Range

Mr Garabaldi, correctly, pointed out that the TOW from a Bradley got more tank kills in Desert Storm than the main gun from the Abrams.

Despite the main guns, theoretically, out ranging the TOW.

It's a great demonstration of max effective range vs max range.

I'd have to double check, but I think there were also a lot more Brads than Abrams deployed too.

Personally, I like the idea of the Bradleys in overwatch and us only having to use the coax to support the crunchies.

An MBT makes a dandy pill-box.

In fact, most of the combined arms range trips with our platoon embedded with an infantry company led to us hardly firing a main gun round at all.

And that first main gun shot caused our infantry support to "rescue" us from the exploding tank.

It was a night op and they'd never been around us firing before, so when we sent the HEAT round downrange after a "BMP" they thought the muzzle blast was something else....

I was confused to be lifted into the air by my straps and being assured by the grunts that I was "OK" and "help was coming"!

My TC was more combative about being rescued.

It's way funnier now that it was at the time.

Changes

Once, in another life, I was a dumbass tanker.  A DAT.

I was primarily a 19K, an M1 Abrams tanker.  A CDAT, because we were computerized.

My single enlistment with tanks makes me an expert on tanks compared to an unwashed civilian.

Gaming and doing research to achieve a greater sense of willing suspension of disbelief for Twilight: 2000 makes me better informed on tanks to a point.

My research goals have an end date.  "What would be reasonably fielded by 1997 when the nukes started flying and Lima, Ohio becomes s self lighting parking lot?"

That means I didn't really keep up with all the latest developments.

One place that shows clearly is watching a vid of a loader in an M1A2.

My M1A1(HA) didn't have that little deflector aft of the breech to knock the case-stub into a catch box.

We didn't have that box either.

The stubs came out the back of the gun and hit the floor to burn our ankles.

I also didn't have to lower the deflector to start the loading process.

I understand WHY that deflector and the box are there.  It's a grim story.  1AD at Graf was "vacuum loading."  That's keep the next round in your lap to speed up your engagement.  Everything is timed.

Round 1 was fired, round 2 thrown in the breech and round 3 taken from the rack.

Round 2 hadn't closed the breech, so the loader put round 3 on the floor to seat round 2.

The primer on the stub lit the combustible portion of the 120mm round and it started smouldering.

Loader and TC got out.  TC went back in for the gunner when the round went off on the floor.

TC and Gunner dead.  Driver severely injured.  Loader fine, but in a LOT of trouble.

Because of when I entered service, I learned vacuum loading for the 105mm gun on the M60A3 and we used it a couple of times with the 105 on the M1(IP).  It was a forbidden practice from day one, but it took a while for it to stop happening.

Faster engagements were awarded.  I've got the Arcoms and AAMs to show for it.

As it turned out, I'm faster doing it right than the prohibited way.  Sub 3-second with a 105 and just a whisper faster than 4-seconds with a 120 HEAT round, faster with sabot.

We prided ourselves on engagement times.

Why?

Because the Soviet autoloader was slower than we were.  We could get off two rounds to their one consistently and that mean survival when there were COUGH COUGH COUGH more Soviet tanks than ours.

We learned to this standard out of pure pride of accomplishment and not from a real belief that we'd be needing the skills any time soon.

The one-sided engagements like 74 Easting are testimony to the skills of both sides.

Which brings us, in a round about way, to sending modern NATO armor to Ukraine.

First thing we have to remember is Ukraine actively remade their armed forces on the NATO model after losing Crimea.

They're learning to fight like we fight.

It's been questioned if the Ukrainians can learn the NATO tanks and I think it should be easy for them if they're already tankers.

Poland is doing it right now.  Changing from Warsaw Pact doctrine and equipment to NATO.

Polish tankers have reported that everything about crewing an M1 is simpler and easier than the T-72.

That's important.

I think the big problem with sending NATO tanks is that a couple battalions worth isn't meaningful.

I'm confident that a crew trained to the same standards I met in 1988 can mete out a 5-1 kill ratio.

5:1 on the top of the line the Soviets would have thrown at us, not the T-62M we keep seeing in footage.  Those things are meat for the grinder for the old APFSDSDU round I had, and the new rounds are better.

All of that assumes we're going to give them a chance and fight when the sun's out.

NATO armor owns the fucking night.

Dead Links

One of the recurring problems with this blog is dead links.

There was a blogger who detailed the swords of the Napoleonic wars...  Gone.

But the one that hurts is Echo Sling being dead.

Erin found them first and I recommended them highly.

They're gone.  Dammit!

Let's Take A Knap

Will Lord, making an obsidian dagger in real time.

I'm not sure the Googoo can do such advanced stone work, but it's neat to watch.

Overqualified

Still plinking along with Sabers and...

I realized while making a couple of characters for the world and assigning skill levels that I am vastly overqualified compared to the average trooper in the American West of 1899.

I qualified sword and shield in the SCA.

I passed the saber course the WW1 reinactors put on for British cavalry.

I've read and practiced some of what's in the official saber manual for the time period.

Because of my, brief, dalliance in WW1 cavalry reinacting, I've even done some shooting from horse back.  Spoiler: I suck at it.

But all of that puts me head and shoulders over the typical US Army cavalryman who barely got an explanation of which end of the rifle was where the bullets came out before being tossed into situations where they might have to shoot someone!

And they were considered to be better trained than their predecessors who were in the actual thick of the Indian wars!  By 1899 things had calmed down a LOT and there were many fewer instances of shoot at someone.

Larf!

Every once and a while I search for Artillery Lugers on Gunbroker.

I don't want one.

I can't afford one.

But I like looking at the pictures.

I found one where it got to just over three grand without hitting the reserve.

Definitely too rich for my blood, but it'd automatically relisted.

And only got to $2,500 before the end.

Then $1,600...

I wonder what the next step down will be.

I've watched this progression before.

The people who were bidding big before check out because they know the seller isn't selling and the watchers make the same call, so it never bids up as high again.

On occasion, I've been able to snag something for cheap when the relist as a new, lower, reserve as the seller gives up and all the high rollers are long disinterested in the seller, if not the item.

That Would Pair Well

Kel-Tec is releasing a new version of their KSG.

In .410!

Looks like we're getting a brace with the Judge in it!

$500 MSRP coming in July.  Plenty of time to save.

Gen 1 Again

Lipsey's is doing another exclusive with Glock.

This time, a proper Glock 17 Gen 1 instead of Austrian military markings.

 

I might just go scorched earth on the gun-safe to snag one.

My Glock nostalgia extends to this generation because that's the one I carried on the Czech-German border.

Cyclone In Hawkeye Colors

 

1970 Mercury Cyclone!

A very rare bear.

I recognized it because a buddy of mine had three of these things, he was obsessed.

Like this one, all had a 429 motor.

We saw this one waiting in line for our laps at Daytona on Monday.

Just For Fun

Bought the official pictures of my track day.

Their photographer used settings which deleted all impression of speed, sadly.

You also cannot tell that I had my left blinker on!

Reliable For All Time

 

Took Willard's Astra 600/43 to the range to find out if he'd wasted his money on KKK Triple K magazines.

He hasn't.

Each magazine handled a full load of 7-rounds of 115gr Tulammo steel case with aplomb.

Fed no problem, locked to the rear on empty, the whole deal.

I still shoot the thing way low, but that's not a magazine issue.

It's still an unpleasant gun to shoot.  9mm isn't meant to be a blow-back round.

Giving Their Cages A Rattle

 I wrote my state Congress Creatures today.

I see that Constitutional Carry is, once again, meeting resistance from the same corners of the state legislature as always.

What's the problem up there?

Is it that nobody understands the term?  Are they hoping that we voters can be fooled into thinking that a $0 concealed carry permit is the same as no permit required at all?

