops appear to love them.  Several models of PMAG are given an NSN, but none are actually considered issue.  The NSN simply allows unit funds to make purchases without breaking regulations.  Despite the sanctifying NSN, the use of Magpul's baby is banned more than once by various levels of command, and these bans are rescinded several times as well.

The popularity of the plastic magazines from Magpul and a strong feeling of "Not Invented Here!" along with noting that the Self-Leveling-Followers appeared to fix the problems with 1005-00-921-5004 causes the Army to adopt NSN 1005-00-561-7200 in 2009.

The big change is a tan follower with stronger anti-tilt features.

They changed which side the stagger starts on too.

The new tan follower has a very strong resemblance to Magpul's...

The spring is also changed because it goes through the follower nearer the center.

Light Green on left, Tan on right.

Magpul keeps updating and upgrading their PMAG as well, resulting in the Gen M3 in 2013.  This magazine, depending on color and features, is also issued an NSN.

Citing problems with the new M855A1 ammunition's steel tip striking the aluminum lower portion of the feed ramps, yet another change to the magazine is made in 2016, given NSN 1005-01-630-9508 and dubbed the "Enhanced Performance Magazine" or EPM.

The body changes color from an anodized gray to a painted tan.  It appears, to me, that this paint is applied over the top of gray anodizing...  The mouth of the magazine is altered slightly to present the noses of the rounds slightly higher so they miss the aluminum below the steel barrel extension.

The follower appears to be the same as before, but now in sky-blue.

The EPM did not prove to be the panacea it was hoped to be.  Some troops complained it didn't really work any better than the old tan-follower mags, it was just easier on the guns.

Several sources noted that the new feed angle was identical to what Magpul had been using since 2007!  Magpul's goal was similar, avoid hitting the aluminum below the barrel extension; but for a different reason.  The M4 carbine had introduced extended feed ramps that went down into the aluminum of the upper receiver because the bolt-speed of the M4 was causing the noses of the rounds to hit the front of the receiver.  Magpul was trying to make a reliable magazine for a market which had not fully embraced the so-called M4 feed ramp.

The EPM caused problems in particular with the Marines' M27 IAR.

So they adopted the PMAG Gen M3, with maglevel window, in both black and medium coyote tan using NSN 1005-01-615-5169 and 1005-01-659-7086 respectively.  They reportedly would have been happy to keep using the green or tan follower magazines, but orders made under those NSN's would start receiving EPM magazines as soon as stocks of the older magazines had been depleted.

The PMAG uses the same spring as the old NSN 1005-00-921-5004 and its follower has no relation to any aluminum body magazine.

EPM on left, Gen M3 on right.

This is because the PMAG doesn't have a curved to straight transition inside, it's a constant curve the entire length.  Colt tried to do a constant curve as early as 1965 but was confounded by their own sloppy dimensional tolerances in the M16's magazine well.

At the time of this writing, it appears that The Army might even be considering following in the USMC's footsteps and adopting the PMAG.  Stay tuned!

USGI 30-Round M16 Series Magazine Comparo Part Two

Now for some measuring.

We're going to check the tilt, and if we can jam up the follower.

We're going to measure from a known point on the gun to the tip of a bullet to see if the feed angles are different.  With four rounds loaded, from the top of the lower to the center of the round with the magazine hanging naturally seems fair.

We're going to assume that the vintage magazines are in good enough shape to get honest measurements.

Kaylee has a typical magwell for a modern AR.  Sabrina is known to be tight.

Colt p/n 62667 gray aluminum body, emerald green 62665A follower
Measures 0.214"
Falls free from both test guns.
Readily tilts and binds.

NSN 1005-00-921-5004 gray aluminum body, black follower
Measures 0.249"
Falls free from both test guns.
Readily tilts and binds.

NSN 1005-00-921-5004 gray aluminum body, light green follower
Measures 0.263"
Falls free from both test guns.
Readily tilts but difficult to bind.

NSN 1005-00-921-5004 gray aluminum body, with light green follower replaced with Gen II Magpul Self Leveling Follower
Measures 0.222"
Falls free from both test guns.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind.

NSN 1005-00-561-7200 gray aluminum body, tan follower
Measures 0.227"
Falls free from both test guns.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind.

NSN 1005-01-615-5169 black, windowed PMAG-30 M3
Measures 0.260"
Falls free from both test guns.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind.

