Don't get stressed out!

"Whatever you do, don't let the pressure of the qualifications stress you out.  I know you are tied up in knots.  Calm down.  Sir?  CALM DOWN!  Breathe!  BREATHE!  YOU GOTTA BE STRESS FREE OR YOU GONNA FAIL!  FAILURE!"

Seriously.  I was pretty calm already.  I kinda felt like that whole schpiel was to purposely make me stressed.  Didn't work.  I was calm already.  And it didn't make me lose my cool.

I figured they'd clue into that when I danced like a blithering fool to their Cure soundtrack they played at top volume as I approached the firing line.

They shoulda played some DMX:



Y'all gon make me lose my cool.

(and when were banks EVER open at night?)

Crazy Town

See THIS is an example of what is wrong with out mental health system.

This guy was filled with religious fervor and acting erractic.  He had busted into the Capitol before to make prophetic pronouncements.  He was 'Known to Authorities'.

Yet Authorities were powerless to get him the help he needed.  It end with him returning, walking straight throus the restraining order prohibitting him from doing so, then causing trouble, then pulling a weapon.   Getting shot for it.

He didn't belong in prison.  He belonged in a mental institution getting treatment. 

Being crazy didn't stop him from getting a weapon, notice.  Wonder what the weapon was?  A knife?  A gun?  And even more deadly glass beer bottle full of gasolice and a lighter? 

Gunskool is over

Now it's time for gun skool.

Shooting class. Instead of gunsmithing class.

This past weekend I qualled to be able to go live fire.  Hooray!  Real bullets. 

The qualification is two parts.  Simulated bullseye target.  You have 300 seconds to shoot 10 rounds.  7 of them have to be inside the bull, nothing on the border.  Don't start shooting until the gong sounds.

It's testing accuracy and whether you can listen to and follow instructions. 

Everything else in the simulator stops when you are done.  So I figured it would stop me at 10 shots.  At about shot number 6 I was getting a question in my mind. 

Uh oh.  I was supposed to count.  Yup, 11 shots means DQ.  At least they told me when I asked.  But I had no idea how many I had fired.  So I sorta guessed.  7 of 9 shots is still passing.  7 of 7 is too.  So I stopped.  I was at number 10.  And missed one and 2 were on the border.  Phew.

Next.  Simulated Pepper Poppers.  30 seconds, get 45 or more.  I got 43.

They let you run a second string.  The whole test over.  This time I counted.  No misses, but 3 on the line.  So passed again. 

On the Pepper Poppers?  45.  After that, just practice.  Lots and lots of pepper poppers.  Now I need to get me a range appointment.

Upper Swappable

I like the IDEA of swappable uppers, but not the result.

Sure you got the 5.56 AR for all your SHTF needs.  You can grub spare ammo from convoys full of Bernie Thugs raiding the civilized areas after you ambush them, that sort of thing. 

And you can swap out the upper for .300 BLK, full powerish .30 caliber and go deer hunting this fall before things get really bad.  It'll be the last enjoyable hunting season before the Hungry Times his Glorious Marxist Jump Ahead bring down on us all.  (I'm sure gonna miss grocery stores.  Those were really great.  Why, Saundvistas, why?)

But...

It's SO dang easy to make a boo boo with the ammo switch.  Resulting in bad bad.  Dead upper, dead lower, dead hand.

I hate Kabooms.  I want nothing to do with them, ever.

Guy at work is looking to up his firearm game.  Former Marine.  Has just the .40 and Remington 12 gauge right now.  He want a .300 or a .458 SOCOM.  Both with suppressors.  I told him the Whisper version of the .300 has a lot less oomph.  He knows.  He wants quietER, not that real quiet we all love.  Well, as long as he is going into it with his eyes wide open.

But it got me thinking...   Already, if I had my own .300 and .223, I'd load them in magazines that looked and felt WAY different.  Like Milsurp metal for one, and Magtech for the other.  I'd also thing about modifying the mag well.  Put a little obscruction in there so that only a magazine I modded to slip buy an obstruction would fit in that gun.  Maybe an obstruction that is also removable.  But then I have modified the lower.  So maybe that isn't the best idea either.

Like I said, I like the IDEA of swappable uppers, just not the execution

Zombie Con

You all know my Zombie enthusiasms. 

And since the improvement of the TV show Walking Dead, the whole Zed culture really took off and is still maintaining an elevated level.

