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For years ago this very moment I was in the transient pod at the Pasco County, Florida jail.
Stab the 'legal drama' tab to see how that came out.
I learned a lot from my brief stay in jail, but the biggest thing was that I have some of the best friends a person could ask for.
Willard, Marv and Hognose (RIP) moved mountains for my legal defense and bail.
I renew my thanks!
The leather dye arrived today and I got to work!
The next step is to use 10 burrs and rivets to make 8 rivets. There was an unexpected learning curve getting the burrs to seat.
Pics of the last three. Burr seated. Rivet clipped. Rivet capped.
I'll sew the flap down later. I need a curved needle.
Overall, though, SUCCESS!
I get lots of emails from Wayne and Marion about gun bills in Florida.
Why haven't I gotten one about something truly pro-gun?
HB123 is Constitutional Carry for Florida.
You'd think that'd be something that the NRA would be backing here.
Where's the alert email?
Or are they doing "not invented here" again like they did when Marion killed open/campus carry back in 2011?
By the way, Floridians, get on your State Congress Creatures to move this bill out of committee and to a passing vote.
I might be of an age...
But rewatching Star Trek vs Star Trek: Next Generation...
OG Star Trek holds up much better on rewatch than the later version.
The M4 is proven in the various conflicts on Tara.
The FAL is proven in many conflicts on Communism.
Some of us have not seen the M4 in action, but have seen the FAL work its magic.
Likewise, there are a lot of us who've seen the M4 function well and don't doubt it.
There's scant amount of overlap.
But for those of us who've been there, done that... The rifle that did what we wanted, when we wanted, IS the correct choice.
The gun that didn't let you down when it mattered is the obvious choice.
Old timers who were blooded with an M14 will never accept a "poodle-shooter" and those who've survived the mountainous terrain of the Hundu-Kush will feel that carrying a "musket" is excessive.
In between are a number of folks who used the FAL in the field, opposed by the AK and SKS, who would not take an AR variant into battle regardless of the bribe.
It's interesting to watch the debate.
It's also interesting to add in the folks who used an M16A1 in a real live war who wouldn't carry the cumbersome FAL nor accept the compromised M4.
It all boils down to, "The best combat rifle in the world is the one that worked when you needed it to. The worst combat rifle in the world is the one that failed when you needed most."
This is often the same gun when you get two veterans talking.
The weather has been very nice in the afternoons lately.
That means the top's off The Precious and I'm using my Miami Classic to tote my M&P under an Hawaiian shirt.
I mean, it's Florida, after all.
But I don't think of myself as Crockett or Tubbs.
I've always seen myself as more of a Switec or Zito.
They're definitely less consumed by the need to be fashion victims than the leads.
While I was buying my 7.62 NATO, I noticed that, besides what I bought, there was nothing else in the case but one box each of .350 Legend and .222 Remington.
Check your preps and be ready.
Kiss your loved ones.
Wal Mart has NO .270 Winchester in stock.
These are the end times.
I bought out the local Wal Mart on Winchester 7.62x51mm M80 ball.
Astonishingly close to pre-panic prices too. Just more than $20 per box.
I asked if there was anything keeping me from buying them out and the counter person said, "moral restraint?"
Not from me.
I don't know about you, but I'm old enough to remember when if a white person acted "less white" they were accused of cultural misappropriation; at best.
At worst, it was racist to act "less white".
You give your goals away when all the choices are no-win.
You also undermine yourself because there are damn few people who will play a game without a way to win.
Got the leather in for the New-Service flap.
First I ground off all the rivets from the holster and removed the flap and loop.
Then I traced around the two pieces of flap, adding about half an inch at the front at the cut point and about two inches at the back, on a sheet of thin plastic.
Test fit:
Very close!
I transferred this pattern to the leather and used an everyday razor blade to cut it.
I decided that it didn't need the dual holes to accommodate different guns and punched the flap latch hole in the center. Then I trimmed the end of the flap about half an inch, just for looks.
Fits like it was made for it! Um... because it was.
Next step is to dye it black. Then rivet it back together. Some sewing will be required as well at the bottom of the loop. I think that's to keep it from snagging on things rather than to lend strength.
There's a thread on Arfcom.
They're asking what rifle and pistol you'd take to the bush wars in Africa.
The vote is going to the FAL (that's Eff Aye Ell, if you say it as a word, you are wrong and should be ashamed) and the Browning High Power.
I posted that I'd take what Willard took.
An FAL and a Colt Commander.
Of the people in that thread, he's the only one who actually went to Africa and fought in those bush wars.