Is it that Disney has complained that some tourist who doesn't vote here or for you might succumb to the vapors upon seeing a firearm carried by a filthy unwashed civilian might cause them to go to California to spend their money?

Is it that they feel a need to embarrass Governor DeSantis and hurt his chances at running for President in 2024?

Is it old-fashioned racism because genuine Constitutional Carry will mean that blacks and other minorities will be able to carry what they will, where they will without interference from the police?

I genuinely want to know what the problem is.

It's been clear for years that Tallahassee doesn't understand what gun-control is.  The bills passed and signed by, now, Senator Scott informed us of that in spades.

Considering that there's no DisneyWorld in your district, ignoring The Mouse should be simple, especially with an honest voter saying they'd rather have more freedoms than fewer.

And it is the job you campaigned for.  Representing my wants and needs in the state capitol.  I believe there was an oath to defend my rights in there as well.

Are you as good as your word?

I predict a form letter response and nothing more.

Sadly.

It Sure Looks As If

Constitutional Carry in Florida is hitting a bit of a snag.

The assholes in Tallahassee are trying to pitch a free permit as a substitute for actual freedom.

So, instead of $50 every seven years, it's $0 every seven years.

THAT is what they are trying to claim is Constitutional Carry up there.

It's clear they don't understand the term.

The rumor mill, though, mentions a reason that disgusts me.

If the rumors are correct the stumbling block is that black people will be able to carry guns without getting permission from the state.

WHENEVER THEY WANT!!!!!  HOWEVER THEY WANT!!!!!

Well, yes, that's the fucking point of Constitutional Carry.

Concealed carry, open carry, day or night; without The State granting permission.

Because you shouldn't have to ask permission to exercise a right.

I keep checking the Bill of Rights and both the Federal and State Constitutions and I'm not seeing how race matters to one's rights.

What matters is if you're a person.

Black people are, indeed, persons.

So are whites, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Catholics, greasy wops and filthy Scots.

I'm sick of a supposed Republican supermajority with a Republican governor failing session after session with excuse after excuse.

It's Built In

I've been reminded of something that happened a couple years ago.

A man named Jeffery Spaide decided he'd had enough of his asshole neighbors and killed them both in the street.

Having had a couple asshole neighbors, I can understand the urge.

Western Civilization, and by extension, it's members have a "fuck this shit!" mode built right in.

Mr Spaide had reached the limit of what was going to deal with and said, "fuck this!" by straight up murdering the source of the irritation.

Western Civ as a whole as a similar outlook.

The failure of prohibition is an example.  Too many people to arrest and imprison simply ignored the law and kept buying booze.

We're seeing a bit of this with the war on (some) drugs.  The news focuses hard on the bottom end cases, but so did the movement that got prohibition passed.

Betcha, betcha:  There are a lot of people doing hard drugs you'd never suspect because they're managing their habit successfully.

But we're rapidly approaching a critical mass where it won't matter what the government and the people who call their tune say; the people are going to go their own way.

I'm hearing from non-political folks my wife knows who are asking, "why is the government deciding this?"

Indeed.  Why?

They're noticing that they've no voice.

They're noticing that the police are ineffective because no matter who they arrest, or how often, it doesn't even slow down the criminal.

They're noticing that the elections have a lot of obvious from the ground level problems and are wondering why nothing is being done.

They're noticing an ever smaller group of people is making sweeping decisions about their lives.

They have discovered they are not OK with it.

They are also managing to communicate with others.

The preference cascade is poised.

I have hope.

Books

I remember, once upon a time, hunting down books on the various hunks of military equipment in Twilight: 2000.

Some of those books got very expensive because the information was very niche.

And much of the information on Soviet stuff was just flat wrong.  But we had no way of knowing at the time.

Today, nearly everything I need for T2K levels of accuracy is readily available on the internet.

It's glorious in its way.

I had no idea, for example, that Czechslovakia never adopted the AK or converted to 5.45.  That Poland made their own 5.45 AKM instead of just paying the licensing fees (like East Germany did).

Detailed information about armor and gun performance was simply not available from an unclassified source.

The future is kinda neat sometimes.

That's A Flashback

I cannot remember if it was Technomad or Gerber who always had one of these novels, but I was recently reminded of the series on Facebook.

The Barry Sadler series, Casca.

I never read any of them because I have a policy of not reading any series with more than 3-books that someone is still publishing if I had not already read the first couple books.

Especially a series that spans decades.

Too often the cliffhanger is never resolved in the most recent book and the author is long dead.  Worse, the author is long dead and the books keep coming!  Like Casca!

It's an interesting premise, but I can see it wearing thin.  Like Forrest Gump's amazing ability to be at every major historical event and meeting every memorable historical figure...

DO NOT TAUNT!

Double checking some Twilight: 2000 things.

The line which caused so much consternation with Neo/Open/LibreOffice was the one about the 155mm ADAM shell.

That's Area Denial Artillery Munition.

This lays a minefield of 36 little wedge shaped bouncing betty style mines.

There's a manually deployed version of the mine called the M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition.

The warning section in TM 43-0001-36 is the interesting part.

• -- ONCE ARMING STRAP IS LIFTED, DEPLOYMENT IS MANDATORY.  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RE-SAFE.
• -- SAFE SEPARATION TIME IS 25 SECONDS AFTER STRAP IS LIFTED.  LEAVE AREA IMMEDIATELY AFTER EMPLOYMENT AND DO NOT RETURN TO AREA
• -- THE M86 MINE HAS A SELFDESTRUCT FEATURE WHICH MAKES IT EXPENDABLE: THEREFORE, DO NOT RETURN TO AREA.
• -- DO NOT DEPLOY MINE BELOW -25°F.  IF MINE IS DEPLOYED BELOW -25°F, MINE MAY SELF-DESTRUCT EITHER IN A 5-MINUTE TIME-FRAME, OR LATER THAN THE PROGRAMMED SELF-DESTRUCT TIME-FRAME.
• -- DO NOT REMOVE NOSE PROTECTOR OR NOSE PROTECTOR TAPE.  REMOVAL OF TAPE MAY DAMAGE THE ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION (EMR) AND ELECTROSTATIC DISCHARGE (ESD) PROTECTIVE PAINTS.
• -- IF ONE OR MORE TRIPLINES ARE FOUND DEPLOYED PRIOR TO USE, DO NOT ARM OR ATTEMPT TO USE THE PDM.  TURN IN MINE FOR DISPOSAL.

This cute little pie wedge fires out trip lines out to 20 feet from the mine and if you bump one, pop, BANG!

There's stats for this beastie in High Tech!  8d [2d] cr ex.  Which I cannot figure out from the 21g charge of Comp A5 which should give 2d-1 cr ex...  Grenades and mines don't seem to follow the explosives formulas given in Basic Set and High Tech...

I've Gone And Done It

I just signed up with Utreon so as to see what I've been missing with regards to what YouTube won't allow.

It's a fair amount.

I haven't signed up to get paid or to pay anyone with it, but that could change.

Is There ANY Wheat In This Chaff?

The more I try to figure out what's actually going on in Ukraine, the less convinced I am that one can.

The quality of the information is poor from both sides, and they are obviously biased in favor of their own position.

If any given source is correct, then this war should have ended months ago.

The only thing I think is certain is that Russia did not expect this to be as hard as it has ended up being.

When they invaded, I figured that they'd have walked over Ukraine as fast as we'd done Iraq.

At the time, I considered the Russian military a professional, organized and modern combined arms force.

It doesn't appear to have ever been that good.

Their obvious losses say a lot about that.

But Ukraine is stretched thin and they're hanging on by a damn thread even if they're giving a good account of themselves.

In a war of attrition, numbers matter and they don't have them.

They might have local superiority, but don't have overall.

What will matter is Putin.  The exits are his winning, his quitting or him being removed from power.

