On Getting Sucked In

There's a couple topics, like abortion, I do try to avoid because there's just no answer that's satisfactory for everyone.

They're also topics where people have strong opinions and want to bring you to understand and agree with them.

Oft times these people are folks you don't want to just say, "FUCK OFF!" as your rebuttal because they're not really being dicks.  Hell, they were being polite in expressing their position.

They're simply disagreeing.  There's room for disagreement and debate.

Really.

I just don't want to debate it.

My reasons for my position are personal.  They're also subjective.

My reasoning is flawed because it's not a reasoned opinion.  I'm bruised and bloody from trying apply reason to so many things.  My response is often a feral attack on the person who, upon seeing I've expressed an opinion, informs me of theirs.

That's a bit unfair, no?

Reminder To Self

Never admit to having a position on abortion.

I keep making this error.

Now They're Just Messing With Me

My number is 2764.

2761 got the call for payment today at 1:36 PM.

Y'all couldn't do three more numbers before knocking off for the day?

That's just mean.

If it follows the same pattern as last week, they'll be calling high 2600's then getting to me about Wednesday.

Rising To Murder

Being non-religious, I trend towards the pro-choice end of the spectrum.

I have, however, long held that once a fetus gets to the point where it can survive in the atmosphere and obtain sustenance through it's screaming little maw it's a people and killing it would be murder; even if it's still in the womb.

What the ever living FUCK, New York and Virginia?

Inconsistent

My chili recipe sometimes has variable heat.

This is because I use fresh peppers.  2 jalapenos, 2 habeneros, and 3 poblanos.

If the pepper crop is mild, the chili is too.

If the pepper crop is hot, so follows the brew.

It never tastes bad, but sometimes the change in heat is disappointing.

Spitting Distance

Fewer than thirty numbers separate my lottery number from the last number called.

Prolly be tomorrow or Monday for the call.

Where IS Ruth?

The lack of reporting on Ruth Bader-Ginsberg's glowing health and rigorous workout routine is getting into suspiciously specific denial territory.

She hasn't been seen for a while.

What police agency can we call in for a welfare check?

This also raises the uncomfortable question, since so much of a Supreme Court Justice's work is done by their staff, of "how long can a partisan staff hide the demise of said Justice?"

I think we might be needing some proof of life, otherwise we're going to be getting the whole "you can't seat a new justice because election" bullshit we've had before.

Endurance

9.2 pounds loaded means it gets lighter as you shoot.  8.1 by the time you're empty.

That is very light for 7.62x51mm in my opinion.

But it sure is FUN!



We caught the one and only stoppage with this gun on the above vid.  It also, occasionally, doesn't feed the first round by slapping the bolt release.  That's aggravating because the charging handle is teh suxxor.



Just blasting away at 25 21 yards gave a minute of bad-guy pattern.

Combined effort from Willard and I.  We could prolly get a better zero, but we didn't wanna fiddle with the fiddly rear adjustments.

The hard plastic buttplate and light weight mean you need to pay attention to getting shouldered good and tight.  Something we both forgot at least once during the shooting.

Then we switched to something more whimsical!



Muzzle flash from .30 Carbine and 7.5" of barrel is cool!

It groups pretty darn well considering we were both shaking from shoulder battering.

Me at the upper -1 and center -0.  Willard at the others.  All at 7 yards.

It's not unpleasant to shoot.  Recoil is less than .357 Magnum.  The frustrating thing about this, and all Blackhawks in .3something I've fired is the ejector rod doesn't line up well with the cylinders.  It makes it a guessing game to get the brass out.

The down moment of this trip was the M1956A2 is still not working right.  It ran fine for most of the .308 challenge, but has been stuffing the spent round back into the action rather than ejecting it since then.  New extractor springs did not cure the problem.  It exists regardless of ammo or magazine change.

Still groups really good!

Gonna get a bolt refresh kit and swap out all the rest of the springs.

If that doesn't work we're considering changing out the bolt carrier assembly or getting a heavier buffer and springs.

33 Years Ago

I started detention for exercising free speech in a state run high school.

Yes, the joke was in poor taste, but it was both timely and hilarious.

The staff wasn't ready for jokes about the Student Liberation Front taking out Challenger and that no teacher was safe.

It sounds horrid distilled like this, but it had the lunch room in stitches.

We needed to laugh, even if the humor was macabre and dark.

Making fun of something is one of the ways we heal.

A subtext of this that's forgotten because McAuuliffe died is how inundated anyone in K-12 was with "There's a TEACHER going to space!  Did you hear?  A TEACHER!"

The very first thing I heard from a fellow student, as they announced the news on the PA, was, "now they're never going to shut up about her."

This was followed shortly by, "What's this button do?"

For you see... It was nobody we knew or cared about and children are cruel.

For a barometer of how much freedom has been lost in following 33 years:  My little skit would bring charges today instead of detention.

Slightly Modified

This is Lego 75218 built with Lego 9493's guns with Wedge and R2-A3.

I've made Wedge's Red 2 before.

Lego keeps improving the X-Wing with every iteration, but this one was a bit of a step backwards with teeny little guns.  A part that I fixed!

International Lego Day!

I'm building an X-Wing... again.

Retraction

The previous post, apparently, has been thoroughly debunked by Fact Check Dot Org.

Not sure I completely trust any of the fact check sites, but since I was doing a drunk repost and the person I was reposting from has done a partial recant of their post with that link...

I am officially retracting the previous post and apologizing to anyone physically harmed by it.  Persons who were mentally harmed actually did it to themselves and should consider some form of counseling to harden their brains against such injury.

Stolen From Vulgar Curmudgeon

The following 11 reasons should be forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the readers gets sick of reading them.

1. $11 Billion to $22 Billion is spent on welfare to illegal immigrants each year by state governments.

2. $22 Billion dollars a year is spent on food Assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal immigrants.

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal immigrants.

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on Primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for Education for the American-born Children of illegal immigrants, known as Anchor babies.

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal immigrants.

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison Inmates are illegal immigrants.

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on Illegal immigrants for Welfare & Social Services by the American taxpayers.

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal immigrants.

10. In 2006, illegal immigrants sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their Countries of origin.

11. The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes committed By Illegal Immigrants In The United States .

THE TOTAL COST IS $338.3 BILLION A YEAR. SINCE THERE ARE APPROXIMATELY 135 MILLION TAXPAYERS IN THE UNITED STATES, OVER $2,500.00 OF YOUR TAXES GO TO FUNDING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. THE ILLEGALS THEN SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATS.

Another way to phrase this is: EVERY THREE YEARS ILLEGAL ALIENS COST OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS!

Get rid of them and it looks like we can have the national debt wiped in less than a generation.

Think about THAT!

