Musketeers and carrying a big stick

Two bizarre robberies of note caught on video.

The first one has a lunatic swinging a tree trunk at a store owner in a successful robbery attempt. The store owner tried to get the bandit hammered unsuccessfully. What would you do if you were armed with a firearm and this guy came in and tried to rob you? The cops consider it armed robbery, but I might have tried to take that stick away from the guy if it happened to me.

The second one happened in Canada where some wonderfully misunderstood youths were trying to get charity money from a motel using a musket. They didn't get the funds. In this particular incident, I would see good cause to justify deadly force, as a musket is still up to the task of killing someone as any other firearm. What would you do?

Model gun control

"To gain entry to the store, which is on a secure military base, customers must present valid identification, pass through a metal detector, yield to the security wand and surrender cellphones and cameras.

To buy a gun, clients must submit references and prove that their income is honestly earned, that their record is free of criminal charges and that their military obligations, if any, have been fulfilled with honor. They are fingerprinted and photographed. Finally, if judged worthy of owning a small-caliber weapon to protect home and hearth, they are allowed to buy just one. And a box of bullets."

This is to get into the only gun store in Mexico and buy a gun.

There are lots of things to be critical about in this article, the first of which is the claim by the author William Booth that Mexico's ridiculous gun laws are "a matter of pride" for Mexican citizens. How the hell does he know that? Did he do a survey? How can he say that with any authority when he claims later that legal gun sales are declining, but the black market is booming? Sounds to me like the proud Mexican citizens are doing an end run around the shenanigans and getting guns however they want.

The very last paragraph says that if you want a gun, just ask a Mexican police officer to provide you with an illegal one, the easiest way:

"The cop will bring it to your house and show you how to load it," Islas said. "Of course, it is technically illegal."

Well, no shit! There's about the only truth you will find in this whole article. Do notice the use of the word "technically," as in it's not really illegal despite being, you know, illegal. Kinda like 'rape-rape:' the police officer is friendly and providing you with a weapon that's not on Mexico's only gun store's precise list, so it's "technically" totally OK and stuff, and not at all a bad thing; and if you have sex with a girl that's under the age of consent, who's too drugged up to consent even if she legally could, and it like happened a long time ago and stuff, and you're popular, than it's OK too.

I'm starting to get the hang of the leftist ideology that breaking the law is cool as long as it's done properly.

As an afterthought, I wonder how many of those weapons handled in "strict military fashion" are handed to the ordinary citizens by friendly police officers -- who are only breaking the law out of the sheer goodness of their hearts -- and don't make it onto the list of extreme precision. You know the ones I'm talking about:

"Police Sales Only," is filled with weapons that ordinary citizens cannot legally buy - the heavy stuff, such as Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifles and Israeli Galil machine guns, plus gas and concussion grenades, as well as bulletproof vests and helmets.

Rest assured that those friendly police officers do not sell them illegally to the bad men who are flooding the US with narcotics. Nooosirrrreeeebob! It's odd though that I've actually seen pictures somewhere of weapons taken from Mexican drug cartel members' cold dead hands. Come to think of it, I've seen all of that stuff exactly as Booth has stated here, taken from criminals, and a lot of those weapons look just like the hardware that the Mexican military and police forces use.

Hmmmm. I'm thinkin that this gun store may keep precise records of firearms sold over the counter, but isn't keeping the most meticulous count of what gets sold under it. Must be easy to keep track when you're running the only store in an entire nation.

Strange foreplay

"Sedille told investigators that, during sex play the night of Dec. 21, he took a handgun he thought was unloaded from a shelf beside the bed and racked the slide back, cocking the weapon. According to the affidavit, he told police he placed the gun to her head and it fired."

Uh-huh. "It fired" all on its own. Savagely violating the first three rules of gun safety had nothing at all to do with it.

Bringing sexy back

When I was a kid, raising the question in school of what was the most awesome fighter plane ever would have brought about heated discussion between the powerful F-14 Tomcat, the nimble F-16 Falcon, or the fast F-15 Eagle, with perhaps the delusional foreign exchange student from Krasnoyarsk whimpering something about a 'Megg thayerty whon' before being told to shut his commie face. Mentioning the Supermarine Spitfire at the time would have probably invited a punch to the nuts, unless one of the beasty boys had ever layed eyes on one of these British beauties.

If you throw sexy into the criteria of awesomeness, the Spitfire would rise to the top of the stack. Damn, that plane is gorgeous.

Clicky the linky here to see an audio slideshow about some wonderful British folk who restore the Spitfire so that rich yahoos can either fly them, or pay someone else to. The price tag on a restored plane will set you back $2 - $3 Million big ones, which is a drop in the bucket next to the going rate of a F-18 Hornet these days.

If I were a wealthy entrepreneur, I would buy one of these in a heartbeat and learn to fly. I might even pick up eight Browning 1919 machine guns for like $30 bucks from my local gun show to bring the plane up to its full authenticity, which would serve to keep the icky guns out of the hands of the local Mexican drug cartels who buy them up with impunity.

Flying sexy fighters and saving the children is what it's all about!

Sheer mental tenacity

You may have seen the bright orange hand written letter that a US Navy SEAL posted outside his hospital door advising all who enter that they better go elsewhere if they feel sorry for him.

Whether you've seen it or not, here is the letter as well as a little insight on that SEAL, and an indication of the level of tenacity he was talking about.

That's the spirit!

Some Christmas weekend photos

Gettin' some on Christmas morning! Is that wrong of me to say? Do note the removal of the trigger guard on the M249 SAW, as well as the one Soldier yelling while not using his sights. Also, Magpul magazines are pretty standard now.

