Too Short

Got my MOE Fixed Carbine Stock.

In a word, it's short.

1.75" shorter than a CTR at full extension.

One inch shorter even than an M16A1 buttstock, which is a good length for me.

What this stock is sized for is the shoulders squared to the target, hurts my elbows Chris Costa gladiator slave training technique... if you also use a plate carrier.

For just under $30 it's a great deal.  If you're comfortable shooting squared to the target, it's probably a good stock, it's solid, sturdy and well made (duh Magpul) it's simply too darned short for me.  If it were an inch longer, perhaps I could make it work.  With that in mind I'm going to look for one of those extended butt pads I hear tell about.

Welcome To My World Officer

Via Popehat

What is most discouraging is that when police officers respond to a call, those officers must now be concerned that someone sitting in hindsight, from the safety of a courtroom, will not only question their actions, but also their credibility. 

-- Police Union President Daryl Turner

Gee, you mean like if I were defend myself, Daryl?

Salient Point

Tam reminds me that if I buy an AK with a stock and a 16"+ barrel... replace the barrel with something < 16" and remove the stock, I have made an NFA regulated short barrel rifle.

But if I buy a bare receiver, and make an identical gun, it's a pistol...

It's all part of the ATF's magical "once a, always a" world.  Once a gun is a rifle, it's always a rifle.

Take that AK "pistol"...

Add a stock and it's now a rifle.  A short barrel rifle unless you replaced it with something 16+ inches long.  Removing the stock doesn't return it to pistol status EVER!

My head is so scarred from the desk that I am going to be mistaken for a devout Muslim.

Base Profit

I've been a long running fan of GURPS for a long time.

I think it will now be a cold day in Hell before Steve Jackson sees another penny from me.

On March 13th he says:

See, this is why we need better medicine. Need better medicine NOW. Need better medicine YEARS ago. Not the stupid, piggish American insurance-profit-driving system, and not the earnest British "Get in line, it's cheap and you get what you pay for" system, and not the "Sorry, nothing can be done, lie down and die now" system that so much of the world suffers under, but actual medicine.

Piggish American insurance profit driven system, Steve?  So you don't believe someone should be paid for the services rendered?

On March 16th though...

I will not be appearing at Chi-Fi, due to bad communications and non-payment. If you had hoped to see me at that show, I'm very sorry - but the con chair is no longer returning my calls or mail, I haven't even been reimbursed for the plane ticket, and the only other committee member I have ever spoken to could do nothing but refer me back to the chair. I don't know what's going on there, but it will be without me.

I see.  It's OK for YOU to make money, but not for THEM to make money.

Fuck you Mr Jackson.

To The Man In The Green Kilt

Scotland and Ireland are not the same.

The "Irish" kilt is an affectation of Scottish kilts without a tartan for non-Scots Gaelic regiments.

That nearly day-glo green plaid thing you're wearing is not a Tartan or Irish.  Irish regimental kilts are a solid color.

On St Patrick's Day, the whole world is Irish, and you're dressed as if you were an Irishman who desperately wants to be Scottish.

There there, Blossom.

DOH!

Spell checkers will not save you from using the wrong word spelled correctly.

Uncle Rolf's Estate

I've had an idea for a short Traveller campaign for a long time.

It is 245-1120.

"Uncle" Rolf Haut Janisansen, Baron Efate, Colonel (Ret) Imperial Marines.  Veteran of both the Fourth and Fifth Frontier wars.  Dhetskna Khuegsedzgulghae Lloea (The Burning Ear Parasite) to the Vargr.   Tladr iez chiadl'r'njda jda tladr zhdanel   (The Ghost Hammer) to the Zhodani.

Baron Efate.

Bloody Rolf from his ownership of a mercenary company during the Fifth Frontier War and earning his patent of nobility from the vicious fighting during the siege of Efate.

He made a promise and established trusts and endowments so that the people left without spouses and or parents from losses in his unit from the 4th Frontier War wouldn't have to depend on the insufficient stipends from the Imperium.

You know him as a jovial old man whom had endless patience for you as children.

He died a very rich man barely two years after being created Baron Efate.

