Actually That's True

During The American Revolution it was, in fact, illegal for a common citizen to own cannon.

It was forbade them by English law (with narrowly tailored exceptions for ship-owners).

It's also a contributing factor in there being a revolution and the fact that we are no longer English.

It makes one wonder what country does Joe think he's president of.

Update: Even if it was somewhat legal via militia association to have a cannon of your own in the militia's armory: once the revolution started it was DEFINITELY against English law to have one.  Which is the point of my poorly researched, snarky, post.  We chucked the government which put restrictions on such things.

Woah Canada

So called assault weapon buy backs and ending transfers of handguns?

I think we're going to see how uncompliant our neighbors beyond Damnyankeeland can be.

I wonder if revolutionarily non-compliant will happen.

RCMP has been particularly jack-booted of late, dunno how this will sit with the gun-owners.

We'll see.

Wrenching To Distraction

With the death of Dingus, I've been looking to distract myself from thinking about him.

For the record, it appears to have been aggressive pancreatic cancer.

Nothing we could have done and the apparent symptoms are nothing then everything.

We're devastated.  It's been a shitty year so far.

So I decided to clear the pile of parts I'd bought for The Beast starting with the strut mounts on Saturday with assistance from JT and Marv.

It solved, to my amazement, a steering wheel vibration from 60-75.  I was braced for no changes at all and got the problem cured.  It's obvious that every single joint on the front needs to be replaced before too long.  Lots of cracked boots but no looseness... yet.  Happily, no single part is too expensive or hard to replace.

The first mount took us about an hour and a half.  The second just half an hour.

Experience matters?

Sunday I decided to install the upgraded "silver box" I'd bought from Australia months ago.

 

This took four and a half hours to get done all by my lonesome.  The decision to put it in was the result of a wild hare up my ass.

It took longer because I was frequently consulting the service manual and taking breaks from the 90+ degree heat with decently sticky humidity.

My radio has gone from an AM/FM with CD to AM/FM, CD, Bluetooth, and (very dated) Nav with USB and 3.5mm Aux input.  The Bluetooth means I can make calls hands free and stream music from the phone, perhaps even XM.  The USB means I can plug in my long neglected iPod Classic.  The 3.5mm aux means I can play anything that uses headphones; the downside is I have to run it from the device and not from the head unit.

One unexpected feature is the ability to store up to 15 CD's onboard the silverbox.  They have to be CD-Audio formatted, and they take forever to load, but it's kind of a neat feature.  Not sure what I'll put there because all of my music fits on that iPod.

Part of the disassembly process was removing the shift knob.  The plastic was worn smooth, and the factory part is unavailable and rare.  A nice leather knob is available for a Pontiac G8 that drops right in, so I did!  Huzzah!  A bit of style and comfort is added for little money!

One feature that is absent is XM.  I plugged in an antenna to the appropriately colored antenna plug and no XM options appeared on screen.  Not unexpected, considering there's no XM down-under, but hopes were dashed.

The new box has provision for a back-up camera.  I have not yet decided where I want to put the camera I've bought, so I haven't routed the wires yet.  Soon?

Maverick

Marv and I went and saw Top Gun: Maverick.

It's really well done.

Worth the big screen.

For The Fallen

 

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

-- Laurence Binyon

Today is not about sales. It is not about summer starting. It is not about grandma.

It's is about those who served and have passed beyond the vale.

I want them all back.

To:

Bernie Canniff (Korea, in a car club together).

Carol LeFon aka Neptunus Lex (patiently explained both real world and flight sim military aviation to this tanker).

Davy McGuire (COB USS Whale, originally a friend of my Dad's, later me).

Fred Gabow (we served together, his wife hired someone to murder him).

Ian Gates (Comrade in arms to Willard).

Jerry Pournelle (you do read, don't you? Willing to be wrong and listened to my correction!).

Kevin O'Brian aka Hognose (our beloved Weaponsman).

Rabbi (Uncle Ben, another friend of Dad who got me a ride in an F-14A).

Rich Sickels (brother of my Father in law).

Robert Smith (uncle by marriage to Mom's sister).

