Much Less Universal

The M1916 flap holster for the 1911 is far less universal than the M7 tanker holster.

Just the Astra, and Browning fit from the previous list.

It's replacement, the Bianci M12, a very close relative to the UM84 (if not the same thing) lives up to the meaning behind UM (universal military) and fits everything on that list (except the long barreled .22's).

I Woke Up Without A Headache

Can't live pain free...  To social media!

I'm reading a thread where someone asks:  "If you add 500 thousand pounds of crabs to a crab boat; is it 500 thousand pounds heavier?"

There's some genuinely funny responses, but it's the people trying to be serious that are hurting my brain.

People don't have any understanding of weight, mass, displacement, ballast, stability...

People who are answering authoritatively, but are not accounting for things you'd know if you'd watched a couple of episodes of The Deadliest Catch.

But since I have to figure it out, because I'm me...

The average density of crabs is 1.27.  So crabs are 1.27kg/l.

500,000 lb. of crab is 226,796.2kg of crab.

226,796.2kg of crab is 178,579.7l of crab.

178,579.7 l of water is displaced by the crabs and that weighs 393,700.85 lb.

So the boat is 106,299.15 lb. heavier.

 

Update:

 

178,579.7 l of seawater, being denser and thus heavier than regular water weighs 403.543.44 lb.

 

So our boat gets 96,456.56 lb. heavier when we toss all that crab into the holding tanks and the boat settles a little deeper in the water.

 

Commenters:  One of the givens is "crab boat" confine your rebuttals and criticisms to that.

 

Clearly it's an obscure fact that the holding tanks are full of seawater on a crab boat and that as crab is added, it displaces water overboard.  That's why adding 500,000 lb. of crab to a crab boat doesn't add 500,000 lb. of weight to the total assembly.

 

Crab boats do not sink when they stuff those holding tanks with crabs which are heavier than the water they used to carry.  No more than a canoe sinks when you put the cooler in the middle and it displaces the much less dense air that previously occupied the space inside. 

Crab boats do not operate anywhere but Earth, so quibbling about 1g is just being...  put in what will insult you the most here.

Tinker

You know you're tinkering too much when you need a log book to keep track of what parts from whom are in which gun.

It's not a log book, it's a spreadsheet, but same thing.

I've got one for my AR's, and you can tell from my Histories of Kaylee and Dottie, I tinker.

The retro guns are almost as complex in the tracking because parts have slowly been replaced by bits that are more accurate to the recreation.

Tracking Numbers

When you're expecting something you're excited about...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - Package has been scanned in the same place it was before.

Scream.

Wait, at most, an hour...

Click - No change in status.

Presented As Opinion

I often label myself an autodidactic polymath; but my first formal higher education was in mechanical drafting, which is engineering lite.  All the math, none of the humanities!

I am constantly encountering this truth:

My best friend is a lawyer, bright, gifted, ... PhD in law; bored with his job, he decided to study engineering. After his first quarter, he came to me and said that the two "C"s he'd achieved in Engineering Calculus 101 and Engineering Physics 101 were the first two non-A grades he'd ever gotten in college, and that he had had to study harder for them than for any other dozen classes he'd had. "I now understand", he said, "why engineers and their like are so hard to examine, whether on the stand or in a deposition. When they say a thing is possible, they KNOW it is possible, and when they say a thing is not possible, they KNOW it is not. Most people don't understand know in that way; what they know is what we can persuade them to believe. You engineers live in the same world as the rest of us, but you understand that world in a way we never will."
I don't think that you have to love math to be an engineer, but you are going to have to learn it. That means that you're going to have to do the homework, correctly. Mistakes and "close enough" are the ways to build bridges that fail.

Many times I've said stated something flat-out.  Time and again I encounter someone who won't understand the answer because they don't do math.

Engineering types, when they state opinion, will qualify the shit out of the statement.

"I prefer the FAL to the G3."

But statements of fact aren't.

"The FAL fires a 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge."

Am I wrong?  Well, then refute it with fact.

Often times these statements of fact don't include proofs for even laymen because you've either done the work and understand it already or no amount of explaining will bring you up to speed because you didn't learn math.

There's an entire universe closed to you because of it and it's something to be ashamed of, not proud.

Burr Saddle Some Disassembly Desired

Perhaps it's from being a draftsman.  Perhaps its from doing some technical writing.

Getting the terms right is essential.

Otherwise we could call everything a "thingy".

There are places where getting the term wrong can land you in jail.  Ask for a flash-hider when you meant muzzle brake in places which ban the former, for example.

