Cart Ahead Of The Horse

Mexico is suing US gun manufacturers over the gun violence in Mexico?

Hey, I have an idea!

Mexico, why don't you close the border?  That way all of our nasty guns cannot be, illegally, walked into your fine cesspool of a nation for your cartels to use on each other and innocents.

Speaking of those cartels...  I think you're going to be owing us a lot more than our gun companies owe you once we get done tallying the damage done.

And another thing...  The guns that keep showing up in vids of cartel violence, those are military.  Thanks to the Hughes Amendment, they didn't come from commercial sources in the US.  They'd have to come from police or military armories.

It's not the manufacturer's fault those guns are loose.

What Would Stoner Do For Reals

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Ian and Karl are simply wrong about what Eugene Stoner would have done given the advancements in tech.

They're making a substantially upgraded AR15.

I think that Stoner and Sullivan would have been making a substantially upgraded AR18!

They did not make another design with a recoil spring in the stock or a buffer after the AR15.  Their next two military designs both accommodate folding stocks.

I think they would have stuck with the AR15 gas system though.  It's been noted that the prototype AR18 was modified from that system in favor of a short-gas system because Colt owned the patent on it.

Creating where they would have gone along this route is a lot harder than doing an AR15 upgrade.

Brownell's has come part way with their BRN180 uppers, but what to do with the lower?

I am curious if the magic done with the KE Arms polymer lower can be done again with a folder.

I don't know.  But I'd like to see.

Ich bin Jude

Seeing as I caught the Wu Ping Cough, and survived, I see no need to get a vaccination which doesn't seem to do much more than the antibodies I obtained the old fashioned, sustainable, and environmentally friendly way.

But the powers that be intend to make me a second class citizen over it.

Fine with me.

But they might wanna consider that I know who the Bielskis were before they go full National Socialist on me and make people like me The Jew.

They Make That Model Already

The Glock 45 is essentially a Glock 19 slide on a Glock 17 frame.

I like mine.

There's a thread on Arfcom where someone is describing all the changes he'd be making to his Glock 45...

The list is standard, popular, Glock upgrades; except:  Cutting the grip down to Glock 19 length.

Ummmm.

That's called a Glock 19.  They still make those.  You don't have to modify a 45 to get a 19 because you can just BUY a 19 all ready to go.

It's not even like he bought the 45 and decided it was too long.  He's stated he intends to buy a 45 and then begin modding.

Thag not Grok.

That Would Have Been Interesting

With Lavender Linda in the back and a sack full of prescription meds for The Boy in the passenger seat...

Marv and I returned from Walgreens.

I realized that a standard question from a traffic stop is "are there any guns or drugs in the car?"

"BOTH!" would be my reply, since there weren't any illegal versions of either in there with us.

Then it hit me: Linda has a Freedom 15 resin lower with no serial number.

While it's perfectly legal, would a cop know that?  How long would we be delayed while he tried to run the serial that didn't exist?

An academic question because I don't drive in a manner that attracts police attention.

Dense

LV-426 from Alien is stated to have a diameter of 1,200 km and a surface gravity of 0.86g.

That comes out to a density of 20.45 g/cm^3!

Accounting for a skin of other materials to make the overall density lower than the primary materials...

LV-426 must be made from iridium, osmium, platinum or rhenium.

No wonder Weyland Yutani wanted to colonize the place.

Logical Outcome

Somewhere there is a landlord building a killdozer.

Count on it.

PO 3.5x21P

Is Russian ACOG with a 5.45x45mm reticle.

Modeled by the lovely Tonya!

It's got a gigantic body for that wee little 21mm objective:

Very complex reticle, with two different ways to figure out the range from the target.  The left side is for a prone target and the right is for standing (Click to embiggen).  The camera was crooked, not the scope!

There's a teeny switch on the front of the battery compartment which lights up the reticle red:

Marv is selling it, just in case you're interested!  It's worth more than I have at the moment and it's really too far to the rear with the Tantal's mount.

Kitty Politics

Caught The Bear using an unapproved container for a cat-pan today.

He takes great pains to avoid the approved pan.  The other two have been seen to pounce on him while he's trapped in there trying to do his business.

So I've added a second approved receptacle for him that's separated from the main pan and with good sight lines and easy escape routes should he be interrupted.

I half suspect that his holding it in too long is one of the proximate causes of his earlier blockage.

Hopefully this will chill out the other two as well.

