Someone understands economics (but has yet to learn about audio recording). Via an an e-mail from Ry;
Author Archives: Lyle
Dear ‘Web Directory’ Company
Don’t waste your time or mine by calling me on the phone, asking me for my company’s name, address and such like. Everything you need to know (and a thousand times more) to list my company in your ‘directory’ is right there on my web site. If you haven’t looked at my web site, you don’t really care at all, and in that case I don’t understand what you think you’re doing. You make no sense. You’re phony. Go away.
On a not altogether unsimilar note; Dear customer; I continue to fail to understand why you get on your computer, find our web site, and then e-mail us from the web site asking for a catalog. There has never, in the history of retail been a print catalog that has as much information and imagery (including moving and talking pictures) as you have right now in front of you on the web site. It’s always there, you can’t lose it in a stack of magazines and mail, you can access it from anywhere in the developed and semi-developed worlds, it won’t get damaged by your kids and pets, it won’t sit around getting in your family’s way, and your spouse won’t have to ask you six months from now if it can finally be thrown out. I know that you, as the customer, are always right, and I appriciate your interest. I just don’t understand some of your aspects.
Dear computer, computer software company, mobile device manufacturer or sellers and ISPs. I frequently talk with people who do not have internet access. I was told just today by a customer, for example, that he didn’t have a computer because he though he’d have to take a computer class and he just didn’t have that much interest or willingness to undergo what he believed would be a pain in the neck. There are thousands and thousands of these people out there. Maybe you don;t care about them one teeny tiny bit and that’s why you’re njot making any effort to get their business. Instead all I can remember from any comercials is; “Spam, Malware, Viruses, SPY WARE!!!! You could lose all your personal data!!! Identity theft!!! Your hard drive Will Crash, FOR SURE!! Subscribe to our backup service or you’ll LOSE EVERYTHING!!!” That’s your industry’s image in the minds of the people who represent the pieces of the pie you’re not going after. They’re afraid, and for some good reasons. It’s fine and understandable going after your competition’s customers, but there are a whole bunch of other potential customers no one’s going after. Grow the pie, Man.
Yes I know; paragraphs two and three are closely related and both apply to my own business. Yes, I’m being slightly hypocritical.
The ‘Tone’ in Politics
We’re hearing it more and more lately. It’s being said because we’re starting to have a good influence; “The tone in politics has gotten so nasty lately…” I heard it from my mother last night too.
It’s like everything else in politics– if the Progressives like it, it’s great, no matter what, but if you love liberty and say things in support of it, you’re being “mean and combative”.
Our freedom can be attacked from all directions, and there’s never a problem with that. We can be told we should just back down and shut up, or guns are good for one things and one thing only: Murdering. That sort of thing has been said for decades. The very process of making a living in business can be maligned, vilified and smeared for generations, ownership of certain cars or trucks, or of guns, or simply being successful can be said to be a sign that we’re (ehem) “Compensating for something”. We can be accused for generations of being racist if we want all people to live as equal under the law, and that’s not “nasty”.
Until we push back in favor of liberty– Then we are being “nasty”. Then we’re being told how unfortunate it is that things are getting so vitriolic.
Well sure; the ideals of statism/Progressivism/socialism, and plain old blind-and-stupid anti-Americanism cannot coexist with the principles of liberty. One destroys the other. So it’s been nasty all along. As nasty as nasty gets. How can a 100+ year long attack on the very ideal of human freedom and liberty be anything other than scum-sucking, in-the-gutter nasty?
So let’s not play stupid mind games. Leave that to the Left, to play on each other. For generations we’ve been cowards. We let them get away with it for fear of being ostracized from polite society. We let them play us for fools, always hoping against hope that that would somehow buy us something with them, and always failing.
On that note; I notice a lot of our own using disclaimers. “I don’t work for so and so” etc. after giving a good review on a product or service. Well how about this? I love you, I respect you, I appreciate your input a LOT, but SCREW YOU! That is to say; you don’t need to excuse yourself for saying good things about something. If it turns out you were being dishonest, we’ll eventually find out and stop taking you seriously. If it turns out you were right, as I suspect you are, I’ll listen to you next time with heightened interest. See? Understand that your eagerness to put in with the disclaimers comes from your having been cowed all your life into believing that there is something wrong with what we’ve come to call “commercialism” (with a little cringe at the distastefulness of the word). Stop it, gawdamit. If we can’t promote products for our own benefit, how long before selling ideas or principles for our own benefit becomes taboo?
How about this, just as an attempt to jolt you out of your life-long anti-capitalist hypnotic state (even though you think you’ve overcome it); How DARE you come here with nothing to sell! How DARE you make comments with no products or services to offer your fellow Man. How DARE you come here empty-handed, with naught but words. Get your wits about you, Man. Shake off the perpetual apologetic state and start selling something. And no– don’t even go along in sarcasm, making disclaimers just to show how stupid they are. That’s how it starts you doing out of habit.
