High End Pistol

What is a High End Pistol?

A $1200 Hudson.  Sure, maybe.  A $3000 custom 1911?  Oh yes.

A $500 Glock.  Yes, believe it or not.  High end pistol

Look at how reliable a Glock is?  It's not just Glock.  Any major brand $500ish pistol is just like that.  Smith, Sig, FN...

Manufacturing technique and design advances have brought the price down to $500.   High end performance.  A GI in 1918 would LOVE to have a Glock 17 there in the trenches, in the mud. 

"My my plastic fantastic is a lemon, T-Bolt"  Well, I bet a single simple corrective will squeeze that lemon into lemonade 9 times out of 10.  Maybe a burr on the extractor and bam, back in business.  Or a slightly better front sight and some loctite to keep it from flying off.  $100?  Tops?

Cost you $400+ to get a lemon $700 revolver to get back in action and trustworthy.  Though you can still get a used $300 revolver that runs like a raped ape, with a little wheelgun knowledge.  Won't be like that much longer.  

"Is my plastic Taurus or Canik a high end gun, T-Bolt?"  Whoa, pump yer brakes, kid, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I have no idea

I have no idea.  Why everyone that runs into Joe Biden doesn't just cup his crotch.  Reach down and give a little jiggle-heft.

I mean it's not like he has any room to complain about it.

Seriously, if you are ever in a situation where you are going to shake hands with the man, do so, and with your left a little 'how's our father' down there.  Nothing violent.  A friendly little flirty grasp.  Even if you are full on hetero male that thinks Ron Swanson is a bit too swishy.   Don't mean you have to marry him, or anyting.  Keep in the spirit of the thing.  No hate.  If it causes a commotion be prepared to look innocent and go, "What?"  You're just greeting the man.  Not like you are nuzzling his neck from behind and kissing him.

BOOM!

I wonder if this applies to Maryland?

Old Tech

Not to call out this girl specifically.  There are plenty of videos on the intarwebz of young kids struggling to suss out older technology. 


Here, a cassette player/recorder, there a rotary telephone.  Teenagers flummoxed for minutes or more. 

But I am thinking back to myself at that age, 35 years ago.  Instead of handing ME, a punk kid, some device 20 years obsolete, gimme something 40 years obsolete...  Something from the 30s.  I seem to think I could figure out that 40 year old thing.  Like a wire recorder or a Victrola.  Heck, I could figure out a 70 year out of date phonograph cylinder faster than this girl did with a 25 year old cassette player. And I have never seen a phonograph cylinder machine working, to date

"Hurr Hurr, T-Bolt!  I guess GenX is just so much more superior than Dang Millennials, huh?"

First of all, I think she is GenZ.  The last Millennial was born in September 2001.  This girl in younger than that.

Second, I think the pace of technological advance has made much bigger leaps to now over the past 30, then it did back in '83 and the previous 30 years to it.  The form function of a record player was pretty similar to itself for decades.  But to go from a KISS LP to a KISS MP3 on a iPod or to Spotify on your Smartphone?  That's a BIG change in how a thing works to get music into your ear holes.  Of course, you wanted the best then, and you got the best now, KISS; some things just don't change with the times. So don't be that hard on poor Millennials, they have enough of a handicap built in without us exacerbating it.

Holy Crap

Did I MISS yesterday?

Bound to happen eventually.  And today, apparently.  Wait one, I'll put on Saturday's.

Tam's Got an Article

In Shooting Illustrated about the 2000 round challenge. 

She's gone over this before, online.  With links and everything to where the idea came from.  The concept is neato, and I like reading about it.

She even did the test with personally owned bespoke custom 1911.

Hey, I own my very own bespoke custom 1911!  And I keep a shooter log on that very gun, among others.  I could...

No, hold it right there.  Tam her ownself might counsel against that.  Her experience was as the 1911 shed all the oil it had in its rails it slowed down noticeably, and shy of 2000 rounds.  It was doing great then got cranky when dry, failing to go into battery after a while.  It was after hundreds of rounds, but the gun could have made it and passed with flying colors if the challenged allowed two drops of oil every 500.

