Nice Rack!

Finally got all the parts and set it all up.  No guns with the tax refund this year, just an easier time playing outside.
Got a good deal on the Thule setup, and I'm pretty impressed.  The hardware that came with the J-tubes for the boat are pretty cool/innovative, the bow and stern tie-downs have little ratcheting pullies, and the straps in the middle have rubber covers over the metal parts to keep from scratching up the kayak.  The bike tray also beats the living crap out of the old trunk rack setup, I got my XC rig up and locked down in a matter of seconds.  Hopefully this is just more motivation to go out and do more stuff.

NRA Annual Convention

Is going on right now, and I know a few bloggers are there.  Anybody know if anybody's covering the new shiny (and I guess matte) offerings being shown?  I know it's not quite as insane as SHOT, but there usually is a good amount of new coolness revealed at this one too.

Ruger LCR .357mag

The Firearm Blog reports that the highly anticipated Ruger LCR 357 will be available in June with an MSRP of $575.

Weighing in at a 17.1 oz, I'd guess it'll have a pretty snappy recoil.

That point of the semester...

Finals next week, so horribly underslept at this point, woke up feeling quite blah, and I swear I haven't seen blue sky going on two weeks now.  I don't know how people can take it up in the Pacific Northwest.

Anyway, I'll try to get some stuff  up tomorrow.

Military proposes medal for showing restraint...

Not sure how I feel about this one... but then again, I do have several awards for simply doing my job.  It seems like a great idea, and it is well thought out, but there just seems to be something wrong with the concept.

New holster!

Possibly the most awkward angle I've taken a picture at yet... eventually I'll get a decent lightweight point and shoot...

Review to come, along with comparisons with some other kydex.

MicroSights

New "breakthrough technology" from Idaho National Laboratories.  Looks like a pretty sweet idea.  If they make some that'll fit the Lyman sights I just put on the Anschutz, I may need to look into them.  It would cut down one at least one of the repeating mantras going through my head when bullseye shooting.
(H/T to The Firearm Blog)

You may not be able to get the Magpul FMG9...

But Nerf's got your back.

I may need to get one for when I need to fight my way back to the Vulcan.

"My religion's better than yours!"

Apparently Swedish artist LarsVilks was attacked during a presentation on free speech at a Swedish university yesterday.  Here's the video:

Ah pepper spray, so much fun.


Vilks is the guy who drew a cartoon of Muhammad as a dog, incurring a mass of Muslim hate.


I found out about this on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's website, complete with a beautiful little chunk written by Mr. Bobby Henderson, the founder of the CoFSM:

This latest attack bugs me a lot.  Here’s the disclaimer: I’ve received tons of hatemail and many threats and had more than a couple disturbing run-ins with religious nuts, and few if any of those nuts were Muslim.  By and large all the Muslims I know are awesome and not at all nutty.  I find Christian nuts the creepiest of all the religious nuts.  But I am way more scared of nutty Muslims than nutty Christians.

Lars has become a symbol for the right to criticize religion.  That’s a right we can’t lose.  I don’t believe this is about religion or values, I think it’s about dogma.  There is nothing inherently evil or wrong with what nutty Christians or Muslims believe – what’s wrong is that it’s no longer a set of beliefs, it’s a set of Truths that can’t be questioned, and that’s a dangerous thing.  Lars is completely right that it’s important to be able to criticize religion.

He's completely correct.  The ability to criticize religion is of utmost importance, just like the right to criticize pretty much anything else in a public setting.  I'm not going to go into a church and start screaming at the priest that he's an idiot, and I even show them the utmost respect any time I happen to run into one, but that doesn't mean I agree with pretty much any organized religion, especially rights crushing backwards ones.


(My disclaimer: yup, "rights crushing backwards ones" is pretty much directed at hardcore Muslim extremism.  I like boobies, among other things.  I'm not too worried about any attacks though, I put on a couch colored uniform once a month with a certain flag on it, so I'm pretty much boned as far as that goes anyway.  Nothing new.)

Hooray!

Just got a shipping notice from The Malabar Front in regards to my Raven Concealment stuff.  Makes my day a little brighter.  Review to come.

Making Something

...Out of a crappy day.

So with the shooting excursion called off, Cro decided to bust out the molds and turn some discarded wheel weights into something more useful.  I figured it would make for a decent blog post, so I came over with the camera and ended up learning something.

The process is pretty straight forward, toss the weights into the pot, the lead melts, and the less dense steel clips float up to the top where you can scoop them out.