OK; Buy UltiMAK. See? That didn’t hurt a bit, did it? Maybe I own the company and maybe I don’t, and it’s none of your business if I don’t feel like telling you for some stupid reason. I do own it, and if I didn’t want you to know it would probably be because I was embarrassed by it and that should make you wonder why. I’ll let the products speak for themselves, mainly, and my opinions of them will be tested by time and experience. Anything I say about them will either be proven a; true, or b; not so true, and my reputation will go likewise. And if someone comes busting your door in for trying to make a living in your own way, or they try to seize your bank accounts, fuck with your family, etc., you can always shoot them. So what’s to lose? You life, your liberty and your sacred honor. That’s just three things. At the end, which will be most important to you?
I the spirit of keeping the tone polite and cordial; anytime anyone spouts the slightest bit of even semi socialist, quasi-moderate or anti capitalist, anti corporate drivel, any time, anywhere, in any company, tell them to sit back and shut up because you’re sick and tired of the divisiveness and the nastiness.
Some People Just Cannot be Helped
Getting ready to make the left turn into our industrial park this morning, I find that the snow berm in the middle of the road is much too large to try to hop overt, even with a large 4 x 4, so I have to continue on, find a place to turn around and come back from the opposite direction. In so doing I come across a guy in a sedan with a handicapped tag in his window, and he’s hopelessly stuck in the cold, loose snow, with ice under it, at the edge of the road.
It turned out he’s driving for the handicapped person, and he’s a young, healthy guy. First problem; get a shovel and learn how to use it, Dude. Second Problem; he’s running street tires– great in the South on a hot, dry day, but worthless here in the winter.
I ask him; “Do you have a tow hook on this thing? I have a tow strap and I can pull you right out.”
Third problem; “I don’t know” he says, so I crawl down in the snow to look for one. Fourth Problem; his rig has a stupid f-ing air dam. It acts as a plow blade, working against his forward progress in the snow. Fifth problem; no tow hook– everything under the front end is plastic. So I tell him to back up some distance, get a run at it, and try to get up enough momentum to crash through the deep stuff and onto the road.
Sixth problem; I have to alert him to the fact that there’s a car coming on the road, and so wait a second, Skippy. We make a couple of tries at it, and it becomes obvious that he’s never done this before. “Stay in your old tracks each time and you’ll be able to get up more speed” I tell him.
“I can’t see my tracks.” Oh boy. He’s for sure never done this before. Ever heard of hanging your noggin out the window so you CAN see, if that’s what it takes? He keeps closing his window so I can’t communicate with him.
“Do you have tire chains?”
“Yeah, but they’re on so-and-so’s car over there…” Oh boy…
Then; “Thaaaanks!” comes the voice from the passenger seat. I’m in the middle of trying to explain how easy it would be, still and all, to get them out and on their way, and again; “Thaaanks!”
OK then. You’re welcome. Bye.
Not to brag, since it isn’t bragging if it’s true, but I’ve been in a freaking sedan in the freaking mountains on a freaking logging trail, with more snow than this. We used to do that sort of thing just for fun, because that was the sort of thing kids did– you go out and see just how far you can push it, then you go a little more, get stuck, and figure out how to get un-stuck and back 15 miles down the trail to a plowed road. In the dark. It made for some great adventures. So yeah; I know how to get this guy out, for a fact, even though he’s made no effort, and no pre-planning on his part.
The conditions are dangerous right here and now, but it’s still what I call Karmann-Ghia weather. A friend once had one of those rigs, and he’d drive that thing no matter what, because it was all he had. He made it work. If you can get around in a Karmann-Ghia with some modicum of planning and experience and some willingness to work a little when it’s required, I figure the roads are fine, they don’t need plowed, and there’s just no excuse.
But as it often happens, the most knowledgeable and capable person present is the very one you endeavor to ignore or actively try to get rid of.
Help Me Understand
Why is it that so many rifle scopes, even very high-end scopes, have their BDC or BDC/rangefinding reticles on the second focal plane, such that the reticles features are only valid at one specific magnification setting?
That seems like a handicap to me. What are the arguments for or against?
The Quintessential Republican
Sure; they know what you want to hear, at least for the most part, though they’re playing the Bible-thumper card a bit too heavy. They know pretty well how to push your buttons, getting the applause at the rallies and so on. As they see it, they know how to win over us stupid bumpkin Elmer Fudds in fly-over country (just throw ’em some red meat and watch them bark like dogs).
Here’s an example of what they really think, gleaned from a rare moment of partial honesty. Newt calls himself a “Realpolitik Wilsonian.” Yeah; that Wilson. Be sure to watch both videos on the page. I don’t care what you think of Glen Beck. Screw that. Listen to the words. The “Four Freedoms”.
That’s the Republican Party today. You can’t mix the liberty talk with the Four Freedoms. That’s a lie, and yet it represents everything the Party stands for.
Make no mistake. We’re being offered what amounts to a plea deal. Either we take the deal (vote Republican) or we’re sentenced to another four years with a Democrat in office. Bleed slowly or bleed quickly. It’s a threat you see– take a Progressive dirt bag (Republican) or else. That’s how this works, and I’m not playing that game. I’ll get interested in an election when liberty is on the ballot, but don’t expect that to happen any time soon.
