Charge It To Experience
10 hours ago
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Classic Bangity and Gun-Related Tab Clearing
That is my Ruger 22/45 resting on a slow-fire target.
The target looks huge, until you consider that it is a fifty yard target. You shoot a Bullseye match one-handed. At that distance, the 8" bullseye of the target looks about the size of an aspirin tablet. Every slight twitch of the trigger causes the sights to wobble.
At fifty yards, you have ten minutes to get off ten shots. You do that three times. Then you set up 25 yard targets with 5.5" bullseyes. You shoot five shots in 20 seconds, reload, and shoot five more shots. Do that three times. Then you shoot five shots in ten seconds, reload, and shoot five more shots. Do that two more times.
By the end of the match, you've fired 90 rounds. A perfect score would be 900.
Of a dozen shooters, I came in third. I need to do some trigger work to bring the weight of the trigger pull down. I'll probably buy and install a Volquartsen trigger and sear before the next match.
For a full "2700" match, you shoot 90 shots with a .22 rimfire target pistol, 90 shots with a centerfire pistol and 90 with a .45 pistol. A perfect score would be 2700, which nobody has ever attained.
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I was at a LGS the other day, listening to a guy tell the owner that he had been an early purchaser of a Remington R51. He said that the cocking serrations on the slide were so sharp that he cut his fingers on them. The rear sight fell out of the dovetail. The gun was so buggy that he sent it back to Remington for repairs. They just cut him a check for the full purchase price, including sales tax.
Remington, by all accounts outsourced the R51 to Para Ordnance. Whether the design was flawed or whether the factory either had no functioning QC department or an incompetent one is an open question. I'd sure as hell be leery to buy anything made by Para Ordnance at this point.
Remington's website doesn't catalog the R51. If you're into long-term investing and you can find a new one in the stores, you might want to buy it and just leave it in the box. It will probably be worth some serious coin in 20-30 years or so.
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BadTux has an idea: The open-carry asshats should be made to carry "Hello Kitty" rifles.
Works for me.
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Somebody once called YouTube "a reservoir of human stupidity". Over at The Firearms Blog, they've been covering a certain form of stupidity: The Tannerite Arms Race.
Tannerite is a low-grade explosive that requires a lot of shock to set off. People have been buying it to make small exploding targets- hit the target with a rifle and it goes boom.
Well, a certain batch of tools have been mixing up large amounts of Tannerite and then setting it off. One clown blew his old barn with over 150 pounds of the stuff. Some other clowns set twice that amount next to some trees.
As for the first clown, guess nobody told him that there are companies that will happily come out disassemble your old barn, and take it away at no cost to you (and some might even pay you). Because they can sell the wood for making furniture and flooring for hipsters. If the barn had a lot of chestnut wood, you might get a decent check for it. but that's neither here nor there.
What's going to happen, of course, is that the possession and use of Tannerite will end up requiring the same sort of licenses that are required to buy and use dynamite. Because of morons like these. (Yes, folks, there was a time when you would have walked into a rural hardware store and bought a case of dynamite.)
Tannerite + Imbeciles = This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things.
The target looks huge, until you consider that it is a fifty yard target. You shoot a Bullseye match one-handed. At that distance, the 8" bullseye of the target looks about the size of an aspirin tablet. Every slight twitch of the trigger causes the sights to wobble.
At fifty yards, you have ten minutes to get off ten shots. You do that three times. Then you set up 25 yard targets with 5.5" bullseyes. You shoot five shots in 20 seconds, reload, and shoot five more shots. Do that three times. Then you shoot five shots in ten seconds, reload, and shoot five more shots. Do that two more times.
By the end of the match, you've fired 90 rounds. A perfect score would be 900.
Of a dozen shooters, I came in third. I need to do some trigger work to bring the weight of the trigger pull down. I'll probably buy and install a Volquartsen trigger and sear before the next match.
For a full "2700" match, you shoot 90 shots with a .22 rimfire target pistol, 90 shots with a centerfire pistol and 90 with a .45 pistol. A perfect score would be 2700, which nobody has ever attained.
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I was at a LGS the other day, listening to a guy tell the owner that he had been an early purchaser of a Remington R51. He said that the cocking serrations on the slide were so sharp that he cut his fingers on them. The rear sight fell out of the dovetail. The gun was so buggy that he sent it back to Remington for repairs. They just cut him a check for the full purchase price, including sales tax.
Remington, by all accounts outsourced the R51 to Para Ordnance. Whether the design was flawed or whether the factory either had no functioning QC department or an incompetent one is an open question. I'd sure as hell be leery to buy anything made by Para Ordnance at this point.
Remington's website doesn't catalog the R51. If you're into long-term investing and you can find a new one in the stores, you might want to buy it and just leave it in the box. It will probably be worth some serious coin in 20-30 years or so.
----------------------------------------
BadTux has an idea: The open-carry asshats should be made to carry "Hello Kitty" rifles.
Works for me.