Standing Bear aka William Dawkins (WW2 and Korea, who taught me gaming).

The world is better that you were in it and worse that you have left.

Lost Kitty

Derpy Dingus McGee, the Grayness, has passed on.

He was a great cat, taken too soon.

Not As Much As You'd Hope

Crew survivability is a major thing among Western tank designs, but...

The main gun ammo is not always as separated from the crew as you'd think or hope.

The best tank at keeping the two apart is the M1 series.  Almost all the ammo is in the rear of the turret behind blast doors with blow-off panels in the roof to vent the effects of the ammo cooking off.

On the 120mm models, what few rounds (six) that are in the hull are likewise behind a blast door with venting provisions.

This is a LOT better than the M60A1 and A3 it replaced.  Ammo was everywhere.  Some in the rear of the turret, some under the gun, some on the floor along the wall of the turret basket, some on either side of the driver...

Yet, the M60 isn't famous for ammo fires.  Nor is its predecessor, the M48.

The Leopard 2 has ammunition storage in the back of the turret, like the Abrams, but just on the loader's side.  The rest of the stowage is in the hull to the left of the driver.  Turkey had a couple of catastrophic ammo fires from this.  Despite this, the Leo 2 doesn't have a reputation for burning to the ground.

Challenger 2, same deal.

What really cures the Western tanks from burning to the ground was changing hydraulic fluids.

The T-55 and T-62 stow ammo in much the same manner as the contemporaneous M48 and M60.  They weren't regarded as particularly prone to burning, and Israel sure tested that!

It's the Soviet/Russian tanks with the auto-loader that give Russian designs a reputation for lighting up.

At a glance the ammo placement seems ideal.  Deep in the hull, where it should be best protected by thick armor and intervening equipment (like road wheels).

I think what we're seeing with them isn't poor placement, but where they're being struck.  The armor on the turret roof is thin and there's not much else above ammo but a couple layers of very thin sheet metal.  The things that come through the roof are normally very hot, and readily light fires.  Oh, and the autoloader is a mess of hydraulic lines with the attendant fire risks from aerosolized oils.

Western designs penetrated this way would have a bad day for the crew, but the ammo isn't almost guaranteed to be hit like it is in a T-64/72/80.  The same holds true for the earlier Soviet designs.  The ammo tends to be clustered around the perimeter of the turret rather than right under the middle.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Michelle Yeoh is wonderful.  It's good to see her starring again.

The movie is fun, clever and I had a great time.

The "aside" scenes are a great hoot!

You should go see it using your method of choice.

Meat Grinding

I've read, and seen nothing to contradict it much, that the Russians are slowly grinding it out and advancing.  Though not near as ambitiously as it started.

While a war of attrition is not the preferred means of victory, it's a proven one if you have the stamina and resources to let it run its course.

Such victories, though, are often of the Pyrrhic type; that's why they are not the preferred way to do it.

Recovery

I've seen a lot of footage of knocked out Russian armor filmed by Ukrainians and I don't think I've seen something really important about that mentioned.

There's a knocked out tank where there are Ukrainians filming it.

Not a tank recovered by the Russians.

Tanks are actually kind of hard to kill permanently.  It's quite astonishing what can be repaired and returned to service.

It's one of the reasons that Kursk was so devastating to Nazi-Germany.  The Soviet Union held the ground at the end and Zee Germans weren't able recover and repair their salvageable tanks.

What this really means is the Ukrainians are recovering the hulks and salvaging what's useful from them.

Something else which is apparent from some of this footage is Soviet/Russian tanks (this includes Ukrainian tanks which are the same designs) are shockingly easier to kill permanently than Western designs.

Lots of crispy rusted shells from catastrophic ammo fires.

It's been interesting for my ex-tanker ass to watch explosive reactive armor actually work and seeing that you can saturate the active defenses that Russia was saying made their tanks impervious to anti-tank missiles.

Measure / Counter-Measure.  The pendulum swings.