NSN 1005-01-630-9508 tan aluminum body, sky-blue follower "Enhanced Performance Magazine"
Measures 0.327".
Falls free from Kaylee, not from Sabrina.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind.

NSN 1005-01-659-7086 medium coyote tan, windowed PMAG-30 M3
Measures 0.260"
Falls free from both test guns.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind.

Based on tilt and binding issues, Magpul had the problem solved in 2004.  I wonder if it was royalties or not-invented-here that caused the Army to spend taxpayer money recreating the Magpul follower's performance.

UPDATE 18Feb26: I'm consolidating some commercial magazines below from future posts.

Lancer L5 AWM30
Measures 0.265" 
Doesn't fall free from either gun.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind.  Pushing down on the back of the follower will bind going down, but not going up so we're just going to note that and keep an eye on it.

Magpul TMAG-30
Measures 0.262"
Falls free from both test guns.
Cannot be made to tilt or bind. 

Orlite 30-round magazine
Measures 0.210"
Falls free from neither test gun.
Readily tilts and binds.

2012 made Thermold 30-round magazine
Measures 0.159"
Falls free from neither test gun.
Readily tilts and binds.

Brownell's 20-round Retro Steel Waffle Magazine
Measures 0.265"
Falls free from both test guns.
Readily tilts and binds.

Brownell's 25-round Retro Steel Magazine
Measures 0.315"
Falls free from Kaylee, not from Sabrina.
Readily tilts and binds. 

 

 

Bravo

Remember this post?

Based on weight, Bravo is the Lancer L5.

Make your plans for use accordingly. 

Plastic See Thru Magazine

Picked up a Lancer L5 30-rounder today.

Holds 30 rounds?  Yes.

Weighs 3.8 oz. empty and 16.6 oz. loaded with ADI F1A1 ball.

It's got marks so you can see how many rounds you have left.

Plus it's in eye catching translucent green that glows under a black light!

This might be the perfect Zombie Apocalypse™ magazine!

Using the same measuring criteria from this post:

Measures 0.265" 

Doesn't fall free from either gun.

Can't be made to tilt or bind.  Pushing down on the back of the follower will bind going down, but not going up so we're just going to note that and keep an eye on it.

Prolly Quite Warm Where He Is

Depending on the model you use for Hell, Reverend Jackson might be quite warm now.

Though in the Dante model he might be VERY cold because his self enrichment while representing other causes might be considered a betrayal of the public trust and he's frozen in Lake Cocytus.

Still time to repent, Al. 

Deep Stacking

While I don't have the proverbial "ammo fort" made from crates and ammo-boxes, I do have a fair amount of ammo here.

Some of it is from the wild variety of chamberings in the safe.

A thread about the prices of 5.45x39mm made me think about how deep one should stack their ammo supply.

I am happy with how I am doing it.

For the seldom shot guns, a couple of boxes gets me by.

The stuff we shoot a lot, we stock more.

And run out of more...

And it is segregated into what I, jokingly, call training and warshot.

For 9mm the price difference between the carry ammo and the practice ammo is significant.

So we don't shoot that carry ammo as often, just blast through the ammo we'd been carrying occasionally and replace it with fresh.  Not that it's mattered to get fresh ammo, the lint stained stuff has always fired. 

But I would say that if the news were to report on all the ammo here, they'd call it an arsenal or something of the sort. 

There Goes My Vacation Plan

Nepal is poised to pass legislation putting some experience requirements up before someone can tackle Mount Everest.

Apparently, the place is overrun with people who want to climb the mountain, regardless of whether they are able to make it to the top.

The crowds have kept people from making the summit who otherwise would have made it...  easily?  Handily?  I don't know the correct adverb here.

This is news that doesn't affect me a whit.

Despite the lack of crowds, I don't think I can summit Florida's highest peak.

Britton Hill is a lofty 105m above mean sea level and nearly 50 feet from the base camp (the parking lot).

Someday!  Someday... 

"Tanker" Guns

I've seen several "tanker" versions of otherwise normal firearms.

Not a single one, so far, has actually been issued to tank crews.

The primary tanker small arm is a pistol.

In my short few years as a tanker that was an M1911A1 and an M9 (with a sidetrack to Glock 17).

The tank might also have some extra guns too, but they're not special versions.

I learned how to shoot the M3A1 "greasegun" on the off chance I was assigned to a unit that still had M60's because that tank was issued a couple for the crew.