There are Conventions and Zombie Walks and Travelling Shows and even Zombie Survival camping trips.  Great!  More power to em.

I... have been to none of these. 

You are not allowed to shoot the zombies, you see.  These are pretend zombies.  Don't shoot them.   No really.

Plus it was a real let down because of how awful those first two season were of Walking Dead.  I never forgave them for that.  Just bad.  I hear rumors it improved greatly, but that's not enough to entice me back.

Pomes

Haiku about pistol procurment.


Plastic Fantastic
But would not a Smith be best?
Gaston Glock now weeps

---


A wannabe gangster called Morris
Tried to hold up a store with a Taurus
But the register floozy
Was packing an Uzi
So now Morris' organs are porous.

---


In England the Parliment bickers
A twist in Elzabeth's knickers
Should weapons be legal?
Her reply, quite regal
To each Anglican parish, a Vickers

MD Gun Control 2016

This year the legislature seems to be pushing hardest to make Maryland residents that are on the Terror Watch List (versus the small subset on the OHMYGAWD Don't Let THAT Guy On A Plane, list) prohibitted from buying or possessing firearms

Probably will pass, because Maryland, but 2A groups are looking askance at it and calling their Reps, &c.

Obviously problematic, and we all went over this a year ago when Everytown floated this balloon originally.  It's a secret government list.  No one knows who is on it, how you get on it, how you get your good name cleared if you are on it wrongly, and we do know that people have been put on it mistakenly many times in the past.

Rights are denied without due process.

Whatever.  So, say it passes.  How does it work, keeping guns out of List Members hands?  Do the Feds share that list with the Maryland Attorney General?  Maybe, but I half doubt it.  If they DID share do such a low level as a crappy corrupt state org, then eventually that list will get leaked to regular people, and broadly disseminated.  So, there may be an upside to this.  In the meantime, Maryland gun-banners are nibbling at the edges and may be wasting their time just churning up the crab butter.

Derpa Derp

I saw Tam was perplexed at the gunshow.  Lots of ARs with collapsible stocks, bipods, and 10 power scopes. 

Cheapish accessories too. 

Though I can see it, in a way.  Most all those ARs are going to be shot from a bench for fun, and not to overthrow a small Latin American gov't, or fight off 10,000 zombies...

The bipod isn't to help with shooting, per se.  It just keeps the gun upright off the bench and off those nasty sandbags when the range goes cold and you go to swap out paper targets waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down at the 50 yard distant target.

To prop a rifle up right....  I'd put a bipod on a 16" AR for a shooting bench even if I was the Operatingest Operator that ever Opped a Rator.

But that's ok.  Don't spend too much on it if that is really what its for, right?  And really, that is pretty much what mine is for, 99.999% of the time.  Prolly 100.

Never saw much utility for 10x scopes.  People shoot stuff 500 yards away with iron sights.  3x should be overkill.  I do like Maximum Power in my Big Eyes on the signal bridge when looking for U-Boats, however.

And.... vapor

I'm at bupkis again.

Hey, that Ruth Bader Ginsburg telling Luke Skywalker to blow it out his rear about the 2nd Amendment being about only muskets was pretty cool.  Made me chuckle.

Wouldn't it have been funny is Scalia had been the lone dissenter on that stungun case? 

I guess that changed his mind, facing that kind of withering contradiction. 

Lead!

CDC dataz

60 ppb was the standard acceptbile level for lead in potable water in 1970.
It was then lowered to 30. 
30 ppb in 1985
25 ppb until 1991
10 ppb now.

If the water today hits 15 ppb action must be taken immediately to get it back down to 10. 

The worst homes in Flint had 157.  Not many homes.  90th percentile Flint homes see 27 ppb.  So it's like they are in 1983, drinking water out of the school water fountain.   You know who else drank out of school water fountains in 1983?  Me.  90th percentile means 90% of the houses are 27 ppb or less.  Often much much less.

(Now there were single, one-off nightmare cases, admittedly, where one house gets 10,000 ppb.  Those are some awful pipes leaching it that bad.  Legit lead poisoning there.)

So I wouldn't necessarily say that city officials in Flint are "Poisoning!" all the children.  Michale Moore makes it sound like mustache twirling villains (probably funded by the Koch Bros...) are putting a teaspoon of cyanide in every juice box, dipping all the apples in strychnine.  Mostly folks are drinking water like Moore had when he was a much smaller leftist toad, back in the day.  Doesn't sound as horrifying when you put it that way, tho. 

