High altitude highway

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Via Boomershooter “Squirrel Hunter” we have the Karakoram Highway

The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is one of the highest paved international roads in the world. It connects the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China and Gilgit–Baltistan of Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, through the Khunjerab Pass, located at 36°51′00″N 75°25′40″E, at an elevation of 4,693 metres (15,397 ft).

Connecting China’s Xinjiang region with Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan, the road is a popular tourist attraction. Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Wow! And I thought Idaho, Washington, Montana, and Colorado had some “interesting” switchbacks and high altitude construction on some of their mountain roads.

Nope. Nothing I have seen in the states even begins to compare.

Quote of the day—Maj Toure

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Firearms are just as normal as your cell phone. You don’t drop your cell phone in water. You have a lock on your phone. It’s very private. It’s yours. You know how to operate it. It’s like a car. When you first start driving, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Then you start paying attention, being observant, looking around and being a responsible driver. Get drunk and shooting your gun is the same as getting drunk and driving. The difference is one is a right. A human right. One is a privilege.

Maj Toure
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
December 26, 2017
Why Black People Own Guns
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Turtledude

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1) I have a plan
2) I claim it will reduce crime
3) My plan proposes nothing that actually punishes wrongful acts or increases the penalty on criminals but rather
4) criminalizes currently legal behavior and only applies to people who have not harmed anyone
5) any plan that either targets malum per se activities or DOES NOT harass honest citizens will be rejected as not being “A PLAN”
6) my plan is valid merely if YOUR plan does not harass legal gun ownership
7) that my plan will decrease crime is guaranteed because I have faith that it will

there is the sum and substance of the anti gun side’s Crime control plans as presented by our energetic gun restrictionist

Turtledude
January 10, 2018
Posted in The gun control thread
[This applies to many, if not most, anti-gun people.—Joe]

Clearwater County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Dog Team

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My brother, Doug, is the team leader for Clearwater County (Idaho) Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Dog Team. Here is an article about the team and some of their searches:

We have all seen a dog follow a scent trail. Most of the time it is another dog or something else they think smells good, but what is the drive and reward to go out at all hours in all types of weather as a member the Clearwater County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue (CCSSAR) Dog Team.

“I sometimes hear people say, ‘Everyone wants to be a hero’,” says Doug Huffman. “I suppose that is especially true in the Search and Rescue business. I once heard a search dog instructor describe it this way, ‘everyone fantasizes about saving the lost child in the wilderness and carrying the child back to her mother’s arms in front of a cheering crowd, but that isn’t how it works in real life.’ I have been with CCSSAR since 1998 and I haven’t seen that fantasy search happen yet. More typically, we are out in the woods looking for a missing berry picker when we learn he was picked up hours before by a passerby. We get home at 5 a.m. exhausted from a long night out in the woods, when we could have been home asleep. We feel good about ourselves knowing we were involved in a team effort to help a missing individual and their family, but we usually don’t feel like a hero when it is over.”

A fair number of the search stories Doug has told me are for escaped prisoners, active criminals, or people presumed dead. These searches involving higher risks and/or unpleasant resolutions. Still, Doug has been doing this for nearly 20 years now so there is some sort of reward to it.

Quote of the day—Tyler Yzaguirre

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The only people who benefit from stricter gun control laws are criminals. That’s why states and cities across America should be looking for other, more promising ways to reduce crime.

Tyler Yzaguirre
January 7, 2018
To reduce shootings, look for better ideas beyond gun control
[The criminals are both the obvious robbers and thugs as well as the not quite as obvious politicians who lust after power.—Joe]

Detonating Boomerite with a pistol

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We have long known that Boomerite detonates at lower velocities if the bullet has a flatter tip. But we have never had reliable detonation with a pistol. As I reported a few days ago I made up some 145 grain loads for my .40 S&W gun. I bought the bullets 10 to 15 years ago just for this but I it wasn’t until now that I finally got around to loading them for Boomerite testing. With a near maximum load I get just over 1400 fps at the muzzle. The truncated cone bullets have a pretty wide flat area:

image

I visited Boomershoot last weekend and among other things I mixed up a batch of Boomerite and tested the hot 145 grain loads. With the weather being a little cold, 34 F, I expected I would have to be pretty close to get detonation. And maybe I wouldn’t be able to get detonation at any safe distance. I put on my flak jacket, eye protection, ear protection, and got back 15 yards. This should be a target velocity of about 1330 fps. I squeezed off a shot—BOOM! Okay, that worked.