Plop in some bees' wax to keep things flowing and smelling a little better (it acts as a flux) and pretty soon you get some nice molten lead ready for molding.

Add enough bees' wax, and it'll flash over for a bit, which you can use to smoke the mold, depositing some carbon on it to help the bullets pop out.  Plus it makes for my favorite picture of the day:

Seriously, those are the kind of pics that motivate me to lug the thing around.

Anyway, back to the bullets.  So once you get the lead hot and melty, you can start heating the mold, basically running some lead through it till the bullets actually start looking good.

Cro uses the Lee two bullet molds, they're a good size, and pretty simple to use with the built in sprue cutter, and they heat better than the 6 bullet molds.  I wouldn't want to handle anything bigger under his little pot either.  Once they're warmed up, you get some pretty nice looking bullets.

Then we just tossed them in a bucket of water with a towel stuffed in the bottom to keep them from bouncing and getting deformed.

We found that with two guys with the two bullet molds, you can get a pretty good rhythm going.  Two hours of BSing, and we had a nice pile of .44 and 9mm bullets for the price of the electricity to heat the pot.

I think I need to pick up a .45acp mold and a beater GI barrel.  Quite a few tire places will let you have buckets of used wheel weights, so for the cost of powder and primers, I could be shooting 1911 for nearly .22 prices...

SitRep take 2

We don't mess around up here... it's currently sleeting, almost hail sized little chunks of ice.

Range trip was cancelled due to unseasonal cold and crap falling from the skies.  Probably just end up going into school and working on stuff I've been putting off.

(Image is from late last night... we currently have a freeze warning until tonight some time. Fun.)

SitRep

This is my car, 10 minutes ago.

Yes.  That is about 2 inches of fresh, white, heavy global warming all over my car, and everything else, in May.

My state is broken.

.22lr Sterling

F.LLI Pietta Mk85 (care of The Firearm Blog) is a slightly scaled down .22lr Sterling clone.  Apparently it was at SHOT, but they held back the release till next year due to all the other "black" .22lr's that came out this year.  I may have to pick one up when they come out, it's so cute one would follow me home eventually anyway.

NSTT & Getting Shot At

So Indigen Armor released some video of their new truck looking armored truck, the Non-Standard Tactical Truck, and it's pretty cool, in my opinion.  It looks more like a light pick-up than anything armored, so it'll blend well when you want to keep a low profile, yet is proof against at least small arms.

Here be the vid:



So around the 1:09 mark, there's a couple guys inside and they're shooting it with an AK of some sort.  A few people around the interwebs think that's a stupid idea, and yeah, if you decide to test it that way, then it is.  But I doubt that's the first time they ever shot at it.  It's a pretty dang effective marketing tool, just ask the people over at Second Chance.  But if it's been tested, and proofed positive against that particular threat, then there should be damn near zero chance of injury to the vehicle's occupants.  That's the whole point of the thing.


Back to the truck, it's small enough that you can internally load it in a Pavehook, looks to be pretty mobile, and as stated, is low-profile in appearance.  Having rolled through downtown Kabul in one of these, I can guess how welcome something with armor could be in a similar situation.  I doubt it's too great against a large IED, but in theory you would avoid most of them by simply not looking like a target.  It probably wouldn't be all that bad against indirect fire such as mortars and rockets either, so it would make for a pretty decent truck for tooling around inside the wire in a combat zone.

Wonder how much they go for.....

(H/T ENDO)

XM-25 to be deployed.

Albeit in limited numbers at the moment.  Looks like SF teams will get them for evaluation purposes.
I wonder how long till I get to play with one? Hehe.

(H/T SayUncle)

I guess there's still some good in the system.

Third SEAL found not guilty.

Zombie Awareness Month

May is Zombie Awareness Month.  Fitting, what with the weather finally getting warm, they'll be moving faster (although there's a chance of snow tomorrow night around here... my state's broken.)  A good excuse to get to the range and verify your zero if nothing else.

(H/T to Tam)

THIRTEEN THINGS YOUR BURGLAR WON'T TELL YOU:

Posted over at Military Firearm:

1. Of course I look familiar. I was here just last week cleaning your carpets, painting your shutters, or delivering your new refrigerator.

2. Hey, thanks for letting me use the bathroom when I was working in your yard last week. While I was in there, I unlatched the back window to make my return a little easier.

3. Love those flowers. That tells me you have taste ... and taste means there are nice things inside. Those yard toys your kids leave out always make me wonder what type of gaming system they have.