And she said why get your expensive gun all gritty, possibly loosening it up with unnecessary wear, running it dry, anyway?  She had to, but she's a professional gun writer.

So, I am of two minds.  I want to see if my gun handle it, but I don't want to age it more than I have to.  A rebuild is time consuming and expensive.  Why be forced to do one at 4000 rounds when I can push that date up to 7000 rounds or more?

But it has been about 500 rounds since I last put a drop of lube on the gun.  I had the gun open at round 150 or so and that meant oil then.  I'm at 839 now.  Wait, now.  I last lubed it at round number 257, according to the log... so that is...  582 rounds into the 2000 round challenge.  IF I were to do it.  I am leaning toward no.  I probably won't detail strip it til 2000ish.  But two or three oil drops will almost surely happen before 2000ish.

I'm just super pleased it has never malfunctioned, yet, and easily passes the bogus '500 round challenge.'  In a big round count class I would not be That Guy.

This has been making the rounds.

And Gunnies online circulating it are gobsmacked.

This NEVER happens.

"Man lies on firearms application; Ends up in jail"

 This law is never enforced.  Bout time.

I can't help but be tickled

At good signs that court cases are going our way, if a little.  A stay on the bumpstock ban.  Illinois' FOID card, and local town's 'Assault Weapon' ban.

All good things.  For now.  They are limited in scope, and could easily fall on appeal.  Especially that first one.  If SCOTUS got involved, I don't believe we'd get five justices.

I don't WANT a bumpstock, but I want a bumpstock ban precedent even less.

The FOID is only a baby step if it gets to an past SCOTUS, because it is limited in area.  SCOTUS would have to go beyond and say the right to bear arms extends outside one's home.  And that would be great.  But you have to bring a case about bearing outside the home, not just a thingy about Gun ID cards.

And Assault Weapon ban pre-emption will hold up.  Naw, if you want that kind of ban you have to do it on the STATE level.

Obviously I want all three to prevail.  For the good guys to prevail.  I want all three to be a stepping stone to bigger and better victories as these are, by necessity, small beer.  And I am perturbed these small clawbacks of our natural rights are even necessary in the first place, as a right to self defense should be (but clearly is not) self evident to all human beings.   


---

The FOID thing is of greatest interest to me, as Maryland traipses down that path inexorably and unchecked.  I'd like more checks. 


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Ah.  Roberts.  See?

Great Britain

I watch a few machinist videos on the internet.  This Old Tony is hilarious.  Even if you are only just barely interested in shop stuff, take a gander.

But this video came up in my feed about anodizing aluminum at home.  I don't know how to do that, so, cool.  But checkout the disclaimer at the beginning.



You can't buy sulphuric acid down at the hardware store, or whatever they use for Walmart, anymore.  I guess too many people from cultures where it is cool to throw acid in someone's face as an attack came to live in Britain.  So, gotta ban that.  Sheesh.  Nanny state.

Of course, we do that here, just not at bad.  For one thing, to get stuff in common places you gotta know how it is labelled for sale.  There isn't a jug that says sulphuric acid at any place besides a chemical sales place.  You gotta buy "Drain Opener".  Hydrochloric acid?  Look for Muriatic, it's for cleaning your concrete.  Yes it's dangerous. 

Salt Peter?  Get tree stump remover.

Your laundry detergent doesn't work so good anymore since they changed the formula to protect the environment.  But you can still get trisodium phosphate at the store, just not in your All Tempa Cheer or Tide or Biz.

This whole government has to step in to keep you safe really ramped up back in the 60s just before I was born.  Mandating stuff.  Same with eco-stuff a little bit later.  I could do with a little less of it. 

I dare you find a mercury thermometer to take your temperature. But mercury is poisonous?  Yes.  Don't eat the thermometer.

But hey, at least I know a bit more about anodizing.

H9

I knew I shoulda just got a couple S&W M&P 9's instead of the H9.