Put the fake handcuffs prop away, Mike.

It's a Tool

Also.  I've noticed that since I've remade one and made another pistol that their aura of sentimentality is lessened.  In my head. 

Instead of "that's me favorite gun" it's more "that's my gun."

I could sell guns with fewer pangs.  The urge to horde guns is not as strong.   I am even further away from assigning talisman status to a firearm, which wasn't too strong to begin with.

And this is probably a good development.

Geeking on 1911s

I've been learning a lotta good stuff about 1911s.  What with making them and all.  Tiny minutiae of how they function and what is good about this tiny detail over that tiny detail.

I wish the 2016 T-Bolt could hang with the 2010 Tam when she was at the peek of her 1911 game and just do the back and forth.  Of course, she hasn't core dumped her 1911 knowledge.  It might have faded in her transition to "the pistol is a tool" phase she is in now. I am picking 2010 as peek-geek for her.  Totally arbitrary and may be wholly wrong. 

And there is nothing at all wrong with that growth to "just a tool" and I half expect to be entering that phase my own self soon enough. 

The gunsmith is a shooting instructor, too.  And of course he loves the 1911.  He specializes in it, no doubt.  It's his bread and butter.  If he gets enough clientele for that gun he'd reject all the work for shotgun or revolvers or Glock stippling jobs and just do 1911s. 

But he can and does readily pickup a Glock or Sig or S&W M&P and run it.  A pistol is a tool.  And he is good, at shooting and teaching shooting. 

He freely admits he isn't AMU Shooting Team talented.  He built their guns, but can't shoot that well.  They have unholy talents, it seems.  But to understand their needs he had to up his shooting game to a higher level just so he could speak the same language as them.  Which is why his shooting skill tracks with his gunsmithing skill.

That's the path he trod.

I tread a different path, trying to get better.

Tam treads an even different path and she is way ahead of me on the shooting skill part.  But I may have lapped her on the gun-building part.  And that freaks me out.  I never thought I'd come close to getting ahead of Tam in something 1911...

(she is also way ahead of me on many areas of Historical knowledge.  and, again, I am jealous...)

Tam is a hero of mine.  But I have lots of blog heroes.  Roberta for electronic comms.  Marko and JBMiller for publication stuff.  NFO for that, too, but NFO is my hero more for his P3 work, and for the easy button on the long gong..  Earthbound Misfit for watchstanding the Mid Watch all those times.  Breda Fallacy for butt kicking in a blog all those years ago, and continuing to butt kick today without a blog.  Joe Hoffman for BOOM!  Erin Palette for the Traveller skills....   Lagniappe for a string of full auto funsies.   There are many others.

That. Don't do that

Drop the slide without a magazine in it.  You might want to never do that.


I know it 'looks' cool but it really slams the hell out of the sear face with the hammer hooks.

When you take that gun apart now the sear will look all munged up, rounded over, of even with chunk ripped out.  The only thing worse is to shorten the over travel so much that you catch the half-cock notches on the hammer with the sear.

It's really an appalling sight to see.

Now, you could have done this DOZENS of times already.  And you might be fine.  But once more may be the disaster. 

When doing the safety check after building a 1911 you DO do this procedure.  It's so see if the hammer is gonna ride the slide.  You do it twice.  If you do it a third time the gunsmith will look at you funny and remind you that's an awful lot of money to waste on something you are trying to get pretty good.


---

Another thing?  Don't close your revolver cylinder with the wrist flick method.  Do I have to explain that one, too?

Everytown likes this guy's numbers

Seems to be a HuffPo Butter.  Really likes his guns, clearly, and claims to be an FFL dealer.  He also really seems to dislike that you and I have the same guns.  Haven't quite figured him out. 

He might be trying to blaze a narrow trail and threading the needle between the Scylla of the pro-gun rights people, and the Charybdis of the gun-banners.  Claiming to be fact based.  (hey, how about THAT mixed metaphor?)

Grip

Lots of smart and skilled people are training folks to shoot pistol. (some not so good, but i try to avoid them)

Grip harder on it!  20% harder!  20% harder still!  HARDER!

And they do.  And shoot better.  So this was my thing.  I did that.  Seemed to shoot better.

Then I run into a trainer that has me grip light.  Like a bad handshake, light.  Like holding a baby bird, light.

