A Marine Buddy

Of mine doesn't like pistols or want an AR in his house.  Like many Marines I know, they become half Hippie after leaving the Corps.  They still LIKE shooting, but scary black rifles are too scary to keep around.  He'll play with mine.

He has a shotfun for home defense.   And WANTS a boltie in .308.

He got to try one of his buddies Mossberg bolt action in that chambering, and now this same individual is gonna sell the gun at a steal of a price.

Problem is?  It doesn't work very well.  But, from what they describe, it sound magazine related.  And Mossberg says it will use a variety of magazines...  So I am thinking that some magazine work better than others, and that he can get this rifle, find those magazines, and be happy with the purchase. 

The Power of Cheese.

And with any luck I am buying cheese from here.  Something with angel tears. 

Gonna spend WAY too much there.

Howdy, partner

Who Taught You That Word?

I am INSIDE this house, today.  With any luck.



Poor Schwartz...

Pajamas Media

Wow, the new site design is really awful.  Change is not always an improvement, ya know.   The change will make me less likely to check on them, or only use them as a pass through to Instapundit.  Now PJ Media looks like a dumbed down, crappier version of itself while trying to look like everyone else.

Don't change Instapundit, Glenn.  Certainly not like that. 

I thought turkeys could fly...

Terrorist Watch List

I got an idea.  Let's forbid all the people on the No-Fly Terrist Watchlist from buying a gun.  Then delete all the names on the Watchlist. 

I mean, apart from the gun stuff, what is the list doing?  No one is going to use the tactic of taking over the airplane and crashing it into buildings again.  That method didn't even work on all of September 11th.  And now there are door and a tube full of people that know not to sit tight and just wait for the ordeal to end at Havana airport when the hijackers land and get off. 

Feinstein Reid Schumer and Clinton all deserve to be yoked by tyranny as they wish to do to the rest of us.

Gonna be outta pocket

What with holiday travel and all.  Posting may be sparse.

Cowboys

As many of you already know... if you decide to have a go doing in one of them cowboy action shooting type organizations, a big part of the fun, apart for shooting 19th C type shootin' arns, is you dress up in costume and pick a persona name.  An alias.  A moniker.  A name to go by.

It's like those Society for Creative Anachronism geeks playing at the Middle Ages, wearing arm and fighting sword battles with rattan poles for sword, but here you are shooting targets and it's the American Western Frontier, post war.  You still need a name.

What sorta names should someone like me be looking at?  If it has to be unique, I bet Thunderbolt is taken...  Wait maybe not.  There are variants, too, on that.  If someone had T-Bolt, there is Tarnation and Thunderbutter.  &c.

•  Cornhole Pete
• Ol' Stanky 
• Spittoon
• Milkin Stool (He has 3 legs)
• Blamazon
• Union Suit
• Stumbles
• Thunderjugs (She's a nice lady...)
• Catfish
• Double Down
• Itchy
• Plugger
• Shiner
• Ribeye
• TBone
• Skirt Steak
• Pumphandle
• Skunk Kicker
• Skitter

And Apparently

Winter is coming. 

So, the hunt today was in the 40s.  Not bad.  I had learned from previous ones.  I need bigger boots and over shoes?  Why?  One more layer of wool socks.  And ditch the military utility pants and get some wool so it is long johns, pants, insulated overalls.  Then I think I am ready for the 20 degree drop tonite.

Nuthin

Saw a smaller doe.  Didn't take the shot.  Wanted it a little bit closer.  Woulda been perfect otherwise.

Gone Huntin'

With luck, I went hunting for deer yesterday and/or today and if I got sumthin I'll let you know.

Hmmm, this is posting at 7AM.  Suns should be bright enough now.   Maybe I just shot a yearling buck.  Only took MBtGE 10 minutes.

Make up yer minds, Leftists

"There isn't a terrorism problem!  You have a greater chance of dying of infection from a paper cut!  Let the Syrian 'refugees,' which seem to be composed mostly of military aged males, in."

"We have a HORRIBLE terrorism problem!  We must ban anyone on the secret terrist watchlist from being allowed to own a gun, due process be damned!"



Well?  We either have 800,000 people already here that are too dangerous to be allowed near a gas station, much less in a gunstore or on an airplane, or we can import hordes of folks from regions chockablock with murderous barbarians and their supporters and sympathizers, where they make up 90+% of the population.  Which is it? 

Keep in mind we are already struggling with immigration from friendlier neighbors but that are still bringing criminal elements along and are pressuring all wages down in this soft employment market.

