RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - AUGUST 2004

Zzzz.... Vegging again, departing for Clark Rifles with FM and UMC 115FMJ ~1pm. Just function-testing and blasting, getting used to it. Recoil a bit more noticeable last time, will just have to get used to it. Now that I'm a quasi-paid member I don't have to scrape up ten bucks every time I want to shoot; now that I'm on (unpaid) vacation I can go up there on Wednesdays and Fridays too, or up in the hills other days.

Arrived about 1:30, straight to handgun range. Argh! It didn't double but it might have, I could see the sear peeking out from in front of the hammer - and now I'm getting misfeeds besides, failures to fully chamber, and failures to lock the slide on empty magazines (all three). Like the recoil spring is too heavy and the slide is not fully cycling. -Possibly the effectively-heavier mainspring, since its rebuild, is putting more drag, through the hammer, on the slide, thus increasing the apparent force of the recoil spring. Argh. Left about 2pm after about 40 rounds. Meanwhile Cruffler reports SARCO advertises "EXTENSIVE HI POWER PARTS LISTING" (yes, there is it way down at the bottom of pg.76 in Shotgun News, v58#22).

Hah! The Matrix: Revolutions came through at the library, something to watch. ...Eh, could have been worse, but it seems, somehow... incomplete. Hmm. The door was certainly left open to further episodes.... Also some of the action sequences were almost disappointing - why did the sentinels just keep milling around after the first breach? If I were the machine general, with all that decentralized computer power and artificial intelligence at my disposal, I wouldn't just bunch up like that - why give the enemy one big fat target when you can give him thousands and thousands of tiny ones? Hmph.

Ow, my brain hurts! According to the introduction by Spider Robinson, Heinlein used to be a socialist - redistribution of wealth, all that. (Robinson takes a cheap shot at Cheney, comparing him to Nehemiah Scudder - whadda you want instead, Spider, a self-confessed war criminal and documented traitor, backed up by a trial lawyer who made his multimillions by exploiting the suffering of children with birth defects and ruining the careers and lives of doctors who were trying to help people? Do you want Osama bombed, or paid Danegeld? At least Cheney has had something resembling a real-world job, in the oil industry. -And what did you drive to work this morning, and where did you buy the fuel for it, eh? (Oh, gawd, I'm edging closer to voting for Bush again....)) ...Jumping ahead, the afterword by Robert James, Heinlein went from supporting socialists Upton Sinclair (!) and FDR in the ‘30s for their anti-poverty stance, to backing Barry Goldwater and such in their turn for their anti-communism. Reportedly Heinlein explained, in a 1959 letter to Alfred Bester, "I've simply changed from a soft-headed radical to a hard-headed radical, a pragmatic libertarian...." Hmm, indications of an intellectual odyssey not unlike David Horowitz'.

For Us, the Living is shaping up to be, well, not really my kind of book after all, written as it was in his socialist phase, where morals are obsolete and government takes care of everything. (The more I see and hear of the left, the further they push me to the right.) I'll try to finish it though, out of respect for his later works, not least Starship Troopers.

574 - Monday, 2 August 2004: Taking a closer look at that SARCO ad - Mauser barrels, .308, $84.95, hmm. Short-chambered (final reaming required, with chamber reamer, sold separately), probably in the white (finishing required), but still.

Listening to talk radio, discovered what happened to Victor Bock, he switched stations.

Adding Danegeld to my Kipling page.

Here is a very interesting report on what actually works and what doesn't, in our actual soldiers' hands in Iraq. They love the Browning M2HB (I have a 1:6 scale action-figure accessory, on tripod, on top of my computer monitor) but want a more up-to-date night-vision or other optical sight for it, something "less obsolescent" I believe the report said. Do they know the weapon itself is largely unchanged from its water-cooled introduction in 1921...? (Praise Saint John! Praise Him...!) They want a quick-change barrel system that eliminates the need to headspace and adjust timing whenever replacing an overheated barrel - doesn't FN already have that available as a refit to existing M2HBs? (And isn't FN making M16 series rifles for us now? Have the left hand and the right been formally introduced...?) They like shotguns, the shorter the better, and are apparently buying civilian-production Mossberg M500s or M590s out of their own pockets. What's that about the 1939 Emerson case saying a sawed-off shotgun was not a legitimate militia weapon...? Lots of civilian-made aftermarket stuff in use - gunstocks, load-bearing gear, Camelbaks, optics. Many "expedients" or alterations of issue gear. (A plastic cable-tie holding an M249's receiver together....) [sarcasm="heavy"] What? The private sector produces more useful and durable goods than government suppliers? Say it ain't so! [/sarcasm]

Continuing For Us, the Living at laundromat - even in his socialist days, Heinlein was always thought-provoking. Some of his Constitutional comments are very close to what I'm looking for, and some of his economic suggestions would at least bear further study and experimentation. The amorality is weirding me out though - I'm all for freedom and privacy and all, but personally, in some ways I'm just a prude. And I'm keeping dueling in my utopia. Sometimes nothing else will do!

575 - Tuesday, 3 August 2004: Sorta hurried through For Us, the Living, took some notes for my own work. Starting Fischer's Washington's Crossing.

Replaced car's old(est) leaky(est) tire at Les Schwab, $30 total for a used tire including installation and balance. Didn't take too long, and there were many customers so they weren't dragging their feet - and that whole "come runnin'" thing really does appeal, after working with so many slackers in so many jobs.

576 - Wednesday, 4 August 2004: Two years! I started this ‘blog two years ago today.

Still not a Rifleman yet....

Zzzz.... Catching up on sleep during this two-week unpaid vacation. Washington State Department of Health Vital Records calls about my birth certificate request (proof of citizenship for CMP), $28 by credit or bank card with fast turnaround, $17 by check in 2-3 weeks - being between incomes, I'll write the check.

So I go to the library to pick up videos - Drums Along the Mohawk and The Counterfeit Traitor, decent older stuff - and there's Jayna Davis' The Third Terrorist on the New Books shelves next to Al Franken and Michael Moore and Blix and all the other Bush-hating commies! The lefty librarians around here must be slipping.... Grabbed it of course, into the queue.

Fascinating discussion of the draft on the Homeland Defense Rifles mailing list, taking notes for my Republic.

I'm signed up with a lot of internet survey outfits - a buck here, three bucks there, etc. Sometimes I even get Zogby polls. Anyway, this one just sent me a certificate for $25, redeemable lots of places - including Cabela's! Hmm, what to get...?

577 - Thursday, 5 August 2004: Starting to get sufficiently vegged. Resized 140 pieces Mauser brass.

Fischer's Washington's Crossing off to a fine start. Notes and sources - apparently some blacks rose to the rank of colonel in the New England units! So much for the leftist derision of "Dead White Men." Riflemen - Hessian lieutenant Johann Heinrich von Bardeleben noted that "most of our officers must cut the rank insignia from their uniforms, supposedly because the rebel riflemen had their greatest interest in officers." :) And, of course, I see again the long string of inexplicable miracles and bloody British blunders without which American independence could not have been won. It almost makes one believe in a God, and that He sent George Washington to us.