PS: I've been looking for a definitive answer about the footage of Russia transporting a shit-ton of T-62M's by rail and where those tanks were going.  Most people posting it are claiming it's near the Ukrainian border, a few are saying it's a shipment to Syria.  I don't KNOW.  But if the former is true, that's bad for the Russian war effort.  Update: A quick look around shows some of the same painted markings on Syrian T-62M as are seen on the train.  If that's a shipment ID, then it's old footage being used as propaganda.  If that's a repair batch number then it's meaningless to the tank's destination.

I have read that the tanks being transported were earmarked for Syria and are being diverted, that could explain the matching numbers.  Or not.  I admit, I don't know.

Pyrrhus wept.

NIJ And GURPS

 Link to the National Institute of Justice pdf about the level criteria.

The GURPS standard for penetration is based on the average roll of a six sided die, or 3.5 points.

That means that something that is proof against 2d will have DR 7.  That also means that 2d can penetrate it on a good die roll.

This is GURPS and not the real world, but we're going to try to get things to pass a reality check and still conform to the game assumptions.

What they're supposed to stop:

Type IIA: 9mm and .40 S&W

Type II: 9mm and .357 Magnum

Type IIIA: .357 SIG and .44 Magnum

Type III: Rifles 7.62x51mm M80 ball from an M14 is what's spec'd.

Type IV: Armor piercing rifles .30-06 M2 AP from an M1 is what's spec'd.

The standards specify bullet weight and velocity.

IIA: 2d+2 pi and 2d pi+ --> DR 9

II: 3d pi --> DR 10

IIIA: 3d-1 pi and 3d+2 pi+ --> DR 12

III: 7d pi --> DR 25

IV: 5d(2) pi- --> DR 35

Quite simple, really.

Good Guy With A Gun

The only corpse is the would-be murderer.

Good shooting and heroic response from a bystander with a carry permit.

Fail At This Station

Ever give someone enough rope to hang themselves?

Aesop is hanging.

I explained something and he did not understand, proving that he didn't know what he was talking about in the first place with his response.

Stop considering him knowledgeable about anything military.

Stop now, do not trust his opinion further.

I phrased what I was saying in a particular way to see if he really grasped what he was talking about, and he does not.

He focused hard on the time on target, as he was meant to if he was as ignorant as I suspected.

Trap sprung and I feel oh so clever at winning a battle of wits... not really.

It's depressing to have to do it.

But I'm sick of listening to him and having others tell me about him.  Y'all can stop telling me about his blather now, I'm done. 

UPDATE: Another reason to distrust his assessments is he's perfectly willing to edit out his mistakes and take the position that it never happened.  That's why I stopped linking to his errors way back before we all died from Ebola.

Typical

Our good buddy, Chuck, refusing to let a crisis go to waste, is championing a bill that has nothing to do with what happened in Texas the other day, nor would it have prevented it in any way.

The good news is that it thwarted Rick Scott's almost as bad bill from hitting the floor.

Lurch is no good when it comes to school shootings and what to do about it.

While the bill he likes is apparently innocuous, when everything is either forbidden or mandatory such a clearinghouse of information becomes the tool making the forbidden/mandatory decision universally rather than situationally.

Neither side is respecting Federalism.

No Goodfellas Sequel

Ray Liotta has shuffled off.

No mention of cause in the article.

Irrelevant

Just as the anti-gunners are quick to blame racist white gun owners for mass shootings...

Conservative media blames lax law enforcement.

Except that the majority of the criminals readily and handily passed a background check.

The entire core of the pro-gun objection to increased background checking is the futility of it.

Because a mass shooter is typically committing their last crime, as well as their last act, there's no deterrence in any after the fact punishment.  Not when they get to see their name in lights!

The failure to punish felons for unrelated crime has nothing to do with them.

But if we want to try something new, let's not give them the time of day after they shoot someplace up and murder innocents.

Hey, Media, you are the ones offering the incentive and reward for doing these heinous acts.

Asking you to shut up isn't an infringement of your 1st Amendment rights.  I'm asking you to not report on it, not forcing you with laws.

I know that a one time reporting of facts with a distant follow-up will prevent you from attempting to advance your hobby political goals, but hey, "if it saves even one life," right?

Something Else That Doesn't Work

The cops spend far too much time during an active shooter event doing...

I don't know what, but it's not assaulting the perpetrator.

