RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN

 Sometime I want to get into machining.  Maybe make a clock.  Maybe use a foundry to pour the brass or aluminum or whatnot.  If I had a really good foundry...  Steel 1911 parts!

Maybe not.

  

Shaving x2

"What about electric razors, T-Bolt?  I don't know about relative efficiency, but... Maybe try those?"

You know, I did try some electric razors back in the day.  The Norelco ones with the circular blades, the straight across old school Remington kind, the newer fangled Braun types. They didn't shave as close, I got gigged at uniform inspections because of that.  And something about them irritated my skin and sometime that irritation because a skin infection.

One of the things about wet shaving is the intense application of hot water and a soapy product and then scraping away dead skin and skin oil with the blade.  It cut down on acne as soon as a shaved that way, regular.  Plus no other infections.  

I have noticed that older men switch to electric razors a lot of times.  I don't know why.  Looser face skin?  Less steady hands?  Same reason old guys look for something single action for ease of use?  Dunno.

pic.twitter.com/5IFdnL2stN

— Silver Age Television 📺 (@SilverAgeTV) February 26, 2021

Genius Smartguns

"We can use AI to make ethically correct Smart Guns that locks out mass shooters"

Pass me by with that nonsense.  You can't even make functioning DUMB Smartguns.  

We've been over this.  The smartgun part of a smart gun will fail sometimes (fail a LOTTA times for early generation smart gizmos.)

When it fails will it fail safe or non-safe?  

Will the owner need to use his gun, but the tech falsely locks him out?  Or will the owner need the gun not to function because the bad guy grabbed it but it DOESN'T lock the bad guy out?  That's fail safe versus fail non-safe.

Either way is a lawsuit and makes the scheme unviable.  So now the gummint has to bend over backward for that.  But they seem to be the former.  Fail, and not shoot, even when the rightful owners wants to and needs to.  Of course.  

If the gummint wants to repeal the Second and ban all gun just try that (and good luck).  Don't do it via this Rube Goldberg method.  

My County's School System

Hmph.

Large teacher car rally against MCPS reopening plan. pic.twitter.com/Ch1LFmsqIg

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) February 23, 2021

If they wanted to end the fully vaccinated, over-unioned, teachers they should set a date to re-open the schools and stop paying the teachers that don't come back.  It's not like the county is taking in a lotta tax money with everyone not participating in the local economy as hard, where is the teacher salary money coming from?

We do, truly, live in amazing times.  SUCH a long mass quarantine!  Couldn't have done what we've done now back in 1920.   Or 1990 for that matter.  People would have had to break it pretty quick if not for the internet and our ability to get people to deliver everything.  No matter your opinion on the lockdown efficacy, the fact what was done was even possible amazed.  

You know what else makes me feel shame

Installing the mag release button before replacing the trigger/trigger-bow. 

And ALL 1911 gunsmiths have done that.  More than once.  Guaranteed.  They often don't care to admit it... 

Illegally Possessed Firearm

 Nice!  You don't see many of these around anymore.  The opening of Superman?

Our Field Intelligence Team, quickly acted on intel they received and were able to removed this illegal Firearm off the street. #Onelessgun pic.twitter.com/fwaeV9by2w

— NYPD 100th Precinct (@NYPD100Pct) February 18, 2021

The Gutta Percha looks to be in fine shape.

Now I've heard of five-screw S&W and started counting.  Five!  But wait, it's a Colt.  Took me a minute to notice and then I felt great shame.

Or Straight Razors

"Fountain pens, automatic watches, tube amps, revolvers, mechanical cameras..."  I am right there with you, Tam, on old style tech.  Fascinated by it.  And dabble in it to one degree or another.  

But.  I can tell you definitive experience, the technological progression of the shaving razor were all upgrades.  For a time.  (Tam doesn't argue agin this, per se, this is more a general old-style tech argument with To Whom It May Concern in the header)

I shave with a straight razor occasionally.  I am decent at it.  It is easy once you know the method and get over that first scary hurdle where you might, no shit, cut your throat unto death.  It's a skill and a luxury shave when you have time.  Like on a Saturday.

But a straight razor is slow and inefficient.  Compared to a safety razor.  You know, that double edged razor blade invented a bit over a hundred years ago.  I shave with one.  Most days.  Much faster to accomplish when you gotta get to work.  My father shaver with one, too, in the 70s.  I shave with it as a bit of a conceit to the older tech.  But.  Then...

