'Remembering' my Grandfather

68 years ago this coming Tuesday, this man left home to join the Marine Corps:



It was 3 days after my mom was born.

On September 19, 1944 while he "voluntarily undertook the extremely hazardous mission of repairing frequent breaks in the communication lines of a company fiercely beset by continuous, devastating barrages of enemy machine-gun and rifle fire. Pushing his way over difficult terrain in an area heavily infested with Japanese snipers, he engaged in his vital task and, working skillfully and with tenacious determination, steadfastly continued his valiant efforts until mortally wounded by a savage burst of hostile machine-gun fire. By his fearless initiative, unfailing technical ability and cool decision in the face of fanatical opposition, Corporal [Thunderbolt] contributed materially to the success of our operation against this important Japanese stronghold, and his indomitable courage throughout a period of fierce hostilities upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country."

He served in 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, Lewis Puller commanding.

It is he who I will 'remember' this day, though I never met him. And my mom never knew him.

It's What's For Dinner

Zombie Meat!


"SOYLENT GRAY IS DEAD PEOPLE!!"

Popped Into My Gunstore

I popped into my gunstore to see if there was anything new to see. There was. A Boys anti-tank rifle! Like this:

Wow!

This rifle could penetrate tank armor. Or it could penetrate 1938 tank armor. 1940 tank armor was too thick. Then is was just something really heavy to carry.

If you read gun magazines that are 50 years old, they sold these on the surplus market for years and years. $40 maybe, back then? They are a bit more, now.

That’s no t the worst of it. The ammo for this anti-tank rifle is funny. .55 caliber. The gunstore has 2 live rounds in a brass stripper clip with a 1938 date stamp on it. He told me that he found 5 rounds for $150. Getting up to tround or pinfire cartridge level. And reloading can’t be that easy.

Anyway, the gunsmith was in and was talking about making a DeLisle repro, and my ears perked up. We got to chatting, and it would be no more expensive for me if he made some lefty bolt action into a .45 DeLisle-esque kluge. Yeah, I’d pay for one of those. Tax stamps and all (It might be 2. One for the suppressor, one for the short rifle barrel.)

I gotta be more careful popping into my gunstore. I can get my wallet in trouble that way.

Forgot to mention

I forgot to mention on that last range trip… There was an injury.

On the seventh shot of one magazine I was struck in the forehead with something. WHANGO. It was a pretty significant little hit. I didn’t see it, but it must have been some spent brass. The hit was harder than usual, and it happened as the slide was locking back. It could have even bounced off of some in the shooting lane, like the side shields. It left a mark, and some blood, but the blood didn’t stream or anything. I only noticed the blood in the mirror after when washing the GPR off of my hands.

It’s stuff like this that makes you appreciate the utility of eye protection. No long term harm. A mark on my face isn’t going to detract from its aesthetic value. You have to HAVE value before it can be detracted from, as I have a face that can make a freight train take a dirt road.

So… remember the most important safety feature. Safety glasses. No, wait, that’s for woodworking with Nahm.

What's in a Name?

Snowflakes in Hell mentioned he wish he had picked a different name for his blog way back when.

I can understand.

This blog might never have started at all if I hadn't thought up that name of mine.

The thought of writing a blog occurred to me, as I was beginning to take up shooting. The angle I chose was a natural. I knew I knew next to nothing about shooting and guns, I could talk about what I didn't know. There is a nigh-inexhaustible supply of crap I don't know. And I know how to type.

So that's the subject. A neophytes shooter's journey through the casual experience of hobby shooting. There is plenty of humor to mine, a dabble into my life and politics but not TOO much into either, and a serious aspect because shooting can be deadly serious at times. It's a focused and contained topic that won't get too far away from me. It's been a long time since I went a day without posting, and while I interject non-sequitirs at times, that off-topic post is usually AFTER a gun related post.

But all that fully formed concept would have been for naught if I hadn't thought up a halfway decent name, cuz I wouldn't have had the gumption to do post one without it.

Now there are blogs out there to help you choose your very own blog name.

