RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - JULY 2004

:-/

Wrapping up The First Heroes. Skipped Stirling's entry, from the statist-collectivist Island in the Sea of Time universe. Poul Anderson's was last and worthy of his reputation. Starting Horowitz' Left Illusions, Radical Son back on hold again still unread.

Watched a video, Deadly Force: Firearms, Self Defense, & the Law, ANITE Productions 1994. Educational. Beyond the "don't do this, don't do that, this is not justified, that will get you arrested instead" of the criminal filth who deserves to be killed, there were several interviews with inmates, convicted of burglary, robbery, etc., who plainly said they avoid homes known to have armed inhabitants, they avoid potential victims who are known or suspected to be armed, and objectively stated that people should be armed to defend themselves and their homes against people like themselves, the convicts.

543 - Friday, 2 July 2004: Called again - still no word from the owner, call next week.

>:-| Do I really want to work at a place that takes this long to give an answer?

Ordering targets. Centers only, instead of full sheets - the idea is to hit the black, right? And centers are less expensive, weigh less for shipping costs, and take up less space in the car. 100 each SR1C, 100 yard Sporting Rifle, and MR31C, 100 yard Military Rifle (I guess); 50 each SR42C 200 yard Sporting, MR52C 200 yard Military and MR63C 300 yard Military. $43.30 total, cheapest shipping Parcel Post, $20.23 (14½ pounds o' paper!), $50 insurance (#%&*! Federal USPS employees...) only $1.20 more, total $64.83 - checkout screen says "handing incurred", +$1.77, total $66.60. But now I'll have real targets of my own to practice on for some time. I'll be spending more time at CR's lower, 300-yard, range henceforth.

Got the FM! Fondled a half-hour or so, awaiting reduced traffic, then off to Sportsman's Warehouse for A2230 and (the last!) box of Sierra Pro Hunter .323 150gr.

Now, with the case tumbler running with eighty pieces twice-fired Mauser, a more detailed examination. Slide says:

FABRICA MILITAR DE ARMAS PORTATILES "D.M." ROSARIO
D.G.F.M
LICENCIA F.N. BROWNING INDUSTRIA ARGENTINA

Cryptic little military proofmarks. Tiny "JLD ENT FARM CT" must be the import mark. Been dropped a couple times. Squinty little military sights (staked front) would actually help with carry; if they're on-target and if I can get used to acquiring them in a hurry I might leave them. Matching numbers on barrel and frame, but a different 8-digit number, lower by exactly 10,990, on the slide. Located and discerned operation of magazine disconnect for future bypassing, will leave it as-is for testing phase. Actually quite clean overall.... Matte black finish, somewhere between blueing and Parkerizing. Mushy safety as usual. Ring hammer, stubby tang cannot be called beavertail. External pivoting extractor with coil spring, less likely to break and easier to replace than long flexing internal type. Rebounding firing pin, does not protrude from breechface with hammer down. Half-cock notch. Function testing with a dummy round made while fiddling with 9mm dies - feeds from magazine, extracts & confidently ejects. Slide-to-frame fit rattles when in battery; barrel rattles with slide locked back. Trigger not completely awful but I can already see how removing the disconnect should improve it. Slight lack of support for case head at top of feed ramp. Caliber marked on side of chamber - left side, concealed by slide until disassembly. Magazines not drop-free; disconnect has something to do with that. Magazine well could use some beveling, especially at the front, for faster reloads; side-to-side, the double-column-single-feed gives lots of room, but fore-and-aft it's only a couple hundredths.

Even with obese Pachmayr grips, it feels good in the hand, and should feel even better with Uncle Mike's synthetic Spegels. Also it's just a good looking piece, with that finished, completed feel that marks Browning's brainchildren. After general cleaning & inspection, will live-test as-is tomorrow with factory FMJ & JHP; later will detail-strip and consider removing magazine disconnect and investigate replacing thumb safety.

Procrastinated (and overtime cut into loading time), only taking 80 rounds for MojoMauser tomorrow. Also, miscounted brass, apparently 140 rounds twice-fired Federal instead of 160; using twenty Winchester pieces. Still haven't finished the elevation screw but I can at least get windage set, and get more basic practice.

Michigan opines that IWB is the best all-around mode of carry - SW doesn't offer one for the GP35, will net-shop. Also there's a cop shop not far from the pawn shop where I found the FM, big Uncle Mike's display in window, if I can stomach a blueshirt environment and if they sell to peasants they might have something. Comparing FM and GP100 - pistol over an inch shorter than revolver, yet has longer barrel & sight radius and no flame-spewing cylinder gap. Pistol fatter in grip, thinner near everywhere else. Weight not much different. Michigan also suggests using JB Weld to build up the front post on the FR; with the big CETME ring protecting it, that's not a bad idea. He further points out that the GP35's safety lever is designed as a takedown tool, by using the notch in the slide to retain the slide while pushing out the slide stop lever - I knew that, and did it, but gave a generalized description of Browning-pattern takedown here.

Spied another GP35 at the same pawn shop, another FM, the current production with better sights, marked $399 - but probably only one or two, 10-round magazines. Anyway I have one now.

544 - Saturday, 3 July 2004: Okay, actually I'm still not done loading yet. Up earlier than I might have expected, got to it. Trimming cases, deburring and chamfering. .45ACP cartridge-box tray (UMC yellow-box at least) works as auxiliary loading block for the ‘06/Mauser family of cartridges, check the garbage cans at your local range instead of buying a block. There! 80 rounds, 60 in Federal and 20 in Winchester cases, all 45.0gr A2230, 150gr Sierra Pro Hunter .323, WLR primer, 3.0" COL. -Actually 3.0" is a little tight in the MTM boxes too, slightly concerned about tip deformation. Hm. Anyway powder measure, case trimmer, and seating die are all set for this load.

Remembering last session, taking more time, heading to range later after crowd has thinned (crowd caught up, apparently it's not a unique idea). Overcast today, heat wave abating, little fear of afternoon swelter. Heh - imagine aliens examining this planet for colonization - we've got temperature variations of fifty or sixty degrees in the same location in a typical year! Wind, lightning, water falling from the sky in both liquid and solid form! Hazardous ultraviolet radiation!

Fiddling - Uncle Mike's universal belt-slide holster sorta works, less clearance for getting the hand around the grip than I would like. Removing the Pachmayr frontstrap may help. Getting a proper grip is, say many experts, Very Important for accurate handgun shooting, and I know I have trouble with it. Well, now that I have a proper pistol I'll be practicing.

Arrived Clark Rifles ~1pm. Upper range, four Palma targets @ 25 yards - twenty aiming points for sixteen five-round strings.

Loading five rounds to test seating. Guess-adjust rear sight based on previous sessions. First string, not awful. Fire four, examine fifth round - bullet seating holds, tip deformed in magazine, hm. Trigger good now. No, or at least less, residue with the A2230 compared to the BL-C(2) - indeed I'll stick with the Accurate powder for this rifle. No more pressure signs than usual - Federal factory loads were showing flattened, and sometimes backing, primers; these loads show slight flattening and little if any backing.

Continue adjusting sights. Second string - on target! Still a disappointing group though. Third - same. Fourth - better....

1 2 3 4

That was Federal twice-fired brass. Now the Winchester twice-fired with the same load, and all twenty pieces were over 2.24" and trimmed to 2.235", will that consistency make a difference? -Again no extra residue or pressure signs, something's just weird about the BL powder, at least in this old Mauser. String five - hm, a bit more windage. Six - better.... Elevation. Seven - hmph. Eight - hmm....

5 6 7 8

Back to the federal brass. Nine - not bad! Ten - pretty good. Eleven - just a touch more windage. Twelve - hm. There's the windage anyway.

9 10 11 12

Jerky break.... String thirteen, acceptable. Fourteen, good.... Fifteen - exactly what I want. Target break, five rounds left, mix ‘em in with the next batch which will be the exact same load with even the same age brass, all twice-fired. Must do that resizing thing this week, and possibly phone SW to get more of those projectiles in. Meanwhile, eager to try the FM.

13 14 15

~3pm, to handgun range. Three magazines (numbered with small stickers); loading one, two and three rounds to test function and check for doubling or full-auto. A few stray rounds of UMC 115 FMJ. First shot, high & left - slide does not lock! -Brass OK except dirty.

That was magazine #1. Now #2 with two rounds - closer to point of aim, feeding and all OK, no doubling, slide locks after second round. Then magazine #3 with three rounds - everything good so far.

Now Winchester white-box 124gr FMJ. Mantis loading tool works okay but I can see how it could be better by moving the part that actually depresses the follower or top cartridge further out from the rear of the magazine - these magazines' followers have a tendency to tilt. Interesting, these are 15-round units! But do they feed them all?

Yes they do. Saving brass, net-on-a-stand brass-catcher provided by club. Residue down sides of cases, but no bulges or other pressure signs, no ejection dings.

Problem: safety re-engages at nearly every shot! I was going to replace the lever anyway but now I must look more closely at it. Anyway the sights are pretty close to POI, little need for improvement there. Thumbs - wrap the shooting thumb around the safety lever, support thumb holding shooting thumb down - that works, but I get hammer bite. Support thumb pressing down on safety - awkward, but at least I can test the function.

Bonus brass from the next lane, even the same brand.

Magazines #1 & #2 lock the slide prematurely with one round left, #3 is okay. Magazines don't really count as a problem in a firearm, especially with GP35 magazines available nearly everywhere. The followers of #s 1 & 2 are bent a little different from #3, but I've previously tried to get the magazines apart and can't manage it - the plastic floorplate is held by two catches stamped into the magazine body and it does not appear to be meant to be removed. If I can get them apart I might tweak the followers to get rid of the premature slide lock.

Now Winchester white-box 115gr JHP - any pistol can be expected to feed FMJ. And - this one feeds JHP! Except for one round from the whole box of fifty, and that was a failure to extract; the next round would have fed if the empty hadn't still been in the chamber, 8-9 rounds worked fine after clearing. Probably a dirty extractor.

Sightings: Beretta Storm carbine, eh; funky old J.C. Higgins tube-fed .22 semiauto rifle with weird wood side panels. S&W .500 - asked R/O if he really wanted that shooter using his supermagnum on the chronically-abused steel plates ("LEAD BULLETS ONLY"), no, he stepped over there and had a word. Packed up around 4pm.

Good session with rifle, educational with pistol. Only one misfeed of ~130 rounds, though that one was among 50 hollowpoints - but the next round would have fed if the spent case had not been in its way. Magazines are easily repairable or replaceable - the safety is the only real problem at this point. Later, cleaning, the sear/hammer engagement could use some work, but I'd want spares of those too - as a home gunsmith, I never alter original parts, frames or receivers.

Doing laundry, reading Left Illusions - not even past the preface and introduction yet and already very interesting. With notes and sources too. Savage describes liberalism as a mental illness - Horowitz writes with great eloquence, and the unparalleled authority not only of a former sufferer but a co-creator of the disease:

"I pretty well realized even at that time that you couldn't sit everybody down and re-educate them, make them good parents and good citizens. This meant that you couldn't really remake the world as the left intended without totalitarian coercion. But it was much more difficult to accept the consequences of that realization. For a long time, I simply could not face the possibility that there was no socialist future, that I was not going to be a social redeemer, and that we didn't have the answers to humanity's problems - in short, that I wasn't part of an historic movement that would change the world.

"The difficulty of coming to terms with one's own insignificance - which is a consequence of this realization - is why so many leftists can never leave the faith and are leading the same lives they did thirty and forty years ago. To give up the progressive fantasy would be too great a blow...." Editor and introduction writer Jamie Glazov notes that an anti-statist individualist was always lurking beneath Horowitz' red diaper; even in 1962-65, his essay Shakespeare: An Existential View, supposedly socialist, strikes me at some points as downright Nietzschean! -Left Illusions is largely a reprint of several of Horowitz' old articles and essays, and recent and new material, including chunks of his autobiography Radical Son, the library hold for which I will cancel for now in the interest of shrinking the reading queue to a manageable size.

