Code

Since the budget cuts of early 2009, RoMERO’s cryptography and other comms equipment has been very dear. Yet some way of hiding the truth from civilians must be employed to avoid mass panic among the ignorant. Improvisation has always been a trait of the RoMERO units. The following posts are selected message traffic from New Jovian Thunderbolt during his current deployment to parts unknown.

The code is not as robust as modern alternatives, but it does limit prying eyes from all but the most knowledgeable or persistent innocent non-combatants.

Apparently, Mr. Thunderbolt had an Enigma simulator with him in the field as an entertaining distraction during downtimes, and a colleague outside the AO (area of operations) was also known by him to have one in their possession. When his element experienced almost total comms failure he was still able to send a signal via a keyed mic, and by this was able to transmit crude morse, after a fashion, thereby.

It is unclear why he hasn’t resorted to one-time pads for his encryption, but conjecture is the pads were destroyed in the same circumstances that disabled some of his comms gear.

Raw traffic is as follows:

Solution

Maryland CCW Civil Rights Violation

I never thought I'd see the day.

SAF is actually suing Maryland over their capricious requirements for 'granting' the right to Conceal Carry. You have to have a few police reports, now, where you survived an encounter with some criminal. To show cause. That you have a particular REASON to fear someone enough to deserve to have a loaded pistol on you outside your home.

I'm going to have to donate to the Second Amendment Foundation. I thought this would take 10 years or more to come about. Thank you Alan Gura. And good luck.

H/T Snowflakes

Getting Old

In blog years.



I was reflecting back, having his that big milestone of '3 years' a few back... (3 blog years? That's like 21 in people years.) We all have little inspirations that started us down this blog path. Our big influences. People that sort of showed the way that, "Yes, I can write a short column nigh every day. Writing is fun. And here is a subject matter with untapped potential that I can sound." My initial inspiration were Denise and Yosemite at Ten Ring, Alphecca, Armed Canadian, and they got me to View From the Porch and Kim Du Toit. From there it just snowballed into the blog list on the right.



Ten Ring, Du Toit, and Armed Canadian don't write much anymore. I wish they did. Kim even took down his archives, and that makes me sad. I thought for a while we were going to lose Jeff at Alphecca, and since his economic difficulties he doesn't shoot as much as he used to. He still writes, tho.



I guess when it starts to become a chore more than something you enjoy it will fall off. Or maybe you've said all you needed to say. Or maybe the bookselves fell on you last November and you've been trapped under something heavy ever since.



Getting old. Many of my old friends are gone.

Calling All 1911 Offcianados

Let's say you have a buddy. Let's say this friend has a CCW but only recently became a 'gunnie' and actually expanded his shooting experience. He only had one gat, a 9mm, and that's what he carried, but for whatever reason he started trying other people guns out, just to see. In so doing he discovered he shoots the 1911 really well and has fallen in love with it (natch.)

Well the borrowed 1911 has to go back to the owner, but he has trained a bit with this loaner and the 1911 operating system is now second nature.

Well, not being a gunnie, he's not up with the 1911 scene, and the choices are overwhelming. All he knows is he wants to carry a steel Combat Commander type. Not too big, not too small. And rugged steel. He wants to carry this pistol as his primary for the next 40 years or so. And he has $1450 or less to spend, so not enough for a custom, really.

But he wants a recommendation of a few brands to look at. And YOU, being a gunnie, is familiar with quite a lot of the different flavors.

Pick 3 production model Commander 1911s for him to look at, maximizing quality at his price point. (I know where I'd tell him to look, but I am too n00b to be an authority on the matter.)

What I do

What do you do when...

You plan a big day at the range first thing tomorrow morning and you want to take your CCW piece and your house gun with you to practice, and you set up the range bag and gun cases the night before? You've packed your home defense guns!

Well, what I do is put one of the other guns in the house gun's place. If I am taking the 686 I put the Sig P229 in the easy access gun safe. It's Double Action just like a revolver, so the manual of arms is fine for a 3 AM Prowler emergency. Easy peasy.

This is all academic for you folks that can legally carry in your home state. You don't HAVE to case your shooter away. I do. Legally.

But then the range day is over and there is no rush after, for me, to clean the normal guns to have them ready. I have that backup gun in the usual defensive spot.

So what are the chances I'll need that backup gun there? Shorter than Slim-to-None. Exceedingly remote. Still. Well, you know.

More Damn Hippies

Lemon Squeezer

I've been looking for this ad (or one similar) for a little while.


I believe the feature with these is that they were "Lemon Squeezers". In order to shoot one you have to squeeze the grip hard enough to disengage the safety, and they were double action only (see it says 'safety hammerless') with a 10 pound trigger pull. So, 90 years ago, this scene was not considered the height of irresponsibility.

Presumably, if the child had a Colt SAA or a M1911A1 it would be bad, and beyond the pale(pail?) for a marketing scheme... Those guns go off if you LOOK at them crooked. Or did in the 1920s.

No word on what happens when your wee bairn gets a certain grip strength.

Bo Whoop

Bo Whoop supposedly burned up the gun blogs last year. This is the first I've heard of it. It must have been more prominent on the sports and hunting blogs.


Still, it's a very neat story about a very special shotgun.

It belonged to Nash Buckingham, a prolific hunting writer born in 1880, the well loved shotgun made mythical by it's unlucky loss.

I learned I need to read more hunting blogs.

Top Shot Trick Shot

I got no power. Since Sunday. My poor venison chili meat. But Les Jones does the same sort round up of Top Shot I do.

Head Game

I was thinking on how I shoot the SA revolver pretty good. For me. I’m pleased with that.

But wait, my 1911 is SA, and the trigger is pretty darn good. Not quite as light as the Smiths, but still nice. I should be able to perform similarly.

So why not? Why do I shoot the 1911 low and right? That group that is low and right is even tightening up. It’s an equipment problem I think. And that’s the equipment between my ears. It’s not the gun. Good shooters like my Springfield Loaded 1911 and complement me on the good pistol I managed to own.

I just need to ‘think’ that I am shooting the 686 when squeezing the trigger on the .45. Maybe I should pretend to cock the hammer… Anyway. Next pistol range session I am bringing just the 1911.

Hot Day At Hap Baker Range

I went to the range with my brother and his GF, my ex GF last weekend. As usual I learned stuff about myself.

I do have a newer camera. It's not that good, and I'm not that good a photographer, it turns out.

I don’t have many good pics to show, as with all 4 of us shooting it is hard to discern whose holes are whose.

I pushed out the target to a full 50 feet to try some hunting style single action shots. ALL my .38 stuff with the 6” 686 were on the 8x8 target. NONE of the 8” 629 shooting full power .44 magnum were on. I was drifting down and lest this time with that gun. Either we shook the sights loose, or, more likely, I was anticipating the gawdawful boom and throwing the shot off. Still, I didn’t know that about myself with the 686. I can shoot it pretty well, pretty far. Good. Here is the full distance:

Can't see the holes on the bottom target? Ok:


I thought I missed. Only five? Dang. The sixth was still in the cylinder.

I broke out the .380 Colt Pocket Hammerless because my bro and his best gal hadn’t shot that yet. Hey, I kinda like this little guy. It’s been a while and my skill has changed since the last time. And the thing has the stiffest SA trigger of all my stuff. But it was shooting very well for me. That sharp little tiny front sight seemed to be lining up well in the notch. The first round of a magazine was off because of the stiff trigger, but the second, when I was used to the pull, was spot on. (My trigger pull is still too jerk. I need to practice more with a real semi auto SA trigger to get that mojo back that I had briefly. I’ve been concentrating on DA exclusively lately.)

I recognize this one. Most of the .22 on the bottom target are mine. And I was casually aiming at that upper quadrant. It was also late in the session. The bigger hole in the lower left are SA .44 mag. I was getting flinchy with it. The stuff in the middle in .38 +p. All me. The high shots on the upper right are the Brother's GF's. Left target is Saucy Trollops with her XD Fohty and Fohty Fo.


