Shoot Pics

Here is me with two of Lagniappe's Lair guns.  Sadly, the Tommy gun was feeling under the weather, so I didn't get a chance with that.  But these are condolence guns.

A Martini Henry.  I am holding a case.  He has to make them from all brass 20 gauge shells necked down.  Black powder, of course.  It packs a bit of a wallop.

"It's the Zulus, T-Bolt. Thousands of them."

"Oh, bother."

And this a lever action Ruger .44 Special with an integral suppressor.  I just giggle when I shoot something that big that quietly.

I had never fired either of those kinds of guns before, so...  victory.  I also tested my new AR trigger in one of my dozens of preban AR15s.  Yup.  Always had them.  So the state of Maryland can relax about that.

Blog Shoot

I went to Murph's blog shoot yesterday.  Hopefully this space is where I post pics of it.

They didn't give me much for the trade in

Now I Want to Write Stuff

Yikes

A guy at the firearm blog spent a lotta money to do a custom 1911 build, and wrote a review of the experience.  Like I am doing!  But his is with Larry Vickers.  Heck, even I recognize that name.  He's famous.

But the experience didn't live up to the expectation.  Oh sure, he made a gun, and it wasn't a disaster, but it sounds like it could've been a better week. 

Is Larry a gunsmith or a shooter? I'm sure he is both, but I also am pretty sure he is a shooter first. It's a shame Larry wasn't as attentive as he could have been.  And Sam is a gunsmith first, shooting instructor second.  I found Sam attentive enough.

I'm spending a lotta money, but not THAT lotta.  And I doubt I'd have advanced beyond intermediate if Larry Vickers was teaching the class.  It appears to stress independent learning, and I am a bit of a slow head.

Ditto

And again

The people at Walmart

Note, tho, no date on the report.  Bad 'journalist,' bad.

Zeds in the wild

So obviously a zombie, I don't know why I am pointing it out.

I am sure the people bitten were escorted to the "VIP Room" upon landing.  Won't hear from them again...

Dooooooooomed

Look at this spike in temperature!  And over a scant 135 years.  Hockey stick-o-rama.

I'm selling my gun.  The world will burst into flames by 2019.  Someone warn Borepatch!

Horror

By now, all my readers (are there three of you?) have seen the video.



A Palestianian rams a bus stop full of people with his cars.  Gets out of his car and goes to town chopping at the wounded like Paul Bunyon, killing more folks.  Just awful

A gun toter of some flavor arrives on the scene and engages the assailant.  This is inside of 10 seconds.  Two people have been chopped of before someone engages back.  In ten seconds.  Good thing this wasn't New York or LA.  You'd have to wait for the cops.  Minutes away.

The terrist has a lot of fight in him, charging a man with a pistol.  We can't hear anything so there is no notion of how many rounds are fired at the bad guy but some connect because he collapse to the ground and writes in pain.  But the fight is not out of him.  He throws the knife at the shooter!  It even bounces of the fence next to the shooter and close to the terrist.  The shooter has to kick it farther away, holding his pistol on the bad guy.  Other help arrives at the scene of chaos.  There is quick negotiation with the new arrivals "are you a good guy or bad guy?"   The shot up terrorist STILL has enough gas in his tank to get up and try to flee.  Looks like he takes another round in this scuffle and goes down, then gets up and maybe takes another round and goes down, doesn't go any further.

Lessons for Joe Schmoes.

Shoot to stop.  If the bad guy is throwing knives at you you didn't stop him enough.

The whole 9mm v. .45 argument reared its head in some discussions.  And that leads to the 'all pistol calibers suck' argument.  8 rounds of .45, or 18 rounds of 9mm or 5 rounds of .38...  Get hits, repeat until the threat is stopped.  Reload if you have to.

Getting hits is easier said than done when you are adrenaline amped to 200 heartbeats a minute.  And you only have so much spare ammo on you.

What if there were 3 guys in that car as motivated as our single bad guy?  Then this pistol toter was gonna get some hits in and get overwhelmed.  Doesn't matter his caliber or magazine capacity.

So, what lessons are there for use armchair quarterbacks?  "Be calm, and get good shot placement and have enough reloads," is easier said than done.   Run away?  Sometimes that is not an option.  But if toter had been hit in the femoral artery with that knife throw then hindsight suggests he should had done that.  Only a few more strangers would have been killed, maybe.  But he didn't.  And you might not have in that situation.  And thank God for people that intervene like this, but, sometimes it won't turn out ok for that volunteer.

It's a bad scene all around.  But you may want to think through such things for you, in case fate puts you in such a place 

Get this

In Maryland, I can buy an AR15 lower.  I'm pretty sure it's same day, no wait period.

Don't make it into anything but a pistol or a HBAR.   I am on the honor system for that.

I gotta check this out, more deeply.  So, if I get crosswise with a po-po, and I have an AR I made after the 2013 law on a lower made in 2015, is there any penalty for that?

THAT's how I wanted it.

Manhattanite Chowderhead

Liz Krueger

Many have noticed the remarks of this silly Manhattan Leftist. "We should take over the NRA from the inside! It's worked for us in other situations." Yeah yeah, not too bright or able to see beyond Stage 1.

First, to take over you need to pay dues to the NRA. LOTS of dues.

Where does that money go while you are building up your left gun-banning majority inside the NRA? Well, it helps us, the Good Guys.

She probably thinks it only costs $25 to get a membership and vote. Well you get membership at that level, yes. And a magazine. So, the cost is more that she think for 5 years to wait for a voting membership or pay the $500 or so for a Lifetime membership.

