Thems The Breaks

Except they're not.

It's muzzle brake, not break.

Just like the brakes on your car.

LaRue Tactical MBT-2S First Impression

After four months of backorder, my MBT-2S trigger arrived from LaRue.

It comes as shown and includes two trigger return springs.

It installs just like a normal trigger, except you don't have to keep the disconnector lined up.

The two trigger springs are different weights, and I think I prefer the heavier one.

Being a two-stage trigger there is, of course, take-up.  That's got no weight at all, then you hit the second stage briefly then it snaps.  No noticeable overtravel.  It just goes.

Update: Using Marv's RCBS trigger pull scale I got 2.5 lb. for the take-up and 4.5 lb. for the break.  Just exactly as Mark LaRue said it would on Arfcom.

For $125 and a long wait or $199 and a shorter one; it's a very decent deal.  It's supposed to be comparable to a $240 Geissele SSA-E, if so it's an excellent deal!

Who Designed This Rifle?

You know who designed it.  Hallowed be His name.

Retro Score

The XM177 series has a unique stock.  It's similar to today's carbine stock, but it's made from aluminum instead of plastic.

Despite being the carbine stock from 1964 through 1985, they're quite rare today.

On the left is the one I found today.  On the right is the one I've been using on Sabrina since 2009.

I paid $200 for that stock back in 2009 because I wanted an authentic vinyl-acetate stock.  Today I paid $100 for one in better shape!

There's two companies making reproduction aluminum stocks.  One place wants $100 and it's not very accurate at all (they're also dicks so no link!).  Essential Arms (Item C2) reputably wants $150, and these are both complete sets with receiver extensions, buffers, nuts and springs.

Originals like those pictured above run $250 to $500 (depending on condition) on gunbroker for just the stock body.

How can you tell it's Colt?

The teeny, tiny markings on the right side; hidden by the latch.

Here are the markings on my original stock:

That's a "1".

An 'NN' inside a cartouche.

The new stock is marked:

Essential Arms marks their reproduction with a large 'B' on the other side nearer the butt end.

Beretta Pistole 38

Thirty eight?

I meant to say 1951!

It's a Beretta model 1951, aka M1951, aka M951, aka Brigadier.  This one is a late '50's police contract gun made for (and refurbished by) Israel.  It's led a hard life.

Damage notwithstanding, it's a shooter.  Single stack nine with 8+1 shots.  Just over 2.2 lb. loaded.

Take-Apart is simple.  Pull the slide back so the half-moon is lined up with the latch and rotate the latch up into it.  Then pull the slide off the front.

There seems to be a lack of original on this design in some ways.

The trigger sure looks Spanish to me...

Das Schloss spricht auf jeden Fall Deutsch.

Seen Any Combat

I've seen more than a couple of products touted as the next big thing because they were developed by combat veterans.

While you're thinking about the worth of that kind of experience and a firearm related engineering and design, I'd like to remind you that John Moses Browning, John Cantius Garand, Hiram Stevens Maxim and Dieudonné Joseph Saive were not combat veterans.

On The Sidebar

We still support Erin.

But the picture started loading wrong.

Uglaubich

Rather than learn the right way to do something, people would much rather find an easier way to do it wrong.

I am simply tired of trying to explain that doing it right in the first place is also easier and saves money.

Don't wanna learn?  Good.  I don't wanna teach anymore.

Elvish 3

I've done several things that my players despised.

Not least of which has been being rational about languages.

When you consider that at one time Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian were all once Latin, it makes little sense to have a single language for a race.

Making the languages national really bothered several players.

But at least the number of languages was small enough that they had names and they were all [nation-name]ese.

The real rebellion happened with a nexus world.

Not wanting to come up with names for every language for every race from every world, I just started numbering them.  If a language was predominantly spoken by Orcs, then it was Orcish #.

This let me have some multiversal flavor without too much work.

I briefed the players, they seemed to understand.

Then when I looked over a character's sheet I see, "Elvish".

"Which elvish?" I ask.

"THE Elvish language." he replied.

"There's several.  Sometimes more than one per world."

[blank stare]

"Here on earth we have lots and lots of languages.  There's no one Human tongue." I try to explain.

"Yeah, but Elvish is ELVISH!"

"Where are you getting that?"

"Tolkien."

"J.R.R. Tolkien where there's Quendian, Avarin, Eldarin, Quenya, Vanyarin, Ñoldorin, Telerin, Sindarin and Nandorin all spoken by the elves?"

