31 August 2018

Rain Rain Mutter Mutter

We've had normal Gulf Coast Florida weather lately.

Hot and sunny until the afternoon then torrential rains until evening.

After a couple years of brown lawns and depleted aquifer, this is actually nice.

But I have a picture in mind for my T2K style still life series, and the rain isn't cooperating for when the light is best to take the pic.

Eventually...

Prognosis Good

If GM won't give you tool access.

MAKE tool access!


That's all you needed to do, General, just put an access slot in that bracket.

30 August 2018

Exploratory Surgery

I opened up the dash to see if the write up I'd read was correct.

You CAN get at the damn thing.

Looking forward from where your knees would be.
Looking port through the hole in the side of the well for the glovebox.
You can see the head of one of the two screws holding it to the heater box.  5.5mm socket required, might need to find a stubby.

Remember What I Was Saying About Acronyms Losing Meaning

Because NPR in this article simply cannot mean National Public Radio.

The reason I disbelieve is NPR has toed the gun-control narrative line for as long as I can remember.

Yet, I cannot make "The Onion" out of these three letters no matter how hard I try.

h/t FuzzyGeff

Seven Second Car

Seven seconds is not a reference to a car's 1/4 mile time.

It's how long $1,000 dollars lasts repairing it after a run.

Give Not An Inch

So, Nabisco redesigned its animal cracker box so that it no longer looked like a circus wagon.

Still has Barnum in the name.

Turns out that changing the box, the thing the SJW's were demanding, wasn't enough.

Dear corporations;

Just say no.

When someone demands you change anything you do because Social Justice, just say, "No!"

Alternatively you can say, "Fuck off!"

Social Justice demands are the modern Danegeld, and once you've paid the Danegeld, you never are rid of the Dane.

29 August 2018

Nickels And Dimes

The mode actuator has failed on The Precious, on the plus side, it's not a very expensive part.

On the down side, it's very awkwardly placed.

The service manual thinks the entire dash needs to come out.

A single write-up on a forum says you can get at it by dropping the glove box.

Ugh.

It's not like taking the whole dash out is particularly hard, it's just an awkward task that needs lots of space.  A bit more space than I think I have to make it easy.

I strongly suspect that no matter which way works, there will be cussing and Navy veterans crying in the corner from the level of language.

NOTAMs will be issued!

MAGnitude

You might have enough AR magazines when, even with a spreadsheet, you cannot honestly remember where they all are.

I think I've found most of them.

Preliminary


From right to left

NSN 1005-00-056-2237: 20-round alloy follower (introduced 1965)
NSN 1005-00-056-2237: 20-round black plastic follower (introduced 1972)
NSN 1005-00-921-5004: 30-round black plastic follower (introduced 1972)
NSN 1005-00-921-5004: 30-round light-green plastic follower (introduced 1992)
No NSN: light-green follower replaced with Magpul Gen II anti-tilt follower (introduced 2006)
NSN 1005-00-561-7200: 30-round tan plastic follower (introduced 2009)
NSN 1005-01-630-9508: 30-round blue plastic follower "Enhanced Performance Magazine" (introduced 2016)

In the mail is a Colt p/n 62667: 30-round emerald green plastic follower (introduced 1967)
and
NSN 1005-01-659-7086: 30-round medium coyote tan window PMAG M3 (introduced 2013 in black, adopted in MCT 2016)

I do not have, or intend to get, a "waffle" 20-rounder.  A repop body is $37.50 shipped without floorplate, spring or follower.  I do accept donations!


Two Reasons

The two main reasons I don't want to have Governor Scott become Senator Scott.

First he did not veto Bil 7026.

Second he did not allow a special election to replace my state senator.

As narrow as the margins were for passage of 7026, filling those seats might have kept me from having my first objection.

I was left unrepresented in the state senate during this crucial time.

Is It Racist To Call Him A Bernie Bro?

Sanders backed candidate for Governor here in America's Limp Wang Florida, Andrew Gillum, is a strident anti-gunner and apparently wants a 40% spike in the corporate tax rate.

Rule 1 of government in Florida.

DO NOT FUCK WITH THE MOUSE.

Raising those taxes surely does.  Advocating for that raise surely does.

I predict he's doomed and we're going to welcome Governor DeSantis come November.

Core Constituency

They should change their name to "Stepped On Our..." Dick's Sporting Goods.

They're having a bad quarter.

I see this time and again with virtue signalling.

Alienating a customer while mollifying someone who isn't.

You'd think it would be simple to sort those who will buy stuff from you and those who won't.

Before And After

The camera on my Motox is insufficient.

Canon SX20IS:

Before pic.


After pic.

28 August 2018

A Dab Will Do


With the fresh carving on the inside, I felt it prudent to put some nourishment on the wood.

I think I even mentioned it was a bit dry.

Linseed oil is just amazing stuff!

Always Check

Took the Colt Challenger out of the safe to do some dry firing with some snap caps.

I couldn't get it to feed.

The channel in the driver's side stock was binding on the button that rides with the follower.

A few minutes with the chisel cured the problem, but it does illustrate the need to check fit under more than one condition.

A pro would have caught this instantly, I am decidedly an amateur.

The Snake WILL Smoke

Straightforward

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force has a unique patch:


The reason the snake is smoking a pipe comes from a quotation:

"Mais fácil uma cobra fumar um cachimbo, do que a FEB embarcar para o combate."

Which means, "It's more likely for a snake to smoke a pipe, than for the BEF to go the front and fight."

The BEF did go to the front in Italy and they did fight, and they wore that patch.

Got to love a sense of humor in military heraldry.