Ah well.  Still can.

I SHOULDA just bought 2 Glock 17s from sumdood in the parking lot in a Virginia way back 20 years ago and just never done any of the gun hobby bun blog stuff.  Just bought ammo and training in the interim.

"What about hunting, T-Bolt?"  Meh, it's interesting, but it's not the fun pastime for me like it is for others.

"What about rifle work for home security?"  I don't live in Afganistan, Syria; I live in the suburbs, USA, where meat is plentiful and comes from the grocery stores and the police DO come, eventually.  You can CCW a Glock, you can defend your home.  Escalating to a rifle isn't too likely a requirement.

"What about surviving the zombocalypse?  You need a Battle Rifle and a colander, to start!" How likely is that, really?

"Why two Glocks, then?"  Common as dirt and reliable without me taking thousands of dollars worth of 1911 classes to get the 1911s I'd want to have 20 years ago instead of Glock.  Two, because spare.  I do still have that compunction.  Redundancy.  And Glocks were around in 1999.  And even though I was horrible with them when a beginner, the training would have fixed that eventually. 

 

You have a heart of stone

If you don't laugh at that voice inflection change.

Watch Mika Brzezinski realize what she’s reading about there likely won’t be any more indictments from the Mueller investigation. pic.twitter.com/zjUj0NcXb1

— Andrea Ruth (@AndreaNRuth) March 22, 2019

If

If Jeb had won in 2016 and did EVERYTHING Trump has done, except instead of being a Trumpian Azz while doing it, he was a Bumblefook Mentally Disabled Jeb while doing it, in his style, then Jeb would be called the greatest things since Reagan.

The truth?  I don't think Jeb would be as good a deregulator as Trump has been.  I don't think he'd be as good with judges as Trump has been.  Apart from judges, Trump hasn't been that good with the Second.  But it's something.  I'm guessing that Jeb wouldn't have been that good.  Trump hasn't done too much with controlling the border but run his mouth.  Jeb would have been as leaky as a sieve on the border.  Based on past history.

Maybe Jeb would have landed the same tax cut package?

So, STFU, Jeb.  We need Larry here in Maryland.

Found Father Samual Adams

SPINS in his grave.

What part of Liberty has Ginsberg been much about?  In the war do you think she'd be anything a Tory?

"She's a big booster of the Ameican Civil LIBERTIES Union, T-Bolt."

Yeah?  What have they done for Liberty lately?

Ok, ok, maybe I am a bit hard on both.  Neither are monsters, per se.

"Guns are being bought by people in richer nations"

"...at a record rate.  Why can't America enact gun safety bans like some other civilized countries?"

Sheesh, NPR.  That Liberty thing is really hard to snuff out, you are finding?  Sure some folks have no use for freedom and are easy to cow, but we were lucky enough here that we started on a stong freedom footing more than 200 years ago.  So it's a much longer slippery slope to push down.

Hurry, tho.  There is a super majority of Shall Issue CCW states, and 16 Constitutional Carry states, and all came about without a push from pro gun billionaires, and often up against gun ban billionaires.  Get a few more and an Amendment could conceivable be passed requiring folks to own a gun.  No one wants that.

Golly, imagine if there was a pro gun version of George Soros?

Anyway, I am thankful for our checks and balances and that we are not some over-emotional tyrannical back water like New Zealand.  Less like Kiwiland, more like Galt's Gulch.

Kennedy for President.  

Well Crud, H9!

I like the pistol.  The Hudson H9 'retailed' for $1100 when I got it, but that's not what I paid.  But now on a Going Out of Business sale?  I might get a second.  Just because.  Shame they didn't work it out.

It's a good pistol.  After I figured out the issue I had with the extractor.  I guess it is failing because it isn't good enough.  It's not head and shoulders above pistols at that price point.   It's only good.  It needed to be great or to get super fashionable for some reason or both.  A movie where a Dirty Harry type carried one might have done the trick.  Something like that.