"No, Sindarin is ELVISH!"

"Got it, your character speaks Elvish 8."

"NO!  He speaks ELVISH!"

"Take a [-5] disad, 'Intolerance of Elves who don't speak Elvish 8."

[sputter] "WHY?!?"

"You're playing it, you should get the points."

First Impression

We have a new local range.

And I do mean new, having been built from scratch on a property where a hotel once stood.  Said hotel was razed to the ground and a new building installed.

It's very large.

They are RELoad Guns.

The wall displays are backlit in red, white and blue.  Silhouetting the guns displayed there.  Basically this means you cannot clearly see what you're looking at.

Things are only sporadically marked with their prices.  It makes shopping frustrating, especially coupled with the dim lighting of the sales area.  Where there were price tags, they were about $50 to $100 over other places nearby.  That's a failure to do market research, says I.

The range is a lot more conventionally lit.

Range prices are, well... optimistic.  The equally nice range at Shooter's World is $7 an hour cheaper for the 100 yard rifle range ($25 vs $18).  The other ranges around here are a mere $14 an hour.  The family one-year membership is $450 which is similar to Shooter's World, as are the discounts for having one; including free range time and priority service.

Several people made note that they require you to buy your range ammo from them, which could explain why the place was packed, but nobody was using the spiffy new range at the GRAND OPENING!!

Another odd thing was 15% (at least) of the customers were in-uniform law enforcement.  I didn't see a flier bragging about LEO discounts, but something got them all curious to swing by.  I do kinda worry that the place will turn into something like the out-of-business Knight's Shooting Sports (bought out by Shoot Straight, then relocated).  Knights was near as makes no difference Pinellas County Sheriff Department official range, and they were constantly closed for LEO training during time periods where people would logically be off work and have time to waste their filthy lucre shooting.  I could see the Tarpon Springs Police Department making it their private clubhouse and getting the place killed for lack of time where the unwashed can pay to shoot.  When you offer a steep LEO discount it has to be offset by customers paying enough to profit.

More than a couple gun shops around here discovered that they have to mark their prices past where customers will pay when they make such discounts.  Almost as if some understanding of economics is required to run a business!  Since they're priced higher than the surrounding area... who knows where it will lead.

King Geek

Who is the bigger nerd?

The person speaking Dothraki or Klingon?

Addendum:  The biggest nerds speak Sindarin.

Slow Clap

Verizon FIOS has been sold off to Frontier Communications.

They've told us this day was coming for months.

I was ready.

You'll never guess who wasn't.

Well, Frontier Communications, since you can't seem to figure out how to let me log in, I guess we're going to have a snail-mail relationship.

Just like Duke Energy who couldn't figure out how to move my account information from when they changed their name from Progress Energy.

You'd think they'd learn.

Peak Mosin

It think it's safe to call it.

With SOG selling unremarkable Tula Hex 91/30 plus accessories and bayonet for $289, we're past peak Mosin.  $299 for hand-picked.

They're only going to get more expensive from here on out.

Their normal 91/30 is still $189 sans bayonet.

I've been seeing $300 Mosin in gun shops around here.

Meanwhile On The Moon

The United States of America is unique among humanity in that we sent men to walk on the moon and returned them safely.

But we are NOT the only nation to have gone.

The USSR sent a fucking tank!

Plus lots and lots of other probes.

Plus, considering that we haven't been back since...

I'm with Jerry Pournelle on this one.

I was born when zero people alive had walked on the moon.  When I die, it will also be true.

All for the war on poverty, that poverty won.

Water Tight

We start with finding the leak.

My gun and tank damaged ears pin-pointed it within a couple inches. At least as good at the $250 acoustic leak detector.

Let the destruction begin!

This is the leak:

Let the repairs begin!

And fill the hole...  I've elected to do the concrete myself.

Thanks to Friend's Plumbing for honest work in a timely manner.  It's sad you have to point that out.

Now... the battle to get credit from the county on the sewer charges on water that didn't go into the sewer!

Judging From The Plumber's Comments

I know who my builder was in 1969...

Ammination

This sort of stuff fascinates me.

I want to do more research on that turbine now, it seems like at the pressures and temperatures the steam would be wet at that point...  That's not good for turbines.

On Mint Juleps

How the heck is it that I have Akavit in this house but not a drop of bourbon?