Links

I've noticed something about articles from pro-gun news sites that I don't see at liberal ones very often, if at all.

There's a link to the primary source of information mentioned in the article.

I first noticed this trend while trying to chase down a study quoted in several global warming sites while Anglave the Sealion was sealioning me.

I ran a loop of links that referenced other news sites and never actually got to the actual paper they were quoting.

I did eventually find the paper, under a different title than quoted, with an abstract that contradicted the content of the articles.  The quote does appear in the paper, but in a speculative tone rather than as a conclusion.

This, by the way, establishes a pattern I've noticed a lot.

Can't Have The Victims Shooting Back

That wouldn't be fair?

98.4% of mass shootings since 1950 have taken place in a gun-free-zone.

I know, you're shocked!  SHOCKED!  To find murderers prefer defenseless victims.

On The Plus Side It's A C&R

On the down side?  $90 grand.






Offering a fully transferrable Colt 601 AR-15 in excellent condition, serial number 111xx. This is a select fire machine gun. This is the first version of the AR-15 produced by Colt. This is ALL ORIGINAL FACTORY PARTS including a 1 in 14" twist barrel. There are no replacement parts on this rifle, this is exactly the way that it left Colt. This rifle was made around 1962.

The Model 601 was the first "AR15 Model" produced by Colt. Manufacturing started in December of 1959, with the first 300 rifles being produced, and continued until the summer of 1963. Changes made by Colt in the production process would include; painting the furniture green (after approx 100 were made), different roll markings, and changing the aluminum alloy from 7075 to 6061. Less then 14,500 were produced, with serial numbers in the 101-14,484 range. The bulk of the rifles went to the US Military with 8,500 going to the Air Force, 1,000 going to the Army for evaluation in project AGILE, and a handful going to the Navy SEALs. The rest went in very small numbers to police departments, and to foreign militaries such as Australia, Burma, India, Malaya, and Singapore. Many of the components found on the 601 were "Prototypes", and were unique to that only that model.

There are only a handful of transferrable Colt 601's with most of the production going to the US and foreign militarys [sic]. Of the few transferable 601's in the United States - this may be the only one that's all original and unmolested.

I would judge that it has been fired a few times as the internals and buffer show little to no wear. Another good place to look for wear is inside the mag well, and it's clear that there is little to no wear in that area too.

This is a factory built machine gun, not a conversion. Many M16's on the market are converted semi-autos that were 'drilled out' before the 1986 ban. This was a machine gun from day one, and this is how it left the factory in 1962.

The rifle is in overall excellent condition and has a excellent bore. Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime oppurtunity [sic]! I am a class 3 dealer and this is in dealer inventory, meaning that it's ready to ship tax free to a class 3 dealer in your state. I will E-file the paperwork, and the transfer time to your dealer is only 3 or 4 days presently. This comes with one original Colt 601 20 round mag, original 601 sling, and will ship insured for the final auction value.

27 August 2018

Ten Percenters

If just one gun owner in 10 is in the NRA, and there's 6 million NRA members, that's 60 million gun owners.  h/t Miguel.

Let's take that as a given.

Let us also take as a given that the threepers are correct about how many people will be shooting come "The Revolution™"

3% of 60 million is 1.8 million people.

How big is the military and how many cops are there again?

The FBI says there's about a million people employed by the various law enforcement agencies across the nation with 698 thousand being sworn officers.

Active duty, national guard and reserves total just over 2.2 million people.

Side note:  It takes just over 13 troops per 1,000 population to effectively keep a lid on an insurgency.  That would take about 3.9 million troops worth of "boots on the ground" to accomplish in the USA.  Guess how many troops are needed to support these boots on the ground.  Eight per combatant.  That would mean the US military, fully deployed, would need to be 35.5 million strong.

Notice, also, that the 13 troops per 1,000 population is irregardless of how happy the population is with the troops and the state of affairs that lead to there being an insurgency in the first place.

 Also note that the recruiting pool for the military is from the very people who're most likely to be insurging (totally a real word I didn't just make up).

You'd have to establish a draft and have an effective means of filtering out potential insurgents.  Good luck with that!

The math doesn't look good for our intrepid tyrants.

Just Waitin' On The Mail Now

The EPM is tracking and has a delivery date.

I found what is apparently the last Magpul Windowed PMAG M3 in medium coyote tan in the entire country for sale!  Should ship any day now.

When I embarked on this magazine comparison I thought I'd gotten an example of all the gray body aluminum mags the Army mass-issued...

I missed the very first one!

The Colt p/n 62667 with 62665A stamped on a dark green plastic follower.  I did find a couple on GunBroker...  For $90 each.  Eeep!  The tip jar works if you'd like to see ALL the issue 30-rounders compared.

I have it on good authority, though, that the original black follower 1005-00-921-5004 is dimensionally identical.

I've Read That Airsoft Is Perfectly Acceptable For Training

But this takes the cake!

What's spanish for, "pew pew pew"?

Consistent Pricing

One of the nice things about owning a SIG-Sauer is you never need wonder how much a magazine costs.

6-shot, flush fit P238?  $44.95.
7-shot P232?  $44.95.
12-shot, extended P365?  $44.95.
17-shot P320?  $44.95.

It's refreshing to be able to skip all the confusion of pricing the magazines relative to the amount of material and labor it took to make them.

6.5 Pounds Of Hate

The SS Kresge (Kresge being the K in K-Mart) model 151 20-gauge shotgun is a single shot, single barrel, break-open design that was cheap as dirt when it was introduced and has not appreciated greatly in the intervening passage of time.

