When You See It

How can I tell I'm in The South?

Tantalize

Hit the donation button over there ----->

Make it as small or large as you would like, this isn't a bleg where we're desperate for the money.

This is just for the pure amusement that any money collected until the Tantal is finished will be put towards the project and you will have used PAYPAL to pay for an "assault rifle"!

I get the giggles about it.

If you do donate, lemme know in the comments of this post to be included in the "Thanks!" credits which will appear at the conclusion of the build and test firing.

If Today Is Friday This Must Be The Rubicon

Marv's credit card is smoking and a Tantal kit has been ordered.

I'm scared and excited!

Layers And Layers

The New York Times breathlessly reports that it is easier to buy a handgun in Florida than an AR while referencing the Parkland school shooting.

Except...

Individual counties can implement up to a five day waiting period for any gun in addition to the statewide three day waiting period on handguns.

Broward County, where Parkland is located and Oakland Park (where the shooter lived), is one such county.

Except...

None of these waiting periods apply if the buyer has a valid carry permit.

The shooter wasn't old enough to have a carry permit, so the waiting period applied.

The one place where it's a bit harder to buy a handgun is the Federal age restriction when buying from an FFL, where the shooter wasn't old enough to buy one.

He was old enough to own one in Florida.

Florida doesn't make any age distinctions with private sales once you're 18 and there's no background or waits.  Florida also doesn't distinguish between types of firearms in a private sale, so buying an AR is exactly as hard as buying a handgun.

So in one, specific and FEDERAL case... yes it is easier to buy an AR in Florida than a handgun.

REMEMBER THE MAINE!

Today, in 1898, the USS Maine exploded.

Four months later a future president sailed from Tampa to Cuba.

US Volunteer Cavalry 2-gun anyone?

Punt?

As detailed here a no-side rail, modify the trigger group myself Polish Kbk wz.88 "Tantal" is $778.00.

Adding the aspirational decadence of a side rail to it and the price jumps to $898.98.

I noticed that Bulgarian AK-74 kits are generally cheaper than Polish kits so I wondered if it would be any cheaper to go after a different breed of AK-74 that's closer to the original.

Prices include shipping.

A parts kit without a barrel from Gunbroker - $365.
A phosphate finished, chrome-lined barrel from Green Mountain - $182.25.
Side rail, and rivets from AK-Builder - $47.26.
A Morrissey made receiver from Atlantic Firearms - $94.99.
Tapco G2 trigger group - $34.98.

Toss in a PMAG and you get a grand total of $886.40.

Still cheaper than a complete gun, like an Arsenal, but not any cheaper than the Tantal build.

If I were to commit and get lucky on a Bulgarian parts kit that had an original barrel still attached theoretically I could finish the project for a "mere" $773.15!

"Logic"

The shooter was an adopted child.

His adoptive parents had moved to Florida from New York.

Using the same sort of logic as the gun-banners: If Florida would ban New Yorkers from moving here, these things would stop happening.

I Nearly Thought For Myself There For A Second

Thank GOD!

The celebrities have arrived to tell us what they think about the shooting.

Where would we be without them and their advocacy of violent retaliation against Republicans when one of their fellow Democrats murders people?

The Magic Field Didn't Work Again

Once again a gunman was able to cross the magic barrier with a firearm and enter a gunfree zone.

My Senators are both fucking morons.

The AR used didn't even have iron sights.

You're not "maximizing loss of life" if you bring a 20" AR to near CQB distances without sights.

17 people died from a lack of shooting back.

The Lovely Harvey wants to know where the mandated armed deputies were.  This is a high school, there's supposed to be at least one, armed and in uniform, present at all times during school hours.

The suspect didn't have any holes in him, so our deputy didn't manage to return fire.  We don't even know if he was actually on site or, if so, they managed to get anywhere near the shooter.

I see a lot of mil looking gear in the photos of the police response.  Buying all that junk sure helped prevent this didn't it?

There's stuff that can be done to stop these attacks, but we keep shying away from it.  We could have had more effective deterrence in place seven years ago, but my favorite former NRA president took her ball and went home.  It wasn't HER bill, so it deserved no support.

I cannot help but wonder if our shooter would have been less likely to bring a gun to a place where a random adult could have had gun to shoot back.

As things stand now, we clearly know where the guns are prohibited, and the shooters keep shooting them up.

He didn't shoot up a firing range, police station or gunshow... Did he?

