RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - JANUARY 2010
2425 - Saturday, 2 January 2010: Zzz.
Having to set Patriots aside for Weber & Flint's latest Honorverse, Torch of Freedom. Wordy....
Email from Mr. E. about a vintage rifle match at Tri-County Gun Club tomorrow - too pooped and broke. Looks like there's another next month though, hm. ...And maybe every month, hmm.
This is one of several reasons I've been ramping up my bullet-casting capacity.
2426 - Sunday, 3 January 2010: Zzzz.
Show & chat every Sunday 1100PT. Also another, rapidly-growing, show 1700PT, this week featuring Oleg Volk and Kevin Starrett.
Pournelle gets readworthy mail about the USMC.
January 1960 Guns magazine .PDF is available. -Aaand that gives me a reason to update the archive. -Dig page 8, Elmer Keith rants on laws & antis, and pushes the Founders' concept (and mine) of the Unorganized Militia.
Hussein displays "...not just incompetence but incomprehension." Visual aid.
2427 - Monday, 4 January 2010: So... Evil.... One month left. Barely one month’s worth money in savings, though I might be able to stretch that to a two-month buffer by the end of income if I’m careful. Kinda caught up on bills for a change. Starting to phone-pester temp service. -Maybe I should just start ammorunning in Kali. It is, after all, a very old American tradition.
In the news, Ruger introduces new .327 revolvers – an 8-shot Blackhawk and a 7-shot GP100. (The 6-shot SP101 has been out a while.) I think I was e-conversing about that very thing with one of my readers on the other end of the continent not long ago.
Pricing components to build a new computer. It quickly approaches the price of an AR upper or full kit, even counting the stuff I’ve fished out of the recycle bin at work. :( Not happening ‘til I get income again anyway.
Wyoming has RINOs too, sigh.
Quote o’ the Day: ”If you didn’t like a world of too-strong-America, you will really not like a world of too-weak-America.”
Thugs with (cereal-box-)badges. And real ones. At the latter link, click through for a taser-resistant vest, hmm - but only sold to the Only Ones, hmph. But how difficult would it be to build one? If we had just a glimpse of how it works, some bright threeper could probably figure it out.... I actually had an idea very much like this years ago, in another SF story I wrote which almost no one has ever seen and I’m not even sure which drive the files are on now.
We are everywhere. Or are we?
Who’s racist? -Ya know I was kinda wondering about that. Who would take a bullet for him? Now we know.
Tam’s second point resonates with me. See the Queen for example – I shoot next to, as in they’re right over there in the next lane trying to kick my butt, the very top CMP Garand shooters in these United States –and I hold my own against them with a very scruffy-lookin’ rifle (Thank You Tucson Tom! I’ve replaced two parts since I got her 3½ years and a couple thousand rounds ago, the rear sight spring cover and a broken firing pin). I wouldn’t buy a fancy high-polish engraved piece, I wouldn’t dare take it out and play with it. (Hence the other day’s Powerball fantasy about making $500 NIB Lugers.)
More on Berkeley, science, and racism.
Hollywood is completely out of ideas, we know. But you know what - if done right, which can by no means be taken for granted - would make one heck of a good film? This right here. (-Speaking of breaking unions, the Screen Actors' Guild deserves a good whack too methinks, and the big studios.) And if you want more good movie ideas, just wander around here awhile. And keep the tissues handy dammit.
2428 - Tuesday, 5 January 2010: Evil Tuesday of Evil.
I hate updating resumés.
Some days ago, some overpaid, underdisciplined, egotistical thugs drew weapons on each other. On morning-drive radio news, the city’s basketball arena is now having all fans go through metal detectors. You get that? The league’s own multimillion-dollar-salary players can’t behave like grownups, so they treat the people whose ticket purchases make the whole thing go ‘round like criminals. Kafka. Esque.
Arm the teachers. Alas, after decades of deliberate promotion of incompetence and bigotry, there are few teachers left in the system fit to be armed.
Sorta related, TSA FAIL, chapter 94. Instant Only One, Just Add Tax Money!
Surprising editorial from MSM, even though The Washington Times is supposedly right-leaning.
What was that quote from some months back? Visual aid. We are so very screwed, from without and within.