Ima gonna limp wrist it!  Ima gonna not have any control on recoil for shot number two!

But it doesn't limp wrist.  And yes it flips up but somehow it flips right back to front site on target.  And my shoulders are relaxed.  And my arms are relaxed.  And my neck...  And I am hitting fast and accurate.  In theory.  I am unlearning some other bad habits too.

Two TOTALLY different training and shooting techniques.  Similar results.

So far.  More testing needed.  Check back later. 

I post this with the whole, "Huh.  More than one way to skin this cat, I guess."

My Medicine Cabinet

I have a prescription for those, DEA!

Cobain

Did Kurt buy a pawn shop gun to off himself?

Not that he couldn't afford anything, but he may have been wanting off the beaten track sources so no one would warn the missus he was in a bad place again.

Speaking of Grip Safety

The one 1911 safety check people miss...

And this can be a flaw even on new guns.  Caused by lots of things.  Lockwork engagement is one cause, but there can be others.  Sear spring?  Trigger bow?  Lots of things.

Other causes... tirgger work by someone that doesn't know what they are doing. Especially trying to lighten the trigger pull.

When someone hands you a gun to inspect and is proud of the 3 pound trigger pull, definitely check this.  And do this when inspecting a pistol for purchase or if you checking in guns for a shooting competition.

Anyway, do this procedure with your cleared of all possibility of ammo 1911 pistol.

• Empty gun. 
• Rack the slide. 
• Grip the gun normally, and pull the trigger. 
• Don't release the grip safety or trigger, keep them depressed. 
• Rack the slide.  You can't just thumb back the hammer, you want the disconnector to do its job.
•  Ok you now have a hammer back, and everything is squeezed down still.  With out un-depressing the trigger, release the grip safety. 
• Now watch that grip safety and let the trigger up. 
• The grip safety should click to reset and return to position. 

If is stays depressed that is a bad thing.  Something is kinda holding it, no?  It could go off relatively easily now with a bump or jar.

That's an unsafe gun.  Stop shooting it.  Get it fixed. 

Could be as simple a fix as swapping out the sear spring.  Could be smoothing a hook out of the grip safety.  Could need a trigger job.  You could send this gun back to Springfield or Sig or Smith or what have you, have them look at it, perform said trigger job, and they could send it back to you with the safety flaw intact.  Be careful.

When can this bump or jar occur with you releasing the trigger/grip out of order?  When you fumble a gun and drop it, say in an action shooting competition?  Yeah, that would be bad.  All those spectator watching you shoot for time.  Well except that one that caught your bullet in her eye after you tripped and dropped it.

 

[I am sure I went over this before, but it bears repeating.  It took me a few tries to internalize it myself.]

---

Another tip.  Never ever ever drop the slide with the slide release on a pistol with out a magazine in it.  I know you do it.  I used to do it.  It's like standard procedure in a gun shop!  Stop doing it.  It can, over time, or maybe just the third time it happens, mung up your sear real ugly. 

Gah!

More finicky that a 1911.  But it IS a 140 year old model, instead of a 105 year old model.

Summary:  the hammer hooks on one part are nowhere near the same position as a random replacement part.  Very careful and skilled fitting would have been needed when originally built and there are precious few 150 year French gunsmiths to check with.  Gun parts were serialized because they were made as a set. 

When you see duplicate serial numbers on something, God help you if something breaks.  There was a reason the parts had the same serial number. 

If you buy an antique gun with mismatched serial numbers, beware. 

Gunsmithing report

I went into gunskool with a pistol I wasn't happy with.  The trigger has some creep, I didn't like the over travel.  I was worried it would catch the half cock notch and that's no go.  The grip safety was also problematic. 

Bossman also wasn't super happy with the engagement.  HE saw it was dropping a single hook (part of that creep I was feeling but couldn't properly diagnose like he can) and he show me.  The lockwork... if the sear creeps a bit off the hammer hook it should reset if you let go of the trigger.  It wasn't.  So a bump or jostle with a half pulled trigger that you didn't fire off?  It could go off.  Like when you reholster.  Bad bad. 

So work was done to get the hammer/sear engagement different.

My gun WAS all together and ready to go.  Almost to the finish line.   Then I went back about 40 steps in a second.  Welcome to 1911 gunsmithing...

Like many things, I didn't full know why...  This is some of the gunsmith voodoo I am trying to learn but is very difficult to master.  Perhaps after 200 builds.... 