Range Day With A Dead Battery

Took Agnes to the 100 yard range last Tuesday to try and stretch my shooting legs.

And with a dead cell phone couldn't take a picture of my triumphant group!  It acted like it took the picture as it died, but alas...

A perfect clover leaf with a flier just two bullet diameters outside it.

Wow it's so much easier to see what you're doing with a 9x scope than 5x.

A two and change pound trigger that breaks like glass is so much easier than a creepy milspec AR.

.270 in a bolt gun thumps the shoulder with a bit more authority than an AR too.

I gotta say, I'm impressed with my Savage... and it's near the bottom rung of the non-Axis lineup too.  The package series are good guns, people just need to get unsnobbed about it not being a Winchester or Remington.

Pick One

There's two things which are mutually exclusive here.

Either the vaccine is effective OR the vaccinated people are vulnerable to people who've caught the Wu Ping Cough without being vaccinated.

Pick one.

Bear in mind if you should choose the latter, you're admitting that the vaccine is ineffective.

I think we're tacitly admitting that the vaccines are ineffective when we blame the unvaccinated and tell people who've been vaccinated to take precautions consistent with being unvaccinated to avoid infection.

Low Tech Armor

Now that I've played with the complicated and confusing armor rules in GURPS: Low Tech, I've decided that I'm going to use these rules exclusively from now on.

They're simply more flexible and allow you to put together a suit of armor that's based on real stuff rather than porting the expectations from Yee Olde AD&D.

I am OK with the extra complexity.

Plus, since there's no players to object...

Holy Symbol

I played with a lot of unfamiliar rules building Shorthair.

A cleric needs a holy symbol and I speculated that this is the power investiture equivalent to the staff enchantment.

So I placed this blessing on his two-handed mace.

But not before I looked up the rules for decorating the weapon.

Putting the iconography of Torm the True changed at $50 mace to a $250 mace, then another $30 for the blessing.

It doesn't make it a better mace, but I will be able to perform "religious tasks" with more reach now.

Message Relay

Russell Haydon Fulton sends:

"Tell Chomps that I am grateful to him for all that he did for me when we served together. Just an awesome bugger. Respect to him too."

Rabbit Holes

Why, when we have a perfectly serviceable 9mm, do we cast about for a different one?

I have an M&P 9 that's fine for carry.

I have a Glock 17 that I shoot pretty well.

That'd be enough 9x19 for most any occasion, no?

Why'd I get so many others?

Because my monkey fingers like to play with different designs and grok them to fullness!

One learns a lot about what works and what doesn't in pistol design this way.

One also makes a huge list of GURPS stats which doesn't matter in the real world in the least.

Saved By Poverty

Classic sent an email telling me that the James River Galil clones were back in stock for just $1,000.

When I looked there were six remaining.

While I went to take a leak, they'd sold out.

Thank goodness!

It saved me from begging Willard for the money for a gun I am surely not going to like because I've been obsessing over one since I bought my first copy of Top Secret in 1982.

Never mind my Mary Sue character in Twilight: 2000 having one in Iran when we were playing with the RDF Sourcebook.

I am thankful for my poverty...

No!

I am not!

I want the money to buy these baubles when the mood hits me.

It occurs to me that you could hit that donation button and solve the financing problem.

That is, if you are feeling generous and like living vicariously through my adventures.

Moar NO!

 

I do not want these grips for my Model 59!

They're overpriced, especially for something I don't want.

Why can't I look away?

Found Is Found

There are many rules in an RPG that sometimes don't make sense.

In GURPS it says that someone of a lower tech level must pay double for each TL difference between their native and the item they want; assuming, of course, that higher tech stuff is available at all.

So a TL 0 person buying TL 2 mail would have to pay 4x as much or 8x as much for TL3 mail and plates.

But once the adventure starts, the armorer isn't going to be carding the characters at the door and charging the barbarian more than the knight for a pair of vambraces.

The 2x per TL is for character creation only.

A tougher nut to crack is where the money will buy something that's got a character point value, like cyberwear.

Do you make the character pay points or money for their upgrades?  Is it points at character creation and cash during play?  Both?

I tend to land on making the player pay points at creation and money during play and not forcing them to drop their experience points balancing the increase in character points.

Likewise, I've never forced a PC to spend points on wealth levels once their characters have slain the dragon and are discovering exactly how many wagons it takes to move the hoard.