Hamas choses Colt. Looks like a CAR-15 with 4X Colt optic. Those yahoos seem to have good trigger discipline, which is well enough cos' we wouldn't want violent terroristic militias running around without the proper level of gun safety.

More violence in Israel. Third pic down shows an Israeli cop using a tactical throat restraint. I hear chicken wire gives the same effect.

Fun with words

"Armed man at Mormon temple killed in Utah shootout"

That's how the title reads, and from what little information there is in the story, it sounds like a good shoot by the police. The problem here is the use of the word "shootout."

Let's consult Dictionary.com:
shoot-out
[shoot-out]
–noun
1. a gunfight that must end in defeat for one side or the other, as between gunfighters in the Old West, criminal groups, or law-enforcement officers and criminals.

Discarding the rest about military skirmishes, hockey, and soccer, I note the requisite word "gunfight." Let's look at that:
gun-fight
[guhn-fahyt]
–noun
a battle between two or more people or groups armed with guns, esp. a confrontation between two gunfighters using revolvers in the frontier days of the American West.

So there has to be more than one person, and the parties involved battle with one another using arms of some sort, especially revolvers, and there has to be defeat by at least one party.

Reading through the story, I find no battle between two or more parties using firearms. Everybody involved were armed, one guy got shot by another guy, so I guess that constitutes defeat, but there was no shootout. I guess "somebody got shot" isn't an exciting enough headline for a worthless article. For your edification, this tragic story is about a real gunfight.

There's not really a lot going on out there in the news world, so I thought I would hammer on some no-name journalist at a small time news page over something petty. Good morning to you too.

Nice package

This is pretty good advice: don't leave your empty big screen TV and entertainment system boxes by the trash can where the heathens can see it and get ideas; but then again, perhaps leaving your OD green Mossberg JIC tube leaning against the wall outside of your door may give potential thieves an understanding of how your Christmas went, and they may pick another door to kick in.

XM25 in Afghannystan

Check out the brass in the air! I hope it does everything it was hyped up to do.

Internet Survival Commandos

Sadly, this is probably closer to the mark for 99% of so called survivalists. I laughed my ass off to this one, and there's more here. ****NSFW - Severe language warning**** Also, do not have a mouth full of liquid when you watch it:

Parenting success

Some creepy older man in a red truck pulled up next to my 12 year old nephew at the bus stop yesterday morning and explained to him that there was a two-hour school delay, and that my nephew should get into his truck where it was warm. This was in a remote location on a far out of town country road, not in a subdivision, and there was no such school delay. There was no other conversation, no monologuing about strangers and such, no questions asked; my nephew just turned on his heels and ran back into the house.

That's how to do it.

Turns out that a creepy older man in a red truck pulled the same type of stunt in an adjacent county the week before with similar results. Maybe there is hope for the next generation after all.

Still, my family is fresh out of emotion these days with all the hospital drama, so something like this tends to attract raw anger. My sister's advice to me this morning as we were watching for nephew's bus to come from the big bay window was that I could shoot through that window if I had to if creepy guy pulled up and tried to steal our flesh and blood. She had mentioned that it was getting close to the time when nephew had to walk outside and that she had to retrieve her pistol while we waited by the window. I told her not to bother as I had one for each of us at that moment in time.

Gotta love my family.

How to not rob a jewelry store

Turns out that the store owner is a Marine and Vietnam veteran. Before you impulsively try to shoot a man with a Bryco and steal his shit, you may want to find out if the guy had previously made the choice of hunting down and killing people as a means to earn an income, and later wrote a book about it that features a front page picture of him holding a real human skull. That information would come in handy.

Also, it's best to assume that a buisiness man/woman whos wares are valuable and durable goods will probably be armed. Just a thought.

Worst weekend ever

The sickness attacked my household with full furious force this weekend, and I didn't get anything done. My wife took the most of it and was basically totally incapacitated. As I have a fantastic immune system, I was in the best shape, and had to keep the kids from burning the joint down for three days; they've been stuck inside for quite some time and are anxious to do something fun.

Feeling like you've been punched in the guts and beaten across the back with a bat makes you not want to take two toddlers and a baby for a stroll in the mall, which come to think of it is probably where we picked up this sickness to begin with. Pretty much happens every time we go there.

I did finally slip out of the house for an hour during nap time to test fire a few loads that I made up for the 308. Without that hour, I was going to detonate from stress.

It was cold, and the wind was very gusty. I tried to pin down exactly where an accuracy node was for a load using RL-15 that I've been playing with for awhile, but it didn't work out. I did however get wonderful results from my attempts to clone Federal Gold Medal Match; still with 42.5 grains of RL-15 under a 175 grain Sierra Match King in a FGMM case, but this time loaded .010" shorter. It made all the difference, with one group putting five into just over an inch with the wind spreading it horizontally, and the other five shot group going into .700" when I fired it during a lull in the wind.

It took me a few shots to get the Super Sniper scope sighted in, with one of my sighters maliciously aimed at small animated wildlife that ended up missing its mark, but perforating a pitchfork handle an inch to the right. I like being able to adjust the parallax. Good stuff.

Right now I am still suffering from the sickness, and will probably not be very prolific with blogging. Time will tell.

Morons

There was one in every ditch on every curve yesterday in the two and a half hours it took me to drive the 20 miles home. In years past, snow was quite common in Virginia, and my fellow Virginians could be counted on to keep their bumpers to themselves while maintaining an orderly fashion on their way home. Not so anymore, as there are so many dipshits that freak out with the first dusting of snow, careening around corners and smashing into shit that it makes my head spin.

I literally pulled every get-home trick from my native backroad knowhow book, and at every turn had to turn around as there was a moron in the ditch in two-wheel-spinning-four-wheel-drive. There were also a great deal of Civics and Frontiers tore up too.

