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The last thing I need before I attempt to install this upgraded stereo box is a back-up camera.
I have some power and wiring questions and one is specific to the unit.
Will the camera powering on switch the display over, or do I need to rig a trigger to the head unit?
If it's the former, then the time-honored method of tapping into the back-up light will work just fine. If the latter... Uh...
Survey Says: Americans Are Dumber Than a Bag of Rocks A survey of Americans conducted by YouGov, an international research, data, and analytics group headquartered in London for America, tells me that way too many Americans are dumber than a bag of rocks, or dumber than Joe Biden, depending on your preferred metaphor. Perception is formed by observation. With most people, if they “see” it, they believe it. But perception is not reality. Modern Americans “see” something on TV or the internet, and believe that whatever “that” might be is a reflection of reality, because they generally spend too much time in front of a screen.
The service manual says the shifter needs to come out to get the trim surrounding the radio/heater controls off.
I've found two work-arounds.
First, just bend the bezel around the shifter and there's enough room to squeeze the controls out. This also leaves the bezel flopping around in the way when you pull the radio box.
Second, disassemble the shifter in place, because it's the plastic cover over the shifter guts that are the problem and not the actual shifter. I found the guide to get the shift knob off the lever and the cover just pops off once the knob is gone.
I need to see if there's a replacement knob that's more fun once I have that taken apart too.
Dear Governor DeSantis;
You recently told the Disney Corporation that they do not own or run the state of Florida.
I cannot think of a better way for the government of Florida to prove that than to pass Constitutional Carry.
Because, let's be honest, they spend a shit ton of money in Tallahassee to make sure that no tourist in the Orlando area sees a firearm carried legally.
Even more fun would be to use the same language that the LGBT community used to force businesses to serve them to force Disney to allow people who are legally carrying into their parks.
Thanks in advance
Angus McThag, voter.
The P220 modification saga is being delayed by the vagaries of the various shipping methods.
There's a part of me that's a bit sad that to modify the pistol to accept the slim grips means that it will be indistinguishable from 10 feet from Willard's P220R.
The rail will be the only thing you can readily see that makes them different.
Well, it looks like it's going to be simple to check the speaker wiring when I put in the radio box.
Step 1: Take entire dash apart...
The service manual doesn't phrase it that way, but the radio is under a cover which edges are under two other parts which edges are under two other parts each, and so on.
Removing parts to get to fasteners is the main deal.
Not sure about the remove the shifter part of this. If I really do have to take the exhaust apart to get at the shifter bolts just to get the surround around the radio controls off... that's stupid even for GM. Others have shown work-arounds.
GM doesn't consider the shifter to be something you can take apart. If the portion blocking the surround's removal can be removed with the rest of the shifter in the car, that's where I'm headed.
The Beast has speakers in the rear doors.
There are no tweeters in the corners of the dash.
I cannot see if there's a center speaker in the dash.
Conversations on the Caprice PPV forums and Facebook make me think that what's going on with my car is the norm.
The radio only has two channels but the car's wiring is set up for four.
There is debate about if unlocking the radio will restore function to the extra speakers.
If the wiring is still connected in my car, then all four should work when I plug in the new "silver box."
I've found out that one of the four antenna plugs on the new box is an XM/Sirius port and should only need an antenna plugged in to make it work. Eyes crossed, because I ordered a shark-fin and cables.
I need to decide on a back-up camera. It must be simple because everyone is talking about the clever ways they mounted it and nobody is talking about wiring it.
Finally got into the VA to see my doctor and schedule some follow-up x-rays and shit.
Since it was also my annual check-up:
Cholesterol was a bit high, but excellent percentage of the good kind.
Kidney function, good.
Liver function, good.
Prostate stuff, good.
I'm fat and need to exercise.
Nothing I didn't already know.
Going to have an anal probe done sometime this year too.
The wipers that came with The Beast chattered really bad.
So I vowed to replace them.
Today I fulfilled my vow!
And got a puzzle-test as a reward as I figured out which combination of plastic bits in the tube with the wiper blade fit my wiper arms.
I will have to take this test again, soon, with Moxie.
With the original radio in the car; the front door speakers are where the music comes out.
If you set the fader to the rear, no music comes out.
I was led to believe this was normal and that my new radio will fix it because it has the rear channels in it.
Then I noticed the wiring diagram for my car's speakers:
If I'm reading this right, the REAR door speakers should be where the sound comes out.
I'm thinking that the service manual has a typo in it. Especially since connector X230 doesn't have enough unused spaces in it for the 8 speaker leads and that no mention of the speaker wires is on the connector page. X267 has the speaker leads listed on the connector diagram.
Twilight: 2000 had the M16EZ.