The clip/magazine thing drives people nuts.  Why?

On one side there's a group of people who insist that they are different and can show what those differences are.

On the other side, there are those who say they are the same thing.

Try ordering en-bloc magazines for your Garand.

It's not just guns.

Disc brakes have pads.  Drum brakes have shoes.

There are numerous things that are bearings on a car, and you need to be specific to get the one you need.

Specificity often derails some people.  You have to coax them into describing what they mean because they don't know what it's called.  After about the thirtieth time of doing that, you start getting prickly about people calling things what they are.

Is it a bullet or a cartridge?  Clip or magazine?  Stock or grip?  Silencer or suppressor?  Rifle or carbine?  Assault rifle or assault weapon?

Words mean things.  The reason they mean things is we use these crude symbols and series of fleshy vibrations for communication.  Without common terms, communication can't occur.  Someone who speaks chinese and someone who speaks english can talk at each other all day thinking they are being perfectly clear and not transmit one meaningful thought.

To communicate we have to speak the same language.  The "pedantic" people who are making an issue of clip v magazine are essentially saying, "the terms have been established, learn them."  If clips and magazines are the same thing you should be able to show that to be true.  Admitting that the terms are only synonymous conditionally basically says the pendants are correct.

The very act of complaining about the "pedants" is itself pedantic, or didn't you check to see what the word you were using meant?  Oh wait...

SUIT

Sight Unit Infantry, Trilux L2A2.

I have one.

While it was great for the L1A1 I used to have, the sights on a metric FAL are too low to see over the mounting post.

It's just 4 power, but the clarity of the glass is amazing.  It's the kind of scope you want to use, even with the strange inverted post reticule.

I bought a carry handle mount for it.  Puts it way too high and my example is warped.

Tapco used to make a P-Rail adaptor, but they are few and far between.  Every once and a while I see one on Gunbroker and get sniped.

I expect to get sniped again in a few days.

A 4x scope would be about perfect for Dottie and 6.8x43mm.

Reality Check FTMFW

Sabrina is a semi-auto short barrel rifle clone of an XM177E2 submachine gun.

I originally became interested in the XM177E2 because of GURPS: SEAL's in Vietnam.

The weight listed for the XM177E2 in the GURPS book is 6 pounds loaded with a 20 rounder.

Sabrina weighs 6.8 lb.

This bothered me a great deal since I was very careful to be as authentic as legally possible; and if anything a semi-auto should be heavier than the real thing because the area for the auto-sear is not milled out.  But there's not a pound of aluminum to be milled away from the whole receiver.

Edit: the non NFA flash-hider should also be heavier than the real thing because it's missing the chambers from the sound-reducer baffles.

Well...

According to my copy of POMM 9-1005-294-14/1 (page 1-3); the official weight of a Submachine Gun 5.56-MM, XM177E2 is 6.8 pounds!

Happy Dance.

Nostalgia

I was looking through my old records and found my arms-room cards.

DA Form 3479, Jan 82.

There are three of them;

M1911A1 Cal .45 Pistol, 1005-00-726-5655, Serial # 1164935
M16A2 5.56 Cal Auto Rifle, 1005-01-178-9936, Serial # 6300574
Bayonet Knife M7 w/ scabbard M10, 1005-00-017-9701, no serial number.

I can't believe I still have these.

Thanks to the internet I now know my mind was playing tricks on me.

My issue 1911A1 wasn't a Remington Rand, it was a Colt made in 1944.

My issue M16A2 was also a Colt, but forty years newer!

Words Mean Something

You'd think with all the acrimony about the whole clip vs magazine issue that gun rags would be a little more careful about terms.

Mr David Bahoe of Special Weapons for Military and Police: .338 Lapua is not an intermediate round because it's roughly halfway between 7.62x51 and .50 BMG.

Intermediate rounds are halfway between battle rifle ammo and pistol cartridges.

.338 is a lot more sporty than bog standard 7.62 NATO thus going the wrong direction to be called intermediate.

Another possibility is the author is unaware of the term.  In that case he should not be paid to write for a gun magazine.

Krav Maga Observation

Watching a show on Israeli Commandos and they have the inventor of Krav Maga showing us how to get a gun away from someone who's put the barrel against your temple.

Yup, that technique would work to get the gun in that situation.

Person with the gun, repeat after me: A firearm is a RANGED weapon, do NOT take it into hand to hand combat range. In other words, if he can touch you before you can shoot him, you're using the gun wrong and deserve to have Mr Muscles take it away and shoot you.