In Seven Years

I've had my first short barreled rifle for just over seven years.

In that time I have been asked to show my tax stamp a total of zero times.

In that time I've seen others shooting their short barreled guns and I've never seen them asked for their stamp either.

The only time I've ever seen someone asked is with a machinegun and the examination was so cursory I think I could have used my SBR stamp to trick the range officer that it was for my illegal MG.  Oh yeah, it wasn't the cops asking about this dude's MG, it was the range officer.

Everyone knows that an unregistered SBR is illegal.  But nobody asks.

I've certainly been shooting it with uniformed cops in the next lane.  The only time one of them has asked about my SBR has been to ask, "can I shoot a couple rounds?"  With his buddy filming the fireball with his cell phone...

So, what's the explanation?

Everyone knows how simple it is to get the stamp and do this legally so everyone assumes that's what was done.

This is why the 41f crap from NFATCA rankles me so.

Honest people obey the law when nobody's looking.

Criminals don't obey the law unless someone who can arrest them is watching.

Honest people get the stamp.  Criminals are aware that nobody cares unless it's a machinegun, so they don't get the stamp.  Why waste the time, effort and money adhering to a law that won't get you noticed, let alone arrested; while committing the obvious felony of just having a gun in the first place?

The logic doesn't stand.

Nueve de Mosin

The $9 Mosin.  A 1936 Tula mixmaster 91/30.

Nine

Nine years ago my mom died.

The pain is more bearable, not lessened.

We often didn't get along, which makes her absence oddly felt.

Fuck cancer!

Ironically it was a bone cancer that metastasized into her lungs what got her, because she was a lifelong smoker.  The cancer that metastasized wasn't a lung cancer associated with smoking, she could have stopped smoking and still got this one.

Dammit!

Constitutional Carry In New Hampshire?

Probably be vetoed again, but their state congress keeps trying.

Is Newer Better

Thanks to my retro fascination, I have some vintage parts!

The XM177 series came with skinny round handguards and starting with the XM177E1 an aluminum buttstock coated in vinyl acetate.

The M4 series got the same handguards at first, but later got thick handguards with a double heatshield.

The M4 stock started with a plastic (Fiberlite) version of the XM177 stock and moved to the same stock still used today.

Magpul makes replacement furniture too.

I put this all on a scale tonight.


Vintage skinny handguards: 4.9 oz.
Modern skinny handguards: 4.5 oz.
BCM double heatshield handguards: 6.4 oz.
Colt M4 double heatshield handguards: 6.8 oz.
MOE Carbine handguards: 8.6 oz.

Vintage vinyl acetate stock: 9.3 oz.
Vintage Fiberlite stock: 4.4 oz.
M4 stock: 6.6 oz.
Magpul CTR stock: 9.2 oz.

The Magpul stuff is nifty and has all kinds of things that let you customize, but if you're shaving ounces, go cheap.

Coming Up Short

Putting Weer'd's entry on the 15th for Mosin del día means I'm missing a Mosin for the 14th, 16th and the rest of the month.

For such a ubiquitous rifle, hardly anyone seems to be willing to send off a pic to participate in the joke.

Update:

Got four from one person and a couple more from others, Thanks!  I'm covered through the 20th now.

Ocho de Mosin

Chinese Arsenal 296 Type 53

Rust Never Sleeps

And it's sneaky and insidious.

Anodizing, bluing and parkerization help prevent it, but aren't proof against it.

I've seen many guns rusted from being left in cloth gun cases and then stored in the garage or basement.  The cloth retains the moisture from the humidity and holds it against the metal.

I've taken guns to the field and gotten them soaked in the rain that never rusted while we were out but turned fuzzy in the cases on the way home.

I was going to post something much more extensive about passivation and rust prevention.

But it's a delightful rabbit-hole of reading about the processes of bluing, parkerization, anodizing and epoxy painting.

For now, let's leave it at keep a thin coat of oil on anything you don't want to rust and keep it someplace cool and dry too for good measure.

When I've done a bunch more reading, perhaps even after I parkerize my suppressor, I'll post a bunch more on it.

An Actual AR Used In A Crime!

Man bites dog in its rarity!