It amazes me these days the false confidence that some morons get in the snow just because they're driving a massive 4X4 SUV. I have it on good authority that most SUVs of this generation are built from bona fide suck-ass, and can't climb their way out of a frost covered field, so the idea that they would help incompetent drivers make their way down a slippery road while texting on their cellphones is a stretch.

My parents used to purposly take me out in the snow just to teach me how to drive in it, so that one day I wouldn't be one of the afore meantioned dipshits stuck on the side of the highway.

It worked.

I guess there is something to be said about the huge influx of people to my area, as the general population went up a genuine five fold over twenty years. I did not fail to notice yesterday the amount of out of state license plates from the likes of Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, and such, which brings back horror stories of every time driving on Maryland roads. Sorry Marylanders, but I have to call y'all out as being, by far, the worst drivers in the union. It's not even a contest. Missouri drivers I would say come in second, although they did alright earlier this week in the winter wonderland which was St. Louis. And before you say it, I obviously don't rank Virginians as being very high on the list anymore.

Since I had the kids in the car this morning, I gave an extra three quarters of an hour for the jackassery and mayhem to die down before venturing about on the highways. Worked like a charm. I can't wait for the next snow, as the XTerra is pretty fun to drive in the mess.

Rifle Pr0n for today

At Sniper's Hide, eighteen pages of beautiful black boomsticks. There's some money in some of those rifles, like the Knight's with night vision and suppressor that probably crests $8,000 or more.

There's also some M14 goodness over there as well, if that's your fancy. Makes me want to run out and smoke my debit card at the gun store!

School Board shootout

Here's the video footage taken from the room where it went down.



It was apparent that the shooter was not using live ammunition. Also, he fired the gun once or twice towards the ground accidentally. An armed man in the building killed him dead, which is odd considering the video says that the gunman took his own life. If you go to this link, there's the same footage from another angle, but towards the end the video feed locks up and you can only hear what's going on. I count a total of fifteen shots fired.

There's a lady that tries to fight back by hitting the gunman with a purse. I think her efforts would have been more effective if she had pulled a J-frame from that purse and put a 125 grain hollowpoint right through his twisted mind.

I have heard that the scumbag had a lengthy criminal record, as we already anticipate these days.

AK Kaboom

Wait. . . .what? I thought AKs never jammed or stopped running? Nothing can stop them!!



I don't know the back story, but this sucker was definitely firing just fine, and then blew to pieces. Couldn't happen to a better person though!!

"I fought"

This testimony flies right into the face of those who say to give your attacker exactly what they want, and do not resist. I remember vividly the time when a the deadly serial killer she's referring to was afoot in my AO, the second of three, and everyone was terrified. This girl, at 15 years old, fought for her life and won, and it's certain that she would be dead and in the ground if she had not.

If it moves, salute it. . . .

The rest of that saying is: "If it doesn't move, pick it up. If you can't pick it up, paint it."

I laughed out loud at this cartoon at Terminal Lance, ****NSFW, Language**** which has become a daily read for me. I remember one time saluting a Corporal in the PX parking lot at Camp Lejeune because his chevrons were unsat. I felt like an ass until I realized how much of an ass he must be feeling right now as he just got saluted because he didn't bother to keep up with his uniform.

Life comes at you fast

Been with a family member in the hospital for the past few days. Everything's good to go, but everyone was bracing for the worst there for awhile. This on top of other obligations: financial, travel, other family; you know how it is.

Man, the holidays can be harsh!

I'll get it together here shortly.

Entry level tacticool scope: Weaver Grand Slam 3-10X40mm

This was a contender for a spot on my LR308; the task fell to the Super Sniper in the end though. It's on sale right now at MidwayUSA for $300 big ones!

Here's an excellent video review over at Sniper's Hide. Good stuff.

Larue OBR 5.56

Wow! Apparently those suckers can shoot!

I first layed my mitts on one at this year's Modern Day Marine Convension, and noted how nice it felt. It's good to know that some things are built well!

Technologically challenged

I took one look at the Edit Template page on Blogger and knew that it was too far over my head. I used one of their given templates, which still means that I'm uncool, but I wanted an updated look. That, and the way my old page was set up made it hard to read.

I'm really dumb when it comes to this sort of stuff. I only recently figured out how to "Follow" other blogs, or what it even means. And I still have no idea what the RSS feed thingy does. It's just there.

One day I will figure out how to make this blog look cool, but until then, I hope it's easier to read.

Equipment Change Proposal: Cameras, cell phones, and other electronic junk

This post is rage against the electronic machine, and it probably ain't gonna be pretty.

My bane in life is that nothing electronic lasts around me, and that shit is for real. I'm waiting for the CIA to knock on my door with a one-way ticket to China for a new job sitting in an office across the street from the servers for their intelligence agency. If you want connectivity problems in a building, around office computers, or around people with cell phones, just sit my happy ass twelve feet away and it will happen. Mrs. CTone has commented that I have a magnet in my head.

Now that that is out of the way, whomever designs cameras, cell phones, and other electronic doodads can go blow a goat. Tonight the fam and I were decorating the ol' Christmas tree, you know, something that only happens once a year, and the only working camera in the house ironically was the one in my brand new but barely functioning cell phone; my seventh in two years. OK, technically my sixth as one of them - a BlackBerry - was slain dead by a 33" tire on my XTerra due to the shitty engineering of the bastards at Maxpedition.

Why yes, bitterness IS my middle name. How did you know?