Aside:  Do you know the dimensions of a one metric ton cube of gold?  37.26cm or just about 14-11/16" per side.  That's two cubes per wagon.  How many cubes in that mountain of gold the dragon's corpse is sitting on?

Armoring A Non-Standard Shape

Uglaublich!

GURPS is handy sometimes, you can figure out almost anything.

But you HAVE to figure it out.

Shorthair in AD&D 2e(r) used banded mail.

The main problem with banded mail is that it's not a real armor any more.  The historians have changed their minds about what banded means and... well.

What I was thinking of is what Low Tech calls segmented plate.

The next problem is a lion's body is not the same size as a person.  There are examples for barding, but a lion isn't listed.  So I fudged and made it 2/3 (or so) the increase in cost/weight as for a horse.  That adds up close enough to double the price/weight for a human as makes no never mind so I just doubled the human numbers.

Wemic are naturally -0 TL (stone age) and normal fantasy is TL 3.  Many staples of normal fantasy armor are GURPS TL 4 because you can't make big plates of steel until you upgrade your iron smelting processes.

This presents a serious problem for buying armor with a TL 0 character in a TL 3 world.

First is starting wealth.  $250.  Then there's the doubling of every TL difference between you and the stuff you're buying.

Iron armor from a TL 2 source will be 4x as expensive.  TL1 bronze armor will be 8x!

The suit I put together is medium segmented plate for the human torso and arms, lion chest, shoulders and upper forelegs; then light scale for the lion abdomen and thighs.

TL2 iron is $3,508 and 104 lb at TL 2.  At TL1 you have to spend $7,016 and TL 0 $14,032.

The same suit in bronze is TL 1, but bronze is 4x the cost of iron, so it's $14,032 at TL 1 and $28,032 at TL 0.

If you stick with the TL 0, you will need more than 56 times your starting wealth just to buy the iron armor and even more to get bronze (50 to 100 points in wealth in armor alone).

The simple way to do it is to buy off your low TL to get up to TL 2 and just pay the $3,508.  TL2 also ups the starting wealth to $750.  More money cheaper stuff?  Sign me up!  And buying off the low TL only costs 10 points.  Even so, I'm dropping 30 points in wealth to get a starting wealth of $15,000!

It even fits the character concept well.  He converted to a human religion and left his tribe to become educated as a cleric of Torm the True.  They exiled him for his conversion, in fact.

Dang It's Been A Long Time

Back when FuzzyGeff first introduced me to GURPS I could translate back and forth between it and several game systems as I converted my campaigns to Evil Stevie's Second Role Playing Game (ESSRPG not making the naming cut in favor of Generic Universal Roleplaying System).

Now I'm trying to remember how many points is reasonable for an 8th level cleric so I tell if I'm overshooting the conversion.  I think the old rule of thumb was something like level x 25; so 8th level would be 200.  4e points are slightly different so 50 + (level x 25) tastes right for 250.

This dive has also got me studying the D&D alignment rules more closely than... um... like... EVER.

I just noticed that what makes you evil isn't doing bad things to others, it's simply being most concerned with yourself.

Under the D&D alignment system good is doing what benefits the maximum number of people; and that happens to be genocide, so be it.

An evil character could be an opponent to that genocide on the grounds that there was no benefit to themselves.

Not so clear cut as I'd thought!

Going Full Retard

I think I am going to convert the AD&D adventure modules I have over to GURPS or GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy and call them "Expert GURPS And Dragons"

EGAD for short...

Niche Market

There's a thread on Arcom, there's always a thread...

Someone thinks that S&W should make a 4th Gen of the 59/x59/59xx pistols.  Basically a 5906 with a rail on the dust-cover.

I think that would be cool too.

BUT!

We would have to accept several givens along the lines of, "we're all given super powers and limitless wealth," for it to happen.

Reality is a bitch, after all.

People forget that the 3rd gen was in production all the way to 2006.

That was the greatly simplified Model 910.

I don't think they're thinking of a 4th gen version of that gun.

Even the "remove as much cost as we can" 910 was too expensive to compete with Glock and their own Sigma/SD or M&P lines.

A fully machined and pretty 59xx 4th gen would have to cost a princely amount today and the market for such a bauble would be very small.

It'd be outperformed at every metric for, probably, 1/4 the price because at the end of the day it's a complicated and difficult machine to make.