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Counting leftovers from the PIG, 188 live Mauser rounds on-hand: Sierra 150gr Pro Hunter, 45.0gr Accurate 2230, WLR primer, thrice-fired Federal case, 3.0" COL. Maybe thirty rounds' worth of A2230 left - 160 Pro Hunters - will buy one more pound of Accurate, then I'll start experimenting with a 200gr load. 52 pieces four-times-fired brass, 92 counting the Remington and Winchester. One recommended load is 50.0gr Hodgdon H380 under a Sierra MatchKing. Looking in manuals - no 200gr loads in the old Lyman, though it does show a starting load of 49.0, maximum 54.0 (compressed), for 170gr. Hodgdon 2002 manual - no 200gr loads, 45.0 for 170gr, "NEVER EXCEED." Hmm. Cartridges of the World, 7th ed., 200gr soft point over 54.0gr IMR 4831 for 2,400fps, from Speer data, hmm. Huh! That was the "Current American Rifle Cartridges" chapter - under "Military Rifle Cartridges of the World" the later JS type, .323" bore instead of the older J .318", is listed with a 154gr projectile (which we know to be a Spitzer, since Germans invented it a hundred-odd years ago) at 2,880fps. So maybe my 150gr loads are appropriate after all! The VZ24's rifling twist appears to be in the neighborhood of 1:9" (why does that seem fast?). Military Small Arms of the 20th Century, 7th ed., lists what appears to work out to 175gr. Hmm, maybe a 170gr load? Lots of data for that....

Joining Cruffler at Clark Rifles sometime this weekend, he wants to try some odd lightweight surplus 9mm stuff in my Camp Carbine, in which it has been advertised to work.

578 - Friday, 6 August 2004: Foreign Policy 101:

This:

Leads to this:

Now what do you think this will lead to?

Getting nice and deep on that topic with Michigan. Interesting Times ahead on any path. :(

Viewing Revolutions again. Now, if (the current incarnation of) Zion had been fighting the machines for a hundred years, wouldn't they have come up with more advanced power sources and weapons in all that time? At the least couldn't they have ripped those cutting beams, and their power supplies, out of defeated sentinels? Even if EMPs or the electroguns fried the circuits, wouldn't there be enough left to reverse-engineer? (Grinding powder for "shells" with a mortar and pestle fer cryin' out loud?)

And where did all that huge engineering come from in only a hundred years, the mammoth domes, the sprawling underground city, the titanic gates, the ships, while they're supposedly fighting for survival every day? And in a hundred years no one ever came across any trace or hint that Zion had existed before, no old shipwrecks, no ancient ruins? Look, I'm a science-fiction junkie, my disbelief has some decent suspension gear, but could I have at least something resembling a road to drive it down?

Slight case of cabin fever - spending money again, this time on Sierra Pro-Hunter 150gr projectiles... in .30 caliber. I should have enough powder, and possibly enough brass, to load three different 20-round batches for testing in the FR8. Anyway about $15 at Bi-Mart. Sizer/decapper previously tested on a picked-up Federal case, works. Aha! Thought so, lots of Boxer-primed CAVIM and Hirtenberger brass saved from the Ishapore days. Sixty pieces Hirtenberger - decaps okay, neck chamfer/deburr tool seems to work all right for removing military crimp. After resizing and tumbling tomorrow, will load 20 each at listed starting loads of BL-C(2), A2230, and IMR4064.

Hmm, Clark Rifles' annual meeting Sunday, will there be any shooting? Or will there be any room on the firing line to shoot?

579 - Saturday, 7 August 2004: Websurfing, found this webcomic. It's... it's... it's like an anti-Doonesbury!

New Sinclair International catalog in mail. Sigh....

It's good to have a DVD player. The library has the DVD versions of Episodes I and II, with all that extra stuff. :) And Hollyweird is getting less of my money for viewing it. :) :) -Star Trek: Nemesis was kinda lame, it just sorta laid there twitching, and there's the socialist stink inherent in the United Federation of Planets. I think it was L. Neil Smith (Forge of the Elders?) who described the Prime Directive as a scheme to keep Third World nations in their underdeveloped place. Hmph.

60 pieces Hirtenberger 7.62x51mm brass resized, tumbled, primer crimp chamfered. Case length consistently over the trim-to length - eh, not by much, and I don't want to reset the trimmer from where it's set for the Mauser, it should be all right. Auto-Prime works adequately, rather stiff in these military primer pockets. Twenty rounds each: 42.3gr BL-C(2), 39.2gr A2230, and 40.5gr IMR4064, all under the Sierra Pro Hunter 150gr, #2130, at, eh, 2.75" COL (Lyman manual says 2.80 maximum; other manuals say ~2.74 for 150gr; Portuguese NATO surplus FMJ round measures 2.78). All FM and Marlin magazines in range bag, remainder of UMC MegaPack, box of Win/USA JHP.

Hornady New Dimension dies much superior to RCBS, not least for the bullet-centering guide; also for the design that does not need three tools and as many hands to adjust.

580 - Sunday, 8 August 2004: Cruffler emails, begs off Clark Rifles due to health. Swing by his place for the Swedish ammunition, head up to the range. Annual Meeting, yes, picnic, yes, shooting, no. Eh, I'll go back Wednesday maybe.

Arrived about 10am. Not many people there. Supposed to be a swap meet too - four "tables", shooting benches that is, about 1½ tables' worth compared to an actual show. Got a (sealed!) pound of Hodgdon Universal Clays handgun/shotgun powder for eight bucks!

Reports of political infighting, power struggles, election shenanigans, among club leadership. :( I joined for this? -Nothing much happening, soon left.

Back to Cruffler's place, yakked. Examined his FALs, of which he is waxing enthusiastic, not least for the wide international variety of pieces & parts to choose from to make one just the way you want it, hmm. Trotted out his Kel-Tec SU16 again, discussed upcoming alterations to the design according to their website - dunno if I would buy one as-is, the later model with reportedly better sights might be more appealing, but I have to respect the technical achievement and the spirit of innovation.

While there, received Flash of Inspiration! Remove FR8's rear sight disc - measure V-notch carefully. Go to local hardware store, get small metal tube of appropriate diameter, lay it in the notch - that's an aperture, or at least a ghost ring. JB Weld that in place, and build up the rest of the notch too. Set aside to fully cure, then file/grind down smooth. Progress to be reported, with pictures maybe.

And another thing - using an open-hand, palm-up technique on the VZ24's straight bolt handle. Using the same technique on the FR results in damaged pinkie due to tall rear sight. Possibly I could just look through the parts bins at Barberton (next weekend) or some other show and find a bolt with a turned-down handle, Dremeling the stock as necessary. Sharing this idea with Cruffler, he gives me information on somebody back east offering Mauser bolts, or at least stripped bolts, for under $20! Headspace will be an issue but I have a gauge and, if the replacement bolt fails, I'll save it for future VZ24 conversions where I'll be screwing a barrel into the receiver until headspace is good anyway. But that has to wait for income.

Cruffler also tells of GunPartsGuy, a parts supplier in Vancouver! Mainly, or largely, FAL stuff, but that's on the list now. (Still not happy with the rear sight....) Also another tip - Liquid Paper for sight paint! Not flourescent, probably not as many colors, but Cruffler says it's more durable.

Awright, to work. Remove small screw in front of rear sight base - this keeps the disc from overtravelling and releasing the little ball-and-spring which clicks it into place for each notch or aperture. Rotate disk - capture detent ball, spring stays put, carefully secure ball and retaining screw in small ziploc bag. FR muzzle-down against floor between knees, beat on the rear sight disc axle with punch and hammer - stubborn, apparently peened on both ends for retention. Some movement - molest exposed end with pliers, go the other way, it's out! Ancient Spanish gunk in the recess....