I don't see him quitting or stepping down.

I don't think Russia invading and then making Ukraine a puppet state is a good thing, and I can certainly see Poland and Finland being terrified of Russia getting away with that.

I am also a bit scared that preventing Russia from making Ukraine a puppet state is going to drag our asses into a nuclear war; I'm getting really pissed at our leaders ham-fisted bullshit wrecking our economies over it.

License To Drive

 

Yesterday Marv and another friend went to The NASCAR Foundation's "License to Drive" event.

It's just silly fun, not racing or even pushing the car that hard.

But it was gratifying to see my friend driving my old Caprice and not being outperformed by the Mustang ahead of him.  He has the money to revive the project after all the neglect I'd heaped on her.

He had something of the same experience seeing his old car in the rear view!

Even at 80 mph the event maximum speed of 55 mph, it takes a lot of right wheel to go straight on the slight bank of the tri-oval across the finish line.

The Beast was very well mannered, as befits an Australian Pursuit Special.  I did the Main Force Patrol proud!

Thanks to Marv for providing and running the camera.

It Went Well

Lost a couple of apps I don't use anymore, but I'm now running Ubuntu 22.04.1 on Ye Ancient Lenovo T420S!

Huzzah!

Unrelated, the version of LibreOffice before was 6.4, and not the current 7.4.  My T2K files open correctly, but there's a glitch now saying they're locked and I can't edit them.

I remember fixing this once, and I think it's just rebooting the other machine which fixes it.

What Could Go Rong

I just stabbed "OK" on upgrading from Ubuntu 20 to 22.

Pray for me.

The Face Of White Suppremacy

Asians continue their slow march to becoming white.

They are now capable of being white supremacists who will murder Asians out of racial hatred of Asians...

Uh...

I know everyone on the gun-control side was eager to dance in the blood, but...

I will shut up now, because you should never interrupt your opponent making a mistake.

Impressed At His Restraint

Willard has not called to gloat that I was "forced" to put a different grip module on the P320 he gave me.

I am impressed at how well he's controlling himself!

I am very tempted to ask him if he'd prefer black or tan for a grip module.

I deeply suspect that he's got one too he hasn't mentioned.

As Many As Smallpox

55gr 5.56x45mm from a 20" 1:12 pencil barrel works.

It worked well enough that the Russians Soviets copied the idea based on data they'd accumulated in Vietnam.

While improving the materials for the furniture on the A2 was something that needed to happen, and flat-tops give a flexibility unheard of in 'Nam...

I'm still not convinced we needed to change to 1:7 and should not have acquiesced to the Belgians in 1980.

I know I've read treatise after treatise about how to improve on M855, and how that leads to using heavier rounds; I don't think I've seen a comparison between M193 from a 1:12 barrel compared to a 77gr SMK from a 1:7.

Just Like Except

Caught a video about a "1911 that takes P320 magazines."

I went in thinking, "NEAT!" because I kinda think that double stack 1911's are cool.

And, despite the cool, magazines are the frustrating part.

By the time I was done, the list of things they'd changed from a 1911 to what they were showing told me...

This isn't even close to being a 1911 anymore.

Not necessarily bad, but not what they're billing it to be.

The barrel lock up is Hi-Power.

The grip safety is gone...

A 1911 slide (with modifications) will go on...

Yeah, it's its own thing.

I Have Altered The Deal

People are doing some in depth analysis of the pistol brace ruling from ATF.

Among the surprises is violations of 922r.

A rifle can't have more than 10 Godless foreign parts in it, but pistols can have as many as you want.

ATF is specifically saying that you can't just change the Godless foreign parts count to be in compliance because it was already made in violation.

So your choice is surrender or destroy.

Anyone else sick of the "once an X always an X" shit from ATF yet?  

PS: This is my 14,000th published post.  Damn!

Warhammer Fantasy Role Play

I have consulted with FuzzyGeff and we are going to convert 1st edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play to GURPS for Technomad!

The initial read says that it's going to be simple.

The magic systems are actually similar enough that porting the GURPS spell list over will do.

From there it's just racial and character templates.

Actually easier than Traveller.

Such A Beautiful Day

I decided to (finally) put the fog light housings in The Beast!

Before:

After:

Next stop: Wiring.

The lights need connected to 12v and ground.

The relay that controls it needs switched power to send to the switch in the dash.  The switch leads to a ground.

When I was under there, I found and removed the siren.  The siren wiring is my path from the engine compartment to under the dash!  Just need to find the siren bundle under there.

Nothing too hard.

Justice

The present brouhaha about pistol stabilizing braces is an injustice.

No doubt about it.

But, you have to remember that this is also about the law, and the law is only tangentially related to justice most of the time.

The reason there's a lack of sympathy from a few quarters is they warned that the process that ATF had used to allow braces was the same flawed, and likely illegal, process we'd condemned repeatedly when ATF used it to restrict our rights.

I have sympathy for the people who are getting caught up in this.

If the upper estimate is correct, 40-million people.

It sucks for them.

It's not clear what they should do and I don't think that anyone set out to break the law.  If they had, they would have just put a normal stock on their SBR and called it done.  Instead they were led to believe that they weren't breaking the law because ATF exceeded their authority in telling them they could make an SBR without registration.

Lots of people, however, were definitely making a braced pistol as a means of obtaining a short barreled rifle without going through the process of getting a tax stamp.  This is likely why ATF is reversing their ruling which was originally intended to allow braces to be used for their stated purpose.

In a couple of locales, this also sidestepped state and local laws against owning a, so-called, assault-weapon or a prohibition on NFA items.

These folks are really sweating now.  They're also being very vocal.

Are their voices being heard where the laws can be changed?  Because changing the law is all that will save them from jail if they keep their gun.

We're also hearing from the people whom these things were originally intended to help.

One impassioned post from someone with limited arm use who shot a pistol from a bipod until that got declared a vertical grip and is now poised to lose his brace because of this ruling.  It's not even a legal issue for him, it's the ability to do something he enjoys at all.  Ever notice how much legislation is aimed at preventing people from having fun?

The problem isn't even ATF.  The problem is the law.  Fix the law and the ATF gets corrected by default.

Get your congress creatures to tack an NFA repeal onto EVERYTHING.  Especially things that the liberals feel they must have.

But "our" side is working loopholes and hoping the courts save us.

Eventually, the courts just might.  Until then, someone is staring down felony charges, or even a felony conviction because they have a less effective rifle that's difficult to conceal carry.

Updated

Just for fun, I looked up when the various office apps updated.

Apache Open Office last updated on July, 22 2022.  It split from the original Open Office in 2012.

LibreOffice was last updated on January 12, 2023.  It split from OGOOo in 2011.

The version of NeoOffice I have on The Mac side of things is 3.4 released on October 11, 2013!  It's based, in turn on OGOOo 3.1.1.  Ancient.

I think I'm impressed that the old version on The Mac opens stuff I've modified with the newer LibreOffice.

Two Ecks

The.  Verbal.  Delivery.  Of.  Many.  Gun.  Rights.  YouTube.  Videos.  Is.  Plodding.

But if you select 2x on the playback speed, they suddenly sound like normal conversation.

It's like a revelation!

Never mind that, for the most part, I'd much rather READ what these people have to say than to listen to them wander around the point for half the video.

Video forcing me to go at their pace instead of mine makes the experience irritating to painful many times.

Ceci N'est Pas Un Char

This article reminds me of a story.

One of the things the cannon cockers do is to train for direct fire.

You never know when you might be near to being over-run and a direct hit from a 155mm round is nothing to sneeze at.

At some point in live fire training, our commanding general must have felt the M109 crews were getting a bit too confident in their ability to deliver fire directly.

He whirled onto our range just as my tank was getting ready to start our table and he commandeered us to the range where the arty guys were.

