Finally! Range Pics.

Posted on March 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Yes, not only did I go paper target hunting this weekend, I remembered to take some pictures while there.

The Analog Step-Dad and I went on down to the City of Olympia Firing Range, a not-very-well-known locale for target practice. I’ll tell you more about it in a moment. First, let’s get into the pics.

There are just a couple because I don’t go to the range to play photjournalist, I go to shoot. But during the times I stop to grab a drink of H2O, I make sure to grab the camera. I took more than this, but my photog skills suck, so anyway…..

Here is the Analog Step-Dad helping me warm up the barrel of my latest aquisition, the Ruger MKII-10

(all pics are click for bigger)

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The barrel reaches out into the darkness and is hard to see, but once you get a decent grip on it, the balance on the thing isn’t as bad as one would think. There is also nearly zero recoil due to the weight.

Next up, the ASD lighting off his Ruger.357 Security Six at the bullseyes downrange.

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The Security Six may be a .357 Magnum, but Ruger built the thing so tough and heavy that, even with full strength loads, the rise from recoil isn’t bad at all, with what you see in the pic being about it.

And last, but not least, not wanting to be outdone by my shot of his recoiling .357, the ASD got me shooting the MKII-10 with the chamber just closing, a little burned powder escaping and the ejected brass only about five inches from my right hand.

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Notice the zero to no recoil. Do not notice that I am in desperate need of a haircut or that I’m too damn tall for the shooting lanes at the Oly range. I had to either stand back behind the cable motor or to the side of it or else I’d move my target by bumping the switch forward. In either position, the person to my right gets at least 50% of my ejected brass rained down atop them; something we’ll remember for the next time we go there.

While there we shot not only the pistols shown above, but also at least two of my 1911’s, my CZ-83 and his Colt Pocket Model in 25ACP (which was surprisingly accurate). I also shot my targets for Mr. Completely’s Pistol e-Postal. I have pictures of them as well, but they’re so pitiful, I’d rather just wait until the results come out to be embarrased. I tried talking the ASD into entering, but he was having to much fun to worry about a score.

The Oly range is the one I said that had some weird rules. It is really only one and it is this: Before you can enter the range, you have to watch a safety video that runs between 45-60 minutes in length and pass a 30 multiple choice question test. It is by no means the most difficult thing to do, in fact, I daydreamed through the video and then aced the test, but for first timers to the range, it can be a bit annoying.

After you watch the video and pass the test however, you get a card good for life that gets you onto the range with just the $10 range fee. Passing the test also means that the rangemaster is not standing over your shoulder the whole time you’re at the range, which is good because I find that annoying and bad as there are some folks who can pass a test and still hurt themselves or myself with their lack of safety skills, though I have yet to meet one there.

The range itself is owned and operated by the City of Olympia and during the week days is used exclusively by the Oly PD. On the weekends it is open to the public in the afternoons after the aforementioned one-time passing of the video and test and a $10 fee. From what I know of the Olympia area, it is the only local indoor range. There are others north of there in Tacoma and south in Chehalis/Centralia, but this place is a five minute drive from the Analog Parent’s house, so why bother with a 30-45 minute drive on the interstate?

I don’t have the addy or hours on the place in front of me right now, so if you want more info on this place, leave a comment or send an email.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

Bring it on

Posted on March 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

So there were some protests over the future of our nations immigration security and the rampant problem with illegal immigration. Of course, the left framed the discussion as one of race and called out every person whose skin color is darker than pink to call anyone in support of punishing those who illegally and criminally enter the country and/or building a physical barrier to slow down the inbound flow of illegal immigrants via Mexico a racist, all the while having no actual plan of their own to end the problem other than to do nothing and freely hand out blanket amnesty.

In DC, Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, made promises to filibuster anything that came across the Senate floor that isn’t as limp as a wet noodle on the issues.

To which I have to say: Bring It On!

Illegal immigration is a subject so volitile that neither of the two major political parties, especially the Republicans, will poll their party members on it because the centrist party members, the majority of the respective parties, would demand action on it.

So now when the House Repubs once again found their balls in preparation for mid-term elections and think to do something, and the Senate Repubs see the positive reactions of their constituencies and decide that maybe doing what the people want would be “A Good Thing“, the leader of Senate Democrats decides that obstructing the process in order to please the fringes of their party is his best plan.

The majority of the people are not be pleased with Bush and the Dems could have ridden that to mid-term gains, but they have decided to ignore middle America in favor of a very vocal and very socialist fringe. I’d call it a pity, but their minority status in government is what is good for America.

