First they came for the lead. . . .

Then they came for the copper brass .

This is the start of something very interesting. When the ATF says that a particular brand of copper brass bullet is banned because it's "armor piercing," how long before other manufacturer's bullets are banned?

Something else to think of - California is a "lead free zone" so to speak, so this really hoses the millions of rifle shooters there. And isn't it a bad idea to ban a bullet designed to penetrate deep into large dangerous critters based on the idea that it penetrates so deeply?


***ETA: The bullets are made of brass.

You can't handle the truth!

The battle rages on about what in the hell is going on at Alexander Arms, and why the strangeness surrounding the 6.5 Grendel cartridge continues to go on with no questions answered. The non responses are coming straight from the top, so I don't understand why the clouding of the issue. Just answer the questions.

It's well known that there are licensing issues surrounding the Grendel name; barrel makers and tooling shops that make reamers have dropped, discontinued, and refused to chamber products in that cartridge, and only a handful of people seem to know why. Absent any real facts -- and not because the questions haven't been asked -- folks have muddied the water even further by speculation.

When I was shopping for a barrel for the MK12 Mod 0, I intended to chamber it in 6.5 Grendel, but couldn't get anyone to do it. I talked to Shilen, who won't chamber in that round; and from my research there aren't many gunsmiths who will touch it either. The only cut rifling barrel maker that held a license to make a barrel in that caliber ceased communications with me suddenly, and then announced days later that they were dropping their Grendel barrel lineup. There wasn't a concise answer as to why, and I wasn't happy to have wasted over a month for nothing. In the end, I picked a very similar cartridge that is made by Les Baer, and it took one phone call.

So what happened? Why is there such negativity from the firearms making community over a cartridge as special as the 6.5 Grendel? Why are there so many clones of the Grendel round that differ by only a fraction, or just enough to avoid a lawsuit? Why are there barrel makers who refuse to chamber in that round? It can't be coincidence, and dodging the questions folks have been sincerely asking or calling them "trolls" or deflecting to "ooooh, lookee, we're going to announce something special" adds up to a whole bunch of nothing. I mean, if my wife walked in the door and said "Honey, did you hit something with the car last night?" the answer that she would be expecting to get would certainly not be "Uuuuuhh, I've got something awesome to show you next week! It's going to be SUPER!!"

Consumer backlash

This one has nothing to do with the normal host of things posted here, but hit close to home since I've been screwed over by car salesman more times than I can count:

PORTSMOUTH — Unhappy that a Lafayette Road car dealer wouldn't take back the van he bought on Monday, David Cross drove "the lemon" back after the dealer closed on Tuesday and crashed it into six cars parked on the lot for sale.

"I hit the first $25,000 car I could see," Cross told the Herald. "I didn't hit a car under $20,000. Then I moved a van that they wouldn't come down on the price for. I moved it with the lemon they sold me. I just held it to the floor until I couldn't move it anymore. I took out seven vehicles, including my own."

I'm not condoning behaviour like that, as the only thing it solves is the need for short term gratification of one person, but I can feel the guy's pain; car salesman have the potential to be genuine scumbags, and have left people completely hosed over an expensive item.

I've never lost it like that and destroyed property, but one time many years ago my brother and I were bored and broke, and he was wondering out loud about how to finance a car. I had been there and done that before with the scars to prove it, so we swung into a local car dealership and I went through the entire process -- test drive, bartering; right up until the yellow sales sheet was cut. We had been there for about four hours before we walked out. It wasn't the righteous thing to do, but it sure did feel good, and years later my wife and I were screwed over pretty good by the same dealership. . . .twice, so I guess I had it coming.

Very recently my lady and I bought a mini van to better shuttle our growing tribe, and the salesman that we dealt with was brand new on the job, was a Vietnam veteran, and was as honest as the day was long. I told him as much, and that I was thankful to deal with someone who had not acquired the sleazy aura that car salesman often do. Being real has a value all on its own.

Bitter and busy

Daggone. When the hell did my time become so valuable that there's just not enough of me to go around? I need to bottle that shit up and sell it for a fortune if it's that important to the world.

Between my family, my house, and work (almost entirely work), I am completely used up and then some. I am nodding off by 2100 every night now, and I'm a zombie at 0515 when I'm making some coffee. The real work day starts when I get home and I have to fix all the shit that breaks around the house while also handling the general maintenance.

So yesterday afternoon I was destroying the indigenous flora with a gas-powered, bladed whirling machine, bitching in my mind about how silly this weekly task is, and it dawned on me how fickle mankind is. Here we have an outdoor area for recreation that we have to do constant maintenance to in order for it to "look good." Sound familiar? I place grass cutting right under tying a sturdy piece of multicolored fabric in a slipknot around the neck; it's a mundane thing that serves absolutely no utility at all, is extremely dangerous, and could in fact be completely avoided by intiating some common sense. The last bit would entail thinking for yourself, thus breaking the ant-line of human stupidity which would allow for things to really get done.