Upwards of 40 minutes after the shooter in Texas had stopped shooting and barricaded itself into classroom before some Border Patrol agents got their shit together and began an attack.

So, basically nothing has changed from Stoneman-Douglas?

While the cops are playing perimeter security, children are stuck in a gun-free victim zone being slaughtered.

By the way, I care WAY more for those kids lives than the life of any individual officer.

If you're going to dare to assume the mantle of hero, then those lives will matter to you more than your own as well.  Save the kids or die trying, but don't stand around doing nothing until the shooter has stopped on their own.

AGAIN!

When will we learn?

Not Going Well

A tanker group I'm a member of on Facebook posted pics of Russia moving up T-62M's to the Ukrainian border.

Here's an article about it.

This would be equivalent to the US sending M60A3 (TTS) tanks.

The M has been extensively upgraded, but it's still not their front line tank.

Most likely these tanks are replacing more modern examples in the units they're headed for and the modern tanks will be sent to replace losses.

That kind of undermines the narrative that Western anti-tank missiles aren't doing what they're made to do.

Things are not going well for Russia even if they are winning.

Pyrrhic is the word that keeps coming to mind.

This does not mean that Ukraine is winning, but their victory condition is different from Russia.  All they have to do to win is to keep existing as an independent nation to win.

But they have to do that until Russia decides to quit, and that's probably going to mean territorial loss, which is also a loss for Ukraine.

This Is Potentially Very Interesting

I don't follow this channel, but it was suggested by YouTube for me to watch.

Perhaps something will happen this time.  Something in our favor.

Surprised It Needs To Be Said

Any disease which can spread from the exchange of fluids is probably readily a sexually transmitted disease.

Case in point.

Bonus round!  Finally a disease that was actually spread by "teh gheys" after so many ills have been wrongly blamed on them over the decades.

Happily, it appears that if the infected can just keep it in their pants for a few weeks this should blow over.

Sadly, that's atypical behavior for the kind of person who does sex tourism trips to raves in Europe.

Time On Target

I get this message, "What are these guys on about?"

Apparently Filthie and a certain Greek Poet are in a pissing match about how successful or not Ukraine is against Russia.

I'm still of the opinion that it's a pity both sides can't lose, but every day the war lasts gives me new hope that they can!

But checking the link to Aesop actually hit on something I DO know something about.

Artillery.  The so-called "king of battle" to armor's queen.  (What happens in the tank stays in the tank).

The Ukranians have not invented a new strategy with dispersed batteries to evade counter fires.

The fucking French invented that.  As far back as World War One.

The French did not actually DO it.  The key is communications and they didn't have a good means of getting the proper coordination much farther than you could with yelling.

We Goddamned Yankees were the first to employ the idea in the field.  In World War Two.

The Germans intensely disliked it.

We'd spread the tubes all over the map and fire them individually in a timed manner that made the target appear as if they'd been fired all at once from the same place.  This is called "time on target" (the hit all at once, not the dispersing; the Brits figured out ToT).  We even cheated and tossed some mortar fire in with the howitzers.

Should the Germans have figured out where the rounds were coming from, they didn't figure out where ALL of the rounds were coming from.  Let alone kill more than a tube or two.

And just to put it out there, in case the Ukranians get credited for inventing it, our redlegs also developed shoot and scoot doctrines where the tube is moving before the round gets to the top of its arc AND single-tube time on target.

And we did it all with normal radios, paper maps, and analog gear.

GPS and computers makes it easy.

Because We Forget

If we're going to make any damn progress we have to notice and remember who wasn't on our side when it mattered.

Even if they were solidly on our side for years and years before that.

Because once they stop doing the heavy lifting we need to get them gone so we can remember them fondly instead of resenting their abandoning us.

Marion Hammer did a lot of good work.

Decades ago.

She's not done much for us lately and has actively opposed us at least four times since 2011.

She should have trained her replacement and retired a long while ago.

I guess it's hard to give up that paycheck with all the people who'll carry water for her.

Just stab the "Marion" tag and be reminded that she stopped being on our side a while back.

Six Point Eight

If you are diabetic, there are special conditions before a surgeon will do "elective" surgery.