And no, they won’t learn from their failure in Illinois last week.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Useful Idiots | 2 Comments

Done and done

Posted on March 26, 2006 by Phil Kadath

OK, I’m really only half done with the garage. But at least I put a good sized dent in it.

Today is range day. I’ll be heading down to Olympia to see how their range has kept up since my last visit as well as to try and shoot Mr. Completely’s Handgun e-Postal Match.

I say try because my printer is kaput (probably rough handling during the move) and I don’t know how well the Analog Mom’s is doing so my targets may look funny if I can even get them to print out.

I will not only be remembering to take the camera, I will also remember to make sure some pictures are taken this time around so stop by tomorrow for that, as well as a very important question I have that was prompted by a discussion the Analog Wife and I had on the subject of racism. She thinks I’m splitting hairs and I think she’s being hard-headed.

I’m going to want anyone and everyone’s opinion on this, so just figure that participation is mandatory and you’ll be good to go.

In the meantime, you’re at home, on your computer, AFTER getting back from the range, right?

No?

Oh, you must be just about to head out to the range then?

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 2 Comments

You win some. You lose some.

Posted on March 26, 2006 by Professor Booty

As I mentioned yesterday, I met a number of ladies during my time in Ireland last week and not all of them were A-List material. Yesterday’s was due to a minor physical oddity, today’s B-Lister is because of a personality flaw.

I met this lady through a mutual friend we had on the island. I asked him for someone who met my standards to show me around the island and, unfortunately, he took that to mean someone who could ‘Show Me A Good Time’.

Elsie was leading me on a Distillery tour of town and while she was beautiful, she was lacking in what most would to call “Social Graces”. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t demand that the women I hang out with be Judith Martin diciples, but yelling profanities at the soccer players being broadcast over the television screen while at a distillery tasting is just rude. And that was just one of many faux pas she made.

After a while, she started to notice how I was disturbed about something and asked me about what was the matter. I kindly explained how I was used to a little more decorum when out about town town, a bit of contsructive criticism she took rather well, but then explained that that was just who she was.

I told her that that was all right with me, just so long as she didn’t go running naked through the streets.

My mistake for putting thoughts in her head

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Oh well, at least you all got to see the photo. Although, I don’t know that I’ll ever be welcome back at that hotel after our little game of cat and mouse in the lobby.

Have a good rest of the weekend,

Professor Booty

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

I feel like Fred Sanford

Posted on March 25, 2006 by Phil Kadath

For those who don’t know who that is, try Google images, for the rest, let me explain.

Since the move is complete, I have everything that doesn’t need to be inside the house in the garage, but I would like for the wife to be able to park her car in there sooner than later (I’d put my truck in there as well but it is almost 2 inches too tall for the door).

I’ve got one wall stacked from floor to celing with boxes from the storage unit, half of which I don’t know what is in them. Along with that stack I have three or four pieces of furniture that we haven’t moved into the house yet, and at this point probably won’t, plus a dishwasher we don’t need but want to keep for when we do buy our house. The floor on the other side of the garage is covered with boxes and miscelaneous stuff that covers just over half of the floor. It’s a short pile, but it’s a pile nonetheless, and that is the side the wife will be parking on.

What this means is that I am going to have to forgo a trip to the rifle range this weekend and instead spend a good couple (few) hours getting things sorted out. I will be going to the Olympia Police Pistol Range on Sunday for some fun with the step-dad, and if anyone wants to join us, you’re welcome to do so, but it is a range with some silly rules so leave a comment here or email me so that I can tell you of these silly rules before you make up your mind.

On a side note, I have plans at this time of being at the Renton Fish and Game rifle range next Saturday the 1st of April and then Sunday the 2nd at CWSA on Whidbey Isl. for a pin match with Mr. Completely. For those interested, you can contact me here as well.

Oh and just a random note: One of the piles I’ll be stacking stuff in when I’m cleaning out the garage will be an eBay pile. I’ll be linking to my eBay list when I get everything sorted out in case anyone is interested.

But enough about me, The 52nd Carnival of Cordite is up! The CoC is a year old and it’s a double-creature feature this week. Here is the rehash of The Best of the CoC over this past year, and here is this weeks official CoC. I forgot to get my Monday stuff in on time, so look for it next week.

Also, Mr. C has his latest Rimfire Round-Up posted. Go check him out. The RRU gets better every week.

And lastly, this is your last weekend to shoot and turn in your e-Postal Match targets. I’m going to shoot them on Sunday so go ahead, try and beat me (it shouldn’t be that much of a difficult thing to do, really).

