Road Ragers

It's stories like this that make me doubt the future of humanity.

At some point, the driver of the Lexus pulled up and threw a container of yogurt at the Toyota. That’s when the driver of the Toyota displayed a small caliber handgun.

Dude. I get mad at other drivers just like anyone else, but even though I may scream a long list of obscenities, I never get to the point where I would throw things at another moving vehicle or brandish a gun, and certainly am not stupid enough to call the state police if I did.

Interesting part is the charges associated with these two morons; misdemeanors for the handgun guy, and felonies for yogurt slinger. Oh that just sounds bad.

On Daylight Savings Time

Many moons ago, some jackasses decided to fuck with the way human beings experience their lives while having enough light to see, and now twice a year we have to endure the mild mayhem that results in this arcane retarded practice.

Either way you look at it, you're screwing somebody out of the time/daylight continuum that they need to function. This is most apparent to me right now as all of my kids are wide awake at six o'clock in the morning, and stumbling around in exhaustion at seven o'clock at night because their little bodies don't know what the hell is going on.

I swear, anyone that I hear say that daylight savings is a good idea within ear shot of me is going to get punted right in the nuts. Period.

Pick a time already, and stay with it. Or at the very least, split the difference and call it settled. Humans are creatures of habit, and tweaking the clocks twice a year so that half of the office comes in an hour late is a stupid idea. My $.02

Booooolits n' brass n' stuff

Sinclair International is loving me these days. I've been on a massive reloading kick in order to maintain my shooting habit, and I'm not above trying new things.

This weekend I tested two brand spankin' new loads; one for my 308 and the other for my darling, the-AR15-from-DPMS. I've had some consistency issues with the 308 at distance, so I boiled up some 210 grain Sierra Match Kings over the new Reloader-17 for a nice OCW test. It went well, as did my 69 grain SMK over Varget OCW for the AR15. At long range though, one of these loads went fantastically well, while the other went very bad.

Browsing the Sniper's Hide thread on using the 208 grain Hornady A-Max with RL-17 verifies the "start slow end fast" mentality of ballistics, whereas you heave a ginormous (no autocorrect, awesome) bullet with a high B.C. for some long range groundhog splattering goodness. Checking my Shooter Ballistics software shows the 210 SMK as superior to my 175 Nosler CC load in the wind deflection department, with an additional 150 yards or so of sweet supah-sonic flight time, if I can start out in the 2,360 fps range, which I achieved. Somewhere though, something didn't go right - when I chose the load that had the 2,300 fps that I needed, and appeared to be on the accuracy node , it clocked it in a the range yesterday with a velocity of 2,437. Huh? I'm going to have to find out what went wrong there, as I shot some of these at 620 yards and my groups were spreading like two feet apart.

In for the win though was the trusty and reliable 155 grain Nosler CC handloads that I've used as a baseline for a year and a half. That one shoots really well, but at 2,668 fps average it's a little slow for serious long range work. My next move is to try tweaking my 175 grain loads, and perhaps doing an OCW test with those using RL-17, as I hear good things about that combo.

As for the 69 grain SMKs in the AR15, I was hitting groups of 7" or less at 620 yards, and that was with a Burris 2-7 variable with heavy reticle that obscures the entire 8" dot that I was shooting at. I'm pretty impressed.

On the way now are some more 155 grain booooolets for the 308, as well as many 69 grain pills for the 223.

Something that I also caught this weekend which explains the wild inconsistencies that I've been getting with my loads is that RL-15 and RL-17 get hung up in the LEE Perfect Powder Measure. I couldn't figure out why several shots would hit lights out at 500+ yards, and then one or two would hit like six inches low. Apparently, the long powder kernels get hung up like a horrible game of Jenga in my powder thrower, and that would explain why velocity on some of those shots would be 100 fps or more slower. I noticed when I was throwing charges and measuring them on the scale, that some of them would be way light; I bumped my powder thrower and a bunch of powder fell out. Now I know.

I have good things to report about the Competitive Edge Dynamics M2 chronograph that I am now using, as my last chrono - a Competition Electronics - had a C-Products magazine and .380 acp induced malfunction from which it could not recover.