I'm thinking that I can aviod grass cutting by spraying the lawn with weed killer at the first sign of Spring. It only makes sense. Planting a garden or flowers is different, but grass? Really? Why do we do it? What's the point? We can't come up with something that looks good but doesn't require the use of a device that spins a sharp blade at 500 rpm just 18 inches from your feet?

I could care less about how my yard looks; to me lawn manicures are for three-times retired folks who actually have enough time to cut grass, and who don't have hobbies. I don't have enough time to do a fraction of the hobbies that I have, to say nothing of the ones that I want to do, so to me cutting the grass is a big ass waste of my time. I have drywall to sand and painting to do before I can even think about dinner, and then maybe I can take a glance at the Hornady dies that Mr. UPS man kindly delivered to my door before I stumble off to bed.

On my list directly below grass cutting are work meetings. People will schedule two weeks worth of all-day, mandatory meetings that start an hour before the folks with children can even get into the building, and then top off the first three days of a third week with intense mandatory meetings to address timeliness and why everybody hasn't got shit done around here. Are you fucking kidding me? Is 0900 so damn difficult? I would like to be able to take a piss before sitting down and listening to absolutely nothing of importance for eight hours. And while we're on the subject of urination, seriously, give a five minute break every hour so that the poor bastards stuck in the meeting can jettison the six gallons of coffee that we have to ingest just to stay awake.

Some day I will write a manual of common sense, but something tells me that half the people who read it would have their head explode.

Slacks suck

There's been a moratorium in my office on the wearing of pants that have cargo pockets, which means that 5.11 brand pants are out. I've been told that the new policy that I have yet to receive will outline the use of slacks, polo shirts, coat and tie, and general "business casual" attire as the authorized duds of the day. If you are offended by strong language, than you may want to click somewhere else, because I just have to say: Fuck that!

I've been wearing slacks now for almost three weeks, and I can't tell you how much I miss my 5.11s. If you are like me and carry many useful items to help you through the journey of life, than you probably notice that slacks only enable you to comfortably carry a small tube of BENGAY and Paw Paw's mini stockman, as slacks were designed like 6,000 years ago by crusty old codgers who fathered neanderthals.

Overall I am not a fan of Western style dress, and loath how little it has changed over the centuries. To me, the "white collar" folks are the ones plummeting at speed into natural selection, as nobody there seems to give a shit about utility anymore. It's gotta be the engineers that are doing it; I bitch about how they are ruining the world all the time, and clothing designers are engineers of sorts. Where is the utility in having two wimpy little pockets in the front of your britches, and two tiny pockets in the back that barely hold a credit card? What the fuck do I do with my gigantic cellphone? I literally carry it in my hand these days, because if I stick it in my pocket with my Fenix flashlight, thumb drive, pocket change, pocket knife, it will be scratched to hell and back before the day it over. I have gotten into the habit of dropping it into the single pocket on my "professionals shirt," which means that every time I bend over to pick something up, my phone goes clattering to the ground. 5.11 pants have these neat little pieces of rectangular fabric sewn onto sides of the legs that are crazy useful for holding things like cell phones. The back pockets are not only fully capable of holding a man's wallet, but I have not failed to notice that I can conceal a government sized 1911 in there with no problem. That right there tells me that mankind has made a huge advancement that should be taken seriously. Somewhere along the line though some old fuckers are still holding tight to the pant design that their Great Grandpappy loved back before we had wonderful things like cars and airplanes, and the excuse offered for not allowing modern advancements to be worn in the workplace is that they do not look "professional."

Slacks:


Professional.

5.11s:


Not professional.

Notice the rectangular pieces of fabric sewn to the legs? That's uneccessary, icky, and thus is only worn by scumbags. For a man to look professional, he must wear slacks, a button up shirt, and a neck tie. Because nothing shouts "I'm a motherfucking Professional" quite like a piece of flamboyantly colored fabric strung around your neck. Totally neccessary, a necktie is. Notice how professional this guy looks:


He has that fabric around his neck. Professional.

This guy? Not so much:


See, he has all of that uneccessary stuff, called "pockets" all over his trousers and shit. Having a place to hold all of your things is uneccessary and looks tacky. To be a real man, he needs to have the fabric tied tight around his neck, and have an uninsulated jacket that makes his shoulders look square, because the Lord forgot to make him that way, look:


Doesn't he look sharp? No, really, doesn't he look like he was just pulled out of a pencil sharpener?