Moving to Pennsylvania

I asked you folks what the co-worker moving to Pennsylvania should get for his ol' homestead once he is out of restrictive Maryland.

Because of you people, he is leaning Mossberg 590.

But, speaking of HQLs yesterday, before he goes, he is thinking of getting one.  THAT way he can rent a firearm by his workplace here in Maryland.  He's moving to the countryside.  No ranges other than large expanses of the great outdoors.  He could get the HQL in just a few short weeks, then cut ties with Maryland.  The HQL is good for ten years, after...

BAD

It's Buy Ammo Day.  Totally forgot.

Guess I am going online tonight to place an order.  100+ rounds, right?

Need a License to Purchase

One thing about the HQL Maryland now requires to buy a restricted gun (see:  handguns) is that it also hurts the gun ranges that rent out pistols.

My local range didn't like to rent out a gun to someone that doesn't already have a gun with them.  Folks were using the range to off themselves right there.  It didn't happen often, but you don't need that sort of thing to happen very often to not want it to ever happen again.  It's just a range rule.  Like the common rule "Do NOT unholster loaded firearms" many guns stores have even in gun friendly states.

But the new Maryland reg means the rental range can't transfer a weapon for someone to shoot just at the range without the recipient also having the the little ID card saying it's kosher.  I guess if I, with my one $100 HQL, could take a buddy to the rental range, and rent a series of guns for that person to test out to see what they like.

But it's a pain.

Hey, the gun grabbers saw how that was used to help kill the gun culture up in Massachusetts, might as well try it here.

Woodrow Wilson was the first Fascist

And now his own Democrats have turned agin him.

Yes!

You just know he'd be for gun control, too...

Bulldog Drummond pt 2

I reviewed this interwar story before.  Bulldog Drummond!  DSO, MC, Captain the Loamshire Regiment.  Four years fighting the Bosche.  Having sought out and read a lot of pulp adventure stories from this era, I do notice they have the same...  flavor?  The writing style and rhythm and feel all match, from story to story, author to author.

To recap, Captain Bulldog Drummond is a semi wealthy but underemployed post war vet looking for adventure.  He puts an ad in the newspaper seeking problems to solve, which he then jumps into with alacrity.  He has former army chums to help him out at times, as well as a valet.  A pretty damsel in distress answers his advertisement seeking help from this stranger.

I complained about his 'Automatic Revolver'

Then it hit me!  Maybe it's a Fosbery monstrosity?  That's definietly an automatic, and a revolver, and appropriate for the time period  Kicking myself.

Save for the fact he calls it 'little', it could be the Fosbery...  But my first impression was that the author and British Great War veteran just used the term 'revolver' for any handgun.  And that initial instinct still sticks.  In the book, he pockets the 'automatic revolver' and it seems to be concealable in the palm of Drummond's hand.  These characteristics do not describe the Webley-Forsbery revolver, which is certainly full size.

He also calls it a 'Colt', too, so... A Little Colt Automatic Revolver.  No confusing Colt and Webley, now.  But I thought I was onto something with the Fosbery blind alley. Back to the drawing board.  That'll teach me to eat pizza late and stay up reading in bed.

Amend the 2nd

Why?  Some dude want to change the constitution restricting you only 6 shot weapons.  So revolver like he likes or gimp semis I guess.  Sill git

And if the 2nd Amendment was, uh, amended, I doubt it would get more restrictive, as you seem to want, buddy.  More likely it would be successfully amended so the more dense-Americans can understand.   Dense like you, pal. 

"The right to keep and carry and arms, to fight tyranny and defend yourself and the prepare to do either and for recreation, shall not be infringed"  Maybe?

Much bigger percentage of voters would go for that than to tighten it up, friend.

We'll always have Paris

So.  This again.



Bets on whether anything is done about it by this time next year?  Further bets on whether our current president will lend a hand in any meaningful way?  I am pessimistic.

Do you want Trumps?  Because this is how you get Trumps.

I am 14+ years waiting for the moderate muslims to come out against such behavior.  The silence has been deafening every time these heinous and dastardly acts occur.  Proverbial dog that doesn't bark.

I am also 14+ year into being dissatisfied with our...  Civilization's... response to this war.  Righteous vengeance is apropo.  Stop trying to convince folks it's not.  You know who you are, hippie.

Smart Firearms

The NRA tested that stupid smart gun.

