Now that I've played with the complicated and confusing armor rules in GURPS: Low Tech, I've decided that I'm going to use these rules exclusively from now on.
They're simply more flexible and allow you to put together a suit of armor that's based on real stuff rather than porting the expectations from Yee Olde AD&D.
I am OK with the extra complexity.
Plus, since there's no players to object...
I played with a lot of unfamiliar rules building Shorthair.
A cleric needs a holy symbol and I speculated that this is the power investiture equivalent to the staff enchantment.
So I placed this blessing on his two-handed mace.
But not before I looked up the rules for decorating the weapon.
Putting the iconography of Torm the True changed at $50 mace to a $250 mace, then another $30 for the blessing.
It doesn't make it a better mace, but I will be able to perform "religious tasks" with more reach now.
Russell Haydon Fulton sends:
Why, when we have a perfectly serviceable 9mm, do we cast about for a different one?
I have an M&P 9 that's fine for carry.
I have a Glock 17 that I shoot pretty well.
That'd be enough 9x19 for most any occasion, no?
Why'd I get so many others?
Because my monkey fingers like to play with different designs and grok them to fullness!
One learns a lot about what works and what doesn't in pistol design this way.
One also makes a huge list of GURPS stats which doesn't matter in the real world in the least.
Classic sent an email telling me that the James River Galil clones were back in stock for just $1,000.
When I looked there were six remaining.
While I went to take a leak, they'd sold out.
Thank goodness!
It saved me from begging Willard for the money for a gun I am surely not going to like because I've been obsessing over one since I bought my first copy of Top Secret in 1982.
Never mind my Mary Sue character in Twilight: 2000 having one in Iran when we were playing with the RDF Sourcebook.
I am thankful for my poverty...
No!
I am not!
I want the money to buy these baubles when the mood hits me.
It occurs to me that you could hit that donation button and solve the financing problem.
That is, if you are feeling generous and like living vicariously through my adventures.
I do not want these grips for my Model 59!
They're overpriced, especially for something I don't want.
Why can't I look away?
There are many rules in an RPG that sometimes don't make sense.
In GURPS it says that someone of a lower tech level must pay double for each TL difference between their native and the item they want; assuming, of course, that higher tech stuff is available at all.
So a TL 0 person buying TL 2 mail would have to pay 4x as much or 8x as much for TL3 mail and plates.
But once the adventure starts, the armorer isn't going to be carding the characters at the door and charging the barbarian more than the knight for a pair of vambraces.
The 2x per TL is for character creation only.
A tougher nut to crack is where the money will buy something that's got a character point value, like cyberwear.
Do you make the character pay points or money for their upgrades? Is it points at character creation and cash during play? Both?
I tend to land on making the player pay points at creation and money during play and not forcing them to drop their experience points balancing the increase in character points.
Likewise, I've never forced a PC to spend points on wealth levels once their characters have slain the dragon and are discovering exactly how many wagons it takes to move the hoard.
Aside: Do you know the dimensions of a one metric ton cube of gold? 37.26cm or just about 14-11/16" per side. That's two cubes per wagon. How many cubes in that mountain of gold the dragon's corpse is sitting on?
Uglaublich!
GURPS is handy sometimes, you can figure out almost anything.
But you HAVE to figure it out.
Shorthair in AD&D 2e(r) used banded mail.
The main problem with banded mail is that it's not a real armor any more. The historians have changed their minds about what banded means and... well.
What I was thinking of is what Low Tech calls segmented plate.
The next problem is a lion's body is not the same size as a person. There are examples for barding, but a lion isn't listed. So I fudged and made it 2/3 (or so) the increase in cost/weight as for a horse. That adds up close enough to double the price/weight for a human as makes no never mind so I just doubled the human numbers.
Wemic are naturally -0 TL (stone age) and normal fantasy is TL 3. Many staples of normal fantasy armor are GURPS TL 4 because you can't make big plates of steel until you upgrade your iron smelting processes.
This presents a serious problem for buying armor with a TL 0 character in a TL 3 world.
First is starting wealth. $250. Then there's the doubling of every TL difference between you and the stuff you're buying.
Iron armor from a TL 2 source will be 4x as expensive. TL1 bronze armor will be 8x!
The suit I put together is medium segmented plate for the human torso and arms, lion chest, shoulders and upper forelegs; then light scale for the lion abdomen and thighs.
TL2 iron is $3,508 and 104 lb at TL 2. At TL1 you have to spend $7,016 and TL 0 $14,032.
The same suit in bronze is TL 1, but bronze is 4x the cost of iron, so it's $14,032 at TL 1 and $28,032 at TL 0.
If you stick with the TL 0, you will need more than 56 times your starting wealth just to buy the iron armor and even more to get bronze (50 to 100 points in wealth in armor alone).
The simple way to do it is to buy off your low TL to get up to TL 2 and just pay the $3,508. TL2 also ups the starting wealth to $750. More money cheaper stuff? Sign me up! And buying off the low TL only costs 10 points. Even so, I'm dropping 30 points in wealth to get a starting wealth of $15,000!
It even fits the character concept well. He converted to a human religion and left his tribe to become educated as a cleric of Torm the True. They exiled him for his conversion, in fact.
Back when FuzzyGeff first introduced me to GURPS I could translate back and forth between it and several game systems as I converted my campaigns to Evil Stevie's Second Role Playing Game (ESSRPG not making the naming cut in favor of Generic Universal Roleplaying System).
Now I'm trying to remember how many points is reasonable for an 8th level cleric so I tell if I'm overshooting the conversion. I think the old rule of thumb was something like level x 25; so 8th level would be 200. 4e points are slightly different so 50 + (level x 25) tastes right for 250.
This dive has also got me studying the D&D alignment rules more closely than... um... like... EVER.
I just noticed that what makes you evil isn't doing bad things to others, it's simply being most concerned with yourself.
Under the D&D alignment system good is doing what benefits the maximum number of people; and if that happens to be genocide, so be it.
An evil character could be an opponent to that genocide on the grounds that there was no benefit to themselves.
Not so clear cut as I'd thought!
I think I am going to convert the AD&D adventure modules I have over to GURPS or GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy and call them "Expert GURPS And Dragons"
EGAD for short...
There's a thread on Arcom, there's always a thread...
Someone thinks that S&W should make a 4th Gen of the 59/x59/59xx pistols. Basically a 5906 with a rail on the dust-cover.
I think that would be cool too.
BUT!
We would have to accept several givens along the lines of, "we're all given super powers and limitless wealth," for it to happen.
Reality is a bitch, after all.
People forget that the 3rd gen was in production all the way to 2006.
That was the greatly simplified Model 910.
I don't think they're thinking of a 4th gen version of that gun.
Even the "remove as much cost as we can" 910 was too expensive to compete with Glock and their own Sigma/SD or M&P lines.
A fully machined and pretty 59xx 4th gen would have to cost a princely amount today and the market for such a bauble would be very small.