He's alive to tell the tale and I'm here to relay it.
He'd be the only one in that thread to be able to make that claim.
(DROPS MIC)
Truck collides with train carrying gasoline.
Show this to everyone who opposes projects like Keystone.
It's an Old Fashioned!
Triple points if you can name the reference.
But I blame this evening's mixing on Mad Men.
You look at the shelves of shotgun ammo and you can see "dove and quail" "buckshot" and "turkey" loads.
So many choices are labeled with what kind of game you're supposed to be shooting at...
Is Winchester loading anti-aircraft loads?
Lord willin' and the crick don' rise; there should be enough stuff here today to brave ripping the old 1881 holster apart and making a new flap that actually retains the .45 Colt New Service.
I'm excited and nervous about it.
I'm going to cut a few patterns from manilla envelopes and test fit a few times.
When I first got into cars, it was a lot of work to get a car all shiny and clean.
Even more difficult was keeping it shiny and clean.
Just as with guns, the products available to the car-owner have made the job so much simpler and easier.
There are simply so many good choices that it doesn't even matter which ones I use.
On the way back from a beer run, I noticed that The Precious headlights had not come on.
Changing the switch from auto to on did nothing.
Wait!
I remembered reading about a recall for this!
For 2005-2007 C6's... not my 2008.
Frack!
Opinions were sharply divided about dealers doing the courtesy repair on 2008-2013 cars.
But a couple of people had posted on the Corvette Forum about what the problem was and how to fix it.
The underhood electrical center has solid copper wires bridging all the pin-holders for the fuses and relays. The one for the headlights is notorious for breaking at a dogleg in its trace.
Where it breaks (not my pic).
Most of the repair is actually getting the sleeves for the mounting bolts un-flared so you can pull the three sections apart from one another.
I begged Marv to come over and help and he was invaluable to the effort!
It took us about 90 minutes (once we found the 20 ga solid copper wire Marv had stored away) to do the repair and at least an hour was getting those four flared ended sleeves smushed enough to get the bolt out.
Took a 30-minute test drive to let some heat and vibration get to the wire.
SUCCESS!
3mm inner core of tungsten reinforced bulk amorphous metal.
Cupro-Nickel jacket/shroud (because it's magnetic!)
4g mass. 66.7% of it in the tungsten penetrator.
You think it's going to tumble? It's got one hell of a length to width ratio.
Changing from a triggered link to a follow-up might be a lot simpler.
I'd lose the hollow-point damage bonus if I follow the rules as written for doing enhancements and limitations.
SCHV Expanding Shroud Armor Piercing Core (ESAP): TL10. A soft metal jacket shrouding the same tungsten-reinforced bulk amorphous metal penetrator of an APEP round. First attack does 80% of normal damage and the follow-up attack does 60% of normal damage and is modified as per APEP ammuntion on Ultra-Tech p.152. Multiply CPS by 15.
This changes the G:T damage to 6d+2 pi follow-up 5d(3) pi- and the UT4e gun to 5d+1 pi follow-up 4d(3) pi-.
Against the DR 45 wearer: ((dice * 3.5) - DR) follow-up ((dice * 3.5) - (DR / 3)) / 2The GT gun firing ESAP does 5.
The UT gun gets 2.
But against unarmored targets... (dice * 3.5) follow-up ((dice * 3.5) - (DR / 3)) / 2
GT gun: 31 points of damage.
UT gun: 25 points of damage.The 4mm gauss rifle is a Traveller staple.
It's the standard Imperial Army rifle, advanced enough to be viable all the way to TL15 and simple enough to be handed to TL8 troops. Easily manufactured at TL12+ (GURPS TL 12, 7, and 10 respectively).
As described in Traveller LBB 04 Mercenary: It fires a 4mm, 4g projectile at 1,500 m/s. (Translated to American that's a .16 caliber, 62gr, bullet going 4,920 fps. 3,315 and change ft/lb of energy at the muzzle.) Even more, "The round itself consists Of a dense armor piercing core surrounded by a softer metal covering, ending in a hollow-point. Giving the round both high stopping power and a good armor piercing capability."
In the 3e GURPS: Traveller book this rifle does 8d+1(2) cr, 1/2D 900 and Max 4,500.Ultra Tech for 4e describes a 4mm gauss rifle with "almost" 5,000 feet per second velicity. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Ultra-Tech gives 6d+2(3) pi 1,200/4,800. The errata says that it should have pi-, but High-Tech p.163 says,
"4mm to 7.99mm (.16 to .31 caliber): At low velocities (pistol cartridges or black-powder weapons), damage type is small piercing (pi-); this models the behavior of rounds like the .32 ACP (which fires a 7.95mm bullet), .25 ACP, and .22 LR. For bullets of this caliber fired from high-velocity weapons (such as most centerfire rifles), damage type is piercing (pi)."