So, I went back and forth with that for a while.  Stoning the parts, then testing, with supervision.  When last I did this weeks ago I had about 99% contact.  It's a bit less that that now.  More than 94%? You can tell by the sharpie marker that is worn off the sear when you test it.  If your factory gun has 50% then you are indeed lucky.  I might be being over critical of my own stuff.

(Les Baer pistols are pretty good at this.  They do decent trigger jobs.  Their barrel lug fitment leaves a bit to be desired.)

So, got that back and am happier with the trigger feel.  But the grip safety was another story. 

Now it wasn't dropping the hammer at all.  I had to remove a LOT more metal on that little table that engages the lockwork.  But then....  Oooo!  Things went from "Gaw, this is not gonna be a decent gun,  I will hate serial number #001" to "Hey!  Not bad.  I can live with this..."

A few tiny swipes with a ceramic stone to the hammer hooks and I had to remove what felt like an acre of metal from the grip safety.  Wow.  I'm lucky it didn't force me to go back and refit the barrel to the slide.  Ok that was a bit of an exaggeration, but NOT MUCH!  A tiny change in one spot of the 1911 can have ramifications throughout.

Here is what a generic grip safety look like

And this a representation of the metal I've had to remove to get it to work properly, in red.

The radius on the top was removed with a sanding drum in the Dremel.  There are three separate filing facets on the lower area, and you have to keep that 'level' so you don't catch up the trigger bow.  Also, I had to remove some from that little tab sticking out the bottom.

The Grip Safety gave me the most trouble of the stuff I could actually do myself.

So... Done.  12 rounds test fired.  I need to do some metal finishing.  The slide has some ugly ugly scratches.  I need to put on the grips.  Easy.  And mount the sight.  Also something I can do myself.

DAK

Ugh.

A buddy had a P229 that I shot a magazine through.  I was way better with it than with the 1911 of mine.  So I got one.

With a Double Action Kellerman trigger.  In .40. 

This was years and years ago.  I have come to regret it.

I mean it's no worse than a Smith & Wesson snubbie DA trigger.  By my lights.  But why would I want that? 

I mean, it works fine, after a fashion.  I just wish I had gotten something else back then.

Live and learn.  And I have learned a lot since getting it.

Why did I shoot it so well as a n00b for the first string?  Probably because I didn't know it and didn't know where the break was, so it surprised me.  Always a good thing.  But that effect doesn't last and you are gonna have to develop a better trigger pull anyway, T-Bolt.

The Shootist

In The Shootist, the book not the Ronny Howard / Richard Boone cinematic vehicle, J B Books has holsters sewn in his vest for: "A pair of nickel plated short-barreled unsighted double action .44 Remington's obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black Gutta-Percha the other of pearl."

The story is set in 1901, but the Gunman is 52, and may have had those pistols a long time.

What model is that, you think?

 Keep in mind this book was written by a newspaper reporter in the mid-1970s, so his knowledge of what was extant for firearm hardware in the 1800s may be off.

Sure the Model 1858 was indeed converted to metallic cartridges, and did have a double action variants, and was well regarded for it's ruggedness (thanks top strap!), and had a 'speedloader' option of sorts...  But I dunno...  The conversion was a 5 shot, and J B Books loaded 5 unless he knew he was going to be doing some shooting, then the 6th cylinder under the hammer was loaded.

Ok, a later version of the Remington, maybe?  The 1875?  That model had the advantage of not being a rimfire ammo gun.

1888/90?  Single action only.  Based on cursory wiki research.  A Remington revolver honch might be able to correct me.  Sounds like Books has something closer to the 'New Model Pocket Army' version.

What say you?  Kluged together imaginary gun model, or a version I dunno?

That's a nice color motif, black rubber and pearl, paired.  I'm afraid that Patton movie with George C Scott makes me lean away from pearl and toward ivory, but, that's just my own prejudices.

NPR

NPR had a guy on that had asked a gun question to Clinton and Sanders at one of their townhalls.

His daughter was one of the ones critically injured by the Uber rampage shooter up in Kalamazoo Michigan.  Her name is Abigail, and her road to recovery is going to be a rough one but she seems to improving steadily.  Good for her. 

Abigails father wanted to hear what the candidate would do.  And since the driver wasn't known to have mental health issues, and had passed criminal background checks, he didn't want to hear "we need more back ground check and mental health treatment."  He wanted to hear something that would have worked to save his daughter from getting shot.