Sadly, there's something very typical about this story (from the link):

Both men had extensive arrest records. Gualtieri said Witchard had 18 prior arrests on 33 different charges dating back to 1996. His crimes included being a felon in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, fleeing and eluding, cocaine possession and violation of probation. He had $4,000 on him and marijuana in his pocket, Gualtieri said. Williams' criminal history includes disorderly intoxication in Florida and failure to appear for driving on a suspended driver's license. In Virginia, his record includes drug conspiracy and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

It's a 20" A1 style gun with A2 handguards and a Lone-Star pistol grip.  Looks a lot like an old Eagle Arms lower.

Good shootin' Deputy!

So What?

The former president of Mexico, Vincente Fox, has endorsed Hillary for president?

A foreign national says we should vote for her?

Who is he speaking out to?

Why should his opinion on the matter, well, matter?

I'd get all offended at some foreigner sticking their nose into our domestic political process, but we kind of do it all the time too.

As for Hillary?  By their friends shall you know them.

Mr Fox?  I am still pissed about Jorge Arbusto genuflecting to you.

Because There's No 900 lb. Gorilla For NFA

I've noticed that the anti-gun forces have been doing petty pecking at NFA regulations.

They've been successful and they've got a fine representative in the National Firearms Act Traders & Collectors Association or NFATCA.

NFATCA sees themselves as making the noble stand and selflessly sacrificing to make the NFA world less bad than it could be.

The problem with their meddling, with the best of intentions, is all they're really doing to a lot of people is paving the road to Hell.

They flat accused anyone with an NFA trust of being a felon trying to skirt the possession laws while also acknowledging that many people with an NFA trust would have gone the individual route if their chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) would sign Form 1 or Form 4's.

I applauded the attempt to eliminate the CLEO signature from individual transfers.

It was the attack on NFA trusts that pissed me off.  I was not asked by the NFATCA why I got a trust instead of doing individual ownership.

With a trust The Lovely Harvey can also have access to the NFA items while I am away.  With a trust, we can take care of the legal necessities of The Boy for the sad day when we're both dead and gone.  Our NFA trust, is also a traditional trust to make sure that The Boy, who cannot govern his own affairs, never ends up owning any of the guns.  He's literally incompetent.  The trust liquidates the gun collection and sets up accounts to help support him.

That I could file Form 1's and not invite the sheriff into my life by begging permission to exercise a right was just a bonus.  Skipping the cost and bother of getting a photo and fingerprints was also a welcome plus to the trust.

The problem for NFATCA was kind of simple.  If someone could just form a trust to avoid an anti-gun CLEO's tyranny, then there's no need to eliminate the signature from an individual transfer.

So they demonized the trusts and trust holders.

When ATF ignored them for years they sued the ATF to listen to their demands.

Stomping their feet and holding their breath, they eventually got their way and soon using an NFA trust will be a tedious endeavor.  A tedious endeavor that as of this moment still isn't fully defined.  At present I don't know what I will have to do to file a Form 1 or Form 4 after 13Jul16.

Thanks NFATCA!

But now I see they're at it again with suppressors now.

Guys, when you're dealing with people who hate you and are looking for an excuse to fuck you over, don't give them extra chances.

I say again:

There are two ways to start a rulemaking.

First is when the executive gets a burr up their ass to outlaw something.  This is how we get rulemaking that bans M855 and other SS109 ammunition as "armor piercing".  It's also where 5.56x45mm becomes "designed for" use in a pistol.

Second is when the citizens petition for a rulemaking.  They can suggest what rule they want to see when they petition, but the actual rule will be drafted by the agency and colored by the sitting administration.

Read that very carefully.

You are begging (which is what a petition really is) an agency to change a rule they've already made to make your life easier but they have complete control over what changes will be submitted for comment, and then whether to ignore those comments and do what they want anyways.

In most cases what this boils down to is "leave it well enough alone."

This is also why the best method of affecting changes to the regulations is by getting Congress to pass a law.

There is nothing broken with how suppressors are marked under the present rules.  There is no need at all to change them.  So why has NFATCA taken it upon themselves to demand ATF change the rules?

Update:

I'm not the only one noticing their meddling.

Siete de Mosin

Tula M-91/30 "high wall" round receiver.  "Last ditch" sling.

Communication Fail

Did you mean what you wrote?

Could what you wrote be taken another way?

Are you sure that the reader will read it the way you intended?

How long were you confused by their comment before you noticed the second meaning?

Can you edit what you wrote to make your intended meaning more clear?

Did you make that edit and get a comment that shows that you failed to make yourself more clear?

In fact, did it end up making it worse?

It's a damn good thing I don't get paid to write, I'd be fired.

Thag Know This Pain

And I've literally built a whole gun around such a small left-over part.