Ordered synthetic Spegels. Next week ($), will order some magazines from CDNN, and probably a tin of Albanian 7.62x54R from Kiesler's. Dremeled slot in screw head, cleaned thoroughly with rubbing alcohol, JB Welded small bar of metal into it, set aside to cure - that will be my finger-adjustable elevation screw for the Mojo sight for multi-distance matches. Using digital calipers, measured elevation of rear sight relative to base, can theoretically dial in the same setting with the new screw, saving time and ammunition for next session.

545 - Sunday, Independence Day, 4 July 2004: Zzzz....

No fireworks event with the left-leaning SCA crowd, kinda bummed. But, in email last night Cruffler invites me to his place! Scraping up some funds, buying some last-minute (commie Chinese...) pyrotechnics. Had fun, met the wife and kids and dog, sighted the cat, ate burgers, blew up stuff - including my left hand at one point, when a roman candle chain-fired rather faster than it was supposed to and stuff came out the other end. (No actual injury, but quite disconcerting - keep both ends away from body parts, and grip it a little higher from the bottom.) But that's what you get for buying commie. My specialty of linking fireworks for long, varied displays was well-received. Also you can get Better Stuff in Washington than in Oregon.

Earlier, Cruffler and I examined the FM and discovered the problem - it you look at the parts diagram for the Browning Hi-Power in the Gun Parts Corp. catalog you'll see a little plunger thing in the forward surface of the safety lever (which is held in place by a typical pin, not shown), and if you look really close you'll see a couple small indentations in the frame where that plunger thingie engages. On the FM, the pointy tip of the plunger has broken or been worn off, and the safety lever no longer indents but mushes about. The obvious solution is to replace the plunger, or the entire safety lever.

So naturally I look up that part in the catalog - safety assembly complete, four pieces (consulting other diagrams I've downloaded - lever, plunger, spring, plunger retaining pin) is $66.85! Holy crap! Plunger, spring and pin not listed separately. But then Cruffler offers me a duplicate Brownell's catalog, #56 (which I already have, but what the heck) - they want $76.34! (Or $61.07 with FFL discount.) Unholy Crap! Cruffler suggests looking into Chip McCormick - after blowing stuff up and careening back to the hovel in the dark amid holiday interstate traffic, hopped online - CMC does not list any Browning parts, their onsite search engine returns no results for "browning"! Further examining Brownell's catalog, a Cylinder & Slide extended safety is $47.25 ($37.80), that's a little more realistic, but it's the gas-pedal type that might be problematic for carry; I'd rather have the not-quite-as-extended MkIII type. "Includes detent spring, plunger and instructions." "Gunsmith fitting required." Hmm.

Wider web search - SARCO lists one, "safety catch", $25.00, better.... Power Custom, extended, $47.25, no... might phone SARCO and ask details, whether it's stripped or complete.

546 - Monday, 5 July 2004: Paid holiday. Zzzz....

Vegging a while, updating ‘blog, answering email. Well sonuvagun! Michigan helping with rifle ballistics, wondering if Mojo would be interested in the elevation screw I'm making - that gets me to check their site, and they are making one that's click-adjustable for elevation! Sixty bucks for the rear unit alone, claiming .7-.8MOA clicks - and the rear unit is not available separately for the ‘98 series, only as a package with the front aperture I already have, for seventy-odd. Hmm. Well, probably not time to integrate it before the match, even if I could afford it. Um, I dunno, hmm, I just told Michigan that if Mojo came out with a click-adjustable model I'd buy it all over again....

Meanwhile continuing with my own expedient. Procrastinated again, just now cutting the slot in the screw head an mixing up the JB Weld - there. Might want to dress the end of the screw a little with the Dremel, so it bears about the same height whatever angle it's turned to. Crosspiece (a tiny aluminum tube, mixed in by the manufacturer with a bunch of larger brass tubes at work and scavenged therefrom) deliberately off-center, one end longer, giving me another visual cue to work with. Brush hook though.

The new MicroClick Mojo sight is available as rear-only for the Mosin-Nagant, hmm. Still haven't figured out how much Mosin fodder I have left - (rummagerummage) 60 rounds Albanian, and 160 rounds something else, copper-washed steel (it came in paper bundles, I thought it was brass-case Albanian), that should extract all right unlike the lacquered stuff (at least it's not that), and what appears to be a yellow tip on the FMJ projectile, hm, what is that, partial steel core AP stuff? Superhot loads for the PK/PKM/Dshomething? Headstamp might read "21 52" at 12 and 6 o'clock respectively. Well hm, still order a tin of Albanian from Kiesler's this payday, or try this copper-washed stuff on Saturday? (I asked Cruffler if he still had some and he said he'd give me a tin of Albanian if I set fire, pyrotechnically, to a certain annoying neighbor kid.... "I want scar tissue!")

You know, I still haven't fired the 91/30 since I swapped the trigger parts around to get a good pull. Front sight could be drifted just a little I think, I'll find out. Cruffler says a small C-clamp, properly applied, will do - yes, I see that, if I have one small enough. Forty-plus rounds required for the match, hm - set sixty aside, that leaves 100 to practice with - and ten rounds Albanian too, to see if it has the same POI. So 110 rounds 7.62x54R into the range bag. Oh wait a minute - one of those bundles is Albanian, okay, that's 80 rounds brass-case and 140 steel - I'll pack twenty and forty to check the 91/30 with, no sense getting carried away, especially if I'm also beating myself up with the Mauser.

Only forty .323 projectiles left, but a hundred-odd twice-fired cases waiting for resizing, rather more than that thrice-fired, counting the twenty each Winchester and Remington from way back. Will call SW from work tomorrow and make sure they have more. Aha! I knew it, another 45 rounds Albanian lurking amid the bachelor debris, that's 125, plenty for practice and one match relay, and I don't have to $queeze in more right away. Counting the five left from last time I'll have 45 rounds for the Mauser by the end of the week, and more brass prepped besides - reading Grennell's The ABCs of Reloading, tip: get brass prepped ahead, resized, cleaned, trimmed, primed, so when you get the rest of the stuff you can just dump the powder in and seat the bullets and go to the range.

547 - Tuesday, 6 July 2004: Called new place again - "slow quarter", not enough work to justify hiring me, but still "very interested", want me to keep calling until work picks up. Will call again Monday afternoon.

Called SW for projectiles - they are out, more "should be on the way."

Gas prices dropping, as low as $1.93 at some Portland ARCOs.

548 - Wednesday, 7 July 2004: People don't look. They don't see. And when they do, they don't understand what they are seeing. There's a certain hand tool which performs a function equivalent to a certain air-powered tool, and I use the former as a base of reference for adjusting the latter, then use a GO/NO-GO gauge to check both. When asked if the latter is set up, I say it is, and when doubts are expressed I attempt to explain the cross-referencing process. Blank looks. Right over their heads. Why bother?

And there's no hustle! With few exceptions, everybody's all mañyana or ngay mai (the person who taught me Vietnamese for "tomorrow" is one of the exceptions). No sense of urgency!

They're all screwed if I ever get a better-paying job. There's essentially no one here capable of taking over. Well phooey, they can pay me twenty an hour for consulting and training - in advance, in writing, considering the history of this place, and after hours so it won't interfere with my regular job.

549 - Thursday, 8 July 2004: At work, corporate VP "observing." (Slumming? Spending most time in the production supervisor's little corner office, gazing out the windows together at the little people doing things with their hands. Or sitting in the conference room talking on the phone and pecking on a laptop that cost more than my entire collection.)

But maybe I'm just cynical and bitter.

Or not. Now comes word that, considering the paid holiday Monday, overtime pay won't count until 40 hours have been physically worked. Which means the three hours I already have this week may not count. And I was thinking of working Saturday too, to get another five hours and keep all the machines from breaking or catching fire in my absence. But that's corporate policy and I'm still a temp (nine months!) - called temp rep, not in, will call tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, putative backup alerted to prepare for crash-course in machine setup, fire-prevention, and shoelace-tying. (Oh! Another reason to skip Saturday - Barberton! They'd all be packed up by the time I got off (7am-Noon) and got up there.)

Doug McIntyre covering for vacationing Larry Elder, interviewing Jayna Davis, author of The Third Terrorist, which provides evidence of a link between the Oklahoma City Bombing and middle-Eastern terrorists - and then between them and September 11, via Boston's Logan Airport, where the hijackers boarded. Callers - OKC was Clinton's Reichstag Fire, the Omnibus Bill Crime (including the "assault" weapons ban) passing only a few months after.

News item: due to "budget shortfalls", Multnomah County sheriff Giusto releasing prisoners from county jail. You care so much about law and order and public safety, Bernie, take a pay cut, you blackmailing bureaucratic bloodsucker! We voted against a new fleet of SUVs for your department, or a new tailored uniform for yourself, so you're endangering the community you swore to protect and serve by releasing violent felons as part of your temper tantrum! You're collaborating with criminals to coerce the voting public!

So there's another bastard to vote out. Ya know, I think I'll print that out and mail it to the little greenshirt. Any vestige of respect I may have had for the law-enforcement community has now been burned off.

Continuing Horowitz' Left Illusions - fascinating. Horowitz should be given leadership of the Republican National Committee, just as one reviewer recommends in the flyleaf blurbs. Or what the heck, put him in charge of a Libertarian Presidential campaign, the LP might actually get somewhere for a change. And some of his former comrades should be hunted down and executed for treason.

The other day Cruffler posted, on a Cruffle-list I'm not on (as I don't have a C&RFFL), seeking a replacement safety lever for my GP35 - got some links, Gun Parts Corp. of course but I knew their prices already; Marstar of Canada but I'm not very comfortable with an international order. But one respondent says he's got an old safety from when he swapped in a gas-pedal and he'll just mail the sucker to Cruffler for me! I love gunfolk!

Later, SARCO responds to my email, the one they want $25 for is "old style" (tiny military like my Argentine-surplus FM has) and is "complete, used." But now one's on the way! Cruffler, I'm buyin' you dinner! Earlier, e-contacted Charles Daly (KBI (FEG)) for a manual for their new GP35 clone, may include parts/price list for future need - and as I recall, CD's offering uses gas-pedals. Reading the responses to Cruffler's inquiry I was starting to lean toward an extended safety after all.

Parking trouble during reconstruction, neighbor and I squeezing around and beside stacks of lumber and plywood, Large Dumpster for roof debris. Car closer to the street than I am comfortable with, especially considering the latest trailerful of vagrants in the cul-de-sac. Work crew relays word through neighbor that they want me to park right there, discouraging theft of materials - report of potential thief casing the joint. Circled wagons with neighbor.

100 pieces (including 20 Remington) Mauser brass resized, waiting in tumbler. Hope to get another box or two of Pro Hunters, WLR primers, and possibly another jug of A2230 tomorrow. If SW is still out of projectiles I'll have them order some; anyway I can take 45 Mauser rounds next session with the components I have.

550 - Friday, 9 July 2004: Called temp rep - same policy at temp service. Apparently I would get paid the regular rate for up to 48 hours, counting the holiday, then overtime after that.

Frankly I'd rather go to Barberton and get some rifle practice. Meanwhile, attempting to train a backup in the things needed for Saturday. At least this one speaks American. But you remember some months back (#330), how I was lamenting that some people are no good with their hands? I begin to get the chilling impression that I am exceptionally good with my hands, in the use of tools and the handling of machinery. It's never seemed that way to me - it's always seemed obvious that such-and-such thing was used or held or done this way - but if true, the country and the world are in worse shape than I feared.

More than once Blacksmith has asked me when I would open my own gun shop. My usual answer has been, "After the revolution." (Technically, after the counter-revolution - Constitutional government has already been overthrown, and my kind want it back.) I think now the answer might be not "after" but "upon." The Cause might need my services in that regard instead of in the field, if they're in such scant supply.

OTOH, it is largely gunfolk, patriots, independent-minded, de facto intellectuals (not to be confused with the Ivory Tower professors who claim to be so smart) that have such real-world skills - the same people I'll be joining up with. A minority, to be sure, but a very capable one - lots of gunfolk can make me look like a klutz. So we oughta wipe the floor with the enemy while doing our own gunsmithing, and combat engineering for that matter.