A 2-3/4" shell lobbing 7/8 ounces of 7-1/2 lead birdshot does a "massive" 1d-5(0.5) pi- per pellet, the minimum.  But it slings 306 of the things.

With its full choke that means it will do 15 points of crushing damage from blunt trauma out to a whopping 2 yards.

A pity it will take three plus turns to reload it...

If you're not shooting zombies at extremely close range, then your best load is #1 Buckshot.  That's 1d+2(0.5) pi- with 9 pellets and a range of 40/800.  Extremely close range with this and a choke is EIGHT yards!  That's 4x 1d+2 or 6d pi-! And just a DR 4 to deal with.  Average damage will be 8 points inside of 8 yards and...

The average hit on an unarmored torso past 8 yards will do 2 points per pellet.

26 August 2018

Before We Talk About Guns

I suggest we talk about banning football.

It's a drain on the finances of schools from middle school through college.

It injures or kills the people who play it.

It breeds violence and criminality.

Even video game simulacrums create murderous violence.

It's time we had a serious conversation with the NFL problem in our communities.

All At Once

We welcome JT to the rolls of super owners!

With two pistols and a shotgun he's passed from normal owner to the minimum of 8 to be in the top tier of gun ownership!

HUZZAH! HUZZAH! HUZZAH!

Bonus points for buying two handguns at the same time and being put on "The List"!

Yes The Rules Are Broken

At two yards the likelihood of only sucking up 10 #9 pellets out of 293 from a .410 is unlikely.  The extremely close range rules are likely broken because GURPS 4e is more cinematic than realistic.

A single pellet will do some damage.  1d-5(0.5) pi- = 0 can't be true since a #9 pellet will penetrate about 6 inches of tissue at 7 yards.

Don't use a role-playing game to decide if your home-defence loads are effective!

Don't discard the game because it's not a complete simulation of reality!  Cinematic is a lot more fun to play than harsh reality.  "BANG, report to character generation," gets old for players very quickly.

It Doesn't Work Like That

Threatening to not buy something you're already not buying is not a boycott.

If you're not a customer already, then refusing to become one has nearly zero effect on a company's bottom line.

My "boycott" of the NFL had no effect on them because I boycotted them before the kneeling bullshit.

Hogg's boycott of S&W will have the same effect.

He wasn't going to be buying anything S&W makes, ever, so who cares?

The big difference between my boycott and his?  I know what effect I'm having.

25 August 2018

Now I Have Two Lines To Stand In

Once I've kicked Robert Strange MacNamara in the balls, I'll wander over to the John S McCain III line.

By the time I've kicked McCain in the nuts, I expect there'll be a James Earl Carter line.

If he'd stepped off the public stage a long time ago, I might have been able to find some esteem or respect for him.

But he used up all the good will he'd accumulated by consistently caucusing Democrat rather than the Republican he ran as.

He was not a friend and I don't mourn his passing.

How Accurate NICS

The National Instant Check System recorded 293,581,016 checks from November 1998 through July 2018.

If the entire supply of guns in civilian hands is "about" 300 million, then everyone got their gun after November 1998 and everyone who had a gun before that day must have sold it to someone else when they replaced it.

Balderdash!

From 1986 to 2016: 214,693,912 firearms were added to the supply.

There were guns in America long before 1986 and ATF made the numbers accessible.

Somehow I doubt it was as few as 85,306,088.

There were 7.5 million Winchester '94s made.  Most of them before 1986, let alone 1998.


There were millions of single-action Army's made.

There's millions of Garands.

Hundreds of thousands of other guns.

Weaponsman (RIP) delved into this before.  Since he posted, 38+ million more guns have been manufactured and imported... actually more since I don't have 2017 or 2018's numbers!

These numbers are just what the manufacturers are declaring and what the NICS system records.

If Willard gives or sells me a gun, it doesn't go through NICS.

If I buy a C&R gun it doesn't go through NICS.

Follow The Fan Bois

Now that I have the EPM coming, and have the three other widely issued USGI mags, I wanted to do a comparison study.

Since the USMC adopted a PMAG M3 window in a particular color, I set out to find one.

Out of stock, no backorder is the word of the day.

I started to check locally, and same deal so far.  Hats off to Craig at ReLoad for scouring the store looking for one!

Dimensionally, it will be no different from the sand colored ones I dyed, so if worse comes to worst...

24 August 2018

Stolen Car

Once upon a time, no shit there I was...


I bought a car that looked just like this one!

I had a fair amount of loose money in my pocket from getting out of the Army in and wanted a new car.  I was dreadfully sick of my Mercury Lynx.

I've always liked this year of Mustang and I had grand plans for hot-rodding it.

I saw the ad in the paper, called the owner, met him at his place, looked it over and forked over the cash and got a signed title.

Drove straight to the Story County seat to get me some license plates and a title with my name on it.

The registration desk was never quick, but this day was taking forever to get me processed.  Because they were stalling and waiting for a deputy to come arrest me.

The car was stolen!

Happily, the deputy believed me and I was more than cooperative about directing them to the seller.  Whom, I was told, was loading a U-Haul when they pulled up and arrested him instead.

I never saw my $3,000 again.  Technically the rat-fuck still owes me for it, but we don't enforce that kind of recovery in America.

The rightful owner of the car got it back.  I hope he drove the tires off it in joy!

Performance Enhancement Magazines

Like Viagra for your AR?

Surplus EPM magazines are now trickling out to the unwashed silly-villian population at affordable rates.

So I've ordered one to compare to the other three styles of USGI 30-rounders.

Should be interesting!

Going to have to snag me a medium coyote-tan windowed G3 PMAG too, just to have the USMC entry.