The 617 .22… I can often shoot the whole cylinder, Single Action, at the equivalent of a Lucky Strike cigarette pack at 8 yards without a problem. Most shots will land in the logo of the pack. So that is good too. (well, there are the occasional flyer, for me)


Oh. It’s still a SIGNIFICANT EVENT to be standing next to someone shooting that big ‘ol .44 magnum of the ex-gf. It’s a smile-inducing event, but still.

After Brother's best Gal settled down she shot these .22 and .38 all single action. I think she has the 686's windage down pat:

After shooting we like to go to Johannsons brewpub in Westminster, but on Sundays they only have a $19 buffet. Scroo that! But they did open a sister restaurant across the street. LOVELY ambiance in 150 year old stone building, with an Irish theme. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a nice antique wood carving.

I've Always Thought

That legislative impulse to DO something never helps the economy. The government can't ADD to pile to make the economy grow. Pump priming is largely a myth that rarely works. Keynesian impulses might have work once in world history, and that was in 1933.

The only effective legislative response the government can take is to do nothing, or, even better, lighten the 'pile' by cutting marginal rates and removing onerous regulatory burdens. If your response defaults statist, for your own good, you may want to at least refrain from acting on your instinct, Nancy.

Don't just do something, sit there.

At this point she'd have to roll back a lot of damage she has already done.

Review of The Crazies

This is a Zombie Movie that came out a little while ago, and now it is on DVD. It is a remake of a George Romero original from years back (1973). Romero is involved as a Producer with this 2010 version, too.

It’s your standard zombie movie with familiar broad Romero themes. The source of the infection is a government created virus that accidentally spreads to a small farming community. The ‘zombies’ aren’t walking dead, they are just made psychotic by the disease. The government comes in to contain it in a heavy handed manner, and then unforeseen circumstances cause the whole situation to crumble out of control.

Psycho Zombies are like Rage Zombies but less energetic. Rage Zombies are so pre-occupied with their hunger that they’re mindless, sprinting after any known victim detected. Psychos remember things from before they were ill and can use tools and weapons and plan ambushes and traps. They can probably drive, too.

The movie follows the 2 main characters, the Sheriff, and his wife who also happens to be town doctor, and their efforts to survive and escape. Not just the Crazies but the military trying to contain the Crazies.

When I say “Broad Romero Themes” there are folks that have studied his entire corpus or oeuvre. Commonalities in a Romeor work are a “secret government project” that cause a horrendous disaster when an ‘accident’ happens. You can’t trust the gov’t though so the accident may have been on purpose. George has positive, redemptive racial themes in many of his films. Often a black man is the hero or savior. If you find yourself in a Romero movie, pay attention to and follow the African American gentleman near you, as he may be your best hope for long term survival. The flip side of that coin is Romero HATES ‘rednecks’. They are never portrayed in anything but a stereotypical matter and are usually as close to the epitome of drunken, toothless, violent, usually evil, cousin-humping hillbillies as he can get away with without overtax their believability to the movie-going audience.

While there is no redemptive black hero in The Crazies, boy howdy there was evil rednecks to spare in this one.

Zombie Squad Chapter Orientation

Zombie Squad

More videos here.

Methane Doom

Great. Just great.

I spend years and thousands of dollars to build my bunker in the wilderness, stock it with enough canned goods to feed 10 people for 3 years, plus farm equpment that doesn't need gasoline, accumulate a battery of firearms and ammo to equip a platoon adequately, and bury Kruggerands all over in secret caches.... I mean I am READY for whatever End of the World situation you throw at me, plague, economic collapse, EMP or Mongol horde.

But I'm not ready for this.

Apparently, Mother Nature is about to fart. The methane will be enough to cause a world wide extinction event. And it may happen because of BP's drilling, and subsequent rig failure, in the Gulf of Mexico. It's like they've fed Gaia a baked been and cheese casserole, and the drill and leak is muscle relaxant for her sphincter muscle. How do you prep for THIS kind of TEOTWAWKI?

DOOMED!!!!!!


Way to go, Obama. You've doomed us all with your inability to fix the leak back in the beginning of June. I knew there was a reason I stayed home last election day...

.38 Super

There is an article in the American Rifleman about the .38 Super on a 1911 platform, written by author Stephen Hunter. Who sorta lives near me.

The .38 Super is what I thought of when I think, “The 9mm NATO round is underpowered, but the concept of higher velocity has some value, maybe if it had more oomph?” and Hunter alights upon this same thought. But the round fell out of favor during the war. I bet if they had called it the 9mm Magnum or .38 Browning Magnum (as though it were an extension of the shorter .380, which is enjoying a resurgence of popularity) we’d be seeing a lot more of it today. Browning did design the parent round, I believe. The .38 ACP. .38 Super is an evolution of the .38 ACP, which is not, repeat not, the same as a .380 ACP. The case on the .38s are semi-rimmed and 4 mm longer than the .380. These distinctions can confuse a slow-head like me.

The choice has always been between a 45mph bowling ball, and a 100mph fastball. The .45ACP lumbers at you like a bowling ball, and the 9mm types scream at you like a fast baseball. You don’t want to be hit with either but which is more effective? Well they are doing different things, so we get into the whole ‘which is better’ gun forum argument.

But the article in the magazine is a send up from a big fan. And it sort of makes me fall in love with it, too. A 1911 with a better round than the 9mm, and it holds 9+1 rounds. That’s attractive.

Ok, what’s WRONG with it, though? What would the detractor’s magazine article read like? Since I don’t think I’ve SEEN a .38 Super firearm and known about it, I certainly don’t know how it shoots. Maybe the round malfs a lot more than it should in a 1911. That would make the platform less attractive, but I am going on the assumption that it runs just fine. 1400 fps and 500 foot pounds of energy is ok, certainly (for the +p variety, but I think ALL .38 Super are considered +p). [compare: it’s power is a bit more than a 9mm, and a bit less than .40, and it’s energy is only a bit below the .357 Sig. But you don’t shoot things with charts, graphs, and tables, granted. There are other graphs that won't like it, I bet. Like using Joules or Frenzeling units times the square root of the Hickenbluber Constant.]

"But T-Bolt, are you seriously considering GETTING one of these types of pistols. What with your constant battle and insistence of keeping your ammo inventor commonality as simple as possible?" Probably not, but it's a shame that the

It's just a neat round and the article made me think it neater. I guess if I were to carry a 1911 I'd want it to have 7 or 8 bowling balls vis 9 or 10 fastballs, tho. Kudos to my quasi Maryland neighbor, Mr. Hunter at any rate.

Quickies

Quick questions.



Does a Commander Slide ‘fit’ on an officer frame?



If I bought just a slide assembly (slide barrel, spring, bushing, etc.) and took my 1911 frame and it to the gunsmith, could I then pick and choose which length gun I want to run without dealing with getting another FFL transferred frame?



And lastly, is that a good idea, or might I just mung everything up?

Leftist Take On McDonald

Another liberal with comments on the McDonald decision.

Sympathetic comments.

And even more unusual, sympathy for Judge Thomas' P&I cites in his dissent. Maybe Clarence Thomas started something, and P&I will gain some momentum in the future. Instead of the more likely outcome of his argument becoming yet another footnote of the 14th Amendment, and nothing more.

MF & MM

Wow, Michael Moore sure packed on the pounds after this little embarrassment dished to him by Milton Friedman. It's not a good idea to eat the shame away, Mike.




What a whiney little socialist.

Gay Zombie Pr0n Flick

Superb. Now, not only do you have to worry about zombies eating your brains, you have to worry about zombies seducing you into engaging in the "Love that dare not speak its name."

Ya know. If you're curious that way. Not that there is anything wrong with it!

First Aid Kits

'Ultimate' First Aid Kit, made and review by Wired.com






UPDATE. I added the contents below.


The Wired Rickshaw Rescue Kit
"Together with Rickshaw Bagworks, we created this water-resistant survival satchel to carry a pared-down collection of remedies that will get you back on the trail—or as far as the ER.

Ace Instant Cold Compress
Smash this packet to bring frosty relief to pain and inflammation.

Adhesive bandages
You know, Band-Aids. You also know when to use them.

Adsafe Plus CPR Face Shield with airway valve
Lets you give or get mouth-to-mouth without locking lips.