The Ultimate Reloader
Spending more time on the loading press. Thinking hard about a progressive, as this one step business grates. The loading rates they talk about are of course totally wrong, as they don’t include the hours upon hours spent prepping cases before you can start “reloading” on your 600 rounds per hour progressive machine. I once timed a guy with his new state-of-the-art case prep center on Youtube, and came up with eight hours per thousand, IIRC.
I once sat down and figured how much technology would be needed to take your spent brass from the range and go straight to the progressive with it. There was a motorized cleaning station, an RF induction annealing die, followed by a water-cooled sizing die (the brass would come in hot, you see, and since you’ll have to run water through your annealing die there’ll already be a cooling system) plus trimming and chamfering stations. Depending on the case and bullet type, there may be an “M” die station. I think I once came up with twelve or thirteen stations in all, to really have it all, no matter what. I don’t know– $20,000.00? Thoughbeit a small one, I figure there’d be a market for it.
I was looking at the Hornady L&L, but I’m being told the Dillon 650 is a better bet. It’s listed for something like 600 bucks, but looking at the required hardware for actually loading a few calibers it’s over a thousand for sure, and from there you spend a little more. I’ll have to resign myself to prepping cases the old-fashioned way– one at a time.
You have to like it, considering it a hobby, because if you figure the value of your time I don’t see the numbers working out. You do get a little bit of independence from it, though you still need a supply of consumables. If you want near total independence you should have a flintlock, make your own black powder using nitrate from the stockyard (I’ve heard of it being done without sulphur. It’s less powerfull but it works. If you live near an active volcano you may be covered there) and cast your own lead from scrap. Ah, but you still need a supply of flint. Man, this deteriorated quickly. Sharp sticks. There you have it.
Tree Rides, a Hair Trigger and a Very Bloody Flashlight
That’s right; it was varmint control (hunting) season, also known in my house as step-one-food-processing season. So this is a month late (and I’m sure you all were chomping at the bit for it).
It was windy on the first day of muzzleloader season and the deer tend not to roam or forage as much in high wind, so I saw nothing, but I did get a nice “tree ride”. I wrote a little song while swaying this way and that in my tree stand;
Rock-a-by hunter
In the tree top
When the wind blows
The tree stand will rock
When the bow breaks
The tree stand will fall
And down will come hunter
Rifle and all
But later I realized that thousands of tree-climbing hunters must surely have thought of those exact words over the years, and so I can’t claim patent rights to the song. Anyway; I’m not sure you can call it “hunting” when all you’re doing is sitting there waiting to snipe a deer. “Waylaying” maybe, or “Ambushing”.
“I’m going ambushing, Honey. I’ll be back after dark.”
“OK. Good luck, Deer.”
“Wait. What? No– it’s good luck me, bad luck, deer.”
Thanksgiving evening I saw a nice buck come in from the wheat fields (our deer feed off of the farmers’ efforts most of the year in these parts). Now I never thought I was capable of doing this – you only take a shot if you’re going to make the shot, right? Therefore you don’t miss. That’s been my understanding and my experience up until now. In practice I’ve hit a target the size of the kill zone virtually 100% of the time, and in hunting previous years I’ve always put the ball close enough to where it belongs. So much for that as an axiom. I attribute it to a combination of a hair trigger on this percussion lock and cold fingers, but mostly to a timing error of the brain at that moment when timing is everything. Line up the sights under the target so you can keep the target in view the whole time, raise the front sight up to the A zone, fire. 1,2,3. Steps two and three ended up reversed somehow, such that once I got onto the A zone the ball had already escaped my control. The shot went right under the brisket, he jumped a little at the flash, the huge smoke cloud and the horrific blast, and went sauntering off unperturbed, flipping his tail and sniffing the ground. Moseying even, as if to show me how little he cared that I’d just shot at him with a fifty caliber rifle. Bloody show-off.
If that weren’t enough, I did it again with a nice doe two nights later, so a range session was in order the next morning. 100% “A” hits from standing unsupported. Two holes touching at 50 some yards, and a third right where I knew it went without using the binoculars—I’d pulled slightly low, but still a good shot. What the hell? I adjusted the lock for a slightly heavier pull, gritted my teeth, and kept climbing the tree.
The Tree is on a very steep slope between the farm fields and the Palouse River, and it’s a slog through brambles and fallen branches to get up there. Very good exercise that, and I feel much better now thank you, but one piece of advice; fighting through brush and thorns with very long hair is a problem.
More advice as if you’d asked for it; Doe urine is attractive to deer of both sexes. We humans tend to think of a urine smell as something to be avoided, but deer find it fascinating and it makes them relax– “Someone’s been peeing around here. Cool! I think I’ll stick around.” I once had two does trot in, calling to the non-existent doe that they’d smelled from downwind. They then stopped to hang around for a while and chew some cud. Urine is good stuff. I won’t tell you how to acquire doe urine. If you’re not interested it doesn’t matter, and if you’re interested enough you’ll figure out on your own.