Well. If I treat the V-notch like half a square, according to the digital calipers it's very close to .075" per side, meaning I want a little metal tube .075" in outside diameter. The three apertures, for 200, 300 and 500 meters, are about .055" inside - probably the metal tube will have thinner walls, thus giving me a larger aperture for 100, but maybe that's what I want anyway. To the hardware store! Nothing exactly the right size, but some 5/64" brass tubing, that's .0781. Two 12" lengths for $1.39. -Caliper says .077" outside, .062" inside, close enough I hope.

Okay, cotton swabs and alcohol to clean. Mix it up - the stuff flows, especially in August heat. This may take several applications, building up layers; trying to do it all at once, without a mold or coffer arrangement I'm too lazy to make, results in the stuff flowing into Important Areas. This may take some days and maybe I'll just tape something up for subsequent layers anyway. Meanwhile I can Dremel the FR's stock and get that Bold trigger installed.

Remove stock - slightly less involved than the VZ24, as the FR has a sort-of-nosecap thing instead of barrel bands. Remove old trigger, install Bold - trigger pin falls out! Tighten set screw per instructions, tension on pin, okay. The hardest part is inletting the stock - Dremel, try, Dremel, try, etc. Could take hours. -But, with a proper bit and a technique educated by installing the Timney in the MojoMauser, it took maybe half of one. Done! It works! Nice crisp pull, about the same as I've set the Timney for in the VZ. Note the yellow goop slathered onto the adjustment screws - trigger is factory set to 3½-4½ lbs; sear engagement (like the Timney, the Bold trigger has its own internal sear, which in turn releases the cocking piece, so the rifle has two "sears" now) is set to a "safe factory standard" - it seems fine as-is. Big military flap safety engages smoother too, it used to need wrasslin'.

Now if my idea for an aperture works, and if my handloads don't burst the widely-disparaged Spanish steel, the FR is in business! -Oh, and I can get more dry practice by - duh - removing the magazine floorplate, with attached spring and (bolt-stopping) follower. Furthermore the hole for the pin that holds the rear sight disc in place can be used as an "aperture" for dry practice - though too much of that might program my muscles for what would actually be an incorrect cheek weld, as the real aperture(s) will be higher.

And, if it does blow up or it doesn't give the accuracy I want, I can take the trigger out and put it in some other Mauser project.

581 - Monday, 9 August 2004: Heat wave, vegging....

First glob of JB Weld cured, preliminary Dremel work done, brass tube cut down near flush with disc. I think this will work. Have to be careful not to damage the disc when cutting down the goop. JB Weld has a medium gray color, not too far from the sort-of-Parkerizing the rifle has.

582 - Tuesday, 10 August 2004: Reconstruction crew warns about new windows for my hovel - eww, strange people in my private space! Then there's the problem of piles of stuff in front of nearly every window, some of which hasn't moved for years. The perils of hermit living....

Scotch tape for a mold, more JB Weld on the FR's sight disc to completely fill the original V notch, set aside to cure.

Watched Black Hawk Down. Bill Clinton is a filthy traitor who defiles the sacrifices of the best soldiers in the world. And they wonder why the military votes, like, 80% Republican....

Ex-co-worker calls - my supposed tooling replacement was injured in traffic, like, the day after I was fired, other people are being jammed into the various positions I filled, and as might be expected things are falling apart. Gave what advice I could.

583 - Wednesday, 11 August 2004: Remove tape from sight disc, Dremel down to shape - done! Scrape marks from incautious Dremel work, and color difference between JB Weld and Parkerizing, should not be so noticeable with my eye right up against the disk, peering through the hole at the front sight post - eh, black Sharpie. Reinstall - more difficult without the clearance of the original V-notch to help get the detent ball in place, but managed. It's a good sight picture! (My habit of creeping up the stock made the original notch even worse.) Now I can try sighting it in, maybe today. -No, just a crude adjustment for the next trip, I'll be shooting mainly for groups with the three batches I've made so far. Might whip up another 20 or even 40 rounds of BL-C(2), as I have more of that powder, to roughly sight-in with. I imagine the three powders will have at least slightly different points of impact. Furthermore the brass tube which forms my new 100-meter aperture, being a couple thousandths bigger than I wanted, sits a little higher in the notch than it should, and will therefore raise my POI. This may also mean that the 2-, 3- and 500-meter apertures will not match up nicely with the 100 - but my handloads aren't likely to exactly duplicate NATO trajectories anyway. And then there's still the question of whether this disparaged Spanish metallurgy is safe with real NATO loads, or whether it used the milder CETME round and the sights are calibrated accordingly. Hmm.

Now I need a bayonet! :) About a month from now. No more income ‘til the 27th, and most of that check will go straight to rent. Will have to hit savings soon for car insurance. :( Good thing I have savings, but this isn't what I'd planned to spend it on! :( :(

Also found this editorial cartoon site.

SARCO wants $35 for a P35 hammer with strut, $25 for a sear, $15 for a sear lever (possibly there's something in the shape of mine that's causing it to joggle the sear as the slide returns to battery - hmm, perhaps a touch with a file at that point, hmm...). Wolff says factory-standard recoil spring is 17lbs, wants $7.89 for that spring alone, has them down to 8lbs (!). Performance Pak, $13.99, looks like what I want - includes 12 and 18.5lb recoil springs, "extra power" firing pin spring and 26lb (standard is 32lb, sez them) reduced hammer spring. I think I'll try that first.

Reconstruction crew absent! So if they're not here to replace the hovel's windows, I don't need to be here safeguarding my property. (Furthermore I need to talk to them about this anyway - my veteran neighbor, who's lived in his hovel maybe twice as long as I have mine, and I both need more time to excavate and make room for them to work - I've got a reloading "bench", he's got model railroading, and we've both got piles of junk. There should be more advance notice of such things.) Breakfast- departing for Clark Rifles noonish, with FR and 60 rounds handloads, Marlin and Swedish ammunition, and... it's kinda pointless to take the FM since nothing's been changed from last time. On Sunday I was going to take it to show Cruffler what it's doing and maybe get some suggestions, but then he suffered an injury and today he's at work.

Arrived about 12:45. Upper range, to myself - one guy on the lower range with an FAL. Starting with the Marlin @ 25 yards, 1"/4MOA targets, just to test the Swedish training ammunition. Forgot flannel shirt to protect elbows and absorb recoil! Lay soft rifle case over carpeted bench.

Two rounds. Oh! Also forgot spotting scope. Fortunately the little brass retro item stays in the range bag. Okay, aim, squeeze - it cycles! Barely. Brass (steel) case dribbles out of ejection port. Berdan primed of course. Very low recoil. Bolt locks back....

No holes in the 8½x11" target at 25 yards! Suspect it's shooting very low - what the heck, up a couple-three notches on the rear sight, it's not like I've got the Marlin sighted-in for a particular load. Five rounds - some at dirt backstop, observe impact - still no holes in the paper.

Five more, "shooting the corners," aiming at each corner of the target sheet - a hole! Apparently shooting low and right. Stovepipe jam on 9th round. Cleared - remaining three rounds OK. But no more holes! I ought to at least be on the paper at 25 yards, even if I have to detour through Kentucky....

Ten rounds. (Funky 36-place charger. Supposedly there's an adapter for magazines for the Swedish K submachinegun this stuff was made for training with.) All ten functioned, but only one more hole in the paper, quite far from the other one. Twelve rounds (34 in this package, Cruffler tried a couple in his Hi-Point carbine and they did not cycle), aiming at a light spot on the berm; it's all over, if I can see the impact at all. But no more malfunctions. So, yes, Cruffler, this weird Swedish 9mm training ammunition does function, 33 times of 34, in the Marlin Camp Carbine. Saving other box.