The description from the Small Arms Guide is:
Early in 1999, the breakdown of civil order in the United States was evidenced by an increased demand by local civil authorities for small arms with more power and effectiveness than normally accepted police weapons such as revolvers and shotguns.
Initially, the two federal governments (Civgov and Milgov) responded with grants of small quantities of M16 rifles. As demand outstripped supply, it proved impossible to continue to supply the many local police departments and militias with new production M16 rifles.
Routine ordnance maintenance of small arms in the US Army inventory replaces barrels, bolts, and other small parts as they become worn out. Many of these parts are still serviceable, and can be used in weapons, but with a lower level of accuracy and safety. Rejected parts are normally sold for scrap metal in less critical times.
Milgov, anxious t o provide small arms to local governments, decided to produce the M16A2 kit for distribution to loyal civilian forces. It consisted of the following components:
0 One M16 barrel, bolt, and bolt carrier combination.
0 One set of basic trigger mechanism parts.
0 Several pieces of steel tubing and flats.
0 One set of plans and instructions for use in machining and assembly.
Local governments were expected to use local machine shop talent and supplies to manufacture auxiliary parts, stocks, and other components of the rifles. Using the plans provided, local forces arranged for the necessary parts to be manufactured, and the final weapons assembled. Civgov rapidly introduced a similar program for the local governments loyal to it.
Necessarily, M16EZ rifles vary in their quality and appearance, depending on the ability of the local manufacturing process. Many weapons have carefully finished wood stocks produced by militiamen during the long winters of the war. Others sport improvements developed by the local machinists: special sling swivels, winter trigger guards, and precision sights (often unable to compensate for the poor rifle barrels of the weapons).
In use, the EZ model was inaccurate, unreliable, and often dangerous to the user. But it succeeded admirably because it fulfilled its purpose. It retained the basic silhouette of the M16 rifle and lent an air of authority t o any force armed with it; the militia looked less rag-tag when it was not armed with deer rifles.
It used standard military ammunition and magazines, which helped resupply situations. During the cold days of World War III, it was the rifle that the average citizen saw in the hands of the local militia; it represented a calming voice of authority in the midst of hard times.
Reader Ygolonac sent this link to someone attempting to make their own M16EZ in the real world.
I will admit, I've thought about the idea more than once since I started assembling AR's.
But the gun that filled the Milgov M16EZ niche in my T2K game was a variation of the TRW Low-Maintenance-Rifle. See also here.
It appears that Will Smith reverted to stereotype and smacked Chris Rock last night for insulting Mr Smith's wife.
You or I would prolly get a trip to the police station for doing that.
Probably wouldn't end up in jail for very long, if charges were even filed.
But we'd be arrested if we did it on national TV in a room full of people.
But everyone involved is a dancing monkey and therefore special and not subject to the mere rule of man.
All of this assumes that it wasn't staged... because everyone involved is a dancing monkey, they could have been feigning the emotions on display for national TV.
Mr Smith had just won an award for his ability to play pretend, in fact.
Also:
A buddy who's been talking about getting a gun for home defense for a LONG LONG time called about the topic again yesterday.
His wife has finally signed off on the idea of having a gun in the house and he starts asking me about shotguns.
Specifically no-stock, pistol-grip models.
This will be his first, ever, gun. He's not a shooter and didn't grow up in a household that had guns in it.
I tried to be gentle.
Considering that my home defense (Harvey's too) gun is an AR, I think you can tell what my opinion of using a shotgun in that role is.
The AR is lighter and handier, uses smaller and lighter ammunition and is easier to reload if you need to. It's also more precise.
I pointed him at Palmetto State Armory's web page and he can get a complete AR for under $500 less mags and ammo.
I tried to explain that an AR is just plain easier to shoot and the shotguns he's linking me to on Gunbroker aren't really novice guns. Sure, they look "cool" but they're harder to use.
I even went so far as to say that if he must have a shotgun for home defense, then get one with a stock!
He was surprised to hear that you still have to aim a shotgun.
I expect a few more calls and a trip to the range before he makes a decision.
PS: He's so new to this he didn't even realize that a couple ways he suggested we purchase the AR are flat illegal. Real live people are in jail for it illegal stuff.
I explained that too.
My fully featured and unlocked radio for The Beast has made it from Australia to the local post office.
Two weeks to get from one side of the planet to the other, and just barely three days of it actually moving.
It spent most of the time sitting at the airport in Melbourne waiting for a slot on a plane. Then it sat in Los Angeles waiting for customs to clear it.
I'm excited to get to work, and stuck in my recliner with my ribs acting up from the accident that killed The Precious nine weeks ago.
"If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all..."
I have a two pronged solution to food shortages here in America.
First, we stop burning food to run our cars. The best the greenies can show for adding ethanol to our gas is that it might have a small positive effect... maybe... on emissions from the tail pipe of the car running that fuel.
