Same Make And Model

Marv snagged a Lyman No. 2A SA sight for $50 after I told him he could flip it for $100 easy, maybe more.

What's interesting is that it's not the same as my No. 2A SA.

The knurled barrel is very different.

The elevation stems are very similar.  They even interchange.

It's marked differently from mine.

Marv's

Mine

Mine has 'SA' stamped underneath, Marv's has "1A SA" despite clearly being a 2A sight.  The aperture is the only difference between the 1A and 2A, so the bases might all be marked the same.  The elevation stem may have been swapped over the years too.

Judging from pictures I've been able to find on the internet, mine's the earlier variation and Marv's is the later.

Glossy Ibis

The Lovely Harvey mowed the lawn just before the afternoon rains set in.

This stirs up all kinds of critters and attracted a glossy ibis to dinner.

This is the only clear pic I got because it's the only one I took outside the screened porch.  This pic scared it off.

We've lots of the white ibis around, this is the first time I've seen a glossy.

Druggie In The Living Room With The Homeowner

Woman sentenced to 10 years for murder.

Who was murdered?

Her accomplice in a home invasion.

Who actually killed someone?

The homeowner.

WHAT?

Florida has laws that charge you with everything that stems from your crime.

So if you break into someone's house and they shoot your fellow criminal, YOU get charged for murdering your fellow criminal.

Even though you didn't fire a shot or personally hurt anyone.

Don't break into houses, kids.

Probably should stay away from drugs too.

A Fucking Month

The tube of antifungal cream I bought said that it would defeat the fungus in a week if used twice a day.

Yup.

Then three days later the fungus would reappear.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

A month later the fungus is defeated.

Gold Bond Medicated Powder coupled with the cream is what works to eliminate swamp dick on McThag.

OMG I have a new thing to wish on my worst enemy.

Related: two 25 hour drives in about a week, where you don't move around much, is a great way to perpetuate the fungus just abaft of the glans.

Today is the first day since this appeared that I've felt normal.

Yes, TMI, but...

Redfield 70LT

The LH has "hunter" knobs.  The LT has "target" knobs.

The difference is the target knobs have finer clicks and are finger adjustable.

Redfield 80L

Another in a continuing series of what sights were available for the Savage 99.

The 80L looks to be a simplified and more compact version of the 70LH with a quick adjust button that disengages the threads and lets you make gross adjustments to the elevation.  A feature found on many Lyman sights.

Old News

When the newest public source of the deficiency you're talking about is three years old, I tend to think that it's been addressed by now.

Why do I think that?

Oh, I dunno...

Because I've watched this pattern for as long as I can remember.

I've lost track of the number of "fatally" flawed programs which worked just fine when used for realsies.

We're back on the topic of the F-35A and its gun.

The author is complaining that the USAF has done no testing of the GAU-22/A ammunition...

Well, since the gun is a GAU-12/U sans a barrel, that means that the testing the USMC did of the 25x137mm ammo is still valid.  Never mind that the US Army has been using the round since 1981...

Rant Subverted

Here I was, writing up a damn fine rant and fisk...

Then I realized that the person I was fisking wasn't deserving of the time I'd already expended; let alone more time to finish it.

I feel better having written half a rant though.

Bonus: They're vain enough that they will think this song is about them.  They may even gavotte.

You DO Have A Right To Drive A Car

I am as sick of the argument that driving a car isn't a right as I am of the comparisons between how easy it is to get a gun and a car.

Your right to drive a car is covered by the 9th and 10th amendments.

Remember those?  Judging from how often this argument comes up, no you don't.

There's entire rafts of laws which are in violation of the 9th, 10th and 14th Amendments because the laws depend on very tenuous links to powers granted by The Constitution.

Hint: Nearly ALL laws die if held to this standard.

Congress and the courts simply ignore the parts of The Bill of Rights they dislike or prevents them from enforcing their mores on us.

Do you have a right to drive a car?

Yes, because the power to regulate cars was never explicitly delegated to the Federal or State governments in their original Constitutions or amendments thereof.

The paradigm at the time of founding was, "The people can do anything they want, unless specifically proscribed; The government may do nothing unless specifically empowered."

Today the paradigm is, "The people may not do anything, unless specifically granted permission; The government may do anything unless specifically forbidden by the courts."

THAT is what we must fix.

Might Need A Front Sight Too

The Krag already shot a bit high...  4" high at 25 yards.  For a 100 or 200 yard zero it should be pretty close to the point of aim at 25.  0.53" low with a 100 yard zero and 0.18" high with a 200 yard zero.

This is a 525 yard zero according to my Nikon Spot-On app.  I have no intention of shooting that far.

The new rear sight will be higher than the buckhorn it's intended to replace.  That will make the bullets impact even higher...