Strategic considerations aside of course. The Confederacy was off to a roaring start until Federal industry caught up with them and crushed them with sheer numbers. Likewise the Japanese Empire and the Third Reich. Lessons of history must be borne in mind - when working from a numerical or industrial disadvantage, strategic goals must be achieved quickly or not at all. Yamamoto promised Hirohito six months of victory, and delivered - and he knew that was all he'd get. He recognized the sleeping giant before it was awakened.

Hitler was just - well, no, he wasn't just a doofus at first, the RAF was all but eliminated, the Wehrmacht was in artillery range of Moscow. Hitler got victory disease, a terminal case, orders of magnitude worse than Lee at Gettysburg. He got impatient, starting the war too early (I believe his original plans called for 1946, after the Kriegsmarine was up to strength, which it never reached); he got greedy, invading Russia when Operation Sealion, the invasion of England, was permanently postponed. What he should have done was let the non-aggression pact with Stalin stand a while longer; consolidate continental Europe, which he already had by 1941; use European resources to build up a proper surface navy and develop new technologies like jets and rockets and long-range bombers and the sturmgewehr.

Speaking objectively of course.

Savage reports the Israeli Wall - more like a fence - is working; in a particular area the fence now protects, something like 73 attacks in a period before, and 3 in the same period after.

And the United Nations' International Criminal Court - the one Bush says now has the right to try Americans - says the fence is illegal and should come down. Apparently those champions of international peace and brotherhood in The Hague are concerned about the Palestinians' right to invade sovereign Israeli land and blow up innocent Israeli children.

Did I mention I'm getting more rifle practice?

Off to Sportsman's Warehouse - still out of 150gr .323" Sierra Pro Hunters. "There's supposed to be someone staring at a computer in Utah" noticing that this store is out. Frustrated, splurged on 1,000 WLR primers ($15.50), another pound of A2230 ($17.50), and two 3-packs (@ $3.50) of flourescent Crosman #T17R styrofoam-like allegedly-visually-reactive targets, 17" square with orange rings, 4¼" solid-color 10 ring (2" X), others vary from 1¼" to almost 2" wide in no particular pattern - the 6 ring is 16 3/4" in diameter. Anyway I hope hits will be easy to spot through my 45x Tasco at 300 yards.

No sign yet of the targets I ordered, or the GP35 grips.

Responding to a Californian (gods help him) reader's report, stopped at Big 5 to confirm one can still place firearms on layaway here - reportedly Californian stores forbid it, requiring payment in full. Sighted new offering, NEF "Pardner" (I thought that was the old single-shot; I used to own a 20ga) slide-action repeating shotgun, quite possibly a Remington 870 clone, $222.99 with 28" vent-rib and wood ("walnut"). Also saw the Mossberg M500 Combo in 20ga at the same weekly-sale price as the 12.

Still frustrated, off to Wal-Mart of all places (icky Wal-Mart people!), bought Winchester white-box 100-pack of 9x19mm 115FMJ, eleven bucks (11¢/round, reloadable!); Plano single-rifle hard case, eight bucks. No reloading supplies at all. Still frustrated, G.I. Joe's - no 8mm projectiles, worse prices, no purchases. I already know Bi-Mart doesn't carry 8mm projectiles. This is Sierra #2400, I may just mail-order some - may stop at Brightwater Ventures or L-L Guns, or even that new place by the freeway, in and around Vancouver to see if I get lucky. Cruffler also tells of another shop further east, out Camas/Washougal way. Anyway the case tumbler is running and I'll have 45 Mauser rounds tonight.

No suitable IWB holsters for the GP35 sighted. Uncle Mike's Size 5 open-top, the flimsy ~$10 item - I want retention. What is this conspiracy of exclusion where the Browning Hi-Power is concerned? Is it not the standard military sidearm of dozens of countries to this day, near seventy years after its introduction? Is it not a true braingrandchild of Saint John? Is it not one of the Best Fighting Pistols of All Time? So where's all the stuff for it, man?

Yes, those 45 Mauser rounds are done. Interesting - the ~200 pieces of Federal brass still mostly don't need trimming - many are still under the trim-to length after two firings. But the Winchester and Remington brass are all over published-maximum 2.24" after two. So either Federal makes their brass short, or it's not as soft and stretchy as some people claim. The Federal is of different vintages, too, bought both before and after a packaging change.

Packing range bag, previously-acquired double-sided hard case for Mosin and MojoMauser - both with bayonets. Smallest in-hovel C-clamp too big; steel punch, brass hammer, punch tip inside spent .22LR case for mar-prevention, pound on Mosin's front sight - alignment marks in sight and base now aligned, they were a bit off and I seem to recall the POI was off in that direction. Packing those tools. If I can get the windage right I can handle some Kentucky in my elevation.

Thinking of how I'll figure my self-assigned standings in the mixed-target PIG Match. Will use the military figures for the presumably-military MR targets, but the SR targets with relatively-larger scoring rings, I dunno - I have an official NRA classification in Sporting Rifle now, I can't just lump the PIG in with that. Hmm.

Thinking of the FM. Cruffler says any magazine over the originally-designed 13 rounds commonly fails; Michigan says he's heard of good reliability from the Argentine 17-round units. Michigan inquires about the construction of the follower, stamped vs. cast or molded - yes, these 15-round KRDs have stamped followers bent into shape, and in two of three cases a little out of shape, leading to the premature slide lock. (But they do feed, otherwise. If I could just get them apart....)

551 - Saturday, 10 July 2004: ZZZZ....

Departing ~10am for Clark Rifles (via Barberton) with Mosin 91/30, 20 rounds Albanian, 40 rounds copper-washed steel-case FMJ; MojoMauser, 45 rounds of my settled load, 150gr Sierra Pro Hunter over 45.0gr A2230 at 3.0"; and completed membership application form bearing Cruffler's official scrawl as sponsor. Pro-rated quarterly, the rest of this year is $30.

FM staying in hovel until the safety arrives, then will seek bulk ammunition. Besides the Winchester white-box 115FMJ (brass-colored jacket!) 100-packs at Attractive Prices at Wal-Mart, Bi-Mart still has yellow-box UMC Mega Packs, 250 rounds of 115gr FMJ 9x19mm for thirty bucks - twelve cents a round, that's as good as you'll see for a lot of surplus stuff at shows! Counting shipping it beats a lot of Shotgun News ads. And this is new, American-made, Boxer-primed brass! .40 and .45 also available, competitively priced. Sportsman's Warehouse wants much more for the exact same stuff. Previously, priced bulk lead projectiles at SW: ~$18/500 115gr .356 LRN for one brand, two others available at higher prices, there's my plate loads; but it might be more practical to buy some lead rounds at a show. Anyway will seek second powder measure at Barberton, on principle at least. Second case trimmer too I think.

Arrived Barberton ~10:30am with essentially no money, with $30 set aside for Clark Rifles membership, $20 for fuel, and phone & car insurance bills budgeted. But I can look, and yak with Cruffler. Something to look for: Hornady locking rings for standard 7/8" dies, split-clamp type superior to set-screw type on Herters and RCBS dies. SW wants $2.50 each new, I've seen bins of used locking rings at Barberton before. -None of those, but bought 4-piece 9mm die set, three matching (sizer/decapper, seater/crimper, expander) RCBS and a Lee (taper crimp?) they threw in (& shellholder!), five bucks.

Wandered about Vancouver. Got some fuel ($1.89⁹!), sniffed over some shops looking for Pro Hunters- the new place by the freeway, fire marshal refuses to allow reloading components without sprinkler system, including inert lead and copper projectiles. Brightwater Ventures - not the projectiles I'm looking for. Bi-Mart across the street from there - no 8mm, just like Portland. 4th Plain Discount Guns - no supplies in stock, can order... in 7-10 days, for more than SW wants. What the heck, all the way up to L-L Guns in Battle Ground - nope. Phooey! -Sighted scruffy-but-solid Win'94, .30-30 of course, $150 - but I want a Marlin, probably in .357.

Arrived Clark Rifles ~1:30pm. Holy crap! My copy of the June newsletter did not list the Cast Bullet Association match for this weekend (though it does appear in the July issue)! Lower range in use - what a crowd! Three-day match. Campers and trailers. Tents. Idaho license plates. These folks take shooting seriously.

$30 to R/O for membership - forgot $40 initiation fee! Wrote check. Later, he discovers he can't take the membership forms there, they have to be snailmailed with payment to a Vancouver P.O. box, okay. (In the box at my local actual-real Post Office that evening where even they won't miss it come Monday morning.)

Well, I can do 100 yards on the upper range. Starting with MojoMauser, ALCO five-place targets; 45 rounds, fifteen 3-round strings for conservation. Windage set last session, then elevation screw replaced; now confirming elevation setting for 100 yards with bayonet. X-Acto knife to score lines in side of Mojo rear sight relative to curvature of old Czech tangent sight base, if I get that far.

Which I didn't. String one: all over. Two: high & right. Adjust sight. Three: I appear to have my 100-yard setting. Just to be sure - four: I knew one round was off, I couldn't tell where. Five: hmm.... (For scale, the orange center is 0.88 inches in diameter, and the rings are 1/2" apart, outside-to-outside.)

1 2 3 4 5

Fresh target. Sightings: one guy had four, count ‘em four small Martini-action rifles, Cadets I guess. Long skinny straight-wall rimmed cartridges, .30-ish.

String six... seven... eight - this is the center point of aim, and I can use the others, equidistant, to really-really center the sight picture. And you can see the difference. That's a 100-yard 3-round group! Yeah! (Now if she'd only stay there....)

That was all Federal brass (25 pieces). Now one round in Federal and two in Remington cases, same load. String nine - hmph. Ten: sloppy, too fast.

6 7 8 9 10

Fifteen rounds left, fresh target. Slow down.... Eleven: ick. Twelve: damn. Thirteen, center POA again - phooey. Fourteen: better.... Starting to see case fouling like with the BL-C(2) powder last time. String fifteen, last three Mauser rounds: hmph. Must load more. Maybe the bayonet is just too much - this rifle seems solid enough without.

11 12 13 14 15

About 2:50pm, now the Mosin 91/30. Again 100 yards on ALCO five-place targets, sandbags, bayonet. Sixty rounds today, will make fifteen four-round strings. Starting with brass-cased Albanian.

String sixteen of the day: way left! Beat on front sight some more. Seventeen: bloody awful. Eighteen (no visual advantage to the center POA, with the post-and-notch) - huh. Stiffer recoil, shoulder complaining. Tough it out for the rest of the Albanian. String nineteen, hm. Twenty, bleah. Not scanning the Mosin groups. Maybe I'll just stick with the Mauser in both relays.

Shoulder can't take it, packing up about 3:30. Scored 20+ pieces Federal .308 brass.

Disappointing rifle session, after so much progress last time. And I seem to recall the Mosin shooting better than that. Maybe I'll put those sear parts back in the Hungarian M44.... Nah, next session, the MojoMauser without the bayonet.

Dig this first-hand account - with photographic evidence yet! - of bigotry, censorship, and threats of violence, from so-called "liberals" toward someone just trying to exercise that freedom-of-speech thing the "tolerant, inclusive, open-minded, peace-loving" leftists claim to love so much. This guy's in high school! Independent thinker - takes initiative - gets his Stuff together, with hustle - handles himself well under stress - leadership abilities. I'd hire him! This guy is elite, as opposed to the elitists threatening to rough him up. He'll go far if he's not assassinated, or simply lynched by his bloodthirsty hatemongering classmates.

Let me spell it out: Democrats are almost entirely "liberal." "Liberals" are provably oppressive, racist, anti-Semitic, exclusionary, contemptuous of law except when they're enforcing it, and prone to violence. In basic algebra, if A=B and B=C, then A=C, meaning DEMOCRATS ARE MODERN-DAY NAZIS! And they're in charge of the institutions shaping the minds of our youth....