I defy you to define 4,920 fps as low velocity, so the pi- must be coming from something else. Gauss guns are assumed to be using Armor Piercing Enhanced Penetrator (APEP) ammunition (it's where the 3 armor divisor comes from) and all the sub-20mm AP ammo gets a step down on the bullet size modifiers in 4e.
A straight conversion of the 3e weapon would simply change the Cr damage to pi-, but should also change the armor divisor to 3.
8d+1(3) pi- will punch DR 87 or 1.24" of homogeneous rolled steel armor plate.
6d+2(3) pi- will punch DR 69 or 0.99".
3e GURPS Traveller TL10 Combat Armor is DR 46.4e GURPS Ultra-Tech TL10 Light Clamshell armor has DR 45.
The average hit to DR 45 will do: ((dice * 3.5) - (DR / 3)) / 2
7 with the GURPS: Traveller converted to 4e version.
4 with the Ultra Tech 4e version.
Not very impressive on the surface of things, but remember this armor completely stops 7.62x51mm NATO. The average 7.62 NATO AP round will only manage to get 1 point of damage through.
Against someone unarmored, though, the average rolls get: ((dice * 3.5) -1)) / 2
14 with the G:T version.
11 with the UT4e version.
24 with 7.62 NATO ball, 11 with AP.
The given GURPS versions don't sound like "both high
stopping power and a good armor piercing capability." They barely make the victim roll for consciousness!
SCHV Expanding Shroud Armor Piercing Core (ESAP): TL10. A soft metal jacket shrouding the same tungsten-reinforced bulk amorphous metal penetrator of an APEP round. Damage becomes two linked attacks with the second triggered by the first attack failing to penetrate the target's DR. The first attack does normal damage with an armor divisor of (0.5); objects without DR get DR 1. Change damage type: pi- becomes pi, pi becomes pi+, and pi+ becomes pi++ (no effect on pi++). The second, linked, attack does 80% of normal damage and is modified as per APEP ammuntion on Ultra-Tech p.152 but only if the first attack fails to penetrate the target's DR! Multiply CPS by 15.
This changes the G:T damage to 8d+1(0.5) pi+ trigger linked 6d+2(3) pi- and the UT4e gun to 6d+2(0.5) pi+ linked 5d+1(3) pi-.
Against the DR 45 wearer: ((dice * 3.5) - (DR * 2)) * 1.5 trigger linked ((dice * 3.5) - (DR / 3)) / 2
The GT gun firing ESAP does 4.
The UT gun gets 1.
But against unarmored targets... ((dice * 3.5) - 1) * 1.5 linked ((dice * 3.5) - (DR / 3)) / 2
GT gun: 42 points of damage and the linked attack does not occur because the first attack penetrated the DR.
UT gun: 33 points of damage.
Every time I come across this photo, I have a nearly overwhelming urge to get to work on a game setting where this ensemble makes perfect sense.
Of course, considering his buddy got hit and he didn't; it might just be working.
One of the reasons this idea fascinates me is we bought life-jackets as padding for BB-gun wars. At the time there was a model that was OD green and the spitting image of an old M50 vest, and they sure save you from welts from bb's.
If only we'd bought some eye protection too.
Some deity was looking over us and nobody got their eye shot out.
Back in the early nineties, with the giant hole in the ozone layer...
When gas guzzlers roamed the earth...
When nearly all of America's electricity was made from burning coal.
Texas didn't freeze solid.
Just sayin'.
The Boy has resumed training for Special Olympics!
The months of not doing much thanks to Wu Ping Cough have taken a toll, he's much slower than he once was.
Found out I had the wrong version of Firefox installed on my Ubuntu machine when I tried to get it to check for updates.
It took rather longer to figure that out than it should have thanks to the joy of a panic attack when I suddenly couldn't hear JT on the phone.
Brain: You can hear other things, you are not going deaf.
Body: I CAN'T HEAR YOU! ENGAGE ADRENALINE PUMPS!!
All appears better now. Eyes crossed.
I am deeply amused that the local whore house down the road from Panzer has a web-page.
Adult content if you click here.
It's so absurd, and oddly normal.
I've noticed that as time progresses and I shoot more...
The M9 doesn't bother me near so much.
I wonder, now, that I've learned more about shooting if it was the lack of teaching the US Army gave me that made the M9 seem so wrong.