The loader was assigned an M16 in the Abrams.  Trained on the M16A1 in OSUT and issued an M16A2 in Germany.

Lots of photos of M48A3's in Vietnam show greaseguns and M16's laying on top of the turret near the hatches.

I am not sure if Thompsons were issued to tank crews in WW2, but the grease gun was issued both there and Korea.

But all of the weapons you find with tankers from WW2 on have been something issue and nothing created special for armored crew use. 

Then Why Are Democrats Against It?

If requiring voter ID is Jim Crow 2.0, then why do Democrats oppose it?

They're the authors of OG Jim Crow, after all.

A Thought Occurs

We used the M16A1 in Granada.

Remember, the M16A1 that was garbage and got everyone killed in Vietnam?

Odd.

Of course, the M16A1 of 1983 wasn't quite the same weapon as in 1964.

The barrel and chamber had gotten chrome lining.

The buffer was completely redesigned.

The troops were better trained in how to clean and maintain them.

But the M193 ammunition was the same, just in case you were still blaming the powder for the problems in Vietnam.

The product improvements were real.

But Is It

Apex Gun Parts has M219 parts available.

The question is: "Is the M219 a machine gun?"

Because the definition of a machine gun is, "A machine gun is defined as any weapon that shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot automatically more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger."

I've seen the M219 in action and it fails the shoot and readily restored to shoot more than one round per trigger pull.

I guess because it was intended to be a machine gun, it legally is one...

The scariest thing is the old silverback tankers insisted it was a huge improvement over the M73.

They all loved the M240. 

Nation Of Riflemen My Ass

I am, once again, watching the US suck hind tit at biathlon.

I can't even say it's because we suck at skiing because the penalties (misses) speak for themselves.

Hey, CMP, weren't you supposed to fix this?

Wait, CMP teaches high-power, which is scientifically designed to suck all the fun out of shooting and biathlon is fun.  Not their wheelhouse.

Speaking of...

Why the Hell isn't XTC / High Power Rifle an Olympic sport?

For that matter, why don't any Olympic shooting sports use "real" guns? 

Everything Old Is New Again

I was just reading about how the USMC is adding the capability to fire the new laser guided APKWS II rockets to their F/A-18C/D fleet.

Rocket?  No, rockets aren't guided.

The AGR-20A is guided, therefore, missile.

The neat thing is it's a standard 2.75" rocket in format, so it can be fired from any 2.75"/70mm launcher in the inventory.  Just need a laser designator to guide it with.

That's a 7-shot launcher for the Marines.  Up to 8 such launchers can be carried on a legacy Hornet.

It makes me wonder where the old LAU-3/A's go.  Those hold 19 rounds each.

The more modern, and probably more compatible LAU-69D/A also holds 19 rounds.

The bigger launchers have more drag, of course, but it'd mean 152 shots instead of 56 if 8 launchers were carried.

I know the USMC and Navy don't like triple ejector racks any more, but that'd add four more launchers to the plane and 28 more missiles in the 7-shot launchers.

But the part that tickled my fancy is how many planes used to have 2.75" unguided folding fin rockets built into them.  The  FFAR becomes the Hydra...

And an F-8 Crusader gets 32 laser guided missiles fired from the belly tray...  If we had any Crusaders that still had the tray and were flyable.

But laser guidance would have made the concept viable in a way that the unguided mighty mouse wasn't. 

Shut Up Clippy

Amazon has rolled out an AI helper named "Rufus".

Rufus pops up in the way with helpful stuff like, "I see that you're looking at the thing you searched for, would you like help with that?"

Why, no, Rufus, I don't want help with looking at the thing I am looking at.

Rufus can be dismissed, but if you use the back button to navigate away, Rufus returns.

Rufus only stays the fuck gone if you use buttons on the Amazon site to navigate around.

This is exactly the same as a sales-drone hovering while you try to make a decision between brands suggesting the item in general.

Most of the charm of shopping online was not dealing with people.

Adding an AI shopping assistant is forcing me to deal with a fake person, with an additional down side of when I tell them to fuck off they don't even look hurt and cry.

¡Que se queme ese cabrón!

¡Fuego!
¡Fuego!
¡La refinería está en llamas!
No necesitamos agua.
¡Que se queme ese cabrón!
¡Que se queme!
¡Cabrón!
¡Que se queme!