Bare Bones

Bare Bones Kbk wz.88 in 5.45x39mm

AK Builder Parts kit with nitrided barrel - $470.95
AK Builder Center Support - $7.00
AK Builder Rivet Set - $9.00
Shipping from AK Builder - $19.14
NoDak Spud NDS-2T Receiver - $90
FFL transfer - $15
DNS Guns and Suppressors build class - $150

Total: $778.00 with a Magpul PMAG-30 AK-74 MOE magazine.

This would be modifying the kit's hammer, trigger and disconnector for semi-auto only operation and using the magazine for three 922r parts instead of the fire-control group.

The Tapco trigger could certainly be added at a later date to up the parts count and allow the use of a genuine, and expensive, Polish magazine.

My main concern at this point is AK-Builders selling out of parts kits and NoDak ending sales of the receiver.

I am bummed that Marv and Willard are unwilling and unable (respectively) to join the adventure.

The concern and bummer feeling have definitely given me cold feet about the project.

Tantal Totality

The break down, should The Federation wish to fund this experiment to its logical conclusion.

In 5.45x39mm, an accurate clone of a Kbk wz.88.

AK Builder Parts kit with nitrided barrel - $470.95
AK Builder Center Support - $7.00
AK Builder Rivet Set - $9.00
Shipping from AK Builder - $19.14
NoDak Spud NDS-2T Receiver - $90
Tapco G2 Single Hook Hammer/Trigger/Disconnect - $34.98
FFL transfer - $15
DNS Guns and Suppressors build class - $150

Total: $863.07 with a Circle 11 steel magazine ($67 with shipping from POLAND, hard to find, possibly sketchy seller).
           $837.77 with a Circle 11 polymer magazine ($41.70 with shipping, fairly common).
           $807.99 with a Magpul PMAG-30 AK74 MOE magazine ($16.91 shipped from Midway on sale).

In 5.45x39mm, an accurate clone of a Kbk wz.88 with side rails.

AK Builder Parts kit with nitrided barrel - $470.95
AK Builder Center Support - $7.00
AK Builder Rivet Set - $9.00
AK Builder Tantal Side Rail Kit - $90
Shipping from AK Builder - $12.13
NoDak Spud NDS-2T Receiver - $90
Tapco G2 Single Hook Hammer/Trigger/Disconnect - $34.98
FFL transfer - $15
DNS Guns and Suppressors build class - $150

Total: $954.06 with a Circle 11 steel magazine.
           $928.76 with a Circle 11 polymer magazine.
           $898.98 with a Magpul PMAG-30 AK74 MOE magazine.

In 5.56x45mm... not a clone of a particular model, but Willard and Marv already stock the ammo.

AK Builder Parts kit with 1:9 barrel in the white - $529.95
AK Builder Center Support - $7.00
AK Builder Rivet Set - $9.00
Shipping from AK Builder - $19.14
NoDak Spud NDS-2T Receiver - $90
Tapco G2 Single Hook Hammer/Trigger/Disconnect - $34.98
FFL transfer - $15
DNS Guns and Suppressors build class - $150

Total: $905.07 with a Circle 11 polymer magazine from a Beryl Kbk wz.96 ($50 with shipping from Poland and just the one seller who might be sketchy).  5.56 magazines are a little problematic.  There's at least 4 patterns.  Bulgarian, Polish and Russian 5.56 magazines supposedly interchange.  Chinese, Finnish and Yugoslavian magazine are unique unto themselves.  I am not sure where Galil magazines sit on this, do they interchange with Finn?

Quote Of The Motherfucking Decade

"All us business and STEM majors had to take a bunch of stupid liberal arts classes in order to graduate college. Shouldn’t these social justice majors at least have to take some econ and accounting classes?" Larry Correia

Ask A Simple Question

Three times before the seller answers it!

Century did a Tantal at one time.

The early guns were made with 5.56mm bore barrels so the 5.45mm projectiles just ping pong down the bore and never get any spin imparted to them.

This is exhibited by keyholing at the target at some ridiculously short ranges.

They eventually caught acknowledged the problem and the later guns had the proper bore and twist for 5.45x39mm to shoot straight.

How do you tell which is which?

If you can physically examine the gun, you can try putting a 5.45 round bullet first down the muzzle.  If the round disappears to the case, it's a 5.56 bore.

Another clue is the serial number range.  The first run got a 'TTL' serial prefix.  This is not a certain indicator of a 5.56 bore but all the 5.56 barreled guns have a TTL prefix.