Unacceptable failure rate.  Horrible long lag time to even get the first round off.  Multiple misfires per magazine. Thanks a lot, Armatix.  Perfidus Germans...

I somehow doubt the Bloomberg own publication is fully above board with reports of failure rate of only 1 in 100,000 for the new smart magazine.  A little self serving.  I'd bet the maker could stand in front of us, and conduct the test with that magazine and get multiple failures to fire in the first couple hundred.

You know who gets shot the most by their own guns.  Cops.  Make cops accept these awful things, then come talk to us gunnies.  What, the police won't have anything to do with them?  Well, then, you have to convince them, now, doncha?  

I DO like how the Jersey law requiring smartguns as soon as the technology is viable came around and bit the Leftists that passed it in the ass.  Because of that law no major gun maker will touch smart gun development with a 10 foot pole.  Hey, gun banners!  Google "Unintended Consequences."

Germans?

Pearl Harbor?

FFS

We gotta cut this cancer out before it spreads and metasticizes.



If they can ignore one amendment, ONE right, then they will decide they ignore other rights, and make up even more out of whole cloth to benefit themselves and have the gaul to enforce by mob rule.

"You don't have a right to complain about me, and I have a right to feel safe, so let's just ignore than whole 2nd Amendment, too."

I HATE that mindset. 

Bupkis, pt. 111

I got nuffin'

Mainly cuz I been playing Fallout 4.

Hey, there is gun content in that!

Now, the Fallout universe diverges from our own after the Enola Gay.  In that universe, nuclear power is more developed, but they don't quite figure out transistors or microchips.  The Cold War continues a pace, with China emerging as the stronger competitor to America.  Then WWIII in 2077.  The game takes place in the post apocalyptic world 200 years after that. 

The non-laser stuff with the guns in game is either so primitive looking it would embarrass a zip gun makers.  The sort of bullet thrower pipe guns you turn in for the $50 Gift Card when the police conduct a 'Gun Buy Back'.  Or they are pristine looking Tommy Guns.

But the game also takes place in the Boston area, and you know Massachusetts gun laws... 

More 'Shooting' Class AAR

Still doing it. 

Progress is slow.  Because I am slow.  A slow head. 

I'm clever with a  lot of things but to really get to KNOW something... seems to take me longer than most folks.  Slow head. 

After the second or third class I came to the realization (and it was confirmed) that pretty much everything EVERYTHING is the instruction is to get the trigger pull right.  Relax?  That will help your trigger pull.  Grip the gun like so?  Helps the trigger pull.  Don't hunch up the shoulders?  Helps the trigger pull.  Turn with your kneecaps, not your arms?   Trigger pull. 

But 'relax' is the big thing to help the trigger pull.  He even adds layer up layer of stressors to overcome to push that 'relax' because with a real gun and nothing else, well you still have that jumping loud explosion in your hand and that is stressful by itself.  How to add stress?  The usual.  Loud music, noises, having to do shoot-no-shoot generic targets, photo realistic target where a target is a man that has a gun or has a badge.  And the gun and badge look almost the same...

But I am not there yet.  So I signed up for more sessions.  After a body gets good with the sessions he takes you to a real range for some live fire training. 

Yeah, it's shooter kindergarten.  But I need shooter kindergarten. 

What do I want?  I want to be a Great World Class Shooter.   Top of the world.  I want people to be depressed when they hear I am coming to a shooting competition.  Am I, realistically, gonna get there?  No.  But I will settle for getting to be a 'better' shooter.  And, with a little luck and work and practice maybe I will get to 'much better' shooter.

But it's all in the trigger pull.

Veteran

I often mention old time family member on this day, in marking this day.  But you know what?  My brother is a Veteran.  A real one.  Not like me.  My veteran state is conferred on me by having worn a uniform and watched the first Gulf War on TV.

Commander T-Bolt (he is still in the Navy, past pension age too, just biding his time until the next the assignment and then will retire at the end of that) is what we'll call him, through in with the, duh, Navy in the early 90s.  His bigger, uglier, brother (me) was in ROTC, and Lil-Bolt had done that sort of stuff in High School JROTC, so why not?  He was better at Calculus than me so he even got the full ride scholarship.  I graduated from Virginia Tech, reported to the Naval Air Schools Command right as we won the Cold War, washed out of flight school, and was able to swear HIM in before getting mustered out myself.  He was a Supply Officer, and got a submarine billet, and, able to stick, where I, forever an Ensign, could not. 

Then he kept going.  Submarines.  Then the Abraham Lincoln.