Something unamerican about that.

And I can't make a mint-julep without bourbon.

Fortunate

While I complain about my water and sewer problems...

I must also reflect that I am extremely fortunate that I have the friends that I do.

We were short about $1,000 of what this is going to cost to fix and when we put out our call for help, help came!

Thank you to all!

Still Think It's About The Weather?

Never, EVER, forget it's InterGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change.

Read up.

All those links I got sent just backed the lie.

An obvious lie.

A lie they didn't even bother to conceal.

A lie you believed because it was simple and easy to find a thousand mainstream media articles repeating the lie.

This is what I meant when I said they were lying and in cahoots with one another.  It's the media's agenda too.

Being A Vegetarian Is Child Abuse!

Well, it makes your descendants less likely to survive anyways.

Never mind the trauma being denied bacon, look what that does to to Moslems.

This study puts paid to the idea that we evolved to be vegetarians.

Not that it was ever really taken seriously since our digestive system is clearly evolved for an omnivorous diet.

I Think I've Found It

You can hear the water running with your ear close to the washer shut-offs in the garage.

Looks like someone needs to break through some concrete and replace some copper.

I wonder if I can save some money by telling them to start ripping things apart without the acoustic leak detection step.

Under The Slab

The $700 spent today got the sewer fixed and the outside isolated from the inside.

The leak is under the slab, on the cold side of things.

$800 more for leak detection, demolition, repair and replacement.

Fuck.  Me.  Running.

Still Less Offensive

Watch this:



This is still less offensive to the original material than The Hobbit films.

That says something.

Loudly.

Why My Sewer Repair Isn't A Cheap Trip To Home Depot

Sendarus in comments made a reasonable observation.  I replied thus:

That there is orangeburg pipe. The only material that's harder to patch is clay.

There's a couple of reasons to bring in a pro.

First is the assholes at code enforcement. There's a lavish, daily, fine for dumping sewage outside the sanitary sewer system. When I am fixing it, I am liable. If the plumber is fixing it, it's "under repair" and thus no fine.

Second is that material really calls for the specialty knowledge of someone who does this for a living. It needs to be rebedded correctly or you're getting a collapse cascading from the repair.

If I had found iron or PVC under there I'd have risked the fine and done it myself!

Third, it appears that my sewer was never actually vetted by the county when my house and the adjacent house to the south were added to the county system. The neighbors pulled a DIY. Since I purchased the house in good faith, I am not liable for the fines of an out of spec system, but if I attempt to fix it myself I'm liable for bringing up to code. Hiring a plumber retains my grandfathering.

Bringing it to code means replacing the whole run.  When the house was built in 1969, it was on a septic tank.  That tank is in the middle of the back yard.

When the conspiracy of neighbors was given the option to connect to the county sanitary sewer system some time in the '70's they opted to do it themselves.

My drain runs from the middle of the back of the house, to the middle of the back yard, two 45˚ bends to run south, two 45˚ bends to get it lined up to run between the houses and out to the sewer.

In theory, I could dig it all up myself and put in new.  In practice, I have to have a plumber come out and sign off on the work and an inspection costs about the same as just having them do the work while I sit on the porch and sip a mint-julep.  That's not quite right.  An inspection is cheaper, by itself.  Me buying materials and tools plus an inspection ends up being more.  Never mind that it would take me days to it instead of hours.

Resistance

Willard left the revolver in this post here so I could take pics and make that post.

Today I demanded he take it home before I grew too attached to it and refused to let him have it back.

I made my Will roll.

Or failed my Will roll against Honesty.

Either way...

How Much Would You Pay

Though repairing this break is not wholly recommended by the plumber, they'd prefer to replace the entire line.

But wait!  There's more!

We STILL haven't begun the search for the water line that's leaking.

More Good News

I probed around a bit figuring that a leaky feed from the meter to the house would leave the ground good and soggy.

I found a small depression near the AC compressor and it seemed moister than the surrounding ground.

So I started digging.

As soon as I broke through the roots the dirt fell away.

Down into the empty chamber left from our sewer line having a 12" gap in it!

Well, but if it doesn't rain, it pours.

Joys of joys.

The Joys Of Home Ownership

Opened the water bill.

It's up from $65 to $107.

From 18 TGAL to 28 TGAL.

With everything off inside the house, the meter still spins.

With the cut-off at the house off, the meter still spins.

There's a leak between the meter and the house.

FUCK.