BUT not total emissions because the mileage craters. It's even worse when you consider all the diesel used to grow and harvest the corn then the energy expended to make it into ethanol.
Prolly not a net win for carbon emissions, and the greenies studiously avoid and inhibit a real study being made on this topic.
Renewable = GOOD, shut up they explain. I've noticed a distinct lack of engineering degrees in the people who advocate loudest for green shit.
The second prong, which helps two-fold, just start shooting greenies. First it lets us start eating the food instead of burning it. Second, one fewer mouth to feed, letting the same amount of food go longer.
Bonus benefit of shooting greenies is how much cheaper so many things get, especially electricity.
Without greenies we get lots of hydroelectric capacity back and nuclear power becomes viable again.
Without greenies, we might even get to explore subdivision sized plants.
Bonus fact: Did you know you can make a nuclear reactor that doesn't make much, if any, of the high-order nuclear waste the greenies have you worried about? Look it up!
You generous folks have funded 10% of the total donations given to the walk-a-thon!
You, doth, verily, ROCK!
Pat yourselves on the back!
The Lovely Harvey and The Boy are doing a walk for Special Olympics and you can help!
Just click on this finely crafted link and make a donation!
She set the goal at a modest $50, but I'm willing to bet that my generous readers will top that easily.
Because you rock!
It is a matter of Faith that the door handles for the 2011-2013 Caprice PPV are different from the 2014-2017.
It does not appear that anyone has informed Dorman.
So I have an order in, from a seller on ebay, for a set of silver and chrome door handles. I think they will pop on my white car.
This part number has been successfully used on a 2014 PPV... that's how I knew to search for it.
It's possible that they won't work, but I will be able to definitively say so.
If they DO work, then I will open up a wide swath of options for the owners of the earlier cars.
Dorman is convinced that they're interchangable, and even if they are different, the fact that Dorman makes one handle for all 7 model years informs me that they're going be adaptable.
Eyes crossed!
The Lovely Harvey is often a visionary.
Her vision is often thwarted in that she is neither an engineer nor carpenter.
Every so often, though, she can communicate that vision to someone else and see it realized.
Today is such a day!
Because I was laid up with stabbing rib pain, it was all her and Marv who assembled it from stuff we had laying around from other projects.
My only contribution was to suggest the diagonals to make it less wobbly. Then watching as they put them on.
This is also an official project! Harvey slipped and put a screw through the meat of her thumb! This provided the requisite blood require of any successful project.
Thinking that, because things didn't hurt anymore, I was healed...
I appear to have overdone it.
A lot.
My ribs are back to hurting as bad as they did the day after the accident.
Looks like I'll be sleeping in the recliner again for a few nights.
With the E2 hammer strut, mainspring and retainer... The trigger pull is reduced and the slim plastic stocks fit the P220.
BUT...
The hammer fails to reset every once and a while and the double action break is... very odd. Like impossible for me to keep from jerking the muzzle to the right odd as it breaks.
This behavior is not exhibited with the stock configuration of either P220 I have here.
Now that I know to look for the problem, I find that will also need a new hammer, hammer block and hammer return spring. And the hammer is out of stock everywhere.
I'm rapidly approaching what it would cost to just buy the Houge wooden grips to replace the SIG grips that had a (kinda repaired) break.
Got the new hammer strut, spring and retainer installed in my OG SIG P220!
That allows the slim plastic stocks to be installed.
I ended up having to use a Wolff 19 lb. spring because everyone is out of the 22 lb. SIG MAINSPRING-1.
Double action is down from 11 lb. to 8 lb. and single action is unchanged.
Fingers crossed and a range trip to come!
Willard's Model 27 had developed a bound cylinder.
Armed only with sewing machine oil, he was unable to free it.
PB Blaster, on the other hand, with a gentle tap from a nylon hammer got it rolling again.
I am not sure it rusted or not. The mung is the right color, but there's no pitting or roughness of the bearing surfaces.
The link to Vice I put in the DARWIN post...
Matthew Gault didn't even do a quick Google, Bing, Duck-Duck-Go or Brave search for the term Fudd.
He got it so wrong.
That's what happens when you try to use a community's terms for its own members when you're decidedly not a member yourself.
For fuck's sake, a Fudd is far closer to being a "normie" (a term I've never seen US use about ourselves) in the gun culture than someone who holds their cock at gunpoint.
But, should Mr Gault search his name and land here:
The Fudds are the stick-in-mud hunters and sportsmen of the gun world. The kind that don't see a need for a non-hunting gun or something that holds more than five rounds. They used to the the mainstream of gun ownership.
As concealed carry and modern sporting rifles gained in popularity they stopped being the mainstream and have been moved to the fringe.
Heck, I think they'd be even more likely to call the aim at your nuts challenge people idiots than the mainstream.