I got a lot more instruction on the M1911A1, and put many more rounds downrange with it before we got our M9s.
Even so, it was a Glock 17 that fired my first non-45 pistol qual.
Nostalgia led me to get an M9 and it's not such a horse pistol to me now that I've learned some shooty that isn't anchored in the US Military's past.
It's an interesting place to be. I hated the M9 when I first fired it in the familiarization session.
Now... It's just another 9mm.
Though I find I prefer the S&W mod 59 to it.
I will listen to you when you do three things.
Develop an operating system that is honestly yours, works and is secure.
Until then...
This will be my father in law's mailbox in a couple of days. We have to paint the post and find a time when he's not around to sink the excess height of the post in the ground; for to make it a surprise for his birthday.
Removed the too-long, too-narrow 3/32" roll pin from the "selector" on Tonya and replaced it with one of the 500 M2.5x10 spring pins I ordered for the purpose.
The lack of diameter in the pin caused the "selector" to be loose on its shaft and that let the safety rotate the "selector" when they're supposed to move independently of each other.
This is a cosmetic deal, not a functional one since all three positions of the "selector" select semi-auto. On the 'C' setting the disconnector lacks the shelf for the pin to hit and the pin is ground off; so no full auto. On the 'S' setting the entire gear set is removed; so no 3-round burst. In both cases, the auto-sear is missing, because my semi-auto receiver doesn't even have a hole for its pivot pin.
Pics of the "selector" in "action"
 |
| S for 3-round burst aka semi-auto |
 |
| P for semi-auto. |
 |
| C for full-auto aka semi-auto. |
With the "selector" firmed up, the ball detent actually engages the little divots in the receiver! It's satisfying.
I will say it again, the scope mounting rail on the Tantal is a complete afterthought. When it's absent, removing the selector requires no tools. With it present you have to have a long 2.5mm punch and drive out the spring-pin to separate the lever from the shaft.
Using the same scale, moments apart, a loaded 2nd Gen Glock 17 weighs 2 lb. 1.1 oz.; a 5th Gen Glock 45 weighs 2 lb. 0.3 oz.
That makes the 17 2.1 lb. in GURPS and the 45 2 lb.
They are still otherwise identical in game terms.
Irritatingly, the Glock 17 is listed at 1.9 lb. in High Tech.
I don't have a 1st Gen to weigh...
Former President Trump was not convicted during his Impeachment trial.
Seven Republicans (read RINOs) voted to convict, but not near enough to reach a 2/3 majority. All but two of the Senators who'd earlier said the whole thing was unconstitutional voted to acquit.
And there were serious Constitutional issues with the entire affair.
Not least of which is that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is supposed to preside over impeachment trials. Justice Roberts declined to do so, and that probably says everything about the Constitutionality of it.
Never mind that removal from office is what impeachment is, and Donald Trump was no longer in office when the house decided to impeach him a second time.
The cosmetic "selector" on Tonya has been wiggly for two years.
That's because there's a 3/32" roll pin through a 2.5mm hole.
I finally ordered an M2.5x10 spring pin to fix the wobble.
Did I say I ordered a pin?
No, I ordered 500 of them.
$6.88 shipped.
I hit this problem a lot. I end up with vast quantities of something because they're not readily available locally and only in bulk if you want a reasonable price.
I adorn my laptop with stickers from my travels with it.
My Lenovo has traveled much farther than my second MacBook Pro ever did.
And that one made it a lot longer than my first MacBook Pro!
I like personalizing my stuff. It amuses me.
One 12" x 12" hunk of 8 oz. leather ordered.
Rivets, and rivet tool ordered.
I'm going to make a new flap for the New Service's holster!
I'll order dye if the experiment succeeds.
It looks simple enough.
The new flap needs to be larger by a triangular shaped piece adding 1/2" on the front of the flap and 2" on the back from where I cut the original flap off.
Inside America’s LGBTQ+ gun lobby
It's a decent read, even if they're pining for Teh Biden.
It's also fascinating how "they" see "us".
And the place that I found that article is most certainly living up the the low expectations of "the right" expressed in it.
I spent enough time getting beat on for being an outsider and/or a gamer that I Grok in its fullness what the LGBTQ community is talking about.
They're scared of bigots with guns, and they should be. I am.
It's just different flavors of bigot.
The editorial slant, though, is just as guilty of bigotry against people not like them as the people they're accusing.
That's a problem both sides have here.
For the record, if you're LGBT and reading this, and want a free introduction to firearms, I will give you the basics. If you want to verify me, Erin at Blazing Sword knows who I am.