Let's be honest, if the design could be altered enough to remain economical AND retain the cachet of the 59 series; the Custom Shop would still be cranking a few out here and there.

And all of this ignores that you can get a Model 59, 659 or 5906 for much less than a grand.  The secondary market sucks all the air from the room for this endeavor.

The idea of a 4th gen intrigues me, though.

There's got to be a custom smith whom could graft a rail to the dust-cover to a 5906 to give us a simulacrum of what-if.

Still outside my price range, dammit.

Death Of An Icon

Ron Popeil has shuffled off the mortal coil at the age of 86.

His commercials were a staple of my late-night television viewing as a tween.

The Lovely Harvey couldn't place him, having spent her tweenage years competing with Kieth Richards for "most drugs taken in a single evening."

I started rattling off products and she didn't recognize any of them until I hit on the "Ronco Pocket Crack-Pipe"!

In case you're worried about her drug use, she's 34 years sober now.

Take Note

There's a sound business reason for Remington to be offering $33 million to the Sandy Hook families despite doing nothing culpable in the murders.

It's CHEAPER than taking the fight all the way to a judgement in their favor.

Winning a lawsuit is a Pyrric victory most of the time.

But let's look at this again.

$33,000,000.00 is cheaper than going to court, litigating, getting a verdict, and repeating this process through all of the appeals.

It's especially galling that the lawyers for the plaintiffs have flat stated that their litigation is entirely based on the idea of making the process the punishment and forcing gun makers to stop making AR pattern guns.

Those are just the target of the day.  Other types of guns will be next if this succeeds.

Why?  Precedent.

Despite the fact that there's not supposed to be an admission of guilt with a settlement, it's always taken as such.  Just like pleading the 5th.

Remington is left with the unpalatable position of taking one for the team and losing their shirts fighting this to the end, or doing a settlement to be done with it because that shirt is very threadbare after going bankrupt.

I really think they should have said "fuck it" and stayed in to fight to the death.

Someone needs to.  This suit is in violation of the 1st amendment, the PLCAA should have nuked this at filing, and (even if it didn't violate the first two things) it should have been killed by the bankruptcy.

It's not even clear which Remington is being sued and which Remington is offering $33 million.  Is it current Remington, which did not exist in 2012; or the bankrupt and disbanded remnants of Remington checking off the last few boxes as it ceases to exist?

Every gun maker is going to be faced with an identical suit from now on every time one of their guns is used in a murder because A judge decided that PLCAA did not apply to advertising and that free speech isn't a thing.

Precedent. 

In the long term, this sound business decision to settle rather than fight is a poor decision.  But it seems that nobody can look past the next shareholder's meeting.

Shorthair The Outcast

Way back in the mists of time...

I was hired at no pay to play AD&D 2e.

The reason I say that is the group had a very rigid schedule and you were not to be late.

They met at the GM's house, 35 miles from my place.

Looking back I think I was primarily invited to show the bottom-dog in the pack that he could be replaced.  It made things a bit tense.

Being wedged into an existing party is always a headache at the best of times and this time was made worse by two giant elephants in the room.

First: I'd never played 2e before.

Second: I would be making a cleric.

The first wasn't so bad, AD&D is similar enough to AD&D2e that I could muddle through.

The second, though, was a lot harder.

I was totally out of my comfort zone.  I had not played any form of D&D for years at that point and wasn't even remotely familiar with the spell list.  I cannot remember why I was a cleric of a lawful-good deity, but it's on the character sheet.

I feel like the only actual choice I made during character creation was race.

Remember that set of Wemic stats I put up a few days ago?  That's because I'd run into the character sheet from...  1994?

Shorthair the Outcast is a Wemic who's been exiled from his tribe.  He cuts his mane to show that exile status.

Now that I've rediscovered this sheet, I'm setting myself to making a GURPS conversion.  I've even shelled out for the AD&D2e main books and a copy of Forgotten Realms at Drive Thru RPG to facilitate the transition.

There are notes in the margin, that I assume are restrictions on spells, but I can't remember if they're because the party didn't want me to take them or if it's some restriction of my character's faith.  Torm the True is what I have listed.

Nothing in the Forgotten Realms or Faiths and Avatars books say anything about spell restrictions for clerics of Torm.

I have now, officially, done more research on this character than I did when I was playing him.

Having the books helps a lot.  The DM didn't share the books and meted out knowledge as a means to keep us under his control.

Glitch

Small points of language sometimes glare.