It was an M16A1 flash-hider lock washer.  It's on The Lovely Harvey's Platoon gun, Cheyenne.

Yikes!

The water leak I discovered at the end of March...

And paid $1,500 to fix...

It's a gift that keeps on giving!

$422.80 is the water bill from that time period.

I thought that the $107 bill was steep...

I sure hope they have a payment plan, 'cause it would suck to have to shit it so soon after the other crap.

Accessorizing

So, when I get my fake badge that reads "Concealed Weapons Permit Holder"...

... should I get a Blue Gun or Airsoft as my fake gun to go with it?

Ain't Gonna Say It

If I say what I'm thinking, we won't be friends anymore.

Nice weather I'm having, isn't it?

Sies de Mosin

Izhevsk M-91/30 "low wall" round reciever.

This Is Captain Obvious For Fox 13 News

http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/137557563-story

Finding an alligator in your pool in Florida is very much akin to finding a lawyer in your courtroom or a politician in your legislature.

It's just not news.

Counting Your Vote

In a sense if you stay home on election day, you are accepting the decision of everyone who did vote.

With only 53 and change percent of the eligible population bothering to vote (on average), it's a popular choice to stay home and not bother.

But... always a but:

There's some solid reasons for not voting.  It's a small list though.  You'd have to have hard reasons not to vote for any of the candidates because all of them violate some tripwire issue or value.

That's hardly a person who refuses to vote though.

53.6% of the eligible voters actually vote, but 84.3% of the people who register to vote do so.

It makes you wonder why they bothered to register then not bother to, you know, VOTE...

But let's assume that every one of the 235 or so million people of voting age is an eligible voter.

125,960,000 people vote out of 149,418,742 registered.  About 25.5 million people are signed up to vote who don't go to the polls.  That's more than the population of Florida!

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, and assuming they don't vote because of sound moral principles...  85.6 million people have no excuse to complain how the election comes out.  They didn't even register.  Almost a third of the overall population!

Normally when I hear someone bitching about the election, I ask whom they voted for.  If they say they don't vote, I do ask why.

If they dare to say that their vote doesn't count, I tell them to stop talking about politics because they didn't even try to have their vote counted.

I've had some really interesting conversations with people who have solid reasons to vote "none of the above because they all..." but this voting thing is actually something that people died to leave to you.

Yes YOU.

Like A Nuke But Smaller

In color no less.



With narration, but not as good a copy of the event.

¡Cinco de Mayo!

When the French win one, you should make note of it.

Wait.

They lost today?

To the Mexican Army?

To paraphrase Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil, "Beating the French army...  to succeed is commonplace.  To fail is humiliating."

Cinco de Mayo in the US is like all holidays we've imported from other nations or appropriated from other cultures: A time to hit the bars and get plastered!

Just Like Making A Chocolate Rabbit

Whereas when you're making a chocolate bunny, you start with a block of chocolate and remove everything not contributing to a general impression of rabbittity...

...so also do you remove a lot of aluminum from an AR-15 blank forging to make a completed lower.

25.3 ounces at the start.

12.1 ounces at 80%.

8.4 ounces at 100%.

Cinco de Mosin

Model 91/30 Ex-Dragoon (Chatellerault hex reciever)

Happy birthday Sergei Ivanovich!

Even if wikipedia says it's in April.  We can call this Mosin's Birthday (Traditional)!

Twitch Twitch

DSArms catalog says they make an RPD in 6.8 SPC...

Twitch, twitch goes my "odd gun" antenna.

An expensive, 14 lb, semi-auto, belt fed gun in an expensive boutique chambering?

Yeah, I want one.

Heck, I kind of want one in the original 7.62x39mm.

I Wanna Buy

Willard has a broken door handle on his SUV.

It's a simple fix once you have the part.

I never imagined it would be so cursed difficult to get the damn part!

The local dealer claimed they could get the part in today when I called them on Monday.

We went to said dealer to pick up the part.

After ten minutes of waiting for someone to notice us at the counter I started wandering around and counting the number of people in the dealer's uniform not working.  18.  18 people not working and not helping us.

When someone finally came to the parts counter to help (4 of the not-workers were in the back of the parts department) they told Willard that the part had not come in and if he left his name and number they'd order it for him, and call, maybe tomorrow...

Just a moment ago I found the part he needs online and it's ordered for a 5-8 day delivery window.

Until today I had not realized that the Mitsubishi dealer was running a welfare program rather than running a business.