I'm straight, not narrow.
The Panzer Kaserne I was stationed at was in Böblingen, just a hop, skip and jump from Stuttgart.
It was not near Kaiserslautern.
My Panzer, where a PX has replaced the motorpool... The starred place by the main gate is my old barracks. There are a lot of missing buildings!
The Panzer near Kaiserslautern
Where they are in relation to each other
Here's a "Jeebus, I'm old," story.
I can remember when Steve Jackson Games was a small, nimble, and customer oriented company.
They've become TSR.
Dammit.
I have complained, more than once, that the errata reporting system has been broken for a long time.
Got the sole full time employee to show up in the thread to basically say that he doesn't have time to check everything that we find wrong and would ask the person who'd fucked it up in the first place; and defer to them because they write books.
GURPS books. Gaming supplements.
Not an actual, accredited expert but a gamer who shoots and can adhere to the style guide at SJ Games.
In other words, except for being a freelance employee of the company, no more of an expert than I am.
Well, great and mighty Kromm, it wasn't the "expert" that you were deferring to that spotted the fucking inconsistency, was it?
Neither of you were interested in fixing it.
It was the customer/hobbyist who spotted it.
I could have fixed it myself for my personal use and not bothered to try to bring it to anyone else's attention. Hans admits the mistake in his reply, so...
Now that I know that GURPS is abandonware, I don't need bother checking SJ Games site for things to spend money on anymore.
Tschuß mother fuckers!
Hans Christian-Vorsitch has indicated:
9x19mm 3.5” or shorter 2d+1 pi 140/1,600
9x19mm 3.6” to 7.6” 2d+2 pi 160/1,800
9x19mm 7.7” or longer 3d-1 pi 170/1,900
That means the note about the Glock 19 and the stats for the Walther P99 are wrong.
Easy fix, and I've made it.
.45 S&W, issued because the Army bought "Schofield" model S&W Model 3 revolvers is what gave rise to the term ".45 Long Colt" when there never actually was a .45 Long Colt, or .45 Short Colt for that matter.
It's from how the rounds got marked up.
Long for Colt.
.45 S&W will fit in both a Colt 1873 and a Schofield. It's got a bit less thump, but hardly enough to matter.
So the Army standardized on one round and the ammo that worked in both guns got picked.
10 stages of Genocide. What step are we at now?
Just like the stages of grief, they don't always come in order.
I think we have at least 3 of 10 going on right now.
Gina Carano has suggested that the left is taking the first steps down the road the Nazis took.
They responded pretty much like proto-Nazis and fired her for it.
I can really feel the unity, can't you?
Throwback Thursday, anyone?
This is my main ride from when I was stationed at Panzer Kaserne, Böblingen, West Germany with 1st Infantry Division (foward), A co, 3-34 Armor.
She's an M1 (IP). That means M1A1 armor and bustle rack, 105mm gun.
This was taken not long before we upgraded to the M1A1 (HA).
Going through the 9mm's GURPS stats and there's some fun stuff going on from a player's perspective that might not pass a reality check, but the system doesn't go fine enough to catch.
A Glock 17 and Glock 45 are the same weight (2/0.6), and have the same number of shots(17+1(3)). They have the same bulk.
But the 17 does more damage (2d+2 pi vs 2d+1 pi) and has longer range (160/1,800 vs 140/1,600).
An M&P 9 does the same damage as the Glock 17 and has the same number of shots, but it's heavier in all respects (2.2/0.7).
The hybrid Sigma appears to have some advantage. The drop in damage and range is at least accompanied by a lower weight, (1.9/0.6) but also loses one shot (16+1(3)).
The Wonder Nines™®© don't compare favorable once plastic fantastics appear.
The S&W 59 has the lower damage and range, 14+1(3) shots and is heavy at 2.3/0.6. TL8 magazines fix the capacity at no weight penalty, leaving you with a heavy Glock 45!
Beretta's M9 has the higher damage and range, but fewer shots (15+1(3)) and more weight (2.4/0.6). Like the 59, there are 17 round magazines commonly available at TL8, but have a slight change in weight to 2.5/0.7.
The ur 9mm double stack, the Browning HP gets the higher damage, lowest capacity and has all the mass. 13+1(3) shots and 2.4/0.5 weight. TL8 magazines up the capacity to 15+1(3) with no weight penalty.
None of these stats account for ephemeral things like the HP with Spegel grips fitting my hand as if the gun was made for it. There's rules for that (Weapon Bond perk; High-Tech p.250), but it's not on the weapons table and it requires the player to do more reading than they typically do.