Flashback to yesterday: I picked up the not-quite-two-year-old Sony A300 DSLR camera to take some pictures of the little ones, and when I turned the thing on it made this "Brrrrrraaaaaaaaappppppp" sound that emanated from the lens. Did the same thing when I turned it off. I went to reach for it tonight as it was a picture taking moment, with the kids hanging ornaments on the tree and all, and remembered that the Sony happened to not be capable of doing its designed duty due to suckage. My old standby is my shitty Canon PowerShit SD750 that had to be sent back to the factory brand new, right out of the package. . . . . .twice. Well, that camera sucks too! Turning it on gave me a white screen. It still makes a flash, and you can zoom in and out, but no picture takey takey.

My relationship with the PowerShit is not a nice one; the first time I used it was on a trip to Germany, and out of almost a thousand pictures taken, about a hundred of them you could make out what they were.

Mr. Goat, I am pleased to introduce you to the folks at Canon.

My new cell phone is a Samsung Captivate with Android operating system, and it randomly gets so hot sitting idle on my desk at work that it warns me to turn it off or it will burn up. Also, it turns itself off about once a week for no reason at all that I can establish. WTF?

I don't know much about low voltage electronics other than they are unreliable as hell. Laptops are a perfect example; anything with Windows in it only lasts about three months for me. That's not a lie. The only reason -- Only. Reason. -- that I no longer do Movie Guns anymore is because out of the three laptops that I own, and two desktops that I did own, none of them stay functioning long enough for me to do a post. Either the CD/DVD drive burns the fuck up the first time I use it, or Windows Media Player shits the bed (every time; I was burning the second CD I ever attempted in my new work laptop the day before yesterday and WMP took an unrecoverable dive. It does not work anymore), or the operating system crashes (often), or an update installs a driver that doesn't work and the computer won't boot.

I can't tell you how much moolah I would drop down for some tickets to watch a pride of syphilis afflicted lions tear apart the whole Microsoft staff in one horrific bloody massacre. I'd even spend the ten bucks for some stale popcorn.

I may need a custom made tinfoil hat to shield my magnet from my electronics, or the folks making em' need to figure this shit out and make them not suck. It's true that I may be a mutant - I have DVD players that don't work, cell phones that don't work; I've seen every register at my local Wal-Mart reboot simultaneously at the very moment I swiped my bank card . . . .twice (once while the Mrs. and I were dating and, no shit, I was right then telling her about how I have some sort of issue around electronics).

The chances though that it's really me are slim, while the chances of mankind making mother boards and microchips so small that the copper running through them grow from the heat and short out are startlingly high. It speaks volumes though, to me anyways, that there are so many things that we humans use day-to-day that are just not built to last. If they were, then I wouldn't have so much to bitch about, now would I? What has to be done or not done for some people to build useful stuff that doesn't fail when you need it? Why is it that products used nowadays that has low amounts of voltage running through it barely seem to make it through the year? Is it because technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that it's better to just buy a new phone every year than update it?

I will make it my Christmas wish to have one electronic gizmo last the full 2011 year, or the fuckers that build the stuff will again hear my wrath!

Bad mamba jamba

Just how badass was Lieutenant General A.P. Hill?

So badass that even over 150 years after his death, he's still in the midst of battle.

Dude just causes conflict wherever he goes!

Future Weapons: Railguns

I get a little hot and winded reading American Handgunner, so to read about the US Navy's sweet foray into the world of railguns got me going this morning:

The Navy would like to have a fully functional 64-megajoule system aboard a ship by 2025.

A shot of that power could reach a target 100 nautical miles away in a matter of minutes. The projectile would travel so fast that no warhead is needed; kinetic energy is sufficient to destroy its target.

Killing baddies with the shear awesomeness of fast moving metal! RIGHTEOUS, RIGHTEOUS!!!!

Now, the Navy wants to have this weapon adorning their poop deck by 2025, which isn't all that far away. My hopes are to be toting one of these beasties with a walnut stock in the backwoods of the Old Dominion no later than 2050 or so. Think it's possible?

Once I vaporize a few hundred groghounds and a dozen elk with very fast metal, I envision writing an article on the matter about how 10 megajoules is not humane enough to drop an entire herd of whitetails with one round, so it's best to stick with .22 caliber railguns or higher and leave the pussy .17 caliber rounds for the plinkers.

Rule violator

It is being reported that some immoral piece of scum has done gone out and violated the good intentioned rules of the University of Mary Washington by bringing a handgun on campus. When will these people learn to not break the rules!

Oh, and none of this is confirmed, and it's a day old, but it's still at the top of the page on Fredericksburg.com.

Strong language

I note yet again that all it takes to get cash to pay the bills is to walk into a bank and demand money.

That banks will just hand it over without question based on the presumption of force, without seeing any sort of weapon, begs the question of why banks need vaults and tellers to begin with? Why not just have a wall of ATMs inside so that would-be robbers don't have anyone to rob? If Federal Reserve Notes are so valuable that they need armed guards to store them in massive steel vaults, why is it that it's so easy to just demand it at the counter with some tough talk?

Sure, anyone crazy enough to suggest that they have a gun and will shoot you if you don't hand over the loot may be able to back up their claim, and tellers aren't going to wait around and get shot over some baseless paper, but my question still stands: why even have people in banks anymore to begin with?

Gun P0rn: Now I've seen it all edition

A Dutch Madsen short barrel Light Machine Gun. . . . . . . . with a forward grip (scroll down)!!! More here if you want to see how real SWAT operators fire a Madsen: with eyes closed, no cheekweld, and stock under the arm pit!

Expert badge for that one!!!!!!

There is an 80+ year span in firearms development in this one single post on this thread about the war in Brazil. There are weapons there that I don't even have time right now to identify. I get a kick out of seeing the Bushnell 3200 fixed 10X scopes used on M16s, FALs, and beat to hell, wooden stocked bolt action rifles! Awesome!