He set us up "head to head".  Fire as many rounds at the target as you can when you get the "go" order.

We were confused, but it was simple enough.

GO!

Gunner, HEAT, SPG!

Identified!

UP!

FIRE!

On the way!

That took us three seconds.  The range was, in our minds, ridiculously close because we and the target were stationary.

HIT!  Re-engage!

UP!

FIRE!

On the way!

Five seconds.

HIT!  Re-engage!

UP!

FIRE!

On the way!

BOOM! from the M109.

CEASE FIRE!

The arty guys are kinda looking around embarrassed.

The general screams at them, "YOU ARE NOT FUCKING TANKERS! THAT TANK KILLED THREE OF YOU BEFORE YOU GOT OFF EVEN ONE ROUND AND H-E AGAINST THE FRONTAL ARMOR WOULD JUST MAKE THEM MAD AT YOU!"

We, diplomatically in my mind, didn't mention that the Ma Deuce would have sufficed for a 109.

No You Idiots

"Constitutional Carry" does not mean "permitless concealed carry" or "free carry permits".

It means carry however the citizen wants, without a permit or permission.

It even concedes to some gun-free zoning, but the core of it is that as long as the citizen can have a gun, they can carry that gun.

Openly, concealed, semi-concealed...

Pistol, rifle...

As long as we use our manners, there shouldn't be any problems.

But the "what about the tourism dollars?" crowd is terrified some foreigner from someplace that bans guns, like New York, will see a holster without a uniform and not spend money at Disney.

There's a part of me that thinks that's a feature of constitutional carry and not a bug. ;)

But everyone knows what constitutional carry means, except the Florida Senate.

If you're voting here, you might wanna remind your state congress creature who brought them to the dance and that you know what the term is supposed to mean.

Handy FL GOA link to send an (editable) form letter to the Tallahassee Swamp Tower.

Swing And A Miss

Representative Gaetz has introduced HR-374 to abolish the BATFE.

Here's the entire text from his office's website:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE

This Act may be cited as the "Abolish the ATF Act". 

SEC. 2. ABOLISHMENT OF THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS, AND EXPLOSIVES.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is hereby abolished.

Matt, that ain't gonna fix a goddamn thing!

Who takes over for them?

The FBI?  IRS?  Coast Guard?

The problem isn't the agency, though they do suck, it's the laws they're empowered to enforce.

Eliminate the gun laws they're being abusive about, and the problem solves itself.

I hate to admit it, but nuking the entire BATFE is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The E part of it is valuable.

Good!

Alec Baldwin, firearms expert, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for breaking all four rules of gun safety.

The person hired to be the on-set firearms expert, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was likewise charged.

Shut Up Bigot

Ms Jones,

To say that I cannot criticize an ugly sculpture because I am white is racist.

It's bigoted.

So, y'all can just fuck right off with your demand that I not call that ugly abomination an insult to Dr King and his legacy.

I am constantly amazed at the amount of ugly brought to bear when attempting sculpture associated with Dr King.

I worry that the color of the artist skin matters far more than the content of their character (or artistic talent) when selecting sculpture to honor Dr King.

I think we know the content of Ms Jones' character.

PS: Nothing about being an unfunny "comedian" or bad actress gives you any authority to tell me what to do.  What would Dr King say, Ms Jones, about you being a racist?

Curiouser And Curiouser

I downloaded LibreOffice for Win7.

The odt opens fine in it.

I think that SoftwareJanitor is onto something about the fonts.

I'll keep pecking at it!

Speculation

There's precedent, so you might be OK: but...

ATF might not have the power to waive the fee to register the SBR-you-thought-was-a-pistol.

The power to do an amnesty is part of the law, and their regulation reversing their previous regulation doesn't appear to conform to that.

Never mind that there's a lawyer's bonanza in the semantics of the situation as well.

Registration is allowed for two situations.

If you're making an NFA item and if you're receiving an NFA item.

If YOU added a pistol brace to your pistol, then you made it, fill out Form 1 and you should be good.  Oh, and don't forget to get it engraved with your information.

But what if you bought it already made?

That should have been on a Form 4.

The lawyers will be debating this.

It appears that ATF is going to allow Form 1 registration of guns shipped in that configuration from the factory.

DON'T FORGET TO HAVE IT ENGRAVED WITH YOUR INFORMATION!

The potential trap here is ATF might not have the power to offer what they're offering and that an NFA amnesty is required to let you off the hook.

They sure as shit don't want to do one of those because there will be a flurry of people "finding" a drop-in auto-sear, lightning link or "I just noticed that extra hole in my receiver, isn't that odd?"

Living Life With Blinders On

You are absolutely correct!  The ATF has no power to rewrite the law.

Where you're wrong is when the ATF rewrote the law.

They rewrote the law when they said that something which was, rather obviously, a short barreled rifle was a pistol.

That they did it repeatedly does not matter.

They had no power to change the law.

What we have here isn't them rewriting the law, but restoring the regulations to conform to the law.

If you're not going to see that, you're going to be hurting in 120 days from when it enters the Federal Register.

This is exactly like the sheriff saying he's not going to enforce a given law.

Their refusal to enforce doesn't make the activity legal.

Their refusal doesn't mean a new sheriff will also refuse to enforce a given law.

So you should stop wasting your time with the fight that ATF didn't have the power to reverse themselves when it leads to the ATF never had the power make your unregistered short barreled rifle legal without a tax-stamp.

The fight you might win is convincing the courts that 10-40 million short barreled rifles are causing no trouble other than merely existing and that short barreled rifles shouldn't be regulated any differently from any other firearm.  Throw in a sprinkling of "in common use" too!

The courts will be moving glacially on this, and you might be in jail for quite a while while they move.

It might be faster to get people elected to strip the NFA down a couple notches.

Except I CAN Do The Math

Getting up on your soapbox and condemning every homosexual for when a child molester, who happens to be gay, is exactly like condemning every gun owner for a mass shooting.

EXACTLY.

A statistical fact is the vast majority of child molesters are some kind of gay.

And they are still a vanishingly small percentage of homosexuals.

I don't remember the name for it but it's a statistics phenomenon where a subset appears larger than it is because it's part of a small set of numbers.

But the people up on said soapbox don't care.

They're approaching it from a pre-condemnation of Teh Gheys because they have an invisible friend whose employees can't read the book he "wrote."

The crime of pederasty is their excuse to sermonize against Teh Gheys.

Let me do the reading for you.

That section condemning Teh Gheys is condemning pederasts; not Teh Gheys.  You know, the assholes that triggered the sermon against Teh Gheys?

You wanna condemn pederasts?  I'm right there with you.

You wanna blame all homosexuals for the crimes of pederasts?  You're on your own and I stand against you.

Never mind that your invisible friend reserves judgement for themselves.  That's in your book too, or did you miss that part like you missed that He's fine with buggery as long as it isn't with kids.

I should dig it up again.

The idea that being gay is against God is more recent than a lot of people realize and it's from cultural norms which were subsumed into Christianity.

Most of the traction comes from a different section of Your Invisible Friend's Guide To Life.  "Be fruitful and multiply," or some variation on that.

Homosexuality leads to not porking out kids, and He wants us to have babies.  Flip side, as long as you're leaving kids all over the place, there's no problem with Ghey secks.

But most people are nearly completely ignorant of their own theology and are entirely too trusting of the clergy to interpret their book for them.

Brick Wall

The only programs which open my odt for T2K properly are on the Mac side of things.

Anything that looks fine in NeoOffice or OpenOffice that runs on Mac is messed up in LibreOffice.

Once I did some moving things around, I can get a copy that works in OpenOffice on Win7, but it's fucked up in LibreOffice.

It's a really strange glitch on one line that won't fix.  If the text overlaps a tab, it takes off of the right margin like there's a tab off the page to the right.

To open in LibreOffice, I'm going to have to retype this bitch.