It'd be outperformed at every metric for, probably, 1/4 the price because at the end of the day it's a complicated and difficult machine to make.
Let's be honest, if the design could be altered enough to remain economical AND retain the cachet of the 59 series; the Custom Shop would still be cranking a few out here and there.
And all of this ignores that you can get a Model 59, 659 or 5906 for much less than a grand. The secondary market sucks all the air from the room for this endeavor.
The idea of a 4th gen intrigues me, though.
There's got to be a custom smith whom could graft a rail to the dust-cover to a 5906 to give us a simulacrum of what-if.
Still outside my price range, dammit.
Ron Popeil has shuffled off the mortal coil at the age of 86.
His commercials were a staple of my late-night television viewing as a tween.
The Lovely Harvey couldn't place him, having spent her tweenage years competing with Kieth Richards for "most drugs taken in a single evening."
I started rattling off products and she didn't recognize any of them until I hit on the "Ronco Pocket Crack-Pipe"!
In case you're worried about her drug use, she's 34 years sober now.
There's a sound business reason for Remington to be offering $33 million to the Sandy Hook families despite doing nothing culpable in the murders.
It's CHEAPER than taking the fight all the way to a judgement in their favor.
Winning a lawsuit is a Pyrric victory most of the time.
But let's look at this again.
$33,000,000.00 is cheaper than going to court, litigating, getting a verdict, and repeating this process through all of the appeals.
It's especially galling that the lawyers for the plaintiffs have flat stated that their litigation is entirely based on the idea of making the process the punishment and forcing gun makers to stop making AR pattern guns.
Those are just the target of the day. Other types of guns will be next if this succeeds.
Why? Precedent.
Despite the fact that there's not supposed to be an admission of guilt with a settlement, it's always taken as such. Just like pleading the 5th.
Remington is left with the unpalatable position of taking one for the team and losing their shirts fighting this to the end, or doing a settlement to be done with it because that shirt is very threadbare after going bankrupt.
I really think they should have said "fuck it" and stayed in to fight to the death.
Someone needs to. This suit is in violation of the 1st amendment, the PLCAA should have nuked this at filing, and (even if it didn't violate the first two things) it should have been killed by the bankruptcy.
It's not even clear which Remington is being sued and which Remington is offering $33 million. Is it current Remington, which did not exist in 2012; or the bankrupt and disbanded remnants of Remington checking off the last few boxes as it ceases to exist?
Every gun maker is going to be faced with an identical suit from now on every time one of their guns is used in a murder because A judge decided that PLCAA did not apply to advertising and that free speech isn't a thing.
Precedent.
In the long term, this sound business decision to settle rather than fight is a poor decision. But it seems that nobody can look past the next shareholder's meeting.
Way back in the mists of time...
I was hired at no pay to play AD&D 2e.
The reason I say that is the group had a very rigid schedule and you were not to be late.
They met at the GM's house, 35 miles from my place.
Looking back I think I was primarily invited to show the bottom-dog in the pack that he could be replaced. It made things a bit tense.
Being wedged into an existing party is always a headache at the best of times and this time was made worse by two giant elephants in the room.
First: I'd never played 2e before.
Second: I would be making a cleric.
The first wasn't so bad, AD&D is similar enough to AD&D2e that I could muddle through.
The second, though, was a lot harder.
I was totally out of my comfort zone. I had not played any form of D&D for years at that point and wasn't even remotely familiar with the spell list. I cannot remember why I was a cleric of a lawful-good deity, but it's on the character sheet.
I feel like the only actual choice I made during character creation was race.
Remember that set of Wemic stats I put up a few days ago? That's because I'd run into the character sheet from... 1994?
Shorthair the Outcast is a Wemic who's been exiled from his tribe. He cuts his mane to show that exile status.
Now that I've rediscovered this sheet, I'm setting myself to making a GURPS conversion. I've even shelled out for the AD&D2e main books and a copy of Forgotten Realms at Drive Thru RPG to facilitate the transition.
There are notes in the margin, that I assume are restrictions on spells, but I can't remember if they're because the party didn't want me to take them or if it's some restriction of my character's faith. Torm the True is what I have listed.
I have now, officially, done more research on this character than I did when I was playing him.
Having the books helps a lot. The DM didn't share the books and meted out knowledge as a means to keep us under his control.
Small points of language sometimes glare.
In the movie, "The Prestige" Hugh Jackman's character says they will, "phase it out"... It being a part of their act.
That phrase is out of place in Victorian England.
The movie takes place in 1906 at the latest based on him dealing with Tesla in Colorado Springs.
The thing is, "phase out" dates from 1940 at the earliest. It didn't really become common until they made it one word, "phaseout," in 1951.
I use Thunderbird to retrieve my email from the server. I have several email accounts to manage.
On the 12th... that stopped working.
This is because I used to have Verizon FIOS. When that became Frontier FIOS, Verizon punted my main email account over to AOL.
AOL, with no notice, changed their security protocol and my login quit.
They took two weeks to put out the work-around for people who want to use something besides their browser to get their email. I only know about the work-around because I submitted a suggestion to fix the problem.
Note I didn't report the problem to AOL. They have a message on their help landing page that says reporting by email is down because of COVID.
You'd think that a company that's primarily centered on email would have an email option...
I have cured the blurry reticle on the FACOG!
Just need to use the reading portion of my bifocals.
That just tells me that I need new glasses again. Ugh!
This time around I'm going to take my optician's advice and get the reading prescription up in the inside top corner of the lenses too.
Getting old ain't for sissies!
The sheriff had at least two of their JetRanger/Kiowas, flying in relays, circling my neighborhood this afternoon looking for a felon who'd escaped from a work camp in the county to the south.
Looks like they caught him, but there sure were a shit-ton of deputies around here for a while.
The fake ACOG I ordered, literally, months ago has arrived.
There are no tender mercies from the USPS.
I didn't expect to start the durability tests before the unboxing, but here we are anyways.
Happily, damage seems to be limited to a gouge in the windage turret cap. I sure hope that nothing internal was messed up.
Unlike Marv, I am opting for carry handle mounting on Lavender Linda. I had to get the mounting screw from Ebay.
I also opted for the chevron instead of the cross.
If you ever wondered why there's a hole drilled through the length of an ACOG's base:
It's so you can still use the iron sights!
Ruler of all he surveys. Chaser of lizards. Etc. etc. etc.
The back porch is a hotly contested piece of kitty territory here.
Hot in more ways than one in the summer and they love to bask in the screened in safety of the "wild outdoors".
Bear chased Beeper and Dingus off the porch and held court while we were outside sweating over the drafting table.
Thanks again to everyone who donated to his health!
Our kitchen table is an old drafting table my dad gave me back in 1985.
To say that it's seen some miles would be an understatement.
Dad got it from his workplace when they started changing from pen and paper to CAD.
Most of its life it was my desk/work bench. It was not pampered.