Fifth day of season, fourth day out. The weather is too good this evening – no wind. No tree ride, but the chance of a close encounter is very good. Right on schedule, the huge covey of quail came chirping and fluttering in to roost just below my stand after sunset. As if on cue, a doe comes in through the brush with another full-sized doe and a smaller one following. Good enough. I’ll take the lead doe. Not gonna touch Mr. Trigger until the time is right. Full cock, ready to fire, taking aim. A quail explodes just under my target doe, causing her to leap reflexively, then settle down to a walk again. She’s more alert now. Damn. Why can’t this be easy? No. It is easy if I do everything right (that’s good advice there – marble sculpture is easy too, and eye surgery, so long as you do everything just right, see).
Blam!
“And…There!” I thought to myself. “Good let-off. That’s a hit.” No wind, so the smoke cloud lingers and I don’t see what happened with the deer. She’s just gone. But then I see all three deer just standing there off to my left, with stupid looks on their faces. These must be Republican deer– no ability to understand the situation and react appropriately for their own benefit. OK then, one of ’em’s going to expire right there, ’cause she’s been shot good, but I can’t just sit in the tree and do nothing, hoping. I’ve taken to reloading after a shot no matter what, so the rifle was charged as I lowered it on a cord and then climbed down. Prime the nipple. The three deer are still standing above me, very close at the top of the slope, as if caught in your headlights (Republicans alright) so I walk toward them. They just walk off, slowly, so I follow at a distance, waiting. One of the two larger does is hit, but which one is that? A little farther along the ridge now, and they’re all in view, all standing still, looking.
Now here is an ethical question for all hunters to ponder. You have one tag and three easy targets. One of them is hit for sure but you don’t know which one at the moment because in the smoke and confusion they shuffled and relocated. Light and legal hours are expiring fast. Do you, a) simply wait for the hit deer to expire, which risks having it run away first when you know you can’t track it worth squat in the coming darkness and the thick foliage, b) shoot the nicest looking deer and possibly let the currently injured deer get away, or, c) …..
It’s like phase two in the underpants gnomes’ plan (“…..”) yet the the only good choice I can think of is the technically non existent one. I’m not trying to be funny about it either. I have the gun up, ready to fire; eeny meeny my-nee moe…which one is my target doe…
“Use the Force” is as good a bit of advice as anything. It doesn’t really help but it might make you feel better. Actually that didn’t come to mind at all at the time. “Why doesn’t she go down?” came to mind. Gun up. Good backstop. They’re all standing broadside, like statues, presenting themselves as perfect targets, waiting for something to which they might react (Republicans for sure and for certain). I need a sign. Then two of them bound off, high-tailed, and one stays locked in place, head lower than normal alert status, maybe darker at the mouth. That’s her. Good backstop. Good angle. This one’s going right through the bioler room.
Blam!
Good sight picture, good let-off. She is double whacked, and hard. Still there is no wind and the big smoke cloud lingers. Again, no deer visible when the smoke clears. Just plowed Earth. I’m beginning to think muzzleloaders are a pain in the neck. Hope for some crosswind if you’re going to do this.
It’s getting dark – about 4:20 PM. That shot has kilt that doe plenty dead here at the top of the ridge on plowed ground, but she’s simply gone. The ridge falls off right here though, with brush and trees below. I am not happy as I don’t know which direction to start looking. In the undulating hills of the Palouse loess farmlands, you don’t have to go far to be over the horizon, and this spot is a prime example of that. My head’s on a swivel as I’m trying to decide where to go from here. Worry. Doubt. It probably would have looked comical for a couple seconds— one of several examples of why smokeless gunpowder is superior to black, but I soon find the two other does lingering in the bushes down the slope. OK. Search in that direction.
Below them is my target doe, dead as a hammer, belly up against some bushes at the bottom of a steep clearing. Relief. All is well. That first shot had gone in behind the diaphragm, busted the gut, busted the liver, penetrated the diaphragm on the far side, nicked one lung and busted a rib. Certainly lethal. A liver shot will bleed you out for sure, but too slowly to stop a deer before it gets some distance. The second shot went in right behind the left shoulder, wrecked both lungs and exited through the right scapula, busting ribs on both sides. A classic hit. She couldn’t have taken more than a bound before dropping a few yards from where she stood and then sliding down the incline. In hindsight, the second shot probably was not strictly necessary, but I had no way of knowing for sure at the time. A standing deer is still a target, I figure. From the first shot to finding the kill couldn’t have been more than four or five minutes.
I call several times on the radio for Son to bring the pickup. No answer. No answer on the cell phone either, but almost no coverage. Crap. Coyotes are numerous in this area and I don’t want to leave the kill. Texting works OK with a poor signal, but everyone’s at jazz band rehearsal I bet. Nothing for it. I tag the deer, then half drag, half carry it down the slopes and through the brush and thorns (did I mention that very long hair really sucks in this environment?) and run home with my gear. It’s down and across the river on a bridge and then up to the house (I said this was good exercise and I meant it) then a drive back to the bottom of the slope, panting like an over-worked sled dog, windows open to the 30ish degree air so I can cool off, back the tailgate against the slope and slide the carcass into the truck.