If you aren't going to die from what ails you, it's elective.

The Lovely Harvey's shoulder is elective.

I related her options here.

Guess who got her A1C down to an amazingly low level!

Because I'm the cook around here, I'm going to take some credit, but...

She's been doing much better at following her primary doc's instructions and taking her meds.

She's on a one-two punch combination that's fully covered by insurance and appears to be doing the job where metformin by itself wasn't.

She's down from over 10 to 6.8 and the threshold for surgery is 7 or lower!

We're going to try and get her in for a shoulder replacement ASAP.

Quality of life, don't you know.

Feel Good Story Of The Day

Finns are buying guns because they're inspired by Simo Hayha.

While the US might have a rifle behind every blade of grass, Finland is looking to put one behind every tree.

Finland is still heavily forested...

But Of Course

Don Hume finally makes my favorite pocket holster for my favorite pocket gun...

And it's backordered 6-8 weeks.

C'est la vie.

I've put up with the nylon DeSantis this long, I guess I can wait a couple more months.

A Modest Proposal

Any mass shooting or murder which occurs in a gun free zone by law shall ignored.

It is the fault of the legislators and executive that signed the law, and not the shooter, so we should blame them for creating an attractive nuisance.

GURPS v GURPS

Nearly all of the time GURPS stats here will be for 4th Edition.

Because 4th is an evolutionary development of 3rd Edition (Revised) most conclusions are unaffected by the edition change.

The logic of using an M16A2 over an FAL still stands.

The nomenclature changes a bit.

3e(R) doesn't have piercing damage.  Bullets did crushing damage with special rules which add up to what 4e calls piercing damage.

Something that appears to have gotten lost in my pontificating / proselytizing for GURPS is some basic conventions.  I explained this in a comment, but I'll repeat it here too.

GURPS only uses common every day cube dice like what you can get with Yahtzee.  You can buy dice for GURPS any place that sells a deck of cards.  This was intentional of the designers.

If you've played any other TTRPG you're waiting for the damage dice to say 2d6 instead of 2d.  GURPS doesn't need to specify what die when d6 are all there are.

Bullet damage is a combination of caliber and penetration.  Douglas Cole generated a formula to allow one to plug in several real world numbers and get out dice for 3e(R), and it still works in 4e.

If you click on the GURPS tab in the right sidebar --> you will find explanations and examples of lots of the rules.

Gaming Rifles

What rifle for your character is a bit stickier than the handguns.

Most games do give noticeably more damage to full power rounds than intermediate ones.

Though Top Secret has rifles and rules for them, it didn't come up all that often.

Getting into any kind of gun fight was a mission fail and normally led to character generation in short order.

Twilight: 2000 is where we started paying attention to rifles.

5.56x45mm and 5.45x39mm do Dam: 2.  7.62x39mm and 7.62x51mm both do Dam 4.

But that doesn't mean that the thirty caliber guns do twice as much damage.

The Dam number is a multiplier based on range.

Close range is 4d6 + (4 x dam).  So an M16A2 does an average of 22 at close range while an FAL or AKM does 30.  36% more...  x51's close range is longer than x39's too.

A "shot" in T2K is actually about 3 rounds.

So the M16 AK-74 and AK get 10 shots and the FAL just 7.  That brings damage for a whole magazine to 220 for an M16 and AK-74 and just 210 for an FAL (4.5% less).  300 for an AKM!

Mass gets into the act here.  That M16 is a mere 3.5 kg loaded, AK-74 is 4.5 kg,  AKM is 5 kg and the FAL is 5.75 kg.

Plus the basic loads... 6 spare mags for the M16, 4 each for the AK-74, AKM and FAL...

6.5 kg (70 'shots') for the M16, 6.5 kg (50 'shots') for the AK-74, 9 kg (50 'shots') for the AKM and 8.75 kg (35 'shots') for the FAL.

That drags our average damage (at close range) for a basic load to 1,540 for the M16, 1,100 for the AK-74, 1,500 for the AKM and 1,050 for the FAL.  The AKM appears to be winning until the math conscious players added five more magazines to their M16's load to tare with the AKM.  120 'shots' from the M16 gives an average of 2,640!