As I've mentioned before, chronographs - like geraniums - need lots and lots of sunlight to function, and when you're a busy working dad that spends half his life driving to-and-from someplace, you may not have adequate light to work with. Also, Virginia is full of all these damned trees, which make what little sunlight you have pretty useless. The CED M2 chrono is all about combating the light problem, and it worked out very well this weekend.

Much reloading to do in a short period of time, as I am hoping to have a gazillion rounds loaded for the AR15 for some marksmanship lessons with my nephew. Hell yeah!

Violent video games are the cause of this

The game doesn't go on sale until Tuesday. But some thieves in northeast Maryland got their hands on more than 100 copies of the game. On Saturday night, they staged a covert operation at the GameStop in Bel Air.
***
The men, who were armed with guns, planned the heist for closing time at the store.

See, that just proves that if video games didn't have guns and icky shooting in it, thugs wouldn't feel that they needed guns to steal copies of it.

Zombie preparedness

I just found this website called Zombie Tools which offers edged weapons custom made for zombie killin.

The Rough and Ready Bone Machete is my fav; although I don't have the dough for one at the moment. Check out their sweet lineup of zombie images!

Old school DMR rifles

The US military has drug out the M14s and used them in the DMR role, as well as fielded the dead sexy Mk12 Mods 0 and 1 based on the M16 platform, but what does the rest of the world use?

Seeing these two Spanish Army CETME Model Cs complete with beat to hell wooden furniture leads me to believe that the DMR concept was not created at the same time as XBox 360 came out, and may actually pre-date the Atari.

It is kinda sacrilegious to see one of them wearing a Leupold MK4 - which has made its bones in combat like the CETME - sitting next to another well worn CETME wearing a NC-Star. It would be less offensive to put pearl handles on General Patton's Peacemaker.

I don't know what other countries use for an interim range precision rifle, but I wouldn't want to have one of Spain's finest taking a crack at me with one of those CETMEs, NC-Star or not!

I propose a different solution

"The Commonwealth isn’t so thrilled about Washington’s plans to "relocate" some wild animals and critters pulled from homes in the District. It’s not the relocation that has Virginia officials so upset; it’s where the animals may end up: Virginia."

DC plans on trapping opposums and other vermin critters and moving them South of the Potomac for a better life. As the article states, government officials are limited on being able to kill them, so my solution is to pass out Ruger 10-22s to the populace and let them handle it. I bet it would be cheaper, too.

Commenter Bob_Ryans_Toupe for the win

"I don't know why Virginia officials are so upset about this when hundreds of thousand of vermin from Virginia travel to and from DC every workday."

That's funny right there!

To all those from free states. . . .

. . .DC is not concerned about your gun or property rights. It's a gamble just driving through on the beltway with your guns locked in a vault underneath a viscious doberman with a toothache; best leave the roscoe with your friends while you visit.

Gunfight in Mexico

There really isn't much to see, as this is a cell phone video shot at night, but the audio tells of a gun battle with full auto weapons, and not gunshow ARs and AKs. The only semi auto fire that I can tell is at the very beginning.

The back story is that the Mexican military had some drug lord cornered, and a convoy of cartel guys came to get him. I wouldn't bother watching the whole thing; it sounds the same from the first minute til almost the last. It does give you an idea though.

USMC fielding M110 SASS

Another Sniper's Hide link with a SAM stating that the M110 will replace the MK11 Mod 1 and M39 EBR.

The Knight's Armament folks have to be dancing on the table tops right now. I can see why the 308 AR platform is so popular, as it's a blast to shoot.

Pimp your M14

The M14 platform may be dated, but it still makes for one sexy weapon system! This guy built a MK14 Mod 1 from a Springfield Scout, and it has more bumps and protrusions than you can shake a stick at. Saaaahhhweeet!!

If only I had several grand layin around, I might have to build one of those babies for shooting four legged critters while clad in Multi-cam and skateboard helmet!

Boop. "Whiskey One Niner, we have an unidentified marmot digging an entrenchment at five-eight-two meters. Requesting permission to reduce the Tango."

Sksssssst

Boop "Roger that, Eco Three, your cleared hot."