Cleaning (gutting) a deer in the dark is even more unpleasant than doing it in daylight, and that Maglite you hold in your mouth all the time so you can have both hands free– Na ga dah when it’s covered in blood and gore (I know – head mount – sure – you know everything). Son was home by then so he got flashlight duty. Hours after the first shot I had the cleaned carcass hung tidy in the garage, I was cleaned up, showered, and had a plate of really nice fried venison liver (the best in the world, and if you don’t believe it I don’t care) with home-grown mashed potatoes and leftover turkey gravy. That and a pint of homebrewed pumpkin ale, still pretty flat having been bottled only three days before, but still wonderful especially after not having eaten for ~12 hours.
It’s been a disconcerting and humbling season (knocked me off my high horse) but I’m happy with the outcome. The deer have to cooperate as I’ve said before, and this season was a good example.
Here’s where I get criticism, I suppose, for making what was technically a gut shot (plus I could have mistaken the deer for that second shot and had two dead deer with one tag). I could have simply omitted those details, had a fairly clean “true” story and elicited some praise, however I know from talking with more than a few hunters in private over my 50 some odd years that it can and does get uglier than that, and I figure you should know how it is in addition to knowing how it is ideally. I stand by my choices and actions. So there. Last year’s buck went down in its tracks due to a CNS hit, in turn due to the angle of the shot, but I was simply aiming for, and hit, the heart/lung cavity. That the ball grazed the spine on the way out was an unplanned bonus. One dead deer hung in my garage, was planned and that’s what I got each time. Primitive weapons and iron sights in low light are considered primitive for good reasons. A modern high velocity rifle round, say in the 6 mm to 30 cal range will cause far more trauma and therefore kill faster than the 50 caliber smoke pole, all else being equal, but even then a classic A zone hit with a modern system will often result in the deer running 40 yards or more before expiring. Expectations regarding the effects of gunshots have been taken completely away from reality by Hollywood types, and I dare say by gun writers and advertisers too. Killing is not a clean or tidy business. I don’t know; maybe next year I’ll try my luck at modern season. I’ve avoided modern season so far because I don’t like the extra company in the field, and because I can take a doe if I like. Some hunters go for neck shots, which will put them down quick and don’t risk destroying a picnic roast. That’s another option I guess.
Common Wisdom
When loading black powder guns, you must always seat the projectile hard against the powder charge, no matter what. Never, ever, ever leave an air space between powder and bullet, or it could create a pressure spike and blow your gun to smithereens.
When loading smokeless powder, never, ever seat the bullet too deep, even if there’s a huge air space in there (38 Spl comes to mind) or it could create a pressure spike and blow your gun to smithereens.
You should never, ever use smokeless powder in a black powder gun, because it could create a pressure spike and blow your gun to smithereens.
If you’re loading smokeless powder in a metal cartridge case designed for black powder, to be loaded into a gun designed for black powder cartridges, it is not only OK, it is recommended, and universally used both by hand loaders and ammunition manufacturers. Using black powder in a black powder metal cartridge is a relatively rare, esoteric art. So rare in fact that the loading manuals almost never mention doing it. It will dirty up your gun, so always use smokeless unless you just want to make some smoke and be a show-off.
Smokeless will blow my percussion revolver to smithereens! Unless I install a cartridge conversion cylinder, in which case it will be fine with thousands of 45 Colt smokeless loads.
So can I take from all that, assuming it’s all true, that I can safely use smokeless powder in my 1858 Remington percussion revolver, using the percussion cylinder, so long as I observe loading data for, say, the 44 Russian cartridge, and be SURE to leave a sizeable air gap between powder and ball? Or is something in the above paragraphs not true? Surely it’s either/or.
Not that I intend to try it, or that I even want to try it, mind you, but to make a point about Common Wisdom.
Justice
Billy Beck wanted some discussion on the matter of Eric Holder a while back, but I didn’t see much of it.
While I agree with Beck’s sentiment, I question the idea of firing Holder’s ashes from a cannon into Mexico. It could be seen as an act of hostility toward Mexico, but then I wonder if that would be such a bad thing.
I’d be OK with the extradition of Eric Holder to Mexico (alive or dead) but only after he received justice here in the U.S. That is both our right and our grave responsibility.
But justice for the pawn is only the beginning, not an end. It would be a mistake to focus on the lieutenant to such a degree as to forget his commander.
Grains by Volume
I’ve said before that some things are so simple they can’t be grasped. “Co witnessing” of iron sights is one of those.
“Grains by volume” is another. It started when Pyrodex, a black powder substitute, came out. People were accustomed to using a powder measure, used to charge a rifle or pistol with a consistent, known amount of black powder, back in the day when black powder was just “gun powder” simply because there wasn’t any other kind. As we do today when reloading metal cartridges, people way back then used a volumetric measure to easily charge a muzzle loader with powder, but of course someone needed an accurate scale to verify that the volume of powder they were dispensing was of the correct mass. Same thing with metal cartridges. Verify with a scale, then dispense time and again, easily with that volume so you don’t have to weigh each individual charge.