I Have Seen The Future

This thing was loose and unattended among customers.

That means someone is very confident of the tech.

Looking For An ATF Ruling

At one time ATF issued a ruling that running the action on a firearm with an electric motor made it readily convertible and thus a machinegun.

If I am recalling correctly, it was associated with putting an electric motor on a Gatling gun, but was phrased so that any use of an electric motor to drive the action of any gun was forbidden.

Does anyone have a copy of that letter they can share?

Play Stupid Games...

Win stupid prizes.

"The other male officer told investigators he warned Hendren and Alix not to play with guns and reminded them they were police officers."

Darwin never sleeps.

What were those four rules again?

Things You Spot Being A Gunny

Watching Last Man Standing and I noticed that the magazine isn't seated.

Say It With Me

FedEx sucks.

FedEx Smartpost combines everything bad about FedEx and the USPS into one horrifying package.

Case in point.

Gun parts coming from both Midway and Brownell's.

These two orders were made within minutes of each other on the 20th.

Both were shipped with the cheapest available option.

Midway with UPS Mail Innovations.  Brownell's with FedEx Surepost.

The baseplates will be here today maybe Monday.  The mags a week from Monday.

Dovetail Punch

Facebook, being the clever spies that they are, has noticed that I buy tools.

Today the suggested item is:

I have no idea what this thing is.  The description mentions gaskets... but I have no idea how it works.

Anyone out there know?

UPDATE:
Brian in the comments found out what it does!   It's like a cookie cutter for fitting gaskets to each other.

Coincidence?

The government shut down and just a bit more than a month later BuzzFeed and HuffPo start major downsizing?

SHEEEEEIT!

Let's see if we can get CNN and CBS next!

Spinning Gears

CMP told #2695 to send his payment information today.

They informed #4765 they had a number assigned.

There's 19,000 packets, so they're through about 19.8% of the packets for issuing a randomly generated number.

There's about 6,500 pistols in this tranche of M1911A1's, so they're through about 26% of the guns.

This is since the end of October.

If this pace continues, that means 12 more months to tell everyone their number and 9 to ship the last gun.

The pace at present is a lot faster than it was two months ago.  At that rate I'd be looking at mid-March not next week!

Where'd They Find The Money?

Just the other day the FBI was moaning that it was out of the funds that it needed to operate.

Yet it still managed to scrape enough to arrest Roger Stone for Robert Mueller?

Isn't it amazing how there's always money for some things and never any for others?

Unsurprising Bummer

It would appear Hudson Manufacturing, makers of the H9 might be in bankruptcy.

Maybe.

Possibly.

The entry on Wikipedia is not encouraging.

Even a small company with a problem free launch can just shrivel up and die.

A small company whose sole product turns out to have some major deficiencies that defy fixing with warranty service which gets slower and slower...

Just damn.

Looks like the H9 joins the R51 on the scrap pile of interesting but flawed pistols.

You Didn't Seem To Being Doing Such A Bang Up Job Before

The FBI Agents Association, which advocates for 14,000 active and former FBI Special agents, also released a report earlier this week of grievances from FBI employees, including one who said the shutdown “has eliminated any ability to operate.”

 Compared to what?

From all of the obvious crimes from the Obama Administration, I think we're finally paying a fair price for the services we've been receiving from the FBI.

I hope you fucks starve to death.  In the cold.  With an incurable and painful disease.

How Much Jet-A Is That?

It's about a 4,000 mile flight from La Guardia to Ambri.  It has a stated max range of 4,200 miles.

Economy cruise speed is 445 knots per hour.  512 miles per hour.  7.812 hours.  More because take-off, climb, descent and landing are at slower speeds.  Let's call it 8 hours to make it round.

The very fuel efficient Gulfstream IV uses 479 gallons per hour at cruise.

That will take more than 3,832 gallons to make the flight from a 4,305 gallon tank.

One reason that it will take more fuel is take-off and climb consume a much more fuel than cruise, sometimes 4 times as much per hour.

Descent and landing use less, but not zero.  It's maths and I don't have the books to look up the precise figures.

Double this amount for the return flight.

7,664 gallons of Jet-A to fly on your private jet to Davos to lecture me on global warming.

My gas guzzling 2008 Corvette averages 20 miles per gallon with the kind of driving I do on a daily basis.  I just crossed the 160k mile mark.  I bought the car in October 2007.  In eleven plus years of ownership I have just barely used as much gas a rich scold uses to fly to Switzerland to scold me.

Who's doing more damage do you think?

Let us also remember that the pollution my car shits out is done at a much lower altitude and is more subject to processes which make it a non-pollutant than spitting it out at 45k feet.

But wait!  There's more!  It's predicted that there will be over 1,500 private flights into Davos for the climate conference.  They're also noting that the trend is not towards the relatively fuel sipping GS-IV, but larger planes.

I will begin to believe global warming is a crisis when the scolds start behaving as if it is.

PS:
It's both better and worse for some of these flights.  The scolds flying in from other European locations will be flying many fewer miles; but they will be doing so where they could have taken one of their prized and low-carbon emitting trains.

As Soon As Tomorrow

CMP managed to wade through 206 requests for payment information today.

They started with #2435 a 0900 and had hit #2641 by 1500.

My number is 2764.

If they keep up this pace I will get the call tomorrow!

I'm still a bit lot short of money on hand!

It's good thing I have Hydroxyzine prescribed for panic attacks.

Do You Want Inflation?

From the Gods of the Copybook Headings file...

A Florida Constitutional Amendment to increase minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Presently the minimum wage in Florida is $8.46 an hour.

Shall we talk about those copybook headings and the concept of supply and demand?

Changing the price changes the demand.

When you make something more expensive, but not more valuable, demand falls.

This is the real core of why minimum wage laws are wrong.  They break important price signals from the market.

The "product" being purchased by the minimum wage is literally the least valuable labor available.

But, let's (incorrectly) assume that the demand for zero skill labor is inelastic and that zero jobs will be eliminated by this wage increase.

This makes the price of anything sold by a place that employs such labor more expensive.  Prices must increase to account for the extra expense. 

Now, what if the good being sold has an elastic demand?  That means, "what if the customer can skip buying it?"  It will mean that if the price goes up, demand goes down and fewer sales are made.

While $8.46 an hour for 20 hours ($169.20) doesn't seem like a lot; it's a lot more than $15 an hour for zero hours.

Zero hours is what a lot of places are offering in places that have $15 an hour minimum wages.

Disney is already paying $15 an hour.  A one day ticket for an adult is $109 to $129.  In 2010, when the minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, that same ticket was $79 to $82.  In 2000, when the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour that ticket was $46.  In 1990 the minimum wage was $3.80 an hour and it cost $29 to $31 to spend a day in Magic Kingdom.