It doesn't account for me liking Glocks better than M&P's, or Marv and Harvey feeling the opposite.
I am often reminded of a scene from Farscape where John Crichton is comparing two pulse pistols back and forth. They appear to be identical, but only one is Winona. Winona fits him, the other doesn't.
Your regiment is about to go through the spook-hole after the missing Indian tribes.
There are rumors of some very large and vicious animals on the other side of that gateway, so you upgrade your issue revolver from the Colt M1873 altered model you were issued to a Colt New Service in the issue .45 Colt chambering.
It's not going to fit the brand new holster that was issued with the Peacemaker you've decided not to pack.
The local sutler has been completely, and I mean completely bought out by someone, there's not a holster for it to be found.
The supply officer, however, offers you one of the old holsters you just turned in that fit the old 7" M1873's you recently turned in.
But the flap won't close.
What will you do? What will you do?
Cut off that flap, of course!
Going to have to rely on a lanyard for retention, but it's better than trying to tuck it into your belt. The lieutenant would probably get bent out of shape about that.
After steadily drifting down to a CFR of 1.53 for the past few, the post Christmas/New Years rush has led to fewer diagnosed cases, with a steady death rate.
We stand at 1.57 using the state's published numbers.
The good news is we're back down to 6.5ish% of the new tests are new cases.
That seems to be where this disease wants to sit.
Active cases are down again too.
If it weren't for the Karens, I don't think Florida would have much drama from this, to be honest.
Today it's barely gotten to 25° here in Florida...
OK, you have to use Centigrade to make it seem cool here in February.
Granted, that some of you would be thrilled to have it warm up to 25° F!
Tampa's mayor, Jane Castor, has vowed to use facial recognition to ID every single attendee of the Stupor Bowel who had their mask off.
There's an implication that these people will be punished.
The cheap seats for SBLV was eight fucking grand.
Yeah, Jane, they're going to want to come back to Tampa to spend money after you track them down and levy... uh...
Oh yeah, enforcement of mask mandates has been suspended at the state level.
So all this does is show someone they don't want to travel to Tampa to spend money because the mayor is a fascist.
If she manages to make this stick, and it will take some cooperation from the NFL to get the proper imagery for the facial recognition, people will be far less willing to spend money on the NFL.
The NFL is not doing so well that it can afford to piss off the remaining fans.
The S&W M&P 9 Shield is the same size as several 9x19mm self defense sub-compact guns.
It's a size that's persisted for more than a century.
What's changed is the cartridge.
When that Savage hit the shelves, .380 ACP was pushing the envelope hard in a gun this small. .32 ACP is very common fitting this footprint.
Nowadays you can get that Shield in .380, 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP with just slight variations in capacity.
Living in the future kinda rocks sometimes!
I've noticed that there's a lot of "full size" 9mm pistols which are nearly exactly the same size as a Glock 19.
Considering how popular the compact Glock is, I wonder if it was coincidence that they made a slightly smaller Glock to match a good number of existing designs, in particular the S&W 39/59 series.
S&W's "full size" M&P is kind of in between the 17 and 19, favoring the 19's size.
It's neat how things keep staying the same while being radically different.
They're making a big deal about how Ron Wright (R-TX) died of Wu Ping Cough.
A couple places have mentioned he had lung cancer too.
I'm pretty certain that if he hadn't had lung cancer, he'd be alive.
Especially considering the Cadillac Rolls-Royce levels of healthcare members of Congress voted for themselves.
This is the entire point of mentioned the comorbidities! Otherwise healthy people are, by and large, just going to have a bad case of the flu, get better and drive on.
By glossing over all the complications that let a bad case of the flu take someone down, we just sow panic.
But that was the point all along, wasn't it?
Mr La Pierre, besides the fact that I think you're long overdue to retire, you've got some impressively large cojones to be asking for money while the corporation you're captaining is filing for bankruptcy.
You're on your own until the NRA exits these proceeding.
Hopefully without you and the cat lady.
I was a little inaccurate earlier.
SEALs in Vietnam lists the S&W 39 with 2d+2 pi damage and 160/1,800 range.
High Tech 4e gives partial stats for the Glock 19 by noting the change in weight, shots and damage. Following the rules that means a Glock 19 is 2d+1 pi damage and 160/1,800 range.
High Tech 4e also lists the Walther P99. 2d+1 pi damage, 140/1,600 range.
All of these pistols have a 4" barrel.