And she'll need a LOTTA new member. Individual members. I doubt the NRA will send thousands of voting ballots to a single NYC PO Box. So they gotta tap all the anti-gun org's membership to be their mail drops. But there are no memberships in anti-gun orgs, so she has to build that up first. The NRA will also notice the membership surge even if not to a single PO Box. The secret will not be kept. Heck, I am talking about it now, here. So she will inspire more members to join on OUR side to counter her faction. And our side is kinda motivated. It'll be hard for her and her kind to match that enthusiasm with gun banners, no matter how much money she has.

Speaking on money. Let's say she pulls it all off, and does it in record time of a just a few years. She secures a million new lifetime members to corner a voting block. Plenty enough to shape the board. The old board, in the meantime has been using the fresh $500,000,000 in dues to lobby congress and state legislatures. With that kind of money they could make Maryland's gun laws to look like Montana's. (Anti-gun pols that vote to be more like Montana could rationalize that 'the Fed's are in charge of guns, we'll let them do all this...')

But she's won. She beat the NRA after all that and now she succeeds at... electing a new board of directors. The next election the NRA Board of Directors is all anti-gun people. All the money is gone, as we saw the writing on the wall. Remember, the secret wasn't kept well. What will the new board do? I guess no longer lobby for gun rights. Us pro-freedom folks would move on. Heck Maryland looks like Montana, remember? The coffers are empty, and not refilling. If a fresh move to ban guns came up another pro freedom group would spring up elsewhere or they'd rush toward an existing organization. In great hordes.

Now the leftists are out a lotta money and they are back to square one.

Naw, don't throw us in that briar patch.

Got a new car

It's the same one as I had already, but they took 125,000 miles off it.  I'll need another car in 4 years.  Sigh.  The price was good.

Still sorta wish I got the '04 Crown Vic with 35,000 miles on it.  But I need more cargo space every other week, and 2 weeks a summer, and 4WD for the 5 times it snows.

Looking at carmax, I could get a used Lincoln Towncar for $12,000 or less.  And.  I can afford that.  Now.  After buying a used Durango.  I would eat up a good portion of my emergency cash fund, but not even close to all of it.  I could still buy a new roof after that.  2 used cars and a roof without going into debt.  I should feel blessed.  And I do feel so.  

But you know what is expensive?  F150s.  Couldn't afford one of those without financing. 

I need a new car

NRA is in the pocket?

The NRA is apparently not in the pocket of a trillion dollar industry cabal formerly know as the Merchants of Death.  If liberal CNN admits it, it must be true.

from Sebastian

Clearance, Clarence

Kareem Abdul Jabbar collects 19th century shooting irons.   I didn't know that.  Pretty cool.

He also repeat a lotta Liberal canards and gun control shibboleths and conflations in his article about guns in Time.  And he wants to repeal the 2nd Amendment someday in the far future.

30,000 gun deaths!

It's those fat cat gun industry types!  Follow the filthy lucre!

We kilt off all the Injuns with guns!

I'm a gun owner's butt!

&c!

The usual.  Just vomiting up the standard anti-gun stats like so much spaghetti thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

But it's not JUST that.  Would that more Democrats thought as he did.  You just gotta sift through the logorrhea to get to the good stuff.

No, I'm kidding, it's not that at all.  It pretends that that is way the argument is going.  That there is an actual reasonable pony at the bottom of the pile of manure.   Kareem was reliably gun-banny.  Propaganda all througout.

AR Optics

Been thinking of putting something like this on an AR.

I like the reticle, I like that it lights up, too.  I like that it helps my older eyes see things futher away.  Good eye relief. 

The only problem is, I already have an AR.  I'd have to build another.  Not hard, but... daunting.  Too many decisions to make.

Trip Down T-Bolt Blog-Memory Lane

One of my more popular posts, from 2011, back when everybody and Adam's off Ox were switching to 9mm again.

I am more willing to switch over to 9mm now, and simply ditch the .40.  4 years ago I leaned toward .40 because I had .40 and didn't want to clutter up the ammo storage room with something new.  I still don't want to clutter up the bunker annex, but I'd just get rid of .40 and replace it with 9mm.  If you aren't going .45 because reasons, don't go halfway and just downshift to .40.  Take full advantage of what the 9mm has to offer in cost capacity and recoil manageability.

That said, I'm still nowhere near that place where I can see myself bring a 9mm home.  I'm just now getting good 1911 action, both in my skill level and the guns I am modifying myself with close supervision from a real gunsmith.

I guess I can always make a 1911 in 9mm....   No no.  That way lies madness...

Insurance

Anyone get this insurance, or something like it?  Post self-defense shooting insurance.

Defraying post shoot legal costs.  It makes me feel kinda hinky.  Why?  Sentences like this: 

"Bail assistance: The Network provides up to $25,000 to post bail on behalf of a member who has used force in self defense"

So, a fella calls, sez he needs bail and then they go...  'Whelp it doesn't look like self defense to us, you are on your own buddy.'  After skimming the police report, or whatnot.  Other things of that nature.  What if you legitimately defended yourself but lose the court case anyway?  Do they want their money back?

Maybe I am just over paranoid and suspicious.  And I am sure reams of legal documents come along with the policy just like my car insurance stuff.

Cost seems high:  "New members pay $125 for their first year's dues and renewing members pay $85 per year. Members can add a member living in the same household for an additional $50 per year."  I am thinking few member make a claim on their policy, but also they probably don't have thousands and thousands of members.  I pay 7+ times that for a car insurance policy every year, but claims on car wrecks are much more frequent...  I dunno...