Sksstckk

Boop "Solid copy, Whiskey One Niner. And don't call me Roger."

Equipment Change Proposal: Suunto edition

**Update: A picture is worth a thousand words:



Click to make bigger. The black watch is the Suunto, and you can see where the pathetic little nubbins of elastoplastofantastico broke with such ease. Also, you can see the Suunto's $40 replacement which connects the strap via big steel nubbins of stainless glory. Not gonna break there. I'm going to JB-Weld the hell out of the Suunto vice sending it back for a new plastocraptoelastomerase housing that will fall apart when exposed to pressure.

But to make my point, the engineers at Suunto managed to cram all that techno goodness into a rough and tough housing small enough to go onto your wrist, and then when it came down to the structural part that connects to the strap, they went to lunch. It's the exact same phenomenon that happened with my Maxpedition phone case. They built a hardcore case and then when it came to the belt clip they just stuck some junk on there and called it a day. No wonder we outsource so much labor to China; if it's going to suck, might as well make it cheap too!

To any engineers that may make it to this site, please take the time to do a 100% job so that stuff doesn't suck.

****

OK, so my Suunto Vector watch broke on me again this weekend, and I'm really pissed off about it. If you recall, I broke it earlier this summer after it was waaaaay out of warranty, but Suunto fixed it for $55 which made me happy. Turn around time was short as well.

So Saturday night the holes where the pin that attaches the wrist strap broke clean in the exact same way it broke before. The pin just pulled right through with little effort. At the time, I was wrestling in a life-or-death fight with a crazed killer in an alleyway sitting on my bed holding baby CTone, and as I casually placed my arm down as support so I could lean back, that's when the watch broke. Again, no effort involved; the watch had just slipped down to where my wrist bends, and when I put my weight onto my hand, I felt the watch give.

So now I'm looking at the back of the watch, right at the failure point, and it dawns on me how shitty the construction of the watch housing is. I forgot to take a picture this morning to show you, but here's a 5.11 watch that had a similar failure, and you can at least get an idea of the problem.

Now I'm no engineer, but I am a mechanically minded soul who has built a ton of shit in his time. You people out there who have also built a ton of shit take a look at that last link at that man's watch and tell me: who the hell thought that it was a great idea to construct a watch with a tough housing to hold all the cool ballistic doodads, and then just go all half assed on where the strap connects?

"Hey Earl, you reckon we aughta put some more material in there, you know, where the strap thingy that physically holds the watch to the arm attaches? Looks like there's barely enough material there to hold off a good sneeze."

"Hell no! What are you crazy? Failure points Shmearlure points!!! We're engineers for cryin' out loud!! We do shit our way, even if it sucks and makes no sense!!"

"So what, you wanna keep it that way? It would be so simple to just reinforce that area to make it stronger, and we would end up with a product that is 100% bomb proof! We could really be proud of what we built!"

"No. Just. . . .no. If anything, we should make those pin holes as thin as possible to save the company the extra money for the high tech polymer. If the damn thing breaks, that's not my problem."

So there you have it. I was browsing the comments on the Suunto website, and noticed a glaring trend where people bitch about the wrist straps breaking. I found this to be the case with the Vector, as the strap on mine basically rotted off from several years of me never taking the watch off. Ultimately it's going to happen with anything other than aluminum or steel, which brings me to my latest dilemma: do I send my shitty Vector back to Suunto for another $55 servicing, after which I will have an awesome watch that could be ripped off my wrist by any four year old kid, or do I buy a Casio G-Shock from Wal-Mart for $50, and then save up some cash for a quality watch made of steel that's not likely to fold like a cardboard box the moment it has some torque applied to it?

The thing that gets me is that no one out there that I know of makes a watch with the features of the Suunto or Casio Pathfinder in a material that doesn't suck. I'm thoroughly convinced at this point that plastic watches are basically just disposable. Suunto just happens to make really awesome disposable watches, and if I want something that will last me a lifetime and I can pass down to one of my kids, it has to be constructed from something that has stood the test of time.

What it all boils down to is that I have plenty of other things to spend money on right now, least of which is fixing something that was supposed to already be fixed. I don't have time for that.