Now the FR. Good sight picture! Starting with... Accurate powder. Single loading, same all-but-untouched target, 25 yards.

Um. Goggles on. Blam - on the paper! Recoil sharp but manageable even in just a t-shirt. No pressure signs. Another round - almost touching the first. Several MOA high, a few to the right.

Adjust front sight. Two rounds - one hole. But, went the wrong way with elevation, heh. Two - strung vertically, but consistent windage. Up with the post, down with the POI. Two - closer.... Adjust. Two - getting there!

Down one turn, new target, five rounds. ...Just a little high.

Up a little, taking care to get the windage offset the same - fresh targets (Palma five-place, now I'm in the neighborhood) - duh, sandbag time. Last five rounds A2230 - not bad, not bad. May build up the front sight as Michigan suggests.

Now BL-C(2). A2230 was clean - so's this, unlike the same powder in the 7.92mm VZ. No pressure signs. Accuracy is promising.

Chatting with R/O, he recommends Tom Clancy's nonfiction Battle Ready, coauthored with a General Zinni (later, yes, library has it, on hold.) I plugged the Mojo sights - this guy's wearing trifocals, but this dual-aperture thing may be quite useful for him. I like the Mojos: three awards in four matches with them, two of those before the Timney trigger went into the VZ24.

Getting tired & late, saving last ten rounds BL. Now the IMR. As clean as the others, still no pressure signs - five rounds, decent. Five more - shoulder complaining, can't get as good a tuck with sandbags under the buttstock for more stability - goodnessgraciousme.

And that was with a sore shoulder! Saving ten rounds IMR too, packing up about 3pm. Will add slip-on recoil pad to FR, it's a plain steel buttplate, no compartment or other special features.

584 - Thursday, 12 August 2004: Cruffler sends:

See also:

Vietnam Veterans for the Truth

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Watched We Were Soldiers last night. Lt. Gen. Harold Moore, coauthor of the book on which the film is based and whom Mel Gibson plays in the lead role as a Lt. Col., was chief adviser to the film and gave the result his blessing in interviews for the DVD special features. Several other survivors and veterans also contributed, including the other author of the book, Joe Galloway, a journalist the like of which the modern Fourth Estate has by all indications hunted down and exterminated. (Just as officers of Moore's kind seem to have been lost in the Clinton Purges.)

Upsets at the Barberton show, due to insurance hassles it's now a members-only affair, but it's only $7/year according to Cruffler. Furthermore the show will be changing location soon. I'll go this weekend but almost certainly won't buy anything, I just can't spare the funds at this point.

Actually the adjusted Timney trigger in the VZ gives a better pull than the factory-set Bold in the FR, but the Bold is still vastly better than the original and I'll probably leave it alone. The post-and-aperture sight is working, and from sandbags I got a 5-shot group in about 2MOA with that old Spanish transitional model. I wish there were some authoritative statement somewhere as to whether the FR8 is safe with full-power NATO or .308 Winchester loads! Ideally I would, with my handloads, duplicate the ballistics of the M80 (?) 7.62x51mm Ball, so I could use the existing sights at the distances they're designed for, with the kind of accuracy that comes from making one's own ammunition; but also pick up rounds from, say, M240s on the field, if it comes to that. Also of course there's the cheap surplus ammo angle before it comes to that. Sigh. After income resumes I'll look into converting a VZ, there's little question about the strength of Czech steel. Meanwhile at least I have another rifle running, and mostly sighted in (just remember to hold a couple MOA low and right).

Fischer's Washington's Crossing laying lots of groundwork - details of the troops and commanders (Cornwallis was kinda sorta on our side, up until the rules changed at Lexington/Concord), at least half a year's worth of previous campaigning, the fall of New York City and New Jersey. George Washington fought on after these defeats when most mere mortals would have packed it in. -Side discussion of the War of Independence and the French role in it, with comparisons to the French place in the world today ("Our madams mock at us, and plainly say our mettle is bred out..."), on the American Gun Owners mailing list.

Mail - birth certificate, much faster than the ~3 weeks I was told. One step closer to a CMP Garand! National Republican Congressional Committee Ask America 2004 Nationwide Policy Survey, begging for money of course. Subjects: War on Terrorism; Homeland Security; Economy; Social Security/Medicare; Health Care; Education; National Defense; Foreign Affairs; Supreme Court/Federal Courts; Federal Government; Legal/Crime - the only RKBA-related question in five pages: "Gun owners say there should be a limit to how far the government can go in infringing on their Second Amendment rights. Do you agree? - YES - NO - NO OPINION." So even Republicans presume that infringement is allowed at all. Later, "What do you consider the most important steps the Republican Party can take in the coming months to re-elect President Bush and to ensure continued control of Congress?"

"STOP illegal immigration. SUPPORT gun rights, OPPOSE the ‘assault weapons' ban. VIGOROUSLY prosecute the war on terrorism WITHOUT all this politically-correct, culturally-sensitive nonsense."

"Additional Comments?"

"Four years ago I voted for a Republican. I never got one! Gun owners elected George W. Bush and he'd better ‘dance with who brung him' or he'll be a one-term wonder like his ‘assault-weapon'-banning daddy!" "NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE UNITED STATES." Odds are they look for the check or credit card number and ignore the survey anyway, but sending my opinions isn't costing me anything but time.

Recoil pad stolen from Hungarian Mosin M44, installed on Spanish Mauser FR8. Cartridge carrier too, and the ten leftover IMR rounds from the batch that produced a 5-shot, 2MOA group. Tomorrow I think I'll make up another 40 pieces with BL-C(2), then try fine-tuning the front sight Saturday after Barberton.

585 - Friday, 13 August 2004: Reconstruction crew installs new window, had to move piles of junk. Not much wall remaining for another window, more intrusions in my future. Called around pricing - rented storage space, $34/month, no deposit. Forgot lock, bought one there, $9.50. First load transferred. Well, this is an opportunity to clean up the hovel. Meanwhile, new job starts Monday and I won't be here - will secure as much as possible, leave key with Vietnam-veteran neighbor so he can let them in if necessary.

While crew was working, resized, tumbled, chamfered and primed 60 pieces Hirtenberger NATO brass. Closely examining this log, which also doubles as my reloading log; and the little slip of paper that comes with the projectiles, to fill out for load information; and weighing a leftover round, and the components to make another; I conclude that I did in fact put 42.3gr of BL-C(2) powder in that batch, when what I really wanted was 48.0 minus 10%, which would be 43.2gr. But I'll do 42.3 again for the 40 remaining Sierra #2130 projectiles. -Done, 50 rounds BL and 10 rounds IMR ready for use.

Washington's Crossing, pg. 143: "Doctor Benjamin Rush, who had a major role in the event [the revival of faith in and support for the cause of Independence in December 1776 after a string of crushing defeats], believed that this was the way a free republic would always work, and the American republic in particular. He thought it was a national habit of the American people (maybe all free people) not to deal with a difficult problem until it was nearly impossible. ‘Our republics cannot exist long in prosperity,' Rush wrote. ‘We require adversity and appear to possess most of the republican spirit when most depressed.'" -Letter to John Adams, 13 July 1780.

And Kipling said:

But ye say, "It will mar our comfort." Ye say, "It will minish our trade."
Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid?
For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn?
(Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.)

:(

Something not right in my left wrist after all the pushing and shoving. Eh, better that than my right wrist, like October ‘02 (#44).

