Range Day One Done

Posted on April 2, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Now onto range day two with Mr. Completely.

I was off having some light conversations with my rifles yesterday. There were some rough moments because it had been so long, but we got through them and were soon hitting it off, just like old times.

In fact, I went through so much ammo, this was the only pic I remembered to take:

P4010001.JPG

That’s the Ruger 77 MKI in 22-250 I got from Barb a while back and it’s recent “New Friend”, the Nikon Buckmaster 6-18×40. They were supposed to be a pair for Boomershoot, but alas, not this year.

You can also see a couple boxes of this PMP South African stuff I bought to use as fouling ammo, but it turns out the stuff isn’t half bad for accuracy. For $7 a box I figure what the hell.

Today I’m off the Whidbey Island to shoot bowling pins with Mr. Completely and KeeWee at CWSA. I’ll be taking my recently aquired Ruger MKII-10 to try and not finish dead last in the Iron Sight Class.

I’ve made some improvements on the pistola which I’ll be featuring here tomorrow.

In the mean time, if you want to look at some kewl stuff, the Carnival of Cordite #53 is up. It came out yesterday, so check the date before sending off any emails.

Gotta Go!

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 2 Comments

Unexpected

Posted on April 2, 2006 by Professor Booty

It is human nature to criticize. Because of that, I had somewhat expected my mailbox to have at least a few emails saying I should have left that wierdo McKinney alone yesterday, but apparently no one thought that because there weren’t any.

Even Ms. Maggie was worried for me.

spankable100.jpg

But then again, she worries about everything. You’d be amazed how many fishnet bodysuits that girl goes through.

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

What is this thing

Posted on April 1, 2006 by Phil Kadath

You call a “Scoped Rifle”?

I’m off to the rack for some nappy time and then I’ll be going to the rifle range for some quality time with Barak

range031305.jpg

Ben the Reasonable Nut and ‘The Old Man’ checked the zero of their rifles earlier this week in preparation of Boomershoot.

I talked to Ben last year at Boomershoot and he was telling me about how the range he shoots at is set up with that 100yd tube. I’d never seen anything like that before, but I’ll bet it is damned good for getting a ‘No Wind Zero’.

Anyway, I’ll have pics of today up tomorrow. Until then, be careful out there.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Posted on April 1, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Or in this case, of coconuts and men. And of Mustangs and busses.

A must read summary of Aaron at Freewill’s Thursday.

I won’t tell you what it’s about, but here is a snippet:

We had no tools of any significance, particularly not the tool of choice for this sort of work, the machete. While Jim thoughtfully tapped the coconut on his desk, I observed that we looked like a bunch of chimps trying to do algebra, and that we needed a 2001: A Space Odyssey style monolith.

“Why, so we can drop it on the coconut?”

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Dogs of War … on steroids

Posted on April 1, 2006 by Alaska

It’s been a long time since I read Soldier of Fortune in high school. And a couple of my buddies’ reactions to reading Forsyth’s Dogs of War was to seriously plan for careers as mercenaries. It’s an excellent, if dated, novel about knocking over an African government with a force of ten men (or fewer; I haven’t read the book in years). I’m pretty sure one of my buddies ended up in the Marines, which was the first step in the plan, as I recall. If he eventually signed up with Blackwater, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Now we see that Blackwater can field a brigade-size force on demand? Holy crap!

Blackwater.jpg

found via Rawles’ Survivalblog.

Update: Blackwater has Tactical Archives that are, in effect, a pretty cool weekly blog. Quotes of the week and everything. Check ’em out!

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Gunsmiths under Attack by ATFE?

Posted on April 1, 2006 by Alaska

I first read of this on Michael Bane’s blog. His somewhat incoherent posting is here. I don’t fault Bane; he tends to post quickly based on info coming in from his vast network of sources, and here his original source seems to have changed his story over time.

A better summary is on Arms and the Law:

Michael Bane is reporting a major danger to gunsmiths.

Essentially — for GCA purposes, “manufacturing” a gun means making the receiver.

But there’s also an 11% excise tax on manufacturing a firearms — payable to Pittman-Robertson funds, which are used to support wildlife management. For purposes of this statute, what is “manufacturing”? Historically, it’s been viewed as more than making the receiver, something along the lines of “putting the gun together.” Last year Congress exempted makers of fewer than fifty firearms a year (I’m none too comfortable with that, simply because the exemption largely covers expensive custom guns, whose buyers can better afford the tax than most of us).

ATFE, Bane reports, is now construing it as including making any substantial changes to a firearm, and is hitting up gunsmiths for changing hammers and rebarreling firearms, and demanding back taxes and penalties.

I actually hadn’t heard of this exemption before; here’s ATFE’s own FAQ on it. Enraged posters seem to be confusing ATFE’s definition of “firearm” under the Gun Control Act for the purposes of firearms sales (basically, the frame/receiver is the firearm in most cases) with the different definition, under a different statute, for purposes of this excise tax on manufacturing. The way I read this, as stupid as the different definition is, it looks to me as though it’s been in place for a long time. It’s quite common in the law for a word to mean one thing in one statute and a slightly or entirely different thing in another statute. That seems to be the case here. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that ATFE is NOT expanding their definition of “firearm” under the Gun Control Act. If they did, it would sure stop my Encore barrel purchases on ebay!