His title went to his biological daughter, as did most of the wealth, but ownership of his mercenary company has not been disbursed.

The players are the descendants of those killed in action from Force Ensign (later Force Captain) Janisansen's platoon (later company) during the 4th Frontier War; who have completed honorable active service in the Imperial Army, Marines, Navy, Scout or Merchant Service.

What remains to be distributed is the mercenary company, its assets and Imperial license.  Those assets include three Broadsword class mercenary cruisers.

There has been a long running dispute over who gets the mercenary license and the ships.  The unit was deactivated, but not disbanded, at the end of the Fifth Frontier War in 1110 when Rolf got his title.  The executive officer naturally assumed she'd be the one taking over the unit when Rolf retired.

What she's inherited is an endowment and trust that is supposed to provide for the widows and orphans of Rolf's Raiders LLC, an endowment which is well funded but Major Helgrade sees it as an accountant's job not honorable soldiering; so she's always coveted running The Raiders.

The campaign begins at the final reading of the will.

All of the legal documents and the complete will are released to all interested parties.

To put it simply: "Ownership of Imperial License EEM3201201185 and associated properties and assets are in dispute.  Therefore, the paperwork is your clues, and it's a race!  First come, first serve.  The only rule being you cannot split up.  GO!"

Grumble

I think I am officially sick of the Florida NRA; which near as I can tell an entirely Marion Hammer entity when it's in Tallahassee with the legislature is in session.

First there was this.

Now there's the BATFE churning away at Rule Making 41P and forcing the members of a trust to get CLEO sign-off.

Someone asked Ms Hammer if there was any movement from the NRA to get "shall certify" put into effect here in Florida.

They got, "Ms. Hammer surfaced the idea with the NRA's legislative branch and they did not think it prudent as - if I recall correctly - BATF could potentially reject all Forms 4 signed by a CLEO on the grounds that he/she did not have discretion to approve the transfer if Florida law were worded such that the CLEO was required to approve NFA acquisitions."

So ATF has been declining Form 4's from Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah?

Really guys?

Tennessee has had their shall sign since 2003! I'm afraid that she's going to have to show that it's a REAL problem before she opposes it.

Some of us remember 2011 when Ms Hammer opposed SB-234 and HB-517, we watched her doing it, and then when she got mad at us for noticing. Mostly because it stopped being HER bill done HER way and became an open carry bill.

But hey, that was FOUR YEARS ago, we're supposed to have forgotten by now, right?

Sell Or Not

I am thinking I want a better example of a Finnish Kiv/39.  It's "1942" made, 1942 marked like they all were, but most likely from the '50's.  The B Barrel guns use barrel blanks purchased from Belgium and were likely put together by VKT.  It's in about average overall shape with an excellent bore.

I think it's worth about $350 plus shipping.  Any takers?  I'm waffling because putting it on Gunbroker is a commitment.  Things go wrong when I commit...

VKT Proof and Asevarikko 1 (Army Weapons Depot One) Acceptance Marks

The Receiver Is Originally From Tula And Was Made In 1899!

Remington marked bolt too!

Open Carry

Some people are more ready for open carry than others...

Unsurprising

Took the time out the other day to confirm that 62gr XM855 hits to the same point of aim as 69gr Sierra Match King (0.894" long).

This isn't a stretch because the steel portion of the SS109 design makes it light for its length (0.906").

The 77gr Sierra Match King that's in Mk 262 Mod 0 is 0.996" long.  1:9 doesn't typically stabilize it or the 1.15" long 63.7gr M856 Tracer.

Yet...

1:12 does stabilize the 0.91" long 54gr M196 Tracer and the 0.76" long 55gr M193 Ball.  Hmmmmm.

Then why doesn't 1:12 stabilize M855 since it's the same length as M196?

In a word, velocity.  M196 is exiting the muzzle at around 3,200 feet per second.  M855 is just puttering around at 3,025.  My favorite SBR load is at 2,850 fps.  Mk 262 is even slower at 2,733 fps.  Slower means you need more spin to get the same stabilization.  The math is above my pay grade, I'm just regurgitating the conclusions.