In the movie, "The Prestige" Hugh Jackman's character says they will, "phase it out"...  It being a part of their act.

That phrase is out of place in Victorian England.

The movie takes place in 1906 at the latest based on him dealing with Tesla in Colorado Springs.

The thing is, "phase out" dates from 1940 at the earliest.  It didn't really become common until they made it one word, "phaseout," in 1951.

You'd Think

I use Thunderbird to retrieve my email from the server.  I have several email accounts to manage.

On the 12th... that stopped working.

This is because I used to have Verizon FIOS.  When that became Frontier FIOS, Verizon punted my main email account over to AOL.

AOL, with no notice, changed their security protocol and my login quit.

They took two weeks to put out the work-around for people who want to use something besides their browser to get their email.  I only know about the work-around because I submitted a suggestion to fix the problem.

Note I didn't report the problem to AOL.  They have a message on their help landing page that says reporting by email is down because of COVID.

You'd think that a company that's primarily centered on email would have an email option...

Suboptical

I have cured the blurry reticle on the FACOG!

Just need to use the reading portion of my bifocals.

That just tells me that I need new glasses again.  Ugh!

This time around I'm going to take my optician's advice and get the reading prescription up in the inside top corner of the lenses too.

Getting old ain't for sissies!

Excitement

The sheriff had at least two of their JetRanger/Kiowas, flying in relays, circling my neighborhood this afternoon looking for a felon who'd escaped from a work camp in the county to the south.

Looks like they caught him, but there sure were a shit-ton of deputies around here for a while.

Moar FACOG

The fake ACOG I ordered, literally, months ago has arrived.

There are no tender mercies from the USPS.

I didn't expect to start the durability tests before the unboxing, but here we are anyways.

Happily, damage seems to be limited to a gouge in the windage turret cap.  I sure hope that nothing internal was messed up.

Unlike Marv, I am opting for carry handle mounting on Lavender Linda.  I had to get the mounting screw from Ebay.

I also opted for the chevron instead of the cross.

If you ever wondered why there's a hole drilled through the length of an ACOG's base:

It's so you can still use the iron sights!

The Bear First Of His Name

 Ruler of all he surveys.  Chaser of lizards.  Etc. etc. etc.

The back porch is a hotly contested piece of kitty territory here.

Hot in more ways than one in the summer and they love to bask in the screened in safety of the "wild outdoors".

Bear chased Beeper and Dingus off the porch and held court while we were outside sweating over the drafting table.

Thanks again to everyone who donated to his health!

Table Pics

 

I think it looks great.

Hamilton brand, for those scoring at home.

Like A Butcher Block

Pretty groady at the start.

 Then we started sanding...

Our kitchen table is an old drafting table my dad gave me back in 1985.

To say that it's seen some miles would be an understatement.

Dad got it from his workplace when they started changing from pen and paper to CAD.

Most of its life it was my desk/work bench.  It was not pampered.

The Lovely Harvey has been after us to sand and refinish the top for a while, the old linseed finish had gotten sticky and it was attracting everything.

So I kidnapped Marvyn and we attacked it with the random orbital sanders.  80 then 150 then 220 then 400 then a few coats of clear satin polyurethane.

Harvey took more pics than I did, but I'll get more posted once everything has dried and there's good light.

I think it looks great!

Faux Pas

There's nothing quite so embarrassing as to hear from a friend you'd assumed was dead after you'd listed the guns they'd left at your house on GunBroker.

Years And Years

Way back when I asked, "what are you trying to prove by firing thousands of rounds without cleaning or lubrication?"

I got a lot of shit for asking that.

But the question still stands.

We know the testing protocol, and the results of the test.  What we don't know is the provable hypothesis which leads to the test itself.

I took more shit when I stated that it doesn't matter if the gun chokes on the +1 round past the ammo I am willing to carry because I will be out of ammo and very worried if the fight is still ongoing.

Here's the deal, though:

I have yet to encounter the gun which cannot fire the basic load.

Can an M1911A1 fire the 7+1 in the gun and two spare 7 round magazines without cleaning?

Yes.

I've asked before, "How many rounds are you lugging around?"

I've rarely encountered the person who's carrying more than one reload.  Most commonly, the people who respond are carrying ZERO reloads.

It's a very rare, and very crappy, gun which can't fire a single magazine without a malfunction.  And we tend to know which guns those are before firing a shot now.