Remember the hype of the Trac II on the TV commercials?  'The first blade cuts, the second blade gets it before it retracts into the skin.'  I'm here to tell you, on a beard only 24 hours since the last cut?  This razor is much closer, much faster, much more efficient than a safety razor.  Fewer nicks and cuts too.  A  disposable double blade would shave faster than my Olde Timey safety razor at only a bit more cost.  

Then, the razor reach exceeds the grasp.  It's harder to get under the nose with a triple blade, even harder with a quintuple blade.  The slimy lubrication strip on the cartridge just makes it harder to clean your face after.  The swivel does nothing special.  Shaving efficiency hit the wall in the 1970s, sad to say.  I use Mach 3 three-bladed cartridges when I shave my head.  For my face?  Nothing patented after 1975 is an improvement.  If Trac II cartridges without the slime strip were still available I'd still have one. 

The greater 'market' signals this, now, too.   People are hungry for alternative to unwieldy 6-bladed razors that cost $20 a cartridge and delivers extra benefits on a diminishing return for four decades.  And those markets have risen in to place to satisfy this hunger.  Cheaper, simpler, subscription services.  And retro folks like me returning to safety razor solutions (ten cents a week, after you guy a $70 handle.)   

---

(Oh, and I love fountain pens, but I get ink on my fingers and they do require regular care.  And never loan one to any one born after 1975.  They don't know how to hold it. ) 

They hate your gas stove

And they want you to freeze to death in the dark.

That's what the commies want to ban next.  Working terlets and lightbulbs weren't enough for their hunger to control.  Your gas stove is bad for the planet somehow in some mysterious non-falsifiable way.  It's gotta go.

My house has a gas stove.  And gas water heater.  And gas furnace.  I guess they'd all have to be swapped out for electric equivalents over time.  

But I have more than one purpose for that stuff.  If the power goes out, the water still flows so I can fill my tub.  And if the power goes out I can still run the stove and heat that water and thus myself.  If what happened in Texas replicates around the country in the future, I have a back up plan.  There were people in Texas freezing to death because their heat was via heat pump and their range was electric.  

Get a gas stove if you can and never let it go and yell at any legislator that wants to take it from you as though they want to murder you.  

Hell, I wish I had a wood burning stove, too.

My friends are all boring

And so am I.

Co-Workers

 A lot of my co-workers own guns.

I work in the defense contracting world.  Veteran heavy.  Those not veterans have a similar mindset.  So it leans gun friendly.

Some are gunnies, but I'm not talking about them.

The co-workers that don't own guns are general not averse to gun ownership.  A small few are, but they are the general exception.  The co-workers that are not anti-gun have a reason they don't have one to home.  "My wife doesn't like guns" "I got kids and they get into everything" "a family member takes meds for a mental condition and I don't want to introduce firearms in case of a mental lapse there"

Fair enough.

The others.  The ones with a gun.  They own one or two at most unless a relative passed down more than that.  Often the one is the M9 they used to carry in the military and are familiar with.  Few hunt.  Air Force vets and hunting?  No these are suburb vets.  My black friends lean toward having a shotgun.  Friends from more rural areas have the there or four hunting items.  Rifles and shotguns and a .22.

They very rarely take it to the range and appreciate tagging along with me in order to blow the cobwebs off the gun and their skills.  

They have a gun, but no pressing need for it.  But they also know in their bones that old chestnut "better to have one and need it than to need it and not have it."  But 'having' a bit more training, too, doesn't enter into their mental calculations. Nor does much 'practice' but, hell, with ammo like it is right now.

Ammo IS starting to be available again.  With awful prices.  Gonna wait a bit longer.

Heyyyyyy!

We are back to pre-November spike levels of new infections.

Pretty soon, at this rate, Biden can take credit and promise we can stop wearing masks and eating in public in only 2 more short years.

You were already doing a poor job Representing me

 But if you think losing, again, is a win, you are as grossly incompetent as whoever does you hair.

Jamie Raskin (who forgot to comb his hair before going on TV) says the impeachment was a “dramatic success” even though it was an abject failure in every sense of the word. But these people think they can just write history however they want. pic.twitter.com/boF1K0PGKE

— Jon Miller (@MillerStream) February 16, 2021

Jeezum Crow!

the hot pocket when you get it out of the microwave pic.twitter.com/tfEPNOIgJL

— the thicc husband & father (@lukeisamazing) February 15, 2021

Colt bought by CZ

 I dunno, I kinda like the idea.