Etiquitte

When asking someone whom you owe money for another loan; you should at least acknowledge the standing debt and express some form of remorse for putting your hand out again.

Denying that the debt existed in the first place...

Bad form.

Fixation

I've reached the point where I no longer consider a collapsable stock on an AR a desirable feature.

It's beard ripping power is undeniable!

For a while it was cool that it was a banned feature, and it still has that cachet to it, but not so much that I will demand it.

Unfortunately, the fixed stock from an M16A2 suits me unwell.  The corners of the butt and placement of the swivel are wrong for me.  The trap-door M16A1 stock fits me right as does the Magpul MOE rifle stock.

In the near future I'll be testing Cavalry Manufacturing's C1 stock in purple on Valentine and seeing just how short "too short" is with a Magpul MOE Carbine Fixed stock on Kaylee (she's always the guinea pig isn't she?).

Plus we might even check out some other options since poor suffering Willard fell victim to Black Rifle Disease via the vector of cheap lower receivers.  He's fighting the disease, keep him in your prayers.

You Know...

All of this mess about pistols made from rifles would not be a problem at all if they'd just ruled such guns to be Any Other Weapons and thus restricted by the NFA.

Not that's any better, just bad differently.

Meh

Single stack 9x19mm Glock?

I'm holding out for a double stack .32 ACP.

Fer Chrissakes, Gaston, Savage managed to do this more than 100 years ago!

Doing It The Hard Way

I am willing to bet that the accepted gunsmith way of cutting the notch into the ejector isn't the way it was done when making military guns.

The gunsmith way is a bunch of careful measuring and duplicating the old notch in the new part and lots of installing the ejector and making sure the notch lines up with the hole.

Wanna bet that the original way of making that notch was to fixture the frame so that the hole was lined up with a drill bit or end mill, the ejector installed and then the drill was passed through the hole in the frame, cutting the notch for the pin?

Or that the hole in the frame for the pin was drilled with the ejector installed?

Why do I bet this?

Because it's a process that makes sense on a production line where every part is made to be identical and interchangeable.

Update:

My position is further bolstered by the hole being missing from the finish drawings of the frame.

Pi!

It is 3-14-15 9:26:53

That won't happen again for a while.

There Is No Standard

Reading about New Jovian Thunderbolt's adventures in 1911 gunsmithing really brings something to the fore.

There is no such thing as AN 1911.

Every single manufacturer has their own thing going on.

Something he mentions several times is how Springfield Armory uses some sort of epoxy instead of a pin to retain the ejector.

I want to know when this change happened, because my Springfield Armory M1911 A1 USGI has the pin.

So does my Colt for that matter.

I collect military tech manuals.  The 1911 manual doesn't call out all of the meticulous fitting and measurements I've been reading about.  It's put in the part, does it work?  If not discard this obviously defective part!

TM 9-1925 (09NOV42):

13. General
     a.  Since all parts of the pistol are standardized as to their dimensions, repairs to a large degree consist of making the necessary replacement of worn, bent, or broken parts. In some cases, parts can be bent back or otherwise returned to their proper shape with satisfactory results. This applies to the leaves of the sear spring, the trigger, and the hammer strut. A worn sear notch in the hammer may be corrected by stoning or filing. Dents in the magazine usually may be removed and the lips returned to original shape by bending. Burs on muzzle of the pistol should be stoned off as outlined in paragraph 11 d (1).

14. Replacement Of Parts
     a.  Where parts or assemblies are broken or worn so as to render them unserviceable, they must be replaced from stock.  Often only parts of the assembly will be worn or broken and others can be salvaged.  However, should it take more time to remove serviceable parts than they are worth, the entire assembly should be scrapped.  In quantity overhauling of pistols, the parts of each should be kept separate for ease in determining to which pistol they belong.