Fiddling with new(er) 9mm dies - the Lee stray is a sizer, and possibly a better one, but is missing the decapping thing; well, that gives me three 9x19mm sizing dies to choose from, two of which can probably be made to remove spent primers, and at future shows I can look for stray die parts to rebuild the Lee. Rough-adjusting expander and seater dies for my old RCBS JR2 press. Between these and the Herters and a little more tweaking and testing, I can now reload 9x19mm - but it'll probably be more cost-effective to just buy bulk at the Expo or Vancouver Fairgrounds shows.

E-shopping for Sierra #2400. Lessee, I pay $16.99 for a box of 100 at SW, that's 17¢ each retail. Figuring shipping and all, MidwayUSA is 25¢ for one box, 19¢ for two and 17.6¢ for three; Cabela's is 21.4¢, 19¢ and 18¢; some place called "Arms & Ammo" with a really long, weird URL, 23¢ for one box, 19.4¢ for two. Probably if I order four or more I start beating retail - but then I start crowding three figures for a single online order, when I rarely have three figures in my checking account to begin with. But I may hit Midway for three or four boxes at any moment, touching (slightly rebuilt) savings if I have to. Want those projectiles! I might even drive to SW's Salem store to get them in time for the match.

Detail-stripping the FM, picking out gobs of Argentine-surplus gunk. Removing magazine disconnect - magazines are now drop-free! Oh- nope- hanging up on those fat rubber Pachmayrs squishing through the frame! And that should be fixed soon. Meanwhile if I back the grip screws off just a little the magazines drop free and the grips still stay put.

Anyway everything else still works. Trigger might be a little better, but sear and hammer are the problems now. Now I can dry-fire without a magazine in the pistol (yeek!). Examining safety lever - it's more chewed than I first thought, there's a flange thing that engages a special hole in the ejector to keep the safety in the frame, and it looks largely broken off, so my safety lever could have gone sailing into the sunset - and the safety is also the hammer pin! Yipe! No other damage evident, but how the heck did it get that way? (The broken surfaces do not look fresh.) Later-model external extractor is standard on most countries' current production, so I can find a replacement if that fails - it was really gunked in its slide recess, that probably explains the (one! Single! Only!) non-magazine or non-safety failure (to extract) in the whole session last weekend.

Ah! I think I figured out how to get the KRD magazines apart, by pushing real hard on the plastic floorplate with thumbs (after whacking against a piece of wood at a certain angle to get it started, then carefully levering with a screwdriver). Yes! Now a little judicious bending of the stamped sheetmetal follower - magazine goes back together properly - slide locks back.... Made a second dummy round, feeds both, slide locks when it should and doesn't when it shouldn't, so far so good! Looking really close with the slide locked back by the safety, the reshaped followers no longer touch the inside nub of the slide lock lever with one round left. Live-fire will be the real test and, after discovering the safety lever's other missing metal, that will have to wait (Cruffler forwards email that the replacement is in snailmail - when he tells me it's arrived I'll damn well drive up to Vancouver and ring Cruffler's doorbell and ask him where his favorite restaurant is. Twenty years! Twenty-three years I've been waiting for one of these pistols and here it mostly is!). Took apart #3 and tweaked it too on principle - I think I've fixed all three of my 15-round magazines!

552 - Sunday, 11 July 2004: Zzzz....

Up noonish fiddling about. 60 twice-fired Mauser cases primed and ready to load, big pile of thrice-fired awaiting resizing, etc. No cracking or bulging yet evident.

Staring at FM's guts, particularly sear and hammer. Way too much sear engagement IMO. Now, my flintlock (the one that works) has a little screw running through the tumbler to bear on the sear, thereby adjusting sear engagement - and I've seen itty bitty hex-head set screws at the local hardware store. Would it be feasible to drill & tap a hole in a (replacement!) sear and make a similar arrangement? Obviously it would have to be off to one side, instead of centered, as there is a slot in the center of the hammer to accommodate the hammer spring strut, hmm. Now where would I find a replacement sear? Brownell's - $47.20! GPC, $37.60. That's just too much! Holy crap! Brownell's wants three hundred dollars just for a Browning-factory barrel! GPC wants a hundred, apparently that FAC aftermarket stuff. No sign of a .30 Luger barrel.

553 - Monday, 12 July 2004: Well, the place didn't burn down and there wasn't too much of a mess to clean up.

Called the new place - still nothing. Some layoffs. Call back in "a couple weeks." And what did I ever do to the gods, that they should hate me so?

Workers - don't want to give up their "personal" hand tools in the new tooling scheme, where tools stay with particular workstations instead of individual operators. You got a receipt for those pliers? Too bad! Grow up! And get rid of all that personal clutter, maybe you'll actually have room on the table to do your #^&*! JOB for a change!

One cell left a heat gun and a soldering iron on when they left for lunch. And the heater was not in "cool down" mode. Are these people trying to burn the place down?

"Move as the spirit lists" do you? I'm going to put Kipling's The Gods of the Copybook Headings on my site in its entirety. And maybe The Islanders too, while I'm at it. Poor Rudyard - if he were alive today, a single evening's headlines would kill him. It's only gotten worse!

Horowitz methodically dismantling the socialist fantasy. I knew things were bad in the Soviet Union, but really! Wheat, for example - in 1909-10 Russia was "breadbasket of the world," exporting like 40% of their crops. Not long after the Revolution, they had 40% crop spoilage and couldn't feed their own people! Under the Tsars, Russian industrial capacity almost doubled, their railroad network had grown vastly, 68% of military conscripts tested literate (even we have trouble meeting that figure, these government-educated days...). During the height of their presumed socialist utopia, hospitals were without running water! After the Wall fell, the lines for a Big Mac (at half a day's wages for the average Soviet!) at the first Moscow McDonalds were longer than they ever were for the shrine of Lenin.

Oh, no, no no NO. One of the things the GM at the new place mentioned was the Small Disadvantaged Business program, under which they are trying to get certified. "[The Small Business Administration] certifies small businesses that meet specific social, economic, ownership, and control eligibility criteria." "Under the government's reformed affirmative action rules, small disadvantaged business (sic) are eligible for price evaluation adjustments of up to 10 percent when bidding on federal contracts in certain industries." It's political correctness! It's socialism! It's government-sanctioned racism! It's a place that does business with the feds! NOOOOOO!!!!

Emailing the guy who suggested the place. What am I getting into? -And does he have any alternatives up his sleeve?

Called Salem Sportsman's Warehouse - one box of Sierra #2400 on hand, $16.99. Am I really going to drive umpty miles for one lousy box of projectiles? Called Portland store - none in yet of course. Well, if I can get out of the sprawl and headed south in the first place, rush hour should be over by the time I get there, and overer on the way back.

Yes, drove down to Salem for what may have been the last box of Sierra #2400 available retail in the state of Oregon. Also got Lee #19 Auto Prime shellholder for 9mm, $2.99. Charged back up the interstate, did miss most of rush hour.

The grips are here! Slapping ‘em on - fit good, look good, feel good! Magazines drop free. Much easier to reach magazine catch now, and even the slide release, though I expect to be using the tug-on-the-slide technique; I've read that some experts discourage use of the slide-lock lever as it can wear the slide. Can't wait for that safety!

USPS card, apparently the large package of targets are in, but of course the post office is closed by now. Still some overtime at work too, might not get them ‘til Saturday.

August American Rifleman - article on Charles Daly Hi-Power, which netgunfolk say is in fact a glorified FEG. (CD is part of KBI, or vice-versa.) Full-page tribute to Reagan, "Champion for Gun Owners" - no mention of his calling the Brady Act "just plain good sense" or of his & Nancy's names appearing on the BoD of HCI. Article on the Nepalese palace treasure, as advertised by International Military Antiques and Atlanta Cutlery. Some Kerry-bashing - but no mention of Bush's pledge to renew the "assault weapons" ban.

554 - Tuesday, 13 July 2004: Got the targets, only slightly smooshed. Could have been packed better.... I've worked in warehouses, I know how to pack a box fer cryin' out loud.

Beg-for-money from Republican National Committee: "I don't want to believe you've abandoned the Republican Party...." No, you abandoned me! "...I know how generously you have supported the RNC in the past and how instrumental your help was in electing a Republican President and Congress." What republicans? Show me a republican and I'll support him! PHOOEY! Again, not one word about my single voting issue.

Weird thing from "Subscription Processing," Barstow, FL, to renew Shotgun News - I seem to recall word on some gunfolk list of some scams involving SGN. I'll wait for one that says Primedia on it.

Envelope from KBI, manual for the Charles Daly HP! Parts diagram and list, but no parts prices; toll number to call to order parts, says must provide firearm details including serial number, hm. Anyway the CD gas-pedal safety doesn't look too bad, I may look into getting one. Ah, an email address. Otherwise, nothing in the manual I didn't already know.

Succumbed to temptation, squeeeeezed finances and ordered four boxes of Sierra #2400 from Midway, slightly cheaper than Cabela's with shipping and all. Expected arrival Wednesday the 21st. Meanwhile, resized the Remington and Winchester thrice-fired; plus the 60 Federal twice-fired and the fruits of the Salem expedition that's 100 rounds I can load by next session. (Hey, at least I'm not drinking, or buying comic books, or going to casinos. There are worse expensive tastes to have.)

Dunno about membership, might end up paying the $10 walk-in fee again if the member tag doesn't arrive. I've a suspicion they don't process new members ‘til the monthly meeting, which is the day after the PIG (usually every fourth Sunday - so there's another entry in my new, non-leftist-SCA social calendar). Eh, I can squeeze out another ten bucks. Annual meeting August 8th.

555 - Wednesday, 14 July 2004: Grumping at the facility manager on a variety of topics. Hell, he might tell them to take the job and shove it, for his own reasons. -Changes among the officecritters - competent one goes out, new one comes in, praises "management team" - that would be the Ivory Tower types who sit in the corner office chatting all day. -Still have trouble finding people who can read, speak, and/or understand Amurican. -Still waiting for simple things like wire cutters and wastebaskets and chairs. -Suddenly-superhot-rush projects because acts are not being got together, all up and down the line. I might have quit today if I had any realistic opportunity lined up.

Continuing Left Illusions. Depressing and infuriating by turns. "Liberals" are so blatantly, monstrously bigoted and oppressive I can hardly wrap my mind around it. ("We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." -Dr. Kathleen Dixon, director of women's studies, Bowling Green State University.) Horowitz, having been a raging leftist, has an unparalleled perspective on that mental disorder, and he writes pretty good too. I strongly recommend this book to any "liberal" having second thoughts, and to anyone on the side of Liberty who wants a better understanding of the enemy.

Email from Cruffler, still no safety. Email from Midway, the Pro-Hunter projectiles have shipped!

Fiddling with cases - interesting, the Federal brass needs little if any trimming after three firings, but both the Remington and Winchester need trimming after two, and again after three! Anyway after next session I'll set the Rem and Win aside and all my 200-something pieces of Fed will have had the same number of trips through the sizer and the chamber. Should probably get a primer-pocket brush.

Thinking back to the first session with the FM. Earlier, Michigan said that a steel-frame 9mm is a joy to shoot - and he's right. I don't recall particularly noticing the recoil and certainly felt no discomfort after ~130 rounds. I'll be searching SGN and net-shopping for bulk ammunition, and hitting shows of course. Next show expected to have ammo vendors, Hillsboro, 21-22 August, unless I go waaay the heck up to Centralia at the end of this month. Overpriced overcrowded Expo show mid-September. There is a gun shop or two around that will sometimes have bulk ammo.

556 - Thursday, 15 July 2004: All my working life I've been looking for a decent job, somewhere hard work is rewarded and slacking is punished. All I've found so far is the opposite.

Preferred supervisor talks me into working this Saturday, at least I should get actual overtime pay this time. Officecritters rumormongering about me, hmph.

Assembling more shelves (one of those things they don't dare let anyone else do unless they want it to end up looking like the wreck of the Hindenberg - competence is a curse! The only reward for good work is more work!). Flawed design, insufficient support between upper and lower sections of the verticals, they'll probably fall apart eventually anyway - avoid Edsal shelving units, Chicago, IL.