Apparently there's a Facebook group of people who are pointing loaded guns at their junk with their fingers on the trigger.
Link to Vice about the phenomenon. Note: Author hates all gun owners, not just the idiots breaking the first three of four rules. He does call gun owners like me "responsible" so there's that.
Why is this a thing?
I've only one real response to these people threatening their family jewels:
DARWIN! DARWIN! DARWIN! DARWIN! DARWIN! DARWIN!
Imagine my new Caprice PPV...
...done up in Mad Max Main Force Patrol colours!
Try not to gag, but it'd be really amusing...
Except that the yellow MFP cars and the "last of the V-8 interceptors" are Ford Falcons...
The Beast is a Holden. The only MFP Holden was an HQ Monaro...
Stolen by The Night Rider at the beginning of the movie.
That's a WAY easier paint job!
So many things delayed by waiting for the sellers to ship.
At least a couple of blog posts in them as well, like the E2 upgrade to the P220.
There might be a fat blue line though.
The officer in question has been arrested for voluntary manslaughter after her performance in the linked video. (You'll probably have to actually go to YouTube to see it).
The family is suing, and the officer has two previous terminations for using poor judgement.
The best two word summary of having this person as a police officer is "Fatty McQuotahire".
I am old enough to remember when there were physical requirements for being a cop, especially one on patrol duty.
I sometimes think that the fall of law enforcement is tied to changing the rules to make it possible for someone like the officer above to do the job at all.
The only thing a person of that physical preparedness can do to stop an assault is to shoot. You might have noticed the disappearance of night-sticks from the law enforcement arsenal.
Rodney King aside, you've got to have some muscles and skill to use one. She lacks the former for certain.
She's a climber! We put wire mesh in these little openings on the porch to keep her from getting out under the eaves.
I guess chicken-wire was inevitable.
Little Miss Beeper is a climber. We're preparing to redo the screens, but realized that she will just rip them down when we do.
The chicken-wire will should protect the screens when she runs up the wall after an anole.
When I started telling The Lovely Harvey about the seat trim failure, and that my initial response was to assume there were no parts in the system...
Lemme back up.
Often when an interior part on an 11 year old car breaks, you are on your own for replacing it. Ebay, forums and salvage yards are your only recourse.
Seats from a Pontiac GTO and G8 plug right into a 2011-2013 PPV. Seats from a 2014-2017 Chevy SS might work.
I mentioned all that to Harvey before she asked, "What's wrong with the seats in the car?"
"The broken trim piece." was my reply.
Happily I can still get a new one and it's on its way.
But I also mentioned that The Beast's cloth cop seats are gonna be way more comfy than a GTO, G8 or SS seat.
Those are more sporty than the PPV and have beefier side bolsters that don't account for the average girth of the typical owner...
Because the seats in the car now were designed with the idea that a cop wearing a gun belt would be using them, they're wider and have more space for me than kidney squeezing sports seats would.
Cops are hard on their cars.
The plastic trim along the outside of the seat is falling apart.
Turns out, you can still order it from GM!
They don't list the car, but a couple let you sort by the VIN number and that opens the parts lists for you.
I am curious as to how many people know that, judging by the number of requests for parts still in inventory.
It's spendy, but the entire radio/HVAC control panel is still there. I have one knob that's wonky; the volume up will send volume down commands randomly as you try to turn up the tunes. The steering wheel volume control works fine... for now.
I have a genuine Holden stereo coming for The Beast.
One feature listed is a "15 CD hard drive".
I didn't know what that was, and forgot to ask before it was already shipped.
A drive that holds 15 CD's worth of mp3's is a decent feature.
A drive that rips 15 CD-A formatted discs... It's OK, I guess.
That's many fewer songs than other formats.
With the iPod and aux inputs, though, I can see never using it.
The strut, spring and retainer on Willard's P220 are called the "New Style".
The strut, spring, retainer and retainer pin on my P220 are called, obviously enough, the "Old Style".
Both sets of parts are getting to be unobtanium, but fear naught!
Reader Danny pointed out that the old frame sure looks like it will accept the newer parts.
He was correct!
What is available now and backwards compatible to older guns is known as the E2 upgrade.
It's very similar to the new style but with a longer strut and shorter retainer using the same spring.
Because I can't find the damn spring in the same place as the other two parts, I'm paying $9 more in shipping than I would otherwise for this upgrade experiment.
But $35 overall isn't bad and new springs are often a good idea anyways.
Reputedly, the E2 kit improves the trigger pull too.
Up in Iowa there's a pizza chain called Godfather's.
They were not my preferred pizza. Pizza Pit was my preferred brand.
Ames is awash in excellent pizza, by the way.
Many places were much better than Pit, but Pit was solid, reliable and open late.