The Lovely Harvey has been after us to sand and refinish the top for a while, the old linseed finish had gotten sticky and it was attracting everything.
So I kidnapped Marvyn and we attacked it with the random orbital sanders. 80 then 150 then 220 then 400 then a few coats of clear satin polyurethane.
Harvey took more pics than I did, but I'll get more posted once everything has dried and there's good light.
I think it looks great!
There's nothing quite so embarrassing as to hear from a friend you'd assumed was dead after you'd listed the guns they'd left at your house on GunBroker.
Way back when I asked, "what are you trying to prove by firing thousands of rounds without cleaning or lubrication?"
I got a lot of shit for asking that.
But the question still stands.
We know the testing protocol, and the results of the test. What we don't know is the provable hypothesis which leads to the test itself.
I took more shit when I stated that it doesn't matter if the gun chokes on the +1 round past the ammo I am willing to carry because I will be out of ammo and very worried if the fight is still ongoing.
Here's the deal, though:
I have yet to encounter the gun which cannot fire the basic load.
Can an M1911A1 fire the 7+1 in the gun and two spare 7 round magazines without cleaning?
Yes.
I've asked before, "How many rounds are you lugging around?"
I've rarely encountered the person who's carrying more than one reload. Most commonly, the people who respond are carrying ZERO reloads.
It's a very rare, and very crappy, gun which can't fire a single magazine without a malfunction. And we tend to know which guns those are before firing a shot now.
Most new made guns, even the cheapest anymore, can pass this test.
It comes down to risk assessment.
I don't plan on getting into a firefight. If I did, I am not carrying concealed and I am not carrying a pistol as my primary arm.
A firefight might find me, but it's not the way to bet.
Nearly all armed interactions don't involve firing a shot. Most don't even require you actually have a firearm, you just need to warn the potential assailant that you are armed and they back down. Look it up! It's about 90% of the interactions.
90% of the remaining 10% require you have a gun, or something that is believably a gun. Brandishing will end the interaction and you can depart unmolested.
Now we're into the small numbers. 90% of the 10% of the 10% (0.1%) of the time you're going to have to fire a shot. You don't even need to hit your assailant!
90% of the remainder (0.01%) of the time you're going to have to hit them.
The rest of the time your hits are going to have to hit something vital and NOW which gun, how reliable it is, how well does your ammunition perform and did you bring enough ammo will actually matter to the equation.
So? What gun and how much ammo are you bringing to the 0.001% chance you're in a real firefight with your carry gun?
Think hard on that.
I don't carry an armored briefcase on the off chance I hit the big number on a scratch-off lottery ticket to carry my winnings.
I don't take classes on money management to deal with the vast fortunes from winning the powerball either.
The truth is, I'm very unlikely to end up needing a gun at all.
But...
It is also true that it's far better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.
You just need to learn to assess the odds.
By the way, you're far better served buying some concealable body armor than carrying a gun if you're really worried about the 0.001% scenario; but I so rarely see gunwriters advocating for that.
I wonder why?
Is it because they can't shill for classes on how to wear a vest?
The FN Grand Browning will never be economically made, if it is ever produced.
Tis a pity. I bet there's a small market for such a gun, but it'd be at least a grand.
He did the Colt 1910 too:
For clarity's sake:
The CZ-75 P-01 did not have a malfunction and fire two rounds.
It fired two rounds because I was attempting to only release the trigger just past the reset point to speed up my shooting times. But doing so while bringing the gun back on target rather than waiting until the sights were lined up again.
While that part succeeded, the gun did not fire intentionally. A negligent discharge under the best case conditions if you drill down all the way.
Happily, I wasn't very far off target when absorbing the recoil and got the "bonus" round.
I've amended how I shoot DA/SA guns and it doesn't seem to really slow me down that much, but definitely changes if I fire the next round intentionally.
I've noticed that every place Mr Soros drops a lot of money and is successful in getting the candidate he paid for sworn in, that place turns into a shit-hole in rapid order.
I also notice that the avowed socialist branch of the Democrat Party are advancing a decidedly Fascisti solution to the shit-hole problem.
Considering what shoulders Mr Soros used to rub, it makes you wonder if fascism is the goal he's trying to achieve.
A small group of entrepreneurs got very wealthy in Nationalist Socialist Germany after all.
Ever just get so wrapped up in doing nothing that you totally forget to come up with something to post on your blog?
That's where I've been!
Just a whole lotta nothin going on.
The Bear is doing well, starting to assert himself in our little pride a bit more; and getting the expected feedback for doing it. But he's healthy as he tries to move from the #3 bottom spot to #2.
The Boy is doing bowling for Special Olympics. Not doing as well as bikes, but we've gotten no word from Special Olympics about the state level games... Bowling has been taking up bike practice time, so he's not prepared anyway.
Got yelled at for keying some bitch's Jeep. Wasn't me, didn't do it. But she should learn to park between the lines rather than more than a foot over into the next spot. The last spot, as it happened. I fell on my face trying to squeeze out of Moxie and my left shin still hurts from her running boards. I will give her detective skills a boost and suggest that the person who keyed her car couldn't get their car into that space and after walking from the back 40 to the business, keyed her precious Jeep. But thanks for blaming ME.
Mr Fleetwood, who used to respond to such calls in his past life as a State Trooper, says all the cops are going to do is let her run down, give her some crayons to color a standardized report and tell her to call her insurance.
She joins me in finding damage to their car and not really having a recourse to fix it. But she should look inward as to why someone might have been angry with her. I was none too thrilled falling on my face because she didn't leave me enough room to get out!
Marvyn has installed a LaRue MBT trigger in his tan plastic pal who's fun to be with.
4 lb. 8 oz. pull with a very clean break.
I say this for LaRue, they're consistent. That's the same trigger pull I have on Dottie.
This video analyzes JUST the New York (SPIT) Times article and Evan Hafer's response to the response generated from it.
It doesn't address his multiple donations to Actblue nor several employees of BRCC's donations to Actblue which predate the NY(S)T article.
It doesn't address BRCC linking to the article in the same manner as a business happy with what was published.
The donations to Democrats was discovered once people had kneejerked from the NY(S)T article.
Looking around just to test the air about prices on the "missing" early Wonder-9; the CZ75.
I discovered that Tanfoglio made a copy of the Cz in .38 Super.
Darn it.
I like my .38 Super 1911. It'd be fun to have a second pistol in the caliber.
No CZ-75... but anyway.
I'm fascinated with the features they have in common.
The FN and Smith have magazine disconnects.
The Smith and Beretta are double-action, and have a decocking slide-mounted safety. They also share the use of an aluminum alloy in the frame.
They all have lanyard rings, as befits full size service pistols.
My interest in firearms came from tabletop role play gaming.
Not hunting or any other form of actually shooting them.
Hmmmmm...
That's not quite right, but it is...
Learning about guns came from me and my friends interest in everything WW2 when we were kids and using what we'd learned to play war.