Suunto, why don't you make us all a bad-ass watch that doesn't suck? Can you make one out of steel? And by steel, I don't mean one that has a bunch of steel held together by that worthless elastospectacularplastomer bullshit that you guys cheerlead on your website; I mean a hardcore steel housing with a steel wrist strap held on by big ole' honkin steel pins. Can you do that for me please, thanks much.

Weekend gun blogging

Didn't have time to blog on Friday, so today I give you some gun stuff for all ages.

I spend a lot of time browsing Militaryphotos.net, and I just saw this thread about the Special Forces variant of the ARX160 from Beretta; the same rifle I got to handle at the Modern Day Marine convention this year, but with water transfer camo. Sweeeeeeeet.

There is also a desert tan version for those who think operators with black rifles are squares.

There is also this thread, which is one of the best threads I've seen from this site. I'll give you the blow-by-blow:
- A DEA agent has been spotted in Afghanistan toting a LWRC REPR with 20" barrel and Leupold MK4 LR scope. To tell the truth, it kinda sucks to see the drug warriors with better individual equipment than US Soldiers, but whatever.

- Next, in the first line of photos, ships from a US carrier group get to light up another ship that has been set up for a little target practice. It seems that every Sailor assigned to a weapon got to send rounds into the sacrificial ship, and you get to see the awesome firepower that our warships have at their disposal. Our Navy has a large footprint on this planet, but you don't often get to see the kind of whoopass our Sailors are capable of dishing out. The flipside of that is that our Sailors risk their asses every day on the water, that they may at any moment be asked to go up against another warship capable of doing damage like that. Yikes!

- This thread has flying dogs and ghost ninjas. Just in time for Halloween.

- From the ghost ninja lineup, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev playing with sniper rifles and Trijicon Accupoint equipped AKs is way cooler than anything President Obama did all of last month combined.

- US and Korean Sailors hang out and practice a little archery.

Lastly, we have a Bruce Willis a-lah Tears of the Sun garb, and Ollie North. Cool, huh!?! There's lots of other gun stuff in there, and tons of US Navy kicking some ass. I'm a big fan.

The British Army goes super sized

Members of 30 Commando Command Support Group (CSG) from Royal Marines 3 Commando Brigade fire the 50mm calibre weapon on the The Defence Training Estate (DTE) ranges at Lulworth, in Dorset.

Dang! Those crew served weapons get bigger all the time! 50mm calibers of Taliban shredding terror!!!

Hey, that gun looks a lot like the machine guns seen often in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. So you're telling me that they're getting their firepower from Britain? It's those blasted weak gun laws again!

Local savages pounding the war drums again

"Bledsoe said the incident occurred about 10:30 p.m. at a home in the 900 block of Myrick Street. The suspect was arguing with his girlfriend's 22-year-old daughter when Haskins pulled a knife and the girlfriend intervened. During the scuffle, she suffered a severe cut on her hand."

****

"It was the second time in three days that city police had been to that home. On Saturday night, a man pulled up in front of the home and fired a shot into the air. That man was later arrested at his home in Spotsylvania, where they found a large cache of banjos, Evan Williams bottles, and David Allen Coe CDs."

Alright, I made that last part up. But seriously, where did all the weirdos come from? I guess these things can be expected from the folks living in a rural Virginia county called Spotsylvania.

Some rifles move faster than others

Some scumbag is wandering around Virginia firing rounds at the Marine Corps Museum, the Pentagon, and now a Marine Corps recruiting center. In a bout of irony, the Marine Corps Museum and the Pentagon are Gun Free Zones.

The question remains though of how this miscreant makes his or her way around Northern Virginia while shooting up buildings with impunity. The answer is here:

The civilian Pentagon Force Protection Agency's director, Steven Calvery, said last week that the Pentagon shooting appeared to be "a random event" involving a high-velocity rifle.

The scumbag in question is not a scumbag at all, but a rifle that moves about very quickly on its own will. Some rifles have been known to move quicker than others, as you may know. A good rule of thumb is that if you read about one of these precocious rifles in the news for committing a naughty act, than it's sure to be one of the high-velocity types; the low-velocity rifles have better control over their actions, and do not lash out at Marines.