Out Of Pocket

Scored a nice Galco Fletch holster for my J-Frame today (thanks Willard!).

It sits in almost the same place as the Royal Guard model but more canted and outside the waistband instead of inside.

What's interesting to me is that it's night and day for comfort.  The IWB Royal Guard just doesn't sit right and interferes with the seatbelt in The Precious.  The OWB Fletch rides just different enough that I can sit in the seat correctly.

Long t-shirts are your friend!

I'm going to give this a shot for a few days and see how I like it.

I was never satisfied with lugging it in the pocket and ruined a couple pockets with the front sight.

23 August 2018

I Counted

That article on "super owners" got me to counting...

Many.

I own Many® guns.

I don't own a significant fraction of what I've seen Willard cart about.  What's past Many®?

Even Marv has Many® guns; and he's not even a "gun guy".

Henceforth He Shall Be Known

As Anglave the Sealion.

Because his "debate" tactics on globull warmering were exactly the tactics as described in Weer'd's post.

I eventually had to stop talking to him altogether or have another bad-faith debate about something.

He constantly denies being a SJW Liberal, yet never takes a position that isn't SJW Liberal.  Isn't that odd?

Where Does All That Heat Go

Traveller is a space opera, it's just unusual because it's a self-consistent space opera.

It wasn't afraid to let the chips fall where the consequences take them.

It leads to some oddities.

Like how much fuel that power plant is devouring.  FuzzyGeff, with his tasty chess club brain, did the math and determined that using normal H+H -> He fusion the thing was making enough power to run the entire planet c1987.

Once GURPS takes the reins some real numbers in megawatts start being applied, and there's no fuel consumption.  Yes, there is, but it's self-contained in the power plant (which are much larger than Traveller LBB units) and lasts for years.

In Traveller's case, we surmised that ships were venting most of that hydrogen as a means of cooling the plant, but we didn't have a clue what the output was so we didn't know how much heat was being made.

In GURPS: Traveller (GT), though, we do have wattage, so we could figure out how much heat is present.

It's a lot.

Make the insides of such tiny ships uninhabitable in a really short period of time hot.

A later, harder-sci-fi, GURPS setting, Transhuman Space (THS), has gigantic radiators in the ship design rules to allow all this waste heat to be shed.

Since both GT and THS use a modularized version of the Vehicles rules, you can see that GT isn't providing near enough surface area to keep things cooled off.

But then it hit me:  Every instance of a powerplant in GT has a reactionless maneuver drive with it.

What if the reactionless drives, which already ass-rape physics the old way (dick dipped in resin and rolled in ground glass), get colder when operating?

This makes the maneuver drive the cryogenic plant for keeping the power plant from melting the ship and also keeps the fuel for the jump drive liquid.

Et voila!

Off Site Storage


Though they are kept at my house, these aren't my guns.

The owner cannot keep them at their home because of familial restrictions and lack of a means to just live on their own.

It doesn't change that they're kinda photogenic.

22 August 2018

Just My Accumulation Once Again

America's Super Gun Owners

The only guns I actively collect is .25s.

I was on a streak getting a Finnish Mosin collection going, but burned out.  I need a 24, 27 and 28 to round it out.  Then the lack of sub-variations and makers will eat at me.  Never mind that completing the Mosin collection would lead to a desire for a rynnäkkökivääri 62, and that's an eyewateringly expensive AK, let me tell you.

Some guns get nabbed for nostalgia.  I lugged their military counterparts around, and it must have broken something in my brain... it's akin to Stockholm Syndrome I think.

Some guns got bought because I thought it would complete a little diorama, still life.

Most of them, though, get bought to Grok in their fullness.  To see how the parts interact and understand how they function.

Because I am a bad salesman, I also tend to not sell anything because I never get my money back on an appreciating asset.

Thanks Mack!

21 August 2018

Save The Uberpost

My little break prevented me from posting this earlier, but that's OK because the costs are constantly mounting the longer Kevin Stays in the hospital.

Link to GoFundMe.

Give what you can, and notice that lots of small donations add up to a large number.

Now That It's Dark

Tried out the tritium sights on Tonya.

The rear becomes a blurry blob and the front vial is a brighter vertical line in the blob.

Line them up and you should be vaguely pointed at what you want to shoot.

Which won't be that far away if you can see it in the dark.

Dust Off

What round for zombies?

In GURPS, thanks to a glitch in the rules, the smallest shot you can find to get the most pellets.

Shotgun pellet damage bottoms out at 1d-5(0.5) pi-.

But any damage roll always gets 1 point regardless.  So 1d-5 is another way of saying 1.  Yes, I would make the player roll.

Any fractional armor divisor (0.5, 0.2 or 0.1) divides the DR encountered by the number given or gives a DR 1 to someone with DR 0, like a zombie.

Small piercing, pi-, means we divide any damage that penetrates the DR by 2.  This is going to end up not mattering.

Because the, effective, DR 1 completely nullifies the 1 point of damage, we consult the blunt trauma rules.  For every full 10 points of damage per attack which does not penetrate flexible armor will do one point of cr damage.  Bare skin is flexible armor.

Why does this all matter?

Every pellet does 1 point of pi-, so every 10 pellets do one point of cr.

A .410 shell firing #9 birdshot lobs 293 pellets.  Potentially 29 points of damage!

The range of that .410 is a mere 10/300.  293 pellets is +7 to hit.  Ten yards is -4 to hit.  So with a net +3 a person with a Guns/TL8 (Shotgun) of 12 is, on average, going to hit with a mere 6 pellets.  At 7-yards, 7 pellets.  At 5-yards, 8 pellets.  At 3-yards, 9 pellets.  At 2 yards, 10 pellets and a single point of still no crushing damage from blunt trauma.  EDIT: Each pellet is treated as a separate attack until the Extremely Close Range rules on p. B409 kick in.