And into the garage I go.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | 1 Comment

I get mail

Posted on March 25, 2006 by Professor Booty

Not a lot really, mostly spam for things I don’t need, but every now and then I get a couple emails. That was, until this last Monday. On that day I opened up my email and found three emails from people (I won’t mention their gender) who hinted that I may have been prejudicial in my selection of companions last weekend while on the Emerald Isle.

I say “hinted”, but one of them flat out accused me of ignoring all but the the most beautiful of auburn-haired ladies during my stay. While I may only cohort with the beautiful, hair color has never been a deciding factor in the choice of my companions.

What I didn’t show were the outtakes of my time in Ireland; women I met and cavorted with but just didn’t feel the need to tell you about, lest I get myself in even more trouble. But, if folks are going to get fussy about these things, I’d like you all to meet Leeda.

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We spent an afternoon at the local beach, even though it was neither sandy or warm. Leeda was a mostly nice girl, albeit on the boisterous side as she didn’t have what one could call an ‘Inside Voice’. In fact, I was not a bit surprised to find out that she had spent a good deal of time at her uncle’s sawmill as a young girl.

It was a good thing my hotel room had thick walls, or we’d have gotten complaints.

Though I am loathe to put it out there, I figure the complaints come with the territory and I can’t get any more spam than I already do, so here is my email addy once again = ProfBooty -(AT)- gmail -(DOT)- com

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

Wherein I Suck at Shooting (Can I blame the ammo?)

Posted on March 23, 2006 by Alaska

Well, much like the Analog Kid, I too seem to have had a nasty-ass day at the office — two, in fact. Unlike the Kid, I ameliorated them somewhat by hauling myself off to the range at lunchtime each day.

The Wednesday lunch break shoot was my first time actually shooting my T/C Encore, Sweetheart,

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with the Virgin Valley Custom Guns .223 Remington barrel that I purchased (yikes) almost a year ago.

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Lots of other folks have shot Sweetheart with this barrel, as it’s great for introducing new shooters to a centerfire rifle: it’s simple (single shot), low recoil (.223), and it’s easy to swap out the Encore’s stocks for small- or large-framed shooters. The 6.5-20x Barska cheapo scope works great — no problems, and enough magnification to see .223 caliber holes with no difficulties. This combo should be one of my favorites — and it is now — but somewhere along the line, I just never had been in the driver’s seat myself.

All the better, says I, for me to test-drive her for Azreel’s / Mr. Completely’s e-postal match! So off I went Wednesday to sight her in, and by the end of the hour I was grinning from ear to ear. Twice I had two shots in one ragged hole, and there were an awful lot of reeeally small three-shot groups in various spots as I walked my POI across the paper. Here’s the best part: up ’til now, I’ve always had shooters feed this barrel with Black Hills blue-box reloads.

But I was doing this with Winchester White Box (!!!!) winchester white box.jpgSurprised.jpg

And yes, that I was doing this with Winchester White Box (!!!!) was a big part of that shit-eating grin on my face.

What kept me from settling in to start punching MOA-size five-shot groups in the e-postal target was that the eye relief on the scope had changed. Or, more precisely, as a result of my recent self-inflicted eye infection, I started wearing glasses again for the first time in 25 years, but somehow didn’t think that would affect my cheek-weld. Well, duh! But I wasted a good ten minutes of my forty on the line trying to figure out why I kept having trouble with the scope. At 20x, it makes a little teeny difference, but enough to matter.  Soy Idiota.

So back I went today, confident that I was a couple of clicks away from a nice solid zero, and then I’d whip through those five postal match targets with no defects. Not! I didn’t even get to the e-postal target.

Nothing significant had changed from yesterday, and I’d figured out the eye relief problem, so by all rights I should have been dropping them into nice tight groups, instead of pulling every second or third shot a few inches left or right. Aaargh! Just another illustration of why it’s the operator in this discipline, not the tool.

And no, I can’t blame the ammo. It and the rifle both outperformed my expectations. We’ll try again tomorrow with the rest of my white-box wonder cartridges and see if I can make up my part in the equation.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Postal Matches | Leave a comment

Killing Meme

Posted on March 23, 2006 by Alaska

Well, it’s time to show that Kim’s not the only one who can post examples of great Western artistic and literary works. Today we’ll let those who may be inclined read an excerpt from a Nobel Prize-winning novel! Usually the Nobel is awarded to an author for a body of work, but in this case it’s pretty widely acknowledged that the prize was awarded to the author on the basis of this novel alone — it’s that powerful. I’ll bet most of you have never heard of it, too.