586 - Saturday, 14 August 2004: Zzzz.... Wrist better. Arrived Barberton about 10am. Cruffler, still recovering from... something... not running his hot dog stand today but prowling the aisles more than usual. Yakked. Aha! Got a hammer for the P35 for $20, marked $25 - also marked "NEW", Cruffler and I agree it doesn't look like it's ever been installed. Maybe this will help. Met match director of last year's PIG, and a Clark Rifles regular - and he's been recently banned from the club. Huh!? Habitual readers of Fred's editorial column in Shotgun News may draw parallels to his recent account of Troubles at Riverside Gun Club.

Met GunPartsGuy Jim, fondled one of his FALs. Arrived Clark Rifles about 12:15pm, he's there with it, eventually getting about 4MOA with a Trilux optical sight and Portuguese NATO ammo.

To work! Five-place Palma targets at 25 yards. Starting with the ten leftover rounds of IMR, single-loaded. 1st round high and left, slight adjustment - yeah, that's all right. Again, from the magazine - 1st round low, the rest about 3MOA.

1 2

Now the BL-C(2). Hmm, still a little left. Adjust - 1st round centered! The rest disappointing.

1 2

That was the last of the hand-measured rounds, now the stuff from the powder measure:

3

Possible problem: RCBS seating die leaving a small mark on the jacket at one point. May Dremel that surface very lightly, maybe the felt polishing bit and red compound. Anyway this is not what I'm looking for, not the accuracy I expected after the ~2MOA performance last time. Now what?

Well. Again. Better, I guess.... Adjust for windage again. Not too bad.... Low, hm. Front post down ~¾ turn, being careful to preserve the windage offset - hm, pulled the last one high. The rest still a little low! Why? Maybe I'm spoiled by the Mojo front aperture on the VZ and I'm having trouble getting the post just right in the aperture.

4 5 6

20 rounds left. Again - crap. Adjust windage. 1st round, wrong way! Adjust again - high now. Adjust - last three for a decent group.

7 8

Adjust. Ten left - sigh. Again - SIGH. That's all, left about 2pm.

9 10

Two more loads delivered to storage, mainly obsolescent computer stuff - now need boxes. Ick - myself and my car's back seat covered with dust, lint, cobwebs, dead bugs and the shed skins of the spiders that killed them. Hope to make another load tomorrow. Meanwhile, can organize reloading "bench."

No, the new hammer doesn't solve the problem - too much sear engagement, extremely heavy trigger pull - and it doesn't fully re-engage when cycling. This is what they mean when they say "gunsmith fitting required." Stoning the hammer notch, with an expensive fixture requiring skill and experience, might solve the problem.

The sear lever is involved. Apparently, as I previously surmised, the sear lever is not properly pivoting in relation to the sear and the trigger lever. Possibly removing some metal from the top rear of the sear lever, where it appears to be making contact with the top of the recess in the slide, would let the sear lever ride up and over the sear instead of bumping it out of engagement. Another point would be at the rear bump which presses down on the sear when the trigger lever presses up on the front end. Unfortunately I don't have a spare sear lever to experiment on. -Probably that's not really the problem but I'll bear it in mind. I think the next step will be to replace the sear. Sigh. Not a productive weekend in the field of hoplology. Sunday I'll be busy clearing out more junk, doing laundry, preparing for strangers to enter my hovel and preparing to start a new job at an unholy hour of the morning.

Watched U.S. Marshals. Right away with the nonsense about explosive decompression of an airliner from a gunshot. And we know that Tommy Lee Jones is a Goreling, and Wesley Snipes may be connected with some kind of Islamic training camp in Alabama. GunPartsGuy recommends Tears of the Sun - Bruce Willis has occasionally made anti-commie noises, and the plot reportedly involves refugees being slaughtered because they have been disarmed. In the library hold queue. Also picked up Turtledove's Return Engagement, next in his alternate Confederate series, and a re-release of Heinlein's Expanded Universe. -Thumbing through that; that's the Heinlein that bent my brain. In 1973 he delivered a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy (from which he graduated) titled The Pragmatics of Patriotism. What was that quote - Churchill? - about a man under 30 who is not a socialist having no heart, and a man over 30 who is not a... conservative? Nationalist? -Having no head.

587 - Sunday, 15 August 2004: Zzzz.... May be the last extra sleep I get for a while.

Another load to storage. Boxes from grocery stores - another load.

588 - Monday, 16 August 2004: New job. Not as fast-paced as I expected, or even hoped. Precision work, combined with parts shortages, make for slow going. Lesser commute though.

Another window finished in the hovel, another small load to storage. A 5x5-foot space would be enough cubically, but a lot of this stuff won't stack....

Washington's Crossing could be used as a textbook for insurgency and guerilla warfare. Thanks not least to Thomas Paine's The American Crisis ("These are the times that try men's souls..."), New Jersey and several other colonies spewed up thousands of armed, angry rebels, every one with a grudge against anyone wearing a red coat. And this was before the Crossing; there were war crimes committed by British and Hessian troops, including looting, plundering, destruction of houses (leaving the innocent homeless in brutal 18th-Century New England winter), murder of civilians, and several rapes, even of teenage girls.

On 26 December 1776, Washington's forces miraculously caught the prepared, professional, experienced, alert, well-equipped enemy by surprise despite hours of delay and a long train of what would have been catastrophes to any lesser commander. Washington may have been the first military commander to "synchronize watches." Henry Knox, with little more than book-learning, created the American tradition of having Lots Of Artillery on-hand and on-call - some of Knox' artillerymen entered battle not with muskets but with tools, expecting to capture enemy guns (they did) and turn them against their former owners (they did, in the very heat of the battle). Washington and Knox created what was arguably the first truly mobile artillery. Washington's well-chosen subordinates delivered their troops to the battle line in a brilliant multi-prong attack, under conditions that rival the Siege of Stalingrad more than a century and a half later. Washington's leadership instantly halted Hessian Colonel Rall's attempted flanking counterattack; our George had so much on the ball our forces ended up taking around 800 prisoners - along with their muskets, powder, flints, lead, bayonets, swords, blankets, shoes & socks, a half-dozen pieces of high-quality artillery, and piles of other things the Continental Army desperately needed.

That was Trenton. A few days later, he did it all over again, at Princeton. Yeek.

589 - Tuesday, 17 August 2004: Haven't quit yet.... Orientation meetings, blah blah. Employee handbook, typical narrow-minded corporate prohibition of self-defense.

Wrist giving trouble all day.

Being paid (a little) more for much less work. Not as interesting work either, unlike sleuthing technical stuff on the web, but tolerable. Commute really less deadly.

Tired - wrist hurting - slacking on ‘blog and email.

Watched Tears of the Sun - nothing spectacular, but not bad. "Give them back their weapons." Refugees and SEALs side by side on the firing line, okay.

590 - Wednesday, 18 August 2004: Watched Cast Away, interesting DVD survivalist featurette.

591 - Thursday, 19 August 2004:

Sean Hannity: "Did you know John Kerry served in Vietnam?"
Dr. Levin: "On which side?"

Seeing waaay too many pro-Kerry and/or anti-Bush stickers on cars in the Portland area. More reports via Larry Elder of vandalism of property bearing pro-Bush signs. Reports from various sources of synagogues being torched and Jews being assaulted in France. Bad times are coming and it's depressing me.

Early work hours draining - feet hurt, have to get used to standing all day again. Wrist still giving trouble. Possibility of work Saturday, could use the money. Checking account balance getting weird, need to examine records and talk to bank (again).