Advil (ibuprofen)
Fights inflammation. Pop two at bedtime to get your achy limbs ready to move the next day.

Alcohol prep pads
Use these to clean your cuts—and the Leatherman you're about to use to remove that splinter.

Aspirin
Can help keep your ticker tocking if taken at the first sign of a heart attack.

Benadryl
Halts the sneezing, itching, and swelling associated with allergic reactions.

Burn Jel
This lidocaine ointment takes the burn out of your, um, burns.

Cipro *!
The broad-spectrum antibiotic in Cipro knocks out bacteria like Manny Pacquiao.

Dr. Scholl's Moleskin
Still the best way to prevent blisters from bubbling into infected sores.

Imodium
Diarrhea can cause life-threatening dehydration. Imodium will stop the flow and help you get out of the john and back on the trail.

NexTemp Disposable Thermometer
Uncrushable, paper-thin, accurate to two-tenths of a degree.

Nuun Portable Electrolyte Hydration
Dissolvable tablets stave off dehydration by adding ions to your H20.

OxyContin *!
Highly addictive, but Tylenol won't cut it if you snap your tibia.

QuikClot Sport Advanced Clotting Sponge
Slap this on a badly bleeding wound to halt hemorrhaging.

Steri-Strip Wound Closure Strips
Seal nasty gashes until you can make it someplace that has sutures, antiseptic, and anesthetic—or at least a needle and thread and whiskey.

Tegaderm Transparent Film
Leave that gauze at home with your leeches and hacksaws; this sticky, breathable dressing provides sterile protection for any body part.

Triple antibiotic ointment
Keeps nasty bacteria from turning a minor scrape into a serious infection.

Tylenol (acetaminophen)
Cools fevers like nothing else—and for some diseases, like dengue, it's the only safe treatment."

And add, if you can:

Razor blades or SOMETHING to cut stuff with if you lose your multi-tool

A triangular bandage and ace bandage or Vetrap, as well as some tape. And you'll have to improvise for splints. Heck a Boy Scout can improvise the triangular dressing with his neckerchied

Also - rubber gloves! It'd dump the CPR mask for rubber gloves if I had to.

41 years ago

I saw this:

The Red Team Goat

Watched TopShot on Hulu. Even though Caleb isn't on it and the drama is getting annoying. I'll probably quit after Adam get's his come-uppance. If he does. For all I know he won the $100,000. I imaging he is the goat on the Blue team. The goat on the Red team is Kelly. In both cases it is a maturity level and personality that rubs other teammates, and me, the wrong way.

THIS ep appears to be about some sort of shooting gallery based on other reviews. Let me watch the show now...

~spoilers follow~

Denny's kind of event. Colt Single Action Army revolver. Peacemaker. Cowboy up.

Blake, the shooting competition guy, prefers modern arms in the interview.

And Chris the cop trainer no likey either, based on the interview. The both feel out of their comfort zone.

Two folks on Red own a SAA. But Blue has more pistol shooters.

Hey it IS a olde timey arcade shootin' gallery. Blue team has to have a guy sitting out and Blake is that guy.

The weather is kinda misty/rainy and blustery.

They have to load and shoot 50 targets, one player after another, 10 rounds each.

Hey I didn't know the Peacemaker only had 5 rounds in the cylinder? Huh? That can't be right. Maybe they only loaded 5 out of that tradition of placing an empty cylinder under the hammer while in the holster.

Whoa! Denny on Red had some misses. 8 out of 10. Only 2 hits. What the? Andre hits 4 out of 10. Kelly wasn't good. No one really excelled on Red. And Red Team runs out of time. Blue had a lot more accuracy. I think going second hurt the Red Team, fight the nerves of the clock.

And on to the Red's Elimination Challenge...

Who to vote for? Everyone was disappointed in their performance, pretty much. So politics and drama take over. Cripes. More shooty, less whiney. The only thing holding me here is wanting to see justice done. The show producers are smart and probably know it. I bet they angle it to hook me along to hold my eyeballs on. Bastards. Hollywood Bastards.

So it's Andre and Kelly in the finals. Fack. It could have been just about anyone performance wise. And Brad is the Judas on the tiebreaker. But the two fellows seem pretty classy with each other. So at least no more drama there. Danke Gott im Himmel.

Kelly's third elimination challenge. Baptism of fire for the young guy. Man, if he wins the $100,000, even with slips in interpersonal relationship, Kelly will be the MAN.

FACK that chucklehead Adam on Blue team. Badmouthing Denny, pressuring Denny.

The final challenge still has the Peacemaker. Accuracy is stressed this time. Kelly's forte is rifle accuracy. Andre is a former Marine and that helps. Both started out high, and with this pistol, apparently, you have to bury that post a little.

There will be only 4 Red team members after this.

The Challenge is poker...

Shoot the playing card you want. 7 shots. Best hand stays.

What? The players don't know the rules of poker very well! Cripes. Shoot all aces. Or royal straight flush. This is basic Americana, people!

Oh, they have a chart for them. Phew.

Kelly ace of hearts... Andre ace of spades...


Goin for the flush Kelly gets KQJ hearts... Andre gets KQJ spades

Kelly tries for the block... Oh my. And misses the 10 spades. Andre hits it. But Kelly went first so he can hit the 10 of hearts...

Wow, tiebreaker is using the same deck to win another hand, but 5 shots. Andre 2 of spades, and Kelly misses ace of clubs, now it get's complicated....

Kelly: miss, 5 of spades as a block then 5 of hearts, 5 of clubs...

Andre: 2, 6, 4 spades, then 4 of hearts (!) and now Andre can't win. Maybe should have gone for a straight and hope Kelly missed. Poker beat him, not the gun handling. He never missed.

And Kelly stays in the game.

Trick shooting next week.

Now it's gone all Godwin

Persuasion

Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell was all over this story about the anti-gun Joyce foundation being forced to try to actually persuade people to stay away from guns rather than their old pursuit of legislating firearms out of existence. Sebastian points out this is a huge victory and consequence of our side prevailing in McDonald at the SCOTUS level. And he’s right, it is a victory.

The Joyce Foundation is retrenching. I think they are in it for the long haul. These times are a setback for them, yes. But look to see them push de-normalization of firearms media campaigns rather than court cases or legislation. Public attitude has swung against the banners. It’s a lot of work to climb out of the public perception hole they are in, but look for them to start ramping it up.

I’d expect only 3 things from them. Look to see various ‘guns are icky’ campaigns, from blatant and in your face to quite subtle. They will dance in the blood of mass shooting tragedies, but they might also try to get less guns in movies and TV and whatnot through back channels, and continuing of pressuring the AMA to consider a gun in the home a ‘health problem,’ as well as still trying to weasel into the law journals like they have in the past. That’s one. Number 2 is they have to get more funding. It will have to be from additional rich guys like Soros and Bloomberg because grassroots isn’t a good source of funding for them, obviously. But they ARE a foundation. That’s what foundations are. Big ol' bequeathalizations. They just need another billionaire or two. And, 3, look for court cases and legislation but only at the margins and only as a delaying tactic. We’ll win these, probably, but those victories will give us a false confidence, and also slowly wear away at our side’s resources.

Anyway. That’s what I would do if I was a bad guy or on their team.

How do we respond? Make gun ownership and carry seem normal. Advance that normality steadily and incrementally. DON’T look wacko while doing it. One foaming at the mouth gun enthusiast understandably concerned about tyranny and TOTALLY in the right can still cost us votes and support from a dozen neutrals. Ideally we convert a few neutrals to our side but more importantly we need the neutrals to think, “Gun restrictions? Why are you goin on about THAT?! What use are those ineffective laws? Working on that is a waste of time and apparently unConstitutional. We need to get back to more pressing political matters like declaring May 9th National Ruminants Day! And such.”

3 Year

3 Year Anniversary today. Wow. Not so New at this, am I.

And YOU said I wouldn't stick with it.

Posted nearly every day. The only big gap is that vacation at the beginning I wasn't able to prepare for. Then it was just single skips.

I shoulda wrote a novel instead. Or 4. Problem is, I got no plot in my head. And free-association works bug me.