Well sonuvagun! Sheriff Giusto actually phoned offering an opportunity to discuss issues like releasing criminals. Though my letter to the bureaucrat had nothing to do with RKBA I think I'll email OFF for advice. Now, as I recall, last time a big tax hike - possibly the sales tax - was voted down, a previous county sheriff, or Portland's police chief, released a herd of prisoners just in time for live video on the 5-o'-clock news; message: these dangerous violent criminals are being let loose on your streets to prey on you and your children because you didn't submit to our socialist dictates. The details escape me at the moment but there is a precedent which caused me to write that really quite nasty letter to sheriff Giusto.

Cruffler emails, still no safety. %#&*! USPS....

FM magazines not all I could hope for. If I slam a full one firmly into the well with the slide removed for safety (live rounds; I don't have that many dummy cartridges), just as though I were reloading Briskly with the slide locked back, the first cartridge will jump partly out of the feed lips; sometimes all the way, where it would rattle around in, or jump right out of, the ejection port. Probably it would feed all right after that, but that would be a lost cartridge dangit! Carefully tweaking lips - no great improvement. Tweak too far and the pistol won't feed the dummy cartridges, the pickup point on the breechface skips right over the cartridge head. Well, I was going to get more and different magazines anyway.

New images:

A co-worker came up with this one - she'd like to wear it on a t-shirt at work (and so would I) but doesn't dare:

557 - Friday, 16 July 2004: Kevin Starrett of OFF responds to my plea for advice - states that I'm far from the only person Giusto's heard from, and that the sheriff is just desperately trying to not get unelected; that any meeting would only be the sheriff citing piles of stats I would be unable to refute, justifying even more tax hikes; that I owe the sheriff nothing, apology, meeting, return phone call, nothing. Also reminds me of Giusto's probable complicity in DEMOCRAT former DEMOCRAT RAPIST governor Neil CHILD-MOLESTING DEMOCRAT Goldschmidt's statutory RAPE of a 14-year-old girl.

I'll take that advice, dropping the matter here and picking it up again at the polls. And I'll write a check to OFF right the heck now.

Cruffler emails, the safety has arrived! Heading up there later, after summer-weekend traffic, need (cheaper Vancouver) fuel anyway.

Snailmail greeting card from temp service, personally signed by my particular rep, thanking me for hard work. Well okay. But I'm still doing $20/hour work for $10/hour, and the production floor isn't getting any brighter. And, on latest pay stub, "Vacation Available: 0.00" - "Sick Time Available - 0.00." Hmph.

Got the safety! Installed, works. Still infamously mushy but at least it should stay put under recoil. The mush appears to come from the fact that the safety lever shaft is also the hammer pin, and has mainspring pressure on it, unlike the 1911 or CZ75. An extended lever, for greater leverage ("Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand and I will move the world!"), would probably help, but I think my Hi-Power is fully functional now! Pictures soon.

Yakked with Cruffler, ate burgers, played tug-o'-war with dog. Interesting account of a man living "off the grid" - "I knew a guy and his name wasn't Stanley." Got back late, will veg after work tomorrow, then load Mauser rounds. Range trip Sunday. I ask Cruffler if Clark Rifles processes memberships at the monthly meetings or what, and he says "Or what." Maybe I'll see the same range officer I handed the money to last time.

Cruffler also showed me (one of) his Hi-Point carbine(s). It has some interesting features. Extractor made of two stampings sandwiched together - I understand the original AR18/180 had much of its guts made that way, to simplify construction for the export/licensed-production market. Firing pin acts as ejector - now that could be a problem, what if you have to eject a live round? Overhanging bolt like the Uzi, or the Uzi's ancestors the CZ23-26. Not the worst sights I've ever seen; Cruffler says the rear sight assembly can be replaced with a (stamped, but) Weaver/Picatinny-standard optics base. 9x19mm only, apparently simple blowback. ~$150 (used, but still!). Now, if it took common double-column magazines, like the S&W 59xx/69xx type my Marlin Camp Carbine takes, I might be quite interested - but it's a proprietary 10-round single-column unit instead.

Fiddling with FM. Safety very stiff going on, adequate coming off if I get my thumb onto it right. Practice, practice, etc. Hopefully I can get a price list from Charles Daly and order one of their sort-of-extended levers as a replacement at a reasonable price. -Safety smoothing a little with use maybe.

Part of becoming comfortable and confident, and therefore effective, with a firearm is to just handle it, get used to the weight, balance, the feel of the piece, where things stick out, where the sharp edges aren't, until it flows into the hand naturally and becomes an extension of the body and an instrument of the will. I don't claim to have attained such a level, but at least I can conceive of and aspire to it. In the foreseeable future this is going to be my primary sidearm, and I intend to become very familiar with it. -One thing I've already learned is, it's a lot harder to do a Mexican Roll with a semiautomatic than with a revolver. Hmm, unless I roll it the other way....

558 - Saturday, 17 July 2004: Ugh, work. Well, over ten hours actual overtime logged this week.

Supervisor suggests a new approach to the production-floor dimness - let it burn. Give the dimmest enough rope to hang themselves with. That's just the kind of cold-bloodedness I can get behind!

100 rounds loaded for the Mauser! I'll need them all, to get sight settings at three distances. Hopefully the MojoMauser, without the bayonet, will be as (geometrically-relatively) solid at 100, 200 and 300 yards as has been implied at 25. Tugging a recoil pad onto the 91/30, I'll take 40 rounds of the copper-washed steel-case stuff, whatever it is, and the front-sight-whacking tools. That still leaves enough each of the steel and Albanian brass-case Mosin stuff for at least one relay in the match.

No matches or other special events listed in the newsletter calendar this weekend, I should be able to use the long, lower range - I think I'll just pack the whole box of targets. -Still no sign of my membership, and bank balance is all weird again so I can't deduce it from a cleared check.

Lessee now, how much is loading my own costing me? When I was buying Federal #8A 170gr factory loads, from which most of this brass was generated, I was paying 74.9something¢/round. Accurate 2230 powder is $17.50/pound; 7,000 grains/pound; 45.0gr/round; 155.555... rounds/pound; 11.25¢/round for powder. Primers - $15.50/1,000, 1.55¢ each. Projectiles, 16.99¢ each retail, about the same net/mail-order. Ignoring recycled brass, and capital investment in press (free from Cruffler), dies (won in a match), powder measure, case trimmer & other tools (mostly used at shows, way below retail), and time (my own), that's 30¢/round, not bad!

Other calibers, like .308 Winchester, hmm. Cruffler has some tools, I bet it wouldn't be too hard to talk him into helping with a barrel-change project on one of my other four VZ24 Mausers - heck, he's done several already, going on about his VZ.270 and his latest Savage .416 project. Leafing through Midway and Brownell's catalogs, I can see everything I'd need, i.e. jigs for drilling sight-base holes (will not own a rifle without sights) - implicitly, Cruffler has a barrel vise already, and I can get a commie drill press for fifty bucks at any of several places in the metro area. But more preparation is required, not least in getting a barrel. Furthermore, much to Cruffler's consternation, I want to keep a bayonet lug on the rifle. Could be month$ before I'm ready. Who knows, I might score a battle rifle by then. -If the FAL just had a better rear sight, I might've been motivated to get one by now... Cruffler has at least three, but it's against his religion to let go of any piece once he's acquired it.

559 - Sunday, 18 July 2004:

Z!

Departing ~1pm for Clark Rifles, with: MojoMauser, 100 rounds handloads, & bayonet; Mosin 91/30, 40 rounds steel-case, and bayonet; FM, 30 rounds Winchester 115JHP, ~60 rounds 115FMJ, Mantis loader; whole box of long-range rifle targets. Spotting scope, prone mat, etc.

(Too lethargic to scan targets, especially huge floppy 300-yard items in the confines of the hovel's computer "desk." But:)

Arrive ~1:45. Setting six SR1C @ 100, two SR42C @ 200 & two MR63C @ 300 yards, just like the event copy says the PIG will be. First thing I notice, the blacks are at least as big as the 4MOA targets I practice on, good. Starting with MojoMauser @ 100, sandbags. 100 rounds, 33 strings of three to conserve, plus one for fouling. Hits by gods! (At this point in my self-training, I count the black as a "hit" and out of the black as a miss.) One high may have been the fouling shot. The other three not as close together as I'd like but they are in the black. Again - hmm, in the black at least, and windage is good. Again - crap! Better group but too high. Again - still high, but crowding 4MOA. Down ¼ turn. Again - crud, now they're off to the left, and a little low. Up 1/8 - well, you get the idea.

Eventually I attained a good, and more important repeatable 100-yard sight setting, and scribed lines in the Mojo sight for reference. Then I got some half-baked guesses for 200 and 300 yards, though I have less confidence in those. Running out of time, only one bundle of 20 rounds steel-case through the Mosin - recoil pad is sufficient - still way off, though groups show some promise (with bayonet fixed). Maybe a Mojo MicroClick for the Mosin, $ometime. Just for laughs, a string of five @ 300 - better group than I got with the Mauser. :-/ OTOH maybe I'm still not on the paper at 300 with the Mauser. :-\

Major problem - can't see 8mm holes at 300 yards, or sometimes at 200, with cheap 45x Tasco spotting scope! Another problem, hiking about a quarter-mile round-trip every time I want a fresh target, or even to see where I hit; might dig out bike.

Well - should have got an earlier start. No pistol practice - I can do that after the PIG, or even up in the hills some evening after work. No prone practice, no shooting with bayonet on the Mauser - may give up on those twenty bonus points anyway. Mosin may just not be ready without more work, or perhaps a Mojo sight of its own, may shoot both PIG relays with the Mauser. At least I have a 100-yard setting I can count on - half the match is at that distance, slow standing and rapid sitting. Ugh - not scanning large unwieldy targets, though I did save them for study. Might order some SR-1s of my own.

So I stop at a Vancouver ARCO for cheap gas to top off the tank, and there's this little laminated four-leaf clover laying on the ground, like it fell out of someone's wallet when they pulled out their ATM card for the pump machine. Okey-doke... stuck it in my wallet next to my NRA Sporting Rifle classification card. Shrug.

Should have at least 240 pieces matching, three-times-fired, Federal Mauser brass - that's just from counting the empty boxes. Remington and Winchester brass (4x) set aside, will prep them on principle later. Digging out good steel Mauser chargers - one whole bandolier of TurKrap, I bought just because it had those instead of the usual cheap brass chargers, I could throw away the ammo and still have a good deal on the chargers. Will prep Federal brass all this week, resize/deprime, tumble, trim, deburr, chamfer, prime. Hopefully the projectiles will arrive in time! Otherwise, either I have to hope Sportsman's Warehouse finally gets more Sierra #2400, or I may have to skip the match for lack of reliable ammunition! Interesting, no sooty cases this time. Hm, may run out of powder! Well, should still make over 100 rounds.

To Big 5. Bushnell 60x spotting scope on sale, $75, that's still a bit much, and not much more power than I have with my $50 45x Tasco, which I got at the same store a few years ago. Examined higher-power terrestrial/astronomical telescopes, none on sale - splurged on a C-Star 100x (when properly configured), $49.99. "Made in Taiwan." Well that beats Chinese any day. Not a field-rugged piece but should serve for range and matches. Not a standard tripod or mount either, proprietary - well, something can always be fabricated if necessary, and what it came with has certain features.

560 - Monday, 19 July 2004: New people at work. Sigh again. No hustle! SLACKERS! Well, not all of them. Or they can't speak Amurican, and/or are of questionable legal status. OTOH, Asian women appear to have a different work ethic - like, work. Not all of them, sure, but a higher percentage, or at least a higher ambient level of hustle, in my experience.

Of course once their kids go through the government schools here they'll get all MTVified and Liberalized and they'll be slackers too. I already see it in some of the younger ones. Separation of school and state is as important as separation of church and state! FREE-MARKET EDUCATION NOW! Cruffler home-schools and I saw the difference at the Independence Day gathering. Yeek. It's not just that his kids are bright, it's that all those other kids are so dim.