That's not entirely fair.  It's a Mitsubishi/Ford dealer.  The "employee" behavior is unusual for a Japanese dealership, but is sadly all that common with Ford.  It's no mistake that hot-rodders use GM for their project drivetrains.

Quatro de Mosin

VKT Kiv/39

Actually Not Quite

" We've beat this before and we'll beat it again." - Tam

If we'd really beat them, we wouldn't have to fight the exact same fight over and over.

We are winning battles, but I don't see the end of the war in sight because we're simply not reversing as much as we should if the other side was beat.

It's a slog.

I'm slogging, while I'm blogging.

Eventually we're going to beat them though, so the panic is unwarranted.  I agree with that!

More Doodles

I discovered today that I'd specified a model on my Form 1.  I'd intended for it to be called "HEL-E4A", but the automagically generated "AR15 Suppressor" is what appears in box 4d.

I shan't make the same mistake next time!

Of course there's going to be a next time!  Why do you ask?

Harvey is going to get her Platoon Clone SBR'd and I suspect that I'm going to want another suppressor just for spite.

NFATCA Are A Bunch Of Fucking Idiots

If you are a member, you're wrong and should feel bad.

Then you should terminate your relationship with them.

You should not do business with any company they endorse, and avoid doing business with places that hire NFATCA members and their families.

If you see a NFATCA member on fire, and you have to urinate really really bad, I'll bet you $50 that you can hold it until you reach a restroom with an appropriate label for your perceived gender.

If you happen to see a NFATCA member drowning, the mailing address for the US Coast Guard is:

US Coast Guard
2703 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE
Washington, DC 20593

Don't forget the stamp!

Near as I can tell not a single good thing has come out of them, so fuck 'em.

80% Lower Engraving

I doodled this up this afternoon.

Using my MLP:FIM Colt logo and changing the manufacturer block will prevent the unlikely event of it being mistaken for a real Army owned, Colt made, M16A2.

I think I will change "NOSTALGIC RECREATIONS DIV." to "MYLASTNAME TRUST" though.

The auto-sear hole shown in the drawing is a place-marker for scaling the text from:

COLT'S FIREARMS DIVISION
COLT INDUSTRIES
HARTFORD, CONN.
            U.S.A.

Tres de Mosin

Sako Kiv/39

We're Only Up To Ten

I've only got 10 Mosin pics for the month so far.  Weer'd and Marv have already contributed one each.

Willard is good for at least three (I think).

Where's Erin's?

Spread the word!  I'm like 17 short!

On The Highest Authority

The official motto of the US Army Rangers is Sua Sponte.

Which is, I'm told (by an authoritative source), Latin for "show us your tits!"

Of Course!

Every once and a while I encounter someone saying something extremely self evident.

Something, that was so evident to me that I had no words to describe it until I read their description.

A description that's held to be a revelation by many other who read it.

Making me think that it wasn't so evident to everyone else.

If I had but the words to describe what I perceive.  Would that I had the courage to describe what is obvious to me and obscure to everyone else.

Dos de Mosin

Sako Kiv/28-30

My Problem With Podcasts And YouTube Videos

Pace.

With text I can proceed at my own pace and back up instantly if I think I missed something.

With audio or video, I am forced to progress at the presenter's pace and if it's too damned slow (and it often is) my mind will wander and I will definitely miss something.

So I have to figure out where I actually lost track of the presentation and relisten.

Again at the presenter's pace, not mine.

Statistical Aberration

In GURPS a 16" 7.62x51mm NATO rifle does 6d pi out to 800/3,500.

A 16" 6.8x43mm SPCII rifle does 6d pi out to 820/3,500.

The 6.8, with a 5x optic and 25 rounds on board is 9.6 lb. and you can can actually shed a lot of weight from this example!  Stripping off the known to be heavy MagPul stuff and converting to a carbine stock drops it down to 8.7 lb. loaded with the 5x optic!

A 16" FAL with iron sights and 20 rounds loaded is 9.8 lb.

Spare FAL magazines are 1.6 lb. and spare 6.8 magazines are 1.3 lb. for 25 rounders and 1.7 lb. for 30 rounders (of course adding more beans adds to the overall weight too).

Uno de Mosin!

VKT Kiv/91

A Mosin a day, for a month.

I can't do it alone.

Send your pictures, formatted similarly to the above to mcthag at gmail dot com.

Sorely Missed

The Lexicans has republished one of my favorite Lex sea stories.

Enjoy!