Washington's Crossing: 2 January 1776, Second Battle of Trenton, the British and Hessians walk into an American meat grinder, thanks largely to Henry Knox' artillery. But now the Continentals are trapped by terrain and weather, and outnumbered by redcoats and their mercenary auxiliaries. Retreat tonight? No, the river's hopeless and the land on this side of it has already been stripped bare, nothing for the army to live off of; besides we want avoid the "appearance of retreat." Fight a Real Stand-Up Battle tomorrow? We've been lucky, but not that lucky. Oh, I know: we'll march this other direction and attack Princeton, even deeper in enemy territory!

"I was too weak to defend, so I attacked...."

Watched Reign of Fire, favorably reviewed by Clayton Cramer in October ‘02 (#43). Eh, neutral I guess.

592 - Friday, 20 August 2004: Forecast calls for heat wave to finally break over the weekend... anyway it'll be September soon. Well, I've got a job for the winter. -Pulled into the parking lot this morning with fuel on "E", very pleased with myself for getting those reserve cans; but now I have to $queeze some more cash out and refill them. -Lots of good boxes, for packing junk off to storage, generated daily at work. Also large desiccant packs for the gun cabinet.

Screeching uncivilized third-worlder brats up past ten, just the other side of the hedge. Cruffler offered me a case of Mosin ammunition to ignite his annoying neighbor kid. Unfortunately he's already got so much stuff there's little I can offer him....

Many DVDs from library badly scratched and partly unreadable. %^*$# cityfolk. DVDs are kept behind the counter instead of the regular hold shelves, to reduce theft; will have to inspect them right there before taking them henceforth.

Okay, tactically the Battle of Princeton was a draw, but strategically it ranks with Antietam - the British, like McClellan, lost their last best chance to break the separatist army and bring the war to a quick and less-bloody end. Like his (grand-?)nephew-in-law Robert E. Lee about 85 years later, Washington seized an opportunity and slipped his army away to fight another day. More importantly the initiative changed hands: the British commanders' mentality shifted from an arrogant offensive to a badly-shaken defensive, while American morale - and enlistment - increased. While Washington marches the Continentals off to a less-than-they-deserved rest in winter quarters, the militias take over. "Whenever red coats and brass helmets appeared in the countryside, they were attacked." Viva la Guerilla!

593 - Saturday, 21 August 2004: Zzzz.

Zzzz.

ZZZZ!!!! No shooting this weekend, more stuff to storage.

Washington's Crossing, final paragraph, pg.379: "[The soldiers of the American Revolution] set a high example, and we have much to learn from them. Much recent historical writing has served us ill in that respect. In the late twentieth century, too many scholars tried to make the American past into a record of crime and folly. Too many writers have told us that we are captives of our darker selves and helpless victims of our history. It isn't so, and never was. The story of Washington's Crossing tells us that Americans in an earlier generation were capable of acting in a higher spirit - and so are we."

The last quarter of the book is appendices, notes, bibliographies, maps, etc. Fischer has done a very thorough job, often deconstructing earlier works and myths, like the drunken Hessians at 1st Trenton (they weren't - they were on full alert, but worn thin by harassment from militias and denied support from other units by Washington's diversionary maneuvers) and the American shortage of arms and ammunition (they had piles, not least from pre-revolutionary France - what they really needed was shoes and blankets and food and such). Washington combined popular opinion with military strategy to rouse the countryside and demoralize the enemy. Fischer draws at least one parallel to Vietnam, and it all gets my subconscious thinking of how to fight the next American civil war. (See also Sam Hall by Poul Anderson.) I give this book my highest recommendation.

-Weather data. One whole appendix on the women involved on both sides, as everything from camp followers to combatants - that might make an interesting subject for another book. Orders of battle, troop arrangements, casualty figures. Another whole appendix on Doubtful Documents. Ooo! Page 454:

"...[in the late 60s and early 70s] many on the left sought sanctuary in American universities as internal exiles from a society that turned away from them.

"In the 1980s some of these internal exiles rejected all politics. Others increasingly called themselves American Marxists and predicted the coming collapse of capitalism. Then came the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union instead, and the failure of Marxism throughout the world. It was a double disaster for the American Left. The result was an angry generation of academic iconoclasts, disillusioned by the failure of radical movements, alienated from American institutions, and filled with cultural despair. When the light of their revolution failed, some of them could see nothing but darkness." (This meshes with Michael Savage's and David Horowitz' descriptions of leftism as a mental disorder.)

"More than a few became historians. Some ex-Marxists became historical relativists who beat their dialectical swords into epistemological plowshares, and rejected ideas of objective and empirical inquiry. They judged other works mainly by ideological standards of political incorrectness such as racism, sexism, and elitism. Any work with a positive tone about the United States was condemned as 'triumphalism.' Their writings expressed intense hostility to American institutions and alienation from the main lines of American history."

And they still do. Reportedly at least one Borders bookstore is refusing to stock Unfit for Command, the book coauthored by USN Lt. John O'Neill critical of USN Lt. John Kerry, because it "contains many lies." But I bet that same store keeps lots of books by Michael Moore, Michael Bellesiles, and Noam Chomsky on its shelves.... I think I'll look up more of Fischer's work.

Going back through for a second look at the Post-Ited pages - 180: "By eighteenth-century European rules of war, civilians in arms could be put to death.... Even today, civilians not in uniform are forbidden to defend themselves against regular soldiers under the terms of the Hague Convention. Americans in 1776 rejected these rules. From the day of Lexington and Concord, men without uniforms believed that they had a natural right to take up arms in defense of their laws and liberties." To hell with Hague! 268: Commissary General Joseph Trumbull made a "continental effort, which operated at the limits of possibility in early America" to feed the army - elsewhere Fischer mentions Rommel's Law, that battles are won or lost by the quartermasters before a shot is fired (he would know, having been starved out of North Africa as much by Hitler, who diverted his supplies to the Eastern Front, as by the Allies, who sank them in the Mediterranean) - and I am reminded that Yamamoto, who had visited our country and observed our industrial capacity, promised only six months of victory. 355: "Washington thought that the Americans were learning to use their weapons more skillfully. He wrote to his brother, ‘our Scouts and the Enemy's Foraging Parties, have frequent Skirmishes, in which they always sustain the greatest loss in killed and wounded, owing to our superior skill in Fire Arms.'" Subliterate peasant conscripts cannot be as effective with weapons as free men who grew up hunting for food and practicing marksmanship for pride. And besides, many of the militiamen pecking away at the British and Hessians during the Forage War, January-March 1777, probably had rifles, and knew very well how to use them, as opposed to the enemy's smoothbore muskets that were only effective in volleys which required direction by officers... whom the riflemen had just picked off....

Oh, what next? Davis' The Third Terrorist and Turtledove's Return Engagement are both non-renewable due to more hold requests - the Turtledove, I think, and I'll put Davis back in the hold queue. 22 June 1941: ultra-nationalist Jake Featherston, President of the Confederate States of America, bitter over the Union victory in the Great War of 1914-17, has secretly re-armed the South and attacks Socialist Al Smith's United States without a formal declaration of war. Socialism weirding me out, along with recollections of The Two Georges, an anti-American hit piece coauthored with überliberal Richard Dreyfuss - thumbing through - in this alternate universe Republicans, condemned for being Lincoln the Loser's party, have shriveled up and blown away; Teddy Roosevelt was a Democrat; Democrats were not what they are today, or even in 1941; Franklin Roosevelt (Assistant Secretary of War) is appropriately a Socialist. Career military officers bemoan the Socialist's appeasement and peacenik policies which left the United States poorly equipped, not unlike our own 1941, to fight what evidently becomes a multi-front war. Churchill (!) declares war on the United States (!!). France largely under the thumb of Union ally Germany. Quebec a Union puppet "republic." The rest of Canada occupied Union territory. Japan bombed Los Angeles in the 1930s, in the last trilogy - short inconclusive war with them then now gearing up for round two. Technology curve slightly lower - no Panama Canal - apparently only one aircraft carrier in the entire USN at war's start. Hmm. -Turtledove is apparently Jewish; in his bio blurb, two of his three daughters bear traditional Hebrew names (Rachel and Rebecca); Jews, and their struggle for survival, figure in much of his alternate history; except for the collaboration with Dreyfuss I can't recall him sending an anti-gun message and often has his protagonists come across as at least slightly pro-gun, especially where opposition to genocide is concerned. One of the things I thumbed across already is about the Confederacy massacring blacks, and Unionists wanting to send the blacks weapons because "if they can fight back they're less likely to be slaughtered." (Unfortunately, previously in this series, many of the blacks who rebelled against the CSA were Communists... however,) I also note The Two Georges does not appear on the list of his books in the flyleaf.