Bringing the AK-74 up to 9 kg only gets to 100 shots and 2,200 average damage.

And that's how we all ended up packing a 5.56 rifle in T2K.

Still with me?

GURPS does things differently.  First off, every cartridge is counted separately.

5.56x45 from an M16A2 will do 5d pi, 5.45x39mm from an AK-74 does 4d+2 pi, 7.62x39 from an AKM does 5d+1 pi and 7.62x51mm from an FAL does 7d pi.

This gives an average shot 17.5, 16, 18.5 and 24.5 points respectively.

Weights are M16A2: 8.9/1, AK-74: 9.1/1.2, AKM: 8.7/1.8, FAL:11/1.7

Totals for basic load come to 14.9 lb. (210 shots), 13.9 lb. (150 shots), 15.9 lb. (150 shots), and 17.8 lb. (100 shots).

Average damage for a basic load comes to: 3,675 for the M16A2, 2,400 for the AK-74, 2,775 for the AKM and 2,450 for the FAL.

50% more damage and 16% less weight?  That's how we all ended up packing a 20" M16A2...

For the record an M4 does the same 4d+2 pi as the AK-74 but does it lighter at 7.3/1 lb.  That brings the basic load to 13.3 lb. for 3,360 points of damage on average.  The +1 to Guns/TL8 - Rifle red-dot scope is a pound so 14.3 lb basic load; still better than the same weight AK-74 because you're more likely to hit!

And that's how we all ended up packing an M4A1 with a red-dot...

Do You Like Tomatoes

The Lovely Harvey and I are fond of tomatoes, so she decided to try our hand at growing our own.

Lack of choice at Home Depot led to her getting two Biltmore tomato plants.

One is doing OK, the other is dying.

But we've gotten a crop from the good one!

With more on the way.

They are not large tomatoes, between 2" and 3" in diameter; but they are very flavorful!

GURPS Again

This is mostly a repeat.  I know I've yapped about this before.

I've mostly never been in the "caliber must start with a 4" camp.

I say that even though .45 ACP was my only pistol cartridge for quite a spell.

The silly reason I never bought into the caliber wars was gaming.

In most games there's not enough difference between 9mm, .40 S&W or .45 ACP damage to bother.

What you often got with 9mm was a lot more shots.

That's why I "bought" a Hi-Power so often.  Having 13 shots was better than having 8.

TSR's Top Secret is my first Hi-Power.

The Beretta M9 was my preferred Twilight: 2000 pistol.  It would have been a Glock 17 except I got a price break for buying my nation's issue gun.  Before I knew what a shit-show the L85A1 was, if I was playing a Brit I was packing an L9 (Hi-Power again).

Even Traveller was using 9mm handguns.  The automatic pistol from LBB:1 is obviously a 9x19 wonder-nine.

It's EVERYWHERE!

Then there's GURPS.  A full sized 9x19 does 2d+2 pi.  A .45 does 2d pi+.

They're mathematically almost identical for damage.  9x19 will average 9 points per shot, .45 will do 10.5.  Moving to hollow points shifts that to 13.5 and 14 respectively.

Notice something there?

The bigger is better contingent in the real world goes all the way back to when hollow-points were exotic and unreliable in pistols; both in the gun functioning and in the round expanding.  And in ball, the .45 does about 17% more damage.

I am sure you've seen the ballistics gel picture where 9mm and .45 are cutting nearly identical tracks with modern HP ammo...  13.5 and 14 reflect this reality.

The amazing thing is that GURPS predates a lot of this analysis being readily available.

I think they got lucky with the proxies they used to generate damage, but a constant refrain from Mr Jackson himself back when GURPS was fresh and new was that a reality test trumped game balance.

GURPS was kind of revolutionary in using real units for everything at the time.

You could reverse engineer things!

And we did.

And it rapidly boiled back to "if the damage is the same, why not have more shots?"

It also became really obvious that we very rarely used the pistol we had listed on our character sheet.

Most any gamer in modern or future settings intestinally Groks that a pistol is for fighting your way to your rifle or only for use when your rifle isn't available for what ever reason.