Hills and Bern responded with: "we need more background check and mental health treatment."  Mr. Kopf was not happy with that response.

He, later in the interview, said people that CCW are filled with fear.  And you, sir?  What motivates you?  Are you projecting some?  You think that I am motivated by some irrational fear and that if I didn't have this fear the world you live in would work much better?

He was also sure that only the police should have handguns.  Why do the police need handguns, sir?  To defend themselves?  Why do they get to defend themselves by crazed taxi drivers, but I cannot?

At least he was pretty honest, in a roundabout way, that he want to ban and confiscate 'civilian' owned handguns.  He's a hunter.  He also mentioned that.  No problem with hunting rifles, apparently.

What gunskool looks like

Except we cuss more. 

Bigfoot

So, a man believes in UFOs and Bigfoot, so they took his guns away!

OUTRAGE!

Yeah, no, I wasn't there.  I don't know what other schizophrenic behaviors the man was displaying.  I'll get more upset when gun grabbers get more abusive about such tactics to disarm folks.

But this guy could vary well have been profoundly bonkers, and I'll people local to him make the judgment call.

That said.

Everybody believed in UFOs and Bigfoot in the 1970s.  Remember that?  There wasn't a TV series that didn't have a UFO or Bigfoot episode. 

I remember getting the crap scared out of me because of a commercial for a bigfoot documentary.  Hide under the covers irrational fear.  Later, as a boy scout, I was a bit more concerned about bear attacks.  Then that faded.  Now I only hide under the covers to keep from getting cold on particularly cold winter nights.  It was a trailer for this movie, this clip for that movie.

Don't take my guns away because I was afraid of Bigfoot as a child!  The child being me, not some youngish Sasquatch.   Baby Bigfeet would be kinda cute and not scary at all.    As long as mom and dad aren't around.  

Team Cap!

The Civil War is coming.

Marvel comics.

Tony Stark thinks superheroes need to be controlled.  Registered.  Only sanctioned people should walk around with extra power.

Captain America, who punched Hitler in the face, is more of doing the right thing, individual rights, and what not.




I am Team Cap.  Not Team Stark.

Well, more accurately, I'M BATMAN!


Always been more a DC person...

Strange Invitation

Got some class

The gunskool wraps up this weekend for this pistol. 

Mine is together.

I'm not happy with the trigger feel yet.  Prolly needs a bit more over travel.  Plus other things.  We shall see.  But it is together. 

Oh, and lots of work with 400 grit sandpaper and oil on the outer finish.

Kuhnhausen

Someone suggested I get a copy of Kuhnhausen's books on the 1911.  Yes, I have it.  Lots and lots of good stuff in there.

You read that book several times, I've found, and other people interested in 1911 smiffin' bear this out.

You read it as a noob and get a LOT of good info out of it.  Then you make a 1911 a time or two.  Then you re-read Kuhnhausen and another light comes on!  You understand more subtext to what he is getting at.  It's amazing.  If I understand correctly, when I have a bunch of builds under my belt and return to Kuhnhausen I will glean even more and different info.

There is a big assumption when you read that that you, the reader, are already pretty mechanically inclined and can puzzle technical things out pretty quickly and efficiently on your own.  I'm not shabby in that department but I still gawp at raw talent he and other folks display.  Well, some of that is from long experience, too. 


That said, you need more than that book to make a custom 1911.  And that book would be several encyclopedia style volumes long to get decent coverage of how to work this pistol. 

Pass More Gun Control

And increases in murders correlate.  In Baltimore as you saw in the news last summer.  And also in my suburban DC, Maryland County.  Two years in a row, homicide spikes.  2 years ago was when they passed the gun control.

The rest of the nation runs out to buy a gun.  My state that is tamped down by our betters.  $300 for the privilege of buying a handgun for any person that just turned 21.  Then you buy the gun.  And the chamber lock.  But no magazine that holds 11 or more rounds.    

So we have a correlation of "More Guns, Less Crime".  No causation, but more guns certainly doesn't lead to crime increases.

Now we have another correlation "More Gun Control, More Crime."  Not causation either, but it's the way to bet.

Melancholia

Been feeling down in the dumps of late.  Dunno why.  Loss of Essence?  No, it couldn't be that. 

This, too, shall pass. 

Luckily I had some blog fodder queued up, of post would be thinner than even usual. 