'Y' and 'TTL-C' prefix guns were made after the fix.

If you're selling a Century Tantal and someone asked for the serial number prefix, how many tries would it take you to answer with the requested information?

Well, sending me pictures of the Tapco G2 trigger doesn't answer the question.

Sending me a picture of the front trunnion number doesn't answer the question.
 

That just tells me what number FB Łucznik assigned to it.

Also, if you're an FFL do you think you're going to get in trouble with ATF for putting the number on the front trunnion and not the number on the receiver into your bound book?

Well, third time's the charm!

Century Tantals aren't $1,000 guns, so his buy it now is hopeful, and I'm betting his reserve is set close to that.  $550 to $750 appears to the range for guns that actually sell.  Considering that I can build a gun exactly to my liking for Less than $800...  Well I can do the math.

A Tactic Perhaps

I wonder if the impending Remington bankruptcy is actually because they're really broke.

It doesn't take too long in an accounting class to realize that you can almost make the books say anything you want once you've decided you need them to say something in particular.

There are many advantages to declaring bankruptcy if you're actively trying to streamline your business and you have a large number of legacy facilities and jobs you need to shed but have contractual obligations to retain them.

Remington has such facilities and employees in New York.

Of course, with their recent plummet in quality it's very believable that they are on the verge of going out of business.

My newest Remington is hardly new and in no danger of wearing out any time soon.  Which, if you think about it, is actually a vote against producing quality because a one gun per customer per lifetime isn't very sustainable.

Bookkeeping

Several legitimate comments got caught in the spam filter.

I have been remiss in checking for that lately.

These comments have been restored to where they were left.

Compliance

Should this insanity proceed to the logical conclusion of assembly...

Since we're starting with a parts kit made in the Lands of the Godless Communist Hoards Poland, we need to make sure that we don't use too many of the parts made there.

922r compliance is downright simple.

George W actually helped with compliance with his Dad's law; he banned the import of intact barrels.  Barrels are a check-box on the list.

Checked is imported parts.

The receiver has to be US made.  NoDak is in Minnesota, which is still in the US at the time of this writing.

The kit comes with a US made barrel.

US made gas pistons are readily available and affordable.

The trigger, hammer and disconnector will end up being US made because the imported parts are from a select-fire gun.  Thanks to Saint Reagan's signature to That Ratfuck Prick from New SPIT Jersey William Hughes amendment to the ironically named (in this limited scope) Firearms Owner Protection Act, I can't use those parts.

I get three more compliance parts if I use a Magpul AK-74 magazine.  But one must use a genuine Circle 11 Polish magazine for photos.  Do not break the law, then take pictures of breaking the law!

I Blame The Warner Brothers

You might have seen an old animated short where they show how a toothpick or bowling pin is made using an entire tree?

I recently discovered that a pint of blood has a 1/4 gram of iron in it.

A paperclip has 1/2 a gram.

It writes itself from here, doesn't it?

OFFICE SUPPLIES ARE PEOPLE!  OFFICE SUPPLIES ARE PEOPLE!

Not Equivalent

Printing the shipping label is not the same thing as shipping the package.

Please take note!

The Long Way Round

The history of the development of the wz.88.

It's Forgotten Weapons, so you know it's good!

If You're Going To Wear A Straight Jacket

Wear a custom tailored straight jacket!

AK Builders also sells the correct optics rail for the wz.88!

And it adds another $90 to the price tag.

Perhaps Some Transparancy Would Help

There's a lot of dissatisfaction out there about how the NRA is responding to things and advancing OUR agenda on gun rights.

I've long held that the NRA is expert on the defense, but abysmal on offense.

I've also noticed they don't give even a centishit about NFA or NFA-like things and under the bus is where they throw NFA at every opportunity.

I've voted for the people whom I think will help, but...

Well, the way the things work at NRA HQ are a blank dark hole.

There's times where they appear to be in the way rather than helping, like not being able to see that a politician from Miami cannot be pro-gun; yet giving them A-ratings without anything but a statement from the politician they will be good?

Or will we be allowed to kick the football this year?

The Zombie Can Tell The Difference

Say you've gone utterly insane.

You want a clone of a Polish Tantal wz.88 rifle.

Sure, you could spend $900 with Atlantic Firearms, but it would eat at you that you didn't have the selector on the left side of the gun.