If given a choice between Colt fading away and dying or being bought by furreners?  No problem.  But CZ?  I like CZ.  They are high on my list when I want a bolt action rifle.  I wish the Varmint came in lefty and .308.  I'd pay WAY too much for that.  But the regular lefty is fine.

Getting Colt is a good way to up their game.  A start to upping their game.  Now design something better than a Glock but at a similar price point and "CZColt" will take over the world.

Preznit's Day

 

Wolverines!

Several gallons of Danny's urine later...

Olden Timey Gonnes

I love it when Tam goes on a tear on her blog with the antique-y guns.  There is less money in writing about those for the slicks, so the blog receives the labor of love.  

I get to reap the rewards.  I get a tight little blurb presented on a multi-topic (guns stuff, history stuff, blog stuff, interesting trivia stuff) piece that I truly enjoy.  In quick succession she put up Hand Ejectors, Savages, an H&R+Webley's guts.  All this after a couple closer-to-mid-century revolvers.

The only way I'd know more about Savages now is if I took up collecting them and the resources about the, myself.  I don't feel like starting a Savage collection, so this blog post will more than tide me over. 

Blog aren't what they were, but they are still valuable.  

Boating Accident

Folks like to talk about losing all their guns in a boating accident whenever a move to scheme a national gun registry get's floated.  

Stop that. 

Don't talk about your guns.  Don't talk about how many you have.  Don't talk about what happened to guns you used to have.  Never say you bought a gun or sold a gun.  With a NICS check, or without a NICS check because it wasn't at the gunstore.  Don't even mention that such a thing can legally happen.  

When the urge to say "Too bad I lost all them in a tragic boating accident last summer" comes up, clam up, like you were in the homicide interview room for a murder you are DAMN sure you didn't commit.  "I am not discussing my day with you officer." Then shut up.

"I'm not an officer, T-Bolt, I am your mother."

You still aren't getting anyting out of me, woman!

Obfuscate.  People know I have an interest in guns.  A few know I own at least one.  I never admit that.  "But I saw it!"  That was then.  Do I have it?  Do I have 1000?  Dunno.  Whatever.  Ice cream sammich?  

"Can we go to the range again, T-Bolt?"

"Sure!"

"How long have you had these two 1911s?"

"What 1911s?  Remember to squeeze the trigger, don't jerk it."

"THESE 1911s!"

"I dunno what you are talking about.  I had some of those a while back.  Sold on consignment.  Whatever."

"They are RIGHT HERE on the table at the range with us."

"That can be anything or anyone's."

"I am a gun enthusiast, just like you!  C'mon, dish with the deets!"

"Don't sell yourself short.  You're a lotta things."

---

But a boating accident is inconvenient later when dry unrusty items turn up in your basment.  So, shh.  No more boating.  No advantage to that old story.

Please don't kill Uber, Pelosi

Uber is how I get home from the tire place and to and from some doctor visits

Attrition

 I love this French video.  It shows the units and the lines on the Western Front of WWI by date.  

You see the German run wild at the beginning.  August 1914.  The British army is Orange and TINY.  But with very good professional soldiers that punch above their wait weight.  

The Allies get outflanked on their left (German right) and have to move.  This keeps happening.

You see the flaw in Moltke's plan when you don't have enough Germans on their far right flank.  The German don't have enough to go to the West of Paris, the jog inward, the French are now on the German's flank and now they have to move.

Pull back to the lines everyone will now inhabit, pretty much, for the next four years.  And this all happened before it got cold in 1914.

No real movement in the line because Verdun.  No real movement because Somme.  Just meat grinding butchery.

Everyone is exhausted when 1918 comes around.  The Germans get a boost when Russia crumbles and tired German units come west.  NOW their is movement.  In the Spring there is a scramble and the Germans are stopped.  The some fresh purple units show up.  Lots of enthusiastic and fresh green Americans to boost the tires Britd and French.  Against the tired and hungry Germans.  The lines push the Germans back in the Summer.  Then Novemeber comes.

Finé

And the drought continues.

 Hoping for some back pain relief after a new round of cortisone shots.  The first one in November worked a treat, but yesterday evening... still not getting the relief yet.  

So, feeling sorry for myself, I haven't composed fresh gun/zed/survival/political fodder.  Hopefully tomorrow.  