All of mine are low-velocity rifles, as I have had them spayed so that they stay exactly where I put them, and do not move about freely under their own power. If you have not properly spayed your assault thingy, you may want to think about contacting your nearest gunsmith without delay. Think of the lawsuit that you would have on your hands if one of your precious rifles got out of the safe one night and started moving at high-velocity, shooting at buildings and such.

Safety first, I always say!

Fighting the mighty allergy

Sorry about the lack of posting. I've been going toe-to-toe with what seems to be a cross between the cold and the flue, although it's apparent that it's neither; I have some sort of seasonal allergy that is kicking my butt. Problem is, since I'm not contagious, I'm still going into work. By the time I get home I'm completely spent and ready to go to bed early.

Make your own .40 caliber hollow points. . . .

. . . .from 9mm casings!

That looks sweet!!

Makes me think of that common Hollywood error showing a fired "bullet" being the whole cartridge like on the cover of The Naked Gun. Now it's fer' real!

Under the weather

Sick as a dog last night, to the point where I felt like I had one foot in the grave. Fortunately, my immune system is frickin' amazing, so I'm running at about 85% this morning. When I get closer to 95% I'll be blogging something worthy of reading.

You're not fooling anyone

"In an effort to ease traffic and keep drivers safe, Gov. Bob McDonnell will be increasing the speed limit across Virginia highways by the end of the year."

Uh-huh. Sure. It's all about safety, just like speed limits in general are all about safety.

It's well known to anyone who had driven on an interstate highway in Virginia that the flow of traffic towards the left hand lane is moving at 79 mph, if it's not completely gridlocked from all the out of state yahoos that have moved here from bumfuck New Jersey to escape that insanity.

The reason that traffic moves at 79 mph is because -- at least it used to be -- that anything over 80 mph landed you a big fat reckless driving ticket with big fat fines. Virginians know that 79 mph makes you safe from all the state, county, local Revenue generators - identified by their Crown Vics with light bar on the roof, or blacked out Charger sitting conspicuously in the crossovers in between the highway - because Johny Law isn't going to waste his time and risk getting run over on the side of the road over a $65 ticket.

Let me spell this out for those who think speed limits keep you safe: speed limits have nothing at all to do with public safety, and everything to do with courts operating in commerce with the gentle population.

Lots of research on my part went into this in my youth as I was constantly solicited by these Revenue generators for my hard earned FRNs over my callous disregard for the recommended speed limit. Take away the speed limit signs on Rt. 62whogivesashit and sit back and watch absolutely nothing happen. Why is this? Let's look at this scenario: You are on your way to work, but first have to drop off your two beautiful children sitting in the plastic car seats behind you at the day care center, and you're running a little bit late. It appears that there is no posted speed limit on this road. Man that's awesome! Should you take advantage of this obvious flaw of someone not telling you exactly how fast you can operate this powerful and heavy piece of machinery, and just punch it and go as fast as you can?

The answer is: of course not, because you are a sane individual who has driven a car for years and know by feel just how fast you should be going. Do you really need a sign to tell you this? I once read a book explaining that roadways are audited every five or so years for the safe speed by taking the total average speed of cars over a period of time, and then lowering it a tad. Thinking about that, what help would it be to the courts if everyone moseyed along at a safe speed which also just happened to be the lawful speed allowed? There wouldn't be commerce!

The book (I don't recall the title) made a compelling case about how absent posted speed limits, the vast majority of drivers would not swerve out of control all over the road in total, blissful, speedy abandon, but would instead drive along in what they perceive as a safe speed. The one's who have total disregard for their gift of life will of course drive like maniacs, but big ass signs will not remedy this. This is of course not much different than laws against shooting people in general anger; my point being that the vast majority of Americans don't need some screed scribbled down in a book in some court house to tell them not to kill people for the hell of it. They just don't do it as it's not right.

So call me unflattered over the speed limit getting raised by a whopping five miles per hour. If Governor McDonnell really wanted to make a difference in the lives of Virginians, and not just a half-assed perception of one, he would bar Virginia State Troopers from stacking up two fucking cruisers per mile on I-95 for the sole purpose of siphoning the sweat equity of my people.