So, after all this time and shooting experience, how can I still describe myself as 'New'? Easy! I'm clueless, and a slow learner. And I forget a lot. I might as well be a rank beginner.

Lucky Gunner Contest

Wow! I could win 1000 rounds of .380 via Firearm Blog and Lucky Gunner. What would I do with it? Probably give it to Breda, she always seems like she's in a .380 drought. I can just see the scene when I present my offering...

T-Bolt: Here you go Breda. I know they're your favorite.

Breda: Why, THANK you, T-Bolt. They ARE. And I love the color.

Mike: Hey! Aren't you being a bit too familiar with my missus?

T-Bolt: It's not like that! It's not like that!

Breda: Now, boys...

Mike: You are being a bit too familiar, I think.

T-Bolt: No no. No no nonono. (Oh GAWD his meaty fists are as big as the buckets on a front-end loader) You don't understand.

Breda: Remember your blood pressure? I thought we'd have to take you to the Emergency Room on election night.

Mike: I'M GONNA RIP OFF YOUR ARMS WITH MY BARE HANDS!

T-Bolt: Eep.

Breda: Oh dear...

Mike: I'M GONNA PLAY YOUR HEAD LIKE A PETER CRISS DRUM KIT! WITH YOUR OWN ARMS!

T-Bolt: Wow, look at the time. Too bad I can't stay.

Mike: C'mere you! You can't get away! Why you little!

T-Bolt: Yoinks. ~dodge~

Mike: I'M GONNA TWIST YOUR HEAD AROUND SO YOU CAN SEE TO POP YOUR OWN BACK-ZITS!

T-Bolt: Runrunrunrunrun.

Mike: STOP RUNNING! YOU'LL ONLY DIE TIRED! I'M GONNA POUND YOU INTO THE GROUND LIKE A CIRCUS-TENT STAKE!

T-Bolt: Sprintsprintsprintsprint ~pant~ ~pant~ ~pant~... sprintsprintsprintsprintsprintsprint

Mike: Come back here, you!!!

Breda: Oooo! He left the ammo! Score!


===================

So maybe I haven't thought through all the angles yet on this ammo dealie. At least the 'after I win' part.

Hey look, Magtech (one of my favorite brands) is down to $22 for a box of .380 now on Lucky Gunner. A year ago if was well over $30 when you found it at your local gunshop. I just over paid by a good deal on some .38 special at my local store, but I needed stuff that wasn't +p for the range this weekend. The .38 cost more than the .357. Don't pay that for a bulk purchase. Not with online resources like Lucky Gunner.

And now, a brief message.

When I say on, GunBlogger Conspiracy, “I gotta go, it’s time for bed/chores” what I REALLY mean is “I gotta go, there are zombies outside my house that need tending to.”

The reason I say this is because I don’t think people in other regions of the country have the same zombie problem we do down here near DC. I don’t know why I assumed it was a nationwide phenomena, but it makes sense that it is localized to this region. I mean, mindless, dead-eyed, not-quite-human creatures wandering out of the seat of government, feeding on the flesh of productive members of society and infecting the ones they don’t consume utterly with the same poison. If there is a better definition for a politician, I don’t know it.

Yes, I‘ve come to the conclusion that DC is almost as bad as Pittsburgh as a source for Zombies. (Though I don’t know why with Pittsburgh. Tradition maybe?)

The Walking Dead

What's wrong with this picture?

Yes, the 3 guns going against zombies are a shotgun, a bolt action rifle, and a revolver. Admittedly much better than nothing, but still the 3 least efficient weapons for the task at hand.

AMC has a TV series, about ZOMBIES, coming up in October. So excited! It'll be like Breaking Bad. But with ZOMBIES!

Like A Scholar

An Old Spice Scholar

Conspiracy Theory

What with RedState.com being disappointed with the 'R' in NRA not standing for Republican, and the usual George Will stuff against guns, and even Jonah Goldberg of National Review ratcheting up his Metrocon creds... (et tu Jonah? What will the Couch think?)

It's all leading up to how the NRA will be thrown under the bus when the GOP regains power in 2010 and 2012. President Pawlenty will probably nominate some hoplophobe to SCOTUS in 2013 to replace Kennedy and veto a buncha pro-gun-rights Bills for 'public safety rights' reasons. Just to punish the NRA for it's supposed thought crimes and for being a good single issue org and not being Republican. The squishes in the Republican party are even now building the foundation, brick by brick, for such perfidy.

THEY'RE ALL AGIN US!

~pant ~pant ~pant

Perhaps I, too, should re-examine before flying off the handles. But look, generally, respecting the 2nd Amendment is a conservative value. The Republican party is generally a conservative party. That is the only reason why the GOP and NRA often dovetail. When it comes to base power-seeking political sausage making where the purpose goes beyond principal then the 2 groups can and do diverge. All is well as long as the GOP doesn't fantasize that the NRA (and most other gun rights groups) is something more than it is.

Also:

Fred!/Palin 2012!

That ticket wouldn't nominate a 2nd Amendment squish to the Supreme Court.

SWCHP

Some of my earliest recollections (What? 2.5 years ago?) of which ammo to select for use in a .38 snubbie was "Go for SWCHP!"

Huh? Whazzat? Well a little looking back then found that SWCHP or even LSWCHP stood for Lead Semi-Wadcutter Hollow Point.

What is that type of projectile supposed to do? Well, the semi-wad-cutter part means the bullet has a little shoulder on it. Like other wadcutters this will make a neater hole in the target paper, but in a defense situation it will supposedly punch through tissue better, leaving a more permanent hole in the bad guy. In other words it will make a more effective wound and be more likely to stop the fight and put the bad guy in the hospital and let the good guy go home.

The hollow point does something similar in increasing effective hurt. It helps the projectile flatten out when it meets resistance. When it meets meat. An expanded bullet makes for a more effective wound. An expanded bullet also is more likely to not exit the bad guy and travel on to hit bystanders.

All good things. You want the most effective way to conclude a deadly confrontation in your defensive favor, and the marketing for SWCHP projectiles indicate that they may be in the top tier of what you can select. Is it the best? I dunno! I'm just a blogger. The other hollowpoint ammos developed to FBI standards are presumably good too. Here's the thing: fewer ammo companies pay as much attention to .38 special development since the FBI and other police orgs don't use revolvers much anymore.

So finding SWCHP can be a problem. I currently carry 129 grain Hydra-Shoks, and I am sure they are fine. Mostly. They were certainly available everywhere. But with my expanded mail-order abilities, I can look around and notice a specialty maker does indeed have SWCHP with a thought toward snubbies. Buffalo Bore. The bullet weight is higher at 158, and that is good. So is the stated muzzle velocity of 1000 fps and 351 muzzle energy. [Note, that that is still half the muzzle energy I am probably getting with my .357 magnum in my S&W 686 6" barrel. Yikes.]

Still I may give this a try. It may be too hot a +P for me, but we will find out. No word on whether there is excessive flash with the powder... Or if they get that 1000 fps out of a 2 inch barrel or a 4 inch barrel... A lot of known unknowns here.

So what IS the better ammo type, designed specifically, for a 2 inch .38? Everything I look at are either inappropriate, or THEY say, 'this is ok, I guess.' Folks have no problem warning you away from marginal performers but can never agree on the exemplary ones. No one knows FOR SURE what is best, and they aren't going to make my choice for me and they aren't going to be there in the dire situation where I'd actually use said ammo, 'for keepies.'

Other reviews? Well, maybe Speer Gold Dot. Many different sources have a high opinion of this one. 125 Federal Nyclads are also highly regarded. I'd try one of each type (buffalo, hydra-shok, gold-dot, nyclad), but what is that going to tell me apart from flash and felt recoil? Not enough after action reports where bad guys said, "I HATED getting shot with brand X... More than all the others I was shot with... Brand Y almost tickled, and brand Z was kinda middling." If there was that kind of information out there the choice would be easy.

What Would Tam Do? In 2003 she said, "I, too, prefer 158gr LSWC-HP +Ps." but that was then. I wonder if she has changed her mind or sold off all her .38s and uses .41's and .327's now?