Saving to rtf didn't help.

The entire point of an open document format was to be able to cross platforms with it.

It's sure failing like a mofo.

On the plus side, it's JUST the T2K odt doing this strange shit, so retyping on Win7 should probably work.

Player Characters

SAS Rogue Heroes is a war miniseries showing how player characters approach the idea of being soldiers in EVERY military campaign I've ever ran.

It's almost a documentary on the military murderhobo mindset.

Spelled Just Like It Sounds

"Terävä Jääkäripuukko" is a knife you can get from Varusteleka in Finland.

The amusing thing about people not being able to pronounce it is that it really is spelled just like it sounds.

It's just the arrangement of the letters are radically different from English.  We're not used to the Finnish rules.

Terra VAH YEAH car ee poo ko

Piece of cake!

It means sharp hunting knife, in case you were curious.

Lemme Try To Explain Better

Way back when, in 2010 or 2011 the first person to design a stabilizing pistol brace looked at what they were creating.

They'd read about how ATF went after people with Broomhandle Mausers and Hi-Powers who'd put the stocks which were designed for the guns on them.

Note: This was before the ATF granted the exemption for original and original design stocks for C&R guns.

Since his design wasn't going to be used like a stock, but did stick out the back like a stock, he asked ATF for clarification.

If it was ruled that it made an SBR, then there would be no point in continuing his work.

ATF ruled that it wasn't a stock.

What's important here is that the ATF ruled, back then, that it wasn't a stock in the exact same way that it just ruled that is today.

If your entire objection to the recent ruling is that they don't have the authority to rescind that earlier ruling because they've no legislative authority...  You're also saying that the earlier ruling exempting braces from being stocks is illegitimate because ATF has no legislative authority.

I didn't want to be right about it, but I did say we'd be where we are today about seven years ago.

What we do have today is 10-40 million people who were led to believe they weren't doing anything wrong by the very agency seeking to punish them for listening to them.

It really should be a slam dunk to get legislation passed to keep it from happening... yet.

Even if it'd die in the senate and be vetoed, we should still be introducing a bill making SBR's legally no different from any other rifle.  Get our representatives out there talking about the injustice of punishing people who made the mistake of trusting a government agency.

Inform people that the only reason for SBR's being on the NFA is because it was designed with the idea that pistols would be banned completely.

Worth A Watch

Listen to this sermon, people of the choir!

Might just get a copy of the book cited.

Geekery

There was a bit of sturm and drang about Boba Fett's ship name.

For ever and ever, we've been calling it Slave 1.

Since at least when the Kenner model of it was released for Empire.

But it was never called Slave 1 on screen.

Not even once that I saw.

A ship has been called Slave 1 on screen though.

Jango Fett's ship was called Slave 1 in an episode of The Clone Wars.

And that ship was destroyed.

That kind of implies that Boba's ship was never Slave 1.

I know, "Shut up, Nerd!"

How Hard Was It?

The set of tools I take on trips came in a blown-plastic fitted case.

Harvey bought it for me almost 24 years ago.

The latches finally died.

This has replaced it!

I ditched the 12-point 1/2-drive stuff because I never use it.  I might slip in a couple of 6-point 1/2-drive sockets for lug nuts later on.

While putting up chicken wire to prevent cat-escape on the screened porch (it also prevents claw damage) I noticed my handy-dandy box for my 1/4-drive sockets had also lost a latch!

It doesn't show, but the one on the right is busted.

While finding a replacement for the big set was pretty simple; go to Lowe's pick it out, head home.  Finding an appropriate replacement for the smaller one wasn't.

I liked that yellow box.

Nobody seemed to have anything like it.

We went to a craft shop (Michael's), Target and Wal Mart without finding anything exactly like it.

The "this will do" choice at Wal Mart didn't get purchased because the checker (me) couldn't find the UPC to scan it in and said, "fuck this" and abandoned the cart in the check out area.

Wal Mart just isn't nice enough to keep going once anything goes wrong there.

I tried Amazon, but couldn't figure out the right search terms to narrow the choices down to what I wanted.

Searching for the dimensions of the yellow box got me to Home Depot's site and then got me this:

Everything but my long extension fits and with room to spare.  I need to add some deep well metric sockets now.

Banned?

Every time I hear about a magazine ban, I think of this:

September 13, 1994 date on that magazine.

Restricted to LE only.

And in my greasy hands in 2014.

This is not my oldest Glock 17 magazine.

This is not my newest Glock 17 magazine.

Neither my newest or oldest mags even bother with a date.

Sure, you can figure out the newest mags are post-a-specific-date by feature, but there's nothing stamped on them.

There are literally millions of Glock 17 magazines out there that don't give a single clue about when they were made that will work just fine in ANY Glock which accepts a 17-round magazine.

That's not a single model of Glock, by the way.

The horse is out of the barn.

You Don't Know What You're Talking About

Who is the worst person to talk to about the effectiveness of a tank?

A tanker.

Who is the worst person to talk to about the effectiveness of a rifle?

An infantryman.

"HUH?" I hear you say.

When we signed for our "brand new" M1(IP) we took on a loadout of M900 APFSDSDU.

I was not told how well it performed against a rolled homogeneous armor equivalent.

I was told that it'd punch anything we expected to meet in 1988.

I got told the same thing when we traded the M1(IP) for M1A1(HA).

Go ahead, look up the performance for the M900 round.

Find anything definitive?

It's still classified.

The reason you don't know what you're talking about is that you CAN'T because you don't have access to the necessary information.

Or, if you DO, you're violating your security clearance and should be worried about knocks on the door.

Much of the debate is based on speculation, often informed speculation, but still speculative.

It needs to be said that both sides are lying about how well they are doing, but if Russia was doing as well as they claim then the war would be over and Ukraine would be dead.

Ukraine doesn't seem to be claiming advances they cannot prove to have made.  But they are still lying about individual events.  It's called propaganda.  Look it up.

So far, it appears that T-62M and T-72B3M are the most common Russian tanks at the front and not the T-90M or Armata.  Appears.  I've yet to see a reliable source cited.

Lots of claims on blogs, but no citations.

Yes, that matters.

Oh Are They Now?

I am not finding reports of T-90's or Armata showing up on the battlefield.

I am reading about it, but not finding confirmation.

I am finding confirmation for T-62M, T-72B3 and T-72B3M.

Just want a source to see if I'm behind or if the source is sour.

I'm finding a lot of "sources" are vested in the outcome and are proclaiming that one side or the other is decisively advantaged.

If either of those camps were correct, the war would be over by now.

That it continues says they didn't know what they were talking about.

Arfcom Don't Get It

The wall that people at Arfcom are hitting is this:

The ATF did not just suddenly decide something that was totally, and unmistakably, legal and make it illegal.

They made illegal something that was illegal before they approved pistol braces about a decade ago.

That we have them at all resulted from someone coming up with something that could be strapped to a forearm to help a one-handed shooter shoot better.

They asked the ATF if that would be OK, and this is key, because it wasn't clear that adding anything to the back of pistol wouldn't make it an SBR.

It would probably have remained OK if someone hadn't made such a brace for a pistol that was made from a rifle design.

But they did.

And people kept asking if they could use their brace like a stock and got told, "yes."

Then the braces kept getting more and more stock-like.

I'm not even going to speculate on the intent to get around registering their AR pistol as an SBR, but I've yet to see anyone strap their brace to their arm.  I've seen lots of people shouldering a short AR with a brace on it though.

It really made me wonder why I wasted $200 each on mine.

I've long said the ATF would eventually plug the loophole they created.

And if they have the authority to give, they have the authority to take away.

I notice that hardly anyone stood with me and my interpretation of how this would go when it started.

It would be better if the law were changed.

It would be best if all this unconstitutional shit was deleted from the Federal books.