If anyone has a question about it, holla.  I might be able to answer you.  Like:  One thing about the lowered barrel and barrel hood means the weapon mounted light is much lower.  That'll annoy people used to the weapon mounted light being in a better place. 

[update:  No, the price has not come down at my gunstore... retail being retail.]

Sprung?

I think it's supposed to be Spring.....  NOW.

White Supremecists!

From 52 years ago.  Can't blame them on Trump.


And it's a Mark VII production, and you know how well he adhered to documentary style reality in reporting on the event of the day.

Blue blockers.  I am always suspicious of blue blockers.  Those guys NEVER roll on Shabbos.

Kinda surprised nobody raised a stink about this ep.  Sure, they don't shine a good light on them damn Neo Nazis, but there is still a picture of a swastika.  That sorta thing gives the young folks of the today the vapors something fierce.

The timpani and snare drums in the musical interlude sure are reminiscent of WWII movies of the era.  But Mark VII was big on timpani already, it is probably not related.  

Two plain clothes cops with snub nosed revolvers going up against a guy they think has 400 pounds of dynamite with unstable detonators close aboard?   These days there would be an ATF/FBI task force involved.

Watch Colonel Potter and Joe Friday muzzle the CRAP out of each other with them snubbies.  Well, actually Potter has a 3 or 4 inch revolver going.

14:31, 3 surplus Garands and something else. 14:40, Tommy gun.

Bad guy was trying to another Bath.

Colonel Cooper Sayings

That are no longer fashionable, or have become cliches:

• Poodle Shooter
• Euro Pellet
• Crunchen-Ticker
• Goblin
• Shottist

Still hanging on:

• hoplophobe

(See?  I need to find some inspiration.)

Made Beef Jerky

In the oven.  I warned you I would.  It's alright.  Tastes great.  Still a bit wet or saucy as you can tell from the picture.

It dirties the fingers.

A proper dehydrator might solve the saucy problem.  But I am thinking I can improve my technique.

Basically Worcestershire and soy sauce and spices.  Smoky spices.  I didn't add liquid smoke unless liquid smoke is in the smoked paprika. 

When doing the 4 hours in the oven I'd poke in and look to see progress and see how the progress was going.  It looked like meat meat meat, then... a transformation.  Color and appearance changed dramatically.  Darkening and looking proper shrivelled.

Things I think will help:  Thinner slices.  More patting dry initially to get more marinade out of the equation.  Lower heat, more time.  More pepper flakes for flavor.

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I need a new camera.  I got THIS one for the blog.  $150 Olympus.  What camera fits in my pocket, doesn't connect to cell towers or wifi, costs less than $200, and magically makes me a decent pitcher taker.

Oh.  It's that last part that is the problem, isn't it?

Crap, Published Today's Post Friday Evening

So what do?

College admissions scandal?  Not gun related.  Don't care.

Robert Francis O'Rourk is a running?  Not much gun related.  Another watermelon chasing fake climate crises.  Standard leftlist gun banner.  Don't think he has much of a chance.  Don't care.

New Zealand?  That guy was a gaping azz.  They should try and hang him.  After that, don't care. 

737 crashes?  Not much gun related.  I don't fly because of TSA.  If it was caused by the self-driving part... I toldja.  That stuff should get de-emphasized in Planes Trains and Cars.  They are rushing it.  Apart from that, don't care. 

Alexandria Superstar Cortez is still dumb as a bag of doorknobs?  Not gun related.  Old news.  Don't care after a rueful chuckle. 

Got nuffin

Normally something like what happened in New Zealand would elicit a slew of posts from me.  Social media is way out in front of me.  Liberal embarrass themselves about bans, Liberty lovers put them in their place with the usual civil rights defenses. 

New Zealand is stricter than the harshest US state, and yet the bad guy got guns.  And a good guy there had a gun, too.  So much for a strict regime banning anything.  You'd think you'd want to incentivize more good guys, doncha?

But I am little down I lack enthusiasm to post more.  I need to inject more gun fun in my life and write about it.