9/11 happened. 

And EVERYBODY got sent to the sandbox eventually.  Including Navy Pork Chops like him.  Land billets.  Not safe ships.  He was smart and never left the FOB in Diwaniya (or however that is spelled... Iraq... where the sand is.  And the sun is only a few hundred yards overhead.)  This was in 2006, so the bad guys were actively lobbing stuff in.  But these bad guy were incompetent and rarely hit anything they were aiming at.  So he gets to spend a buncha nights ducked down in a cement culvert/bunker to keep from getting unlucky.  Because how was he to know if they were aiming at him, and thus he was safe, or aiming at something far away and thus he was in great great danger.

Being the supply officer he was also in charge of getting rid of trash.  But there was NO contractor or local able to haul off medical waste, so the pile kept on getting bigger with no solution in sight.  This problem was solved for him by the bad guys when a direct mortar hit caught the pile of trash on fire.  Yay.

And you know...  He got shot at more than any other relative of ours I know of besides my mothers father, whom the Japanese machine gunned on Peleliu.  We got some relatives that were in New York regiments in the Civil War.  Dunno how much they got shot at, as there is no family stories for that.  Another from that era server under Farragut.  I guess he got shot at some.

The only other known direct antecedent was Great Great Great Great Grandpa T-Bolt (same last name) that was just a southern Bavarian dairyman and cheesemaker that got sucked up by conscription and had to walk to Moscow and back with some short French dude.  So he prolly got shot at. 

Dad was out of the Air Force just before the Berlin Wall went up.  His brother was a hair too young for Korea.  Their dad, Paw Paw, was another Supply Officer in WWII.  Too only to carry a rifle and his vision was wretched.  Stayed in Jersey for the duration and after ended up a Major.  I don't know of any others about that served....  But it's a smallish family. 

No, my brother has 'seen' the most 'action' in any living memory of our family.  He probably has to work today.

What? Again....

How many times are they gonna tell this story?

Are they waiting for someone with power or money to notice and swoop in and save this program?

This is like the third time that they announced the Maryland 'ballistic fingerprinting' program was ended.

Drive a stake through its heart already.

Bulldog Drummond

Book review time.  Continuing my WWI kick, this series was written by a British Officer.  Hollywood B-movies (Ray Milland!) were made of the tales, with an American slant, and other earlier films and plays.   Quite popular in the interwar years.  Gentleman and valet solve crimes.   That sort of thing.

Gun content.   The gentleman carries a small Colt revolver.  Also referred to as an automatic.  The description makes me think it is actually something like the good ol Pocket Hammerless in .32 or .380.  Maybe  a Vest Pocket, even.

But the point...  A British Army officer and author after years of war still mixes the terms revolver and automatic.  I'm beginning think there was a time it was acceptable to call any pistol a 'revolver', whether it had a rotating cylinder or not.  That no one in the 20's was bothered if you called an M1911A1 a "Colt 45 revolver automatic".  Nomenclature being inexact and interchangeable.  At least on this.  Revolver = Any Handgun.  I keep noticing it everywhere in old stuff.  Just like we notice the clip/magazine stuff.  And even Glock Service Revolvers that all the police carry and journalist write about. 

Well, it's expensive

But I have 2 frames....  Maybe I'll use primo parts for the first one and try to go budget, but good enough, for #2....  Like recycle and old plastic Colt Mainspring housing.  That sort of thing.

Never look at the money

When making your custom 1911.

I've been pricing parts.  Just parts.  Getting higher end parts with the store discount that's about $675.  Not including the slide and barrel and frame and any magazines.   Slide is $267, retail, barrel will be about $200 I bet, and the frame is $222. 

Labor is free.  Because is it me.  Unless you count the class tuition, which is $800 for this class, plus the pre-reqs of the Advanced class, Intermediate ($300) class, and Basic ($175) class before this.  It's $2500 to take the Larry Vickers class, tho, so I come out slightly ahead, here.  And I already have the tooling, but that cost big money.

Phew.

So, subtotal of just this class and gun parts is north of $2500. 

You see where custom 1911s get their prices?  And, again, just the high end parts for an ordinary, functional, Government model without any bells and whistles is $1700.  If you want checkering on the grip of that frame, that's an add on.  Different serration on the slide?  More.  Maybe if you were going to make a professional go of it and sell homemade guns and you go the manufacturer discount and bought in bulk...  It's still hard to get the good parts down below a kilobuck. 