Same thing was done for hundreds of years in the field when using black powder guns– you pour from a flask into a measure that was pre-determined to hold a certain number of drams, or of grains, of black powder.
Then Pyrodex came along with their “volume equivalent” and few seem to have understood any of it since. Pyrodex is a substitute for black powder. It’s chemically different, safer to handle and ship (ostensibly) and doesn’t require the onerous licensing, confiscatory fees and demeaning inspections of premises associated with black powder. By design, Pyrodex will generate approximately the same results in terms of pressure and projectile velocity as the same volume of black powder. This makes it super easy to use the old way– you use the same measures that you always used for old fashioned black powder. Though Pyrodex isn’t nearly as dense, so if you were really meticulous and wanted to know precisely the “volume equivalent” grains of Pyrodex powder you’re using, you’d need to weigh real black powder from your measure. Dreaming up the “volume equivalent” was their way of making it easy to switch to their new powder. You didn;y have to think about– just use the same measure, made of brass or deer antler, etc., that your great great grand pappy used in the War of Northern Agression.
Totally, super simple, right? Use the same volume of Pyrodex you’d use of black powder. That’s it. No; shut up– that’s it.
But now it seems we can’t discuss even real black powder and real black powder alone without people (experienced people even) chiming in about “grains by volume” verses “grains by weight”. That would only come into play if substitute powders were somewhere in the discussion. Otherwise there’s no difference, which we all knew centuries ago (or would have known, had we been alive centuries ago).
“Sure; you verified your charge by carefully weighing it, but you might be off ’cause you’re using grains by weight instead of grains by volume.” I actually got a comment like that today, and I’ve seen it many times before.
Now maybe it would be simpler if Pyrodex loads, just like loads made up from dozens to hundreds of very different smokeless powders, were expressed in actual mass instead of “volume equivalents”. At least I wouldn’t have to explain things when someone tried to tell me that there is something out there called a “grain by volume” of black powder. Then I have to remember that we actually do have something very similar– the milliliter, which is the volume of one gram of pure water, which is what you get from a cube that is one centimeter on a side IIRC. Or was it the other way ’round? Something like that. I forget the actual starting point but last I heard it had been decided that we’d count a certain number of wavelengths from the emission from a certain energy state jump of a certain isotope of a certain element and call that a meter. Look it up and count wavelengths (somewhere in the yellowish range of visible light I think) to calibrate your measuring tape, but please don’t talk to me about “grains by volume” unless we’re discussing Pyrodex or other substitute-for-black-powder loads.
Silly Me
Condition White. I’d started a batch of pumpkin ale just after All Hallows Eve with the intent of shipping it to family and friends across the Fruited Plain that is this Land of The Free and Home of The Brave. It took six weeks of doting over this ale– a recipe with a lot more than the usual four ingredients (water, barley, hops and yeast) that I’ve used before and it didn’t behave the same, so it took more fooling around. It was well worth it because I ended up with what I regard to be a fine and unique product, perfect for a little Christmas indulgence and cheer with family and friends.
I didn’t know you were supposed to lie, so when the guy at UPS asked me if there was alcohol in the packages I went ahead told him the truth.
It turns out you can’t ship alcoholic beverages unless you’re an “authorized shipper”. Apparently someone is afraid that someone else, somewhere, might enjoy themselves. For years I thought (correctly) that people were shipping booze right and left all over the place, but now I know they have to lie to do it. It’s a free country, sure, so all you have to do is lie here, or break the law there, and you can do anything a reasonable person would want to do. So Prohibition is still very much with us, which I knew. I knew for example that you couldn’t make a legal business out selling alcohol without The Mob getting its piece of the action. I just didn’t know it was still quite so much in effect until tonight. I probably broke the law just by trying to ship this wonderful home brew to loved ones to enrich their Christmas experience, so come and get me. “Attempting to ship alcohol in violation of federal law such and such, sub section such and such, sub, sub section such and such, apendices B through W49z”. Add to that “Attempting to ship alcohoil while armed”. I’ll have the evidence all consumed before you get here, and besides; you’ll never take me alive, coppers!
So to those of you I’d promised pumpkin ale; You’re more than welcome, but you’d better get over here quick if you want some.
Prohibition is actually in full force (more than full if you compare now to the 1920s) when it comes to certain other drugs, and naturally there is a lot of money and power to be had as a result if you happen to be in organized crime (either free-lance or official).
On a similar note; I spent several hours talking with my teenaged daughter yesterday and the subject of Mary Jane (pot – that’s what the cool kids called it in the ’60s) came up. I had to kick myself because I got side-tracked talking about the relative dangers of this or that chemical indulgence, but it turned out even better that way– “But none of this is on point” I tolder her. “The point is that in a free society the government has no authority to tell an emancipated adult what to put in his body and what not to put in his body. I’ve I allowed myself to be side-tracked here by the ‘relative dangers’ arguments. Those are entirely bedside the point.” She understood perfectly and she appreciated the rare and wonderful experience of finally being exposed to clarity on what was previously a matter of cloudiness confusion.