I've have more use of a bayonet than a sidearm in gaming.

But I still buy that handgun and list it on the sheet.

Just in case...

Like the real world when I'm carrying.

Just in case... 

Also Also

With the realization that I've become a S&W dude, is noticing the proliferation of 9x19mm in the collection.

INCLUDING buying a 9mm S&W just to have an example of a particular model.

It all started with a Browning too.

I'd gone a long time without any 9mm's in the safe.

Then I got that Hi-Power, because I'd "owned" so many on a character sheet.

Then nostalgia kicked in and I replaced my Glock 17.

Then I needed to get an M&P 9 to standardize on what Harvey and Marv were toting so as to not cause supply problems if there was a hurricane looting situation.

Then nostalgia, then carry then, "hey shiny" and then... 

I guess the good news is the Glock 21 isn't the only .45 I own anymore either.

No Longer Cheap

Willard pointed out something profound yesterday.

Those cheap .32 revolvers my Grampa was counting on to defend his business from criminals who, thankfully, never materialized cannot be made cheaply today.

The skills, processes, and situation that allowed them to be made cheaply and in quantity simply no longer exist.

The cost of labor is up dramatically compared to the turn of the 19th to 20th century, when they were designed.

If you can't automate the process, you have to pay someone to do it and that's expensive if you can't offshore it.  Sometimes even if you can.

Some things are worth paying the labor, but cheap revolvers aren't one of those things.  Especially when there's no shortage of originals out there for less than $100.

Ravenclaw Eric Speaks

 Call a Deer a Horse, and bake me a cake BIGOT!

Eric and I have known each other for decades, and he's penned a decent one here.

Social Costs

I realized last week that I'd been missing the social activity of hot-rodding where we'd all gather and thrash on each other's cars to complete a project.

I think it's why I am stalling over mechanically simple tasks.

I want company and camaraderie.

About Time

Back when I was pocket toting my SIG P238, I used a Don Hume 001 pocket holster.

Like this one (Image stolen from Don Hume's store page):

I liked it a lot, and have been disappointed that it wasn't made for the M&P Shield series.

Tonight I checked again, and it was listed!

I guess Don finally admitted that the Shield series was going to stick, huh?

Three Million

Some time the day before yesterday this blog passed three million views!

Only took slightly less than 17 years to do it too!

Yay me!

Together Time

The Home Team, The Bolts, have just won the second round of the playoffs.

The Lovely Harvey has tasked herself with learning Hockey so as to have something to do with me!

She's a quick study and is yelling obscenities with the best of them now!

Obsolete Cartridges

There's a lot of "obsolete" rounds out there in common use.

.45-70 and .30-30 are still widely used.

Judging by how much easier it'd been to find .300 Savage (at least before the Biden ammo panic™ ©2020-2022) I'd say that people were dusting off old Model 99's and heading out to the woods with them again.

.30-06 is obsolete because it's a military cartridge that's no longer in front-line military use.  This also applies to .45-70.

But you'll find any of these rounds in use where it's legal to use them every hunting season.

They're, nominally, not even that hard to find at the local gun shop.

Obsolescence hits handgun rounds much harder than rifle rounds.  Even so, guns and ammo are readily available, you just won't see them in the field so much (or at all if conceal carried).

Speaking Of .45-70

An AR in .45-70?

Boo! Yeah!

Longmire Murder Capitol Of America

I'm not the first person to comment on how many murders per capita happen in this show, but that's not what I'm here to comment about.

Someone else was complaining that a character on the show said, one of the murders was done with a .45-70 round and "45/70.... That's a dead cartridge. The only thing your gonna find that shoots that is an antique sharps."

Nope.

The gun you're gonna find will still be obsolete, but you can most definitely buy a brand-new one!  Marlin, for example.

.45-70 isn't dead, it's in production and still has a following.  As does .30-30 and .300 Savage.

As long as the guns are out there and in use, especially if new ones are still being made, a round isn't dead.

Hell, a round isn't dead even if there's no factory ammo!

Correction and update:  The person complaining was quoting a character on the show who'd said that .45-70 was a dead cartridge.