[I know, I know, I've talked about this before. But I never resolved it. And I'm shopping.]

Yay Tony Blankely

He seems to understand why Kagan is unsuitable to sit at the highest bench.

RTWT

A Very Zombie Christmas

A Cadaver Christmas - Clip from Joe on Vimeo.

And a Very Zombie Christmas Pt 2

A Cadaver Christmas Trailer 2 from Joe on Vimeo.

I was a janitor once. Not of a College. A hospital. A HAUNTED hospital. More of a haunted insane asylum rather. You get the picture. Don't you?

12 Gauge

It's easy to buy a lot of #7 shot shotgun shells. You can go through a lot during skeet shooting. So they sell it in boxes of 25.

But try to get a lot 00 buckshot. The gunstore has it in boxes of 5, and then only a handful. You leave some for the next poor sap and that means you go home with 15 shells, total.

Not even during hunting season is 00 buck available in this state. I'd have to go to Virginia where buckshot deer hunting is permissible.

Ah, but the county recently lifted the restriction for mail order ammo purchases. They (our County Overlords) realized that UPS was delivering ammo to gunstores, I guess, so they might as well let us peasants get the same treatment. So now I can order shells in bulk. So now I did. And it arrived. Thanks Ammo Man.

I've gone from a paltry store the best home defense ammo loading available to plenty. Enough to give to neighbors to help them out in the event the Latin Kings and MS13 get their dander up and go all riotty. (I'm guessing with those 2 street gangs, as it is what is written in the graffiti round these parts. Including on my car that one time...)

I like Ammo Man because the prices listed are what it costs, delivered. You can comparison shop prices with Ammo Engine, but that doesn't tell you if store X will borehog on the shipping and handling fees. Since I started ordering ammo remotely I haven't had a problem with stuff being back-ordered or out of stock, but I didn't start doing this until AFTER the worst of the post election ammo shortage. Otherwise I think I'd use Lucky Gunner, as I like their interface and the fact they tell you what is in stock and by how much.

Bonus question... Guess how many 5 round boxes of 2.75" shotshells fit in a .50 cal ammo can?

George Will is a Metrocon

And comments on the carve out the NRA got to a campaign finance reform. A carve out that doomed the speech restrictive legislation.

"When other interests howled, Democrats began tweaking the bill to enlarge eligibility for membership in the category of groups that will have broader speech rights than others do. The NRA's intellectual ludicrousness and moral disarmament is in arguing that the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms is absolute, but the First Amendment's protection of free speech ("Congress shall make no law" abridging freedom of speech) is for favored groups to negotiate with . . . Congress."

The law was super-crappy, Mr. Will. The NRA was the only organization with enough juice to challenge wording in the Bill. And in doing so they arrived at a win-WIN situation. Either they 'win' by getting a special deal to pursue their single-issue interest, or they 'WIN' by poison-pilling the stinky Bill.

And if you got to the range more and supported ALL the Amendments better, you might see that angle and throw us a bone every now and then, too. Get all more of these conservative interests on the Constitutional page together pushing together. Throw the 2nd Amendment a bone, George.


Look, the NRA is not a Republican organization. Obviously. It's not a Democrat organization either. Or a Women's or Men's or Black or White or Catholic or Free-French... If a large part of the various interests groups get on board with the NRA's one issue, it will stop looking like a GOP organ like is sorta does now and will start looking like something else. But the NRA will, if as true to its roots as it is now, ALWAYS look like a 2nd Amendment organization.

I don't like that, but I understand it. I'd prefer all the groups I like agreed with me on everything I thought. But I'm a grown-up, not some magical thinking fabulist divorced from reality, and I appreciate the NRA for what it is. No more, no less. At least it is good at what it does. Lobby for the 2nd, raise money, and teach people how to safely shoot.

WWII

Is FULL of plot holes, apparently.

"I wouldn't even mind the lack of originality if they weren't so heavy-handed about it."

and

"Just to give one example, in the Battle of the Bulge, a vastly larger force of Germans surround a small Allied battalion and demand they surrender or be killed. The Allied general sends back a single-word reply: "Nuts!". The Germans attack, and, miraculously, the tiny Allied force holds them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive and turn the tide of battle. Whoever wrote this episode obviously had never been within a thousand miles of an actual military."

and

"...and then, in the entire rest of the show, over five or six different big wars, they never use the superweapon again. Seriously. They have this whole thing about a war in Vietnam that lasts decades and kills tens of thousands of people, and they never wonder if maybe they should consider using the frickin' unstoppable mystical superweapon that they won the last war with. At this point, you're starting to wonder if any of the show's writers have even watched the episodes the other writers made."

and

"the Soviet strongman whose name means "Man of Steel" in Russian (seriously, between calling the strongman "Man of Steel" and the Frenchman "de Gaulle", whoever came up with the names for this thing ought to be shot)."

Rat on Top Shot

I saw the spoilers already...

~Spoiler~

CALEB IS THE RAT... Or something. Let's see what that is all about.

So let me semi 'live' blog via hulu right now. We already know it's flintlocks. Kentucky Long Rifle. I love these rifles. Ever since the Gunsmith of Williamsburg film I saw in 9th grade. A lot of 'manual' elevation issues. Aim higher the futher the target is at.

Caleb has experience with these front stuffers! I had no idea. Cool!

During the house chats, the blue teams worries about Blake and JJ, two world class shooters. And Caleb doesn't sound comfortable with ganging up.

Adam and others are going through back channels trying to bump off the strongest shooter, and Caleb ain't cool with BUT he goes through back channels to sound the alarm. I got that much from Calebs blog kibbutz.

Ick. Adam... did the show make you look worse than you actually are in IRL?

Ok, who on this show was/is not an obnoxious jerk in front of the camera. There is an incident with 80% of the people on this. Man I hate reality shows. Either a person acts a classless punk, a cocky bully, or a sneaky bastard, or a whiny wuss, or a salty ass. It makes me hate humanity, these shows.

I wonder how long Adam will last after this show? Can he keep his political coalition together? Is it HIS coalition or is he just the loudmouth catching the arrows for the TRUE power behind the coalitions throne... Tune in next week... Same TopShot time, same TopShot channel.

Anyway. On the actual challenge with all those nerves from the team confrontation. JJ on blue on the line of the "10-ring". Brad on red gets even closer. Andre on red hit practically a bull. Tara on blue has to beat that, and hit outside 10-ring. Blake on blue, with MANY hangfires, gets the swap out rifle, and gets the 8-ring. Denny on red in the 9-ring. So that's red team up 3-0. Kelly on red almost misses, but Iain DOES miss. 4-0 red.

The FAR target is worth 4 point and Caleb, blue, is up and can even it up. No pressure or nothing!!! Miss. Just off paper. Red wins.

"I've been the bad guy before, I can take the heat," said Adam. I wonder how many times he finds himself the bad guy in his life? Maybe he needs to think about that and why that is. He look even worse at the post show chat pre-elimination selection.

So it's head to head Adam and Caleb, the folks with a beef. Or one has a beef.

Shooting a Winchester 73! Cool. Lever rifle action! They said 'pistol caliber' but didn't say specifically, but you can look that up. Or what was available. .44-40 probably.

Adam is still griping! Sheesh, let it go! Kelly is more the man this ep. KELLY!

If Adam is still on the show in 2 eps will he still be complaining about Caleb? He thinks this will be over is Caleb is eliminated and he remains. Doesn't he realize that his behavior will extend to the rest of the competition and to other shooting competitons for the rest of his shooting career? Everyone on this show will be famous forever with other shooters, after all.

Ooo, the box says .44 caliber. So it is .44-40 if it is a historically accurate piece.

It was an exciting shooting display, shooting the 'hangman's rope.' But Caleb loses by a hair.

Next week, SA revolvers.

There is one last post game interview of Caleb here if you don't want to watch the whole thing on hulu. Good point, he makes. This would be a great show without the interpersonal drama as the competition drama is pretty darn good all by itself. And Caleb is all class at the end. He won't go to shooting events with people going 'you're that whiny guy from Top Shot' and suchlike. Unless Adam is at the same event. He'll need to try to deflect some of the criticism towards him, maybe...