Mail - beg-for-money from Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, trying to replace Clintonista judges with Bush appointees, and from The Heritage Foundation, wanting an independent (as opposed to Kofi Annan's) investigation of the Iraq/UN Oil for Food scandal. Nothing to spare....

'Blog finally updated, will try to catch up on email this evening.

Rain! ...And leaks, for the first time since I moved into this hovel, as the reconstructors have torn off the roof and not put a new one on yet, and the big blue tarp isn't all it could be. At least no vital areas seem to be affected.

Return Engagement - uh oh, Patton is a Confederate general, no wonder the Southrons took Columbus, Ohio, so quickly. Well, even in our timeline Patton was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and I believe his grandfather died heroically for the Confederacy in the War Between the States. -And Japan jumps in on the Confederate-British-French-Russian side, and Churchill welcomes them to the alliance. (Hmm, no Russo-Japanese war in 190something? When Lee smashed McClellan at Antietam in 1862 and the Union was dissolved, the ripples spread far.) The Union's allies appear to consist of... imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Union infantryman fights with a bolt-action Springfield, while the Confederate carries an automatic Tredegar, or a submachinegun. The Confederate Air Force (no, not that one) has Mule dive-bombers which Turtledove paints exactly like Stukas. Confederate tanks ("barrels") have a slight edge in firepower, slight deficiency in armor, and vast advantage in numbers over their Union counterparts. And the war's just getting started. Huh - page 203, Turtledove lays out JPFO's position, with blacks instead of Jews, almost word-for-word: "...if every black man answered the door with a gun in his hand when police or Freedom Party stalwarts or guards came calling... the powers that be might start thinking twice before they arrested people quite so freely. If Negroes didn't just submit, how many dead white men would the Freedom Party need before it got the message?" -Ohforgodssakes, Harry! Word games - Confederate Patton's Union nemesis at the armor game is named Morrell, Irving Morrell, who "wrote the book" on the use of armor in modern warfare. And he's been setting that one up for the three previous books!

594 - Sunday, 22 August 2004: Zzzz....

A new leak, right where I sit in front of the computer. :-/ Water in the phone line, can't get a dialtone to get online. :-\

Attended Clark Rifles monthly meeting - fireworks. Allegations, counter-accusations, questions asked and answered, and not answered; "cliques" on both sides, fastness and looseness with the bylaws. Sigh.

Something about Turtledove made me tear through Return Engagement. The Union lost the Battle of Midway this time, and the only US carrier in the Pacific; looks like he's gearing up for another Warsaw Ghetto uprising; social commentary not, heh, black-and-white. Good read. Now starting The Silent War, third in Ben Bova's Asteroid Wars series.

595 - Monday, 23 August 2004: Bova is a UN-loving globalist (Peacekeepers was an anti-nationalist message piece) who's fallen for the global-warming thing and writes about Earth being devastated by a "greenhouse cliff." But aside from that he writes all right, and he's not getting any of my money if I read his books through the library.

Snailmail from The Liberty Committee, fighting the UN's Law of the Sea Treaty - imagine the War of 1812, with blue helmets instead of red coats. "Our bank account is drained" - well so is mine.

More rain. No progress on the roof, but at least the phone line seems to have dried out.

Or not. Some static in the line, low connection speed - then it goes down again, so I can catch up on webcomics and collect the last two days' email, but not respond to it. Ah - jury-rigged phone line from previous landlord, subjected to rough handling by reconstruction crew, simply has broken wires at the wall receptacle, it's a simple matter of trimming, stripping, and replacing - if I knew which went where. Have multimeter in car's tool box, surplus wire stripper from last job, will stop at library tomorrow for an appropriate book. I can fix this.

596 - Tuesday, 24 August 2004: The Phone Book: The Money-Saving Guide to Installing or Replacing Your Own Telephone Equipment, Gerald Luecke & James B. Allen, Prompt Publications 1997 - more than sufficient.

The other day, Larry Elder reported that the Media Research Center reported that on the three old-media networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, stories about Bush being "AWOL" are running against anything to do with questions about Kerry's war record at a rate of 75 stories to 9. I wouldn't know, since the very thought of Brokaw, Jennings and/or Rather makes me nauseous, but MRC seems to have their ducks in a row.

More recently, local talker Victoria Taft reports that on his recent visit to Portland, DEMOCRAT SELF-CONFESSED WAR CRIMINAL John Kerry was observed to sit down and have a chat with DEMOCRAT CHILD MOLESTER former governor Neil Goldschmidt (which Kerry staff hotly and hurriedly denies). Meanwhile Tony Snow reports that NUCLEAR-ARMED COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP North Korea has officially endorsed Kerry for President of the United States. So the man who wants to be leader of the wealthiest and most powerful nation in history hobnobs with child-rapists and gets endorsements from nuke-happy despots.

Starting to see a few more Bush/Cheney stickers on cars around here. Can't bring myself to slap one on my own car - he's not a republican dammit! - but I keep drifting closer to voting for the lesser evil. SIGH.

Sigh - nonstandard telephone wire from the junction box to my wall seems to be giving trouble, still low connection speeds and dropouts. I may rewire the cussed thing myself.

597 - Wednesday, 25 August 2004: Today I worked in the stockroom. Doing warehouse stuff.

:-/

Fuel consumption is up and bank balances are down.

Finished The Silent War - message: anti-corporation, anti-free-market, anti-nationalist, anti-war. Hey, violence never solved anything, right? Now starting Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness, collected bits of Thomas Jefferson edited by Eric S. Petersen, 2004 Modern Library edition. Back flyleaf, "The Modern Library Editorial Board": ...Maya Angelou... Gore Vidal. I suspect this is an attempt at revisionism, quotes and excerpts carefully selected, and perhaps altered, to send a message rather different than Jefferson might have intended. -Cannot find a single reference to the bearing of arms. On the other hand, there's a whole anti-war chapter. While websearching to try to verify the wording of some quotes, I found this interesting article on our Bill of Rights vs. the UN's International Criminal Court. -Holy crap: following the Constitutional Issues link I found a rewrite of the Declaration of Independence that would serve for my Jeffersonian Republic! I have my own rewrite of course but this one may be better.

Finally some progress on the roof, just in time for a downpour. Weather more like October than August. "Wettest August on record" sez radio weathercritter. Next summer, anybody whines about a drought in my presence gets slapped.

Enough with Petersen, there's more and better Jefferson on the web. Starting Heinlein's Expanded Universe.