Also, seeing pepper-haired Klauseus Schteinmunfuertez with a 10" AR15 sporting a ginormous Counter Sniper scope with an EOTech tacked to the side gives me the screaming giggles. Is he wearing the MP3 player Oakleys?!?!?

Oh man! There's an AK type rifle with an upside down stock, a guy casually taking pictures of some poor fella who just got cut down by gunfire, a bare-chested balaclava'ed drug dealer totin' a SIG 551/552 hybrid, and my personal fav, the one guy on a mounted machine gun of some kind cowered down in terror while his buddy gets some with the Right Arm of the Free World!!

I can't stop giggling!

Go check this one out folks; you don't want to miss it!

Upgrade or downgrade?

Last night I replaced my Horus Hawk scope on the LR308 with a 10X Super Sniper. The Hawk has been good to me thus far, and the reticle works better than I had hoped, but it's a hunting scope, and the only thing I hunt these days are Shoot N' C targets. It was time to go to dialing in my shots for more precision.

Since Christmas time is right around the corner, I couldn't afford to drop $1,000 on a Leupold or Nightforce. The Super Sniper scopes are budget priced and have a reputation for being tough as nails. Also, the fixed 10 power with parallax adjustment makes it super simple, and I figured I might as well give Mil-dots a try. It's got MOA adjustments, which these days are old school considering the long range shooting world has realized the benefits of the Mil/Mil type scopes.

Thinking about that, how is it that it took mankind like fifty years or more to figure out that ranging in Mils and then doing complicated mathamatics to find out how to adjust the trajectory of your bullet in Minutes might be a stupid idea, especially in the heat of battle where even simple math is hard? One would think that Ludwig Von Tasco or whoever the fuck designed the first precision adjustable rifle optic would have put two and two together and just made it correct right from the start. Who knows; but now I have willingly joined this madness with the procurement of this type of scope. To my rescue is the Mil-Dot Master, which is pretty badass.

Comparing it with the Horus, the SS is significantly lighter, which makes sense as the Horus is a variable optic with a 50mm objective, while the SS is a fixed 10X with a 42mm objective. Glass is heavy, and the Horus has more of it. They are about the same size though:



I took off the Horus and added the SS upstairs on my kitchen counter so I could watch Lie to Me with my wife like a good husband should. There's only so much hiding in the man cave in the basement that she should endure. There's also a liquid attractant somewhere on that counter top that I normally reserve for when we watch Boardwalk Empire, as they somehow go together.

I continued with the learned trick of coating the inside of the Burris XTreme Tactical (matte black = tactical) rings with black silicon to give them more purchase on the scope tube. I had problems with the Horus sliding around in the rings until someone on Sniper's Hide gave me the remedy. The silicon also cleaned off of the Horus and rings really easy.



Once I had the scope mounted, I realized that the scope was too high, so I have to order some lower rings in order to get a good cheek weld. Oh well, it was a good evening regardless.



Of note is that I do not need a 20 MOA canted base to get this scope to 1,000 yards. Right out of the box, I started twisting the SS's turrets and found it to have 137 & 3/4 Minutes of total elevation, which is amazing even for a 30mm scope tube. The contenders for a spot on this gun were 1" and 30mm tubes from the likes of Burris, Bushnell, and Weaver, and none of them had more than like 60 Minutes total elevation adjustment. That means more cash for a canted base, as well as the task of figuring out what rings to buy with that base. Keep all this in mind when buying a scope. I have no idea how the glass compares with the Horus; I wasn't able to check it out last night as it was already dark.

This weekend if I get the chance to do some shooo-eeeehn done, I'll get some through-the-scope pictures at some wildlife to give an idea of the glass quality.

Reporters and guns

Guatemalan style! I like how those folks think!

And, Russian heads of state continue to be more awesome than the US, as here the Prime Minister is helping a young boy holster a gold plated Makarov. Obama plays golf and gets stitches in his lip, while Putin plays with sniper rifles, takes down tigers, and flies airplanes. I see a pattern here.

Amtrack starting to become rational

Come December 15, they will join most of the rest of mass transit and allow firearms to be in checked baggage. Now, about that carry on stuff. . . .

Also, I do note the guidelines for checked baggage says:

". . .the maximum weight of each piece (50 lb/23 kg)."

So your mortar tubes and 20mm rifles will have to be checked separately.

Actually, I took that rule entirely out of context. Forgive me?

A new type of marksmanship

Shooting long range is never a quick process. You have data books, wind meters, wristop computers, ballistics applications for laptops and phones, etc. and it takes a true marksman to put all that information together along with the fundamentals of shooting to make the projectile hit its mark.

Not any more.

The revolutionary advance involves an array of sights, sensors and lasers that reads the distance to the target, assesses elements such as air pressure, temperature, and ballistics and then sends that data to the microchip embedded in the XM25 shell before it is launched.

The round already knows how to get there before it's even fired. That's pretty cool.

"It takes out a lot of the variables that soldiers have to contemplate and even guess at," Lehner said.

****

Lehner said the XM25 was special in that it requires comparatively little training, because the high-powered technology does so much of the work.

"This system is turning soldiers with average shooting skills into those with phenomenal shooting skills," he said.

Let's not make it too easy boys!

I hope this weapon truly is a game changer. Military advancements have sometimes made old tried-and-true methods of warfare obsolete, like how artillery made fortified walls not so appealing as had been for thousands of years. Damn military/industrial complex!

"You get behind something when someone is shooting at you, and that sort of cover has protected people for thousands of years," Lehner said.

"Now we're taking that away from the enemy forever."