Goram reality shows.

Hmmm...

Do you think Shooting Buddy and Double Rainbow Guy are the same dude?

Double Rainbow Guy

That friend of Tam's that films rainbows while hopped on goofballs? Yeah, he got the munchies:

Zombies

They are now driving cars! At least they aren't driving them very well...

Easy Fire

I'm running out of stuff to talk about. Inspiration will hit, I just hope it's soon.

During the previous range session, I did something extensively that I normally do but rarely. I dry fired the DA snubbie in between each live cylinder.

Have you notice how smooth and easy pulling the trigger is when you know it won't go bang? There is a sense of calm, I have too. At which point I think, "the next 5 shots will be great because of how smooth I am during this dry fire" whereupon I load the revolver and... tense up in anticipation.

I'm wondering if that is how those professional shooters feel? The one that shoot 100,000 rounds a year without breaking a sweat. I wonder if the bang has no more impact than a click, to their eyes. With the shooting part out of their concern they can concentrate on speed and efficiency of motion and overcoming competitive nerves.

Privilege or Right

So my state delegate sent me an email. Form letter. I got on his mailing list after communicating with him, urging support of gun rights legislation in the statehouse.

Anyway, his mail insists that a first rate public education is a right not a privilege, and how great it is here in this county &c. &c.

I'll grant our public schools, here, are halfway decent. And were when I attended them 20+ years ago, but a right?

Sorry, Delegate Waldstreicher. I have no problem with a great majority of the region jealously guarding the privilege of maintaining a fine education system, but it can't be a right. It is not a right when you have to take from one to provide for another. I don't have a right to someone else's groceries. No one is obliged by duty to provide me a big screen TV. It isn't right to for me to get you to cajole the government to take money from my fellow citizens, at gunpoint, and then use that money to subsidize my subway tickets. Is that sort of thing done? Yes. But it is one of the little tyrannies of the democratic process, and it's not a right. Or right.

A right to speak takes nothing from another. Not being forced to lodge soldiers is the opposite of a taking. Defending myself from a fellow citizen that is violation MY right removes no resources from my neighbor. I don't dip into YOUR wallet when I go to church. Even a Unitarian church. I own myself, and you own yourself. These are rights.

PDW

I’ve had a PDW (NATO personal defense weapon) rolling around in my head, but Frank James just did one recently that does a much better job than I ever could. (And I THINK this is the bullet type he prefers for a possible PDW. Partly because it can be converted back to regular 9mm NATO chambering sorta easily. Oooo, and that leads to THIS article... It's like a Rabbit Hole, this subject.)


Have you noticed something? We don’t have a PDW weapon issued to the troops…

Remember your history. This spec for a PDW came out in the mid 80s. The things that gun fanbois were thinking of that trickled down to my young skull full of mush was Uzi’s (the war in Beirut was fresh in folks’ minds) and the supposedly ‘faster’ MAC10s (Miami Vice). Small subbies were the shizzle. In the lizard brains of the folks calling for a new PDW, I imagine, was a tiny voice saying, “Like the Uzi, but COOLER! And more effective, naturally.”

It’s a tough nut to crack. Simpler and handier than the issue rifle, but more effective against bad guys than the pistol. Something that hits almost as hard as the M16, and almost as accurate yet maybe at slightly shorter range, but as close to butt simple as a double action revolver. It’s a dream! But if some genius can make that dream come true…

It also why my hunt for the carbine I want so time consuming. Another reason my quest is hard is that I want unfashionable features. “You want it in .45ACP? But there are much ‘better’ modern rounds! The .45 is for purists and gamers mostly. You want magazines from a 1911? But a Glock 20 magazine holds so much more! Just get a Glock and a KRISS and pay for the tax stamp for a short barrel.” Yeah, yeah. Heard that before. A KRISS is pretty good, but not ideal for me.

The two REAL contenders, according to Frank, were the FN P90 and the HK MP7. They shoot teeny bullets at high velocity with special projectiles to defeat body armor. I can’t get those special projectiles, and my personal requirements about defeating body armor involve asking myself, “Why am I trying to shoot somebody in body armor? Especially with THIS little thing? Things have gotten TRULY bad to find myself in this situation. I need to rethink the circumstances that brought me here and try to avoid letting this happen again in the future. If I survive this.”

So I still stick with big pistol bullets out of a shoulder fired carbine. A modern Mare’s Leg to go with my modern Hog Leg. I ain’t gonna find what I want. Not for under $4000 at some custom gunsmith.

Zombie Jazzercise?

Zombie exercise class. People motivated to get in shape by a 'fear of the coming Zombacalypse' take the class.

The money quote? "Nobody actually comes to class because they really believe in zombies," Gatz said.

Sure. Nobody.

But it beats Jazzercise.

Their is an in class argument on the value of sprint exercises. The theory is that the coming Troubles will be filled with slow Shamblor type Zeds. Well, the world isn't full of JUST zombie threats in this scenario. You often have to worry about OTHER survivors, and sprinting from them can be valuable. There is always some biker gang causing no end of problem for the Good Guys.

And this is being done in suburb of Chicago. Plenty of zombies, plenty of Bad Guy uninfected.

Mil Qual

I've talked about the military's rifle qualification before, but what about pistol qualification?

The quality of my qualification in the Navy was a joke. It was just a plinking session with the pistol prepped and ready on a bench on the fantail of a supply ship. I don't really think I earned that ribbon... I have corrected that since, with my current skill. I don't think I'd have earned Sharpshooter or Expert level, necessarily, yet.

In my original qualification, the targets were on the fantail and we were back 10 yards or so. The deck was pitching, as we were underway and doing 20 knots, and the targets were bouncing on their bungies and we were firing 1911's made back before the war. WWII. They just fed me already prepped magazines and we blasted away until the ammo ran out. I hit a few times. There were dozens of holes in each target. The splashes behind the ship were stupendous and it was a beautiful day in the western Mediterranean. I have no idea what my score was. I teacupped the grip and no one taught me otherwise. All I was taught is how to release the slide and start shooting after inserting a fresh mag. I never learned how to field strip or even load a magazine. There was no briefing.

Nowadays in the Navy, with the 9mm Berretta, it appears to be 36 shots at a silhohuette target at various specified ranges (3, 7, and 15 yards) at a not TOO fast pace. There is a notebook paper sized section nearest the center of the silhohuette worth 5 points per hit. So a maximum score is 180. A score of 135 is enough to get the ribbon.

Then there is a more advanced set of training with 48 shots with a max score of 240... Add a 25 yard target to that. A score of 204 gets you a metal 'S' for Sharpshooter to add to your ribbon. A score of 228 out of 240 gets you an 'E' for Expert.

I have no idea what the standards were back in 1990.

But what I described to you was the Naval Academy's stuff. It looks different from this stuff here with the Combat Pistol Qualification Course. Well, duh, that's the Army. But it's 30 rounds at various ranges with a score of 300 max. 160 is qualification, and 260 is expert. Various random ranged pop-up targets, the farthest is 31 meters, and are exposed only for so long a period of time (2 seconds each at the fastest set. 5 sets.)

And the other branches have other standards, naturally.


Could I get Expert today using Navy rules but my 1911? I dunno. Sure, I'll get all 5's on the 3 yard range. But half the shots at 15 and 25 yards have to hit the notebook paper, and other half have to hit the section outside that. But 6 of the 25's are with the pistol on an improvised rest. On a good day I might squeak by with an Expert qualification.

[Something I didn't know... The Coast Guard uses the same sorta SIG as I have. P229 with DAK.]

BOB vs Hole Up

Serious people in the survivalist circles are understandably down on the whole concept of Bug Out Bags. The pithy saying with a huge kernel of truth is, "bugging out means you choose to be a voluntary refugee." Holing up is preferred, if at ALL possible, as you can't carry a lot of stuff with you and you are familiar and stronger on your home turf. There is safety in being a moving target but you are also vulnerable from all sides.

But when the lava is heading toward your house... You do have to leave.