You could take your chances with a Century Arms gun.  But too many of those went out the door with a 5.56 barrel on them and there's conflicting information about how to tell the good from the bad.

That leaves you stuck with parts kits and DIY.

Nodak Spud sells an already folded and welded receiver for $90.

AK Builders sells a parts kit with a nitrided barrel for $471.  Plus $16 for rivets.

Then you're left looking for tools.  That'd be another $400+ depending on how Cadillac you wanna be about it.

If you live in the Tampa/St Pete area, like I do, one of the local gun manufacturers has an AK build class.

$750 if you bring your own kit.  They provide the tools, receiver flat, tools and expertise to change that flat into a serialed receiver and assemble your kit onto it.  Takes about 4 days.

I emailed them about bringing my own Nodak receiver for the build and the class drops to $150 and shortens the class to a day!

Grand total of DIY is $726 with the local class, plus shipping and a background check.

That's got some appeal.

If you're utterly insane.

Which I might be.

In Bruges

A comical moment in the film In Bruges is when Ray finds the box of blanks for the gun he's recently taken from a robber.

It's clearly labeled "BLANKS".

He digs around a bit more and finds a box clearly labeled "LIVE ROUNDS".

Ain't that convenient?

A Parade

I doubt you're going to find many troops who want to take part in a parade.

It's not a fun duty.

It's like a change of command formation on steroids.

There's an anal attention to things that don't matter that hardly anyone in the audience will notice that just drive the troops insane frustrate NCO's.

Our Pup Is Home

He's in his puppy bunker on the bed, adjusting to being non-corporeal.

While sad that he's gone, we're happy he's home.

Fuck You Jeff

I've been "taking aspirin and gutting it out" for near thirty years.

That's not a solution for people with chronic pain.

I'm not on, and do not seek opioids for my pain.  I've never liked they way they make me feel, and that feeling is worse than the pain to me.

But I know people where being free of the pain, even briefly, is worth the side effects of the meds.

From my experience in trying to get treatment for pain where the side effects aren't worse than the pain, I've noticed there's three kinds of doctors.

Doctors who are overly generous and prescribe far too much.

Doctors who prescribe almost enough to stop the pain.

Doctors who don't prescribe anything that actually helps the pain, and think that anyone complaining of pain is "drug seeking".

Notice that we don't have a doctor who will figure out why it hurts, treat that and thus end the pain?

In my case, there doesn't look to be a cure.  Mine's nueropathy stemming from the breaks.  I just hurt were my legs were broken and until they cure neuropathy, I will have pain.

I've tried narcotics.  Don't like the "high" when I've got too much, don't like how I feel when I don't have enough, don't care for how "out of it" I feel if there's the right dose.

I've tried lots of over the counter stuff.  It does take the edge off, but still the pain persists.

I've tried self medicating with alcohol.  Get drunk enough and you don't CARE if your legs hurt!

No solution is particularly good for my liver.  It's a choice of bad choices.

But just because my situation doesn't have a solution I am not advocating that others be forced to endure like I must.

Opiates are working for you?  I want you to have them.

People are overdosing on prescriptions?  That's a doctor problem.  Maybe the answer is in getting government out of the way so the patient can be seen more often?  So that doses can be adjusted?  It doesn't help that tolerance for opiates builds quickly and the dosage to affect the pain can cross the OD threshold before you notice.

I suspect that no small percentage of overdose on prescription is actually suicide.  Constant unending pain is maddening.  You can't sleep, you can't get comfortable.  But you can escape forever!

I do notice that we didn't end up with an opioid crisis/epidemic until we had a war on some drugs.

We didn't have this problem when doctors were more regulated by their own professional organizations than by Law and insurance mandates.

Is there no problem so large that Government cannot make it worse?

In Scale

Because I love Lego, and Traveller...

I want to build a Minifig scale Beowulf class Type-A Free Trader.

I think that 1:36 comes out about right and also ties it into standard GURPS scale of one hex equals a yard.

Those are pages from GURPS: Traveller.  One hex is 1 yard across flats.

It's going to be large.  5' long, 2'-7" wide, 9" thick plus another couple inches for the landing gear.

Huge is the word I'm using.  This is going to be huge.  And probably heavy.

Donations of spare Lego are being accepted.

One Of The Things Wrong With America

Harley is recalling 175 thousand motorcycles for brake problems.

You read that and you wonder what problem is, and you read on.

Their brakes use DOT4 fluid and have a change and flush interval of 2 years.  It's in the manual.