Reader sends, re: anti-taser clothing:
My refinement is two or three large volume capacitors stitched in there. This would give the current a no-kidding place to go, and would remove the variable of what ground you or I (the Tasee) are standing on, hoping that the jolt will pass us by. This next thing occurred to me as I was typing the previous sentence: a wire (or three) running down the arms outside the protective layer, hooked into the capacitors. In theory, when Badgeboy notices that the Taser hasn't worked, he'll grab you by the arm, completing the circuit....
[thought=divergent] Speaking of somewhat unconventional revolvers like the high capacity Ruger .327s, idea: Someone, a gunwriter I think, caused to be made a ".41 Special", a shortened .41 Magnum, on a Blackhawk or SAA IIRC. How 'bout a .50 Special, chopped from a .500 S&W? Something that wouldn't necessarily need a cylinder half a foot long, something mere mortals could control, something that wouldn't gulp half the powder reservoir every time you threw a charge? Likewise pressures would be lower so you could cram a five-shot onto an N-frame or non-Super Redhawk (recall the .500 Linebaugh and similar experiments were on 6-shot .44 Super Blackhawk frames).
2429 - Wednesday, 6 January 2010: Wednesday blah.
"Thugs for Hire--Inquire Within". Not making this stuff up. There may have been a time when police were worthy of trust and respect. That time is long past. –Nor should we ignore the blatant racism of the proposal, I mean right there in the second paragraph it’s intended to ”bolster minority hiring”. That’s bigoted a couple different ways; presuming minorities are too stupid to pass the test, discriminating against whites because they’re white, and creating an ethnic-oriented force most likely loyal to their ethnicity first, before any oath or concept of equal-protection-under-the-law. (–And where have we seen that recently?) *thunk-thunk* Is anyone awake out there? My side isn’t trying to start the race war.
Though once in a while the Only Ones surprise one, like actually stopping to think about microstamping. Though I expect their reasons are different from ours – they want it to work. It’s not about guns, it’s about control.
Codrea has expert advice.
[blink] ...Orrr, a three-inch with fixed sights and a concealed hammer. An M640, on steroids, which steroids have been taking steroids. Steroids2. (Inspired by things like these.) -Not the shrouded-hammer Bodyguard model – once you jump a frame size the shroud itself starts getting in the way, and who uses a weapon of that type in single-action anyway? (I’m still intending to get a spare GP100 hammer to Dremel for a drop-in DAO conversion.) -Yes, I’m aware there’s already been an attempt in this direction, on the L-frame. Even though this one shows a fully-concealed DAO hammer, you can see the hump might be a problem, compared to the M640's lower profile.
Now the important question: What would S&W’s model number be for a five-shot, concealed-hammer, N-frame, .50 Special? I think they’ve used up the twenties, and by extrapolation all the six-twenties even if the latter weren’t all actually used. They used nineties for the .44 L-frame, which used eighties for the original .357. Hmm.
Democrats cut spending! ...Yeah that’s about what you’d expect. Which segues to the Quote o’ the Day: "The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane, 1821
Reader sends flying motorcycle. ...IIRC Ross did a whole subplot, in Unintended Consequences, on the FAA....
Trivia! Watching some History Channel stuff on library disc I looked up John Mosby and discovered that the famous Confederate raider played sand-table wargames with none other than George S. Patton III.
2430 - Thursday, 7 January 2010: Jeepers, Thursday already?
This is the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791 as the first ten amendments to our Constitution. It’s there for a reason. Don’t muck with it.
”Open and transparent”. >:-[
RKBA: Not just for Americans.
Come the Restoration I hope to score one of these off a Hessian who doesn’t need it anymore.
Tam contemplates riflery carbinery. –Someday I hope to build an AR and I don’t want a stubby little carbine. The only thing that tiny bullet has going for it is speed. My plan is to build a 20” A2 with fixed stock. Probably a flattop but beyond that, right off the USMC rack. (Marines are riflemen and are sticking with rifles while the Army has switched to the StubbyLittleCarbine.) Once it’s built, then I can go all Lego on it, but I want the barrel length, and the velocity, the cartridge was designed for. (Of course, by pre-Vietnam standards, a 20” barrel is a carbine....) –I wouldn’t mind having a side-folding stock, but that probably requires a nonstandard, and very expensive, upper, and maybe even a different bolt carrier, I haven’t investigated.
Yet another GRE, Fort Smith. ...Non sequitur, just amusing: ”I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned. Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which’ll it be?”
Profound Truth of the Universe.
Yet more from Codrea on the NBA thing.