Most new made guns, even the cheapest anymore, can pass this test.

It comes down to risk assessment.

I don't plan on getting into a firefight.  If I did, I am not carrying concealed and I am not carrying a pistol as my primary arm.

A firefight might find me, but it's not the way to bet.

Nearly all armed interactions don't involve firing a shot.  Most don't even require you actually have a firearm, you just need to warn the potential assailant that you are armed and they back down.  Look it up!  It's about 90% of the interactions.

90% of the remaining 10% require you have a gun, or something that is believably a gun.  Brandishing will end the interaction and you can depart unmolested.

Now we're into the small numbers.  90% of the 10% of the 10% (0.1%) of the time you're going to have to fire a shot.  You don't even need to hit your assailant!

90% of the remainder (0.01%) of the time you're going to have to hit them.

The rest of the time your hits are going to have to hit something vital and NOW which gun, how reliable it is, how well does your ammunition perform and did you bring enough ammo will actually matter to the equation.

So?  What gun and how much ammo are you bringing to the 0.001% chance you're in a real firefight with your carry gun?

Think hard on that.

I don't carry an armored briefcase on the off chance I hit the big number on a scratch-off lottery ticket to carry my winnings.

I don't take classes on money management to deal with the vast fortunes from winning the powerball either.

The truth is, I'm very unlikely to end up needing a gun at all.

But...

It is also true that it's far better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

You just need to learn to assess the odds.

By the way, you're far better served buying some concealable body armor than carrying a gun if you're really worried about the 0.001% scenario; but I so rarely see gunwriters advocating for that.

I wonder why?

Is it because they can't shill for classes on how to wear a vest?

Serious Case Of Unrequited Want

The FN Grand Browning will never be economically made, if it is ever produced.

Tis a pity.  I bet there's a small market for such a gun, but it'd be at least a grand.

He did the Colt 1910 too:

Double

For clarity's sake:

The CZ-75 P-01 did not have a malfunction and fire two rounds.

It fired two rounds because I was attempting to only release the trigger just past the reset point to speed up my shooting times.  But doing so while bringing the gun back on target rather than waiting until the sights were lined up again.

While that part succeeded, the gun did not fire intentionally.  A negligent discharge under the best case conditions if you drill down all the way.

Happily, I wasn't very far off target when absorbing the recoil and got the "bonus" round.

I've amended how I shoot DA/SA guns and it doesn't seem to really slow me down that much, but definitely changes if I fire the next round intentionally.

To What End Exactly

I've noticed that every place Mr Soros drops a lot of money and is successful in getting the candidate he paid for sworn in, that place turns into a shit-hole in rapid order.

I also notice that the avowed socialist branch of the Democrat Party are advancing a decidedly Fascisti solution to the shit-hole problem.

Considering what shoulders Mr Soros used to rub, it makes you wonder if fascism is the goal he's trying to achieve.

A small group of entrepreneurs got very wealthy in Nationalist Socialist Germany after all.

I Wasn't Busy That's For Sure

Ever just get so wrapped up in doing nothing that you totally forget to come up with something to post on your blog?

That's where I've been!

Just a whole lotta nothin going on.

The Bear is doing well, starting to assert himself in our little pride a bit more; and getting the expected feedback for doing it.  But he's healthy as he tries to move from the #3 bottom spot to #2.

The Boy is doing bowling for Special Olympics.  Not doing as well as bikes, but we've gotten no word from Special Olympics about the state level games...  Bowling has been taking up bike practice time, so he's not prepared anyway.

Got yelled at for keying some bitch's Jeep.  Wasn't me, didn't do it.  But she should learn to park between the lines rather than more than a foot over into the next spot.  The last spot, as it happened.  I fell on my face trying to squeeze out of Moxie and my left shin still hurts from her running boards.  I will give her detective skills a boost and suggest that the person who keyed her car couldn't get their car into that space and after walking from the back 40 to the business, keyed her precious Jeep.  But thanks for blaming ME.

Mr Fleetwood, who used to respond to such calls in his past life as a State Trooper, says all the cops are going to do is let her run down, give her some crayons to color a standardized report and tell her to call her insurance.

She joins me in finding damage to their car and not really having a recourse to fix it.  But she should look inward as to why someone might have been angry with her.  I was none too thrilled falling on my face because she didn't leave me enough room to get out!

MBT

Marvyn has installed a LaRue MBT trigger in his tan plastic pal who's fun to be with.