Most of the pistols with 2d+2 pi and 160/1,800 have at least a 4.25" barrel, but I noticed that the Ur-9mm, the literal Parabellum pistol, P.08 has a 3.9" barrel and the 2d+2 pi; 160/1,800 stats.
Grumble.
Off to be fixin' things I be.
It's been noted that the Bianchi UM-84 holster is nigh to universal.
It's right up there with the M9 tanker holster for fitting anything.
I've got another:
It's also a Bianchi. I originally bought it for my Glock 21, because it was the only holster I could find for that wide-ass thing.
The thumb strap is adjustable via Velcro and that's made this holster fit with nearly everything I've stuffed into it.
GURPS can be frustrating.
A S&W model 39 with its 4" barrel does 2d+2 pi damage; 160/1,800 range.
A Glock 19 with its 4.02" barrel does 2d+2 pi; 140/1,600.
I guess the good news is that I only have to make a note about the 39 in one place; SEALs in Vietnam.
The Big Damn Consolidated Gun List®™ and the Our Guns files get more changes.
C'est La Vie!
This old Lenovo T420S has seen some miles.
It started out with a 320gb hard drive and Win7 Pro 64.
It gained a 750gb drive along with more RAM, ghosting the Win7 Pro 64.
Something went wrong on an update and when I updated to a 1tb SSD, I ended up having to install Win7 Pro 64 from scratch. <-Stage II
Something is corrupt on that Win7 install, so I bought a new 1tb SSD for it and changed over in rapid succession to Ubuntu 18.04 then 20.04. <- Stage III
Every new stage gets a new desktop background!
Trudy the Winchester 54 in .30-06 with a C&Rsenal "Strip Club" patch.
Let's hear it for mindless amusement!
One thing I have always hated about growing up in Iowa was the utter dearth of decent used vehicles.
Iowa uses salt on the roads in the winter and mechanically sound cars simply fall apart from corrosion long before their time.
I'm watching Jay Leno and his '53 Hudson Hornet and his mention of owning one as a teenager.
Fifties cars were all rotted away or restored hot-rods in my area.
In some states, they had fade paint, and ran poorly, but were still around to be bought for something resembling affordable for decades past when they disappeared from the midwest.
There's still vast supplies of old ass cars in the SW with more patina than rust.
Stood in the road down from Raymond James Stadium to watch the USAF do a fly by for some obscure sporting event happening in Tampa today. Not sure what, but people seemed excited.
It just never got old.
Major Beasley would draw his saber and it would burst into flames and the Sioux would "oooh and awwww" over it.
It was, admittedly an expensive trick, $15,250 to be exact; that included the half caret ruby and six months work from one of the better enchanters; all of this on top of the very finest blade that could be fashioned.
No ugly blade this, engraved and etched, it had been $659.09 in and of itself before being sent to the enchanter.
The price was not something he mentioned. Major Beasley was not a braggart.
But he knew down to the last red cent how much it had cost.
His father, already piqued that his only son in twelve children, was "wasting" the better part of his life "playing soldier" instead of learning to make the family fortune larger; had castigated him for hours when Underwood Enchanters had presented the bill.
His mother's only comment was, "at least it's pretty for all that."
When you post a comment, there's instructions.
Read them.
Follow them.
Otherwise you're going to be seeing, "This comment has been removed by a blog administrator."
The most common reason is a failure to sign your anonymous post.
It's hardly ever over content.
The cut-off point for Curio and Relics is now 1971.
Seven years of Colt AR production is C&R.
Heady times.
The textured surface on the laptop's track-pad is a sticker.
Constantly rubbing your fingertip on the texture, of course, wears it smooth.
I never expected to wear one smooth, let alone be installing my third.
When I put the memory card from my camera in the slot, the files have wildly different dates and times shown than they actually were on the Ubuntu laptop.
They appear correctly on OSX 10.6.8 and Win7 Ultimate.
Anyone know a fix?
UPDATE:
JT appears to have figured it out. Incomplete drivers for exfat with 20.04 that's been fixed for 20.10 and will be incorporated in 22.04.
He talked me through the install of the proper drivers.
The Chomps Collection did an inventory and discovered an unremembered pistol.
Prolly got lost in the excitement of my Glock 45 Blue Label purchase the same day.
It's a Savage 1907 made after the bankruptcy and 1917 reorganization as Savage Arms Corporation.
We'd initially ID'd it as a Model 1917 because it says so on the box!
It's hard to see, but the serial number penciled in on the box doesn't match the pistol pictured above.
A good write up of the history is here.
C&Rsenal's vid of the French purchase is here.