2431 - Friday, 8 January 2010: ”...[I]t’s that I just don’t care.” ...In hindsight this has been a relatively cushy job; quite a bit of free time between orders, plenty of bandwidth. But the commute is a horror and the pay is somewhat insulting.
Anniversary. ”We fired our guns and the British kept a’comin’. There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago....”
More self-destructive Jews, and bigots too. Dudes menschen, WTF? Change a few words and ADL is starting to sound like the people they claim to be railing against.
On the radio the last few days has been a recent 9th Circuit Court ruling that felons in Washington state should be allowed to vote while in prison serving their sentences. St. Louis GRE articulates Our Side’s position.
Trying to continue Torch of Freedom. Too. Many. Words.
Here can be found a single photo and a few paragraphs of information on the Japanese Type 5 rifle, their WWII attempt to answer the Queen.
2432 - Saturday, 9 January 2010: Show!
$igh. 'Nuff said.
"We are getting the Change You Can Believe In, and we are getting it good and hard."
Related, Reason.
Watchin' videos....
2433 - Sunday, 10 January 2010: Show & chat every Sunday 1100PT. Other show 1700PT.
Casting more bullets. Pins 16th, plates 23rd, always behind on rounds. But first, carefully Dremel-rouge-polishing the positioning pins for my Lee 6-cav .45 mold - improvement, wheee. -Used a dressing stone to cut down one of the felt bobs to fit inside the hole to polish that too.
Used the last of the big ingots I bought at the short-lived Washougal show a couple years ago, starting on the latest reader-barter metal. I'm shooting more, so that won't last either. Need more metal. 6-cav .45/230 really drinks it down.
Crap, the 2-cav .38's aluminum block has lost it's threads for the screw holding the sprue plate. Well, I was gonna get a 6-cav for that anyway. Might be repairable with a larger screw - nearby Good Hardware Store has taps 'n' everything. At least I got some quantity first.
I'm not planning on visiting the Philippines. :-6
Didn't? I Tell Ya? I'm a gosh-darned prophet.
...Later.... Still not getting good results from the .30 mold, especially from one cavity. I'll take the sprue plate from the now-broken .38 mold and swap it, shrug. The Lyman Ideal .45/250 continues to work fine after eventually reaching operating temperature. The 6-cav Lee needs more polish on the steel positioning pins, or maybe some mold release agent, I dunno. The .30, Lee #90362, when I rarely do get a good bullet, drops at about .311" and about 113gr; the Lyman #454190, .454" and a hefty 258gr; the Lee 6-cav .45 #90286, .453 and 239gr. Those weights are dependant on the alloy used, and I'm cramming whatever I can get into the pot - and a good run on the 6-cav quickly requires a refill, which may not be the same metal.
...And the Lee .308 bullet sizer really does output .308 (.358 gives .359, .451 gives .452 - at least the ones I have).
2434 - Monday, 11 January 2010: Three weeks of Evil remain.
&^%$# traffic.
Hatcams. –At the dollar stores you can get – for a dollar – simple little mini photo tripods. Then, since you’ve only spent a dollar, you can chop off the mounting screw and kitbash something like the linked product. I intend this, for spring Wolverton IPSC. Or duct tape, whatever.
Expenses... club membership renewal, sigh. Since shooting is the only thing I get out of bed for I kinda hafta. Next paycheck. Can’t get ahead.
For a couple years I’ve subscribed to The Patriot Post’s e-newsletter. The current issue has a picture worth a thousand words, and probably a few billion tax dollars. >:-[ See also.
Free, downloadable latest issue of Guns magazine.
Quote o’ the Day.
$igh, another Midway order, .357 FCD finally, a can of Frankford mold release, and a bottle of LLA (I have three Lee bullet sizers; each came with a bottle; the second is almost empty). Buncha .45 brass tumbling on the appliance timer as I type, .357 brass in the Pro 1000 awaiting processing. Enough primers for a while, but not all the same brand. Haven’t bought primers since before the Drought. (Saw still-insultingly-inflated prices at the show Saturday.) Plenty of W231 left but I might run out sometime this year.
Speaking of the Drought, bulk .22LR appears to have recovered, bulk centerfire FMJ in the usual sizes also, but all prices have gone up – by 50%+ for bulk .22 – and powder and primers are still only empty spots on the shelves, except for oddballs and specialty items like Trail Boss. I haven’t seen any new Winchester primers, except #209, for about a year.