Lion Hunt
The guys at the music store showed this to me. It’s been up a while, and there are several others. It’s not like hunting prey animals like deer, in that the deer rarely try, and even if they do they can’t kill you as easily as a lion can kill you. I don’t know these guys, but someone had very good concentration and clear purpose for a bit;
That’s about as close as it gets I guess. I didn’t know how to categorize it, so I put it under “Boomershoot” (aim small, miss small) though at Boomershoot we don’t aim at moving targets that are very capable, and determined, to kill us. I have a very long hunting story I’ll bore you with later, which includes missing some very easy shots that I was, up until that point, convinced I could never miss. The point being that missing an easy shot didn’t get me or anyone else killed, but only delayed getting meat on the table.
Can Someone Please Explain
…in short, sweet, straight-forward detail, the “conservative” position on immigration? I’ve heard vitriolic disagreement and angry attacks toward any policy proposal that even remotely smacks of “amnesty” and I’ve heard demands for building a wall around the country (like that ever works) but I’ve never heard what the attacker actually wants, exactly.
For the record (and I know this is off-subject as it doesn’t answer the question, because I have no idea as to the answer, which is the point of the post after all); In principle, I believe it should be easy to get into this country, and to become a citizen. The problem as I see it is the socialism – the goodies – people coming here for a share of the loot. Turn off that loot spigot and the problem, such as it is, evaporates overnight. “Heal the World – Outlaw Socialism” would be my bumper sticker if I ever got ’round to putting one on my vehicle, which I probably won’t.
Outlawing socialism would include doing away with labor laws, minimum wage being a big one at play here. The other loot spigot in play was also manufactured by our government– the “War On Drugs” and we all know for certain that Prohibition failed the first time due to human nature, and that human nature dictates that it will fail just as catastrophically every time, which is what we’re seeing every day. But we can’t separate it from imigration policy. Because we’re sniveling cowards.
“They’re takin’ Our Jobs!” (Der Derkin’ Er Jerrrbs!”) is an idiotic assertion. So forget it. When the Europeans first started coming here in the late 1400s and early 1500s, they took all the jobs from the “Indians” very quickly, so there haven’t been any jobs here since then anyway, right? I mean, if you figure that the “Der Derkin’ Er Jerrrbs!” argument has any validity whatsoever. IF people coming here from other places “takes jobs away” then the peak in the number of available jobs in North America would have taken place before Columbus’ voyage (or much earlier – before the migration out of Siberia during the last Ice Age) and as the Euros et al started coming in, the number of jobs available would have been shrinking constantly ever since. QED. So there.
Anyhow; What, exactly, is the “conservative” policy on immigration – the one that won’t get the pundits, the self appointed Representatives of Modern American Conservatism (the RMACs) all pissed off? I maintain that there is no such thing, which is why I brought it up.
I figure Newt has a four thousand page preliminary proposal, submitted by his Provisional Committee on Immigration Policy Proposal Research Exploratory Studies, complete with thousands of cross-references and cross-cross-references to the cross-references, which means he doesn’t have a clue and is desperate to avoid clues as it would mean standing for something meaningful and concrete which is to be avoided at all cost.
My explanation for the absurdity is that the Republicans believe in the all the negative stereotypes that the Democrats have created for conservatives– racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes….ad infinitum, thumpin’ a Bible and cryin’ ’bout Jeezus! and so the Republicans are trying, like frightened little kids faced with putting out a house fire, to pander to the Saturday Night Live stereotype “conservative”. They have no idea how to please us stereotype bigot buffoons without getting into trouble. They’re scared and frustrated, but they know they have to at least pretend to try, because that’s on the list of things to do to get elected. So it’s a contest to see who can come up with the most plauseablely meaningless proposal that will offend the least people and will never get enforced anyway. It makes for good theater all ’round I suppose.
We know for certain that outlawing socialism would be among the most frightening prospects ever presented to a Republican. Right? The planet being wiped out by an asteroid would be bad, but at least it wouldn’t leave them blinking in the lights in front of a camera babbling like idiots, knowing they’d have to face the criticism for it the next day– they could die right along with the rest of us and that would be much more comfortable as it wouldn’t require any acts of courage or any application of principles. It would let them entirely off the hook.
What the World Needs
There was an article in a recent issue of Guns and Ammo Magazine about what gun products the various gun writers would like to see. Most of the suggestions were for re-issues of favorite old gun models.
Here’s what we really need though– A variable power Intermediate Eye Relief (IER or “Scout”) scope with an illuminated reticle. I see that Leupold now has a variable Scout scope in their VXII series, but without illumination. Some of the big optics retailers show it for sale, but I can’t find it on Leupold’s web site. If I had to choose, I’d take the illuminated reticle over the variable power though. A fixed 3x or even 4x would be just dandy.