15. Repairs
     a.  Burs on cams and on other smooth surfaces should be removed to make the part serviceable.  A very fine file is used, and care is taken to remove as small an amount of metal as possible.  Where roughened surfaces are present on moving parts, an oil stone should be used.
     b.  Correction of trigger pull.  Pistols received from the field usually have a trigger pull varying over a slightly wider range than new or repaired pistols (par. 3 a for trigger pull data).  Too heavy or too light pull may be corrected by stoning the mating surfaces of the sear and hammer until they meet squarely.  Do not stone off the notch in the hammer at an angle as this may decrease the safety of the pistol.  The trigger pull also may be varied up to approximately 1/2 pound by bending the leaf of the sear spring slightly.  The mainspring may require replacement if the pull remains too light after making these corrections.  All pistols should be tested for trigger pull, as outlined in paragraph 7, after making repairs, and before they are again placed in storage or service.

That's the entire repair section of the TM.  The rest is about how to tell if a part needs replaced and the procedure for swapping it.  There's obviously tribal knowledge imparted to the user of this manual that they get from armorer's school, but it's also clear that they expected parts to just drop in.

Token Picture

The Electrolysmith without the grip spacer.  Just for picture purposes because it handles so much better with the spacer on than without.

It has me wondering about the history of such things...  Dunno where to start looking, to be honest.

It Shoots

The S&W Electrolysis Rust-Eject shoots!

Here's 7 yards.

Six shots!  I was doing so good then shifted my grip slightly and got that last round as a flier for my trouble.

Just for fun; 25 yards.

Everyone came home with the same number of fingers we left with, nothing catastrophically failed.

Got to say, not bad for Friday The Thirteenth.

Pet Care

Shishu is back from the vet! Looks like a seasonal allergy brought on by mite blooms, gods be damned neighbors who don't take care of their pets forcing us to take over-care of ours!

He's had a cortisone shot and has some anti-biotics for a couple weeks in addition to his monthly tablet to make him toxic to insects.

Getting loved up by his best buddy Bear.

You're Welcome!

The potential ban on M855 was abandoned.

I attribute it entirely to my ownership of a usable quantity.

If I didn't own any, it would have been banned and become extremely valuable.

LTV Had A Sense Of Humor

From the F-8D / F-8E NATOPS manual... "Spin recovery may take as long as 12 seconds, a period that may seem longer to the pilot."

Animal Abuse

Because we have neighbors who won't take their disease ridden pets to the veterinarian for preventative care (or at all), we end up having to make extra trips to the vet for our dog.

Every damn spring he catches some sort of itching disease from the mange looking dog next door.

The vet assures us that this would be completely eliminated if people would just get their dogs treated for the mites that carry the bacteria.  But they don't and we end up having to get our dog treated for the infection for mite mating/migration season.

Gods dammit!

Perspective

It's become quite fashionable to bash things that are now obsolete as crap as if they'd always clearly been crap all along.

So crappy that they were obviously obsolete years before they were supplanted by newer designs.

The arguments are always expressed in a vacuum where many if not all of the influencing factors are flat ignored.

Reminds me a lot of book and film critics.  You know, the people that don't create a damn thing yet sit in judgement of the worth of the product when they are not, in fact, the customer?

Just because there is something better does not make it bad.

It's why some debates are so tiresome.

You read some sites and it's a wonder we won in WW2 with all the crap we had to work with.  Yet...

It's only the jaundiced modern eye looking back that sees the lack of worth and not the contemporary view.

Restored To NRA New

NRA New if you read Shotgun News enough in the early '90's anyways.

Musical Interlude

Electrolysis

How this project started.

How it ended up.

Dunked the S&W.

Went to Waffle House, because it's traditional after doing gun stuff.  Then drank some beer in the back yard around our fire pit.

See how fast Shi Shu can go fetch?

The water... changed...

So did the revolver!

Electrolysis isn't going to restore a rusted gun to pristine shape, but it will change all of the pitted rust into steel again.  It's a good way to make sure the rust pits aren't hiding some corrosion that oil and a brush might miss.  All in all I am happy with how it came out.

Get Your Containers Ready!

Daylight savings begins in the wee hours tomorrow morning.

March 8th will be 23 hours long, so stash your hour where it will be safe and you can have it back in November.

Gods I wish this idiocy would end.

Good Guts

Weekend Project

I'm getting a chance to do something I've always wanted to try.  Electrolysis rust removal.