Here are some good real names:

...Well, most of the names on my bloglist are perfectly serviceable. I’m not gonna list them as I love them all equally, but… Snowflakes In Hell isn’t happy with his, but that’s only HIS opinion. I kinda like it. SouthPark Pundit would have been SOL if SouthPark had been cancelled soon after he started his blog years ago. A good name is semi-descriptive and an indicator of what to expect. In BooksBikesAndBoomsticks I’d expect to read about all three. But would totally understand the dropping of a bit of motorcycle content if certain circumstances came about. Like a nasty bike lay-down. Or ‘dropped’. Or ‘crashed.’ I’m not totally up to speed on unhappy motorcycle event lingo. (From what I understand, and I don’t have all the details, Tam doesn’t ride a motorcycle as much since she had a nasty spill. The attitude may now be, “I’m gonna die some DAY, but I don’t want it to be Tuesday.” Ask her. Go ahead.)

I'm just glad Breda spelled her blog Breda Fallacy instead of Breda Phallusy.

Here are some Great names:

1. Beer and Loafing in Las Vegas, N.M.
2. Gypsies, Tramps and Steves
3. I Can Blog Anything Better Than You
4. The Legend of Bloggy Creek
5. It's Tuesday Somewhere
6. Ax Handle Illustrated
7. Pat Smear
8. Schadenfreude for Beginners
9. Let's Make Tomatoes!

New Jovian Thunderbolt isn’t a Great Name, admittedly, but it was at least half-inspired.

Name rejects for mine:

1. OW!! That’s Gonna Leave A Nasty Scar.
2. Pwned Boomstick N00b, kikikiki!!!!!1!!!11!!eleven
3. WTB: Shooting Skill
4. ZOMBIES!! No! Not the face, not the face!
5. 10 Thumbs Gunsmithing Services and Near-Sighted Shooting Instruction, Ltd.
6. My Dumb Shooting Journey
7. Guns N’ Stuff

Ok, I could pull off any of those names NOW, but not when I was tentatively starting out. Mostly, I came up empty. I was reading a lot of gunblogs including old Jeff Cooper stuff when I came across someone (I believe it was Cooper) talking about a shot in hunting, I think, that dropped the quarry, “like a Jovian thunderbolt, out of the blue.” Add ‘New’ to that, and voila. Where there was no blog name, there was, then, blog name. One that fit me, and satisfied my requirement not to sound too dweeby. And posting could commence.

I also made it pretty much anonymous. Secondarily, to not tip off burglars. Primarily so that someday, 15 years from now when applying for a new job, an angry and rabidly hoplophobic HR boss couldn’t google my actual name and come upon all this.

Anonymity bugs me a little bit, and I'd rather not have to in an ideal world. But I rationalize by thinking about the anonymous Federalist Papers. I’ll have to come clean someday. Like Bruce Wayne at a party. And then after all the guests and associates will be a target of the Joker…

I do try to own my mistakes. But I have a great excuse. I am LEARNING. The whole ‘n00b’ thing. Corrections from the peanut gallery are welcome here. If I make a HUGE mistake in a post and someone calls me on it, well, HEY! There is more blog fodder for me to write about. It’s a favor. Where once there was one post, now there can be two.

May 1911 Range Time

Well crap. I DO shoot a double action revolver better than a 1911. At least cold.

Here is the first target:


The issue with me is, I think, that I have to consciously think about the trigger pull more with a 1911. Here is me thinking harder and getting a better result:


If I fixed the down and right thingy of mine and blew a hole out of the center rather than the 4 o'clock position I'd be dangerous at a pin-shoot.

Let's got over it again. What cause a left hander to shoot low and right? Anticipation where you push the gun forward ahead of the recoil. I see this when shooting revolvers on an already shot cylinder or when using snap caps. A pre-flinch, if you will. But also... Try this at home. Empty gun, hammer down, light grip. Pull the trigger against the stop by taking up that little bit of slack. Repeat that as quick as you can and kinda gently. When I do that I can see the muzzle dip a tiny bit low and right. With a laser it would be much more obvious down range. Hmmm... how to fix THAT? That's no anticipation of recoil. That's just clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick.

And one more target:


Tomorrow I think I'll bring the SIG DAK and the snubbie.

I had a dream

Last night...

I don't have many gun dreams. Good because to blog your own dreams too frequently can get kinda desperate. At least my subconscious is helping out with bog fodder now and again.

In the dream I found a great, near custom 1911 at a steal of a price. Everything on it was perfect for me down to the smallest detail. Forged parts, left hand safety and subdued right hand safety, 4.25" barrel, bumpless grip safety, regular length guide rod... Ideal! Every detail perfect save one. It had sights on the side like this Glock:


That picture has made the rounds, and I have no idea where it originated. I think I saw here first, but that doesn't mean that's the origin. It's NOT www.birdman.org. It's a poor comment on the stylistic shooting technique of some urban, unlicensed, open-air pharmaceutical purveyors and entrepreneurs.