My Crotchety Neighbor

He woulda been 89 today, ol' Ed.  "Archie."  If he hadn't have expired back in October.

I miss the beer and bs sessions in his basment. 

This is Jim Rockford

So, I'm watching the Rockford Files.  I try to catch an episode a week, just like it was running on ABC or whatever. 

Jim isn't a fan of firearms, but firearms make their way onto the show.  The latest gun that caught my eye was a nickel plated one of these.  (at least I am pretty sure.  Well, I am cheating some because she mentions both similar models, that Dreyse and the FN M1900.)  Then, the very next morning, Tam does that review.  It was on the floor, away from the body in the hotel room that Jimmy broke into, by the drapes.  He picked it up with a pencil and I noticed the odd barrel placement.  UNDER the spring.  He picket it up with a ballpoint pen and had trouble getting the pen out of the barrel when he replaced it on the floor (he can't be leaving his prints about, after all.)

You know, standard TV depiction of police/PI work.  Pens used to pick up guns by the barrel, don't smudge the doorknobs by using a handkerchief on your hand to open doors, and wrap sensitive evidence in that same hanky. 

It seems that even the rich people lead relatively ordinary live with mediocre accomoadations back in 1974.  Or at least that protrayed by Hollywood.  The country clubs feel no fancier than an Applebys.

WRT that gun.  Let's check the firearm database.  HA!  It was the FN.

Oh my goodness

Look at all this machinist stuff...



That's a regret in my life.  If I wasn't so sewn up in military science and officer training and I was a bit better in math and science, I might have stuck out the Engineering degree instead of switching to History.

In a perfect world, I'd be a double major.  Mechanical Engineering and History. 

But, alas, 5 hour calculus was a bridge too far.  I'd have tackled it, with a bit more time, successfully, but it isn't for more time.  It's a weed out class.  You have the talent to pass it, or, preferably, excel at it, and do it with a marginal instructor, then you are cut out for engineering.

But I had more than enough mat to be a machinist hand!.  Again, born 60+ years too late. 

I am fortunate to have the wherewithal that I can afford to take class in this stuff.  But it's just learning.  And just scratching the surface.  It's not a life in it, a career in it. 

And if it was a career it might just be a mere job.  And my passion for it would fade.  Like with brewing when I was a professional brewmaster.   (Which I'd still be if job were plentiful and pay better 20 year ago.)

No CCWing?

The Beard and the Contrarian.  Co-workers.

Both are very progun, very pro 2A.

But if the governor came to their houses and presented them with a free CCW and gave them the best belt and holster available for them and their firearm...  They still don't think they would CCW. 

Which is fine.  It's not for everyone, certainly.  I'd rather have folk be that instrospective and know that it's not for them than the other way round.

But they are all former military, and don't have a Quaker, non-violent, could never kill another human no matter what thing going on.

But I am still curious as to why, and asked them.

For another co-worker, the Marine, he is confident of his rifle skill but not his handgun skill, so that is why for him.  He'd OC a rifle everywhere if it was more socially acceptible.

For Contrarian... it's just a hassle. 

For the Beard, similar.  He is a car guy.  Sometimes he wonders if he should carry jumper cables.  He doesn't.  And that one time he needed em in the past 8 years, well... someone came along with jumper cables.

All three would want more pistol training before seriously considering.  Another sound impulse. 

Oops WV

I thought it had passed.

The WV governor vetoed Constitution Carry.  My bad.

Shame.

But wait!

Not half a day later the legislature overrides him.  It goes into effect in 90 days. 

Phew!

What a ride.  And not long ago I thought there was no chance now or in the near future.  You know, Maryland is starting to look more and more like a lonely outlier.

Monster?

Slain.  ASSASSINATED!  By mother nature.  And cigarettes.

63 years ago today.

I bet Bernie is feeling a little morose about it, his hero shuffling off his mortal coil.  Think his family hung black crepe?  He'd have been 12 when it happened. 

What's Pro Life about an AR?

Asks some conservative whose big issue is abortion.

Sheesh.

I dunno.  I'd never use one of my firearms to murder someone.  I would use a firearm to preserve my own life and those of my loved ones.  That's pretty pro life, isn't it?  I'd also use it if I had to defend my way of life, too. 

Guns are pro-life that way.  Also, slaves are alive.  Firearms rights help afford me liberty.  The iron behind the words of life. 