Sigh. I dunno. Win the lottery, move to Wyoming, secede from the Union. I dunno.

Visited cop shop - nothing entirely suitable evident. Snagged Bianchi catalog. Will probably net-order something, or a couple somethings - one for concealed carry of course, but also a good hip holster for match and field use. -Nothing in the Bianchi catalog shows cocked-and-locked carry; back pages specifically forbid such, liability, phooey. Though I did see an Accumold for full-size Browning-pattern pistols that might work - thumb-break strap, conventional belt loop, inboard strap adjustable so I could theoretically tighten it from outside the hammer spur to inside the hammer face. I forget the price. Got the pre-existing Uncle Mike's belt-slide working with hammer-down carry.

Another weird SGN renewal notice, from Coastal Marketing Services, Scottsdale, AZ.

Laundromat, ick. 50 Mauser cases resized, ugh.

561 - Tuesday, 20 July 2004:

When are we going back? Well, at least NASA has some competition now. "SpaceShipOne, Government Zero!"

So yesterday I'm told that the insufficiently-medicated IT person, from whom I might have Required Satisfaction in a more honorable world, has been let go. Good news? Not really - I am now one of the few people in the entire organization that knows anything about computers. (Of course, I was that before....) There Ain't No Justice.

Meeting - gripe session - disturbinger picture of corporate. Well, I should be one of the last to be let go. Though I may be the next to go....

So Clinton's National Security Adviser, Berger, "inadvertently" stuffed classified documents in his socks and "mistakenly" stole them from the National Archives, later "accidentally" losing or destroying some, possibly irreplaceable originals. And the Democrats call Bush a liar and a crook. You know I still haven't made up my mind between Bush and Badnarik. Which do I want to vote against more, the self-confessed war criminal or the national socialist? Sigh.

Depressed by work and the world, spending too much money again, splurged on UMC MegaPack, 250 rounds of 9x19mm 115gr FMJ, $30, and a couple more MTM 50-place cartridge boxes, @ $3 - and now I discover there are two heights, and the first time I got the short one. Well, I can still use those for .308, later. Driving around, looking for holsters & such - surplus store, cheesy Velcro, no, used Bianchi black leather two-magazine pouch, $16.99, hmm; G.I. Joe's sidewalk sale, Uncle Mike's stuff, not exactly what I'm looking for. The thumb-break IWB model I have for the GP100 might work well, but doesn't seem to be available in Size 5 (full-size autos). Then there's still the question of a carry mode for a Browning-pattern single-action.

Package from Midway, projectiles, a day before they estimated! Four hundred oughta last a while. Now if I don't have ammunition for the match, it's my fault instead of someone staring at a computer in Utah. Thank-you from OFF, fresh window decal. SAF mailing, "GUN RIGHTS EQUAL HOMELAND SECURITY" bumper sticker for $15 donation, possibly.

Developing a system for processing reloads with single-stage press - 50-place loading block, inside neck lube all, then outside lube with goopy rag and immediately resize/deprime each, then drop directly into tumbler. At 100, run tumbler. Measure, trim/deburr/chamfer, Auto-Prime. Powder measure, fill loading block, look at each to confirm presence and level of powder, seat bullets, put in range bag.

Wrapped up Left Illusions. Now, some months ago I was all gushy over Coulter's Treason and Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong, but Horowitz blows their doors off - he was there, and the blinders are off both his left eye and his right. Of course leftists hate him, at least as much for abandoning their murderous cult as for taking the side of liberty, but Republicans are also very uncomfortable with him because he's just too damn honest and straightforward, and that's just alien to most politicians today. I found the chapters on rampant leftist bigotry and oppression in the universities particularly infuriating, the political causes of the AIDS epidemic particularly horrifying (one of my routes back from work is right past an actual gay bath-house downtown - I feel like I should be in MOPP gear every time I take that street), and "The Art of Political War" and "How to Beat the Democrats" particularly thought-provoking. Were I running for office, those other two books would still be on my staff's shelves, and Savage's The Enemy Within and Goldberg's Bias and Arrogance too, but Horowitz would be writing the playbook. Ideally I'd be fabulously wealthy and would just hire him. It is long past time the forces of liberty went on the counterattack against the forces of totalitarianism, oppression, and evil.

562 - Wednesday, 21 July 2004: Forecast for 100°F by the weekend. Will take two bottles of juice to PIG, maybe some actual sport drink.

Last night, gunfolk lists spread word of magazine sale at CDNN, buy 4 get 1 free. Expecting fat overtime check this Friday, after rent will order four (five) 17-round for the FM. On sale for twenty each, flat ten bucks shipping, ninety bucks that would be, hmm... well, it's My Pistol dammit. Looking at the picture it's the same magazine body and stamped sheetmetal follower as the KRD 15-round units I already have, with a more-extended floorplate for two more rounds. Possibly with a flush floorplate it would be a conventional 13-round unit, shrug. May go back to that surplus store and closely examine a couple of those Bianchi pouches.

One of the new hires does show some understanding of processes and machinery, and potential to be my backup. That took long enough. Possibly I will have someone to keep the place from burning down if I ever take a vacation.

Of course, that would imply that I had vacation time.

Of course, the majority still don't show understanding or potential. I set up a machine - an hour and a half goes by before they use it, a popular machine that other people are often waiting for. I set up a machine and it works perfectly for me - someone else (any one of several someones here) gets on and it jams every two minutes. I sit down and demonstrate, doing two or three times as many in the same amount of time without jamming. "There, you see how I did that?" "Uh, yeah, uh-huh." I walk away... two minutes later it's jammed again. Processing speed - the facility manager has already said I make other people look like they're standing still - now that's disturbing. Why do I seem to be so superior to those around me? Am I the one-eyed man in the country of the blind? I'd rather not be, it sounds damn lonely, who would there be to have meaningful conversations with? Is the rest of the world really that bad? WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST QUIT GOOFING OFF AND GET TO WORK FOR GODS' SAKES?

Reading Kipling's The Islanders more thoroughly. Spooky! He wrote it in 1902 - he could have been talking about the period between any pair of American wars in the last century: WWI and WWII, when our military atrophied and our navy shrank - WWII and Korea, where only five years after saving the world we were unequipped to save a single peninsula; Korea and Vietnam, where the bureaucrats "hindered and hampered and crippled... thrust out of sight and away/Those that would serve you for Honour and those that served you for pay." And today's war: "Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed/At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field." Spooky! What must it have been like, being Kipling? What did he See? And how could he live with the Sight? -The world is in his debt, for having the strength to record his visions for us, the blind. He left us a terrible and eternal gift, which we constantly squander. "And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more."

Stopped at Sportsman's Warehouse, still no Sierra #2400s - but now I have another source at a fraction of a cent more, and four hundred on-hand. Bought RCBS primer-pocket brush kit, large, small, and handle, $13.50.

563 - Thursday, 22 July 2004: New guy showing actual skill and intelligence. He'll probably get a better offer and quit, or be canned in the next round of cost-cutting. Heh - at last grump session, I told facility manager to tell corporate I was worthless, so I could get a raise.

"I am not working this Saturday, I'm going to a rifle match!" In theory, everything will be set up ahead, on Friday. That's been tried before - in January I came in one Saturday afternoon, after putting the smogmobile's left front brake back on that morning, to find that all the stuff I had carefully set up Friday afternoon had been changed. :-/

Last night at SW, saw the same Bianchi Accumold semi-generic service-pistol holster, $30; paddle, $43. Net-shopping: Uncle Mike's size 5 or 19, thumb-break, $25, hammer-down carry illustrated. They've added a Velcro retention strap to the open-top models, $19 - I think I want a snap for faster use. Comfort counts - physical and other kinds. Kydex, $20 - not available for the Browning. Kydex paddle, $42. Bianchi has a new retention system where the second finger reaches down and releases a catch - which engages inside the trigger guard. I'm less than comfortable with that.... Galco - approaching $100, no retention straps but a firm molded grip on the weapon, hm. Also I'm leaning toward lower-maintenance synthetics and most Galcos are leather. Midway... Bianchi 3S Pistol Pocket, $62, "Only 1 Available!"; #100 Professional, strapless, $39, "Only 3 Available!". I dunno. Apparently the particular design of Uncle Mike's thumb-break IWB I found at a show for my GP100 is no longer made, phooey, it's very much what I'm looking for. Will probably hit eBay or such later, though there are disturbing reports of eBay sharing buyers' data with Big Brother, or anyone who claims to be in law enforcement.

Tired from work, procrastinating! 50 more Mauser cases finally resized; 100 primer pockets brushed out, tumbler loaded, case trimmer and powder measure still set at 2.235" and 45.0gr A2230. Not taking the Mosin to the match without more work, just the MojoMauser for both relays. I expect to not embarrass myself at 100 yards, but at 200 and 300 my confidence is low. That'll teach me to get an earlier start on range days!

564 - Friday, 23 July 2004: Repeated warnings of impending heat wave on morning news. "Clean Air Action Day - Please Limit Driving" on electronic freeway signboards - phooey, take your socialist mass-transit schemes and shove it, I like independence of motion, and global warming is a load of commie bull.

Ran the case tumbler while showering this morning, every minute helps. Bad me, procrastinating! -Frankly I don't think much of my chances in this match, especially at the longer distances. Like I said, I should do all right at 100, but I'm not even sure I can hit the paper at 2 and 3. Should have prepared more! Loaded more rounds, spent more time at the range. I could offer the excuse of the long deadly commute to and from the strength- and motivation-sapping job I suppose. Well, it's not like I'm on the Olympic team, the only person I'm letting down at this point by slacking on marksmanship is myself. And there are more matches coming. I think the 3-Gun event is in August, I hope to have the FM up to speed by then, and I can dust off the Load-All and make some low-recoil loads for the M590 - also some presumably-low-pressure loads for the double, which, remembering my observation of the Cowboy match in May (#481) and depending which category I'm in (loading on the clock, with or without speedloaders), may actually give a time advantage over the 8-shot tube-fed repeater. More practice with the Marlin too. Allies vs. Axis in November of course, I might have splurged on a MicroClick Mojo for the Mosin by then.

Examining account balance, after rent and electricity that CDNN magazine order will have to wait ‘til next week. :(

Cruffler proposes meeting at the OAC show Sunday. Zzzz? Then there's the plate match at Clark Rifles about that time, I might want to observe. And the Clark Rifles monthly meeting later, though that's at another location as I recall, the Vancouver Rifle & Pistol Club. -Oh, OAC jiggles their schedule a couple times a year, the show was actually last Sunday, phooey. Well, I asked him if he's going to the CR meeting.

100 rounds loaded! About twenty of those cases needed trimming after three firings and three resizing, no other indications of wear or stress, I'm starting to like Federal brass. Cut it close with the powder, maybe a dozen rounds' worth left. Not bothering with chargers after all, no loading on the clock according to the event copy - okay, taking some along just in case. Packing 100 rounds copper-steel Mosin stuff too, and some chargers for those, will take both rifles after all, though I think I'll start with the Mauser. If I completely screw up with that I'll take my sighters and my chances with the Mosin in the second relay.

Meanwhile, a ‘blog reader suggests heavier bullets, specifically Sierra MatchKing 200s, more closely matching the FMJ weight of the original European loads the VZ24 was built for. Cruffler and, IIRC, Michigan have also suggested the same. No time for that now of course, but I'll look into it. Recoil would likely go up, and the sight settings I've recorded for the 150gr Pro Hunters would almost certainly be obsolete - OTOH, by the time of the next Allies vs. Axis match I might have splurged on a MicroClick sight for the Mauser, hmm. And I really have to look closer at getting a .308 barrel for one of those other VZ24s, build up a custom rifle that would be worth mounting that ¼MOA Redfield on.

Also packing the FM, and the ammunition and magazines I wanted to test last time.

All sorts of Interesting Times all around - a couple F/A-18 Hornets collided back east along the Columbia River, one a two-seater trainer - two of three USMC aviators killed. Reports of middle-eastern men "probing" airline security, testing responses of flight crews, attempting to flush out Air Marshalls. Reports of vandalism of cars or properties displaying campaign signs for Bush. Media stories on a variety of issues getting downright Orwellian.