Being possessed of vivid imagination, even a stick could be an MG.34 and we played on that basis. Mostly recreating the most recent re-run of COMBAT! (in color!) or Rat Patrol.
But it was our play which led me to read any book on the topic I could get my hands on, and it was the lavishly illustrated tomes that got my first interest.
Which gets us to where I was playing games with rules someone I'd never met had written.
Top Secret from TSR.
Although I'd never fired anything heavier than a .22 by this point in my life, it was nearly instantly obvious that I knew more about guns than the gamemaster administrator.
My character had ended up in the bottom of an elevator shaft which was flooded. The less than a minute's immersion was ruled to have rusted my Uzi solid.
"Nope!" I protested. Though rust never sleeps, it also doesn't move that fast.
The administrator was genuinely surprised that guns weren't instantly destroyed by exposure to water.
Let's just ignore that I was playing a spy armed for war rather than espionage.
Interactions like this led me to being "the gun guy" in our groups.
I was deferred to if I said that a gun could or couldn't do something. I was astonishingly honest about it too, for any ruling I made in someone else's game would come back to haunt me in my world later.
Knowing all this real-world gun stuff didn't do me a lot of good in Top Secret or Twilight: 2000. The gun rules aren't terribly realistic.
The weirdo thing gets traction with our brief dalliance with Boot Hill. I made a case for higher rates of fire from some historical guns which weren't on the weapons list and that set off a never ending quest for moar dakka. I was the only kid on my block who'd even heard of a Merwin and Hulbert...
Moar dakka is why that character with the Uzi carried a Browning High Power. 13 shots is more than every other pistol in the entire game. I have a lot of characters with that HP in their equipment.
When GURPS came along using real world measurements for things instead of game defined units... My geekery lost bounding.
It's easy to stat an unlisted gun from comparing it to something we do have stats on and subbing the weights.
It's not difficult to make stats for completely new guns once you notice the relationship between muzzle energy and damage. It's a bit more nuanced than that and Douglas Cole figured out the equation for us.
What this did was let me make stats for period guns at a lower TL than expected.
You want an FAL, but it's 1943? FG.42!
Need an M1A during prohibition? ZH-29 or Mondragon!
What about an AK at (3e) TL6 instead of TL7? MKb.42(H)!
Owning and shooting have improved the geekery, but alas, the opportunity to use my knowledge has been reduced to making a line of stats for every gun me or my friends own.
Doing other-than-12-gauge shotguns was a lot of fun!
It's still fun to do the research even if, at the end of the day, the only difference between a Luger P.08, Browning HP, S&W 59 and Glock 17 are the number of shots and the weights.
Remember, in GURPS, π = 3.00!
The S&W 59 is the second oldest high-cap 9mm design I own.
The oldest is the oldest and that's the High Power.
Both designs have new-made magazines which add to the puissance with extra capacity than when they were first introduced.
Mec-Gar makes a 15 rounder for the High Power and a 17 rounder for 59 series Smiths.
It was testing those 17-rounders to see if they worked at all that gave me my first real shooting impression of the Model 59.
I like it!
The grip angle feels a little clunky and square in casual handling, but causes no issues in firing. In learning the trigger and where it resets, I let off a couple of unintended shots. You can't tell which ones on the target.
That tells me that the grip shape is working and that it is aiding me in keeping the pistol pointed at where I want to hit.
I was a bit surprised at the aluminum frame getting warm at the dust cover. Not hot, but warm.
Aluminum transmits heat efficiently, so this shouldn't have been a shock.
In about 100 rounds fired I've had a single stoppage. One failure to eject which was easily cleared. Have to keep an eye on that.
But is it viable in the modern world?
It's a little heavier than a Glock or M&P9 with the same capacity.
The sights are slower, but precise.
I'm not sure. You are not unarmed if you're carrying one. It certainly appears to function correctly. Next round of shooting, hopefully, will be with some modern hollow points; we'll see if it keeps its 1% malfunction rate up.
I know two things that Ian didn't mention in his video on the wz.88.
The lower handguard came in more colors than the orange he mentions. You can see the orange on my bayonet and a more wine color on my handguard.
I know my handguard is a proper wz.88 handguard because it's number matched to the other parts in my kit.
Next, he uses a steel magazine. While this was unique to the Poles, it's not the definitive wz.88 magazine. Poland went in with Bulgaria and developed the black plastic one shown here.
That got them out of paying either The USSR or East Germany for the "bakelite" magazines and it was a definite upgrade from the steel one.
Bonus third thing! Any single-hook AK trigger will work in the Tantal if you're making a semi-auto, with a small modification for the trigger return spring.
The scope mount wasn't intended to just be an early item. Some small percentage were meant to be made continuously for the issue and mounting of night vision. The ending of The Cold War and the transition to the Beryl nixed that idea.
If you happen to have an old PZO NSP-3 or PCO PCS-5 optic you're sick of owning... Drop me an email. They don't even have to be functional, I just want them for pictures!
You know you done fucked up your customer base when the normally not-very-political The Lovely Harvey noticed you done fucked up your customer base.
I went to mention the bruhaha over Black Rifle Coffee company going woke and she said she'd already heard.
We're going to give Stocking Mill a try. They appear to be actually walking the walk their talking talks.
Besides, pirate and Revolutionary themes. ARRRRR!
Cobra Commander's hood is now problematic?
Why?
He's the fucking baddie!
Make him a white supremacist! Go for it!
HE'S THE FUCKING BAD GUY IN CHARGE OF THE TERRORIST ORGANIZATION BENT ON TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!!
You're not supposed to like him!
He's supposed to be evil, and the hood is supposed to evoke a dislike.
If you think he's problematic, then the imagery worked and was effective.
Wemic (Lion Centaur) (AD&D Monster Manual II p.126, AD&D 2e(r) Monstrous Manual p.357)
136 Points
Attribute Modifiers: ST+6 (Size -10%) [54]; DX+3 [60]; HT+1 [10].
Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: Per+2 [10]; SM+1 (2 hexes).
Advantages: Catfall [10]; Claws (Sharp) [5]; Combat Reflexes [15]; Damage Resistance 1 (Tough Skin -40%) [3]; Enhanced Move (9) (Ground x1.5, Costs Fatigue 6 -30%) [7]; Extra Legs (4 Legs) [5]; Night Vision (5) [5]; Teeth (Sharp Teeth) [1]; Temperature Tolerance (1) [1].
Disadvantages: Bloodlust (15) [-5]; Claustrophobia (15) [-7]; Easy To Read [-10]; Increased Consumption 1 [-10]; Low TL -3 [-15]; Overconfidence (12) [-5]; Sleepy (1/2 time) [-8]; Thalassophobia (12) [-10].
Features: Short Fur; Tail.
Racial Skills: Brawling (E) DX+2 [4]-15; Jumping (E) DX+2 [4]-15; Running (A) HT+2 [8]-13; Stealth (A) DX [2]-13; Survival (Plains) (A) Per [2]-12.