Your pizza might be best, but if you have banker's hours...
Anyways, I digress.
Godfather's makes a bacon cheeseburger pizza that I sometimes have a craving for. I don't want to make the 1,600 trip just for a pizza and they don't deliver down here.
C'est la vie.
But when the number of tanks in your Army is getting bigger from capturing the enemy's, you're doing something right.
So far Ukraine has captured more Russian tanks than the Russians have destroyed Ukrainian tanks.
Total tank losses for Russia appear to be around 250 with 106 being captured by Ukraine. Ukraine has lost 67 tanks, but is actually up 39 from when the war began.
Considering that Russia has thousands of tanks, this is not a significant blow to their total number, but it's embarrassing.
The Gorilla Glue is holding nicely, but I want a fall-back.
So I ordered a set of stocks for my P220 from Midway. They did not warn that there were differences under the back strap, but...
Fucking Germans!
My older gun has a metal tab holding the mainspring.
The wood is relieved to clear this tab.
The plastic "slim" grips are not.
The bottom screw hole is misaligned by half a hole because of the interference between the tab and the backstrap.
What the slim grips are expecting to see is this:
The hammer strut, spring and retainer are completely different in the newer guns than mine.
Mark Novak recommended a book in this video:
You can get it on paper from ebay for about $55 shipped.
You can get it from Amazon for less than $15 if you have some form of Kindle.
I have selected the cheaper option and accepted the risk that Amazon kills it later.
My mother in law's Kindle Fire just died.
Because she doesn't have anything that uses a USB-C cable, we decided to give her mine; which uses a micro-USB like she already has.
Now both my phone and Fire use the same connector!
Huzzah!
Got my Unity spotlight installed!
It even works!
That's one less hole to let Florida into the car.
I am reminded of how badly I wanted a spotlight when I was delivering pizzas in Ames. People get stupid about their address matching the house to the point that you can only infer their address by their neighbor's numbers. In the old part of town, a wave of Victorian restorations made it near impossible to read anyone's street address because they didn't number them back then. The postman just knew who lived there by name.
I find myself explaining a lot things to some folks because I simply know more about the topic than they do.
It's not that I'm an expert, it's just that they know so damned little.
They can't comprehend a situation where Ukraine could be begging for assistance when it's winning.
It's winning NOW. (That makes a lot of assumptions but we'll accept Ukraine "winning" as a given).
What can be foreseen is the stuff making that winning possible running out in short order.
Munitions are being expended. If not replenished, the balance will shift.
If a steady supply of Javelins and Stingers is what's keeping the Ukraine in the war, and they're not getting them faster than they're being expended then YES they are winning and need to beg for more help.
Russia looks to be able to win this if they just keep grinding away. They're way more willing to expend lives to get a win than we are.
Pyrrhus might just get his name forgotten when the cost of the "win" is finally tallied up. China might even annex some land to their North and West because the Russian army will have been expended.
The keyless entry key-fob for the The Beast comes in two parts.
The rear part with the buttons is the remote transmitter. The front part with the key-blade is the key.
Surprisingly, for a GM keyless fob, both parts are very affordable.
The bottom one is an ebay cludge to get a flip-key instead of the fixed blade.
Tonight I discovered that the part numbers for the 2011-2013 Caprice PPV are the same as the 2008-2009 Pontiac G8.
While the Caprice never came with a flip-key, the G8 did!
I think I will wander over to the local Chevy dealer and see if they have the flip-end and have it cut for my key from the fixed example. Might have to put up with it having a Pontiac logo, but... hey!
What's also interesting is they're programmed separately from each other. The key section by starting the car with a known-good key then shutting it off and using the new key to start the car within 10 seconds of shutting it down. The transmitter section is done from a programming mode reached from the driver information center.
I am sitting here thinking heresy.
That the ultimate development of the 1911 pattern occurred in 1926 when they chambered it in .38 caliber.
The penultimate development were the changes from the M1911 to M1911A1.
Going back to flat mainspring housings and long triggers is retrograde.
Changing the dimensions isn't all bad, but it's not necessarily good.
But I dearly love my Gov't Model in .38 Super.
Even if I don't pack it in favor of lighter guns.
But I notice that The Beast is not near so carry unfriendly as The Precious was. Being intended for use by a uniformed officer wearing a gun-belt tends to leave more room for IWB carry. I have several excellent holsters for a 1911, so I might just start packing it again and get some yellowing on my pig-tooth ivory.
Once you get that intake manifold out the way, the starter is trivial to swap.
Marv got here just in time to help with that manifold.
Nine captive bolts in it and four were finger tight when I started. This might explain Bubba's intermittent, random misfire on cylinder 1. I swapped coil 1 and 2 while I had everything off the engine, so if it moves to cylinder 2 we'll know it's the coil.