The first time I bumped into the Savage I was surprised at the 10-round capacity and that such an old design had a double stack, single feed magazine.
It comes apart easily.
The safety is multi-functional. In addition to being a safety, it will also lock the slide in either position and will keep the striker from being cocked.
Trigger is a short, but mushy, 7 lb. 9 oz.
Pretty nifty!
The Lovely Harvey has been hearing scrabbling in the back for a few days now while she smokes.
Found the scrabbler!
It's a very well fed raccoon. Plenty of opportunity for grub in a residential area.
Being the idiot that I am, I've been poking around GunBroker looking for a x59 S&W and variations of the Sigma and SD9.
Can't be a collector if you don't collect, right?
I love doing comparison studies.
I notice that there's not much for sale in 2nd and 3rd gen Smiths at the moment.
Lots of the SD9, but those are still in production.
Not a lot of Sigma of any flavor. I expect those got snapped up as a cheap spare or as someone's first gun.
I figure I'm only interested in doing the S&W comparison because it doesn't seem like anyone else has bothered.
Lots of people ask what's different between the three generations, but nobody really answers.
People seem to avoid even talking about the Sigma except to put it down.
With the Mac, the time is in the upper right, regardless of where the app-bar is.
With Windows the time is relative to where you've got that bar. Put the bar on top, the clock will be upper right.
Ubuntu puts it dead center at the top.
I keep looking top right for the clock... It's not there. Silly.
California's assault weapon ban is before United States District Court for the Southern District of California Judge Roger Benitez today.
He's the judge what ruled that Cali couldn't ban normal capacity magazines.
I hope to welcome California back to the United States someday, and a positive ruling here would go a long way towards making that happen.
Why is a 12-hour clock superior to a 24-hour clock?
When a 24-hour clock stops, it's only right once a day.
The Apex Tactical action enhancement trigger for Sigma / SDVE worked fine on FuzzyGeff's OG SW40F Sigma.
Dropped right in, works great.
To get this same trigger to work in The Lovely Harvey's SW357V and my SW9V required a lot of filing to the back to get the trigger to move far enough to trip the sear. Such filing is mentioned in the instructions, but it seemed excessive on those two guns.
I've gone back to the stock triggers now.
On top of it all there wasn't an improvement in pull with the SW9V!
Harvey's gun was more improved by the spring kit than the trigger anyway, that kit is still installed on her gun.
I have one of those kits for the SW9V, but the change to an SD9VE slide means different springs and a different kit.
Day 4 of the Ubuntu experiment.
It's a computer.
I haven't figured out how to get the Mac to connect to it, but I can connect to the Mac from it. Prolly have a share set wrong. Not too worried.
I think I prefer Foxit to the default pdf viewer, but I dunno how to get to installed from the tga file they download.
Way back when... during the events that Mississippi Burning was loosely based upon, the FBI came down and broke the DEMOCRAT power structure and that allowed black people access to the civil rights they'd long been denied.
Something that never gets mentioned about this.
If even a plurality of white people in these areas had really wanted the racism to continue, the US government would have had to send the Army and not a bare scattering of FBI agents.
This is lost to the modern narrative as certainly as what party Abraham Lincoln was a member of.
There was a plurality of white southerners who were as surely disenfranchised by the Democrat machines as any black person who was outright denied their rightful vote.
They were essential in helping the FBI break the local machine politics of the southern Democrat machines. Some of them might even have helped because they thought it was the right thing to do, but there's likely more than a few who just wanted the Dems to be knocked down a peg.
So it must be obvious to them too.
But letting it be doesn't swing any attention their way, so they lie.
Dear Southern Poverty Law Center;
If there really was a right-wing nationalist terror organization big enough to cause a problem; we wouldn't need you to tell us about it.
And you know it.
What you're really trying to do is smear a goodly sized hunk of the population, many of them minorities, and imply that they're the right-wing nationalist terror organization you're "warning" everyone about.
And we know it.
Again, if it really was us: the nation wouldn't need SPLC to tell them about it.
I'd planned on taking a picture with several generations of 9mm S&W auto.
59 on one end, M&P on the other with a 915 and the Sigma in the middle.
With the massive upgrade to the slide that S&W gave me, I've lost the aesthetic.
But, what the Hell, here's the pic anyway!
Because the 39/59 family is described as 'generations' I've decided to call the others families too.
There's some similar trends there as well.
The Sigma has 3 or 4 iterations if you include the SD's.
M&P has at least two since there's M&P and M&P 2.0. I'd say there's two generations in the 1.0 due to the frames changing to no longer accommodate the lock.