Unforgiven

Unforgiven is a great western movie.

But the more I re-watch the more I sympathize with the hero.  Little Bill.

Sure he is a flawed hero.  Very.  But his is just trying to maintain order in a wild cow town with a handful of nigh incompetent deputies.  Can't be easy.  He is hard.  Too hard, obviously, with the criminal element.  But this hardness serves as a deterrent.  Or so he hope.





The whole point of the cruelty is to communicate.  To others  The prostitutes may have been wronged, but they have gone outside the system now.  As flawed as their little society it, it is still civilizatiom.  With rules they enjoy.   To go outside it is to invite worse terrors to descend upon them.  And they do. 

It's not that Little Bill is an asshole.  He's more of a son of a bitch.  Far from help.  In fact TOO far, as William Munny proves.  Just trying to survive and thrive and maintain order.

William Munny isn't the hero.  And here is the thing.  He knows it.  He's the bad guy.  Dastardly and cowardly.  Just trying to finally get past it.  His redemption.  Given him by his dead wife. 

Work has been kicking my azz

Time to make the blog donuts.  Bloggnuts.  On this Ides.

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I liked those CDC numbers.  Between 31,000 and 236,000 people are injured by firearms every year.  What a useless delta.  Well, not useless for them.  The CDC could extrapolate from "31k in 2010, 42k  in 2011, 55k in 2012....&c.... 198,000 in 2018" even when the actual number of injuries is as level as a billiard table.   "Look at the steep increases!"  Oh hush, you frauds.


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Saw that Larry wants his home state of Utah to become a Vermont Carry state.  He wants to keep with enlightened states, the latest being Kentucky.  Nooooo!  A lot of use in the Gun Crow states rely on Utah to back stop us with non-resident permits.  They might let non-residents fall by the wayside if residents don't need on anymore.  And Florida just elected a Democrat to their Ag board that runs their CCW permits, and she is all for gun control.  And Virginia has made it harder for non residents and backlogs abound.  I found that out for my ownself.  Hold out Utah, at least until Clarence Thomas rams through a CCW reciprocity rule with greater constitutional hold than abortion have enjoyed for almost 50 years.

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Remington can be sued for Sandy Hook because they marketed the Bushmaster to be attractive to autistic psychopaths to purchase through ads in the booming gun periodical market.  Wait... his mom bought the AR.  So I guess the advertisement enticed HER to get the gun so she could be murdered by the fruit of her loins who would then go on to shoot up a second grade classroom with the now stolen rifle?  Is that how it works?

I can't see this ruling holding up on appeal.  Buncha others are of the same mind.

Test Prep

What with all the news about College Admissions scandals involving celebrities the whole "rich folks that don't commit crimes still have a leg up with all the test prep stuff they can afford."

Meh. 

I remember MY test prep.  I took the SATs on 5 or 6 separate occasions.   I think my dad spent $40 on a floppy for the Apple IIe that ran a few practice tests on you.  That and getting familiar with the process and being decent at taking multiple choice test naturally saw my test scores, in the mid 80s go from 550/550 English/math to 580/710 English/math.  This was when the SATs were 1600 total and no essays. 

I thought the test prep helped a bit.  That 30 points in English I improved can be put toward the prep.  The 710 is prep PLUS taking math classes.  Algebra II was under my belt and reinforced with pre-Calculus course by the 710 time. 

The same test prep practice exams were available at the library back then.   For free.  I didn't have to do that stuff at home with the added expense. 

1290 wasn't a shabby score for a kid trying to get into engineering schools.   Kids smarted than me had lower scores. 

But yeah, avail yourself of test prep.  Unless you need a perfect score to get into a presitge school.  Then you better commit the felony bribing.  But don't let their cheating or your poverty make you think you can improve your own bidness with a relative low amount of effort.