And serious survivalists also freely admit that there are times when, yes, you have to quit your base location and go elsewhere. Even the best selected site A may be in the way of something irresistable. And your back up locations B, C, and D that you arranged ahead of time to bug out TO might be compromised, as well. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with such a scenario.

You're in the worst possible situation, on foot, carrying everything you own, and on the move to be ahead of something bad. I'm not going to sugar coat it, this is a good way see a bad end.

The whole point of survivalist thinking is to SURVIVE, naturally. You try to make yourself as lucky as possible by preparation ahead of time. Hey, at least you got a pack full of possibly useful stuff on your back. It could be worse. You could be naked and severely injured. The ultimate goal is to endure through an emergency and get to the other side where lives can be rebuilt, and some semblance of normalcy returns. People that didn't prep have a greater chance of not being there on the other side. So at least some starry eyed foolishness has been culled. Hopefully a stoic rock-hard unhappy pessimism won't endure in the survivors.

But don't making Bugging Out your FIRST option on your disaster prep. Think twice on bug-outtable situations. You might be able to ride out a riot or a hurricane, especially if you have no place else to go. A forest fire? Maybe not. You definitely have places to go in most forest fire evacuations, and usually enough lead time to pack the BoB and then some. BoB plus valuables, plus papers, plus enough gear for a weeklong vacation. It's not TEOTWAWKI when there is a Holiday Inn with a functioning contintental breakfast, complete with fresh bran muffins, 400 miles away, but you may need that Bug Out Bag to get there.

Is Back

Gunblogger appears to have returned. Looks different, but same great stuff.

Range Day in July

After a range week hiatus I showed up with the snubbie.

BOY did my shooting stink up the joint. It took about 3 cylinders to settle in and get used to the little DA again.

Practice people. We gotta practice.

I even got a small blister. Just 75 rounds and I got a blister. Well, man up, and charge on.

The 2 Marines shooting some narrow .40 in the lane to my left were positioned perfectly to throw brass into my shirt pocket. And my pants cuff, as I found out an hour later when going to buy beer for the weekend. Ting! Ting-ting! Oh, explain THAT to the other patrons.

Here's the first target. The first 15 are masked by 16+. Pick the worst 15 holes on there, and assume those were the first 15 shots.

I was still settled at the second target. But still... it was a light shooting day.

Tam's Rainbow Friend

Is quite talented:

Blogger's

Blogger's commenting system is acting all hinky. Roberta noticed too.

Survivalist Rifle

All the survivalists types toy with similar memes of “what 3 guns system is best for TEOTWAWKI” and then spend a lot of time hashing that out.

But this Argentinian brings up a good point. How big a SHTF situation do you have to have before it would be ‘socially acceptable’ to walk around, out of uniform, with a slung rifle on your shoulder? His country had a pretty big economic collapse, but toting a rifle was still out of the question. Times would have to be pretty bad. Not just a Depression times 3, or a Katrina times 10… You’d have to be in a The Road type worldwide disaster with giga-deaths. And then you wouldn’t want folks to SEE you and your rifle. Maybe something lesser like One Second After (EMP knocks the US into the 19th Century), and then it would be in your capacity as part of the community militia and you’d be carrying it around folks you know.

It’s good you have the rifle, but you may find yourself only carrying the pistol you chose most of the time. US hyperinflation and nationwide food riots? Just the pistol on your daily commute to your job. Big volcano in Yellowstone that blots out the sun and makes all the east coast look like Seattle after Mt St Helens? Yup, you still would go to work in New York. Times would be bad, yes, but there would still be officials trying to maintain order. And you don’t want them to think you are a possible source of disorder unless you are bigger than them. Peak Oil turns out to be very real and on a single day in 2013 all oil well just stop? You will be walking to your job, and you may have a new job farming, but electricity may still work most of the time and people would be trying to cope.

Of course in a pistol carrying CCW everywhere SHTF scenario you might not carry the rifle everywhere, but it would be close by and easy to hand most times…

Soldiery type invasions and insurrections? Then you might need that rifle constantly. By then you’d BE a soldier. With very little logistical tail. You’d have your rifle and you’d be on the move, probably eating the seed corn of the area you are travelling through, successfully fighting people that stayed put because there are more of you then there are of them. Congratulations! In this scenario you’ve become part of the problem instead of part of the Survivalist solution. Even if you are fighting for the ‘good guys’.

Yeah, there seem to be no GOOD outcomes in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Lots of suffering. It would really suck. I got an idea… Let’s try, as much as possible, not to go there.


[Update: THIS is the specific post I was referencing. 2008. No wonder I couldn't find it. Sorry about that people. Money quote:

"What I’m trying to explain, is that it’s ok to prepare for China invading you country, Germans and UN or Martians. That is the extreme, less likely worst case scenario.

There is an infinity spectrum of gray between the black and white. White being your average normal day and black being total TEOTWAWKI, lizard men invading the planet.

Rifles do have a place in the survivalist’s arsenal, and a very important one. But you have to understand that 90% of the time, the handgun will be the weapon you have available when you need one. You can’t compare to a trooper in Iraq that has his weapon with him at all times. I ask you how many soldiers do you know that keep wearing cammo and totting their M4s around town when they return home?"

and it keeps going from there.]

Where was Archie?

I thought it would be of historical interest to ask my crotchety old WWII veteran neighbor know as 'Archie' where he was when he heard about important news events. A 'Where were you when?...'

So. This is how it went.

When FDR died? Playing catch with a baseball behind the barracks at Bainbridge Naval Base. He thought the war would be over and he wouldn't get killed overseas.

When the Challenger exploded? Watching it on TV and noticing the spark from the booster aiming at the main tank and thinking, "Well that is gonna blow up..."

When JFK was killed? "NEVER YOU FUGGIN MIND AND I DON'T KNOW NUTHIN ABOUT NO GRASSY KNOLL NOW GET OUTTA MY HOUSE!!!"

Anvil 4th

Anvil shooting is the traditional July 4th event for at least the first 100 years of the country's existence.

Go to 1:15 in...



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Rule of Law

So we are offered a monstrosity of a Healthcare Bill. 2000+ pages. It even falls outside of standard legislative processes in order to get it passed. No one knows what's in it before the legislators vote on it. A man will decide what's in the law later, now that it is passed.

There is a Banking Reform Bill on the Hill. It's huge. 2000+ pages. The two powerful men that 'wrote' it, Dodd and Frank, don't even know what's in it, and they admit it. We'll find out what's in it later, after it is passed when some man decides what's in it.

The Banking bill is because of the mortgage crisis. You see banks don't like risk, but they do like profit. Lucky for them, the gov't took their risk away with Fannie and Freddie. If there is no consquences for risky behavior but a chance for profit, of COURSE they took that path. They called it irresponsible lending, but it isn't that. It's mercenary lending. The irresponsible part was the borrowing. Buying a $500k house while working a $25k job by fudging the application and getting a balloon mortgage to keep the payments down for the first 3 years. If the house doesn't go up in value after a balloon bursts, so? Theur credit was very bad BEFORE the loan, so what if it get's worse. Need a place to live? Stay in the $500k home even after foreclosure, you don't have to leave. And you don't have to make payments. Following the rules, getting a $100k house and a 30 year fixed rate mortgage? The advice that everyone back past your great grandparents gave you? Following the rules are suckers.

Same for legal immigrants. You filled out all that paperwork and jumped through hoops to come to this country? Sucker.

An oil drilling company has a horrible accident. It's their responsibility. It may bankrupt them and they will have to dissolve the corporation to pay the damages and obligations meted down by due process. But even as a non functioning and bankrupt entity they have much of value to sell, many hard assets that can be liquidated to meet every obligation, every claimant. And there is a process to go through to settle those claims, a procedure agreed upon and in place for all these score of decades. Unless a powerful man promises no end of extralegal harassment if the company doesn't front up a huge escrow payment. Under what authority is this demand justified? Everyone on all sides admits there is no statute for this. It's just done. One man decides with no real authority, another acquiesces because it would be even more ruinous to oppose the will of that one man.