One good thing about the dream 1911. It was still perfect for me. The sights were on the other side of the slide slab. I am a lefty, after all.

Don't Do This to a Zombie

This Info Could Save Your Life

And I can always remind other n00bs on one VERY important subject. I know I've gone over this before, but bear with me.

People, please, I can’t stress this enough… Do not plan to meet the Zombie Horde with a shotgun, molotov cocktail and chainsaw. They are the worst anti-Zed weapons out there. Shotguns are slow to load when empty, and the ammo is heavy to tote around (but they are perfect for a single zombie, yes, if a bit messy. the problem is, like roaches, there is never just one zombie). A molotov cocktail turns a walking, bitey corpse into a walking, bitey TORCH that burns you and all your stuff, including all those shotgun rounds you were carrying. And a chainsaw is even messier, splattering infected gore all over, and you have to be in corpse-clutch reach to employ it.

To say that you'll use the shotty, molotov cocktail, and chainsaw against the undead threat is like saying, in my mind, you intend to ward off a street gang of determined home invaders with a tape recording of a pump shotgun being racked, a two shot .22-short derringer, and your trusty Hamburglar costume to confuse them. While I agree it might work, it is probably not the best way. You're not gonna protect your home that way, are you? Then put the chainsaw down when you hear a death moan.

I should do a PSA about this issue. I keep hearing about people with plans to take on Zed with one or more of those death-trap weapons. I blame Hollywood for spreading such false information. And Hippies. I'd blame Jimmy Carter too, but this is one subject that History's Greatest Monster has actually excelled in. He has personally retired 4 humanoid zombies, one rabbit zed, and a probable undead cat not 4 years ago.

Remember, May is Zombie Awareness Month.

Of course I am a lifetime member of the Zombie Research Society.

Z Ts

From Threadless T's

and here

Sight Picture

3 types of sight pictures, and I shamelessly stole this diagram from Ahab, so all credit to him for stealing it from Pistol-Training.com...



So. I had known of 1 and 2, but #3 never occurred to me. I tend to gravitate toward #2 (point of impact hold) in practice. And I shoot low with center fire. Should I be shooting with sight picture 3? No. And I'll tell you why. I've gotten better shooters than me to shoot my pistols and they also gravitated toward #2. They had no problem hitting the center. Plus, I don't shoot low with .22. If anything I shoot high. With ALL .22's, not just mine. And I shoot low with all centerfire pistols I try. I think my low shots are an anticipatory flinch, pushing the gun forward anticipating the shot and recoil. And I see it on the revolver when I try for a shot on an expended cartridge or slipped in snap cap.

My flinch is getting better, slowly but surely. So I'll stick with #2.

That's also how I line up for rifle shots with the Garand/M14 style aperture sights. I try to get the front sight touching the 1 inch red circle of the bull 100 yards away. Or 25/50 yards, when my eyes can't see that far... Which is most days, in most light.

Mexican President

"Calderon Calls for Restoring Assault Weapons Bam."

Heck yeah! I love it when my M1A goes 'bam!' Turning money into noise and FUN!

Wait a minnit.

He said BAN not BAM. Ohhhhhhhhhh. That makes more sense.

Let me answer then: No.

Here's a better idea if your drug dealers are shooting up Mexico with machine guns and grenades they 'acquired' from from the Mexican army, you need to arm the members of the law abiding Mexican citizenry with so-called assault rifles. Like we do here. Try out the whole 'more guns, less crime' experiment so we can get some more data and you can have some more free men and women down there.

That expert advice is gratis, Senor Presidente. I normally charge for my expertise, so you are indeed fortunate... a shepherd like yourself.

A Modest Compromise Or Two

AG Eric Holder wants to modify the Miranda requirement rules and maybe not do it so much anymore. The reason? To get more terror info out of terrists that he can then still put through the justice system. He considers the issue of world Islamic jihad against the West a matter for the courts and not the War Department.

Senator Lautenburg wants to deny gun purchasing permission to anyone that finds themselves put on the secret Terrorist Watch List, maintained by unaccountable faceless bureaucrats. To heck with the fact it’s a mystery how you get on the List, and nigh impossible to get yourself off if mistakenly entered on the Roll Of Terror-Shame (sorry Ted Kennedy… sober now for 9 months!) Due process? Never heard of it. A right enshrined in the Constitution? Speak up, you’re mumbling.