---

All for a gun that shoots as well with fewer bullets as a S&W M&P .45.  And only costs $600.  Holy damn, what have I done?  This is a sickness I have.  Never look too close at the money.  Just have fun with it and pay the bills with your eyes squinted up for a few months.

Long Commute

A buddy at work is moving to Pennsylvania, just over the line.  His commute will be more than 50 miles, but his place is in some beautiful country.  Good deer hunting on his acreage.  The only gun he owns is a Remington 700, so...  Good there.

But now that he is in a free state and he allowed to buy a gun what should he get?

What is wrong with this picture

 
 

Keep yer eye on the target.

Zombies!

Letters

We get letters...  We get letters every day.... Ding dong!  Here's you mail today!



When blogs were big, I got few emails from folks.   The ones I did get wanted product reviews and I enthusiastically said yes to that, but then nothing was ever sent to me for review... 

Now that blogs are dying I am getting more, for some reason.

Lucky Gunner wanted me to know about their new feature.  They are posting pics of ballistic gelatin results for a whole bunch of ammo brands and varieties.  He referenced an actual blog post about the Manhattanite that thinks a few liberals can join the NRA and take it over, so he ACTUALLY read my blog.   He has no idea I am an occasional customer, tho, as I use a name other than "T-Bolt" to BUY ammo.  I bought a bunch of .45 Federal HST and Gold Dot .38 from there, last time, I am pretty sure.  Relegating my Hydro-Shocka-Locka to practice ammo. 

AmmoToGo wants me to get their free ammo and take a picture of a new shooter enjoying themselves shooting it.  Well, you get the ammo AFTER the publicity is sent to AmmoToGo.  And the ammo is 9mm...  So he doesn't read my blog.

And Blaser keeps asking me over and over if I can see their new website.  No.  I cannot.  It's on tumblr and I try to avoid tumblr if at all possible.  Blaser, when I looked before, has interesting high end thunber-boomers. 

Bloomberg Monay

I guess when people see Bloomberg money pouring in for a guy, the good guys take notice, and we drive turnout up in elections to vote against him.  Good guys win

He's like a Super Villain that way, Bloomberg.

I guess he'll realize this eventually and have to funnel his money in secretly, to avoid our response. 

Ted Cruz

So, Ted Cruz got criticized for holding his break-open broken open on his shoulder on social media.  And then people attacked the criticizers saying that is a perfectly acceptable way of carrying that kind of scattergun afield.  Back forth, back forth, frothy social media poop-storm, yay.

I'd like to see more candidates for office shoot something other than high end fowling pieces more often.  Only Palin bothered.  It'd be nice to see a future president shoot a bowling pin off a table and smile while doing it, for instance. 

I mean even a gun banner like John Kerry will pretend and put on blaze orange and pocket some #7 shot shells.

Treadin'

Best Cities

To survive the zombocalypse.

Meh. The criteria they used is fine I am just dumbfounded by the cities that rated well.

The criteria were defensibility, access to food resources over time, and having the best possibility of developing a cure. 

So this is community survival.  Not lone wolf survival.  They seem to be looking for a city that can survive intact.  A metropolis that is an island in a sea of Zed.

And a city can score high in one criteria and that can boost its ranks.  Hence, Boston scores well because of sea access, maybe?  But more from intellectual capital for finding a cure.  And it is hard to feed yourself in Manhattan with all those other mouths about.  But Utah scores very high on defensibility.

They rated Best:

1. Boston, Massachusetts
2. Salt Lake City, Utah
3. Columbus, Ohio
4. Baltimore, Maryland
5. Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Virginia

And Worst:

49. Chicago, Illinois
50. Riverside/ San Bernadino, California
51. Los Angeles, California
52. Tampa, Florida,
53. New York, New York

Five Year Plan

Five Year Plans always make me think about socialist governments murdering their people.



Stupid F---ing hippies. Lifting their throat to the slaughtering knife.

Member way back in thirty two
When Stalin's plan killed 10 million and 2
Gotta snuff them Kulaks for the Topia-U
But that's ok, they were probably Jews
Probably Jews
Probably Jews

 

CURSE YOU ALGORE!

Got a New Belt.

The thick kind.  Double thickness.  Good for a holster type belt.  Stiff. 

My old belt was de-laminating and had seen better days.  If I could carry more then I'd have had to replace it a lot sooner.

I like these belts when knew.  They are hard to get the buckle buckled and they creak like a wooden schooner.  It makes it feel even more substantial.  It gives you confidence.