I already need about a 0.011" taller sight to get a 100 yard zero.

The front sight base has a standard 0.375" dovetail.

It's 0.520" from the bottom of the dovetail to the top of the blade.

It's 0.243" wide and 0.832" on top of the shelf.

The blade itself it pinned to the front sight, making this a three-piece sight.

The blade is 0.0625" wide and is 0.375" ish... tall.

The hunt is on!

Well, it will be once I get the new sight on the back end and see what this does to the impact point.

If I did the math right, I need a 0.750" tall front sight to get a zero that hits 0.53" low at 25 yards for a 100 yard zero.

I Can Explain It

LGBTQ Acceptance On The Decline

Did you say the correct pronoun?

Did you assume a gender?

Did you call their significant other the wrong title (which can include significant other as being wrong).

What happens to someone who's not LGBT when that happens?

Now, how comfortable would you feel knowing what a minefield this is?

LGBT got what they wanted, discovered they had power and have been bullies about it ever since and demanded things long past the victory they deserved.

Make no mistake, they deserve to be treated like human beings because they are human beings.  They deserve the same rights and privileges as anyone else.  No more, no less.

It was the demanding of more that has them losing acceptance.

They should have looked hard at feminism and race baiting for the curve on popularity.

PS: I say "they" because I am not LGBT.  There's no implied attempt to other or blow a dogwhistle here.

Silence

I live almost exactly a kilometer from a busy 6-lane road.

While in Iowa I noticed the silence of being many miles from such a road.

I'd internalized the constant hiss and rumble of thousands of cars going by just over 3/4 of a mile from here.

Period Aperture

Got a teeny-tiny aperture for the Lyman No. 1A SA on Laverne.

Yes, I know about the crack in the stock.  Apparently most 99EG do this and it's not a structural concern.

Yes, I know about the cat hair.  Apparently, if you own a cat (or two) they donate small hairs for every photo and it's not a structural concern.

Of real note is the correct aperture doesn't kiss the stock when folded like the Merit model 4SS did.

That's because it's MUCH smaller.

The aperture size is the same as I'd dialed into the 4SS, so the front sight is nicely in focus.  There is a more of a ghost ring effect with the smaller disk size.

Four Seasons Fountain

East of The Memorial Union is a fountain.

In an American Indian theme, the four seasons are depicted in statue form.  In the background is the famous campanile.

The Memorial Part Of Iowa State University's Memorial Union

Iowa's war dead since World War 1 are all inscribed in stone in this hall.

It's structured to just destroy sound.  To force you to shut the Hell up.  It's eerie.  It's also fun to watch boisterous groups of students stop talking when the enter the space then resume at the other end.

You May Call Me Bubba

I dearly love greatly prefer peep sights to tangent sights.

The Krag has tangent sights and Williams still makes an aperture sight for it.

Install is straight-forward.  Clamp it down where it needs to sit, mark the mounting hole locations, drill, tap, mount, enjoy!

It's a good thing I am mechanically inclined and the installation is obvious to me.

Here's a link to the "complete" mounting instructions promised by Williams on the back of the package.

This is roughly where the sight will get mounted.

A bit of wood will need to be removed to let the sight sit level.

I don't feel at all bad about further modifying this rifle to my wants because I wasn't the one who sportified it to begin with.

This is the most ambitious I've ever gotten with gunsmithing though.  I'm nervous, but excited.

I'm not going to start drilling today, it's fookin' hot out in that garage!

Home Again

Drove straight through.  I've been awake for 28 hours.

I'm in a low function fugue state now.

Be collapsing as soon as the caffeine wears off.

This Is Us Not Driving Home

The Lovely Harvey is chasing her Mom's doctor around to get some simple questions answered.

The Doc, apparently, is relying on Mom to relay information and questions in both directions because she's fully competent.

The problem is the information always gets garbled and sometimes answers give rise to other questions.  Then add a day or more of delay...  It's just better if you can get the doc to hold still and spend ten minutes to clear up all the stuff.

One bit of good news is Mom is getting moved from the hospital in Des Moines to one in the home town of Nevada.  This is good because it's not really hospital care but recovery care.

There's a chance she'll have to have a second surgery to replace the screws with a plate.  If they do that, then she won't need a knee replacement in a couple years.

Practically A Tradition

The Boy has Hollow Man (2000) on the TV here at Grandma's.

I looked up the trivia on IMDB and find that it's directed by Paul Verhoeven.

The trivia mentions there's a novel called Hollow Man, by Dan Simmons, which has nothing to do with the movie; but they bought the rights just for the title.

This is sounding eerily similar to Starship Troopers...

Definitive Sasquatch Photo

Confirmed real now!

Bigfoot Is Real!

He's near Holiday Lakes, Iowa.

Quite a friendly chap.