Of course, my truths are now 30 years old, and a sample of one.  And a college degree didn't get me much.  I'm glad I went and got it, but I really can't go "I am paid a lot more in my job because of it."  If I had spent that 4 years working in a shop where a senior programmer showed me how to do UNIX as part of the job, AND I hadn't been a naval office and brewmaster the 8 years after that, I'd probably command a $200,000 salary now.  But I wouldn't be 'educated' except for all the book I read.  But book learning isn't official.  No certificate to prove I read that stuff.     

I woulda hated learning UNIX back then, anyway.

Happy Pi Day.

Dangerous Suspect

Those 50-something actresses.  Requiring SEVEN FBI agents. 

"When Felicity Huffman opened the door to her Los Angeles home at 6 a.m. Tuesday, she was met by FBI agents with their guns drawn, according a source familiar with the incident." https://t.co/Ngev5WuZpG

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) March 13, 2019

I was shocked to learned they weren't SWATted up.  That seems to be the MO lately, for some reason.

I assume the local Po Po would send 7 dudes to arrest all middle aged women in the bathrobes at dawn, too, if they had FBI sized resources to devote to it. What to you send to Tam's house to arrest her? 20? Remember you got 2 cats and a landlord you gotta deal with, too. Tam's innocent, officers! I swear to it!

Dreams, and random

I had a dream I was taking a college course and the subject that day was breech faces, with a concentration on the extractors and ejectors.  Just slide after slide of various varieties.  I woke up mad because I wasn't paying NEARLY enough attention.  I tuned out after the big honking claw of a Mauser K98.  Foolish of me, I know.  Get yer head out of yer azz, T-Bolt.

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Also, my last Amazon Prime order came yesterday, all three item met or exceeded expected standards of delivery time.

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The Democrats took an imperfect healthcare system and made it worse in 2010.  Now they are, many of them, running a campaign saying the healthcare system is broken, you need to trust them again to fix it.

We'd be better off going back.

Is this the whole "REAL Socialism has never been tried" thing?

Robber Starts Rodeo

Regrets it.

We need more Cowboys. pic.twitter.com/QgMdS3QHJA

— All American 🇺🇸⭐️🇺🇸 (@Redtowel4) March 11, 2019

Another reason to like Samuel Jackson

He's also against more gun control.       (h/t Mad Saint Jack) 

Now, I sort of have the feeling if Samual Jackson and I were to meet he would not like me much.  Just a feeling.  I have no distinct reason.  Maybe I am wrong and maybe we'd get on like a house afire.  No matter.

I do think that Samuel Jackson means me no harm.  Same goes for me to him.  If we hated each other's guts in person no one would hurt the other and we'd go our separate ways ignoring each other's existence and trying to never again cross paths.  Which is fine.  If force to interact... trapped on a life boat, say, waiting for the Coast Guard, we'd be chilly to one another until we could go back to being apart.  Which is also just fine.  

I do enjoy his work.  Very much.  The only thing I have to offer back to him besides paying a small sliver of his pay enjoying that work is not bothering the man.  

And he doesn't want to take my gun away.  Nor me his.  So we got that going for us, too.   

Amazon update

Two of the three items ordered came in less than 24 hours.  Waiting on the book. 

Dehydrated

A guy at work keeps bringing in homemade beef jerk.  Bastard.  Giving me a case of the wants for my ownself.  I could totally do that for me. 

I worry, tho, that this will be another kitchen gadget rarely used taking up prime kitchen real estate.  Even the smallish ones are a cubic foot. 

You know what?  I never use the slow cooker.  Attic or Goodwill for that.  Free up cabinet space.

Wait... if I am going to free up a cubic foot of space in the kitchen, an insta-pot pressure cooker thing would get first dibs because it is more versatile.  More than a slow cooker and more than a dehydrator.

Alternately, I could try it with just the oven.  Give it a test drive.  Yeah.  I already GOT an oven.  Proof of concept, first.  I've gotten the oven to function fine down in sub-200 degree heats.   

Amazon Shenannigans

I've heard people talking that Amazon Prime hasn't been getting the goods to folks in 2 days like it's sposed to.  People are complaining it takes 3 day or longer sometimes.