Awesome! So how long before I can get a XM25 on Bud's Gun Shop? I just hate when I can't get the shot on that doe-of-a-lifetime because she's selfishly feeding behind a big tree.

Dangerous jackassery

You have to be a real asshole to shoot deer well outside of your limits. Shooting animals at distance is cool if you can actually hit where you aim at, but this douchebag lobs round after round of .50 BMG at deer at a mile until he finally kills one. The reason I decided to post this here is to show my several readers that most rifle rounds actually do ricochet.



The ones ricocheting off the water near the end are perhaps the most dangerous.

Stupidity begets a Claim

The University of Mary Washington is a "Gun Free Zone;" and despite their insistence that the campus is safe, people still get hurt there.

The thing about it is, when you say that a facility is safe, and prevent folks from protecting themselves under written code, you have a contract; anything that happens contrary to that contract opens you up to a claim.

"The suit says UMW creates "an illusion of campus security." The school's literature and other advertising material "emphasize safety and note the presence of campus police."

The university assumed responsibilities for the victim's safety because she was a full-time student who lived on campus, according to the lawsuit."

Yup. This is interesting to me because the whole purpose of "Gun Free Zones" is to avoid the bloodsucking lawyers coming forward in droves to sue for some sort of negligence. It seems to me that the opposite is true.

Now the very policy that UMW took to insulate itself from littigation will probably cost $10 million. I hope that poor girl gets every penny.

It's telling though that students willingly embrace this assinine policy; in the past, UMW students have made statements to the effect that security cameras in the parking garage would have prevented the attack on the victim because the cops would be able to later identify the rapist. Read that sentence again, because I'm not making it up. That's the sort of youth that Americans are sending to these campuses.

That still doesn't take away from the fact that if a corporate type entity makes the statement that you cannot provide for your own security, as the entity will provide that for you, than when they fail at their stated duty, they can and will get their asses sued. Common Law can be a bitch.

Russian sniper rifle pr0n

The Ruskies have some interesting ranged weapons; for instance, I did not know that there was a bullpup full-auto Dragunov. Neat-oh!

While I'm sure that these guys can shoot and kick ass like other well trained snipers, I just can't get over the ridiculous spray painted 80's motorcycle helmets. Cool guns though.

Bolt action gun pr0n

How about a home brewed .458 SOCOM on a Savage action!?!?

Now that is cooooool!!

A lame duck in denial

"There seems to be some denial about what's contributing to the crime and violence in our community. . ."

You got that right, Mrs. Bland.

Hey, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and assaults county employees for starting a meeting without master. . . . .oh, wait.

And, apparently, what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander. Hmmm.

I'm alive

Had a four day weekend with Thanksgiving and all. My wife worked two of those days, so I went full loser and maintained pajama posture while hanging out with the kids, playing video games, and not shaving. There was also a birthday party in there too, which was interesting in that cramming a dozen kids and twenty+ adults in such a small house makes for some good times.

There were no accomplishments to speak of, with perhaps the acception of the loading of 100 rounds of .380 acp, as well as some .308 to refine my RL15 loads for another test. Now I just need time to shoot them. One of the bigger problems that I have found is that when you load up some new rounds for a test, and don't shoot them immediately, you start to second guess your work. That can be bad.

Other than that, the world still turns and the Republic lives on. More to follow when I get it.

Subtle hints

I stumbled upon this this morning, and thought I'd share it. Can you tell me what's wrong with this picture?



Diabetes I'm sure doesn't sound like much fun, so why the warning about it right next to the heaping pile of butter slathered pancakes being soaked in sugery syrup? FREE PANCAKES DAY!!

I'm totally going to IHOP for lunch.

Disregarding Rule #4

Either this guy owns 5,000 acres of uninhabited land, or he's a moron. Don't fire rifles up into the air! Rule #4!!

Thinking about it, even if you owned enough land to know that your rounds wouldn't be impacting in a school yard four miles away, you simply can't guarantee where your rounds are going to land. Bad juju.

Adorable marksmanship

Starting safety and marksmanship early on makes for good habits. It's cute too!

And for the ladies, it's important that the weapon matches the outfit!

Going the distance

Yesterday was a watershed moment for me in that I maxed out my little AR15 at distance. We were shooting out at 710 yards, and my 69 grain Varget handloads were punching outstanding groups as they were de-stabilizing. My AR only has a 16" barrel like many on the market today, so my average velocity is 2,582 fps which JBM Ballistics tells me my loads will run out of gas at 700 yards. I was not zeroed for any of the loads that I shot, as I was just testing groups. The group above the bull marked "223":



I'm tickled pink with that for several reasons: for one, I know exactly what the limits are for my gun; and two, despite the 69 grain bullets starting to keyhole as they hit the target, I'm still getting 4" or less vertical dispersion, which is awesome; and three, I now know that there's no point in going for another .223 chambering for the MK11 Mod 0 build that I was planning as I would only pick up another hundred yards capability. Looks like I'll be checking out 6.5 Grendel again!

This little AR with its 2-7 Burris FFII Tactical scope and lite barrel shoots circles around my custom built, Krieger barreled 308 with 3-12X50mm scope. Weird.



The little group was fired at the black dot, and I hadn't adjusted my dope from my first group. The large group was also fired with the same dope, but into a 8mph wind while chasing the yellow balloon around. It was getting dark, and everyone was packing up, so I figured what the hell. Almost all of the shot holes are slightly elongated from the rounds not hitting square. It's really cool though because they were not hitting completely sideways yet, so they were in the process of going transonic. Some of them hit straight on too, which have to be the ones that left the barrel with a little more speed.