But we've got to play the ball where it lies.  Even from the sand trap.

Underscore

 

He doesn't actually say it, but he's explaining that pistols with braces have always been short barreled rifles.

ATF had no more authority to declare them OK back when then they did on outlawing bump-stocks; it just broke for us rather than against us that time.

Being cool with them making such rulings when it's in our favor legitimizes their power grab too.

But in a world where pistols are legal, it makes no sense to keep a law banning rifles from being poor emulations of pistols.  Or banning pistols from being shitty emulations of rifles!  Same same.

Laws which make no sense to the layman lead to contempt of such laws then fester into contempt for all laws and that eventually delegitimizes the government completely.

No government at all is not a happy place, despite what libertarian utopian idealists say.

I Don't Understand

I had never actually watched Taxi Driver.

It's supposed to be such an outstanding film.

I made it an hour in before I got too tired to keep going and I've still got to finish...

But this thing sucks.

I'm not seeing why film critics goop themselves over this.

53 minutes to go.

At least with The Godfather I could see why it was a good film, even if everything it'd pioneered had been used in films made long after it; but that I'd seen before I saw The Godfather.

My own fault

The teeny zombie pistol bayonet no longer fits on my P320 because I chose the 3-slot model instead of the 4-slot.

Darn?

The Glitch

The T2K conversion was originally written in MS Word.

Not sure which edition, but I think it ran on Win98.

I opened it in OpenOffice and saved-as an odt.

Once I got the Macs, this odt got opened in NeoOffice and edited from there.

It still opens in NeoOffice correctly, most of the time.

With OpenOffice and LibreOffice the 44 page document flickers just after opening and becomes a 56 page document and a large section in the large caliber guns section disappears and has 14 blank pages in its place.

I have both OpenOffice and NeoOffice on the Mac, so copy paste from one to the other might work.

Since I now export it to pdf, retyping to get better sections might not be a bad idea.  Originally I just used the odt.

What else do I have to do?

Not Surprised

And I told you so.

Here.

Recent reminder here.

Your AR "pistol" with a stabilizing brace always has been a short barreled rifle by the legal definition of such things.

The term “short-barreled rifle” means a rifle having one or more barrels less than sixteen inches in length and any weapon made from a rifle (whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise) if such weapon, as modified, has an overall length of less than twenty-six inches.

But a "handgun" is simply:

(30) The term “handgun” means—

(A)

a firearm which has a short stock and is designed to be held and fired by the use of a single hand; and

(B)

any combination of parts from which a firearm described in subparagraph (A) can be assembled.

 

Designed...

 

Modification...

When we're complaining about the ATF making shit up whole cloth, I think we need to look in the mirror too.

Especially when we're touting "history, text and tradition!"

Under the NFA definitions these "pistols" should have been rifles because what they meant at the time of passage was an alteration of a design, not just an alteration of something made as a rifle.

ATF rolled with pistols made with rifle actions are pistols because that gave them greater power over armor piercing ammunition.

When the SB15 came out, ATF made shit up to allow it, and we rolled with it because it was in our favor.

Now that they are reversing that, we're butt hurt?

Pick a lane.

If they can't make shit up, then they can't do it at all.  Not just when their making shit up disfavors us.

The bitter pill is if we remove all the made up shit, there's no such thing as an AR pistol.  There's just SBR.

And whomever is shoving this shit around is getting us to waste political capital fighting it.

Want this to stop mattering, get on your congress creatures to nuke the NFA, or at least the short barrel rifle provisions.

Accept and incremental approach to dismantling the NFA rather than demanding the nothing that always accompanies "all or nothing" approaches to this.

Point out that the SBR, SBS and AOW provisions of the NFA were written with the idea that handguns would be banned outright and were intended to keep people from making defacto handguns from the remaining kinds of firearms.

Point out that there's a shit load of defacto SBR's out there not causing any problems and use that as the wedge to get them legalized.

This is not an easy fight.

 

It's also not a fight we're picking.  Yet.

 

Post Bruen, things are looking good on getting some of this nuked off, if not all of it.

Shootyday

The Lovely Harvey's recovery is proceeding well, and her targets are reflecting the scales of rust falling away.

She finally found a stance where she was comfortable.

 These are much tighter than even last week.

She's still got some numbness in her shooting hand and there's still some swelling that hasn't subsided, so she often cannot feel exactly what she's doing.

But she improves every time we go to the range!

On the reliability side, her 2.0 Compact only had one stoppage that was cured by slapping the back of the slide.  I saw her shift her grip just as it happened, so... limp wrist.  She noticed what she'd done to get the stoppage and stopped doing it.

60 some rounds with just one user induced jam?  I think we're broke in.

Huzzah!

60 some rounds is also a record for Harvey and her endurance is getting better each trip as well.

On my side of the lane...

The P320 with the Wilson-Combat grip module is far more comfortable to shoot than the X style it came with.  To the point that I'm starting to figure out the point of aim that gets the bullet where I want it.

I heartily recommend this modification to the P320.

Ummmmmm

Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are altering the deal in a manner that would make Mr Callrissian say, "I got off light with that Vader dude!"

The most galling thing about it is D&D, like all tabletop RPG's, is fueled by content created by the GM and players.

That's the gigantic distinction about them from other games.

While I don't know what they think they are doing...

It appears that they think that they deserve the money for other people's creativity and consider someone selling their creativity as a lost sale.

What's missing from that equation is, "would this content exist if the third party had not created it?"

If the answer is yes, then it's a lost sale.

However: The reason a third party created it was because such content was not forthcoming from WOTC.

The original Open Gaming License encouraged third parties to create content and that sold the core ruleset.  Importantly, it allowed them to profit from their creativity.

The new version of the OGL discourages third parties from making content.

First it assesses a fine based on the gross income of the third party's sales.  Considering how low margain such things can be, especially if you're having hard copies printed, this kills off anyone subject to the "license fee"

Second, it asserts the right to use your creativity without compensation forever.

So you can't make money and you won't own what you create for any game that WOTC operates under the new OGL.

I think what Hasbro is missing here is how many people are coming to the game for the third party content who will now be buying a different core game to play it on.

More than one of the larger third party content creators have announced work on a new set of core rules too.

WOTC should be worried about that.

If I can convert OG Little-Black-Book Traveller to GURPS 4e, there's nothing keeping someone from converting from D&D to... well a new game that's designed to be easy to convert to.

WOTC doesn't own the idea of a role playing game or even how most of the mechanics work.

There are lots of moribund systems out there waiting to be resurrected which were perfectly cromulent RPGs which do fantasy settings and are not owned in any way by Hasbro.

Not Quite The Same

NeoOffice, OpenOffice and LibreOffice are not quite the same.

There's something in my Twilight: 2000 to GURPS odt that doesn't work in OpenOffice or LibreOffice and I'm not sure what.

As I transition away from the Mac, I have to solve that!

It might be as irritatingly simple as retyping it.

I guess I typed it all up once, huh?

Me And SIG-Sauer

My first SIG was a P232.  I was trying to find a gun that was comfortable IWB in The Precious.

I failed.

After carrying a Colt model 1908 pocket hammerless (also in .380 ACP) in my pocket for a while, and due to a fascination with the Colt Mustang, I got a P238.

This was my pocket gun for quite a while.  Sometimes replaced with a S&W 640-3.

Ultimately the pocket sized 9mm revolution supplanted both the .380's and .357's for daily wear.

Both the .380 SIG's got sold.

Because I had long been jealous of Willard's P220, when I saw one for about half the going rate at the local pawn shop, I pounced!

Of course, the purty wood stocks broke almost immediately.  That led to more work than expected getting plastic replacements on it.  Turns out to have been fortuitous because the plastic grips work better for me.

And there things sat.

Until Mr Fleetwood decided that I needed a P320 Pro Carry for Christmas!  Again, THANKS!