Notice a trend?

In 1990 it cost 7.63 to 8.16 minimum wage hours for a ticket.
In 2000 it's 8.93 hours.
In 2010 it's 10.9 to 11.31 hours.
Today it's 12.88 to 15.24 hours at minimum wage or 7.27 to 8.6 hours for the base Disney pay...

It's the same product, it just costs more.

On One Hand...

On one hand I am glad that Florida Carry has decided to become a co-plaintiff in the suit to end the federal bump-stock ban.

On the other hand, even if the federal restriction is lifted; bump-stocks are still banned by law in Florida.

It makes me wonder why a Florida gun-rights group is expending capital on the issue at this level.

Even if successful it will have no impact on Florida.

More Same Caliber

Remington 341A Sportsmaster in .22 Short, Long and Long Rifle.  Grampa's vermin slayer from 1938.

Colt Challenger in .22 Long Rifle from 1953.

Nope

I'm busy on Thursday evenings, so I was watching The Orville streamed from Fox TV's web page.

They have decided that I need to prove I'm paying someone to watch TV before I can do that now.

If this proof would lead to a commercial free experience on their stream, I might consider it; but it doesn't.

Fox, there are advertisers paying you to get me to watch their ads while your show runs.  If you don't let me watch the show, I won't be exposed to the ads and your advertisers don't get a chance to influence my purchase decisions.

What Fox has missed in this is that television shows are supposed to be entertainment, not work.  They've made viewing their show work.

To get me to work you have to pay me.  The value of this show is below my personal minimum wage.

Congratulations!  One less viewer.

It Does Feel Good In The Hand

The local pawn has a Hudson H9.

It does feel very good in the hand and has an excellent feeling trigger with a dry fire.

I can see why someone would want one.

It just feels right.

I find it telling that the boys at InRange have both switched back to Glock when using a modern 9mm in their 2-gun videos.

The Very Definition Of Bad Day

Deer Hunter in Clearwater has this fine example of a S&W Model 29.

Chuck, the owner of the store, says the owner of the gun dropped it off and said, "Keep it!"

The gun's owner told a story that when it'd blown a buddy of his says, "I'd wondered where those Ruger only loads had gotten to!  Sorry."

Pandering To My Readers

The same caliber rifle/pistol...  What is the proper term?  Battery?  Brace?

Anyways we found this lovely at the local pawn today:

In case you can't read the caliber on the ammo box.

It does mate well with the Auto-Ordinance M1 Carbine!

The carbine is just a bit more than double the weight of the revolver.  The revolver feels heavier in the hand though.

The Blackhawk is a 1969 made gun, which is the first year of actual production in this chambering with only one .30 Carbine being made in 1968.  This is amusing because Willard and I were just talking about how C&R is a rolling 50-year age.  This revolver will be C&R sometime this year.

Anti-Catholic

The Democrats are always for it before they are against it.

I remember just the other day when they were telling me that one could be Catholic and still be a fine citizen and be trusted to separate their religion from their politics.

Then Ted Kennedy died...

Goodness But We're A Generous Lot

I'm seeing business after business offering discounts and deals for furloughed government employees and their families.

Americans are a generous people.

Who else would offer to help a class of folks who normally only exist by, nearly literally, stealing the food from our tables and money from our pockets?  People who, after that theft, return nothing of value to society at all.

We can tell their worth by how their absence from their jobs is affecting our daily lives.

I Wonder If He Still Reads Here

Former friend Anglave became a former friend because he'd become someone who argued relentlessly in bad faith.

The specific conversation was about global warming, but it'd been long in coming.

This article reminds me so much of how he argued.

Particularly:

This concept ties into Artificial Intelligence efforts, which have yet to deal with a very specific problem. Software may be written that is very dynamic, that can learn. You can show the software, for instance, 5,000 pictures of deciduous trees, and eventually it learns (to a reasonable level of accuracy) that which is probably a tree. But then you show it a coniferous tree, and it will not recognize it as also being a tree. Now you must show thousands of additional pictures, and tell it these are all trees. Yet, show a toddler who can barely talk a picture of one tree, and he can usually make the intellectual leap. He grasps quickly the essence of what tree is.

The AI lacks the ability to extrapolate the essence of a thing. It’s a serious challenge in software development. Leftists pretend to lack this ability in order to score points. They want you to show them 5,000 Burger King hamburgers before admitting that this is fundamentally an American food. So I am withdrawing even the charity of suggesting they are stupid. They aren’t. Toddlers can do this, and they can’t? Give me a break. They know full well what they are doing. They are pretending to the stupidity if called out on their lies.

 It's not just you have to prove it's a tree to a ridiculous standard, it's that you have to prove it's a tree over and over and over.  Having to start from scratch from base principles every time any one of several topics comes up, and there's no avoiding those topics because they can't wait to bring them up.

Another irritant is the claim that they don't know much about a given topic, but sure do have copious links at hand to smother any statement you have to make on it.

More than once I took the time to read all of those links and the sub-links and found that despite the wide "consensus" they all, ultimately, led to a single source for their conclusion.

A source got presented as being multiple sources because many news outlets repeated it.

I am well rid of "friends" like that.

PS: He's also the first person of my acquaintance who gave me a lecture on why I shouldn't be offended when they were being offensive and refused to apologize for it.  Sadly, not the last.

Total Eclipse Of The Moon

Grainy as shit because lots of cropping and long exposure; but it captured the blood red!

Picture it was cropped from:

f/50, ISO 80, 5 sec exposure, zoomed all the way out max optical of 20x.

I Think Weaponsman Was Where I First Saw This Predicted

USAF 3D metal prints F-22A part.

Additive machining is going to be more and more mainstream as the technology gets better and cheaper.

The precision and resolution will get better, the costs will come down.

There are huge, fallow markets for all manner of no-longer-in-stock parts.

Especially cars.

A 3D laser scan to export dimensions and a printer with the right material and that dash piece on your Corvette is replaceable!  Get GM to do it and you won't even lose NCRS points!

Like metal injection molding, there will be parts that this means of production will not be appropriate.  But there's gobs and gobs of places where it's just fine.

There's ALCOHOL In Beer?

Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and his wife, Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, were found to have ethyl alcohol in their systems prior to falling 800 feet from Taft Point on Oct. 25, the results show. The substance is found in beer, wine and other drinks.
--Thanks Fox News!

 Why am I always the last one to know?

Before You Start Tinkering

Men must be made into women. Women are the perfect working model; men are the defective deviation from the proper functioning of the model.

h/t Ace

I hate to break it to all the people trying to tinker with a system they don't understand and constantly reveal their lack of understanding by making sweeping claims...

Sexual dimorphism is a proven species survival strategy.

Elimination of the masculine values will have unintended consequences we don't have metrics to measure.  We will regret doing it.