If the owner ignores this maintenance, crud can accumulate and cause the brakes to stop working.

Therefore, complain until the manufacturer covers the cost of the owner failing to do the required maintenance!

Oddly Mesmerizing

Traffc.

Dogs R Us in Titusville, FL is where we tend to go to watch launches.

It's a nominal 150 miles from here.

We rolled out the driveway at 0846 and didn't arrive until 1156.  Three hours and ten minutes.

The return trip was worse.

We left the restuarant at 1725.  I got home at 2056!  Three hours and 31 minutes!

Why?  Endless accidents at every single transition from on-ramp to road.

People who can't understand the "keep moving" toll lanes.

Driver's Ed 101 thing for you:  The on-ramp is an acceleration lane.  You should be moving at the same speed as traffic when you reach the transition and have the space in traffic you're going to place your car in picked out already.

Don't start looking for that gap at the end of the ramp and stop your car because you've not bothered matching speeds!

Most especially don't decide that a 1-car gap is enough when there's a 40 mile per hour difference in speed between your 30 mph and traffic's 70 mph!

The traffic, by the way, is far more likely to be in a mood to let you merge when you're not demonstrably going to force them to slam on their brakes if they let you in front of them.  Also, someone punching it on the road as you're merging might be trying to make a gap behind their car for you and not a blocking attempt.  They're already in traffic and might know the car behind them is going slower so the gap will widen for you.

The most important thing about driving is that should be the only thing you're doing.

Drive the car.  That is all.

If there's something that's more important than driving you have to get done, stop driving with the car parked rather than stop driving at speed while you do your other important task.

Yes, I am an expert with the competition licenses to prove it.

17 Years Short

The Browning Hi-Power has ceased production.

Almost made 100.

Besides the 1911 are there any other pistols that pre-date Disco still in production?

And please notice I say pistol here and not revolver.

Target Audience

Bright, again.

I suddenly hit me, with all of these critics complaining about lazy or incomplete world building in Bright.

They're not the target audience.

The target audience are ME and MY people.

None of us had trouble seeing what was going on subtextually.

That's because we walked into the theater knowing what an Orc was.

Knowing what Elves are.

Playing the same game in different GM/DM's worlds.

We've been there and done that and filled in the gaps on the fly so many times that it's effortless to grasp this world in a way that a film critic cannot.

There appear to be hundreds of little details that we gamer types noticed that baffle the critics.

We were being SHOWN the world.

The critics who complain about narration and exposition are now unable to figure out a world without someone explaining it.

It makes me think that film school is the only college where there's no D&D being played.

What I Did Today!

I went to Titusville and watched the launch of the VERY FIRST FOURTH electric car from Kennedy Space Center.

I also watched the return of the strap-on boosters.  Very cool!

Much slower than the Shuttle, much quieter but excellent growling crackle.

The boosters make a sonic boom that arrives just after they land.

I failed to take a single picture with my camera because I had it set up all wrong.

UPDATE:

Marv managed to get some vid shot, but his camera kept timing him out for some reason.



Don't mind the shakey cam...

Civilize Them With A Krag

Come next hurricane, Willard and I need to take a picture of ourselves in "looter defense" stance.

Armed with our Krags!

Damn, damn, damn the Looters!
Cut throat local ladrones!
Underneath our starry flag,
Civilize ’em with a Krag,
And protect our own beloved homes.

Oddly related...

Of course, I'll need a Cavalry belt.
Willard will need an Infantry belt.

I've not a clue, one about where we'd scrape together 200 rounds of .30-40 to fill them!

Be we can dream!

Fakery

Lots of US Krag-Jørgensen rifles have gotten the sportification treatment.

No foul, at one time they were almost cheaper than dirt.  No surplus, general issue, rifle is collectable during its initial massive dump on the civilian market.

Many of the sportified guns were well done.

Lots of US Krag-Jørgensen rifles also got the carbinization treatment too.

Foul.

Because Springfield didn't really mark the receivers of the carbines differently from the rifles, a clever and dishonest gunsmith can create a carbine where a rifle once stood.

Some do better than others at it.

One tell is sling swivels.  Carbines got a sling bar and ring on the left side of the wrist instead of under the butt and forearm.

Stock rings are completely different between the rifles and carbines.

The sights are different too, but harder to tell apart at a distance.

Be careful out there shopping for a Krag carbine!

Mean Streak

There's a part of me that wants to figure out a stripper clip guide for my Krag.