The key language, for my money, is from ATFE’s FAQ:

Q. May I apply this exemption to transactions that occurred prior to October 1, 2005?

A. No, you may not.

Jerks. Some bureaucrat got a nice attaboy for setting this one up in the face of an explicit “STOP THIS” from Congress. Very clever. The solution is for some Congresscritter to introduce and pass into law a one-line amendment to a bill that exempts transactions prior to 10/01/05. That should stop this nonsense.

 

Posted in Color me confused, Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 3 Comments

Making an Exception

Posted on April 1, 2006 by Professor Booty

For the time I’ve posted here, I’ve tried to stay away from politics.

But the news of Cynthia McKinney swinging and connecting a Capital Police Officer had the Kid writing me and making a request which I cannot refuse.

The Kid thinks this is McKinney as a youth practicing for the day she’d have to Zsa Zsa a police officer.

avatar14224_1.gif

So as to to not be two caucasian males casting judgement on what is obviously an insane person who happens to be a black female, I offer the opinion of one of my former students who just so happened to stop by to spend this weekend with me.

spankable99.jpg

Miss Tanya had this to say, and I quote: “That bitch is crazy!”

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Posted on March 31, 2006 by Phil Kadath

But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.

Who knew The Stones could be prophetic? 

The Bad News: The Teamsters voted to extend negotiations for two more weeks. The progress in regards to the new contract is steady and consistent, so they think more time will do them good.

My hell of having to run union slugs out of my office every morning will, unfortunately, continue.

The Good News: I came into work Thursday night to find that, TA-DA, I’m getting a raise. And not just any raise, the largest raise I’ve seen this company dish out in my six-plus years here, both percentage-wise and in dollar amount.

I had kind of expected something like this to come down the pike because, and I left this out of yesterday’s post on purpose, there are people in the office who are falling for the union’s line about getting the office employees organized under a union.

The union’s only bargaining point is that they’ll increase the wages of the hourly employees (so that they can take a larger chunk of our paychecks for dues, of course). Management thinks that this will quash that vibe and, in my opinion, they’re correct.

Unless, of course, the city comes in and demands that our office be organized as part of the new contract, which has been rumored. At which time I will examine my options to see whether staying here is really in my best interest.

And of course, all these increased costs will be tossedonto the backs of the Seattle Public Untilities customer. But the left never remembers that part of the vicious circle.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 2 Comments

I Pity Da Foo

Posted on March 31, 2006 by Phil Kadath

The results are in (have been in, but I’ve been busy) for Mr. Completely’s Pistol e-Postal match for the month of March.

Surprisingly, the targets I classified as ‘Pitiful’ earlier this week turned out to not be as bad as I thought. I stand a half-point above center in the entirety of the Rimfire Class, and second in the Iron Sight Rimfire Class, which is just where I want to be. I don’t enjoy winning as much as I should, which comes from my dislike of attention. Don’t get me wrong, if I can take 1st place, I won’t refuse it, but not winning keeps driving me to be a better shooter.

Which is why I’m not crying over my second to last place finish in the Centerfire Class. I wasn’t all that happy about my groups in the first place so I was surprised with not finishing dead last.

Which is also why, despite David’s best attempt at a verbal self-flogging over his standing in Azreel of Free Spirit Mind’s Rifle e-Postal match below, I don’t see anything wrong with how he did.

Does he need improvement? Sure. But if he would have aced the competition, he wouldn’t be as driven to spend as much time as he can at the range before he goes to Boomershoot in a couple weeks.

And everyone “Needs Improvement”. Even the best riflemen in the country need to go to the range regularly to keep their skills up or they end up shooting like me.

The guys who I can’t stand are the ones I see at the range every single time I go; they shoot a group that my hand can’t even cover and say something along the lines of “See, now that’s how you shoot”.

I generally try to light one off into a pool cue chalks shortly thereafter so that the guy’s friends can see it puff. When they walk over and ask what that was, I show them the chalk cube and offer one to their friend. I’ve gotten no takers as of yet.

So get out to the range this weekend. On Saturday I’ve got a meet up with a co-worker for some rifle shootin’ in Renton and then I’ll be joining Mr. Completely on Whidbey for a pin shoot at the CWSA with my new and improved Ruger MKII-10 on Sunday (improvements to be judged under fire and then reported on on Monday).

If you’ve got some time this weekend and need something to do, leave a message here in the comments and I’ll get back to you “wit da hook up, yo.”

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

Night Sentry

Posted on March 30, 2006 by Alaska

Forgot to mention in my discussion of house guns one of the most critical parts of our little “system,” at least in terms of convenience: the Night Sentry. This is a very sturdy, heavy-duty piece of plastic that fits between your mattress and box springs, and provides a handy loop for a Mag-lite or similar flashlight, and a holster mount for your bedside handgun.

Night Sentry.jpg

For folks with concealed carry permits, I suppose you would be able to pop your holster off your belt at night and slip it onto the Night Sentry at the side of your bed. Very slick.

This totally eliminates the problems attendant with storing your bedside handgun in, say, your nightstand drawer, where it can be scratched, covered up with books or magazines, or perhaps even (yikes) forgotten on your way out the door to work in the morning. This last is double-plus-ungood in a state like Kalifornia where you must keep your firearm either in a childproof place (i.e., locked up) or under your control pretty much all the time.

We’ve had ours since Christmas and I’m quite pleased with them. Perhaps just as important as the product is the customer service — the folks at Diamond are incredibly nice and very concerned with the quality of their Night Sentries. When one of ours arrived with a slight defect, they instructed me to return it and within two days provided me with both a brand new one and a check for my postage costs.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Kewel! | 4 Comments