But first, a detour. Benjamin of Reasonablenut hit me with the “what constitutes a killing offense” meme — specifically, what crime committed against you & yours would cause you to take the law into your own hands.

Well, in my case, I will say that several years ago, my closest male friend and I  (I don’t want to get any more specific about him than that) made a pact that in the event anyone did something really nasty to either of our daughters (he’s since had a son as well, and I’m sure this applies to that little guy too; we’re not sexist types who think daughters deserve special protection more than sons) we’d each assist the other in doing what needs to be done. Our wives know of this, of course, but in the tradition of In the Bedroom (great movie, by the way), they’d not be directly involved in the resolution. 

I’m talking, speaking as a licensed attorney (and therefore an officer of the court), about assisting the lawful authorities with prosecution, trial and conviction of the suspect, of course, and doing our best to assist the authorities with obtaining the death penalty. Good heavens, what did you think I was talking about?

Now, I’ve never been an eye-for-an-eye fellow. Nope, where me & mine are concerned, ten to one’s more like it; I don’t have much sense of proportion. Nemo me impune laecessit.  An example: when the above friend & I were in law school, gangs of bicycle thieves routinely drove up from the San Francisco Bay Area in vans to steal all of the bicycles at the dorms from the racks outside. One night, we were hit. In the heated discussions thereafter, we determined that if we ever caught these thieves in the act, appropriate punishment would be to shatter their elbows and knees, carve the word THIEF into their foreheads down to the bone, and leave them someplace where they’d be found (alive) within a few days. Ah, the hot-bloodedness of youth.

If you hadn’t guessed, students at our campus really treasured their bicycles. I still own a bicycle, but I wouldn’t feel such a harsh punishment to be appropriate in such a situation anymore. For one, the bicycle is no longer such a central and critical part of my daily existence as it was then. And, as a licensed attorney (and therefore an officer of the court), I’ve come to understand the importance of leaving justice in the hands of the proper authorities, you see.

Children, of course, evoke much stronger feelings than mere items of property such as bicycles. Years ago, when my friend and I made the above pact, we were envisioning such crimes against our children as kidnapping, rape or molestation, mutilation or murder, or the like. Given my sense of proportion, it should not come as a surprise that to me, the appropriate question is still not whether the death penalty is appropriate in such circumstances — if you don’t think that’s a given, that tells me something about you. No, it’s what kind of death.

Of course, as a licensed California attorney (and thus an officer of the court), I should point out that under California law, there’s only one lawful kind of death — lethal injection by the State after proper conviction and exhaustion of all appeals, many years down the line. Yes, that truly satisfies my sense of proportionate justice for such crimes against my child.

Oh well. For legal and personal reasons, I’ll say no more on this, other than that as a licensed attorney (and thus an officer of the court), Gosh darn it, I just can’t think of any situations where I could bring myself to kill a criminal in cold blood, even if he’d just kidnapped, raped, molested, mutilated or murdered my child. Sorry I couldn’t help you there, Benjamin.

Instead, back to our literary feast! Entirely irrelevant and unrelated to the above digression, I shall now present an excerpt from Ivo Andric’s Nobel Prize-winning The Bridge on the Drina, in which what’s described below is the appropriate punishment for a saboteur under the reign of the Ottoman Turks.  Some barbarians might say that it’s good for other crimes, as well. I, of course, am simply appalled at this savage depiction that mars Andric’s otherwise fine novel, and would never consider infliction of such horrific pain and suffering on another human being to be justified, etc., etc., even if he’d just kidnapped, raped, molested, mutilated or murdered a child.

(Do not click below if you are easily, or even not-so-easily, disturbed by graphic imagery, no matter how literary.)

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The Soundboard: Camaro Rock

Posted on March 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

So yesterday’s post was an attention getter as I knew it would be. The link is fixed now if you had trouble with it then.

I did get a couple emails from people wondering what the hell I thought I was doing posting a tune like that. Like I said then, the song was made in jest at just about everyone’s expense. Other than that, all I can say is that after the day I had, it was good therapy.

So, since some folks can’t take a joke they don’t like, maybe they’ll like this one from my “Camaro Rock” files.

Dirty White Boy – Foreigner

And if there are any Camaro fans/owners who can’t take this joke, well then, I just can’t help you, man.

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

Heavy Fuel

Posted on March 23, 2006 by Phil Kadath

In Tuesday’s post about me getting a commuter sportster, our good man Rivrdog left a comment about how I should buy a diesel fueled vehicle and that it could double as my SHTF vehicle as well.