It would appear that a refinery in Cuba has caught fire.  One of just three on the whole island.

Loss Leader

I have now purchased Dire Straight's "Brothers In Arms" album three times.

SIGH

First on cassette, then on CD then on mp3.

I have, however, had mp3 prior to buying it from Amazon today.

But my CD rip wasn't a good copy.

C'est la vie.

Measure Twice Cut Thrice

I have baby gates across the bedroom door to keep Shadow separated from Beeper.

The bottom two gates are swing-out style and have two lugs on the door-frame that accept pins on the door.

The top gate has always been difficult to get closed, but the bottom one has always been fine.

I used the provided template to place the lugs, so I assumed it was some kind of tolerance stack-up problem with the gates themselves.

Swapping them top to bottom helped a lot.  The bottom one was noticeably tighter, but still worked correctly.  The top one got looser, but still bound up on the top lug.

So I measured the fit between the lugs and pins on the bottom gate and replicated that on the top.

It amounted to lowering the top lug about 1/8".

Then I measured between the lugs and they now match!

Somehow I got the top lug 1/8" too high when I mounted them initially.

Worse, I replicated this mistake when I lowered the top gate to narrow the gap to allow it to become the middle gate.

Good!

Trump removed a keystone item in preventing life at TL7+ by eliminating the regulations that measured some gas emissions.

Good!

Now, do refrigerants!

The only thing "wrong" with R-134 and R-410 is Dupont's patents have expired.

Well No Shit

It seems that California and Georgia are worried about the costs of tariffs.

The extra cost is being passed on to customers!  That's causing them to either find a vendor not so encumbered or to pass on the purchase.

This is literally Econ 101.

Increasing the price reduces demand.

If the price only increases from a single vendor, but the good is still available elsewhere, the demand shifts vendors.

Which is the intent of the tariff in this case.  To onshore the supply and choke the importers.

So, no shit, the importers are seeing a drop in sales as domestic manufacturers step up.

Or customers are realizing they didn't really need what the importers were selling...

PS:  Did everyone catch how the media suddenly understands how taxes are just added to the price the consumer is paying?  Another TDS miracle!

Bring The Mafia Back

I was never a potential customer, but...

Disney has been going this same way for a while too.

The idea that they can make the same money from charging more from fewer customers does have some merit.

The question still stands whether that's sustainable.

Disney appears to be at a tipping point.

Suggested By Marv

We've begun making a list of the pharmaceuticals ads and going to ask our doctors if each and every one is "right for me."

Should be fun.

Oh Canada

It seems that all that gun control they have up in The Great White North didn't keep someone from shooting up a school and murdering a bunch of people.

And here I thought that just happened in places with lots of guns, like Florida and Texas.

And another shooter who's trans.

Ugh.

Though I am tempted to dust off the old textbooks and see what they say about gender dysphoria and compare it to the "standards" of care today.

I'm going to go out on a limb that looks pretty damn strong and speculate that we're not seeing any genuine cases of dysphoria but we're seeing a the results of brains broken by being convinced they do have a malady that needs to be "treated."

Almost as if emotions took over for science.

That NEVER happens...  Oh, wait.

Well, not that often...  Dammit!

Maybe some science will return to things like medicine.

I Wish We Had Some Grenades

So many role playing games made explosions so complicated we never bothered learning the rules.

Or, it was such a chore we never used them enough to remember them well enough to want to use them.

So in Top Secret or Twilight: 2000 we just didn't buy grenades.

At least, that's how I remember it.

I just checked T2K and the rules aren't so bad, but we had scars from some poor piece of game design.

Top Secret doesn't seem that hard either...

Wait...  Some game had a rule about when an explosion was confined it was greatly multiplied and we always remembered that rule and it got applied to every game!  This is just another reason we all agreed to change to GURPS.

No matter where our aversion came from, we didn't often use grenades.

The GURPS rules for explosions are generally clear.

So I am more willing to add grenades to the equipment list of my characters.

But something I failed to internalize until watching a movie tonight was fragmentation grenades have 4-5 second fuses.

A turn is a second long in GURPS.

That means throw grenade and it doesn't go boom for another 3-4 turns.

I can't wait to see how that turns out in play.

Ackshullally

 

My college degree didn't mess it up.

It was the stuff I learned auto-didactically between getting my high school diploma and my college degree.

Just sayin'.

I would also like to point out to any poor maintenance technician who worked on my designs that I always made sure of tool clearance and that there was space for the fastener to be removed.