Mankind built this thing and used it to send people to the moon, have built this thing to find and cut out tumors in people's heads, and yet still tie brightly colored napkins around our necks and hope it doesn't get hung the fuck up in the paper shredder, killing our stupid asses dead. They're a safety hazard for sure, and serve no purpose at all. And those ridiculous and uncomfortable jackets? What purpose do they serve? Are they any better than my TAD Gear Stealth Hoodie? Will they hold a sippy cup? Will they hold anything? If you have ton of kids like I do, you may find it helpful to know that you can fit two (2) sippy cups in one (1) cargo pocket on the 5.11 pants. Several diapers, or a small pack of baby wipes, or a paperback book, or a technical manual will fit in one of those pockets as well, making them very practical and utilitarian. But alas, it's not about being able to have things on your person to accomplish things like your job, it's about looking Professional:


Man, those shoulders sure do look sharp! By my estimation, he would be qualified to wear that outstanding outfit to my work and be counted amongst the Professional alumni here. This guy would too:
But not this guy:

Yes, I am bitter.

I give up

I'm done handloading for the LR-308 for now. My last batch of handloads were too hot when the temperature got in the 80's, so I made a new batch for an OCW test that were loaded with 42.8 - 43.2 grains of Varget with a 175 grain Nosler CC bullet. I had those rounds loaded for two months, and I finally got the chance to shoot them, and it turned out to be a cluster fuck.

I should have known better.

It always starts raining the very moment I start shooting. Every time. This has been a phenomenon that has plagued me for years, and yesterday was no exception. I decided that I would spite mother nature and shoot anyways, to hell with her, but the lightning got pretty serious. I sat in my truck in the middle of the woods, stuck like shit because of the aforementioned lack of traction that was a direct result on Nissan engineering incompetence.

The wife watched the kids for a few hours to buy me the time to shoot, and I spent an hour waiting on the rain, forty five minutes digging out my XTerra, and fifteen minutes setting up to shoot my rounds.

The shoot was a disaster.



First, the humidity was so high that the moisture in the air made seeing the target an absolute challenge.



After I fired three rounds from each of the loads, I realized that I was about out of time, so I picked up the pace. The sun came back out and made it so that I could just barely make out the one inch black diamonds, to the point where I was guessing where they were. It was the most challenging light I have ever had to shoot in. I should have just quit.




The range was 121 yards, and my velocities were averaging between 2,400 fps on the low end to 2,490ish on the top end. Too low for what I'm looking at.

So, I have placed an order for some 168 grain Federal Gold Medal Match, as I have decided that since it is a rare occasion that I can go out and actually shoot, I had better spend it shooting and not fiddling around with handloads. One day when my kids are in school, and I have a little more time, I'll be able to find the right load for that gun.

I'm pretty bitter about this, but it's the right thing to do. I can't figure out when life became so busy that one does not have the time to enjoy life. Something has to change.

The Bitter Rifleman

I tried to take the .308 out again yesterday afternoon and I ended the day in seething bitterness. To those who know me personally that wouldn't be surprising. Bitterness is a hallmark of my character.

I have built the most high performance rifle I can financially muster, and I didn't do it to be imprisoned by one hundred yards. To me, one hundred yards is for sighting in, muzzle loaders, and for people who only hunt with the 'thuty thuty.'

I want more.

There was a time when I could take my rifle to any one of numerous fields and power lines and shoot as far as the eye can see, but those days have long past. Those fields and such have been leveled to make way for subdivisions to house all of Virginia's illegals and to make room for the hippies that can no longer find a place to live in Fairfax. Out of those on my side of the family, I'm the only one with a yard the size of a snowflake and the only one with the motivation and initiative to make a long straight line with which to direct high velocity pieces of copper. It burns me to have the will but not the space.

You would think that with the passion for shooting that everyone in my family possesses, that we would have our shit together and have kick ass facilities. You would think.

These days I get about two hours a month to do what I want to do, and I hate to piss away the first hour soaked in sweat while swinging a machete or pulling trees with my truck and a chain. I want to be able to shoot.

Such is how things went yesterday. I'm using the Optimal Charge Weight technique to find the ideal load for my .308, and I blew it because things went Tango Uniform during my shoot. I had to pack it up early.

I was standing in the mud in the middle of the woods; my chrono was not taking readings like it's supposed to; my groups sucked; and when one of my rounds clipped one of the chrono stakes because it was slowly turning during the shoot, I threw in the towel. Really it didn't matter; I didn't have the time to finish anyways.

I think it's time to find a pay-to-shoot range that offers some distance. At least until I can sell my house and move the hell out of Virginia. That's not likely to be any time soon; I bought my house about eight months before the housing market took a shit on us all, so I lost quite a bit on it. Now is the time to start looking though, and my requirements are to be able to walk outside on my back porch and shoot a thousand yards or better without pansy ass rich people from the state's most ritzy neighborhood calling the Sheriff's Department on me. Oh, and I don't want to pay a quarter of a million dollars for an acre like here in Virginia, and it has to be a gun friendly state.

Any ideas?