I brought my reloading press and all associated gear to find a Varget load for my 308, and it ended badly. I again, for reasons I can't recall, I decided to shoot off of the Harris bi-pods for an OCW test, and again found out the hard lesson that bi-pods bounce like shit on any surface, at least for me. I do think that it's shooter induced error, but I've tried every trick in the book and it still happens: putting a towel under the bi-pod feet; digging a little trench in the dirt for the feet to push into; loading the bi-pod with various tention; watched the Sniper's Hide video on how to shoot off bi-pods without bounce; none of this helped. I then did myself the greatest favor by removing those pieces of shit and slinging them down as far into the woods as I possibly could. I will never ruin another load development effort because of bi-pods again.

For fun, I brought along a box of 175 grain Federal Gold Medal Match to see how it shoots from my gun at distance. The wind was slightly breezy, between 2-5 mph, and I didn't use a wind call:



The vertical dispersion is about 2 1/2", which makes me happy. The horizontal spread I blame on the wind. Mirage was also really bad when we first started shooting. My plans at this point are to stop wasting valuable long range time by testing loads, so I'm going to have to get sorted out close to home and decide on a load. My Reloder-17 OCW test a few days ago went alright, but I didn't find a load that I wanted to use; and without any data for the powder, I'm scared to go any higher. I also didn't get the velocity I was hoping for with 175 grain bullets until I was at almost 49 grains of the stuff, which is a lot of powder.

Either way, I'm glad to have success with the AR knowing that it's minute-of-groundhog at over 700 yards. You can't ask for more of a 16" factory barrel.

Honor, Courage, Commitment

Somehow I missed these photos on Veteran's Day. Quite moving, but not as moving as the stories on this page dedicated to Marine Corps Major Megan McClung; if the picture of the running shoes with the note by her headstone doesn't suck the air out of your lungs, you're not human.

Semper Fi, Marine!

More contept for government not giving young gangsters a long enough vacation

Longest title in this blog, I know, but I found another article from the same author at the Washington Times as the one I blogged about a couple of days ago.

In this article, both the shooter and the shootee were proud "active" members of DC's Youth Rehabilitation Services, and it's apparent from the author that DYRS did not send thems two keeeiiids away to someplace exotic for a long enough period of time. If only Mr. Kearney had been sent to purgatory in Carlsbad to sip margaritas and think about how eluding and assaulting police officers is frowned upon in today's society, maybe he would not have shot another human being to death over something so petty as a bag of meth, or whatever the dispute was.

Do note that twice Kearney was sentenced for some crime amongst a stack of crimes, and that had he actually served the time he was supposed to, he could not have possibly killed Wilson as he would have been behind bars. So really, what is the failure point here? These guys were both allowed to walk the streets on their own free will as long as they reported occasionally to DYRS, instead of serving the time that they were sentenced to. Hmmmm.

It's obvious to me that the solution to young people who repetitively demonstrate dangerous criminal behavior is not to stroke their feelings and give them a pompous vacation, but to place them in a facility that separates them from the people who are not lunatics. This facility should have high walls and fences, topped with concertina wire and towers filled with men with rifles.

It's a revelation, I tell ya! You heard it here first!

A river ran through it

Almost five years ago, a good friend of mine was out canoeing in the river when the water was up pretty high from two weeks of rain. The trip ended in disaster as he and a friend almost lost their lives, destroyed the canoe, and lost all of their gear except for the cooler. Among some of the gear lost was a Ruger P9, which my friend promptly reported to the local Sheriff's office. Well, some good ol' local yokel found that pistol and turned it in to the Sheriff, who called my buddy and returned it to him.

The finish may not impress you, but it still seems to function just fine:



He hasn't fired it yet, and has said that he has no desire to, but he did give it a thorough cleaning. I didn't get a pic of the internals, but they seemed fine as well. The blued magazine was pretty rusted, but didn't look as bad as I would have thought after spending four and a half years submerged in the mud on the bottom of the Rappahanock.

I have had a good experience in the past with Ruger's customer service, so I suggested that he send it to them for some OEM TLC, and just maybe that gun might be something again. It definitely needs a new slide, but after handling it I have no doubts that if I stuck a loaded magazine in it it would fire as you see it. That's after a bunch of WD-40; nothing more.

Over all, I'd say that this was a serious torture test that speaks to the quality of Ruger. I have no dog in that fight, as I do not own any Ruger products, although I've had good luck with them in the past.

Ruger tuff!!!

The blame game

"Department puts teens at risk on D.C. mean streets"

Uuuuhm, no. That is the subtitle to this article in the Washington Times on how screwed up teens and young adults buy/sell/do drugs and murder one another. I'm sorry, but you cannot blame government for the actions of crazy people.

That agency, despite all its problems, did all that it could to show this man - 19 year old individual: man - that there was life outside of DC ghettos, and sent him to a wonderful neighborhood out of state for two frickin' years to figure himself out. I don't see the connection here on how a DC government agency is destroying lives; if you are 19 years old, you are responsible for getting a hold of yourself and making your way through life without selling crack and ambushing armed drug dealers in seedy alleys.

Yeah, government agencies countrywide are not known as being bastions of efficiency or sensibility, but it seems that this particular agency did this scumbag a solid by sending him to a lovely academy so that he could play sports without being shot at. What the author, Mr. Anderson, is suggesting is that the agency condemned this man to die because they didn't finance his vacation permanently, and instead released him "arbitrar[ily]" on his own recognizance to make adult choices and do his own thing. That his own thing consisted of selling drugs and running from the cops is nobody's fault but his own.

Check this out:

Older teenagers pose the most significant challenges, he added, because group homes won't take them and they cannot be forced to go to school. "They age out," he said. "It's a programming failure. If we miss the opportunity to connect with them when they are 15 or younger, it's harder to get through to them later."