Such things did exist, although they didn't work very well.

A fake Parkhurst Device or an insert that sits loose in the loading gate and a glowing write up would be the icing on the cake!

Then show that the gun had been sportified...

Oh, the vapors from people who'd react to such a "rare" gun being modified.

GURPS Is Reality

No, it's just a game.

But I like to see how well it can simulate things.

Like a shotgun at contact range to the chest not being an instant kill.

Let's assume it's a 12ga, 2-3/4" shells and buckshot.

Each of the 9 pellets is capable of doing 1d+1 pi, but p. B409 gives rules for extremely close range damage.

Muzzle in contact is well below the 4 yards which is 10% of 1/2D range of 40.

So we multiply the 1d+1 pi by 1/2 the number of pellets, rounding down.  9 / 2 = 4.5 or 4.

1d+1 x 4 = 5.14 or 5d pi.

The target is wearing a shirt, so no armor to worry about.

The average person is straight 10 stats, so he's got 10 HP.

5d pi will do 5-30 points of raw damage, but he probably hit the vitals with this shot, so x3 to damage giving us 15-90 points of damage.

The average, honest, six sider gives 3.5 points per roll.  Five of them average to 17.5 or 52.5 to the vitals.

You have to make a conscious roll when you reach 0 HP and every second after.  You have to make a death roll every time you cross a negative multiple of your HP, -10, -20, -30, -40 in this case.  You are automatically dead if you hit -5xHP, or -50 in this case.

If you fail a death roll by 1 or 2, you're mortally wounded rather than dead.  If you make your consciousness roll(s), you're still incapacitated, but awake.

You check for bleeding at HT-(damage taken/5) every minute after being wounded, critical success means you stop bleeding, success means you take no additional damage, failure means you take 1 hit and a critical failure means you take 3 hits.

Minimum damage isn't even lethal!  -5 HP does even warrant a death roll

Average damage, though, certainly is.  -42 points is 4 death rolls and a consciousness roll.

If you make those rolls!  You're not moving very fast, and you're bleeding.  You roll against your HT-(damage taken/5) to prevent losing an additional HP per minute (HT-10 in this case or 0 or less to succeed).  -42 is a mere 8 points from auto-death as well.  It gets better!  You lose 3 HP on a critical failure, a chance of zero means any roll of 10 or higher is a critical failure.  The average roll of 3d6 is 10...  So three minutes of bleeding, maybe four, should do it.
Three minutes is 180 turns of activity!  Our guy is clearly more hurt than this, but not much more as we'll see.

Maximum damage knocks him down to -80 HP, or well past the -50 HP required for auto-death.  Any raw roll of 20 or higher is automatic death, in fact.

I think our assailant rolled a 19 for damage, doing 57 points to the vitals dropping him to -47 HP.  He made his consciousness and all four death rolls for the turn he shot himself, and kept making the consciousness rolls until he moved off screen where he finally passed out and then made a critical failure on his bleeding check for three more HP to hit the automatic death point of -50 HP.

Sanitized

The history of the American Indian has been cleansed and romanticized.

The only evil people in the old west are whites.

That's not true.

There's enough evil and injustice on both sides to spread around.

There was ample casus belli from the Native Americans to start the wars that got them subjugated and sent to reservations.

There are ample examples of White savagery to justify all manner of reprisal from the Indians.

This is what happens when cultures rub up against one another.  Better to be the stronger, more adaptive culture when it occurs.

Western Civ was the winner of the clash.  Decisively so.

The singular reason we're hearing about it today is that Western Civilization, in the form of American expansion, didn't do what every other culture in the world prior to that did to the culture it was displacing with its expansion.

We skipped on the enslavement and genocide.

Those words have lost some of their value in modern usage.

We use them to describe attempted enslavement and attempted genocide.

We use genocide to describe massacre.  We use enslavement to describe subjugation.

An enslaved people has no free members.

A people whom have experienced genocide has no living members.

Piracy Before The Invention Of Decimal Currency

I've made a table for use if I ever run a Pirates campaign again.

I'll bet two and six that most people don't know half the coins.

Did you know that in both times of High Piracy a pound of silver wasn't worth a Pound?  Never mind that there weren't no coin called a Pound.  Sovereigns, yes; Pounds, no.

Theme Meme

Remington-Eddystone M1917 and Springfield/Colt M1911

Continuing on my meme of themed two-gun combinations... WW1 US Army.