How about 25 yards? That would result in about 1280 fps at the target. Another squeeze yielded another earth shaking boom from a seven inch target. Okay then. It’s good enough.

This means I can use my handgun for Boomershoot cleanup if I want to.

Quote of the day—tkdkerry

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He put it in his mouth, huh? Is anybody surprised, given the left’s insistence that guns be equated with penises?

tkdkerry
January 8, 2018
Comment to Quote of the day—Megan Fox
[I so laughed out loud!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Megan Fox

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Nelson should be investigated right now for defrauding the state of Washington and he should be evaluated for his own safety and the safety of those around him. Someone get this man help and alert the King County Sheriff’s Office that Nelson has an invalid concealed carry permit. In the meantime, maybe we should start seriously considering making it much more difficult for Democrats to get their hands on guns.

Megan Fox
December 19, 2017
Why Leftists Should Not Be Allowed to Have Guns
[Read the article she based her post on. The range he got his training at and bought his gun is the range I go to most frequently. I know his instructor Brett.

But most importantly read the gems like this:

It was perhaps inevitable that the very first thing I did when I brought the gun home and was alone with it was to put it in my mouth. Unloaded at first, then loaded.

This guy is a real piece of work.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott D. Dailard

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The .50 caliber Desert Eagle has similarly destructive characteristics that distinguish it from other handgun cartridges. It is an enormously powerful, high-velocity, armor-piercing round manufactured for use in tank-mounted machine guns that has been adapted for use in a few foreign made handguns.

Scott D. Dailard
1994
The Role of Ammunition in a Balanced Program of Gun Control: A Critique of Moynihan Bullet Bills
Journal of Legislation: Vol. 20: Iss. 1, Article 3.
[And this is just one of many reason why we despise anti-gun people doing “research”. They only have a vague idea of what they are talking about and/or deliberately lie. And, note the date, this has been going on for decades.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Caity

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You are so quiet.

Except when you are blowing up stuff.

Caity
January 4, 2018
[Caity is a co-worker. She was in the kitchen filling a container with filtered water when I came in to get a cup of tea. She apparently didn’t hear me as I walked up behind her.

I do frequently try to walk in such a way that my upper body is a stable shooting platform. It’s not as exaggerated as when I’m actually shooting a USPSA match, but it does tend to cut down on the noise.—Joe]

That’s what I carry

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This is kinda cool. FBI Selects Winchester’s .40 S&W Ammunition for Duty and Training:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has completed an extensive evaluation process and Winchester has been chosen as its primary source for .40 S&W pistol ammunition. This includes a bonded jacketed hollow point (JHP) service cartridge as well as full metal jacket (FMJ) and frangible training loads. Winchester has been supplying the FBI with service and training ammunition for many years and is honored to be awarded the most recent contract and continue to support our nation’s premier law enforcement agency.

The 180 gr. bonded jacketed hollow point (JHP) cartridge selected by the FBI is designed with patented technology that utilizes a reverse-jacketed, bonded bullet that can penetrate a wide variety of intermediate barriers while maintaining very consistent target penetration and reliable expansion. The nickel-plated cartridge prevents corrosion and ensures smooth feeding and extraction. Flash suppressed powder is used in this cartridge to maintain an agent’s night vision and meet the FBI’s stringent darkened range evaluation.

The Winchester .40 S&W, 180 grain, JHP cartridge (Ranger) is my carry ammo.

Update: In the comments John Hardin asked if the FBI chose the Ranger bullets. I think the answer is yes. As near as I can tell the “reverse-jacketed” bullet refers to their patented reverse taper (thick near the opening, thinner on the sides and base) JHP with with the jacket pre-scored in the area intended to expand. This gives the uniform size and characteristic hooks at the end of the “petals”:

image

Winchester sells several different 40 S&W 180 grain JHP cartridges. Two of them appear to use the same bullet, the W40SWD and S40SWPDB1 cartridges. A third, USA40JHP, appears to be using a conventionally jacketed bullet:

image

There are also what appear to be different brandings, and/or nickel plated brass casings, of these same three cartridges:

So, I believe the FBI must have chosen a cartridge with the same bullet as what is in the Ranger bonded cartridge.