Something interesting happens at 1 yard.  You multiply the damage of a single pellet by half the number of pellets fired.  So our single point of damage becomes 146, and thus will do 14 points of crushing to our zombie.  The standard zombie has unnatural, so bringing its 10 hit points down to 0 removes the un from undead.

The cr modifier matters because zombies are also unliving.  This would normally change small piercing from 1/2 damage to 1/5 damage.  This can drop a single point of penetration to a "no damage" effect.  Crushing is better on zombies.

The downside, of course is you have to let Mr Shamblor get so very close...

But wait, there's MORE!

They make shot rounds for non-shotguns.  A Kel-Tec PMR-30 gets 30 rounds at RoF 3 and each round of #12 Pest shot carries 277 wee little pellets that would normally be 1d-5(0.2) pi-, but do 13 points of crushing each at 1 yard.

That's right, the ideal zombie gun is a Kel-Tec.

BRN-10B Are Shipping

Willard's bank account will soon be that much lighter.

Mike at Nodak-Spud showed his off on Arfcom.







Officially A Project

I decided to use liquid electrical tape to cover the RTV rather than paint.

Three bad things fell from this decision.

First, I bought white instead of black.

Second, I discovered it was white by dropping the tube and crushing it trying to catch it.

Third, I sliced open my thumb taking things apart to clean up the mess.

SIGH



Grin!

RTV

Our Television!

Wait...

Room Temperature Vulcanizing.

RTV is a miracle.

You start with a paste and end up with form fitted rubber.

It seals, it adheres...

It's amazing.

Night Sight Restoration Part 2

Have you ever tried to take a picture of a tritium vial to show it glows?

Have you ever tried to show that it's glowing mounted to a rifle?

Do you wonder, once you're done, if there was an easier way?

I say yes to all three.


15 second exposure!  I am glad to have a steady hand.

The vials I can source, from Taiwan and ONLY Taiwan for some reason, are not the right size.  They're ø2mm and not the proper ø2.5mm.  Both are 6mm long.  The front sight should be 5mm long and the rear 7mm.

100% silicone RTV to the rescue!  A teeny glob on each end of the vials centers them and isolates them.  The front pokes out a tiny bit, but there's not enough sight to make it completely flush, so a big glob of RTV goes there.  Since I used white, I also need to paint over it.  Paint over white is even correct!

I Am Glad I Said "Might Be"

Thank you, Dear Readers, for your outpouring of support here, on my Facebook and (of all places) Aesop's.

It's also clear that there's people who wanted to comment who cannot because of the comment settings requiring a google account.  Used to be more options than that which didn't lay the place bare to spambots.  I have Google Account, Allow Anonymous and No Comments to choose from.

I don't like selecting no-comments because I do, kind of, want the feedback.  Not critical reviews, but some feedback.  Without such feedback it becomes very easy to forget that there is an audience, and if I didn't want an audience, I could do this with Open Office.  It'd be a diary instead of a journal.

The two things I hate most about allowing anonymous comments is people don't sign their comment, and thus stop being anonymous and how much spam that they generate.

I have long been considering moving the blog to something non-google, but inertia is a bitch.

Thanks again for your support, those who gave it.

To those who didn't, well this is my circus and they are my monkeys.  You don't start a blog without some vanity to display.  I'd tell the Queen of England, "Bitch, you're in MY house, you bow to ME!" were she here.

16 August 2018

Quittin' Time

This might be a good place to end this.

I'm honestly sick of my natural inclination to worry about if people like me enough to stop worrying if people like me and bother to read this.

Too many people just stop without saying goodbye.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Not A Member

Me?

I'd rather preach to the flock than the choir.

Educate rather than make fun of people who've not yet learned.

But I've never been, and never will be a cool kid or be given keys to the clubhouse.

15 August 2018

Fake News

- Fayette County deputies are investigating a string of thefts that included five car break-ins, one stolen motorcycle, and one high-dollar heist of Ramen Noodles.
Nearly $100,000 worth of Ramen Noodles was sitting in a large trailer parked at a Chevron store on Georgia Highway 85 north.
Deputies said the 53-foot trailer carrying the noodle freight was stolen between July 25 and August 1.
The sheriff said the trailer was secured at the time.  Source
 I do not believe that $100,000 worth of Ramen will fit in a single 53' trailer.

Night Sight Restoration Part 1

The tritium arrived from China today.

The replacement vials are simply the closest size to what came out that I can get.  Too small diameter, too short for the rear sight, too long for the front.  No problem!

Acronyms Don't Inform

Do you read BLM and think "Bureau of Land Management" not "Black Lives Matter"?

Do read about an EAA pistol and wonder why The Experimental Aircraft Association is making guns?

Are you baffled that the National Rifle Association has classes on bulk food safety?

I think it's time we stopped assuming that the reader knows what your string of letters means and a return to the "National Restaurant Association (NRA)" format might be in order.

It works for the APA.


14 August 2018

Reasonable Person

Florida's self defense laws are held to a "reasonable person" standard.

What that means is, "would a reasonable person think their life was in danger or not?"

The people breaking out the measuring tapes and doing kinesthetic studies of how far back the assailant stepped when the victim fired are missing something critical.

A reasonable person is going to say, "the person who just assaulted me from behind is still looming over me while I am down here on my knees."  The danger was still present, because a reasonable person tends to assume that someone who's assaulted them once already will do so again.