Got a S&W .38 cheap from a pawn shop:

Interstellar Wars Ammunition Notes

The turret missile rack carries 12 missiles and can fire one per (20 minute) turn.
The light missile array carries 600 missiles and can fire 24 per turn.
The heavy missile array carries 1,200 missiles and can fire 36 per turn.

ARRRRRRRGH

There is nothing so frustrating as trying out an unfamiliar design system in a game and having your numbers not match the samples.

GURPS: Traveller Interstellar Wars I am looking at you!

I can't get my numbers to match their numbers for the Iiken class scout-courier.

I can get very close, but not quite.  I'm using the number of systems they say they used but I end up with seven dTons of extra cargo space; 5.6 tons heavier empty and 21.8 tons heavier loaded which is doubly wrong because 7 extra tons of cargo space should make it 35 tons too heavy all alone, so it should be 40.6 tons overweight if all the assumptions were the same.

ISW is another example of the ship rules changing things so that the feel is altered.  It doesn't feel like Traveller anymore.

On the plus side, it's sure an interesting part of the Traveller history and set so far in the past of the more normal Third Imperium that maybe it shouldn't feel like Traveller.

Update:

The feel of the ship design comes pre-disrupted by the change in fuel requirements.  GURPS fusion power plant don't consume tons and tons of liquid hydrogen every month.

Ammo Notes

GURPS Traveller missile racks hold a certain amount of ammunition each.

GT missile come in two sizes: 250mm and 500mm.  500mm is restricted to the Imperial Navy.  The other races have missiles of similar size and are similarly restricted.

250mm Turret Missile Racks hold
   70 missiles at TL7
   75 missiles at TL8
   76 missiles at TL9
   77 missiles at TL10+

500mm Turret Missile Racks hold
   8 missiles at TL7
   10 missiles at TL8+

The 50 ton missile bay uses 250mm missiles and holds
   3,500 missiles at TL7
   3,700 missiles at TL8
   3,800 missiles at TL9+

The 100 ton missile bay uses 500mm missiles and holds
   800 missiles at TL7
   1,000 missiles at TL8-9
   1,100 missiles at TL10+

The 500mm missiles do, on average, twice as much explosive damage or three times as much kinetic damage per missile.  Because GT RoF is 1 missile every 20 minutes and each rack can only control one missile, and a missile can run for up to an hour, this matters a lot.

The 50 ton bay can fire and control up to 50 missiles.  The 100 ton bay can fire and control up to 100 missiles.

GURPS Version

A Straight Conversion of the Sydkai...

Subassemblies: SL Hull +10, 20x Turret +5.
Powertrain: Engineering, 200 Maneuver, 80 Jump Drive.
Fuel: 600 Jump Fuel Tank.
Occ: 11 Staterooms, 83 Bunks, 16 Low          Cargo: 43.44 dtons

Armor:
Hull: 500 all facings.
Turrets: 500 all facings.

Weaponry:
16 Turrets with 48x 500mm Turret Missile Racks (3 per Turret)
4 Turrets with 12x 405-MJ Turret Lasers (3 per Turret)
Nuclear Damper 25 mile range.

Equipment:
All: Basic IR and Emission Cloaking, Basic Stealth.  Hull: Genius Hardened Command Bridge, Hardened Basic Bridge, Electronic Warfare, 2 Military Sickbay (10 beds), 18 Drop Capsule Launcher, 18 Drop Capsule Ready Rack, 54 spare Drop Capsules, 1 Brig, 1 Armory, 1 Safe, 1 Complete Workshop, 210 dTon Spacedock (for 1x 60t Fast Cutter, 1x 50 Modular Cutter, 4x Astrin APC and 3x spare cutter modules), 2 Contragravity

Statistics:
Size: 
Payload: 217.2 stons.
Lwt: 6,545.93 stons.
Volume: 2,000 dtons.
Maint: 124.04 mh/day
Price: MCr 667.69

HT: 12
HPs: 90,000 [Hull], 1,200 [each Turret]
sAccel: 3.06 Gs/3.16 Gs empty
Jump: 3

Feel

Erin's reworking of the Skdkai class makes me notice feel.