4 lb. 8 oz. pull with a very clean break.

I say this for LaRue, they're consistent.  That's the same trigger pull I have on Dottie.

Devil's Advocate

This video analyzes JUST the New York (SPIT) Times article and Evan Hafer's response to the response generated from it.

It doesn't address his multiple donations to Actblue nor several employees of BRCC's donations to Actblue which predate the NY(S)T article.

It doesn't address BRCC linking to the article in the same manner as a business happy with what was published.

The donations to Democrats was discovered once people had kneejerked from the NY(S)T article.

No No NO!

Looking around just to test the air about prices on the "missing" early Wonder-9; the CZ75.

I discovered that Tanfoglio made a copy of the Cz in .38 Super.

Darn it.

I like my .38 Super 1911.  It'd be fun to have a second pistol in the caliber.

Early Wonder Nines

No CZ-75... but anyway.

I'm fascinated with the features they have in common.

The FN and Smith have magazine disconnects.

The Smith and Beretta are double-action, and have a decocking slide-mounted safety.  They also share the use of an aluminum alloy in the frame.

They all lave lanyard rings, as befits full size service pistols.

I'm The Weirdo

My interest in firearms came from tabletop role play gaming.

Not hunting or any other form of actually shooting them.

Hmmmmm...

That's not quite right, but it is...

Learning about guns came from me and my friends interest in everything WW2 when we were kids and using what we'd learned to play war.

Being possessed of vivid imagination, even a stick could be an MG.34 and we played on that basis.  Mostly recreating the most recent re-run of COMBAT! (in color!) or Rat Patrol.

But it was our play which led me to read any book on the topic I could get my hands on, and it was the lavishly illustrated tomes that got my first interest.

Which gets us to where I was playing games with rules someone I'd never met had written.

Top Secret from TSR.

Although I'd never fired anything heavier than a .22 by this point in my life, it was nearly instantly obvious that I knew more about guns than the gamemaster administrator.

My character had ended up in the bottom of an elevator shaft which was flooded.  The less than a minute's immersion was ruled to have rusted my Uzi solid.

"Nope!" I protested.  Though rust never sleeps, it also doesn't move that fast.

The administrator was genuinely surprised that guns weren't instantly destroyed by exposure to water.

Let's just ignore that I was playing a spy armed for war rather than espionage.

Interactions like this led me to being "the gun guy" in our groups.

I was deferred to if I said that a gun could or couldn't do something.  I was astonishingly honest about it too, for any ruling I made in someone else's game would come back to haunt me in my world later.

Knowing all this real-world gun stuff didn't do me a lot of good in Top Secret or Twilight: 2000.  The gun rules aren't terribly realistic.

The weirdo thing gets traction with our brief dalliance with Boot Hill.  I made a case for higher rates of fire from some historical guns which weren't on the weapons list and that set off a never ending quest for moar dakka.  I was the only kid on my block who'd even heard of a Merwin and Hulbert...

Moar dakka is why that character with the Uzi carried a Browning High Power.  13 shots is more than every other pistol in the entire game.  I have a lot of characters with that HP in their equipment.

When GURPS came along using real world measurements for things instead of game defined units...  My geekery lost bounding.

It's easy to stat an unlisted gun from comparing it to something we do have stats on and subbing the weights.

It's not difficult to make stats for completely new guns once you notice the relationship between muzzle energy and damage.  It's a bit more nuanced than that and Douglas Cole figured out the equation for us.

What this did was let me make stats for period guns at a lower TL than expected.

You want an FAL, but it's 1943?  FG.42!

Need an M1A during prohibition?  ZH-29 or Mondragon!

What about an AK at (3e) TL6 instead of TL7?   MKb.42(H)!

Owning and shooting have improved the geekery, but alas, the opportunity to use my knowledge has been reduced to making a line of stats for every gun me or my friends own.

Doing other-than-12-gauge shotguns was a lot of fun!

It's still fun to do the research even if, at the end of the day, the only difference between a Luger P.08, Browning HP, S&W 59 and Glock 17 are the number of shots and the weights.

Remember, in GURPS, π = 3.00!

Impressions

The S&W 59 is the second oldest high-cap 9mm design I own.

The oldest is the oldest and that's the High Power.

Both designs have new-made magazines which add to the puissance with extra capacity than when they were first introduced.