I realized I have ordered nothing with a Prime tag since Christmas.  Put an order in just now.  This post is to remind me to keep a weather eye out for a book, a tool, and a gunsmithing tool arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday.  (heh, all blog topic items from the recent past.)

SXSW

SXSW 1989: Butthole Surfers
SXSW 2019: buttholeshttps://t.co/GW7qaN6koO

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 10, 2019

I don't mind the sun sometimes

Someone ELSE

Not me.

When someone else fills a barrel with bullets because the one at the front was a squib that didn't get out the barrel, and a gunsmith then cuts the barrel for a demo, I find that pretty.

This all presumes the rest of the gun didn't rupture and no one got hurt.  Just an expensive day at the range.

Another reason to not practice?

Major road construction near the range.

Getting there and home again is painfully bad and will be until the 13th of April, if the signs aren't lying to me.

Lost to space

Maybe the space between the cushions in the car seat.

I've blooged about these little leathermen before.  Lost anouther.  That makes 2 now.  Maybe 3.

It's what I carry when I'm not really supposed to carry a knife.  Another reason I carry it is they are relatively cheap and have no sentimental value so if I lose one it is easy to replace with a duplicate.

They make a similar variety even MORE nerfed.  Instead of a blade, a tiny scissor.  Instead of a little scissor, a small pair of pliers.   I am unimpressed.  I used the blade as much as any of the tools.

One advantage to the nerfed one?  You can get on an airliner with it, or into a courthouse.

If you have to, you could quickly break into a modern house with that one inch blade.  How?  Well, it's sharp enough to get through the vinyl siding.  Under that is just Tyvek and studs.  You can cut though the Tyvek between the studs.  Then there is insulation.  Pull that out.  Now drywall board.  Push or score that.  You are in faster than if you picked the lock. 

Don't do that.  It's a felony.

Well, that was a bust

I went to renew my Virginia CCW non-resident permit at the exact same place I got it in the first place.

The Circuit Court did it 5 years ago.  Not this time.  Now you gotta go through the state police.  I went to the website for all the information on what to do to renew.  Didn't see that little asterisk that took me to this new regime.  Totally my fault. 

I am going to need to get a fingerprint card done.  Again.  Another day for that. 

But it will be a little while before I am flying around with more than just the Utah toter's permit.  Thanks, Utah, for making this easy.  Easier. 

I want a Virginia one for a backup.  The whole one is none, two is one.  Might as well stagger the expiration dates a bit more, too. 

Range 6 March

Awful.  Just terrible shooting performance.  Not my day.  Some actual misses.  More than one off the silhouette.  I quit early.  One 29 rounds shot, AE, no malfs.

I wore gloves for two magazines, and that didn't help, but I really can't use that as an excuse.  I was awful without them, too.  My back is killing me, but I have had it hurt worse and I shot fine.  Work stress is no joke, but, again, not an excuse as I have had joyous range sessions after more stressful weeks. 

I did renew my range membership for another year.   So, good news there. 

Gonna take a week off.  I came back relaxed and shot better 'rusty.'  Counter intuitive, yes, but let's see.  

Pratchett

I reread some Pratchett recently.  One of them has gun content.  Men at Arms.  And I need flog blodder.

It's a Discworld book.

For those 2 of you unfamiliar with this series, it's British, and funny, and a fantasy novel setting.   Fantasy means wizards and trolls and dwarves and swords and crossbows.  

There are guilds in the city.  The Seamstress Guild is the ladies of negotiable affection.  the Thieves Guild is in charge of stealing stuff.  If you pay them off they don't steal from YOU.  If you steal something and are not in the guild, the guild will come after you worse than the City Watch would.  The Assassins Guild is in charge of all the killing.  Well, the murdering.  You pay them and they do it for you.  You can get killed by committing suicide.  Like going into a bar and calling a Troll a Rocks-For-Brains or a Dwarf a Half-Man.  That's a good way to get yourself killed. 