I don't usually take the time to comment on such things, here - this is supposed to be a rifleman's journal. But- "Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!"

Finished Left Illusions some days ago, the thought of hiring Horowitz to run my campaign would be enough to make me want to run for office. Now on 3 x T, a Turtledove anthology, much of which I've read before but eh.

Heat! Barely had enough energy to finish loading, not much left for dry-practice or position practice. -Yes, I can still get into the cross-legged sitting position at least, and I often dry-fire standing just when I'm fondling something. Sling allowed standing in the PIG, was disallowed in Foul Weather matches under NRA Sporting Rifle rules. The other two stages are prone and I know I can do that. -I've got to take this more seriously. I hereby set myself what should be a wholly-attainable Goal: place in top three in next year's PIG!

Meanwhile, CMP reportedly has Greek-return Garands for well under $400. I am now an NRA member; my membership application and fee for a CMP-affiliated club is in the mail; last year I was told that the PIG counts as "shots fired in competition." Man, if I could get a Garand... that would be worth blowing out savings.

-So I get The Lost World: Jurassic Park on video from the library and I sit down to watch it - and it takes about half an hour to turn into an anti-human, anti-hunting, anti-gun, PeTA/ELF/EarthFirst hit piece. >:-[ I don't pay for movies anymore, and I avoid watching television.

565 - Saturday, 24 July 2004: Match day! Arrived Clark Rifles about 8:30. Low turnout! Must be the heat - which I didn't think was that bad. ("Is there going to be a second relay? I've got more ammo....") Only seven or eight shooters - my odds of getting a medal just went up! One guy won the Garand category by showing up with a Garand.

Fired a total of twelve sighters - 100 yard setting still good, 200 adequate but could use fine-tuning, 300 - better than last weekend, but a little high, turned it down some, better. Three shots for sighting at 100 yards were high and left in the 9 ring - within about an inch of each other!

Everybody trekked out to inspect sighters and patch targets, then back to the firing line - all stages fired, then check all scores. First stage, 300-yard slow-fire prone. C-Star telescope may have been a waste of money - probably too scruffy to return by now, and besides nothing's "wrong" with it. Oh well. Anyway, peering through the 45x Tasco - holes in the paper!

Second stage, 200-yard rapid-fire prone; third, 100-yard slow standing, sling not allowed, bunched up against fore-end; fourth, 100-yard rapid sitting. Lacking confidence in sight settings, and stability of rifle when attached, did not attach bayonet at 100 yard stages for bonus points.

My scores: really not bad! Of a possible 100 points in each stage, I got 75, 76, 74 and 77, for a total of 302, 75.5%! Due to the low turnout it is possible I won the Military Bolt Action category again, but I won't know for days, until the match results are mailed.

About 11:15am, to handgun range, testing FM Hi-Power. -Bad news. Slipping to half-cock after several shots, after a few shots, after every shot, and then the poor thing finally doubled after about 60 rounds and that ended the day's shooting. (Though I was starting to see indications of Accuracy....) At least the safety is working, but now I've got a real problem. Well, I'll fix it.

Packed up and left about noon - and decided to charge off to another place Cruffler told of, Washougal River Mercantile. Guns in the back - and unlike many gun shops, this one is politically conscious! JPFO booklets right out on the counter, and Clayton Cramer's brochure Original Intent too - I am going to order some of those and set them at my local library dammit, like I've been doing with the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Heh - the Stars and Bars tacked to the ceiling. Also a Betsy Ross and a Gadsden. -Nothing leapt out at me, but due to finances I wasn't looking too close anyway. Blew ten bucks (+7% sales tax) on used RCBS three-piece carbide (no lubrication required) 9x19mm die set (sizer/decapper, expander, seater - plus shellholder). Returned about 2:30.

R/O said monthly meeting is at VRPC, starting 7pm. Cruffler says it's just a bunch of old farts bitching at each other. Eh, I'll see. Besides I want to look into CMP certification. Garand match 15 August, wouldn't have one by then - the club has loaner Garands but I'd have to provide ammo - not all that familiar with a Garand anyway, there will be more matches.

566 - Sunday, 25 July 2004: Extra-super-ZZZZ!

Cruffler emails that raccoons have done in one of the household cats. :( Though he's not particularly a cat person, on territorial principles alone he's out for ‘coon blood.

Further consideration and discussion of the Greek-return Garands. A ‘blog reader sends a first-hand account of examining several such ($295!) at the CMP store, describes rough shape - Cruffler responds that he's heard they're sleepers under the dings and dents and oil and grease, throat- and muzzle-erosion are being overstated, points out that new Garand barrels can be had for $150, new wood is widely available, and it's still a Garand fer cryin' out loud. Hmmm. Hope to learn more about CMP requirements, paperwork, etc., at the meeting tonight. Ya know, I'll keep a scruffy weapon, if it works. The FM's finish is worn on most of the high spots, and there are some unpretty scrapes along the top of the slide, but if I can get it to work, reliably, safely and accurately, well, I won't have to worry about an expensive refinish job getting all dinged up. Hmmm.

Thinking of the match - need work on my shooting positions. In prone, the lower-left corner of my rib cage presses hard, despite the ground mat; I'm still looking for NpoA. But at least I didn't embarrass myself when it came to scoring the targets. -Still not sure how I'll record all this for my self-assigned standings.

Found the place, new construction all around disoriented me from the last time I was there. Cruffler warned me of long wind - talk of bylaw changes, committees, eek. Ah, here's a topic of some interest, drawing from holsters. Apparently approved on an individual basis, something like a sticker on the membership card. Also talk of steel targets, and of the annual meeting (mainly how many burgers and hot dogs to buy).

Apparently I came in at the tail end of the meeting - the R/O yesterday told me 7pm, really it was 5. Heh - another member said it was lucky they're all so long-winded. But, I got to ask my two questions: Where's my membership? Membership guy got called out of town, call me (club president) Tuesday and I'll check the files. (Got handwritten note from club secretary waiving my fee until my card comes through.) How do I get a CMP Garand? Need club affiliation number and (duh!) see CMP's site.

Cruffler invited me for barbeque after, but I have to get ready for work tomorrow, ugh. I can just imagine the mess there is for me to clean up.

Latino neighbors having party - loud rap-like music, heavy bass, screeching children. For hours. And they wonder why racism still exists. If you want to be treated like a civilized human being, act like one, instead of some third-world savage!

Ah - turns out the guy with the Garand yesterday is the CMP rep for the club. Here we go: CMP says I need:

Proof of Citizenship, i.e. birth certificate, passport - wouldn't hurt to get that anyway I guess
Proof of age, usually included above
Membership in affiliated club - in process
That club's affiliation number - posted on a bulletin board at the club somewhere, unfortunately not on their site
Marksmanship or other Firearms Related Activity - I've got three official match result printouts hanging from my wall and expect a fourth in days
Legal eligibility to purchase a firearm - check

Searched web, downloaded official state form to request birth certificate, filled out, will mail tomorrow.

567 - Monday, 26 July 2004: Not too much a mess to clean up.

Called the guy who turned me on to the job opportunity, quizzed him about the political environment - owner's wife is Asian, owns 51%, this lets them bid preferentially on certain jobs and that is reportedly the extent of it. Called the place on schedule - nothing new, call back in two weeks. :-|

568 - Tuesday, 27 July 2004: Today at work they needed an adapter for a torque driver - ¼" hex on one end, ¼" square on the other for sockets. So they send someone out to get one - and they come back with hex-bit assortments with a hex-drive magnetic holder, which wouldn't hurt to add to the pile o' bits but is not what was needed. So I have to charge off to a local hardware store to find the correct item (which of course took about thirty seconds...). Sigh.

A Latino operator comes up asking for a tool - and he's muttering into his hand so I have no idea what he's asking for. Now he doesn't speak American to begin with but that's just rude. Arrogant! Finally I get him to speak with something resembling clarity and determine which tool he needs. Anyway I always, I can't imagine even the "undocumented workers" not knowing by now that I always need the 7-digit kit number, printed prominently on top of the traveling work-order document, in order to track the tool in the computer database, so when it's needed by someone I can at least tell where it went. Naturally he doesn't have it with him. He leaves, presumably to get it... and never returns. As Larry Elder says, "What can you do with that?" As I've said, I judge people by what they do, how they behave, not by how they're recorded in the census. This guy, I'd fire.

Speaking of Larry, most of the big-name non- or anti-commie talk shows - Snow, Savage, Elder, Ingraham - at or covering the Commie Convention in Boston. Probably the safest place on the continent: bin Laden and Al Qaeda would never attack their supporters.... Snow reports the Fox News video feed at the convention is scrambled. That's, like, censorship, right? Isn't that, like, something the Democrats always accuse other people of doing? John Kerry's wife, zillionaire Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa, moments after giving a speech on the need for civility in political discourse, tells a reporter to "shove it" after a pointed question. And these people are Champeens of the Little Guy, going to Save the Country....

My Kipling page is up!

Forgot to call Clark Rifles about my membership, I'll call tomorrow when they're actually supposed to be open.

As I was doing my fire-marshal routine at the end of the day, I discovered a heat gun left running, laying on a table top, methodically scorching a hole in the Formica. Naturally I became upset. Ivory-Tower production manager then became offended that I would put such trivial considerations as safety above being all nice and politically-correct. Facility manager at least sounds sympathetic but it's becoming increasingly obvious he has little real power. Man, that's it. From now on I actively seek another job. For gods' sakes I could make the same lousy ten bucks an hour pulling orders in a warehouse. And this other place, with the affirmative action and the "call back in two weeks," that's looking pointless. I think I'll email the temp rep from work tomorrow.

And she calls as I'm sitting here typing it all up - and they've canned me! Fine, let it burn, what else you got? -Canby, that's an even longer commute, but the hovel is right next to I-205. $9-$11, maybe $12 depending on experience. Fortunately I have a nice recent resumé for the other putative tooling job - a little tweaking, or not even that, and it'll be in the temp rep(s - this customer in another rep's account)'s Inbox in the morning.

Oh! Sleep! I can turn off the alarms for tomorrow morning and sleep! (Good thing the rent check is already budgeted and in the mail....) And hey, Clark Rifles is open tomorrow, hmm.

569 - Wednesday, 28 July 2004: Hovel-reconstruction crew's circular saw, etc., gets me up earlier than I might have intended, eh.

Examining the FM. Ah, here's part of the problem - the sear spring, a flat type, does not fully engage the sear, no wonder it's not staying at full-cock, the sear is effectively flopping around loose for part of its travel! Remove, bend, replace - that seems to work.... It also seems to have eliminated, or at least masked, the two-stage trigger; the first stage was the sear jumping against the sear spring, the second was letting go of the hammer. Live-fire will be the test again of course. -Yes, trigger pull suddenly better when the sear spring is where it belongs. Examining safety and sear - okay, that's how that works, this surface is blocked by that surface. Replacing magazine disconnect, phooey. So now I put a hundred-odd rounds through it for function and reliability, and if it's good, take the disconnect out again. At least I know it feeds hollowpoints, and I'm pretty sure I've fixed the magazines.

Cruffler suggested I replace hammer, sear and mainspring. The Yahoo gunsmithing list suggested stoning sear and hammer, special fixture required - but they did also give details of how the sear's engagement surface is supposed to be angled, and that much seems all right. Okay - departing about noon for Clark Rifles, open Wednesdays, signed document from club secretary waiving range fees, all I'm spending is gas, and ammunition I already have. (Call temp service first - no progress, maybe tomorrow.) Lessee, do I want to take anything else? The Marlin maybe? No, let's not get too involved, just test the pistol today, and then get pistol practice. Shouldn't be too many people up there on a weekday. Take gunsmithing tools....

There are no failed experiments. There is only new data. Arrived about 12:30, straight to handgun range, position brass-catcher, place target just for something to aim at, start blasting. One round - good. Two rounds - good. Two more - good. Three - good! Ten - fifteen - perfect.