----------------------------------------
Somebody once called YouTube "a reservoir of human stupidity". Over at The Firearms Blog, they've been covering a certain form of stupidity: The Tannerite Arms Race.
Tannerite is a low-grade explosive that requires a lot of shock to set off. People have been buying it to make small exploding targets- hit the target with a rifle and it goes boom.
Well, a certain batch of tools have been mixing up large amounts of Tannerite and then setting it off. One clown blew his old barn with over 150 pounds of the stuff. Some other clowns set twice that amount next to some trees.
As for the first clown, guess nobody told him that there are companies that will happily come out disassemble your old barn, and take it away at no cost to you (and some might even pay you). Because they can sell the wood for making furniture and flooring for hipsters. If the barn had a lot of chestnut wood, you might get a decent check for it. but that's neither here nor there.
What's going to happen, of course, is that the possession and use of Tannerite will end up requiring the same sort of licenses that are required to buy and use dynamite. Because of morons like these. (Yes, folks, there was a time when you would have walked into a rural hardware store and bought a case of dynamite.)
Tannerite + Imbeciles = This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things.
Caturday
Jake is resting and waiting for the dinner bell.
A few minutes before this photo was taken, he was sleeping on that brown heated cat bed, snoring gently from time to time.
Jake has been with me for ten years, now. He wasn't young when I got him; he's an old man, now
A few minutes before this photo was taken, he was sleeping on that brown heated cat bed, snoring gently from time to time.
Jake has been with me for ten years, now. He wasn't young when I got him; he's an old man, now
Friday, May 30, 2014
Decoration Day
A cartoon from 1900:
In about seventeen years, that young boy would indeed get his chance.
The caption read: "You bet I'm goin' to be a soldier, too, like my Uncle David, when I grow up."
In about seventeen years, that young boy would indeed get his chance.
Gutting the Fourth Amendment, how Hard Cases Make Bad Law
In the states covered by the 7th Federal Circuit, if someone calls the cops and says "I'm worried about so-and-so", the cops can go break down that person's door, confiscate their guns (if they have any) and arrest them.
At this point, I don't see that there is very much left of the Fourth Amendment.
About the only amendment of the Bill of Rights that the courts haven't gotten around to gutting yet is the Third Amendment. But if the cops wanted to set up shop in your house, the court'd go along with it, you bet.
It was a nice Constitution while we were using it. The government, now, just pretty much treats it, in the words of George W. Bush, as "a goddamned piece of paper." Just like the Soviet Union did.
At this point, I don't see that there is very much left of the Fourth Amendment.
About the only amendment of the Bill of Rights that the courts haven't gotten around to gutting yet is the Third Amendment. But if the cops wanted to set up shop in your house, the court'd go along with it, you bet.
It was a nice Constitution while we were using it. The government, now, just pretty much treats it, in the words of George W. Bush, as "a goddamned piece of paper." Just like the Soviet Union did.
Customs Goons Assume the Role of the Nation's "Air Cops"?
In a story on NPR about how Customs is supposedly backing off its aggressive searching of light aircraft that have done nothing wrong to begin with, Eddie Young, who has a billboard-sized tile of "deputy assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection for Air and Marine Operations", said that his people are "the guardians of the nation's skies."
Really? Who died and left those assholes in charge?
This has been going on for awhile. I've mentioned before (though I can't find it right now) that Customs was fucking with the wrong group of people in going after owners and pilots of small airplanes.
We'll see if they change. But I'm thinking that they need a bit of de-funding.
(Also worth a read.)
Really? Who died and left those assholes in charge?
This has been going on for awhile. I've mentioned before (though I can't find it right now) that Customs was fucking with the wrong group of people in going after owners and pilots of small airplanes.
We'll see if they change. But I'm thinking that they need a bit of de-funding.
(Also worth a read.)
Thursday, May 29, 2014
A Hard Book to Read
"Southern Horrors" by Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
The book is 120 years old, which is why it's available from Project Gutenberg. It is about lynch law.
If you like to think of this nation as an honorable place, it will rock your perceptions. Even if you think you know about lynchings and massacres by white mobs, this book will stun you with the breadth and depravity of the practice.
The book is 120 years old, which is why it's available from Project Gutenberg. It is about lynch law.
If you like to think of this nation as an honorable place, it will rock your perceptions. Even if you think you know about lynchings and massacres by white mobs, this book will stun you with the breadth and depravity of the practice.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
What in the Wide, Wide World of Sports is Going On
A new record in the "Beer Mile", the first runner to break five minutes.
The Beer Mile is this: Chug a 12oz can of beer and run a quarter-mile lap, chug a second can of beer, run a quarter mile, and do that until you've run a mile (and chugged four beers). Yes, there are official rules.
The Beer Mile is this: Chug a 12oz can of beer and run a quarter-mile lap, chug a second can of beer, run a quarter mile, and do that until you've run a mile (and chugged four beers). Yes, there are official rules.
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