If you know what a wemic is, then you have the rest of the racial information needed to make one past the stats.
You really do shoot the Model 59 better with the theme song running in your head.
Even though the 659 was what Zito carried.
Real 59 action comes with Starsky... much earlier. But I didn't remember that until I got song-virused.
First out the chute:
CZ75 P-O1
Both magazines functioned flawlessly.
I was worried about shooting this one. The people who like the CZ75 have a near religious-like devotion and a fervent need to convert you to the CZ way.
I did not feel the magic:
The trigger doubles a lot with my shooting style. There's not a lot of signal that you're pulling against the sear before you go bang again.
Next up:
The Stoeger Cougar 8040. It too was reliable for all time after eating two whole magazines of .40 S&W.
Everything I dislike about the Beretta 92, plus the snap of .40. I couldn't get it to settle to where I was shooting smaller than I did.
Finally, there's a High Standard Sport King.
Legend has it that if you're not grouping small with a High Standard, it's you and not the gun.
I noticed a distinct flinch changing from the 9's to the High Standard that took me a couple of magazines to get over. It is not reliable with nine rounds in the magazine, but does fine loaded to 8.
I think I prefer my Colt Challenger. Sacrilege, I know! At least the sights point to the center for me.
Dialed the rear sight over to compensate for the tendency to shoot right.
I'm still blind, but my groups are improving as I hit the range more often.
Nice to see that I did a good job with my clone!
I did a lot of research making my wz.88N (N because mine has the scope rail).
Hit the 'Tantal' tag to see the story of my rifle once you watch the video!
What rifling for a 6' long, 18,900,000 grain projectile over 770,000 grains of D839?
1:25 RH!
Oh, forgot the bore is 16" and the barrel length is 67 feet.
YouTube is subjecting me to a lot of advertising for a show on Hulu with two guys frantically making out.
I am not objecting to the ad, or being subjected to the sexual mores of the homosexual male.
To be honest, gay people have been stuck watching the sex sells ads of straight people for a very long time.
What I am objecting to is the complete disappearance of ads aimed at me.
I am not a target demographic for anyone, despite being an actual or potential customer for what's being sold.
I feel like there's room in the ad space for an add aimed at the straight white guy every once and a while, even one who has a straight white wife and a couple of kids.
When was the last time you saw a mono-racial family in an ad that wasn't a minority family?
Also, have you noticed how often the token Asian in ads with a large group picture is in a wheelchair?
Some of this is bitter grapes. Ads seldom affect my buying decision.
But I am worried that the exclusion of people like me from advertising is a subtle form of othering.
One never wants to be The Other. NEVER!
Being The Other leads to bad places.
Some Maricopa hack has taken to explaining the difference in the number of votes counted in the audit differing from the number of votes certified by citing a common math puzzle that gets different answers depending on the order of operations you used.
Update: Found the quote!
Maricopa County: Why might the Cyber Ninjas’ ballot count differ from Maricopa Vote numbers?
For the same reason people might get different answers to this problem: (6 x 5) ÷ 3 + 11
If you don’t know the order of operations, you don’t know the answer.
Counting doesn't work that way.
But let's humor them and apply PEDMAS to the equation, shall we?
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=?
No parenthesis.
No exponents.
No division.
No multiplication.
Lots of addition.
No subtraction.
Order of operations only matters if there more than one operation.
The answer for the above is 30. It's 30 even if you count backwards because addition can be taken in any order.
What the audit is finding isn't a problem with math. It's finding that votes were counted and certified that don't exist. At best they've discovered that votes have been lost or destroyed which had been previously counted.
At best.
That alone should be enough to nuke the Maricopa Board of Elections and get them fitted for orange. Those missing votes, if they actually existed, were supposed to be saved with all the others.
Occam's Razor, however, says that the "missing" votes didn't exist except as creations of compromised software.
Buckle up, it's likely to get sporty.
I first noticed this with my M&P9.
Vortex appears to be following S&W's lead.
Here are all the logos on my Strikefire II, cantilever mount and ARD.
Let's start with the ARD. It's got two logos on it, 180° apart.
When it's screwed in, you can't even see them!
The mount is downright vague about who made it. Just the one.
The scope itself has four. Three 120° apart on the objective hood and one on the battery compartment cap.
It's embossed on the flippy caps too:
Front:
Back:
One nice thing about being the owner of the blog is when I spot a spelling error or grammatical error I didn't intend to make in a comment, I can just fix it.
It's something the commenters can't do for themselves, but a message that you'd like to make an edit to a comment will generally find me affable.
Here's what you do:
1. Make a comment to the post you've commented on that you'd like to change your comment.
2. Post the new comment.
Here's what I'll do:
Delete the comment where you asked to change your comment.
Moderate the new comment fresh, and if I post it; I will delete the original comment. If nobody has replied to it, it will be as if your new comment is the only one you made!
Every time you mention that the FAL wasn't the shittiest 7.62 NATO rifle ever made...
Someone just HAS to bring up Israel dumping it.
Guess how long the Romat was in front-line service? We're not going to consider service in the reserves, national guard, navy or coast guard. Nor special forces.
Has to be really short because it's the exemplar of the FAL being an epic failure.
19 years. 1955 to 1974. Partial replacement began in 1972 with the M16A1 and was officially replaced in 1974 by the Galil.
That is not a short service life. Production continued to 1980.
How long was the M14 the front-line US service rifle? I mean it's so much better than the Romat after all... 5 years and production ended the same year enough M16A1's were in service to fully supplant it.
The M14 is not an inherently bad rifle. It's a very difficult rifle to make correctly.
Don't think that because Springfield Armory is successfully making M1As that it's the same as making an M14. SA made a LOT of changes to the parts to make them easier to make, not least of which is the cast receiver.
Quick! How many nations adopted the M14? Remember, this is adoption as the service rifle, not special forces, ceremonial, sniper variants or line launcher.
Now, compare that list to the number of nations who adopted the FAL.
Then look at how many years those rifles were the front line gun. The average is 30 years.
But the FAL sucks because the IDF only used it for 19 years.
The hybrid Sigma felt just fine in the hand and fired a whole magazine without issue. That must mean it's reliable for all time! Right?
We don't really know how reliable it is, but the first 16 went great.
It reminded me that I do like the grip on the OG Sigma series guns. I've liked it since I first handled FuzzyGeff's .40 and it was why The Lovely Harvey got a .357 SIG; she'd intended to get a 9 or a .40 but they was all out at the gun show and we got an insanely good deal on the gun she ended up with.
This is my first run with one in 9mm and it's very comfortable.
Next run of testing will be with some self defense ammo instead of ball to see if it feeds well.
Next up:
I LIKE the Model 59. I think my groups will keep getting smaller with it because the problems are with me and not the pistol.