Quote of the day—Colion Noir‏ @MrColionNoir

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If you don’t feel the need to carry a gun because you believe the government will keep you safe, why do you care if I or anyone else decides to Carry a gun? If anyone tries to harm you, the government will stop it right? ‍♂️ Where Is your faith in government?

Colion Noir‏ @MrColionNoir
Tweeted on January 2, 2018
[Wow!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

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A state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly.

Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards page 29
[This essay was originally published in 1993 by The Public Interest.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Knighton

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I’ll consider it my sacred duty to create as much spent brass as humanly possible.

You know, for the children.

Tom Knighton
January 2, 2017
Are Ammo Prices Ready To Drop?
In regards to concerns that some ammunition manufactures are having financial stress because of a lower ammunition prices.
[There are other options available as well. Teach your child to shoot, and/or send them to a shooting class, and buy them all the ammunition they can consume. I’ve been giving my kids reloaded ammunition tailored for their specific usage. And Santa stuffed at least one stocking with ammunition last year.—Joe]

Boomershoot Contrails

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This morning the conditions were excellent for the formation of contrails over Boomershoot country. From Boomershoot Live:

P18010209341410

P18010210470810

Click on the pictures to get higher resolution images.

Quote of the day—Larry Pratt

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We don’t need any opinion from the ATF to tell us what “shall not be infringed” means. It means, among other things, there should be no ATF.  We don’t have a Bureau of Speech and Thought Control because that would be as unconstitutional as the ATF. Every day that agency exists is another day the federal government violates the Constitution.

Larry Pratt
Executive Director Emeritus Gun Owners of American
December 29, 2017
Gun Owners of America: Stop Funding the ATF and They’ll Leave Our Bump Stocks Alone
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Let’s open another front

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In the last twenty years most of the progress we have made in the gun rights movement has been in the domain of self-defense. This is our strongest point. We now have concealed carry in nearly all states and even in Washington D.C. with Constitutional Carry (called “Vermont Carry” when I first got involved in the movement) making good progress.

Alan Korwin explains there is another front we can open on the war with the anti-gun forces using our strongest weapon:

The Gun-Free Zone Liability Act of 2018

  • Improving American Safety and Security
  • Eliminating Bias and Prejudice
  • Restoring Constitutional Values
  • Dropping the Pretense: “We don’t want your kind eating here.”

Establishes liability for harm caused by criminal conduct, when such conduct is wholly or partially enabled by limiting an individual’s right or ability to self defense.

We are far better off making the anti-gun people defend their weakest positions rather than let them attack with their strongest weapons. Both sides have limited resources. Make them expend their resources on defense rather than on offense.

Good point

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Rolf sent me an email with a bunch of memes. I’m going to post the ones I like best one at a time when I think appropriate (or just completely at random).

Thought for today and the entire year:

Differences4

Good point.

Quote of the day—Mitchell Alvardo

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Either gun possession makes people stupid irrational cowards or stupid irrational cowards are drawn to gun possession

I’ve never spoken with a single gun owner who was by any measure, a decent intelligent human being. They’re either wannabe terrorists planning on killing law enforcement or terrified of a situation that could be prevented with locks and motion lights.

Creatures that worthless and evil are undeserving of living among actual human beings.

Mitchell Alvardo
Post on Facebook
November 26, 2018
[I thought I would start out the new year with something particularly good. Enjoy!

This is just another example of someone who thinks they have the wisdom, and should have the power, to decide which groups of people lives and who should be put to death.

Also note that Facebook hasn’t taken down this hateful post. This post meets their standards.

And now you know why the right to keep and bear arms is so important.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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I stand by my frequent admonition: “If it’s in the ‘news’ and it’s about guns, it’s probably 100% wrong.” At best, it’s as deceptive as an outright lie.

Alan Korwin
November 30, 2017
Background Check “News” Deceives
[I’m starting out the new year with something I know will be true the entire year.

Korwin is correct. And frequently these “news professionals” will be fractally wrong.—Joe]