So that’s what? The 2nd 4th and 5th Amendment kicked to the curb? This is getting too hard to keep track of without a program or playbill.

I have a better solution, and an alternative. They are modest proposals:

1) Make it a felony to be Muslim, and consider any Muslim not currently in custody to have jumped bail. Just make it a blanket declaration. That way it only violates the 1st Amendment, as the Authorities (or Dog the Bounty Hunter, think of the extra employment for him and other bounty hunters in these hard economic times getting commission for skip trace!...) can search you at will and also deny felons the ability to legally purchase guns. All without trodding on the other parts of the Constitution. You may need to push through a quickie Amendment to pull this solution off, but I bet the votes are there.

2) Or, if that idea makes you too squeamish, just assign an army combat soldier as a ‘minder’ to every Muslim and ‘other’ terrist suspect’s household in the country. A 24/7 custodian since you can’t trust a terrist to have a gun, get on a plane, or have a gallon of gasoline and a book of matches. A minder can prevent that. To alleviate the expense, the gummint could require the subjects of round the clock personal monitoring to provide their minder food and shelter. It’s only fair. Of course, to some people’s perception, this might be a violation of the 3rd Amendment of the Constitution. But you may not have to ram through a corrective as there is precious little case law on the 3rd. A decent lawyer for the administration could keep this all tied up in the courts for years and ears. By the time SCOTUS gets it, hopefully the war or police action or Administration’s term will over.

Note: Neither is a GOOD solution, but it is better than the currently contemplated patchwork violations of our founding principles. Sacrifice one amendment to save the rest. It is Constitutional triage to try to preserve its principles, and so we can pretend the document actually MEANS something.

What? Preserve ALL the principles? Pff! That’s hard! Whoever heard of such a thing?

if yer britches are in an extra big bunch, look up 'satire' in the dictionary

Maryland Governor

A Lib Democrat, named O'Malley, actually SIGNED Senate Bill 411.

It's Maryland's Castle Doctrine. A bit watered down, compared to great states liek Texas, but the fact we have it at ALL is something. Now there is less risk via civil immunity if you reasonably defend yourself in your own home.

Well, it's been a helluva a week for me, but this helps turn it around.

Lovemaking

From my younger days, when I had a mustache and did modelling work.
Plus I believed in the product.

Ammo Shortage Claims Another Victim

Saucy Trollop is in town to take care of legal bidness involved with transferring her life to Bora Bora. So all of her Powerball winnings is tied up in banks in French Polynesia. Only a little walking around money is in her US account. About what it’d be if was working 9-5.

A forgotten and now unanticipated and unbudgeted-for order from MONTHS ago showed up on her doorstep. 5 boxes of .44 magnum from Midway, back ordered all this time because of the ammo shortage. While not too unpleasant, as Trollop likes to shoot her hand cannon, she had planned to use that money this week for food and stuff. So she’s on beans, rice, and ramen noodles until her next wire transfer. Poor dearie. Darn you, Barry, for causing the shortage that starved my ex girlfriend!!!

THIS is why I use credit cards instead of debit cards. I can go in the hole for a month and still eat my steak. Though I understand other people’s apprehension for usurious plastic consumer financial vehicles.

Agnes Grey, GRRRRRRR!

May Range Revolvers

I had skipped the week before, so I was 2 weeks out of practice when I went last Thursday.

I'm really getting better at this. I shoot a double action snub-nosed better than I shoot a 1911. Sheesh. This session I was starting to fine tune the sight picture, because things were falling into place with everything else, a new factor to notice and improve marginally appears. I'm glad these finer details are occurring to me. When I stop noticing them is when my introspection goes away and my skills will no longer improve.

Sure I knew what sight picture was before this session. But there I am with nigh ideal set up, focused on that front ramp when I think, 'ya know that gap on the side is just half a hair wider than the gap on the other side, and I can correct that.' or 'the front sight is just perceptibly high... better make it NOT high.'

I also shot the .22 single action. I will not win any bullseye prizes, but that is not my goal. My goal is to be good enough with a pistol to defend myself. I'm about there on accuracy. Next long term goal is the speed. I've always been happier with my speed on shot acquisition and time to second shot. I need to work on speed from the holster.