I can't play First Person Shooter video games.  I can't tolerate sitting that long.  But I can do the next best thing.  Spectate others on youtube, playing Tarkov, which I can do laying down.  I can tolerate laying down a bit more.

I did drop my car off for fresh tires.  So, one less thing to worry about.  

Well, drat

 Forgot to put up a post.  Got doc appts and might go get new tires.  Looking at tax stuff.  Off work, obviosuly.  Just tending to personal bidness.  The 7 inches of snow didn't happen at least.      

What are our chances?

This gun law is more likely than yesterday's post.  H.R. 127.

Yes, what are the chances this new anti gun law doesn't happen?  Or mostly doesn't?  

There are five GOP squishes likely to go along with the whole thing in the Senate.  Maybe 3 Dems to counter the five, Tester, Manchin, maybe Sinema.  Maybe.  And Cocaine Mitch will probably switch to Ambien and not help a fillabuster.  I presume the whole thing goes through the House as is.

Gonna need a bit more before I feel more of a sense of optimism.

---

Commenters are less pessimistic than me.  Maybe they are right.  Something is coming, but not 127.  Could they reset to what they had in the 90s til 2004?  Magazine and 'assault weapons' bans?  A lot of people have prepared for such a thing for 15 years.  And Magpul has brought the magazines to the masses. 

Harumph

 Well that is a silly advertisement for 2021.

I am sure once you cross the threshold of 450,000,000 registered US voters USCCA then Chuck Schumer will prioritize the reciprocity bill right away.  

Speaking of Hearing Protection

Remember when you went to the range with a buddy and you brought ALL the guns?  A big ol' Massachusetts style picnic table worth.  Even when you went alone you brought a half dozen sometimes.  Why not?  It's fun.

I haven't done that in a while.  Haven't done a new-shooter intro or anything, and when alone, these days, I am working on something with my shooting, not my gear.  So I often just bring one pistol.  And not in a big heavy range bag.

I have a few pistol cases the individual pistols live in.  Or a plastic ammo can.  But they aren't .50 BMG ammo cans.  There is room for the gun, a box of ammo, and a half dozen, plus, magazines, often pre-loaded.  Trauma bandage and tourniquet.  No ear-pro cans can fit with all that.

So I did this.

  

Tan pistol case.  Clasped to it is a small green Maxpedition pouch.  The Howard Leights fold up andfit in the pouch along with foam ear plus, a Lula loader, and incidentals like a sharpie, a toothbrush in case I drop a gun in the sand again, and an oiler.  If I wanna take a different gun I clasp the green accessory bag to that gun's case.

It's a solution that works for me.  

---

Next up, attaching this:

Ear Pro

What hearing protection do you like?  

I'm sure there is a magazine review or three out there that does side by side Consumer Reports comparison, but I haven't seen it

LMGTFY "best hearing protection for shooting"  Meh.  They seem like advertisements.  It'll take a while to find wheat berry in all that chaff.

I use Howard Leights plus foam ear plugs.  Does the job and I can still hear instruction from an RO or Instructor.  

Saw this ad for a Safariland product and that is what inspired my blog fodder.  Wondering if there was something better.  WHAT SAY YOU?  Is there a better way?  

Two tours had changed Captain Hunter

 He didn't even think about where the ordinance was going, or who it was hitting.  Just, 'Where do you want it?  On the trail, on suspected VC encampments, or Main Street USA.'

Forever War

 Great.  The Forever War is taking us to Burma to apply devastating military force and still not win after years and years.

Biden White House warns Myanmar military that US will 'take action' after coup https://t.co/XJYQFntLzw pic.twitter.com/gVvooBY0jl

— New York Post (@nypost) February 1, 2021

Better read up on Fraser's Quartered Safe Out Here to brush up on the area.  Oh, and ask some Nam vet what that part of the world feels like.

UN isn't coming

To take away your guns.  No one is calling for that...

If America were another country, we would be talking about how post-Civil War America is still in desperate need of a UN-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program for white supremacists and segregationists.

https://t.co/S8OTLrDd00

— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) February 1, 2021

Oh.

Snow

 Yesterday the snow started before dawn.  A Sunday, I can sleep in, but I knew it was snowing when I briefly came up from unconsciousness.  I didn't have to look to know.

Everything is so quiet during a weekend morning snowstorm.  The snow, on the ground and falling absorbs a lot of sound.  More importantly there is less people braving the roads so no traffic noises.  Peaceful.