All of the engine bay's lines and wires run on the driver's side and interfere with the removal every single part you need to take off to get at the starter.
This was not a hard job, it was a pain in the ass job.
While we had it apart, we took it upon ourselves to change the serpentine belt that was showing wear.
What a cluster fuck!
We fought that thing tooth and nail only to discover that you can't bring it over the alternator last. We got it to go on by going over the power steering pulley last. The service manual says water pump last.
Marv tried that and it kept losing the AC pulley.
Test drive shows everything works! Huzzah!
I think it's actually smoother, which lends credence to there being a small leak from the intake for quite a while.
PS: I totally understand why the online estimates were $1,200 for labor. I started at about 1130 with Marv joining me about 1400. We finished up about 1900 with three parts store trips.
You are a vanishingly small minority.
While I am big on minorities getting all the same rights as everyone else, there's an aspect of reality that's a hard number.
The very word, "minority".
What it means is you need help from the majority to have your demands stick.
It means if you boycott a business, if the majority keeps shopping there, your demands can be safely ignored.
Gun owners know about this when we boycott a business too. We're actually a majority of customers, but we're difficult to bring that whole mass to bear; but when we do... Ask McDonald's in 1993. Burger King, who stayed out of politics, thanked Mac Shack for the boost.
But Disney advocate(d?) against gun ownership and bans firearms from its parks. So many of us don't go there. Let Disney burn, says I.
But now the LGBTQ community is threatening Disney because Disney has noticed that being political is affecting the bottom line negatively and Disney wants to exit politics that have nothing to do with making movies, videos and running theme parks.
Write that down. The furor is that Disney is exiting political advocacy, not that it's decided to advocate against the LGBTQ community.
Talk about an "all or nothing" and "if you're not explicitly with us, you're against us" position for the LGBTQ community to make.
Why would Disney do this? I mentioned it. Because it's affecting the bottom line.
Gun owners alone weren't enough to change the conceal carry policies at the parks, but we're staying home or going to the competition.
Gun owners aren't the only group doing this and it's adding up.
It probably wouldn't have added up, but the LGTBQ community decided that it needed MORE rights than everyone else and alienated a lot of the people in the majority who would otherwise have remained supporters. In some instances pushed it far enough that those former supporters have become opponents.
A minority doesn't get anywhere by themselves, they need the majority to sympathize and support their cause or they are marginalized and become second class citizens.
Well, a minority that doesn't own the military and all the guns... But that's not the USA.
The ball is in your court, LGBTQ community. What you should have done is taken the win and returned to being your normal selves. What you did was to do what the people I thought were intolerant religious zealots and nut cases said you would. Began advocating for children to be exposed and indoctrinated as LGBTQ. Advocating that exposure and indoctrination happen younger and younger. Adopting teaching strategies that made NAMBLA seem stodgy and conservative.
You moved to normalize grooming and child molestation.
The majority doesn't agree. So where you go, they no longer follow.
Going to be doing the starter on my father in law's Colorado.
Because the put it where they did, you have to take the entire intake assembly off the engine to gain access.
You can almost see it through the wheel well, but you wouldn't be able to get to it without cutting.
The shop estimate for this job is $1,200. This looks like it might be a two-day job.
Ugh!
Because it's a cop car, there's a hole in The Beast where the spotlight used to live.
The Lovely Harvey and I are in agreement that that hole should be filled with a spotlight.
The correct one is hard to find used and when you do, they're asking $250 for just the light and are nearly always missing the mounting kit.
I've seen sellers asking for $350 for one.
If this was a rare, out of production, collectible, perhaps the prices would make sense.
But Unity still makes them and are happy to sell anyone a brand new light and mounting kit for $262.28 shipped and taxed from their Amazon store.
Also, Unity responds to questions in a timely manner.
I put out a "want to buy" on a Facebook group and someone offered me their light for $60. I said I'd take it if it was complete. They have not replied for three days. It's the internet age, you have hours to reply, not days.
The Lovely Harvey has dubbed the PPV "The Beast". Good name.
It's an odd driving experience.
Totally modern car. Excellent brakes, good mileage, plenty of get-up-and-go.
But if you take off lightly it sounds exactly like a 1970's land yacht! That quiet rumble and hearing the trans spooling.
Yet, you're surrounded by a modern car!
I'm digging it.
Those fancy, and expensive, wood stocks on my P220 decided to shed a Scrabble tile sized bit off the right panel. Right along the grain.
Dang it!
I am testing the ability of Gorilla Glue to hold it on.
The plastic stocks are still available and cheap, so might just have to get a pair... just in case.
When you make any semi-auto in .45 ACP your work is going to get compared to the Urfortyfive, The M1911 (or M1911A1 which is more common).