Besides the overwhelming “NO!” that immediately enveloped my head after reading that suggestion, a number of other thoughts on diesel fuel went through my mind. And here they are:

The Washington State Legislature, which is Democrat controlled and bending themselves over backwards (and everyone else forwards) to the enviro-wacko lobby, recently passed Senate Bill 6508 which mandates that as of January 1st, 2008, every gallon of diesel fuel sold in this state will be at least 5% bio-diesel.

Let that sink in for a second.

Currently, the cheapest gallon of diesel I can find is running at $2.82 a gallon. I filled my truck up with premium unleaded for $2.55 per gallon on my way home this morning.

Washington State is run by idiots who seem to always forget that everything its citizens need is transported by truck and that those trucks run on diesel, and that when they put huge taxes and extra regulations on diesel fuel, it costs the citzens more to buy what they need.

But they’re Democrats, so go figure.

But diesel engines usually get better mileage than gas, right? Well, no, not really. Or maybe just barely. It really depends on the engine and the sheet metal it is pushing.

And here is the rub about the bio-diesel law: Even with 20 months before this law goes into effect, there will not be enough refineries built to cook up enough bio-diesel to meet the demand and it will therefore sell for a premium price, making the average price of diesel rocket upwards, probably close to the $4 a gallon mark. And I will lay down money betting that the cost of diesel on Jan 1, 2008 will be a minimum of $.25 higher than on Dec 31, 2007.

Then you have the fact that most engines are not set up to run on ANY bio-diesel content. I can think of five engine models that will crap out in under 10000 miles with the 5% mix.

Bio-diesel, though it apparently makes flowers smile, is a nasty concoction that will clog standard diesel fuel filters, fuel lines and fuel injectors and 90% of the diesel vehicles currently on the road need to be converted to make the fuel work. My company is being forced by the City of Seattle and King County to switch the entire fleet over to bio-diesel by the end of the year. We have had to hire on extra help in the maintainence shop in order to get the trucks converted in time (we have over 100 of them here). And no, they’re not subsidizing the conversion. 100% of it is coming out my company’s pocket. I guess I can only be thankful that the county isn’t charging a special tax to pay for it, because my company is trying to use it as an excuse to hold off on raises.

So, if you’re in Washington and have a pre-2000 diesel vehicle, you might want to think of converting it before January 1st, 2008 (at a cost of approx. $800). But your smarter thought would be to just sell the thing and switch back to gas. For those who don’t, I hope you don’t mind paying a yearly tax of $195 in the form a fuel system flush/parts replacement which, if you’re lucky is all you’ll need to do to keep your diesel vehicle working here.

Now, as to the article linked above, it is titled “Stellar Session for Environment”. That should be a clue as to how much this legislative session sucked. And I’m not just talking attitudinally. Next up, State Representative Janea Homquist (RINO), said the following ignorant statement,

This is a step in the right direction in breaking our addiction to foreign and domestic oil.

So now we are supposed to be weaning ourselves off of DOMESTIC oil as well? Like I said, RINO.

The main reason I’m red hot and smoking over this issue is that the enviros wanted a 20% bio-diesel content requirement. They got 75% of what they wanted this year, so what exactly do you think they’re going to try for next year? That’s right an additional 5% on top of the five they got this year. And the year after that they’re going to try to double that so that by 2010, they’ll have their 20% and no one will be able to afford diesel, let alone keep their vehicles running without a full-on conversion.

Whose riding public transportation? Diesel owners. If they can’t persuade the populace onto the bus, they overprice your fuel to the point where you have to go on their “Peace Train”.

——————–

As for the thought of having a diesel SHTF vehicle, I covered that in one of my first By Ourselves, For Ourselves series of posts. Let’s just say that I can’t see it as a good idea, and here is why:

First off, every tractor trailer vehicle in the area effected will be un-assing the zone and they will have trailers full of cargo that they can barter for fuel with. I don’t care how much cash you have on hand (or even precious metals), a guy with ten pallets of Mac & Cheese is going to get fuel before you.

Same thing goes for when the military hits the zone. They are going to have priority over you in getting fueled up and their rigs run on diesel.

Yes, if you are a hoarder, diesel is easier to store and isn’t as flammable as petrol, but in my opinion, it just isn’t worth the hassle. If you’re going to do something, you’re gonna do it right. So store your petrol right.

Posted in Armageddon, Useful Idiots | 7 Comments