The good thing is there's been instant push-back for the Gillette ad and there's going to be a push against the APA "ruling".

In effect they're conflating the shorter lifespan of the male of the species with masculinity.

What they're missing but hard while condemning stoicism is that is the core of restraint that's part and parcel of being a man.

Eliminate the stressor of self restraint and men will become the brutes that we're constantly accused of being by people who couldn't spell dimorphism, let alone define it.

People Forget This

With nearly 160k miles on it was time to flush the brake lines of the 12 year old brake fluid.

Corvette John had a brand new pressure bleeder that needed the new knocked off it, so we flushed my lines at his house.

Look how CLEAN his garage is compared to mine!

The pedal feels much better than before!

I owe him lunch for his help.

Zero Dark Thirty

Based on their activity, people who can afford exotic sports cars are vampires.  As soon as the sun came up, they were all gone!

I went with Corvette John to the DuPont Registry Cars & Coffee in Largo.  To get a parking place in the domestics lot you have to arrive before 0600.

The show officially runs from 0700 to 0900, but pretty much everyone is gone before 0800.

The police were thick on my drive home, but I had the cruise set for the limit so I got to laugh at the people pulled over.

I also saw this fine example of Corvette heritage on my way home.

I hear there was snow up north...

I had my top off for the drive home!

Clean For 30 Minutes

Black cars look best for the 30 minutes immediately after waxing.

You'd never know she's just shy of 160,000 miles would you?

I even remembered to shine up the engine compartment a bit.

Oh Yeah That Was The Drug War

How did the banks obtain the power to peer into our purchases far enough to tell if we're buying guns?

The Government essentially eliminated anonymous transactions to stop drug dealers from putting their money into the banks.

To do that, they needed to see where the money came from and where it went.

Every penny.

Ever notice how hard it is to get an actual paycheck anymore?  How easy it is to get direct deposit?

But hey!  It was worth it because nobody can buy drugs now!

Right?

Oh wait...

.30-06 Airsoft?

The owner of one of the local gun shops presented Willard with this box:

Inside the box is:

What are they you ask?

.30-06 indoor training ammunition?

One forum I've found claims the SEC on the box means "securite" and that makes this riot control ammo!

Eeep!  Since other posters are talking about what that little plastic bullet will penetrate at close ranges.

As far as penetration goes, it's pretty much the polar opposite of...

...Cartridge, Caliber 30, Armor Piercing, M2!

Every Car Guy Knows

The reason I don't own a 10mm ACP gun is because of hard experience with 10mm and wrenching.

You go to the tool box and there's no 10mm socket.  Not in 3/8ths, not in 1/4.

Most of the time you can find the combination wrench after a search.

Now, why would I want a gun that's just going to go missing when I need it?

Actually Nancy...

“The date of the State of the Union is not a sacred date. It’s not constitutionally required."
-- Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (CA-12)

 The State of the Union is required by The Constitution.

Article II, Section 3, requiring the President to periodically "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

She's right that there's no date specified, but it does need to be done.

It would appear that it gets done at The President's discretion.

Wait For It

How long before the people who're insisting we should trust the government will tell us this report (link) cannot be trusted?

Once again, I notice that a government report on the "gun problem" says what we gun owners have been saying all along.

It's like we're experts.

To go all Godwin...

If you want to learn about Judaism do you ask a Nazi or a Rabbi?

Caliber Matching

In The Old West it was relatively common to see someone's rifle and revolver in the same caliber.

You can do the same thing today!

Willard's got a Rossi model 92 in .44 Magnum and a couple of .44 Revolvers.

The Lovely Harvey has a model 92 and a Peacemaker clone in .357 Magnum.

Marvyn is eyeing a 92 in .357 and we're sure to guilt cajole him into a .357 revolver of some stripe as well.  Perhaps an Astra just to be really strange?

Me?

I want my brace to be in .45 Colt.  The problem is what lever gun will go best with my SAA and Anaconda?

Model 73's and 92's are readily available.  So are clones of the old Colt Burgess.  Marlin 1894?  Maybe a Spencer?  Or a Lightning pump-action...

Or go all modern and get it in 9mm?  A 9mm CAR-15 sounds like fun.

There is a plethora of choices and I have GURPS stats for all of them...

It's Insulting

The Comic Con ban on weaponry insults me on two levels, but since it's shared with all gun grabbing nonsense, I decided to make a separate post.

The first insult from gun grabbers is the impugn that I am a criminal unless I can prove to their satisfaction that I am not.

The second is the assumption that nobody can be trusted with weapons inside the event.  Except that's not true, bet there's armed security and genuine state sanctified police on duty there.

Something else that bubbles up from gun-free zoning is there's never a guarantee of the customer's safety and quite often something in the attendance agreement that absolves the venue and event from liability from any harm done to you while attending.

Why should they worry that an attendee could be mugged, raped or murdered in the parking lot or restrooms when they're absolved from the repercussions?

The same thing applies to going to the courthouse or post office...

Gun Free Zone

The Central Florida Comic Con don't want gunowner's filthy lucre.

So I shan't give them any.

I am sick of this shit.

Do I Wanna Get Back On This Treadmill

I've long been a fan of flight sims.

I've spent many long hours buzzing the virtual towers.

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, several iterations of Falcon, Navy Fighters, Strike Fighters...  Microsoft's Flight Simulator in lots of versions...

The bug is starting to bite again for DCS or Digital Combat Simulator.

Literally "The Bug" because the F/A-18C is one of the modules.  The F-14A and F-14B are very close to being released.  It also has something of a sim unicorn for me, the SAAB AJS-37 Viggen.  If it had the F-4 Phantom and F-8 Crusader I would already have sold a kidney to get it.

It looks absolutely stunning in the videos I've been watching of others playing it.

It has a lot more fidelity than Strike Fighters because it's a study sim instead of a survey sim.

Getting DCS would mean a new machine with a lot more smoke.  I think I'd also want to get some virtual reality in the form of an Occulus Rift.  The reviews are consistent about how much they improve situational awareness.

My current stick, throttle and pedals will serve, but I'd be wanting an expensive upgrade to those in short order I am sure.  If for no other reason than they're starting to wear out.

Picking Up Speed

The CMP has become more efficient or something.

Before the holidays they were running about 80 notifications a week for payment.

The first two weeks after were running about 140 a week.

This past week was 240.

If they keep up this pace, I am going to need my funding together a lot sooner than expected.

Two weeks from now instead of almost two months.

Even worse, they're hitting people's cards in two or three days after notification, so the funds would have to be deposited before the call to be sure the bank acknowledges the deposit.

It's getting exciting.

Annual Occurance

Every year around here the power company comes out with a crew of men to cut the trees away from their power lines.