All Words Are Made Up

My Old West and Prohibition worlds with magic both use an adaptation of the athame from Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ithshar series.

I discovered just yesterday that athame isn't a word he created for his world!

Who knew?

Lots of people, apparently.

Rare Collectible?

I was surprised to discover that my hardcover copy of GURPS: Magic for 4e has become a $100+ book on ebay as Steve Jackson has transitioned towards pdf for the GURPS line.

Even the print-on-demand softcover versions are running more than $50 because there isn't a print-on-demand option for them anymore.

Wow!

Most Commonist

I cannot, for the life of me, remember if the Colt Model P aka SAA aka M1873 aka Peacemaker really was the most common handgun of the old west or if that's just the most common gun Hollywood used.

If I think about it too hard, the fact that Hollywood used them near exclusively is kind of a hint about its ubiquity.  They'd use what was cheapest to fill the role.

There's a lot of Trapdoor Kentucky rifles in movies from the '50's and '60's, for example.

Rules Testing

Ever since I bought GURPS: Imperial Rome back in the 3e days I've wondered if one type of gladiator was superior to another or if they were fairly evenly balanced.

Today we ran the experiment.

In general they're pretty balanced.  Each one has a killer app that, if it works, wins the fight for them.  If it doesn't, they're boned; hard.

We tested a couple of the types against a giant dragonfly so Geff could make a power level assessment about the creature.  Giant dragonfly in the 9' long sense.

Because the dragonfly is very fast, it dodges all but the luckiest of attacks.  Even the unarmored retiarius can hold their own, but will get whittled down by unlucky die rolls.

The average straight tens normal, sentenced to die at the spectacle, and handed a sword lasts all of three rounds against such a magical beast.

A modern hunter with a Savage 99 drops it, dead right there, with two shots.

Geff is satisfied with the dragonfly's power level.

It was fun to try out things we'd not do with a character we'd spent hours toiling over points and conception making.

We learned that the retiarius' net can be used two ways.  Throwing it is high-risk, high-reward.  Using it as a melee weapon to entangle the opponent's weapon arm carries less risk, but also tends to bring smaller rewards; it's the conservative strategy.

Tridents suck.  Full stop.  Minus to skill to hit, armor is enhanced against them.  Their chance to disarm and slight penalty to the defender's active defenses don't offset the penalties.

Lack Of Interest

I was looking forward to doing some gaming here in Iowa.

I nominally have two players.

One of whom seems to want me to do everything for them.

Dude, if I'm doing the player job and the NPC jobs, that's not gaming; that's writing fiction.

If I'm writing fiction, I don't need other participants.

MIL Update

She had surgery on the knee where the tibia is broken.

That went well and should be OK.

Prolly looking at a knee replacement once the bone is stable.

Mixed Bag

While I was out touring the local breweries and distilleries of central Iowa...

My mother in law took a spill tripping over a throw rug.

Right Left tibia fracture near the knee.  Dislocated knee and some torn ligaments.

Left shoulder broken too for good measure.

She's been moved from the home-town hospital to one closer to where I've been staying for some surgery to put things back together.

We're accepting prayers for her speedy recovery.

Juneteenth

If you're celebrating the arrival of emancipation to Texas today, please take a moment from blaming The Evil White Man for slavery and remember that it was predominantly white men who fought to make that possible.

Over three hundred thousand men died to free the slaves.

Nearly all of them were white.

It seems very racist to blame an entire race for slavery when so many people of that race have done so much to liberate and equalize people of other races.

That such people exist does not absolve white racists of their crimes, it's just that they're not a majority and we don't like them either.

Quote Of The Day

From here.

This leads us to the second thing: gun control is what they are doing instead of fixing the problem.

Its genius, really. You have a problem you can't solve, so you blame it on a visible minority and you make their lives hell instead of doing something constructive. Kind of like what Hitler did with the Jews, but slower.

Earlier in the post they say,

Outside third option, they arranged it and they like it that way.

I tend to discount conspiracy theories... but, more and more, there seems to be a coherent pattern in how this works.

The "solution" to the problem is never anything that addresses the problem and often encourages more of the problem.

The comments also point to another problem in American crime.  The vibrancy of the areas where the most crime occurs.

We've got a melting pot problem.  Someone put out the fire under the crucible.

The dark side of America's melting pot is we used to force foreigners to become American or accept (at best) second class citizenship.

We're to the multi-cultural point now where being American is how you get that second class status because all the other sub-cultures are elevated above you, by law, with extra protections and allowances.

It's been asked before, "why don't you white people riot when one of you gets killed by the cops?"

The answer stunned the questioner, "because we're expected to be civilized and you're not."

There's a lot of truth underlying that.

MSA S3

Marbles was once Marble Safety Axe before they became Marble Arms.

It looks like it has a lock to hold it erect and a screw in aperture.