Get that? They "age out," which seems to me to be the point where they are supposed to transition from being a juvenile to an adult, but is suggested here as being the point where government doesn't grab ahold of both of their hands and make them not kill people. And that transition stage of adulthood is no longer a natural stage, it's a "programming failure." Someone needs to tell the Lord to stop screwing these kids up with all these awkward stages and stuff.

To recap, Chicquelo's mother, who allegedly gave birth to him before she reached the programming failure stage, has lived in a dangerous ghetto in DC for probably her whole life, and has no responsibility whatsoever from the author's perspective in her son growing up a violent, wannabe, drug dealing gangster, and a never heard of DC agency is to blame for not financing a fantasy life for an adult with a long criminal history. I'm starting to put it all together now.

See, DC should be like one great big-ass game of The Sims, with some responsible individual constantly overseeing someone of questionable scruples. Who cares how that's gonna be paid for; we're talking about making people make better choices, like choosing to go to Lowes and apply for a job instead of shooting heroin and smoking cigarettes on the porch all day. Common sense stuff.

Think about how 24/7 oversight could have prevented this scenario:

The police affidavit states the bullet that killed Chicquelo was fired in self-defense, and the youth who fired the shot, who had charges pending against him and was under a court warning against possessing a gun, was not charged.

Maybe if the scumbag who killed Chicquelo in unlawful self defense had simply been placed in a beautiful town in Wisconsin for his prior felonious acts, for several years, he would have a scholarship to Yale instead of a ticket to prison. Let's not worry our pretty little heads over the court putting a warning out against him for being an armed scumbag instead of locking him up for being a threat to society; all of these choir boys are victims, can't you see? We can't be locking up victims!

Yikes. It's apparent that Mr. Anderson believes in glad handing scumbags, instead of placing them behind bars. I say give them one chance and one chance only to not be a heathen, and then slam them in prison for the rest of their lives if they decide to keep hurting people.

Beam me up Scotty!!

Mars is a six-month flight away, possesses surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water, carbon dioxide and essential minerals. They propose the missions start by sending two two-person teams, in separate ships, to Mars. More colonists and regular supply ships would follow.

Dude! If I were a single, 60-something space cowboy I would totally sign up for this! Impossible mission. . . check! Space ship. . . check! Making the history books for being seriously awesome. . . check! And can you imagine having all that frontier and different gravity to test new long range rifle ballistics?!?!

5. . .4. . .3-2-1, Blast Off! Another Rocketship Run!!!!

You 20-something whippersnappers without kids watching endless Noggin channel have no idea what in the world that's all about, but I gather one or two of my readers do! Listening to Lauri Berkner during a three and a half hour car ride is a serious upgrade from the Wiggles. Trust me.

Handy Reloading Tip

I'm not only a cheapskate, I also appreciate being able to improvise, adapt, and overcome when confronted with a problem; like being able to fit almost 49 grains of Reloder-17 in a Winchester case under a 175 grain Nolser J4. What would make this task better?

A drop tube would allow that much powder to fit, but I'm loading now, and don't have time to order from Sinclair or MidwayUSA. What to do, what to do. . . .


BIC pen tube to the rescue!!

If you recall, I've found uses for these tubes before. Just be careful to line up the bottom of the tube with the mouth of the case or you'll spill powder all over the place. Slow is better; I hold the powder pan from my scale over the funnel and tap it softly with my index finger so that the powder barely trickles out. For fun, try loading a full case without the drop tube, and then use the drop tube to see how much more room you get!

I'll give a range report soon to let you know what I've been up to.

Happy Veteran's Day!!

My thanks go out to those who are on Active Duty, still keeping us safe!

Happy Birthday Marines!!

Oooooh Rah, Semper Fidelis, and all that good stuff!!

The Organ Trail

. . .you don't want to die from Exposure on the Organ Trail, so follow these handy tips to ward off the fleshy sickness:

• Stay alert and be aware of your surroundings and don’t wear earphones.
• Walk, run, hike and bike with a partner or group.
• Let someone know when you are on the trail and when you expect to come home.
• Don’t use paths or trails when it is dark out.
• Carry a cell phone.
• Carry a .357 Magnum handgun loaded with poison-laced teflon-tipped bullets made of lead and adamantium.

Actually, the Loudon county sheriff's department left that last bullet out, but I thought it made sense, so I put it in there.

Weirdos who like to show their satchel to random joggers don't seem to me like they fear spandex clad trail wanderers with cell phones. However, broadcast a story over national news about how a trail lurking pervert got a little too hands on with a running lady and ended up with a sucking forehead wound and I bet you that they might think twice about showing their wares in public.

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.

The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming!

Just a heads-up, there will be hordes of Zs' in Silver Spring this Saturday.

That begs the question: what to do for zombies in a Gun Free Zone? I'm pretty sure CCW isn't outright outlawed in MD, just really difficult. And what about ARs and AKs? Seems to me like Mossberg may save the day in Maryland if the Zs' do attack.

Quote of the Day: Gunny addition

"I comforted myself as I pushed past him with the fact that I had 49 rounds of defensive ammunition with me." - Nancy, from Excels at Nothing.

Double stacked security blankets rule!

**Bonus points in the comments!!

Hump day gun p0rn

Bonus points to me for using 'hump' and 'p0rn' in the title. This one's for all you AK-47 lovers out there: 25 pages of AK goodness from around the world.

It is simply amazing to me how people modify or personalize a weapon like the AK. It's not modular like the M16/AR15 family, but that doesn't stop people from constructing a shoulder stock from a shovel handle.

Anyways, I've never been in love with the AK family, but for my readers who are, there ya go!