It makes for some really ugly trees in the utility easement along the back of the yard.

Why do they do this?

Because we live in HurricaneLand!

We don't get even so much as a tropical storm every year, let alone a real live hurricane.

But if they know that if the power isn't flowing, the meters aren't turning and if the meters don't turn the money stops flowing.

It's pure rational self interest for them to keep the grid maintained and up in rather extreme wind conditions.

Doing this maintenance also absolves them from negligence should critical infrastructure lose power.

Critical infrastructure like an assisted care living facility (ACLF) with people depending on that electricity for their very lives.  Air conditioning being the most important life support system for a Florida summer and the elderly.

Because even the most well designed and maintained electrical grid can sometimes succumb to hurricane strength winds; ACLF's are required to have back-up power generation on site.

A couple of facilities didn't and are having their testicles sued off as I type.  People died.

Something else the clearing of trees and vegetation from the lines does is keeps them from sparking.  We don't normally have the kind of dry weather that leads to this sparking causing fires; but it seldom matters because the lines are kept clear.

Our rampant wildfires from a few years ago were traced to heat lightning, not power lines.  We've had a couple recently from campfires getting out of hand.

Remember how this clearing makes for ugly trees?

Something we don't have in Florida is any traction whatsoever for saving the appearance, or even existence, of a tree that's encroaching on a power line.

We also have extensive fire breaks cut into our wilderness to keep a fire from spreading too far.

In 2007 this system was sorely taxed, but it did contain the damage.

All of the above is why Floridians have scant sympathy for California's fire problem.  Not only are they doing nothing to keep the fires from happening, they are actively making the situation worse by preventing the prevention action.

Deliberate Misinformation

Chili isn't from Mexico, though I often attribute it to Mexico on purpose.

It's from a part of Texas that's predominately Mexican rather than Anglo.

It's original form didn't have beans.  Beans just don't grow there.

But if you're going to get all "traditional" and demand that chili not have beans because they didn't use beans in the 1850's...  Your base stock had better include suet.  And dried beef.

Chili was poor folk food.  It's got simple ingredients that aren't prime, marketable cuts.

Lots of staple foods start here.

Starting with fresh meat, skipping suet, adding tomatoes and beans... allowed.

My grandmother would object to all manner of things which are called spaghetti in restaurants today.  She refused to call MY spaghetti sauce "spaghetti".  Why?  Meat.  To her, spaghetti sauce was meatless (also distinct from the similarly meatless marinara).  But she did say it was very tasty and allowed that I could call it anything I wanted.

There's a story there too.

HER sauce wasn't spaghetti sauce to her neighbors back in the old country.  Why?  Because her sauce was associated with a different noodle than spaghetti with them.  They both made the same sauce, but used different pasta and thus used a different name.

The thing is, both my Grandma and Texas have lost this naming war.

When you ask someone to describe chili, you're going to get a bean and meat dish not a base sauce with some meat in it.  The fact that you have to say "Texas chili" to describe a base chili sauce without beans or tomatoes says everything about how Texas has lost this war.  Don't feel bad, Texas, Italy lost the war over what pizza is too.

Texas takes far too many things to religious fervor levels that really don't matter.

Brewing Vids

Please to click on this finely crafted link!

Brewing

Today I'm going down to Big Top Brewing Company to watch/assist a friend make a one-off batch of beer!

Should be informative.

Rate Reduced

Two things.



First, a bumpstock is a rate reducer for Mr Miculek.

Second, he's more accurate without a rear sight than most of us are with optics.

Picking Up Speed

CMP has, week over week, managed to speed up from 80 requests for payment to around 160 in the past week.

If they keep at the 160 a week pace then I will get the call in early Feb.

It's getting exciting!

And scary.

No reply from my inquiry about finding my old issue pistol.  I can't find it, but I recall they once said there would be no requests for serials in the 1911 sale.  C'est la vie if so.

Barring getting 1164935, I'd be pleased as punch to get a Colt frame, Remington-Rand slide like my old gun was.  There've been some pictures posted of some matching Colts that put the condition of Marv's to shame.

He's indicated he'd be jealous if I got one of those.

Forgot A Step

The brake bleed procedure for a Corvette says to use a "new, sealed container" to fill the reservoir.

Pray tell, if it is sealed, how can I extract the contents thereof?

Asking for a friend.

You Don't Know What You're Talking About

Hey, Mr Millennial, when you're comparing a wall to defend our southern border from illegal entry by foreign nationals with The Berlin Wall...

I know something you can't know.

Because The Berlin Wall is gone.  Gone before you were born.

It was still there when I was stationed in Germany.  West Germany, something else that was gone before you were born.

The Berlin Wall was not built to keep East Germans OUT of West Berlin; it was made to keep them IN.

The fortified, mined and manned inter-German border was not made to keep East Germans OUT, it was made to keep them IN.

That might seem to be similar to the US/Mexico border.  We want to keep the Mexicans and South Americans IN Mexico and OUT of The USA...  In both cases the wall marks the divide between a better place and a shitty place.

The difference is in whom was building the wall.

The Communist nations built their wall to prevent escape from the shitty place, and anyone who managed to escape was welcomed.  They were never unwelcome in the west.

South Americans and Mexicans have worn out their welcome here.  They take jobs away from citizens, they drive down wages, they commit crimes...  We don't want them any more.

We want them to go home and not come back.

We're becoming OK with the idea of them getting killed for being here.  That they aren't already shows our restraint and respect for our own laws... but patience is wearing thin.  It won't be too long before we start asking, "If we can't have a wall, can we at least have some cluster bombing?"

Yes, that would be an invasion of Mexico.  We've done it before.  More than once, in fact.

Maybe we should roll the border down to Guatemala.  It'd be a shorter wall and we could take care of several other festering problems in Mexico while it is under military governorship.  I'd like to see what the cartels do with a real military shooting back.

Hurray I Helped!

Helped JT do his brake upgrade on his Corvette.

This is a C7 rim with C6 Z51 brakes on a C5!

Highlights of the day...

His son coming out and seeing the rear wheels off the car the first time ever.  "Wow!  Those tires are WIDE!"

Me trying to put the rear wheel back on the hub.  To use the C7 rears on a C5 you have to use a spacer hub.  I had the wheel lined up perfectly with the studs holding the spacer, and the correct studs were hitting the back of wheel keeping me from putting the wheel on...  Here's my sign.

The test drive was a bit dramatic.  There was a scraping noise when we pulled out to set the pads.  Initially we weren't too worried since we were using the pads that were on the car from before.  C5 and C6 use the same pads, so no worries.  We theorized that the old pads just hadn't been set into the new rotors yet...

The scraping got MUCH worse as we got some heat into the brakes.