It never made sense to me to make a wear item hard to access either.

As Obsolete As Infantry

Chant Du Depart is having a tank obsolescence debate.

But as an armchair armor historian and former 19K...

How many times has the tank been declared obsolete?

Airplanes made them obsolete during WW2.

HEAT rounds made them obsolete.

ATGM made them obsolete.

Fuel consumption made them obsolete.

Inability to cross bridges made them obsolete.

Inability to be quickly transported to the battlefield made them obsolete.

And now drones have made them obsolete.

Oh and nuclear warfare made all other kinds of war obsolete, taking tanks with them.

Every time the tank goes obsolete, we get the end of horse cavalry trotted out as an example.  And they bring up Poland v Nazi Germany every-single-time.  That was a unique case and it really doesn't illustrate what they think it does.

Horse cavalry persisted for decades after WW2.  It lasted until light vehicles became reliable enough to supplant them and was finally replaced when the logistics support got good enough to support vehicles that far forward.

It is of note that while the US Armor Branch harkens back to Cavalry, they never really were cavalry.  Jokes to the contrary aside.  ie "Death before dismount!"

Armor does serve the same role as heavy cavalry did, as a shocking force, but it's got other roles too.

A tank is a wonderful mobile machine gun post in support of infantry that can engage with that machine gun without the distraction of being killed by small-arms fire or shell splinters.

To be obsolete, you need to have been replaced.

Almost all of the claims of obsolescence come from it being more dangerous to be a tanker than it had been.

Is war.  Is dangerous.

Every time someone has come up with a clever new way to kill tanks, it's not that long before a clever way of negating or, at least, mitigating that threat appears.

Drones are commonly mentioned and the Ukraine v Russia war cited.

Like horse cavalry and Poland v Germany wasn't representative of cavalry, drones in Ukraine v Russia isn't representative of tank warfare.

Neither side is using their tanks like we would.

Lots of evidence of a lack of combined arms from over there and it's really surprising to me because I was led to believe the Russians knew about it and used it.  I guess that was just the USSR...

We'd be doing this war differently.  First off, we'd not be hamstrung by the inability to do deep penetration strikes into Russia.  There wouldn't be a functioning rail network by the end of the first week and without that Russia's log-train collapses.  Our air force isn't Ukraine's.

Our tank doctrine is not theirs either.  We emphasize mutual support and combined arms.  We coordinate and communicate better, and we own our own over-the-horizon comms.

Anti-drone weapons, both electronic and kinetic, are coming if they haven't already started being fielded.  The near boredom exhibited by Armor officers when replying to queries about drones makes me think we've got a solution to the drone problem we're actually keeping secret for a change.

It is especially obvious reading these threads that my decision to no longer offer one commenter a soapbox to sound smarter than they are was wise.

I'm far more concerned that the helicopter has become useless in war than the tank.

Governing Least

"The government isn't best which governs least -- it's the best government that needs to govern least."

From Slovotsky's laws via Joel Rosenberg (RIP).

America, as designed, is supposed to be self governing.

The people of America did self govern for most of a century and a half.

But something changed.

It wasn't really that long ago, but it's approaching a century.

The urge to make other people do what we wanted them to do instead of doing what they wanted to do.

As designed, we shouldn't be able to do that as long as what they're wanting to do isn't doing us any harm.

Even if they are harming themselves.

But we got busybodied about it.

Once you start down the path of being a busybody, nothing is off limits.  Plus you get the moral righteousness of saving the benighted souls for their own good.

THEN!

You get an "industry" of people who grift off of saving their fellow man from themselves.

Suddenly you no longer have a government that governs least because you have a people that need governed more.

Unami

Watching "Poker Face" and a character offers another some demerara sugar.

He said it added an unami tone to the coffee.

A bag of it is just $5 on Amazon, so we said, "what the Hell?"

I added a tablespoon to my coffee and...  mildly sweet with unami.

Who the Hell knew?

I don't normally take sugar with my coffee either.

This will be the second time we've tried something from a show we watched that worked out great.

Smash burgers from "The Menu" being the first. 

An-Dissipation

If you've been enjoying reading about my Dissipator project, Palmetto State Armory has them on sale again.  In OD or FDE.

You'll need to find a bolt carrier group and charging handle, but if you're buying uppers from PSA, you know where to get those!