Until the unreasonable people started adding their two cents, that's how the sheriff was looking at it.

It's important to remember that Pinellas County's sheriff is anti-gun and anti-self defense.  For him to not press charges right away says that the facts of the case are very clear.  If anyone thinks that he decided this unilaterally, without consulting with the county prosecutor's office, you're naive.

I've Read This Book

"The young people will win."  -- Repeated Quote from David Hogg, professional victim and known bully.

I've read that book, "Logan's Run".

When Minutes Count

We're familiar with the line, "when seconds count, the police are minutes away."

That scales.

When minutes count, the police are hours away.

This is why so many laws are broken brazenly.

Like parking in a handicapped spot without a placard.

Illegal use of these spots carries a hefty fine.  $250 for simply using the space.  $500 for using someone else's permit!

Running a red light is just $200.

Parking your car in the wrong spot carries a larger fine than running a red light.

Process that for a second.

Now, to the law abiding citizen watching all this lawlessness you begin to wonder why you should put up with it.

You try to call the police about infractions and you get a glacial reaction speed from them.  You often get told that since an officer did not see the crime take place they can't do anything about it.  You begin collecting excuses from law enforcement as to why they can't, you know, enforce the law.

Sooner or later you're going to boil over and say to someone, "you can't park there!"

Wanna know something else?

It's not illegal to tell someone they're breaking the law.  It's not illegal to have a shouting match over it.

It is illegal to park in a handicapped spot without a permit.
It is illegal to assault someone who's having a shouting match over your girlfriend's illegal parking.

Someone would be alive today if he'd just said, "Baby, don't park there.  You drive around the block while I run into the convenience store.  Meet you out front."

Process that while you're pondering.

This WIll Sound Racist

"Teach black people not to assault."

The Zimmerman and Drejka cases have a few similarities.

Both were assaulted by a black man.

Both shot and killed that assailant.

Both claimed self defense.

Neither was charged initially.

Both are arrested later because the racists (REAL racists) descended and demanded "justice".

I predict that months from now, and metric truck-loads of money spent on lawyers, Mr Drejka will be a free man.

The process is the punishment.

I also predict that Mr Drejka's life, like Mr. Zimmerman's, is ruined forever.  The racists will not let him rest.

At the end of all of this, guess what else?  Martin and McGlockton are still dead.

Why?

Because they assaulted someone who had the means to defend themselves.

I've read thread after thread on the Drejka shooting and absolutely nobody who condemns the shooting is condemning McGlockton's assault.

Nobody.

There's the problem folks.

Fix that, Mr Sharpton!  Even if Drejka is found guilty of manslaughter, it doesn't change the fact that Mr McGlockton is dead because he attacked someone first.

Take note that the person who was the target of Mr. Drejka's ire was not shot, despite a verbal altercation over a parking place.  Mr. McGlockton initiated the violence and got more than he wanted in return.

PS: A step back isn't a retreat.  Watch the video again, once he's got a round in his chest, Mr. McGlockton demonstrates what retreating looks like.

PPS: How many of us have drilled at the 7 yard line for pistols because of the Tueller Drill?  You might notice that the shot happens at about 1 yard.  If you're condemning this shoot, are you changing your training regimen to wait until the assailant is closer?

PPPS: If you're condemning this shoot are you saying that it's OK for someone to assault you then back off a bit without consequences?  That's nearly literally saying, "It's OK because he only hit me once!"

Maybe A Food Allergy

I spent much of yesterday thinking I'd killed myself.

I decided that chips and guac would make a fine breakfast and a few bites in my heart rate was soaring.

BP was fine.  No trouble breathing.  99% blood ox.  No secondary symptoms of heart issues.

Gorgeous sinus rhythm running at 150 bpm.

They think that it's sounding more like a food reaction, but not anaphylactic... 

They ask about prescription meds and I mention my panic attack antihistamine...  They tell me to take some.

I start feel a bit better, then a lot better.

They send me home for a nap.

I feel some better after the nap and do full shambling zombie getting The Boy and making supper.

After supper, I augered in hard.

I feel great today!

13 August 2018

Signal Unchained


I would not want to be the poor sod who had to enter all that in by hand, but it can be done.

I know it can be done because it has been done before.

Poland VS Hungary Rematch

Once again, the pistols are more similar than different.

The PA-63 is a near faithful clone of a Walther PP with an alloy frame.  The P-64 is all steel and presages the PPK/S size.


Thanks to Marv for his photogenic PA-63.

12 August 2018

N-Word Delete

Every instance of a certain forbidden word has been replaced with CENSORED, for your enjoyment.

11 August 2018

Damn Cats Ate My Muse

I had an idea for a post positing on the difference between race, creed and nationality.

Fire up the "new post" button and got two cats worth of "PAY ATTENTION TO ME NOW!"

Ever notice that ME NOW and MEOW are so very similar?

10 August 2018

Glowin' Ogre


I did both Ogre Miniatures Kickstarters.  The Ogre Mk.V and Mk.III are add-on stretch goals from part 1 and the Ogre Mk.IV and the Fencer are from part 2.

The second release has much improved glow in the dark plastic!  You can't even see the V and III.

I Knew This Would Happen

I have two Polish military guns now.

Suddenly I NEED more!

Here's a list for your Christmas/Birthday shopping consideration

PMKM or PMKMS in 7.62x39.  (AKM in fixed or underfolder)
Kbk.44 in 7.62x54mmR (Polish made Mosin M44)

P wz.83 Wanad in 9x18mm, the replacement for the P wz.64 I already have.
PW wz.33 in 7.62x25mm (Polish made TT-33)

Isn't That Forbidden?