Way back in the original Classic Traveller (CT) rules you couldn't mount 4x 50 ton missile bays (why do they only displace 30 tons on the spreadsheet?) and 16 turrets on a 2,000 ton ship.  You couldn't mount particle accelerators or fusion guns three to a turret either.

You got one turret hardpoint for every 100 dTon not given over to weapons.  You were allowed one bay per 1,000 dTon of ship and that tonnage couldn't be used for hardpoints.  In effect, one bay eliminated ten turrets.

So a 2,000 dTon ship could mount two bays and no other weapons.  It could mount a single bay and have ten turrets.

Major weaponry (also known as a spinal mount) were limited to one per vessel and eliminated their own tonnage from the equation.

In theory you could mount a Type E meson gun (1,000 dTon) on our 2,000 ton ship and have either one bay or ten turrets.  However it would need at least a power plant rating of 35 to fire the spinal mount and that would be 1,400 dTon for the plant and fuel...  Illegal for such a small ship to mount.

Then back to turrets...

Book 2 and Book 5 disagree...

Book 2 lists four turret weapons and single, double and triple turrets.  You can mix and match to your heart's desire.

Book 5 allows up to three each of Missile, Beam Laser, Pulse Laser or Sandcaster per turret, two each of Plasma Gun or Fusion Gun or one each of Particle Accelerator.

So...  On our 2,000 dTon ship we could have 16 turrets.  Using Erin's mix of type we'd end up with 4x single particle accelerator, 4x double fusion gun, 4x triple pulse laser and 4x triple sandcaster.  We should mount four more turrets because the CT rules don't allow us to mount a bay now.

GURPS: Traveller (GT) preserves the feel of CT with its ship design system (You get 1 hardpoint per 100dTon of ship minus tonnage of spinal mounts.  Turrets take up one hard point, bays take up ten.)

Megatraveller (MT) Lost the Traveller feel by being overcomplicated just for complexities sake.

Mongoose Traveller (MgT) tried.  I am given to understand that the reason that Erin's ship is so out of whack with the feel of CT is Mongoose screwed up, if you have the errata you have limitations akin to CT imposed on you.  By the time Erin gained access to those errata, Murder Hobo Gmbh was loose with a ship that violated them.

She chose to leave it be.

But what's she's deliberately changed is the feel of the game.

This doesn't make me right and her wrong.  It doesn't even mean I'd hate playing in her world.  It doesn't mean I am a purist who opposes changing the feel, because I have done it more than once myself.

Aside:  The original ship had 16x triple missile organized into 16 batteries and 4x triple beam lasers organized into 4 batteries.  So 16x FP 2 for the missiles and 4x FP 3 for the lasers.  Not really well distributed...  I'd put the lasers in two turret batteries so 2x 4 FP instead of 4x 3FP; then I'd break the missile turrets into four batteries of 4 FP.

Ideally I think I'd mount a 50t missile bay (FP 9), 6x triple beam lasers in three batteries (FP 4 each batt) and 4x double fusion guns in two batteries (FP 5 each batt).

GT let's you put the weapons into batteries in an ad hoc manner.

Not sure how Erin has her batteries organized.

PSA: Owning A Gun

Directional

The Angry Beavers™ at Century missed something on the Star B.

The extractor pin is directional.  The round end goes up and the flat end is flush with the bottom of the slide.

Guess how they had it.

If you put it in upside down like they did, it walks up and out of the slide.

Stock Exchange

The stocks on the B and Super B are interchangeable!  That's nice to know since there's damn few places that have B stocks and several places that have Super B.

I figured it had to be so since the stocks on the Super have the cut for the slide stop post from the B, but the Super lacks the post.

As a bonus I think the wood looks and feels better on the Super B, likewise the plastic on the B.  I wonder if Willard will want to swap.

Dammit Again

Just saw Interstellar.

When Cooper gets his faceplate cracked and is disabled by the in-rush of ammonia atmosphere my suspension of disbelief broke.

Why?

Because for a small leak in a poisonous atmosphere you turn up suit pressure to above ambient.  In fact it's a good plan to have your suit set slightly above ambient pressure just in case there is a puncture.

NASA's A7L had controls for suit pressure and it was intended for vacuum only.