Abortion fights are not my issue.  I guess I am pro-life in a way, but I'm not married to it.  And I approach it from a libertarian angle instead of the churchy angle.  Which has an advantage, going forward, as the country becomes more secular or at least agnostic.  But I always wondered if the most rabid anti-abortion protestor was pro life.  After all, they don't DO anything about abortion policy, they just make noise.  And when they do put forward anti-abortion policies they always bite off more than Judiciary will let them swallow.  They pass laws KNOWING they will be over-turned. 

For example:  Instead of passing an all out ban on any abortion after 26 weeks gestation, which the courts will almost certainly allow, and which can be agreed to by voters that might be wavering a bit, they pass a ban at 20 weeks.  The court overturns the 20 week ban, and now we still have 36 week abortions from that point forward.

Whatever you think on the issue, maybe those strident folks should look toward incrementalism?  Pass the 26 week one today, try for 24 next time?  But all or nothing is their by word, and because they can't get all they get.... nothing. 

Both sides of the gun debate have been dealing in incrementalism for decades.

Our national mental healthcare shame

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to close all the state asylums.  Sure there were abuses, but we should have concentrated on those.  Because there are dangerous people that need to be cared for with compassion.  And protect the rest of us from their depredations that they can't even help.  They are just broken in their heads. 

Ammo

Well, an election is coming up. 

And I'm thinking I have until then to get some 5.56 bought.  It's the only caliber chambering I possess that I don't have plenty of ammo laid in.  (or is it lain in?  Pah!  Grammar...  That whole sentence is awkward.  Way to go T-Bolt.  Anyway.)

I am making that 1911.  So there will be testing ammo needed. 

Other than that I feel pretty good, ammo wise. 

Even CNN

Says Everytown and the gun-banners are full of hooey.   And that ordinary people like you stop one in five active shooters.

CNN says 20%.

CNN.

If you've lost the narrative on CNN you might as well move to Canada, eh?

WV

And here I thought the West Virginia legislature had pulled all the Constitution Carry bills from consideration this session.

"The West Virginia Legislature has approved legislation allowing residents 21 or older to carry a concealed gun without first obtaining a permit or undergoing training."

Good, good.

Sanjay Dutt

11 years

He is a Bollywood actor. Say that name. Sanjay Dutt. You now know a Bollywood movie star's name. Which is way ahead of 99% of non-Indian Americans.

Anyway, they just released him from Prison. He was sentenced to 11 years for illegal possession of firearms.  In India, of course.  If he was an American resident he'd have just toodled to a gun store and probably paid a lot less for better guns.  Supposedly a 9mm pistol of some sort and an AK clone.

Picture Brad Pitt getting prison time for possession of firearms that were provided to him by someone in the Bundy family, or CAIR, because no one else could get Brad Pitt guns. 

Mittens?

Sit down, and shut up.

More Gunskool reportage

I'm not happy with the grip safety fitting.  But I have learned a lot about fitting it.  It's never going to be good now.  It might be ok with more work.

This build seems to get more difficult and complicated the further I get into it.  So, the hard parts.....  Bottom lugs, the sear-hammer work, and the home stretch.

I suspect finishing is as challenging.

Ow! My poor Gibs!

The importance

The Importance of Disclosing this Immediately.

Except I am different.

I will not vote for Marco Rubio for President of the United States even if he is the Republican nominee.

I am not a big fan of Trump or Cruz, but I'd vote for them.

I didn't vote for Romney last time.  I almost didn't vote for McCain 8 years ago.

If Jeb! was still in, I wouldn't vote for him.  Or any of the candidates that were just for Evangelical religious reasons. 

Blog Bupkis

Hey, how bout that phone post yesterday?

I used that to stave off the Monday blahs, hoping Tuesday would bring me fresh inspiration.

Nope.

I blame the Leap Year.

Hmmm.

The gunsmith has an upper in the store he is calling a 5.56 BLK.  He show us it.  Someone put a magazine with .300 BLK in his 5.56 AR, used the forward assist judiciously, then pulled the trigger.

The bullet almost made it out of the barrel.  Which is AMAZING.  2 inches shy.  The gas port probably prevented full exit. 

No one was hurt, fortunately.  But that bolt and bolt carrier and not coming out easily. 

I like the idea of the .300 BLK.  You can deer hunt with it!  Down load the powder and suppress it and you have the equivalent of a .45 ACP!  (sarcasms) But man, confusing a mag scares me.