It too passed the reliable for all time challenge by consuming an entire 14 rounds from the factory magazine.
Double action first shot was high and right, but that ended up just being high once the other 13 joined it down range. Not so high that it would have missed if I'd had the rear sight dialed in.
The Model 59 shoots about 3" to the right at 7 yards.
I made note of it and got out my brass punches and hammer when I got home to tap the rear sight the 0.06" or so it needed to go to correct for that.
Then I saw the screw.
That's right! The Model 59 is windage adjustable.
DURRR!
JT says it's because I have too many guns.
I say it's because he doesn't have too many enough guns!
Took the Model 59 and the hybrid Sigma to the range.
The 59 shoots to the right:
The mutant SW9V shoots low with a 6 o'clock hold. Gotta remember that plastic Smiths shoot through the dot!
These groups are a definite sign that I need to get to the range more often. Now that the fear of Wu Ping Cough is fading, perhaps ammo will be available enough to actually buy some and knock the rust completely off.
New glasses won't hurt either.
Willard tried out his ACOG on his disapator:
We did a 100 yard zero at 25 yards by setting the zero 0.78" low. The fine adjustments meant a LOT of clicks to move it from the initial setting to zeroed.
For added fun, his old Doskocil carbine case's handles gave up the ghost and dropped the whole case on the ground for him. New soft cases are stupid expensive at the Guntry Clubhouse.
This is a genuine Tenebraex Killflash™ for a Trijicon TA31 RCO.
Yes, that's an o-ring holding it on.
No, that's factory, not a kludge.
This factory level jury rig costs $40 plust $10 each for the flippy caps.
Color me unimpressed.
Purple resin lower? Check.
6.8x43mm barrel from a defunct manufacturer? Check.
$65 Chinese ACOG clone on a carry handle? Check.
Today we confirmed, with Marv's FACOG, that the Chinese cloners are using the same threads as Trijicon and that Trijicon's thumbscrew will secure the scope to the carry handle.
It fits into the carry handle groove like it's supposed and doesn't wobble even a bit.
The only issue was the threads needed cleaned up a bit where they break into the little tunnel in the base.
The M61 lamp in the M951 light will light up the whole back yard!
The X300 just lights up a spot.
First the control: The X300.
M951 with P60 xenon bulb:
M951 with M61 LED bulb:
If you've an old, surplus Surfire M951 or M961 still rocking the OG xenon, you should consider the M61 upgrade from Malkoff Devices.
Note: I did not end up needing to use the $1 fitting ring on my light, but that seems to be an as required item with some needing and some not.
Some of the best content here comes from Willard and I screaming at each other making barely related points.
Today's shouting match:
The Rifle, 7.62 M14.
First off, something we both agree on. The FAL is simply better. Hands down. Disagree and you're wrong. Learn to accept it.
Where it goes off the runners is how good the M14 was and why it was withdrawn from primary issue faster than any other service rifle save the Krag.
Individual riflemen fondly remember their issue M14 and only complained about relatively small issues. Like the front sling swivel ripping loose.
Why, then, was it shitcanned after a mere five years?
I've said many times that the US Army doesn't give up on equipment that's working like intended. Hell, they stick with things that aren't working correctly so often that you KNOW something is fucky when they nuke their service rifle so fast.
The reason the M14 left service so fast was that it was failing acceptance testing at an appalling rate.
Which is shocking considering that Springfield, H&R and Winchester successfully managed to make a shit-ton of Garands under wartime conditions.
Especially after spending ten damn years doing the development only to have Beretta create almost the same thing in less than two, the BM-59. Did I say ten years? That's not right. A clear ancestor is the wartime T20 so we're looking at 15 years.
Beretta was on time, under budget and had an excellent acceptance rate.
Plus those ten years of development and testing just kept revealing scandal after scandal with our arms procurement process and a sinking feeling that caving to politics, false familiarity and buying outright lies about tooling... we'd bought the wrong gun.
The Royal Army and Canada were making something very similar to what we would have made had the T48 won the competition.
The incandescent bulb in the Surefire M951 light was noticeably dimmer than the X300.
Whats to do?
LED upgrade!
Not cheap, but far cheaper than a completely new light.
Using the GPS Status app on my phone, I can measure for lux.
The X300 shows 21,000 lux at 6" and 1,319 lux at 8'.
The incandescent bulb gets 11,000 at 6" and 520 at 8'.
The LED upgrade does 33,000 lux at 6" and 1,374 at 8'.
That's a fair upgrade, I think! I think it might be hard to get a better light for the $100 total I've got into it.
The upgrade throws a slightly larger circle than the X300 without much of a hot-spot in the center. The X300 has a very hot spot.
Building on our post here, how does a shorter barreled 5.56 gun and a 16" .300 Blackout fare?
Loaded 14.5" M4 with optics and light is 8.4 lb.
Loaded 16" 5.56 M4gery with optics and light is 8.8 lb.
Loaded 16" .300 Blk M4gery with optics is 8.7 lb.
Even though the magazines are the same, .300 Blackout is heavier per round so a loaded mag is 1.2 instead of 1.1 lb.
Basic loads are 15 lb., 15.4 lb., and 15.9 lb. respectively.
You will notice that you take a range penalty with a shorter barrel and 5.56 and that .300 Blackout doesn't reach out as far either.
5.56x45mm from a 14.5" or 16" barrel will do 4d+2 pi doing 1,260 to 5,460 points of damage with an average of 3,360. That gives 224 points per pound for the 14.5" and 218.2 points per pound for the 16".
.300 Blackout will do 1,260 to 6,510 points of damage with an average of 3,885 for 244.3 points per pound on average.
Summing up, per pound from best to worst...
16" .300 Blackout = 244.3 but you slam into 1/2D range 250 yards sooner than even a 14.5" 5.56 gun.
16" 6.8x43mm = 224.2
14.5" 5.56x45mm = 224
16" 5.56x45mm = 218.2
20" 5.56x45mm = 212.4
But this is a bit unfair... The heavy ARs have fixed rifle stocks, and that's 0.3 lb. heavier right there.
That'd drop the damage per pound of the .300 to 239.8.
Putting a carbine lower on the 6.8 would increase it to 228.1.
The configuration matters and this ends up being an oranges to grapefruit comparison. You can shave mass from any of these guns to the tune of half a pound just changing furniture. Magpul stuff is heavy compared to USGI. KAC's RAS is very heavy.
For example an M16A1 and aluminum USGI 30-rounders is 7.8 for the rifle and 14.8 for the basic load. Damage is 1,050 to 6,300 with an average of 3,675 for 248.3 points per pound. But no optics and range of just 500/3,200.
Just in case you're curious...
A 6.5 Grendel M4gery does 6d-1 pi out to 730/4,000. Weight is 7.5/1.3 with 24 round PRI magazines. Add 1.4 for a 5x prism and X300 for 8.9 lb. for the gun and 16.7 lb. for the loaded gun and 6 spare mags.