JT pulled over and I gimped alongside to see if I could see where the noise was coming from.  The pads had left a concentric pattern on the new rotor that looked like gouging, but was smooth.

I suggested we drive down to Tampa anyway, "If they're fucked, they're fucked already and that won't make it worse.  If this is because the old pads have the old rotor's wear to shed, then the drive will help."  JT liked my reasoning and off to Tampa we went.  We had dinner at Eat's American Grill (we highly recommend it!) and by the time we got there.  No scraping noise.  On the way out on cold brakes, not scraping noise.

VICTORY!

While JT was cleaning up some clutter to let him actually park cars in his garage I had a look at the old rotors.  Sure enough the pattern we were seeing on the new rotors was there.  It was from the face of the pad being worn into the old rotor.  That means it will pass as the new rotors mate with the pads.

Criminal Negligence

I just got done reading this.

Scot Peterson's lack of action is nearly to accomplice after the fact.

Sgt. Richard Rossman sitting on the fact that there was a tape delay to the video feed...  Why would you do that unless you were helping the shooter to evade?

I am beside myself here.

Evil Should Be Punished

Even if Evil has worshipers.

It is now former-sheriff Israel of Broward County.

I care not if it martyrs him.

In fact I hope it does, it will mark our opponents and bring them into the light.

Military Features

Like on a weapon of war?

There's not a single advance in firearms which is common on everyday civilian guns which wasn't used in war.

In fact, most advances in firearm technology were explicitly for military firearms.

The prosaic bolt action in particular.

The Lebel 1886 and Gew.88 were the AK-47s of their days.

As was the Garand.

Personally, I ain't skeered of my fellow man possessing any and all manner of military features.

If such things were really an issue, there'd be no denying it.

There's millions of the things out there now, there weren't back in 1994.

It's Official

Not quite the pin, patch and decal of joining the NHRA, but close!

I feel so lordly now!

Now, to live long enough to make it a bargain...

I Hate Doing The Bills

I suspect that few people enjoy doing this particular chore.

I hate, almost as much, balancing the checkbook.

The anxiety over, "did I forget to record something?" and spent the money twice looms large because it's something I've done before.

Accounting might be fairly simple, but it eluded me for a long time.  Math has never come easy to me, but once learnt, it's learnt.

Iconic 1911 Ammo

L --> R in chronological order.

.45 ACP
.38 Super
10mm ACP

I excluded 9mm on purpose.

The first gun that pops into my head when I think about these three rounds is a 1911, that's not true of 9x19mm.

Short List

I am continually struck by how ineffectual millions of people are in the face of such a short list of rich people.

We know the gun grabbers by name, it's not hard to learn the names because there's less than a score of them to memorize.

You'd think we could get more done, outnumbering them like we do.

Sticker Upgrade

Chiquita is more iconic than Dole brand for bananas.

Idle Hands And What

I put Tonya back to her "as issued" state.

The fixed stock is objectively better, but it's not right.

Besides, the folder gives Dianne the hives.

A Camel Is Not A Horse

No matter how many things are similar between a horse and a camel, nothing makes the camel a horse.

Just because it has tracks, a turret and armor; it doesn't mean it's a tank.

I've been seeing a lot of "worst tank" lists on youtube where more than half the vehicles on the list aren't even tanks.

No shit it's a bad tank; IT'S NOT A TANK AT ALL!!

That's like saying a cat is the worst dog.

Or a list of "5 worst predators" and then listing deer and manatees.

Brrrr

It's 51˚ out there.

It seems cold.

The reason it seems cold is it was 80˚ two days ago.

A near thirty degree drop in a couple days seems cold.

If I were still living in Iowa, a 51˚ day in January would seem like it was time to break out the shorts and sandals because it'd be a thirty degree spike!

It's all relative.

All in all, I'll take Florida.

While we might get the occasional hurricane, Iowa has had winter every year since I moved.

Russian Collusion

The north magnetic pole is speeding towards Siberia!

I think we should panic.

Wrote An Email

I would like you to support Representative Hill's HB 175.

The report on the Parkland shooting says much of what was passed in last years SB 7026 would have done nothing to stop the shooter and will be ineffectual to prevent future shootings.

We'd be better served with less gun-control and with more good-guys with guns who will actually act in response to such horrifying situations.

A bill which puts a legal responsibility to act on school resource officers would do far more for student safety than punishing innocent gun owners.

The long list of local government officials and law enforcement professionals who, at best, nothing to stop the shooting from places of safety and, at worst, enabled the shooter by not enforcing existing laws in the years leading to the shooting is a list of people who should suffer some form of punishment.

That Sheriff Israel is still the sitting sheriff after such an abject failure in his duty to his community is telling; but that the SRO, Scott Peterson, who cowered outside while the students in his charge were murdered is still eligible for his generous retirement benefits is appalling!

That we cannot expect SRO's to be compelled to do the task they were explicitly hired to do is unbelievable.  Yet, it is so.

Since we do not conscript law enforcement personnel, it's high time we demand that they are required to do their duty.  To be the heroes they constantly tell us they are.

Thank you for your time.

She's avoiding her local office.

Gun Jeebus Speaks

Forgotten Weapons has put out on their FaceBook page to spend your money elsewhere with regards to Classic Firearms.



The funny thing is I was kinda interested in the gun shown.  The link in the sales email I got from them goes to a 404 page.  This is unusual for them because out of stock normally dumps to the item with "out of stock" in place of the order link.

They're not what I'd call a top tier vendor, but the number of competitors in the C&R and surplus market is getting smaller every year.  Who's left?  J&G and Apex?  I know SOG is gone and one other whose name escapes me in the past year.

Well That Sucked

I augered in about 8 pm last night.

I got up to make The Boy's breakfast and take him to school and I had a very difficult time staying standing up.

My inner ear was thoroughly convinced the house was flipping end over end.

I managed to nuke a breakfast burrito for The Boy and I crawled back into bed.

I think Willard called somewhere in here too.  Well, I know he did, it's in the call list, but I don't really remember talking to him.

This damn cold just will not let go!

I don't really feel that bad, I'm just run down tired with sinus drain.  Yesterday I would have predicted I'd be all better today.  I had been feeling better day over day since last week.

Maybe I'll feel better soon.

Other Implications

"[A] conversion kit, a tool, an accessory, or a device used to alter the rate of fire of a firearm to mimic automatic weapon fire."

Jerry Miculek is banned in Florida.

IANAL

There's a school of thought that thinks that Florida's bumpstock ban also, somehow, applies to NFA registered machine guns like drop-in auto sears and lightning links.