It was set up for a left-handed person, you can see the scratches from it's life as a cop's gun.

The thing about these is they're modular.  The other thing is I didn't care for the grip.

Wilson Combat to the rescue!  CDNN too for the tan baseplates.

And that's where we are.

I have never actually disliked anything from SIG I've owned.

Philosophy

This is not about the law.

This is about a philosophical position.

There's one school of thought, embodied in the laws, that feels that all human life is precious and that everything be done to avoid taking said lives.

That's where we get the idea that you only shoot as long as it takes to stop the attack and to never SAY that you were shooting to kill the criminal in the process of saving your own life.

AND that saving a life is the only justification for killing that criminal.

There's a different philosophical position.

It was once common in Western Civilization.

The idea of outlawed.

Once someone has crossed the rubicon, they cannot come back.

If they do something that allows you to kill them, it's on forever.

Their realizing that they've bit off more than they can chew and stopping too late doesn't change the philosophical and moral position at all.

An outlaw's life is forfeit.

In the latter point of view, shooting a robber until they stop robbing, then placing an anchor shot in the back of their skull is perfectly fine.  Shooting a robber after they've robbed, but have stopped pointing their gun at you?  A-OK.

Shooting a thief in the back when they're running away with your wallet?  Fine.

Killing someone for stealing your dog?  Good shoot.

The former philosophy where the victims are forbidden to act until it's almost too late, are punished for acting and the police do nothing to criminals for any but the most obvious and serious crimes will lead to the latter philosophy returning to dominance.

As with all the paths that lead to this destination, it didn't (doesn't?) need to be this way.

It'd be relatively simple to correct the trajectory even now.

Someone appears to be vested in things coming wildly apart.

Obeying The Law Is Wrong

The fucking morons in Congress passed a law declaring sesame seeds to be a major allergen.

When something is such, you have some not-insubstantial costs associated with compliance to show that any machine or facility which uses or processes that allergen doesn't cross contaminate foods which are free of said allergens.

It doesn't ban the allergen from being processed or sold, just makes it very expensive to produce non-allergen foods in the same facility.

The fucking morons in Congress wrote the law (or the regulatory agency regulated, not sure which is the horse or cart here) so that warning people there might be allergens in their goods is not good enough.

You either clean the line to the insane standards of the regulations, or...

Here's where it gets good.

You make sure you have a minimum percentage of the allergen so that you can list it in the ingredients list.

Several fast food companies have done the latter.

Golf clap?

Golf clap!

This is being reported as if the food processors had found a loophole to avoid ridding their equipment of the allergen.

Well, yes and no.

They are getting out of the cleaning by becoming allergen only processors.  They increased the amount of the allergen in their products because it's an all or nothing deal with this law/regulation.

The level of compliance is unreasonable.

I'd have been happy with a warning if I had a food allergy...  Hey, wait, I do!

Mushrooms get an ingredient listing, so I look for it and don't eat it.  I ask about mushrooms of my server and if they can't separate my food from the mushroom entree, I say thanks and go eat someplace else.

By the way, thanks to other congressional and regulatory bullshit, avoiding mushrooms is getting harder because they're being added as a "other natural ingredient" into packages to enhance the savoriness of foods.  This is because regulation is attacking fat content.

But this is just an ongoing effort to have government replace our mothers and never letting us grow up and be responsible for our own lives.

I'm Actually Impressed

The video card I cleaned out today was purchased in late 2010.

I'd left it basically alone to collect dust except for an annual, cursory, dusting of the innards of the machine.

In September 2021 it did it's first round of overheating and having trouble booting.

I started blasting out the dust monthly after that, but the card in its mounted and assembled condition prevents you from doing a thorough job.

Today, the card got that thorough cleaning!

It was easy to get apart and reassemble, which surprised the shit out of me.

Even better, it appears to have cured the problems I was having.

Still looking to replace the old girl, but the timeline is far less rushed now.

Yes It Matters

 

CDNN is blowing these things out, so I got a set.

Now the carpet matches the drapes, so to speak.

It also makes it easier to tell the P320 magazines apart from some of the others.

Solved?

The beloved Mac Pro has balked at booting into Win7 a couple of times.

Considering that the hard drive for Win7 is my oldest drive, I suspected that was the problem.

Been doing the research for a new desktop because Win7 is about out of life anyway.

Today, the machine balked at booting into OSX and gave me an error log for it.

No GPU found.

The symptoms of the balking was howling fans, start screen then no fan noise and no signal to the monitors.

Opening the case in this state shows fans all running at idle.

With the error report in mind and remembering something Marv had said about the Drobo's interior having channels in the dust where the canned air could reach...

So I removed the card and blew it out from different angles.  Lots of dust.  Huzzah!  Except the fan wouldn't spin freely.  Uh oh!

I took my video card apart.  What had I to lose at this point?

Utterly choked with dust, including a peanut sized piece of lint/fur that was keeping the fan from spinning.  It had marks on it that showed it was blocking half the fins of the heat-sink before I dislodged it into the fan.

Update to add:

The disassembly allowed me to clean out the card and it's working correctly now!

I swear I said that before stabbing publish, but apparently...

Mountain Goat

Mountain Sheep?

I didn't know the difference.

But we were up in mountains looking to shoot something that had horns.

Google's pictures say "bighorn sheep".

After walking for, seemingly, parsecs to find any at all...

I spotted one.

Bob took aim.

I said, "wait!"

"Why?" he asked.

"It's the fucking moose thing all over again!"

"But it's not that far a shot!" he rationalized.

"Yes, but how far is the walk to get to it once you shoot it?"

That's when he saw what I saw.

The sheep was on the other side of a valley, and to get to it we'd have to walk down or around for miles to get to the 100 yards away it was standing.

Bob picked a different sheep the next day.

Moose

Bob was someone who ate what he shot, but was also willing to pay a taxidermist to make a trophy of the meal.

A bull moose was on the list for the wall of heads.

After a few tries he finally got the license for a bull.

Out we went!  I had a cow license.

I was just enjoying the chilly air and the hike when Bob shushed me.

There, on the other side of a pond, was the bull he'd been looking for.

I noticed something about the pond just as he pulled the trigger.

The moose was IN the pond.

Now it was dead in the pond.

Yards from shore.

To say that it took effort to get the moose to land and then to the truck is a gross understatement.

That moose's head is on the living room wall, and we swear that it's the tastiest moose we've ever had.

Prolly because it took the most work.

Minute Of Salmon

In the between times...

Before I left to join the Army, but after my mom decided that a pubescent boy was beyond her skill set...

I lived with my father.

He was even less prepared for my transition from boy to man than my mom.

I did not do this gracefully.

Happily, there was the husband of one of my step-mother's sisters.

Bob was insane.

Real insane.  PTSD from Vietnam insane.

This did not keep him from holding a good job.

This did not keep him from being a likeable chap.

It did not make him do anything that kept him from owning a gun.

It did keep him from bonding with most of the people closest to him.

But not me.

Bob loved hunting.

If it flies, it dies.  If it crawls it falls.

Name it and he was up to shooting it.

Most importantly, he didn't mind being around me and my endless gaming related questions about weapons and tactics.

Idiotic questions, I might add.

What fell out of this was my dad pawning me off on Bob whenever he could.

That lead to me tagging along on several hunting trips.

One of which was in Alaska.

I don't even remember what we were going to be hunting, I just remember that the salmon were running and there were a lot of bears around the stream.

"They won't bother you if you don't bother them!" seems hollow advice today, but that's what the guide told us.

Being concerned that my rifle had lost zero in the trip from Minneapolis to Bumfuck, AK; I set up a can about 100 yards from where we'd piled our gear.  This meant firing across the stream.

I aimed and fired, but as I fired; something flashed through the scope.

I looked up and saw a salmon spiraling away.