In its original form, the .45 ACP SIG-Sauer P220 doesn't even have a higher capacity.
What it is, though, is lighter. Half a pound lighter, which is a spare magazine's worth of mass. So for the same weight, you get seven more shots than the M1911A1.
You also get a DA/SA trigger and a firing pin block. The magazine release can be reversed, but that's the only control which can.
The sights are, theoretically, better; but I shoot the M1911A1 shown here much better than the P220 shown.
The grip has more girth, but feel is a personal thing and subjective.
It's plain-jane.
But, it's official. The Boy has selected a back-seat guardian from Build-A-Bear. I'm not sure the character's name is from "Turning Red" but he has dubbed it "Orange Cat".
Which .45 ACP is better?
With the small magazines, the SIG gives up one round to the S&W.
With the large magazines, the SIG gives up two.
The S&W is 0.2 lb. lighter at 2 lb. than the 2.2 lb. SIG with the smaller mags.
They are the same 2.2 lb. when you have 10 shots in the S&W and 8 in the SIG.
The M&P 45C shoots a bit tighter and to the point of aim for me.
The P220 is definitely prettier.
For everyday carry; I'm going to keep packing the S&W.
When I get invited to a BBQ, if open carry is allowed, I'm going to show off the more expensive and attractive SIG.
Soulless plastic is objectively better.
I will say it again.
The election of Donald Trump was a symptom not a cause.
The "MAGA world" doesn't care about Donald. It cares about America and not selling the place out to other nations for peanuts.
We're completely aware that Mittens isn't one of use and actively works at cross purposes to our desires.
We want the freedoms and liberties promised by The Constitution as our birthright.
Cradle to grave welfare from an oligarchy is not part of that promise.
Something The Lovely Harvey has not realized about getting the PPV is it's a complete, running, driveline which can be slipped under anything that actually looks cool.
We make a payment to ourselves every month and before too long we've got the money to get a '49 Styleline shell to drop on top of the PPV's mechanicals.
This is the core of hot-rodding.
Everyone forgets the M1917 when talking about US Mauser clones.
It's got a similar genesis as the M1903, "Wow, that 7x57mm Mauser sure was keen! Let's copy it to replace our current rifle. But let's change the cartridge... And the... And the..."
The Brits made a lot more changes than we did when copying the Mauser action, but that's what they were doing when making the Pattern 1913. That became the Pattern 1914 when they decided it wasn't prudent to switch calibers in mid-war (ask Italy and Japan about this and they would agree), but did want more rifles please. NOW, please.
Once their emergency needs were met, we realized that we didn't have near enough of our primary rifle to be in a war as well. So the Pattern 14 gets made in .30-06 and viola! M1917.
It's got controlled feeding:
And it takes stripper clips.
Fun fact: Because the magazine well on the P.14 was made to accept five rounds of rimmed .303 British ammo, it can accept six rounds of .30-06, plus one in the chamber.
The Lovely Harvey hates it, but it's what you get when you veto too often.
There's just nothing out there that's cool looking and doesn't cost so much I cannot make repairs let alone changes.
The cars which are ready to go, are stratospheric in price.
So I am going for a Camaro SS in Malibu clothing.
A "Chevy" Caprice PPV.
It's really a Holden WM Statesman with some small changes for the US police market.
Except for being entirely and completely bland in the styling department, it checks all the boxes.
V-8, rear drive... safety equipment out the wazoo.
Plus! Available at a price that leaves room for modifications. Like changing to a Pontiac G8 console and shifter.
Something that's kind of cool is recognizing people from the old Impala SS forum on the New Caprice forum.
One of the reasons I packed a S&W Model 59 all fall and most of winter was because you're not going to get that from a Gun Writer™ or any current issue of a Gun Magazine.
Why?
Because the secondary market is real.
There are lots of guns that are still perfectly acceptable for carry that have not been manufactured in years, if not decades.
There are many older versions of current production guns that fit this niche as well.
It is OK to carry an old gun!
You don't need to replace them with the newest hottestness (totally a real word).
What there is an utter dearth of in the Gun Writer™ scribblings is specific holster recommendations.
While guns are expensive, the gun makers are kind of willing to send writers samples.
I don't recall much more than "There are things called holsters, you should get one." from the Gun Writers™. One specific Gun Writer spent over 400 words saying that! I guess if you're being paid by the word, you use more of them.
I have a box of holsters around here, but I tend to three kinds. Two of which were contraindicated by space constraints of The Precious and since that car is dead and gone and will not be replaced... I should go back to trying the others again.
What makes a pistol a horse pistol?
I toss the term about quite a bit, but have I ever really made an objective definition?
The original term is for a large, muzzle loading, pistol that was holstered on the saddle rather than the person. Saddle pistol is a synonym. They were typically larger than average in both size and caliber.