790.222 Bump-fire stocks prohibited.—A person may not import into this state or transfer, distribute, sell, keep for sale, offer for sale, possess, or give to another person a bump-fire stock. A person who violates this section commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. As used in this section, the term “bump-fire stock” means a conversion kit, a tool, an accessory, or a device used to alter the rate of fire of a firearm to mimic automatic weapon fire or which is used to increase the rate of fire to a faster rate than is possible for a person to fire such semiautomatic firearm unassisted by a kit, a tool, an accessory, or a device.

Despite them doing what the bumpstock law says it bans...

FS 790.221 explains it all.

Machine guns are illegal in Florida.

790.221 Possession of short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, or machine gun; penalty.—

(1) It is unlawful for any person to own or to have in his or her care, custody, possession, or control any short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, or machine gun which is, or may readily be made, operable; but this section shall not apply to antique firearms.

(2) A person who violates this section commits a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

(3) Firearms in violation hereof which are lawfully owned and possessed under provisions of federal law are excepted.

 

Wait...  What's that subsection (3)?

 

Don't read into the law things which aren't there while ignoring that which is.

Lightning links and DIAS are not accessories, kits or devices that mimic automatic weapon fire.  They create actual automatic fire and are already defined and regulated as machineguns.

The devil is in the details.

I suspect that 790.222 is going to, eventually, be struck as constitutionally vague from a lack of objective definitions.

Park Dark-Red-Wood And JMB

The Hi-Power is sporting cocobolo.  Colt calls the wood I have on the Springfield rosewood.

Both cocobolo and rosewood are from genus dalbergia, so it stands they should look similar.

Seven Weeks?

CMP is averaging 100 guns a week shipped on the M1911A1's.

I'm about 700 spots behind the most recent number shipped according to the forums.

End of February.

I Am Not The First To Notice

I am intensely fortunate that none of the ignorant things I said when I was 15-24 have a forever record on the internet like people who were 15-24 when social media started to become commonplace.

Couple that with the zero-tolerance, no-forgiveness culture we're breeding and soon there won't be anyone who can do anything because they said something stupid twenty years ago.

OK Preppers What's Your Plan For THIS?

Large Magellanic Cloud to impact Milky Way!

We're all gonna DIE!!!!!

Um...

We're all gonna be dead unless a truly remarkable advance in medicine happens.

Quoted For Truth

“Am I the only one who realizes that landmines would be cheap, easy, and definitely not a wall?”  from Facebook via Instapundit.

Additionally, completely within the military's budget!

Race Fantasy And The Old West

I've repeatedly toyed with making a world set about 1875 or so in the American Old West with fantasy races and magic.

This is where the elf-human-orc genetic discussion came from.

Originally I was trying to shoe-horn the fantasy races into historic slots, with orcs taking the role of blacks...

Yeah, I spotted how bad that looked as fast as you did.

I've made an orc character from a world where orcs were the African slaves in The South, and The Confederate States of America won.  That's William Jenkins.

It was the placing of other races where everything fell apart.  Orcs naturally fit the role of the hated race that everyone hated.  But what if I made Jews elves?  Scots seem to fit dwarves well, when was the last time a dwarf wasn't depicted as Scottish?  Does that make Germans gnomes?

The shoe horning wasn't working.

But what if humanity was Elf-Human-Orc?  I need to find a place for dwarves, gnomes and halflings.  Maybe for goblins too.

Inserting dwarves into some cultural memes works well.  The English oppression of their Celtic people and their gravitation to mining lends itself to the Scots/Welsh/Irish miner being a dwarf.  Other Celts could be gnomes.

The mechanically inclined and inventive dwarves and gnomes mesh well with how many inventions stem from Scots too.

The scary part of using GURPS Fantasy races for cultural stereotypes is the Jews = goblins thing.  Goblins are the racially inclined traders in both Fantasy Folk and Banestorm.  That meshes with the stereotype of Jew, but...  It's a bit on the nose...  Especially as it meshes well with Arab traders too.

But my Gohds the racist implications...

It gets to be very difficult to pull off.

Not that there's anything in the racial template that's particularly insulting to Jews or Arabs, except for their physical description that plays like a Nazi newspaper editorial cartoon description.

Ugh.

Best to make religion independent of race.  And it's fairly easy to fit goblins into non-Jewish templates by putting them at the head of other famous trading ventures.  East India Company being goblin helmed would do it.  The Jewish propensity to head for education, science and medicine doesn't match well with the goblin template either.

Then, for The Old West... who are the Chinese?  In the orc=African idea I toyed with making them all elves.  Chinese, after all, are sometimes referred to as celestials.

But who will play the Indians?

Thus was the elf-human-orc Humanity idea was born.  These three races are most of the population with the others taking the place where especially appropriate to individual example.

One thing that clings is associating elf with royalty.  You see a poor, indentured or enslaved elf; you're looking at someone who's been dispossessed.  Insert dark-elf template for 31 points, Wink.

2019 ATF Photo

GURPS By Request

Lets take the average infantryman from Die Duetsches Heer and the US Army.

WW1 German grunt: DX 11, Guns/TL6 - Rifle 13.

Modern US 11B: DX 11, Guns/TL8 - Rifle 13.

That's an even match, no?

Comparing the guns.

The Gew.98 does 7d+1 pi with an Acc of 5 with ranges of 1,100/4,600.  It carries 5(3) shots with a RoF of 1.  it needs a ST of 11 to operate without penalty, which our Soldat has.  Rcl is 4 which shouldn't matter because of the low RoF.

An M4A1 does 4d+1 pi with an Acc of 4, but the Aimpoint gives a +1 to Guns/TL8 skill.  Range is 750/2,900 and needs a ST of 9.  There are 30+1(3) shots with a RoF of 15.  Rcl is 2, which is going to come up.

Now... what range do we put the fight?

How about the 200m "typical" engagement in a rural European setting?

218 yards is a -13 penalty.  Nobody is hitting anything without aiming.

If they spot each other at the same time and go prone...  -2 to hit, but you get to brace if you aim for a +1.

Aiming for one round, German:  13 - 13 + 5 - 2 + 1.  4 to hit.
Aiming for one round, American: 14 - 13 + 4 - 2 + 1.  4 to hit with a single shot.  7 to hit by dumping 15 rounds at the German.

The German would need to roll a 4 for a single hit.  The American, firing semi-auto and three shots still needs a 4, and a 3 would still give a single hit.  In full auto a 7 lands 1, a 5 lands 2 and a 3 lands 3.  The chance of rolling a 7 or less is just 16.2%, but better than 1.85% for the 4 or less.

Aiming longer can give up to +2 more.  Still not great.

How about 50m then?  -9 for range now.  Effectively a +4 to the 200m engagement.  8 to hit with single shots and 11 with the full-auto (on average the American can hit every time now).

The German has a 25.92% chance of scoring one hit.