Since a corporation is a form of person, thanks to a couple of Supreme Court rulings...

Doesn't that mean that government action targeting a single corporation is a bill of attainder?

The NRA is incorporated...

Badge Of Rank

Willard and I were contemplating the atrocious double action pull on the P-64 and we came to a, tongue in cheek, conclusion.

Pistols are badges of rank in most armies.

Communist armies tend to have discipline problems.

The awful double action pull won't matter because the first shot is an attention getter, after desperately clawing the gun out of the gun-suitcase-of-a-holster and adrenalining off the stiff safety.

The first shot wakes the recalcitrant troops up and gives them pause.  Subsequent shots will be single action and aimed.

09 August 2018

T2K Pistol Comparison


Just a little comparison.

When the P-64 was introduced, the M1911A1 was the US standard service pistol.

When the M9 entered service, the P-64 had officially been replaced by the P-83 Wanad, but like the M1911; the P-64 remained in service for much longer.  The P-83's replacement is in service and there's still some P-64s still being issued!

Of note is the philosophical divide about holster and ammo.  European, especially Eastern European, holsters are more enveloping and tend to have a pouch for a magazine built in.  Americans prefer their ammo pouches to be separate from the holster and we tend to go for two spare mags per handgun; although I was only issued a single spare mag and a single cell pouch with my M9.

Lucky

Watching a couple of videos on the P-64 and I noticed that the import markings on mine...


... an attractive font and go well with the gun.

I could have ended up with...


Which doesn't look good at all.  Common for CAI, unfortunately.

BRN-10A Shipping


Brown with fluted barrel BRN-10A staged for shipping.

Black with lightweight barrel BRN-10B right behind them.

Brace for the hit, Willard!

For The Professional Hunter

Of cockroaches!

I want a double rifle in .25 ACP.

I've come up with several very sick themes for it, but Professional Cockroach Hunter seems best.

You've got to be ready to protect the client when the roach charges and have two shots of .25 ACP power on hand to do so at a moment's notice.

Think that H&H will take the commission?

08 August 2018

Y +73

Seventy three years ago, this minute, Fat Man dropped free of Bockscar. becoming the second and (so far) last atomic weapon fired in anger.

Germany VS Poland

Hans, Polen, Ja?


It would appear that the PPK/S is the template for the P-64...  Except for preceding it by a couple of years.

The Walther certainly has a better trigger pull and the aftermarket stocks fit the hand much better.  But I know from experience that the Walther bites, I dunno if the ZML does.

France vs Poland bonus round!


Manhurin made PP in .380 against the P-64.

There's just not a lot of functional difference between them.

Unrelated to size comparisons, the safety on the P-64 is getting smoother the more I play with it.  Deburring the detent with use, I think,

Manana

Lord willing and the creek don't rise...

Going to have some pics of genuine Walthers to compare with the P-64.

Had to pass on it earlier because of problems with The Boy.

07 August 2018

Who Wants To Take This One?



I think he's missing something essential here, but I'm not in a mental space to refute him right now.

I Wish It Was A Marketable Skill

I am a Grandmaster at alienating people.

You're reading this blog, you should be able to see my deft people skills at work!

I'm pretty sure I did it again with a meatspace friend last Sunday.

He's not the kind that would respond to the insult.  He's the kind that gets quiet until the social situation is over and you just never get invited over again.

I am presently uninvited.

My own damn fault too.

He's also the sort who'll avoid places where I'm likely to be encountered, so saying "I'm sorry," just won't happen.

I, likewise, am not the sort to hunt him down to say I'm sorry because, frankly, I'm embarrassed by my "talent" and depressed that I have not learned to control it.

One reason for that lack of control is just more than half the time, people are laughing.  Probably at me, rather than with me, but for a while that means they want me around.

Then one day...

You Can't Go Far Wrong

If Al Sharpton says it's so, taking the opposite position will turn out to be the correct choice for freedom, liberty and harmony.

Even the anti-gun, Democrat sheriff of Pinellas County, Florida can see it.

This is what we, in the intel community, call an indicator.

I Never Get Sick Of It

Even here on the Gulf Side, you can see launches from Cape Canaveral.

I just saw the Falcon 9 going up.

The Inventors Of Golf Were White

Sarah Jeong claims that we white-folk done culturally appropriated everything but skiing and golf.

Golf was invented in Scotland.

So, we've established that Scots are white.

This Scotland.

OK, Ms Jeong.  Since you're of Korean descent, you are henceforth required to stop your cultural appropriation of MY people's works.

It's a long fucking list, ain't it?

She can't even ride a bike to work without misappropriating Scottish culture.  Pedal power, pneumatic tires and tube steel.  Can't even make a bike.

Alexander Fucking Graham Motherfucking Bell was Scottish, Bitch.  Did you use the internet?  Because without him, there'd have been no infrastructure to build out the internet.

Get cash out of an ATM?  Using a PIN?  Stop misappropriating my culture!

You're not getting much of anything done without a log table either.

Been immunized against papillomavirus?  Enjoy the non appropriational purity of cervical cancer, Ma'am.

How's about antibiotics?

General anesthesia?

Flush toilet?

A refrigerator?

Played GTA?

It's a lot more than Golf.

But I expect they didn't teach any history or economics (Adam Smith, Scot) in journalist indoctrination polytech, did they?

06 August 2018

Is The Extra Millimeter Worth It

9x18 Makarov does 2d pi damage vs 2d-1 pi for .380 ACP.

As a practical matter, the differences in range don't come up.  Hardly anyone drops the points into Guns (Pistol) for it to show.