168 rounds down range will do 840 to 5,880 points of damage with an average of 3,360 which gives 201.2 per pound. GURPS doesn't like Bill Alexander's furry nation either.
Your pistol/rifle/shotgun is a weapon, it is not a weapon system.
A battleship fires its guns with a weapon system.
A tank fires its guns with a weapon system.
A fighter fires missiles with a weapon system.
A bomber drops bombs with a weapon system.
Weapon systems fire weapons.
What system fires your small arm?
What range, lead, wind, and cant compensation is part of your small arm?
You sound like a fucking moron calling small arms weapons systems.
The Tomorrow War is proof you can tell this story without gutting a cornerstone of science fiction and wearing its skin.
The Tomorrow War is essentially the same story as Paul Verhooven's Starship Troopers without ass-raping Robert Heinlein to make it.
Someday...
There was someone test firing their "new" .500 Nitro Express double at the range yesterday while I was zeroing Dottie and Linda.
The owner said that they were shooting reduced loads and getting information so they could send it back to the gunsmith to have the sights adjusted to point of aim.
It was hitting high and right at 30 yards, but both barrels were hitting about the same place.
Is an M16A4 clone better than a 16" AR in 6.8x43mm?
As you can see, the 6.8 starts lighter, does more damage and does it at about the same ranges with the same accuracy.
You need to be stronger for the 6.8, but the ST requirement is still below average.
Loaded weapon, optics and light: M16A4 = 10.7 lb. 6.8 carbine = 9.9 lb.
Six-Eight is 0.8 lb. lighter.
The M16A4 catches up when you add four spare magazines. The A4 also has 15 more shots at this point.
But basic loads are generally six spare mags and the 6.8 will tip the scales at 17.7 lb. with 189 rounds.
The M16A4 is 17.3 lb. with 210 rounds.
BUT... The 189 rounds will sling 1,134 to 6,804 points of damage, averaging 3,969.
210 rounds of 5.56x45mm M855 will do 1,050 to 6,300 points, averaging 3,675.
This becomes, on average, 224.23 points of damage per pound for the 6.8 and 212.43 for the A4.
Dottie and Lavender Linda are the 6.8x43mm SPC II twins and they now shoot to where I'm pointing them.
Dottie's optic is now dialed in for a 100 yard zero.
The LaRue MBT trigger and a 5x optic make a difference getting the groups smaller. Also, all this shooting lately is doing a good job of knocking the rust off.
It's like riding a bicycle!
Thanks to Marv for reminding me to take the dust cap off of Linda's muzzle! I've sent so many of those things down range it's not even funny.
Linda is a very light gun with her resin lower. 6.8 has more kick than 5.56 and she let my shoulder know about the difference in mass between her and Dottie.
Thag lurn!
A while back I mentioned that 7.62x51mm NATO is a lengthened .300 Savage and got haughtily informed that it was really a shortened .30-06.
Well, it turns out both positions are correct.
When the "30-06 but shorter" thing got started they actually looked to using .300 Savage unmodified to replace it. But .300 Savage didn't quite have the velocity they wanted and lacked the case capacity to do anything about it.
Never mind what this new "magnum" version of the round would do in extant Savage 99's.
So they lengthened the round just a smidge and got the velocity they were looking for.
Done! Say hello to 7.62 NATO!
Not quite.
As with so many ammunition related things, tooling and fixtures come up.
Then some finer elements of case design start showing up in testing.
Fix that angle, address that diameter, change that radius.
Until the round is almost literally a shortened 30-06...
But the path didn't start with shortening the older round.
We didn't even get tropical storm level winds here.
I'm totally not complaining.
She appeared to be a real storm right up until abreast of Sarasota and then just fell apart.
Better to be prepared for something that didn't happen than unprepared for something that did.
One downside to doing total comment moderation is you never get to see the comments that have worn my patience down to zero.
I won't describe my comment policy as zero tolerance, but...
The up/down variance is narrow.
Some commenters get a comment that's borderline irritating then get deleted later.
That's because they leave a follow-up that puts them on the other side of the deciding line.
The "good" news for y'all is I'm filtering the content, not the commenter.
Follow the simple rules in the commenting section and you get to comment.
Break them... start your own blog and say anything you want there.
Looks like my second ever hurricane is about to hit.
We're battened down and prepped as we can be.
Plus, I'm channeling my inner Johnny Rico.
I always get the shakes before a drop.
No, Representative Bush, England and The United Kingdom was not poised to abolish slavery when the Colonies started getting uppity.
In fact, England barely beat the US in ending the practice. They banned it in 1833.
Yes, they were on the road to ending it, but didn't really start in earnest until after the Revolutionary War was over and the United States had ratified our current Constitution.
Slavery wasn't the issue to the colonists you think it was and you're off on your dates by quite a bit.
The agitation to quit the empire really begins in the mid-1760's right after the French and Indian War.
England trying to refill the coffers drained by that war entirely at the expense of the colonists is the main issue, not slavery, that led to The Declaration of Independence.
Representative Bush is likely unaware that all trade had to go through Crown approved vendors who set extortionate prices to import essential items and that the colonists were forbidden from manufacturing them.
Things like iron plows and hammer heads.
Things that were produced in the colonies were subject to much punitive taxation on top of exploitatively low sale prices to The Crown's approved buyers.
But it wasn't the imminent end of slavery that spurred the signers of The Declaration to pledge their lives and sacred honors to be rid of The Crown.
It's also absurd to think that the northern half of the Colonies would sign on to preserve slavery as a primary motive. Abolition was already moving in those future states.
If The Revolution was fought to preserve slavery, why isn't Canada's southern border in Pennsylvania?
Representative Bush should hit Wikipedia for an explanation of The Intolerable Acts.
The post about my 5.56 history got me looking at other guns that I'd sold and what their values are today.
I've owned some rare ass collectables that I'd bought new when they weren't collectable! Or had not found a collector following when I was buying them.
Gen 1 Glock 17.
Mini-14.
Klackamas imported Daewoo DR200.
Anaconda.
USGI M1911A1.
Far too often I've let go of a gun far too cheaply because I didn't plan for an emergency or my planning was insufficient to the scale of the problem.
But most of the time when I unassed a gun, its replacement had just been purchased.
I really did sell the gen 1 Glock and the M1911A1 to get the Glock 21 I still have.
Why would I need two Glocks and two pistols in .45 anyway?
For a long time my "collection" was A gun in each category. A pistol. A modern rifle. A shotgun.
I didn't accumulate more than one per role.
Well, I also just checked prices on Mosins, particularly Finnish Mosins.
Why did y'all waste your money in real estate?
This is Vortex's anti-reflection device.
It's not a Killflash™ because that's a trademark of Tenebraex.
It's a simple thing, really. Just a bit of a honeycomb mesh with enough thickness to keep light from the sides from glinting back at an observer. It really doesn't help prevent reflections from being seen by something you're pointing the scope at when the light source is behind them.