Well, fourteen. When slammed home, magazine #1 spits out the top cartridge, which then rattles around in the ejection port, as I feared. The time required to clear it would be life-threatening too. But, magazines were already on the list. Check the others - #2 & #3 almost as bad, but I knew that. -Those 17-round units from CDNN appear to be the exact same piece of sheetmetal, do I really want those? I'll try tweaking these again.

Okay, take the disconnect back out, right there at the bench. Damn. Slipping again! Why would the magazine disconnect cause the hammer to slip to half-cock? It makes no sense!

Field-strip, stare - sear lever. See, in the P35, you pull the trigger and a little thing rises up out of the frame perpendicular to the bore - that's the trigger lever. The top end of the trigger lever pushes up on the front end of the sear lever, which is a see-saw thing in the slide, the back end of which pushes down on the sear, which then releases the hammer. Kinda Rube Goldberg perhaps but they're still making it that way in several countries after near seventy years now, so obviously it works. Could be that the sear lever is bouncing on the trigger lever - with the disconnect in place and the magazine removed, the trigger lever is tilted forward relative to the sear lever, so they don't touch - but with a magazine in place it shouldn't make any difference! Hmm, the front end of the sear lever apparently is supposed to push the trigger lever forward as the slide returns to battery, but may be riding over it instead - squint, possible evidence of wear on the top end of the trigger lever. Sear lever appears undamaged.

Grrr.... Meanwhile, put disconnect back in - perfect function again.

One misfeed, cartridge about halfway into the chamber - could be residue, could be variations in low-cost UMC product. Tug on slide, that round ejects, next round chambers, rest of that magazine okay.

Pick up that round, load it, aim, squeeze - nothing. The hammer is flopping loose! Crap! Disassemble - remove grip panel - okay, probably not broken, mainspring retaining nut has come off. Not going to try to fix that at the range - okay, I've learned more about my pistol today, packing up around 2pm.

Back at the hovel, examining parts diagrams - probably the mainspring nut support pin has let go. Thinking back - it probably let go before I found the pistol at the pawn shop. Okay, the mainspring nut does in fact thread onto the hammer strut, the threads are still good, the pin is to keep it from backing out as just happened. Hmm, a bit of bent paper clip?

Examining frame, it's drilled & tapped for a lanyard ring on the left side of the butt! But there's a plug soldered or brazed in its place, filling the hole.

Okay, put mainspring assembly back together, twist a bit of paperclip in the hole for the nut retaining pin, that looks functional. Reassemble pistol - leave out barrel and recoil spring, place slide on frame, stare down muzzle opening in slide, observe action and location of trigger lever - yes, the sear lever is supposed to push the trigger lever forward as it returns to battery, it appears the tip of the trigger lever is broken off and the sear lever is riding over it instead of pushing it out of the way! But why does it still work perfectly with the magazine disconnect (which so many P35 owners remove, or have removed, or describe the removal of) in place? With a magazine inserted it should not make any difference! With the disconnect depressed by the presence of a magazine, the trigger lever should be in the same position relative to the sear lever as when the disconnect has been removed! The slipping and doubling should happen with equal frequency in either case!

No... no - that's not it either. Examining photographs in The Gun Digest Book of Firearms Assembly/Disassembly: Part I: Automatic Pistols, their trigger lever looks just like mine. Okay, here's another hypothesis: rebuilding the mainspring assembly has probably, effectively, changed the "length" of the mainspring by a couple-three coils, since I now recall the mainspring nut was way down near the end of the hammer strut and it never occurred to me to wonder what was keeping it on - I wouldn't have expected it to turn under recoil. But now I've screwed the nut back onto the strut (paining my fingers to compress the spring to do so) much further than it was at first, in order to clear the retaining pin hole and thereby stick a bit of bent paperclip through it. Thinking back and looking now, it's possible the mainspring was actually fully uncompressed with the hammer down or even before the hammer was all the way down, with little or no residual pressure to press the hammer notch against the sear and make it stay there. -Yes, it now takes much more force to cock the hammer than I had previously become accustomed to. So in a sense I have replaced the mainspring as Cruffler suggested. So, if I'm not re-employed by Friday (Clark Rifles closed Thursdays), I'll head on up again and see what happens - leaving the disconnect in to start, just in case, as I know it's not too difficult to remove it in the field if I bring tools.

But that still doesn't explain why the disconnect makes everything work. Maybe a combination of the weakened mainspring and the bouncing sear lever - no, I've already seen how the position of the trigger lever should be exactly the same with the magazine and disconnect both in, and with them both out. (Further examination proves that the sear lever does push against the trigger lever as the slide returns to battery, requiring the shooter to release the trigger, withdrawing the trigger lever under the sear lever, before the next shot - i.e., semiautomatic as opposed to full.) Odd that I haven't had any ignition problems, as might be expected with a weakened mainspring. Well. More data.

Temp rep calls - interview 8am Friday! Maybe I'll go to the hills tomorrow, I fueled ($1.85) on the way to the range today.

Still don't know about my Clark Rifles membership, got kinda distracted. Today the R/O was in fact the club secretary who wrote the note for me at the meeting Sunday.

So I'm Mapquesting for the interview Friday and this banner ad comes up.

It's from the government.

They're subliterate:

570 - Thursday, 29 July 2004: Zzzz.... More sleep this morning.

Last night Cruffler invited me to yak at his office, and to use his photocopier to make targets if I provided paper. (Made more of the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence instead.) Mapquesting the place - heh, they fixed it:

But I know government employees can't handle the American language. Yakked.... Examined the FM, experimented. Beginning to appear as though the hammer is not going back far enough, when the slide cycles, to fully engage the sear - i.e., a thousandth here, a thousandth there. Probable solution, replace hammer, and/or sear, possibly springs (main and sear) as well but I think the springs will be all right. Sigh - will probably save up for the C&S hammer & sear set, ~$100, like I was going to eventually.

After, sniffed over two downtown Vancouver pawnshops, nothing particularly exciting - one had two Garands, the only price I could see was ~$875. The other (the one on the corner, Cruffler) had a stubby little Mauser carbine, possibly Spanish, looked in very nice shape, hung way up above the rest of the arms in the corner of the gun area, up above the ammunition, but I couldn't see the price.

Back to the hovel. Mail: some days ago, the first of no doubt many NRA mailings, this one offering to extend my membership for another for year $25 as opposed to the usual $35 - maybe once I get employed again. Today, beg-for-money from Tom Cox, last term's Libertarian candidate for Governor, now running for state representative. Not my district.... Beg-for-money from the American Center for Law & Justice, opposing ACLU on abortion, the Ten Commandments, etc. - not my issue. Beg-for-money from Citizens Against Government Waste, opposing amnesty for illegal aliens - not my issue, but I might have sent a little if I had income. GOA alert, fighting renewal of the AW ban - begging for money of course, and the famous pre-printed postcards, to national-socialist Bush who said he supports its renewal, and to the commie rep for my district, Blumenauer, who never met a restriction on RKBA that he didn't like. Sigh.

Midway flyer... Frankford Arsenal tumbling-media separator, $16.99; Remington 8mm Mauser brass, $22.99/100; Wheeler Engineering Mauser action wrench, $36.99; Caldwell electronic earmuffs, $49.99; Bold Premium target trigger for ‘98 Mauser, $26.99; Bianchi 6D ATB outside-waistband holster, crossdraw-capable, Browning Hi-Power listed, $20.83; Sierra .323" bullets: 150gr Pro Hunter, $14.65/100, 200gr MatchKing hollowpoint boattail, $21.15/100; Adams & Bennett Mauser barrels, white, short-chambered, $89.99 - .308 not listed.

571 - Friday, 30 July 2004: I think the interview went well enough, but the job would be an effective demotion, from tooling technician to ordinary assembler. The pay should be no worse though. -Japanese corporation, facilities all over the world. The libertarian in me kicks at the thought of all that social rigor, but after the chaos of the last place some order might be welcome.

So Hanoi John (there's a picture of him with some high-ranker of the North Vietnamese communists, I'll try to find it and put it here) has accepted the nomination. There's still time for him to be conveniently assassinated by "right-wing militia extremists" so Hillary can take over.... Sigh. Taking the "STOP THE MADNESS - VOTE LIBERTARIAN" signs out of car and hovel windows, will replace them with something like this:

Still don't know if I'm going to vote for Badnarik against Bush, or for Bush against Kerry. :(

Temp rep calls - says interview went "very well", they want me to start at $11/hour! ...On Monday the 16th, probably some corporate bean-counting thing, eh. Charged off to Clackamas for a violation of my 4th Amendment rights (urine test).

Celebrating expected employment, stopped at Sportsman's Warehouse, another pound of A2230. Browsed for accessories - Uncle Mike's two-place double-column magazine pouch, snaps instead of mushy noisier velcro, internal plastic tensioning to hold the magazines, $15 - flaps adjustable for different-length magazines, or removable altogether for speed - I'll wait ‘til I have the FM running. Bi-Mart coupon book, another box of Winchester 115JHP for the FM. G.I. Joe's sidewalk sale, emergency car kit: jumper cables (which I didn't have - with attachment diagram), ratchet and sockets (which I did), siphon hose, cheesy MADE IN CHINA flashlight/flasher - eh, ten bucks.

572 - Saturday, 31 July 2004: Zzzz....

Found it! Click for more:

Photograph of John Kerry meeting with Comrade Do Muoi, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in Vietnam, July 15-18, 1993. This photo is part of a tribute to John Kerry in the War Remnants Museum (formerly the "War Crimes Museum") in Saigon.

Now look here:

Constitution of the United States of America
Article III, Section 3, Paragraph 1:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
Amendment XIV, Section 3:
"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President or Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof."

How can the Secret Service stand some of the people they're set to guard? How can they, in good conscience, risk their lives to defend the likes of the Clintons, or Ted Kennedy, or Kerry? ...Unless the agents themselves are as evil?

Snailmail: Veterans for Victory, opposing Kerry, begging for money.

Vegging.... Shooting tomorrow I think, trying the FM again since the mainspring was rebuilt. Want to make up more Mauser rounds before getting more rifle practice. Might take the Romanian .22 and tools to drift the sights to correct windage.

Wrapping up 3 x T. Better writing, stylistically, than I'm accustomed to seeing from Turtledove - did he have a better editor before he became successful, and now has less "interference" with his work? That strikes me as contrary to market forces.... The last piece, Earthgrip, a series of novelettes, I found to be quite good - and not just because the protagonist is a fellow science-fiction fan. Now starting For Us, the Living, a previously-unpublished (Copyright © 2004 by The Robert A. And Virginia Heinlein Trust") Heinlein.

Other holds not coming through at the library - the next episode of Sharpe's Rifles would pass the time nicely.... I've got this memory, such that there are very few films, and almost no books, that I can view or read repeatedly until a great deal of time - months at least - has gone by. Now I can't even enjoy Episodes IV through VI of Star Wars as much as I used to, with Harrison Ford declaring for the side of perversion and oppression. Anyway there are few films I'd rent and fewer I'd see at the theater - besides theater mobs, I don't want my money, either box-office or rental-royalty, ending up in Kerry's or Hillary's campaign funds, and that's where too much show-business money goes. Fortunately the local library system, which I'm already paying taxes for whether I want to or not, gets a lot of them. Unfortunately many of the later ones are on DVD; once I get income again, I'm going to have to get a player. (Possibly I can hook it into the later-model VCR I already have attached to the ancient TV, so I wouldn't have to buy a new TV.)

Examining VCR manual... yes, it looks like I could just plug a DVD into the RCA jacks on the front of the VCR, and I saw one under $40 at Wal-Mart just yesterday, hmm....

Argh- splurged, $38.76. Aaaa! ICKY WAL-MART PEOPLE! Open box, read instructions, plug into VCR as I postulated - IT WORKS! (No stereo this way, but the TV doesn't have stereo anyway.) Now I can watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly! -Of course, when that's done, my hold queue at the library is full and I can't put any of those other films I want to see on hold... eh, I'll live.

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