4. Yes, I really do look for newspapers piled up on the driveway. And I might leave a pizza flyer in your front door to see how long it takes you to remove it..

5. If it snows while you're out of town, get a neighbor to create car and foot tracks into the house. Virgin drifts in the driveway are a dead giveaway.

6. If decorative glass is part of your front entrance, don't let your alarm company install the control pad where I can see if it's set. That makes it too easy.

7. A good security company alarms the window over the sink. And the windows on the second floor, which often access the master bedroom-and your jewelry. It's not a bad idea to put motion detectors up there too.

8. It's raining, you're fumbling with your umbrella, and you forget to lock your door-understandable. But understand this: I don't take a day off because of bad weather.

9. I always knock first. If you answer, I'll ask for directions somewhere or offer to clean your gutters. (Don't take me up on it.)

10. Do you really think I won't look in your sock drawer? I always check dresser drawers, the bedside table, and the medicine cabinet.

11. Here's a helpful hint: I almost never go into kids' rooms.

12. You're right: I won't have enough time to break into that safe where you keep your valuables. But if it's not bolted down, I'll take it with me.

13. A loud TV or radio can be a better deterrent than the best alarm system. If you're reluctant to leave your TV on while you're out of town, you can buy a $35 device that works on a timer and simulates the flickering glow of a real television. (faketv.com.) It's real, I checked.

8 MORE THINGS A BURGLAR WON'T TELL YOU:

1. Sometimes, I carry a clipboard. Sometimes, I dress like a lawn guy and carry a rake. I do my best to never, ever look like a crook. 

2. The two things I hate most: loud dogs and nosey neighbors.

3. I'll break a window to get in, even if it makes a little noise. If your neighbor hears one loud sound, he'll stop what he's doing and wait to hear it again. 

If he doesn't hear it again, he'll just go back to what he was doing. It's human nature.

4. I'm not complaining, but why would you pay all that money for a fancy alarm system and leave your house without setting it?

5. I love looking in your windows. I'm looking for signs that you're home, and for flat screen TVs or gaming systems I'd like. I'll drive or walk through your

neighborhood at night, before you close the blinds, just to pick my targets.

6. Avoid announcing your vacation on your Facebook page. It's easier than you think to look up your address.

7. To you, leaving that window open just a crack during the day is a way to let in a little fresh air. To me, it's an invitation.

8. If you don't answer when I knock, I try the door. Occasionally, I hit the jackpot and walk right in.

Sources: Convicted burglars in North Carolina , Oregon , California , andKentucky ; security consultant Chris McGoey, who runs crimedoctor.com; and Richard T. Wright, a criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who interviewed 105 burglars for his book Burglars on the Job

First Doyle...

Now Dave.  Seems that with all the people tripping over each other to run against him, he's just calling it quits.

Hopefully the people of the state don't waste it come November.

Still the best coffee jingle ever.

Expletive Impressive.

A British sniper has set a new distance record for a confirmed kill.  At around 2,700 yards (1.54 mi.)... that's a long freakin' shot.  Oh, and he did it multiple times.

Harrison killed one machinegunner with his first attempt and felled the other with his next shot. He then let off a final round to knock the enemy weapon out of action.

Harrison was using the British L115A3 Long Range Rifle, chambered in .338 Lapua.  I want one.

Technology...

How it's always shifting.  I just noticed some Best Buy commercial where a guy is messing around with a DSLR of some variety, and is taking pictures by framing things up in the LCD screen on the back, just like all the little digital point and shoots all over the place.

My D40 doesn't do real time display on the LCD screen, you have to look through the viewfinder like a real camera, and a few of my friends always get confused when I tell them to go ahead and play around with it at the range and whatnot.  One of these days I'm going to drag out the old FM10 and just laugh... I mean it doesn't even focus by itself!

The nice thing about viewfinders though, is that even in bright light, you can still see what you're doing.  No glare.  I have an Olympus point and shoot type camera that doesn't even have a viewfinder, just the screen, and every now and then you can't see much.  The only real advantage I can see with the screen is I don't have to mess with my hat to take a picture.

Frustration of frustrations.

Much like Tam's complaints earlier today, I can't access the blog.  I can get to the Dashboard, and thusly complain, but it won't load the blog itself.  Apparently everything else is working, except looking at the actual blog.  And now it's not loading anybody else's blog from blogger either. Neat.  So I don't know if this is even going to post.

ETA: It's working now........ but... for how long?

Times Square...

I'm glad things went well, and nobody was hurt.  Great text book example of everything going right for us.