The American in semi-auto has the same 25.92% chance with one hit, 9.25% for two hits and 1.85% for three.  In full-braaap the odds of a single hit are 62.5%, two hits is 37.50%, three hits are 16.2%, four hits are 4.62% and five hits are 0.46%.

You might notice there's a lot of missing in combat.

Let's say they finally connect!

7d+1 pi to the torso is 8-43 points of damage with an average roll of 25.  The American will be wearing the Improved Outer Tactical Vest with E-SAPI plates.  DR 12/5 +35; which will be DR 47 against the Mauser.  Ping.  The plate is ablative so it will lose 2-14 (avg 8) points of protection per hit here.

4d+1 pi to the torso is 5-25 points of damage with an average roll of 15.  On average the aimed full auto burst at 50m is going to knock our HT 11 German to conscious rolls.

How about urban combat where 25 yards is long range?  The 2-gun example seems to be shot at about this distance.  Nobody goes prone and nobody is aiming in GURPS terms.  Using the sights and aiming aren't the same in game terms.

We're now -7 for range.  No bonus for aiming or bracing, no penalty for target posture.

7 or less for one hit for the German.  8 or less for one hit for the American in semi and 11 or less in full-auto.  The M4A1 is about a third more likely to get a single hit in semi and better than 2/3 as likely to score two hits than the Mauser can score one.

There's still going to be a lot of missing.

But what the American can do that the German cannot is flip the switch to full and let the RoF bonus be cancelled by the penalty to go for vitals.  That triples the damage done to 15-75 (avg. 45).

To do damage at all the German must either whittle down the frangible ESAPI plates or aim for something unarmored.  The Skull is protected by a DR 20 Enhanced Combat Helmet and DR 2 of bone.  And it's -7 to hit.  The Face is less protected and -5 to hit.  He'd need to aim for a full second every shot to have a chance at 25 yards!

The German could also not bother calling their shot and let the dice decide where the hits fall.  Odds are you hit the torso, but you might also get a crippling injury to a limb that takes the American out of the fight.

Obsolete

InRange has demonstrated that bolt-action rifles are obsolete as main battle rifles.





I think people are wrapped around the axle over this because they've equated obsolete with useless.

I think they also take it as obsolete for all uses.

For pleasure shooting there's no such thing as obsolete.

If your goal is to go to a two-gun match with your Gew.98 and have fun, it's still serving its purpose.  Not its designed purpose, granted, but...

I am not really certain that hunting guns ever really go obsolete.  The rules, regulations and laws about hunting practically insure that even the most hoary antique still has a valid role in harvesting game and keeping their populations in check.  For heaven's sake, even bows and arrows are still valid hunting tools!

But not so useful for war.  Sure, any firearm can have a martial function even if long obsolete or unintended for combat.  We've only to look at the Warsaw Ghetto and other resistance movements in World War Two.  While you're looking, though, note that those inappropriate guns were used to seize state of the are military weaponry from dead soldiers.  There have even been purpose built "worthless" guns made for such a role, such as The Liberator pistol.

I love my old guns, but I don't expect to prevail in a firefight using a Mosin or Enfield.

Anticipation

When you conceal carry, you end up with a box full of holsters.

When you own a 1911, you end up with a box full of stocks.

You can change them at whim.

Anticipating the arrival of my M1911A1 from CMP, I decided that my Springfield didn't need to be completely issue looking anymore.

These are the original grips off my Colt .38 Super.

Contrast to the USGI plastic models:

At one time I've even had rosewood smoothies and allen-screws:

I am not sure which set of stocks I like best on the Springfield, but it's fun to play Barbie with them.

Another Shake?

Went to the local arms merchant.

I asked after the Glock Gen5 and M&P 2.0 to see if they fit and have the "twitch".

One of the 2.0's he had in stock was equipped with Apex Tactical's forward set, flat-face trigger kit.

Be still my heart!

I hate the way it looks, but I have to admit that it feels right.

The trigger kit is also substantially cheaper than a new gun.

It also scratches that hot-rodder itch we car & gun guys have.

Alas...  I am putting away all of my spare pennies for the impending doom of M1911A1 from CMP so this will have to wait a couple three months.

Unless, of course, someone wants to stab that donation button.  If that happens, then I'll take the time to detail every step of the install with a photo.

Simple Genetics

Human + Orc = Half-Orc.

Human + Elf = Half-Elf.

Both kinds of offspring are fertile and can further interbreed with either parent's race.

Which begs the question:  Orc + Elf = ??

Our traditional answer has always been Human.

It makes me want to make up the table with the dominant and recessive genes and see what mixtures give what odds...

It Is A Video Screen After All

I just noticed that I can play movies on my phone.

This is such a "DUR!" moment I feel like I should start watching 60-Minutes for a nice assisted care living facility to keep an eye on me as my mind further slips into democrat dementia.

What makes it a DUR moment is I've loaded movies on my Kindle Fire and a Tablet and happily watched them, but for some reason never the phone...

Scratch that.

I know the reason.

This is the first phone I've had that's had expandable storage since movies stopped being primarily on DVD.

Continuity Of Care

My doc found out I had critically low vitamin D.

She prescribed a massive supplement for it.

Had an appointment to have that level checked.

No word since.

Does this mean I'm cured?

Because He Loves The IDF So Much

Hey, Willard!

DSA Factory IDF FAL Clone

I Think I Gave It A Fair Shake

I think I am going to be looking to trade in my M&P 9 for a Glock.

There's a lot I like about the pistol, but I just can't get it to shoot as well as I shoot virtually any other 9mm.

The Gen5 Glock 17's are looking pretty darn sexy and I already have a Gen2.  I seem to recall that the newer guns need different magazines than the older ones (or not).

So Tired

It's been a very long time since I've been this sapped by a cold.

Just no energy at all.

Happily, I think I am through the worst of it now.

Extra bonus, I appear to have passed it on to Marv!  He's about three days behind me on symptoms, with The Boy about three days ahead of me, as befits his status as Patient Zero.

Harvey is about a day ahead of me.

In fact, we did shots for New-Years!

BLEAH!

To The Gentle Minstrations Of Madame Curie

Getting my hip X-Rayed at Bay Pines this morning.

Long drive.

Ugh.

Why Didn't I Think Of This Earlier?

I've been corresponding with a gentleman on Facebook about tracking down the history of the M1911A1 I was issued back in '89.

He's connected with someone who can dig in the computers and look things up.

Today he says:

Oh, call the CMP with the serial.  See if they have it.  If they do, they will flag it and you can actually buy it.  Tell them you were issued it.  If it's in their system, which it most likely is, they flag the serial and won't sell unless you tell them your don't want it.  I've done this on others ones before.

It's worth a shot!

Fireworks Are Traditional On New Years Eve

Blank adapters just make fireworks more fun!