598 - Thursday, 26 August 2004: Hannity does a segment where Democrats call his show and he asks them simple questions, like "Name one thing John Kerry has accomplished in his 19 years in the Senate" or "What is John Kerry's current job?" Most have trouble even naming what state Kerry is from. Some think he's governor. No one I heard could name one thing he's done in the Senate. No one could give a straight, coherent answer to "Why are you voting for John Kerry?" - other than "He's not George Bush." Heinlein was right, people should have to pass an intelligence test (he specifies solving a quadratic equation, which is very basic algebra; I never had too much trouble with math ‘til I hit calculus) before voting. Alan Keyes has an interesting point (wedged in between the anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-separation-of-church-and-state stuff) when he suggests national service as a requirement for citizenship, not unlike Heinlein offers in Starship Troopers (I repeat, ignore the film and read the actual book). Hey, it's worked for Switzerland for how many hundred years?

I think I'll make a sign for the car:

This will probably get me run off the road, or my car firebombed in the supermarket parking lot.

Cruffler sends word of a Camas sporting-goods place liquidating, including firearms and/or related items. Also reminds me that the OAC show this month is a two-day event. May join him for both Saturday. Meanwhile Bi-Mart has reloading stuff on sale - $2 off powders, 10% off components and tools.

Finally paid... gonna be tight this week, unless I delay the rent check ‘til the 3rd. And where did that other $57.00 go from my checking account? I know how to balance a checkbook for crying out loud. Any more irregularities and I'll switch banks.

Hey, Labor Day weekend coming up! Zzzz! :)

Expanded Universe more expansive than I recall. Survivalist essays from late 40s & early 50s, like Ing's Pulling Through from much later, still relevant with the modern threat of WMD terrorism or economic/social collapse. (Also watch Cast Away - try to get it through a library as I did, so Commiewood doesn't get any royalties - and watch the featurette on the DVD. Also terabytes of survivalism and/or primitive skills on the web of course.) At more than one point (writing way back in the opening salvoes of the Cold War) Heinlein comes out strongly for world government, specifically the UN - and about the same time writes "Solution Unsatisfactory", appropriately titled. That's the thing about Heinlein: he thought things through. And then he wrote it all down to make us think it through too.

After some jiggling and cussing, phone line almost back to normal. Will try again to catch up on email this weekend.

599 - Friday, 27 August 2004: Yes, money in the account from direct deposit, at the level I figured, adjusting for observed irregularities. I'll see if it tracks from there.

Some work on the hovel's roof, but I wouldn't call it progress - an approximately boot-sized hole in the ceiling, just over the computer desk of course, and a big chunk of ancient - plaster? Drywall? Did they have that technology when this place was built? - sagging ominously. Forecast says weather returning to August for the weekend but raining again about Tuesday. :-\ I'll have more cleaning and moving to do, to clear workspace.

Cruffler sends that the Camas sale has been postponed, but I'll try to meet him at the OAC show tomorrow morning. Deciding to mail the rent check around the 2nd, dated for the 3rd, but not taking significant cash to the show. Meanwhile I gotta eat.

600 - Saturday, 28 August 2004: Up ungodsly early, met Cruffler at OAC show. Much bigger than regular monthly shows. Got in free with SW-WA (Barberton) badge! Cruffler depressed at missing Great Deal on a trapdoor Springfield. Many fascinating things, some even I had never heard of before. Got little warm-fuzzies from correctly identifying other stuff. Very impressive displays and collections - one exhibitor seemed to have about half the Colt .22 Ace pistols ever built, and a similar proportion of genuine Colt conversion kits. Bought four Frankford Arsenal 50-place plastic cartridge boxes, $1 each (MTM $3 at Bi-Mart), and a .50 ammo can for $3 (usually much more). Probably won't go back tomorrow but will remember this next year.

Back to the hovel for breakfast, then laundry, then Bi-Mart for the sale: pound Hodgdon 380, $13.99; box Sierra #2130, $13.49; box Hornady XTP .308 150gr, $12.79. -And when I return, I have a new skylight, as the ominously-sagging sheetrock has let go. No damage to my stuff I guess, but quite a mess. Ancient second-hand-store vacuum, bag taped together - managed. Big blue tarp already over the hole - ratty old big blue tarp....

Finished Expanded Universe (again), may have to buy a copy for reference - in the final segment he offers an upbeat prophecy in the form of a new American president, saying things I would love to hear coming out of George W. Bush's mouth, or someone's for gods' sakes.... Starting On Glorious Wings: The Best Flying Stories of the Century, Stephen Coonts, ed., a collection including Poe, Verne, Conan Doyle, Kipling, and an excerpt from Coonts' own Flight of the Intruder. (I saw the film but have since learned that Glover is an enemy - I may read the book.)

601 - Sunday, 29 August 2004: Zzzz....

No shooting for two weekends! Will have to do something about that. Well, now I have components to load up some more .308 and do some work with the FR. And I still have, uh, 188 rounds for the VZ. Tired from work, still bummed about the FM malfing.

Looks like Turtledove will be satisfying one of my desires (#194) with Days of Infamy, where Yamamoto does a more thorough job at Pearl Harbor. Also another Crosstime book coming; I was dissatisfied (#382) with Gunpowder Empire....

Lethargic, still slacking on email.

Ooo, Larry Elder is coming to television! That might make me plug mine in....

602 - Monday, 30 August 2004: Got my Clark Rifles membership card/badge in the mail the other day....

Skimmed through On Glorious Wings, mainly excerpts from larger works, some of which I've read. Probably will read Coonts' Flight of the Intruder later. Starting Gingrich & Forstchen's Gettysburg, first of their alternate WBtS series, where Lee wins.

603 - Tuesday, 31 August 2004: Bi-Mart clearance bin: Wrangler belt (made in Mexico, but that still beats China), $7.50, should be suitable for concealed carry. Reloading sale: pound Hodgdon 4895, $15.69.

Gas prices back up the last week or two, $1.87 on both sides of the river.

Michael Savage reporting assaults, beatings, committed by Kerry supporters in New York at or near the Republican Convention. No mention from Brokaw & co. of course. An NYPD officer reportedly severely beaten, kicked in the head. -Heinlein's characters sharing my views on blueshirts - "I've met a few honest cops; two, I think...." - but come on, they leave me alone, I leave them alone. Another NYPD officer quoted - Drudge, I think - "It's like 9/11 never fuggin' happened." Savage comparing NYC 2004 to Weimar Republic, 192(?)4, and giving warning - commie mobs then as now, and look where the backlash from that ended up.

Some Kerryites at work. :-/ Others suicidally apathetic and ignorant. :-\

Meanwhile, the RNC is a RINOfest - McCain, the anti-gun Manchurian Candidate; Giuliani, also anti-gun; SchwarzenRINO, "Everyting muzt be profided for da peepul," married into the Kennedy clan fer cryin' out loud; Elizabeth Dole, anti-gun; Bush himself, supporting renewal of the "assault weapon" ban, spending more than Clinton, CREATING HUGE AND EXPENSIVE NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS AND DEPARTMENTS... now is not a time for moderation! In 2000 millions of gunfolk got off their disillusioned butts to vote, not for Bush but against Gore. By reaching for "moderate" votes the GOP will alienate their real conservative base and lose the election! AND THEN WE'LL HAVE HANOI JOHN KERRY, just like GHWB's betrayal of the gunfolk who elected him backlashed into the Clinton Years.

And by "conservative" I don't mean issues like abortion and gay marriage and faith-based programs, I mean cutting spending, cutting taxes, reducing the size and power of government, repealing laws, butting out of private lives, defending the Constitution, fighting wars to WIN! Gawd, when was the last time we had a president like that...? :(

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