Anyway, the Assassins Guild is full of toffs that like to get close to do their work.  But the equivalent of DaVinci invented a gun.  Or 'Gonne'.  Leonard of Quirm.  It's a 6 shot rifle/repeater.  It was confiscated long ago and the Assassins kept charge of it because the long range power offended their sensibilities. 

Well, the Gonne is sentient, a talisman of power, and Svengali's the current holder to kill even when they don't want to.  So, evil shennanigans happen. 

Remember, I said it was British.  From 1993.  That sort of firearms attitude can be found with those kinds of folks.  And it doesn't escape Terry Pratchett. 

It's not his best book, but it's still good, if you don't let that firearm detail get to you.  It's sort of the second City Watch book.  So read Guards Guards then this one and you are pretty much ready for the other of this stripe including the very good Night Watch.

Our gun rights are forever safe

Nanny Bloomberg isn't running for President in 2020.

Range 27 Februasary

I aimed at the bystander 60 'yards' behind the big silhouette.  Only hit him once.  Maybe grazed his hat.

One bad shot.

And a decent second magazine in the center.

36 shots of American Eagle at 8 yards, no malfs.  811 rounds since I made the gun.

Close Quarter Training

Why didn't anyone tell me that close quarter training could be like this?



That doesn't look so hard. It would make me a Force to be Reckoned-With from 0 - 50 yards. Instead of 6 - 50, like now.

I gotta wait...

...til March 29th to see this?

Cool!

Someone else is taking up my Metrocon term!

Well, I say 'my', but I am almost sure I heard it elsewhere, I just don't remember where.  But it was years ago when I adopted it.

Of course, my personal definition was a little different.  I referred to conservatives that grew up in an urban or urbanish-suburbs.  As such were unfamiliar guns, and only cops or robbers or TV shows had firearms, in their world.  So these folks were less sympathetic to the 2nd Amendment.  Oh sure, they would often mouth encouragement and support, but their heart wasn't in it.  SOP was to ignore the issue.  Even if they had married into a family of Alaskans. 

This guy Walther expands that to #Nevertrump think tank grifters, that were faking conservativism this whole time.  Like:  Globalist, Davos attenders, that tend to be interventionist and a bit fiscally conservative, but secretly hostile to cultural conservative tenets.  Freedom of speech?  Pfff.  Abortion?  They don't even like to think about it.  Right to bear arms?  Guns are icky and no one needs them, let's be like Britain, but never say that out loud.  Military service?  All for it!  For OTHER people, of course. 

My definition was not nearly as negative as all that.  But, you know, if the ascot fits and the silverware is set in the proper order and the clariet vintage is cheeky but with mellow finich, go with it.

Civil Rights Violation

The gray colored states restrict your civil rights

The blue ones only inconvenience your civil rights a little bit.

If this were Jim Crow, the gray states are the DEEP south.  The blue ones don't have any laws against black people, but just aren't too sure about them, and could go either way, but are trending toward good.  The green one?  They don't care which water fountain you use.

The gray ones?  You are fewer and fewer now.  You are on the LOSING side of history.

Oh, and...

Got my taxes done. 

Because of the tax cuts and changes in my withholdings I DID pay more this time around.

I promised to fess up if I ended up paying more or less.  If the 'Trump' tax cut helped or hurt, was a scam or real help.  Whether or not I'd have to eat crow, because I didn't know, just had a hunch.

I got $2000 extra on my paycheck all told over the year.

But I 'paid' $700 more this year than last.  I had to write a bigger check when I filed by 700 clams.  So, extra money in my pocket is a mere $1300.  Kamala Harris is full of shit.  Put the bong down, lady. $1300 is no tax hike, ya dumb bint. 

A liberal at work was planning to use his refund to go on vacation this March.  He was expecting $10,000, again, like last year.  It's not 10k this time.  I just stared at him and smiled.  Internal monologue:  "Dude..."  That's Trump's fault, too. 

I think he's convinced not to adjust his withholdings to get a big refund next year.  It's almost dialed in, now, by accident.  So he CAN learn.  And he's smart with other things, like the job.