Recoil though, that will have an effect.

As calculated earlier, my Guns/TL8 (Pistol) skill is 15.

At 10 yards, we have a hapless NPC.

15 for skill
-4 for range

Not bothering to take time to aim.

11 or less to hit, just a bit better than a 50-50 (62.50%) shot for a single hit to the body.

Now recoil factors in.

To land the second round with Makarov I'd need to roll an 8 or less and for the third a 5 or less.  That's 25.92% and 4.62% respectively.

With .380 I need a 9 or less then a 7 or less.  37.50% and 16.20%.

So with .380 I'm 50% more likely to get a second hit and a bit more than three times as likely to land three.

Since the average skill roll with 3d6 is going to be a 10, I'm only going to hit with one round anyway on average.

2d pi gives a range of 2-12 points of damage, averaging to 7.
2d-1 pi gives a range of 1-11 points of damage, averaging to 6.

I used to know how to do the math to figure out the damage spread... alas.

Let's change the range to the traditional self-defense distance of 7 yards.  This changes the range penalty to -3 and our odds of hitting a bit from 11 to 12 for that first shot.  9x18 will need a 12, 9, and 6; .380 will need a 12, 10 and 8.

That means, on average, I will hit twice with the shorter round.

That also means that I would do 7 points with the Mak and 12 with the .380.

Poland vs Switzerland

Again, very similar guns in many respects.  The P232 is far more comfortable in the hand and has a much smoother and lighter double-action pull.

Conical

The muzzle brake on the Tantal has a conical washer to give it some firmness against the threads rather than rattling around.

The one that came with the parts kits was more flat than conical.


You do not need tools to tighten the muzzle brake down, Jakub!

Someone had really cranked down on this one and was flat when the brake was indexed without a wobble.  The new one just goes past the index point three times once the detent starts catching instead of four.  That fourth turn needed a tool, like the cleaning rod, passed through the opening of the brake to get it tight.

Notice that it's not smashed flat?  It's a conical washer, not a CRUSH washer!

Hungary vs Poland

Poland versus Hungary

Zakłady Metalowe Łucznik versus Fegyver- és Gázkészulékgyár

Pistolet wzór 1964 versus SMC-380

Steel frame versus titanium-aluminum

9x18mm Makarov versus 9x17mm Kurz/.380 ACP


Very Walther guns in most ways.

Very similar in stats too.

The P-64 is bigger and more comfortable to hold.  I haven't got to the range to compare them shooting yet.

Getting these pics was harder than expected because I had "help"


2008 Corvette Under Eight Volts

When a C6 tries to start with a battery that drops below 8 volts it does strange things.

It warned that icing was possible in a 94˚ garage.

It rolled the driver's window down halfway.

It moved the steering wheel all the way collapsed to extended and back.

It cycled every light on the car, except the headlights.

With the problems I'd been having with the Body Control Module, I assumed it'd finally shit the whole bed.

I tried to check the volts at the batt, but the batteries in the multi-meter had also died!  Two AAA later, 12.5v at the batt.  Try to start again.  No voltage displayed on the gauge in the car, but 10.4v on the meter.
Marv arrives.

He checks at the batt and says to try to start it.

12.5v at the batt again.  Put the car in "run" without trying to start it.  Drops to 8.5v instantly.

Put it on the charger.

13v.

Roll up the window.

8.3v.

He says it's the battery.  He's an Electrical Engineer.  He's the knowing of lots of things.  Mensa!

Yank the batt after noting I had two years of warranty and that expired in September...

I state, on the ride to AutoZone, that I'd never seen anything under warranty fail at their tester.  Not an alternator, not a starter, not a battery.

Guy at AutoZone puts the batt on the tester and it says, "BAD BATT" in the little display.

Noting that the warranty was two-year and pro-rated for five I figured that I'd get a discount on the replacement...

WRONG!

Here's your replacement battery, Mr McThag, sorry this happened to you.

FUCK!  I should have bought a lottery ticket instead!

Three things went my way about this.

First, it died in the garage.
Second, it died under warranty.
Third, we got it all done before the rains began.

05 August 2018

Y +73

Seventy three years ago this minute, Little Boy dropped free from Enola Gay and became the first atomic weapon fired in anger.

04 August 2018

No Need To Worry About 3D Gun Files

We don't have to worry about the government banning 3D printer files.

They can't even stamp out kiddie-porn.

If they can't eliminate something that's illegal to create, possess and distribute in every single state; how are they going to eliminate something that's legal in almost every state?

Remember, there are no federal laws prohibiting the creation, possession or distribution of CAD/CAM files that depict a firearm.  There's a couple of laws, that if stretched to their breaking points, which govern distribution; none prohibiting it.

I've Got An Answer And You Won't Like It


On the whole, gun violence is a cultural thing.

There's a whole culture that's safe as houses with guns.  The gun culture.

But the question was "What are other nations doing right??!!"

The places where there's low violence we also tend to see mono-culture.  The diametric opposition to multi-culture and inclusiveness.

Where we have lots of violence in the US is where we've got different culture.

Because we're an inclusive, high-trust society; we tolerate sub-cultures and alien cultures in our midst.  It's labeled racism to notice and mention which cultures in the US have a violence problem.

I suspect that if we fired up the crucible again and demanded the melting-pot be allowed to work like it used, then violence would drop as the US became more mono-cultural.  At some points in US history it was literally join or die.  My Italian great grandparents remembered it, and they were WHITE EUROPEANS!

Moar Themed Two Gun

Continuing from here.

Free City of Kalisz during Twilight: 2000.
P-64 and Kbk-88