The first time I applied it, though, I was talking about the Beretta M9.
The M9 is a very large gun for what it is and what it does.
But it's not that much larger than most other 9mm's.
It feels big. Larger than it is. A bit awkward and ungainly.
The SIG P220 doesn't feel like a horse pistol to me, nor does the M1911A1. The CZ 97B sure does.
I think it's a bit subjective, but I'm still working on being objective about it.
Took my P220 to the range. Picked up another 8-round magazine for it too.
The first time I've been shooting since I slammed The Precious into the tree.
When you don't use your on-hand for much for a month and a half, you do lose some fine control, and that affects your shooting.
100 rounds later...
I'm a bit wild.
It tends to fire low unless I take a LOT of time to line up the shot. Since the tritium is completely dead, I think I will get some replacement sights and will consider a shorter front sight.
I am fighting my glasses again too. I'd managed to overcome that and lack of practice has atrophied the skill learned already.
Looks like more range time is needed.
With a fresh target I tried some Mozambique drills. I was getting heart, heart throat instead of heart, heart, brain. That's from fighting the glasses, I've encountered this problem before.
By the end of the 100 rounds it was quite dirty and the slide was noticeably slow when chambering the first round from the magazine. Only one malfunction and that was me not making sure the magazine was fully seated when I did a "start with the chamber loaded, hammer down" drill.
At the end of the day, I prefer the M&P 45C to the P210 and I'm not even giving up capacity to carry a smaller gun.
The wood stock hits painfully on the second joint of my thumb, but that's not really an issue until about 40 rounds in. If I were to carry it like I carry my other full-size pistols, in a Miami Classic, there would only be 25 rounds with me. 29 with the M&P 45C...
Read the little paragraph where you're making a comment.
If your comment disappeared without a trace, it's because you did something I mentioned in that paragraph.
The most common reason that your comment did not get posted is you're making an anonymous comment and you didn't include your name at the end.
For example:
McThag, you've got the best blog ever and I eagerly await every update.
Will not be approved.
McThag, I disagree with everything you said and feel that your parents were likely never married.
- G. Random Commenter.
Will be.
This way I can reply to G.R. Commenter by name and try to better make my point or to show that my parents were, indeed, married at the time of my conception.
And logistics is how you keep that stomach full.
But, as Stalin once said, "Black humor is like food. Not everyone gets it."
That's because the Russians are bad at logistics.
A paraphrase from a German field marshal, "They've destroyed our rail system, how do the Americans plan on supplying their troops if they manage to invade?" And a bit later, "Who put that road there and where did all these fucking trucks come from?"
There won't be a redball express from Russia because they can't.
Things keep getting more and more interesting and I'm sick of living in interesting times.
Like most pistols that stay in production long enough the P220 has changed a bit over the years.
So, I took some pictures! Thanks once again to The Chomps Collection for the loan of the newer gun.
The newer gun appears to have abandoned the heavy-gauge sheet metal construction for the slide.
The Lovely Harvey finds the plastic stocks more comfortable and less "slippy". She continued to think so even after I mansplained the existence of textures on the 2010 model that she was already aware of.
She prefers the looks of the wood. It's hard to argue with that!
Wooden stocks for a P220 are $85 to $150 depending on what kind of wood you want them made from, with an average around $100.
I wondered why until I took a set off.
That's some pretty elaborate relieving to get them to fit. Even with CNC I'll bet it's time consuming.
If you mark a German made .45 ACP SIG P220 down as far as you did, I am going to buy it.
So there!
I don't think it came with the wooden stocks originally. They're dated April 19, 2007 and the serial of the gun traces to 1991.
The tritium in the sights is LONG dead.
I got a blue 7-rounder and a stainless 8-rounder; but no box, paperwork or gun-lock. Though I am certain I would have gotten that lock if I'd only requested it.
The double action trigger is a comfortable and smooth 11 lb. Single action a crisp and consistent 4 lb.
Now I just need to wait for The Boy to get to school and hit the range to see how it shoots. Assuming I can find some .45 ACP. One of those ammo boxes must have some in it. Too lazy to check right now and I'm still not supposed to be moving them around anyways.
For the people who're saying the Russians sent their B-Team in and are holding the Category A troops in reserve in case they successfully trigger NATO...
We're starting to learn which units were sent.
Not the back-up teams.
Though, maybe not an actual, real Mauser...
It shows all the earmarks of originally being an FN made Venezuelan contract gun it's a Golden State Arms Santa Fe Deluxe Mauser.
At any rate, it does show the similarity to the M1903A3.
Controlled round feeding.
Because it's converted from a military rifle, there's a stripper clip guide, assuming you want to remove the scope to use it.
The bolts are very similar:
The Santa Fe gun has an aftermarket safety so that you can mount a scope.