But it's exactly the kind of thing that the anti-gunners will decide is a "military" feature and try to ban.
I don't know if it's much help, but it doesn't hurt anything so... I like to have one on.
I need some for the 5x Primary Arms scopes now too.
By request, a compare/contrast of the FDE defense guns.
Brenda is the Behind Every Blade of Grass carbine.
16" "gov't profile" midlength gas 1:7 nitride barrel from PSA. F-marked front sight base with bayonet lug, A2 flash-hider.
Kevina has a 16" M4 profile carbine gas 1:7 chrome-lined barrel from Del-Ton. Modified Yankee Hill Machine folding sight with the bayonet lug and sling swivel replaced with a p-rail, Troy Medieval flash hider.
Brenda is made on a KE Arms KP-15 monolithic lower using a CMMG lower parts kit.
Kevina is made on an Anvil Arms (now defunct) A2 type lower with Magpul MIAD grip and milspec CTR stock using a Del-Ton LPK.
Both use a Magpul MOE handguard appropriate to their gas systems, with Brenda having M-LOK holes.
Brenda's rear BUIS is a Magpul MBUS, Kevina's is a YHM-9680.
Brenda sports a Vortex Strikefire II red dot on the supplied cantilever mount, Kevina a Primary Arms gen 1 3x prism on an American Defense AD-B3 mount.
Both wear a Surefire X300 weaponlight because the night is dark and full of terrors and we want to see them to aim.
Without magazines, optics or lights: Kevina is 6.7 lb. Brenda is 6.2 lb.
A loaded 30-round PMAG M3 is 1.1 lb., a 40-round is 1.5 lb.
The X300 is 0.2 lb.
Primary Arms 3x prism on an AD-B3 mount is 1 lb.
Vortex Strikefire II on its cantilever mount is 0.8 lb.
The "seatbelt" style sling on Brenda is another 0.3 lb.
Grand totals, as pictured:
Brenda: 8.6 lb.
Kevina: 9.4 lb.
Adding up all the parts for both guns...
$638 for Brenda, $199 for the red-dot and $200 for the light.
$1,159 for Kevina, $346 for the optic and mount, $200 for the light.
Brenda was purchased recently and during successive sales for Memorial Day, Father's Day and has a blemish lower.
Kevina was made during the full-on Obama gun-parts shortage, and the pricing shows in my spreadsheets!
If Independence Day is a white, racist, holiday:
Why did we see so many black people at the fireworks stands?
Why did they happily wish our white asses a "happy independence day" or "happy July 4th"?
It's almost as if someone is lying about racism in America.
Again.
In the way back...
I was fully convinced that the absolute best 5.56 rifle was the Stoner weapons system because it looked so entirely cool on pages 2403 to 2404 of volume 22 of Weapons and Warfare.
I've never even seen one in person.
My lust moved to the Galil next.
It was perfect and because it had 35 or 50 round magazines in Twilight: 2000's RDF Sourcebook it was better than any other 5.56 rifle. The Galil had also appeared on my radar in Top Secret.
Plus, looked damn cool. Besides, does your assault rifle have bottle opener built into it? *mic drop*
I had no idea, at the time, that the IDF had essentially dropped the Galil in favor of the M16A1 by then.
The first 5.56 rounds I ever fired were from a buddy's AK just before I left for the Army. Taki was a 'Nam vet and MAC-V SOG Marine. What he learned about shooting and fighting didn't apply to anything I'd see later. Very short sight distances, very short ranges, nearly always in the dark.
I didn't take to the M16 in the Army thanks to assholes being assholes and demanding a level of cleanliness that was not needed for the function or longevity of the weapon. It throws one off one's feed about a rifle.
But I didn't think there was anything about 5.56 that was inherently bad for most personal problems. (Que Willard and a treatise (that I'll agree with) on the superiority of 7.62x51mm.)
In the wide world of sports, just like the Primary Arms scope vs an ACOG; 5.56 vs 7.62 is a matter of "ideals vs good enoughs" and 5.56 will do for nearly everything I am legally allowed to do with a rifle in a self-defense or anti-looting scenario.
The advantages 7.62 brings to the table become overkill, bulky and heavy for my now civilian butt. The Willard treatise will explain why this isn't necessarily true in a war; especially for feeding a machine gun.
But, back to me, post-ETS and getting into guns.
As with so many catalysts in my life, FuzzyGeff is to blame. He decided, out of the blue from my perspective, to buy a semi-auto rifle. Because I knew a lot more about guns than he did (and as it turns out, not near as much as I thought I did) he asked my opinion on the "best" gun.
Once we'd determined that the Bush Import Ban had made the obviously best gun, the Galil, unaffordable; we discussed the alternatives.
FuzzyGeff's drill sergeant shaped scars were deeper and more painful than mine with regards to the AR, and the only AR you saw in Iowa in 1991 was a Colt with all of the neutering they could muster. Plus they were expensive.
This led us to consider the Mini-14. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with them, they were in a price range we could afford and... Wow you could accessorize the shit out of them.
Shortly afterwards, I bought one too.
Then Software Janitor, then Technomad... and three other friends.
We all standardized on the Mini and prepared for the end of the world that never came.
Remember all that accessorizing?
I made a heavy pig out of a light, handy carbine. Polymer folding stock, Harris bipod, B-Square scope mount and Aimpoint 1000. Plus replacing the front sight with a flash-hider/bayonet lug combo. It was heavier than a Galil by the time I'd finished.
And the zero wandered.
The front sight combo thing didn't stay put, so the sights moved around.
The B-Square scope mount didn't hold zero between sessions if you removed it, and we always removed it...
It was a love-hate thing.
Then the AWB hit.
Suddenly magazines were scarce.
AR magazines were plentiful.
So I sold the Mini to Anglave and got me a Daewoo DR200 with a thumbhole stock.
MUCH lighter than the Mini, decent military sights and a pedigree of being made by a nation who might just be going to war in a moment (just like Israel!).
'Round about here two of the Mini-14 converts changed 5.56 guns. One, just as the AWB took effect, went to a Bushmaster AR from parts. FuzzyGeff went with a Bushmaster M17 bullpup (because we hadn't yet learned that bullpups suck and the M17 took AR mags).
Then I moved to Florida.
ACE Limited even made a stock conversion that conformed to the 922r rules and let me have a normal pistol grip on my DR200.
I still had it in 2007 when I started getting into ARs...
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| Top to bottom: My DR200; FuzzyGeff's M17S; FuzzyGeff's first AR, Olga; my first AR, Kaylee; Marv's first AR. We still own the bottom three, but none of them still look the same. |
He started rolling his own AR's as soon as the AWB expired.
That led to me learning that my problems with the AR stemmed from assholes yelling at me and inadequate cleaning materials being milspec issue.
You might even have noticed that I have a couple three 'round here now.
Even FuzzyGeff overcame his scars to own a couple.