Trijicon has it figured out. The illuminated reticles in their ACOG series are just the ticket for fast target acquisition. You use them like a reflex sight with both eyes at close range, for speed, and their fixed 4x models are good out to farther than most people will shoot. (See Bindon Aiming Concept, or BAC) Trijicon doesn’t make an IER version of the ACOG, else that would be the end of the discussion. Something like that mounted low on an M1A with the M8 rail would rock, I tell you. That scope would also be just the ticket for the dangerous game hunting market, for them that likes optics.
With more options available for forward mounted optics, and with Ruger jumping in with their new Scout rifle, there is no doubt a market for such an animal. I see that in the sub 100 dollar range (complete with rings) the Chinese companies have an illuminated Scout scope, but the world needs a really good one, made in a really good country, like this one. A couple guys from NightForce Optics came over and we spoke about it, but they didn’t seem to be terribly excited. Maybe I didn’t do enough convincing.
Let’s see it, World. I (and my customers) want a ~1x to ~4x IER scope with a ~32 to ~40 mm objective, with something like Trijicon’s illuminated chevron and some vertical range ticks. Ready…..Go!
Congress Debates Status of Tomato Sauce
Seen here. I heard about it on one of the morning talk shows. Sorry I don’t remember which. Beck, Limbaugh or Medved – take your pick.
I said it when I heard Congress was legislating the rules of baseball years ago– this is final proof that we’ve gone far off the deep end of pathological insanity. If the founders of this nation had heard Congress was involved in determining whether the tomato was a vegetable and no one had stepped in to haul them off and lock them in an asylum, they’d have shot somebody. Maybe themselves, for they’d have realized that all their learning, inspiration, vision, struggle, suffering, perseverance, profound loss and eventual victory had been in vain.
Every last bit of it pissed out a window by vacuous, nasty little fools who to this day still think we look up to them and celebrate them. It always comes as a shock to the tyrant when he finally gets his due at the hands of the people, as did Mussolini and his wife. “Why, they don’t love me? Surely this is some mistake. I am the Father of The People. I don’t understand. No wait…”
ETA; Congress getting involved in the likes of baseball and vegetables is the very definition of totalitarianism— the doctrine that says nothing is outside the realm of politics, that everything is government’s business. I used to pose the question to leftists; “What, if anything, do you believe is absolutely, positively, none of government’s business whatsoever?” It’s a rhetorical question of course. We know the answer, as evidenced above. Now that it is settled– that we live in an ideologically totalitarian state, I pose another question. What is the way out of this?
Help the Cooking Shows
Anyone else notice that on “Chopped”, or “Top Chef”, etc., it happens nearly every episode that someone fails or nearly fails a challenge because they can’t get their pan(s) hot enough? They’re using top dollar gas ranges. What’s up with that? And I wonder why no one seems to notice after all these failures. Do they have some federally mandated energy-saving analog to the NASCAR restricter plates on the gas controls? Maybe it’s just a bad idea to use a stainless steel pan having a mirror finish on the bottom, what? Maybe someone should do them a favor– go to Goodwill and get a used electric range from the 1970s for fifty bucks, and an old cast iron frying pan with matching saucepan, and donate them to one of the shows. Seventy five bucks per cooking station, tops, and they’d never have this problem again. That stuff works for me, anyway.
5.56 x 45 Wound
Very nasty. You’ve been warned. Lots of discussion from both medical and ballistics points of view, so I thought you’d be interested. It’s here on the Philippine Defense Forum. I found it as a link off of GunRightsMedia. Femur was not hit but was broken by shock wave, they say. M193 Ball at close range.
For comparison; a fifty caliber (.495″) soft lead ball at ~1000 to ~1500 fps on impact will not do anywhere near that much damage, and I can say that with some authority having necropsied four deer shot with same from various angles. The slower round pretty much digs a straight, caliber-sized hole through anything it touches (though I haven’t seen a 50 ball hit a femur. I have seen a 7 mm 168 gr match HP hit a femur, on the way out of a deer, having struck initially at ~2.5Kfps and passing through much of the animal, and that broke the heavy bone into several pieces). You learn a few things about terminal ballistics when hunting, so you don’t have to listen to much of the talk. The phrase; “Your pistol is the weapon you use to get back to your rifle” comes to mind, only the rifle should be putting lead on target at over 2Kfps according to these chaps.
Now clean up your lunch.
Y’all Better Read This
I promise you; you will want to read this excerpt from The Life of Colonel David Crockett if you haven’t already.
There’s a powerful lot of meaning in few words. I intend to print it off and hand it to my daughter, to be brought into her high school history class for discussion.
Special Thanks to LukeM, who brought it to my attention in comments here. I don’t know how I missed it for so long.
In Honor of Veterans
Today I’m reminded of this quote from David Crockett;
Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.
Representative David Crockett (TN)
Those are the words of a real man. I don’t know specifically who it was he was referencing. That’s not the point. If you want to help a veteran, by all means help a veteran. That’s your job. Personally. Don’t try to make a federal case out of it. Our military exists, ostensibly, to defend liberty, see. If we set up system of coercive redistribution to “honor” veterans, we’ve just insulted the hell out of them by contradicting everything they supposedly fought for. Hmm? So what side are we really on?