Mec-Gar makes a 15 rounder for the High Power and a 17 rounder for 59 series Smiths.

It was testing those 17-rounders to see if they worked at all that gave me my first real shooting impression of the Model 59.

I like it!

The grip angle feels a little clunky and square in casual handling, but causes no issues in firing.  In learning the trigger and where it resets, I let off a couple of unintended shots.  You can't tell which ones on the target.

That tells me that the grip shape is working and that it is aiding me in keeping the pistol pointed at where I want to hit.

I was a bit surprised at the aluminum frame getting warm at the dust cover.  Not hot, but warm.

Aluminum transmits heat efficiently, so this shouldn't have been a shock.

In about 100 rounds fired I've had a single stoppage.  One failure to eject which was easily cleared.  Have to keep an eye on that.

But is it viable in the modern world?

It's a little heavier than a Glock or M&P9 with the same capacity.

The sights are slower, but precise.

I'm not sure.  You are not unarmed if you're carrying one.  It certainly appears to function correctly.  Next round of shooting, hopefully, will be with some modern hollow points; we'll see if it keeps its 1% malfunction rate up.

Gratuitous Tantal Pic

I know two things that Ian didn't mention in his video on the wz.88.

The lower handguard came in more colors than the orange he mentions.  You can see the orange on my bayonet and a more wine color on my handguard.

I know my handguard is a proper wz.88 handguard because it's number matched to the other parts in my kit.

Next, he uses a steel magazine.  While this was unique to the Poles, it's not the definitive wz.88 magazine.  Poland went in with Bulgaria and developed the black plastic one shown here.

That got them out of paying either The USSR or East Germany for the "bakelite" magazines and it was a definite upgrade from the steel one.

Bonus third thing!  Any single-hook AK trigger will work in the Tantal if you're making a semi-auto, with a small modification for the trigger return spring.

The scope mount wasn't intended to just be an early item.  Some small percentage were meant to be made continuously for the issue and mounting of night vision.  The ending of The Cold War and the transition to the Beryl nixed that idea.

If you happen to have an old PZO NSP-3 or PCO PCS-5 optic you're sick of owning...  Drop me an email.  They don't even have to be functional, I just want them for pictures!

Ya Done Fucked Up

You know you done fucked up your customer base when the normally not-very-political The Lovely Harvey noticed you done fucked up your customer base.

I went to mention the bruhaha over Black Rifle Coffee company going woke and she said she'd already heard.

We're going to give Stocking Mill a try.  They appear to be actually walking the walk their talking talks.

Besides, pirate and Revolutionary themes.  ARRRRR!

Um He's The Bad Guy

Cobra Commander's hood is now problematic?

Why?

He's the fucking baddie!

Make him a white supremacist!  Go for it!

HE'S THE FUCKING BAD GUY IN CHARGE OF THE TERRORIST ORGANIZATION BENT ON TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!!

You're not supposed to like him!

He's supposed to be evil, and the hood is supposed to evoke a dislike.

If you think he's problematic, then the imagery worked and was effective.

Wemic For GURPS 4e

Wemic (Lion Centaur) (AD&D Monster Manual II p.126, AD&D 2e(r) Monstrous Manual p.357)

136 Points

Attribute Modifiers: ST+6 (Size -10%) [54]; DX+3 [60]; HT+1 [10].

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per+2 [10]; SM+1 (2 hexes).

Advantages: Catfall [10]; Claws (Sharp) [5]; Combat Reflexes [15]; Damage Resistance 1 (Tough Skin -40%) [3]; Enhanced Move (9) (Ground x1.5, Costs Fatigue 6 -30%) [7]; Extra Legs (4 Legs) [5]; Night Vision (5) [5]; Teeth (Sharp Teeth) [1]; Temperature Tolerance (1) [1].

Disadvantages: Bloodlust (15) [-5]; Claustrophobia (15) [-7]; Easy To Read [-10]; Increased Consumption 1 [-10]; Low TL -3 [-15]; Overconfidence (12) [-5]; Sleepy (1/2 time) [-8]; Thalassophobia (12) [-10].

Features: Short Fur; Tail.

Racial Skills: Brawling (E) DX+2 [4]-15; Jumping (E) DX+2 [4]-15; Running (A) HT+2 [8]-13; Stealth (A) DX [2]-13; Survival (Plains) (A) Per [2]-12.

If you know what a wemic is, then you have the rest of the racial information needed to make one past the stats.