If you're reading this months or years after the initial post, those links will likely be dead.

Not Even Once

While I have been at parties centered around the Stupor Bowel, I cannot say I have ever watched it.

Not even the one time.

The closest I've come was when Janet Jackson flashed the crowd during the half time show and I was on the phone with FuzzyGeff at the time.

So I have continued the long tradition of not watching the Stupor Bowel, and the National Felon League in general.

It's really my dad, who played in high school and watched avidly, who made me apathetic towards football in general.  Often hostile, really.

My dad, and his friends, coupled with the jocks in high school and living in a college town soured me on sportsball in general.  I don't get the allure, I don't grasp the fans.

Yet I really enjoy Hockey.

BUT!

If the local team loses, it doesn't harm me.  If they win, I gain nothing.  I don't structure my life around being able to watch it, though I do make time to watch.

It might be because I was the third string goalie in my sophmore year of high school.

Something I only set out to become because of the two sports rule in Anoka-Hennepin School District and I wanted to do biathlon.  You had to try out for and be accepted for two sports or you didn't get to play any.  You could not be in more than three.  Hockey was short many of the school's jocks because they went out for track, football and basketball.

Biathlon was also unpopular because of the time requirements.  You needed to be able to get to the local range very often in addition to skiing.

I still giggle about signing out my rifle and taking it home on the bus to go shooting over the weekend.

Oddly, I'd become a jock because of being successful at biathlon.

I am sure my bullies noted, after I blacked out and beat the worst one, how good a shot I was and they were an easy shot from where the bus dropped us at school to where they hung out before home-room.

Having a reputation among the bullies for being crazy AND a reputation among the jocks as a wicked shot does have its advantages. 

Retention

Got my retainer washers in.

First, there don't seem to be SAE retainer washers.  All I could find was metric for the Ø0.180" tube...

I figured 4 or 5 mm would do, and ended up with a 750 piece set with retainer washers from 2mm to 12mm.

The Ø5mm x 14mm OD was too big.  The flange caught on the barrel and it bent in such a way as to stop being a retainer washer.

Ø5mm x 12mm OD is just right!

Now I have a 748 piece set that I will probably never use again!

Update:  I have tried the Brownell's Retro triangle, vintage triangle, USGI A2, Palmetto's more oval A2 style and Magpul's MOE handguards.  All of them fit just fine!  Though vintage triangle handguards are just a little longer than the other types, requiring a LOT more effort on the slip-ring to get them off and on; but that's true of the M16A1 clone they live on too!

Flap Flap Drip Drip

When it gets cold, my toilet starts dripping.

It's no surprise that this will be visible on the water bill.

So I, finally, replaced the flapper.

The new one is soft and pliable.

The old one was misshapen, hard and brittle.

Procrastination...

I had the replacement part for months.

It Bears Mentioning

I went to check the private messages at the SJGames forum where I'd confronted Sean "Kromm" Punch.

I got one message from the thread starter thanking me for speaking truth to power.

That makes it worth it to me.

Ewwww But...

So, you've found yourself face down and drowning in an unflushed toilet.

Whomever is drowning you, pulls the handle and flushes the toilet.

Well, at least you're going to drown in clean water after catching a breath...

Then you feel the hot sensation of piss on the back of your head.

Nope.  Today is NOT your day.

Who Separated Them

 When we got back from shooting, Harvey decided that we needed to rearrange things so that she could get at HER gun safe.

It's a fair cop.  It's been behind the corner-of-clutter in the bedroom for a while.

So we moved the pile of clutter and then moved her safe to a better location.

In the process of sorting through the clutter, we found many things that could be discarded.

Of note is a sandal.

She asked if I even wore that pair any more.  I replied that I did not.

But there was only ONE sandal.

Hours later, I encountered the other one.  In the opposite corner of the room from where the one she had found.

I blame the cats.

Triumphant Return

The Lovely Harvey has overcome her fear of damaging her robo-shoulder and taken Kevina to the range!

Considering she has not had this carbine to the range in more than a decade...  Not too bad a group.

I got the M1956A2 zeroed with the new 5x scope too!

 Gotta say, that Faxon barrel is pretty sweet.

So Different

I am so enamored with Dottie's current configuration that I grabbed Tabitha to see how they compared...

They both have early furniture, but the slightly heavier Dottie points so much better.

I'm at a loss.  Dottie just feels better than Tabitha.

There's so many ineffable gun things.