Bullets and LLA.... Still contemplating getting a second tumbler, for solvent/media experiments, or repairing the old one, which would require a new motor of particular specifications and dimensions, meaning it would probably be cheaper to just get a whole other tumbler. Harbor Freight carries some but wants as much as I’d pay at Wholesale Sports or Midway. OTOH the type shown on their site looks like it can accept the bowl from the old tumbler, which my new tumbler won’t, so I could swap it for use with solvent without contaminating other media. Maybe they’ll have a sale.
[thought-random] Lèse majesté is a crime of the intangible, ya? The “don’t-you-know-who-I-am” syndrome. The words are French with latin roots. What would a fancy-sounding equivalent be for Contempt-of-Cop?
I truly hate updating resumés....
2435 - Tuesday, 12 January 2010: That’s pretty funny right there.
In my story I postulate a fully armed society wherein shooting is a national pastime and, as our founders intended, practically everyone is in the militia, organized or un-. Some might think that silly. Except it really isn’t. ”Switzerland is one of the most peaceful countries in the world. The rest of the world needs to take a hint.”
Maybe I’ll ex-pat there. :( Sounds like it’s the only nation in the world worth leaving this one for.
Here is a review of Rawles’ Patriots, which I’ll have returned to the library this evening for someone else’s hold by the time you read this, at something less than a quarter through. Still slogging through Weber & Flint’s Torch of Freedom, and you can tell which bits Flint (”Damnation!”) wrote ‘cause they’re a heck of a lot more readable. Weber’s getting as bad as Turtledove. I guess, after you sell so many zillion copies, editors don’t dare edit anymore?
Squirrels! I TOLD YOU! SQUIRRRRELLLLSSS!!!
(...And that, in a twisted, inside-joke sort of way, has the potential to really freak out Yuri...) (”Flying squirrels!” :D)
The 1911 is immortal. Next spring is its 100th birthday. Original MEU(SOC) frames still in service, if any, will be 60+ years old, since as I understand it none were made by the US government after WWII.
Tenth Amendment Thingy, with teeth.
Not unrelated, police are the enemy. They declared war on us years ago. How much more of our blood must they spill before we defend ourselves? All we want is to be left alone. Or as Codrea says, ”We want to go home at the end of your shift too.”
Ooo, UPS sez the .357 FCD might arrive Friday which would be just in time to load rounds for pins Saturday, hmm. (Recall, since I switched to cast bullets instead of factory plated, I’ve had chambering issues while speedloading. Lee FCD killed feeding issues dead in my Witness.)
(Curious that Yuri’s Witness choked so very hard on rounds which run perfectly in my 1911, loaded with the exact same dies and settings as rounds which ran perfectly in my Witness. His pistol’s internal geometry might need more work – there are differences between his and mine, though uppers interchange.)
This is what I have in mind for an AR. Except maybe flattop, but even that isn’t necessary. But $igh.
My CMP Garand ranking continues to climb, now #92 in the nation, and my rating is also rising, from 1.0211 in November to 1.0231 now. I’m guessing there’s processing time for match results, so it may not have been the last match at Lone Oak which brought me into the top 100.
”If the Führer doesn’t trust me, he can keep his goddamned medal.” I believe that was a line in the novel Hope by Smith & Zelman. Here is a reference, with a linked endnote pointing to a 1986 book listed in the bibliography. Reading the rest of the article, Hartmann was a Rommel-kinda guy. Worthy.
Finished Barsoom 9, Synthetic Men of Mars, good old-fashioned adventure, good guys whupping bad guys in a manly and adventurous fashion and winning the heart of the beautiful maiden. Remember the whole series is on Gutenberg. Next is 10, Llana of Gathol, a collection of four stories.
Finally back at the hovel after typical city traffic and some errands, the line between satire and moonbattery has been erased. 8-|
2436 - Thursday, 14 January 2010:
A legal situation has arisen which precludes further updates at this time.
Hopefully I will have more information in a couple of weeks.
This situation may also incur great expense. If you have ever found this site informative or entertaining, please consider a charitable donation using the DONATE button below.
Thank you.
The legal issue is progressing and might be resolved within the next three weeks, at which time I hope to resume updates.
My thanks to those who have sent donations and messages of support. Even the smallest amount helps.
Make a comment
Return to the weblog
Return to Jeffersonian's Page