Man I wish there were IDPA shooting competitions closer to home. For the speed test. It's difficult in most ranges as they don't like folks working from the holster at just a regular session with lanes full of strangers.

First target of the day. I was at the far right lane so to avoid hitting the wall I lined the targets up on the left side of the target as a precaution. Here:

.22 in the center, and .38 on the shoot 'n see. Two cylinders each. Notice something? Yup, only nine holes on one, and nine on the other. No idea where the fliers went. Dang! Still, the hits ARE good. One almost got off paper at the bottom.

And the second target:

All .38's accounted for this time. And none of the .22 left the black. 7 yards range on all. The fliers are probably low hits on the top one based on the low hits on this.

I didn't even shoot at that far right paster just because I thought it lined up with the wall. No way do I want to incur the wrath of the range by damaging property.

Boy Scout Fieldbook

And gun safety.

I mentioned my love of old manuals before. This partly stems from reading old stuff of my father's, including his Boy Scout Fieldbook, copyright 1948. Well I found a copy to bring back my childhood memories of my father's childhood memories.



In it there is a section on gun safety. Let me crib from part of it now:

Always keep a gun unloaded when not in use, but treat it as you KNOW it is loaded (emphasis in original)

Be sure that you see the target clearly before you fire. Make certain there is nothing between you and the target or behind it that may be accidentally hit.

Of course you would never think of pointing the muzzle at anyone or of letting anyone point it at you - not even when you are positive the gun is unloaded. "Only fools are positive," Most firearms accidents are caused by people handling guns that were supposedly "not loaded."

So they hit 3 of the four rules, only omitting keeping your finger off the trigger until the sights are on the target (#3). They do recommend leaving the action open and never loading until ready to fire. Remember 1948 is before the invention of a compact set of the Four Rules that we know today. They also have an proto Eddie The Eagle recommendation for all youngins (remember, this book is for 11-18 year olds):

Before picking up a rifle or other firearm, have someone who knows teach you the proper way of handling and using it.

And there is a gruesome looking photo in the first aid section, hopefully simulated. It's a rendering of first aid to a hunter that took a load of buckshot to the left knee from what looks like point blank range. 9 holes weeping blood (or chocolate syrup, as it IS a black and white photo and syrup was a fine stand in for the red stuff) Ouch!

Shotgun House Gun

My shotgun is a Remington Model 11 12 gauge. It’s semi-automatic and holds 5 in the tube (or is it 4 in the tube and one in the pipe?...) It has walnut furniture and I have 2 barrels for it, (well 3, one is a munged up home gunsmith attempt to make a regular barrel a rifles barrel. Yikes.) a long and a short. It doesn’t have a sling swivel, or a place to mount a light or a ghost ring sight. The short barrel doesn’t have even have a front bead. It isn’t tactical.

It would ostensibly be a house gun, to ward off prowlers and single zombies. If I left it out of the safe.

Now I could leave it out of the safe. Lacking a front bead is no handicap, but the gun will shoot high if you point it with the barrel. Lacking a light is little handicap, I have excellent night vision and more importantly I can navigate my own home with my eyes closed. It will do.

A mounted light and a ghost ring sight and a tritium front sight and a sling would all be good things. Even an improved stock (it was Carteach’s review of a shotgun stock that inspire me to write this.) would be nice.

But it’s not critical. The critical thing is YOU, of course, but you always have you. The second most critical thing is a functioning reliable firearm.

So I could take the shotgun out of the safe and leave it in a corner. I’d probably load the tube with buckshot with none in the pipe, necessitating a working of the ‘bolt’ to get it running in an emergency, but this status is inconsequential to availability. Why don’t I? Because I don’t shoot the shotgun enough is the biggest reason. Thus it isn’t a known quantity on reliability. It’s not like my revolvers. In fact, when hunting, it didn’t eject its spent shell. My semi-auto became a bolt operated model. The revolver doesn’t cease to function like that. Sure the cold was a factor while hunting, compared to the summer skeet shooting, and not enough grease on the tube probably is the reason for failure, and now that has been corrected… But I haven’t gone skeet shooting with it since hunting...

If I did shoot a buncha skeet/trap, and over a period of time, I might use the shotty as more of a ready weapon in the home. So why consider it for self defense if it is a safe queen? Well it’s just not a 3AM wake-up-OH-CRAP!!!-gun. 3PM-drug-gang-riot-spilling-out-of-the-high-school-and-now-banging-on-my-door-gun it is.

For Zombie I go with a rifle.