I had shot a salmon.

A bear took it!

Bob had seen me do it, and was very impressed!

Subsequent shots proved that my rifle had kept zero.

I never fired again that trip.

Bob got his trophy he'd come for; and I don't even remember what ungulate it was.

I remember shooting a salmon.

Not That It Will Go Anywhere

The House of Representatives has introduced a bill to end income tax and replace it with a national sales tax.

I'm in.

The main question is, "what percentage?"

Most states are capable of funding themselves at about 7%.

What will DC want?

One gigantic advantage of going to a sales tax is that everyone will see how much taxes they're paying every-single-time they buy something.

A secondary advantage is the ability to opt out by simply reducing consumption.

I tend to like the idea, but withhold judgement until I see the actual implementation.

The devil is in the details.

I'm Totally Bitter

The deceased has been named in the Houston taqueria shooting.

Some of his criminal history has been detailed.

Out on parole, he was arrested for beating on his baby-momma...

And released on his own recognizance...

WHAT THE FUCK TEXAS?

Whereas, me, with no criminal history at all:

Had to beg for bail money so that I could be released with a no-contact order and come up with additional money to fund a lawyer to work at getting the charges dropped.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK???

They let a convicted felon on parole out with a promise to not break the law again...

But they lock my ass up and treat me like I was a convict already until my friends coughed up the funds to get a lawyer on my side?

No.  I am totally bitter about this.

Fuck that corpse.

I am happy he's dead.  He deserved it.

Wanna know what would help?

Not letting killers plead down to assault and/or letting them out when they've served half their time.

If they had not let him plead down, he'd have been on death row.  But the hero of the taqueria would not have had to be subjected to the stupid legal system.

If he'd had to serve his entire sentence, he'd still be alive in jail.

I am getting ever so sick of a legal system that is entirely about protecting the rights of criminals at the expense of the innocent citizen and the people victimized by the criminals using that system to further their behavior.

Trigger Scale

I've noticed that some guns appear to be a lot smaller than they are because of a generous allowance for gloves in the trigger guard.

The M1951 isn't that much smaller than the 92 series (M9 shown), but the M9 seems smaller because the trigger guard is oversized.

The same effect is happening with my P320.

Wilson left a lot of space for gloved fingers in there, and they're just following SIG's lead.

Never Bring A Shovel To A Gunfight

Also, don't fuck with a mother protecting her kids.

Bad plan.

Sounds like a good shoot at this point.

Kudos to Mom!

1:1:4

I like my martini's like I like my women.

DIRTY!

Doing 1:4 vermouth to gun didn't do me.  It's clear that I don't care for vermouth.

Adding a 1 of olive brine, that changes it for me.

Victory!

I like savory drinks, I should look for other recipes.

No Probably Not

Marv and I went to the grocery store to pay the special tax for people who cannot do math.

In the parking lot there was a homeless/crazy person warning us that the police were pulling their guns on people.  It'd just happened to him!

Call me skeptical, but...  I don't think that New Port Richey's finest are drawing down without an arrest.

But he was being belligerent enough that I quipped, sotto voce, "if he's not careful the cops won't be the only ones who pull a gun on him."

He never really approached us, but he was all over the poor lady in the spot across from ours.

Some People Just Won't Be Happy

Looks like California is getting some impressive flooding.

And they're bitching about it.

Just the other day they were complaining that there was a drought.

Hard Men

I was experimenting with martini recipes last night.  (1:4 is about right for me; dirty is better)

After the third one, I noticed I was pretty darned tipsy.

People my father's age did this for lunch as a normal part of doing business.

Holy shit!

They say you really don't know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes.

I am starting to think that you can't know someone until you drink like they drank at work...

Fashion Victims Chew Their Charcoal Teeth

 

Getting to be a lot of flat dark earth around here.

I Am Not Alone

 Gum chewing lawsuit can proceed.

As a sufferer of misophonia, I applaud this decision and hope she gets paid.

I know the stress it puts on all my friends and family when I'm past my saturation point and can't take it anymore.

Fractions Matter

The SIG grip-module weighs 3.7 oz.

The Wilson-Combat one weighs 3.3 oz.

It doesn't, of course, show in GURPS, but such small differences do matter sometimes.

Not often, but when they do; they really do!

Lather Rinse Repeat

The Wilson-Combat grip module has absolutely zero effect on the GURPS stats.

This is not the first time a mod to a gun that I feel had a huge effect on how I feel about it doesn't show up in a system where π = 3.00.

Where this might matter a great deal is in the Weapon Bond perk.  It's only a +1, but...

YOU'RE GODDAMMED RIGHT IT FUCKING MATTERS!!!  Honest!

John Crichton would completely understand.

Martini

I am experimenting with gin and vermouth.

5:1 ratio is about flavorless.

4:2 ratio means I can taste the vermouth, but both cases suppress the florals in the gin.

In both cases, the olive is a welcome burst of flavor.  This makes me think that a dirty martini is what I'll like best.

PS: In both cases, stirred not shaken.  Ian Fleming and James Bond are wrong.

Goldilocks Still In The Lead

While the new grip module on the P320 feels pretty darned good, it's still not better than the M&P 9 M2.0 Compact.

As was foretold in the prophecy: This one is just right!

The Wilson-Combat grip module curb stomps the Glock 45 though.

The original grip module that came with the gun was nearly identical in feel to the Glock, though.  Makes you wonder if that's the target audience.  The P320 Carry and the Glock 45 are natural competitors in that they're short-slide and full-capacity guns.

While the Wilson module doesn't supplant the 2.0 Compact, it is slightly better than the OG M&P 9.

It's almost enough to consider replacing the M&P with the SIG for Zombie duty.

A Familiar Feeling

The Wilson-Combat grip felt hauntingly familiar.

I couldn't place it, at first.

Then it hit me!

They don't look very similar, but they feel very similar!

Excellent work, Wilson.

Asking The Important Questions

Yes!  The P320 Pro-Carry with Wilson-Combat Carry II grip module will fit in an M7/M9 tanker holster!  The change in trigger guard profile makes it fit better than the OG module, in fact.

No! The Wilson-Combat Carry II grip module does NOT have provision for a lanyard.

That Was Easy

It took more time and effort clearing a space on the bench to take pictures than to swap the grip module.

Magazines drop free and everything appears to function as it should.

No surprise that it doesn't need a different holster.

It feels far less like a plank in the hand than the X-Carry module that came with the gun.  The silly sunburst texture is a lot less ugly in person than in Wilson Combat's photos too, I think.

Harvey, when handed the gun to feel the difference in the modules says, "Oooooooooooh!"

The proof will be at the range, but things are auguring well so far.

Preview

 My Wilson Combat grip module showed up today!

The magazine release was not installed at the factory.

Post assembly pics coming...

What Good Can Come Of It

In Houston a robber got deaded by a customer at a taqueria.

Apparently, after the shoot, everyone just left.

Including the hero who saved the taxpayers a lot of money finding, convicting and caring for the deceased criminal.  Probably saving society from years of criminal activity in the bargain.

Well, the cops wanna have a chat with the hero of the day.

I'm sitting here wondering what good can come of talking to the cops?

I suspect that they want to arrest the shooter because they spotted some subtle violation of the self defence rules which are only clear when watching the situation from a different angle than the shooter and while safe in a climate controlled office building.

Because, Gods forbid, that someone who clears the gene pool of the kind of filth that robs a restaurant and its patrons should be spared the process-is-the-punishment criminal charges from shooting such scum.

I will not be shocked to find that the deceased has a long history of arrests and not terribly arduous jail sentences.

Which begs the question:

What good is the criminal justice system if it barely slows down such scum?

We do know that the deceased will never rob anyone ever again.

Can the cops make such a promise?

Even more germane; will punishing the shooter prevent future robberies of taquerias?