There is a Cap and Trade bill before congress. It's suppose to put the kibosh on Anthropogenic Catastrophic Greenhouse Warming. Hogwash. A group of people 20+ years ago had a solution: Socialism! As much central planning as the American people will sit still for. And they hunted around for a problem to apply this solution to. They went for global warming as problem as good as any. Sympathy for the plight of the proletariat wasn't cutting the mustard in the problem department anymore and they needed a new angle. Well, all the foundation for this problem seems to be falling apart. It was built on top of the 'sand' of fraud, groupthink, and the grubbing for grant money from any available source. Rather than resting on what they originally claimed: the solid bedrock of science. Science welcome skeptics, as it seeks Truth, at any rate. It doesn't cast out skeptics, calling them Deniers (just like friend of Hitler! godwin...), and stitching the scarlet letter D to their garments.

A Supreme Court justice is nominated. And this nominee won't answer a direct question. No nominee has for years. A forthright and honest answer of her legal views and opinions just invites rejection. It's even named after the last nominee that was truthful with his answered. She'd be "Borked". So the nomination hearing process is just useless political kabuki theater now. No objective criteria on qualification. Her favorite color might have more weight on whether she is voted in or out. At least she can answer what her favorite color is. But there is every indication, admitted by both side of the aisle as understood,that despite what she says now she will make rulings based on her desires and feelings. She'll decide what is right in her heart and work her legal justification around her prejudicial decision no matter what the plainest language in the law says. She'll twist the means of the law to achieve a desired ends. It's a tradition since Justice Warren and even before.

We've been adding laws on top of the body of English Common Law for 234 years. It's no wonder that you can't wake in morning and commute to work without running afoul of 4 obscure felonies. Some crazy Russian woman said, "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers." A man will determine if you broke anything important. Especially if he need to be done with you. He'll pick one of those many codes in the system to paste upon you. It's not like there is some body of men that can repeal extraneous crap and keep the code sensible. They are busy men with other things to attend to. Like passing more laws and raising election fund money and golfing and screwing their mistress (or mister, depending on the preference of law-making-man or law-making-woman).


But that's how the United States was set up, though. We are ruled by men. The capricious rules of men. Some elected and known, many faceless and power seeking behind-the-scenes type? How else are a people governed if not by men and man's opinion of the moment.

The Law? Plain and clear? Written in the vernacular for everyone to see? Not requiring a priest caste to figure it out for us, to trick out every invisible and magical penumbra? A body of Law out of us reg'lar folks' control? How can the Law rule men? Rule of Law? Whoever heard of such poppycock before today? Madness to contemplate.



[Can you tell I've been watching the John Adams mini-series?]

Remote Controlled Zombie

That's ALL we need.

The Lamentation of the Women!

Pistol Selection

When I asked for input on which pistol to take to the range, the consensus of these:

1. 1911 pattern
2. .22 revolver
3. .357 revolver
4. .357 snub revolver
5. SIG P229
6. 1903/8 Colt Pocket Hammerless

was to take the one I carry... Ok... I get that... the thing is... which one is that?

I live in Maryland. Carrying is a no-no. Ok. When not in Maryland what do I carry? Well...

If I have a holster it's the SIG, if i just have a pocket it's the snubbie, but I WANT the 1911 to be the go-to pistol some day, and if I lose the snubbie it's the Colt in the pocket, and if there is a bump in the night (3AM? Who sells magazines at 3AM?) the big .357 revolver is the gun to hand for social purposes.

About the only pistol I don't carry is the .22, but all of you will grant that's a good round for lots of cheap practice. I don't have any extraneous 'fun' pistols. All are either carriers or marksmanship practice pieces. No 'fun' guns. All have a 'place.'

My other criteria is normally "What ammo do I have lots of above the 'don't go below this level' quantity?" But that's not relevant this time, as I am flush enough.

I'd rather not have a group of pistols. I'd rather have one go-to gatt. (And a duplicate of that in case the primary goes to the smith.) And that one be the 1911. But that was not to be. Yet. That's the direction I want to go. I'm just not there yet.

So, you're saying now, "T-Bolt, all this internal conflict is fine for filling up a blog post and I see where you are going with your thought process, but which gun did you take?"

The snubbie. It's my most frequent companion. And I remembered that the Lawman +p .38 is on top of the stack of boxes.

Guns don't kill people

Cardboard kills people.

Zombie Day

Today, at Scienceblogs

Dang link is a moving target.

Cleaning a 1911

It had been a while since I took the extractor and firing pin out of the 1911. When the books say to wear eye protection they ain't fooling! Wear goggles! It wasn't so much taking the firing pin out, as I pointed it away from my face and at cardboard. Ptop! But the struggle to depress the spring while sliding the little firing pin stop into place, that firing pin is pointed right at your face and your fingers are coated in gun cleaning solvent. Good job if you get it all back together without the pin going flying at least once. It flew 4 times for me.

And OH MY! That was a lot of carbon in there. And as fine as face powder. A q-tip did a good job dragging that filth out of there. I probably had the pin out for cleaning... maybe 1500 rounds ago? It was an impressive amount of filth. It felt good excavating it out of there.

Ok, here is a question. The lands and/or grooves nearest the breech are getting dirty and resistant to cleaning. I was waiting for this. Lot of patches, lots of brushing, lots of solvent... What gives? I wanted to check with the peanut gallery before I attacked it with a stronger chemical.

In before Tam

Today is the 94th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme.

Some Brits died when they found out khaki wasn't MG-proof. Then the next day, more. And more...

Top Shot AR Friend or Foe

Ok, I have forgiven hulu. They eventually put up ep4 of Top Shot.

I need the fodder, you see...

This episode is all about the AR and all about shooting the target and NOT shooting the thing that looks like a target, but is really a 'friendly'. And you don't know which is which until the last second.

As the host said, "I, your host, say, 'Judgment'." Or something.

The trainer is/was a SEAL.

Shoot the black, leave the white, and do it fast fast fast, or...

Shoot the white, leave the black, and do it fast fast fast.

The classic-rifle guy, Jim, on the blue team is SLOW in the practice, and Blake and JJ are fast. Iain, the Brit, made some errors.

On red, there are a couple Marines, and they did fine. Brad did good in practice, and he's been in the elimination twice. Kelly is also not used to speedy rifle. But all in all, the red team did better in the dry run than blue.

~spoilers~

The actual challenge... Adds memory to the mix, like the game Concentration. They show the target, then cover it, then you shoot the grid printed on the cover but only at specified color. If you are on red team, remember where the blue targets team.

Blue team ended up having Iain, JJ, and Blake to sit out.

Hey, look at Caleb! 5 of 7. Not shabby.

Even the players that did poorly are still doing pretty good on this challenge, I notice. No negative scores. I would have gotten a negative score.

Peter on Red cleaned up at his turn making it mathematically impossible for Blue to catch up.

And Blue take a cavalier attitude toward the challenging selection of the elimination... challenge... selectees... But I kinda like it. Shows cameraderie. Like they are gelling as a team. We'll see how that works out over time. And it is the TV shows job to drive some drama in the team's unified front so let's see.

Jim was selected, as he had the lowest score and pretty much volunteered. And Iain was selected because he insisted they others select him.

~'live' blog~

The elimination challenge! Oh crap! MOVING targets. And pistols. I'm guess Iain wins before I even see the event. TZ99 from South Africa? Wow, never heard of that 9mm handgun before now... Ah, it's a SIG clone. Thought it looked kinda familiar. Iain, being a Brit mil type, prolly knows this handgun... And he does. He's FAST.

The trainer brings up that Jim is methodical and that might help him if Iain is too confident or rushes...

Jim is looking confident and seems to be having fun after practice.

And the big show. Swinging random red targets among no-shoot blue targets, swing swing swing. DANG. I'd do well hitting targets if I was there. Hitting the wrong targets.

And they are like 10 yards away!

I take it back, If I was there I'd hit nothing.

Iain is first. Hits all 3, but with .6 seconds left. Wow.

Jim is gonna lose...

Nope, all 3, and with 1.7 seconds left! Double Wow!

Ooops, I didn't notice Jim nicked a blue. What a great round. Too bad Jim has to go after that.


Next show...

Muzzle loader long rifle next week, and Blue team drama. Ah well.