FUCK FUCK FUCK!

The tip jar would help a ton here.  I have no idea what this is going to cost.

Very Clever But...

There's an article saying the largest number you can represent with three digits is 9^9^9 which tallies up to:

196,627,050,475,553,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

or

1.96627050475553x10^77

Which is very clever, except...

The asshole is making an assumption, just like the teacher he's castigating.

The teacher's defense of the answer being 999 was that exponents had not yet been taught.

OK, Mr Clever.

Will your defense be that we haven't covered alternate bases?

Because in hexadecimal the largest number is f^f^f.

That's 4.17381588438865x10^264.  That's a lot bigger, isn't it?

In Octal the largest is 7^7^7.

That's  2.56923577521059x10^41.  That's a lot smaller, isn't it?

So really the largest number we can express in three digits is undefinable unless we either make assumptions or give definitions.

Hurray!  Everyone gets to be right, and wrong.

Guess what else you accomplished by forcing the answer to be 9^9^9 for all of those students who had not learned exponents and answered 999.  You've taught them it doesn't matter if they bother to learn because someone can come along later and edit their scores.

You're haven't taught them to question authority, they aren't old enough to understand what that means.  You've taught them that some asshole parent can come along later and fuck them.  You've taught them that doing well doesn't matter because you couldn't take that your special snowflake daughter wasn't paying attention to the lesson being taught and, like you, gave a too clever answer.

Part of learning is to determine the answer being called for, not just an answer that fits the criteria.  Your daughter had better enjoy being a spinster professor of math, because you've put her on the track to be VERY VERY alone and isolated.

Conetta M7

Marv's M7 is a Conetta.

Conetta did things a little different from everyone else...

I'm told that Conettas are among the harder to find variations of the M7.  I got this one for Marv as a gift (because he didn't have a bayonet at all) and got it from ebay for like $35 because it had a cracked scabbard (he's replaced the body as you can see here).  Intact M7 and M8A1 combinations were running about $75 so this seemed a good deal.  It turned out to be a great deal because the Conetta name was running $100 for just the M7 at the time.  There's one on GunBroker at the time of posting, no reserve, starting at $120 with a $225 buy-it-now.

And I gave it away...

Reformation

I've read a couple places that "Islam needs a reformation."

Sadly, I think what we're seeing is the reformation.

In the past, one had to go through the local Imam to find out about The Hadiths.

Now one can read them for oneself online.

The peaceful interpretations of decades of Imams is in conflict with the literal written words.

Check Your Calendar

There's always one idiot who ruins it for everyone. Check when you're scheduled to be that idiot.

Thanks to www.oglaf.com for that line!  (Absolutely and UTTERLY NOT safe for work!!!!)

Modern Sacrilige

If one were writing the story of Jesus' resurrection today you'd have to include a passage that distinguishes Him from a zombie.

Can you imagine?

Think God would make good his promise to destroy the earth with fire after we headshoot The Savior for being a zombie?

Of course the first thing a modern Jesus would say after rising from His tomb would be "Braaaaaaaaains!  Wait!  Just kidding, you guys should have seen your faces!"

Make The Day More Surreal

If someone asks you if you're a cop, just reply, "Not anymore; not after what I did to all those kids."

Then look around nervously and leave quickly.

Homophone

Spell checkers are great and all...

But they won't tell you that you've used a homophone incorrectly.

Weather and whether for example...

Sometimes they will "helpfully" correct your spelling to the wrong homophone though!

Akavit!

Even if Sound Spirits spells it like a Norwegian.

Do you like caraway?  Licorice?  Akavit is your drink!

Shown with an appropriately Nordic rifle.  The Finns like them some akavit too.

Give it a try!

Bay Nets

RBRD is the most debilitating form.

I was perfectly happy with my General Cutlery M7...

Then I discovered that it's not the correct era for my M16 (R604) clone!

So I got a Bayer Ord Company M7...

That's too tight a fit on the R604 and M16A2 clones.  It's a perfect, rattle free, fit on the others though.

So today I got a Columbus Milpar M7!

Rattle free fit on the R604, slightly loose on the others except the M16A2 clone.  It only seems to like the GenGut and the M9 bayonet I have.

L to R: Charlotte (Milpar M7), Tabitha (BOC M7), Alice (Buck M9), Kaylee (GenCut M7).

 I think I need me a USMC Ontario OKC-3S bayonet for Dottie.