But I can't help but laugh at the bomber...

A bomb squad blew open a large gun locker found in the Pathfinder, revealing eight bags of a substance determined to be nonexplosive grade fertilizer and a pressure-cooker-type of metal pot containing wires and M-88 firecrackers.

Building an ANFO bomb:
Step 1: Procure fertilizer
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Terrorism!!!

Sounds like there was a lot of propane tanks, firecrackers, and assorted wires.  No word yet if the wires were actually wired to anything, or simply draped about Hollywood style, but the later would not surprise me in the least.

Now as far as blowing up cars.... here's a pic from the last demo-ex I did.  There's numerous bits of '92 Chevy Corsica flying around there.  That's how it's done.

Night shots

Not guns or coffee, but I think they turned out nice.

Posting...

Will continue to be a bit light the next couple days... Paleomagnetic Reversals and their relationship to Glacial study is kicking my butt.

Gerber LMF II ASEK

Mike over at ENDO asked about it on my pic from yesterday, so I thought I'd take a little more in depth look at it.  I ordered mine from L.A. Police Gear a while ago, but I haven't really used it much yet, I usually carry my K-Bar when I'm camping, but this one will be on me next time.

Anyway, the LMF II was originally designed as an Aircrew Survival & Escape Knife, and the ASEK version comes complete with a seperate "safety knife," otherwise known as a seatbelt cutter.  Both come in MOLLE compatable sheaths.

The seatbelt cutter's pretty neat, there's even extra blades sandwiched in the handle and a lanyard.

Of course the star of the show is the knife.  Short thick stubby blade, sticky rubber hand-filling grip complete with holes to lash it to a pole for use as a spear.

The first thing you notice about when handling it is the heft. It is a beefy knife. The blade is only about 5" long, but is 3/16" thick.  Shown below with some .45acp for scale.

The pommel is pretty well pointed for use as a glass breaker, and I've seen a video out there somewhere on the interwebs of it shattering plexiglass.  It also sports a flat side for hammering, and it's insulated from the blade in case you happen to cut into a hot wire.

The sheath also features an integrated sharpener.  I used it to put a pretty decent working edge on the blade.

My only complaint is the MOLLE system on the knife sheath leaves something to be desired. It's just not as secure as I like, and the snaps could be a little stronger.

"Wild West" and Women's Fashion

Say Uncle linked an article from the Wall Street Journal this morning about Open Carry, in which the author, true to form, makes a fool of herself.  In so many words, allowing Open Carry will result in massive amounts of testosterone driven one-ups-manship, women requiring quick change grips so they color coordinate, and a reversal of society to the days of the "Wild West."

Which is why they called it the Wild West and we are lucky not to have been born then.

Anybody who watched the History Channel back when it was about History probably knows that the whole violent aspect of the "Wild" West mythos is widely overblown.  Eugene Hollen's book Frontier Violence: Another Look tells us that-

• In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides.  This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.
• In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.

Hardly that violent really.  Most major cities in the US have far worse murder rates than that, just look at Chicago (a comparatively whopping 15.6 per 100,000), where guns are completely banned!  The anti's will continue to equate any widely accepted carry of weapons, open or concealed, to accomplishing nothing but reverting the country (or state, or town, or whatever) back to the "Wild West."  Really doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.

As for her other "complaint" of women widely accepting guns, complete with such gems as:

Next thing you know, women could be trading tips on the Web about the best way to attract men in a world where every girl can have a gun. Should she try to stand out from the crowd with a piece of rustic exotica that reminds him of the safari dolls in 1953's "Mogambo," like a .416 Rigby? Or go with something more crudely flashy, like one of the pretend AK-47s?

Sounds like my kind of girl (author's tip: the .416 Rigby would definitely catch my eye more than an AK.  In this context the AK sounds more like some scenester's attempt at being ironic, like thrift store clothes, and that's just lame.)

To top it off though, her first sentence of the final paragraph:

Speaking of serious shooters, I don't know a soul among gun owners who is itching to prance around showing everybody what is in their holster.

Give me two minutes and access to the internet.  We simply know that there's a time and a place to show off our iron, that's all.  (Here's what's usually in mine by the way, although I do sport my Kimber Custom II on occasion.  Just that with the stupid vehicle laws in Wisconsin, the setback happy .45acp isn't a good idea.) I do kind of wonder... could there be a market for a color coordinated quick change grip system?  Although I think coordinating the holster would be far more important.

Pic-O'the-Day