Let The Games Begin

I ordered the tune this morning.

Anyone Else Getting This?

My Email spam has reached the height of culture. The titles are in French.

That doesn't keep me from deleting them, I just thought it was interesting.

Idle Thoughts

Watching that new Subaru commercial, where the guy is going everywhere and painting shitty pictures, gives me an eye tic. Particularly when he tells his wife that the one picture is upside down. I'd just like to punch him to the floor and say "There, how does it look now?"

It makes me think that Subaru is fighting hard for the "pretentious douchebag who can't afford a BMW" demographic. Sad, really, cause I truly like my Baja.

Short Weekend

Not really short, I guess, since it had the requisite number of days, but like always they seemed to fly right by and be over before they had any right to be.

It started on Thursday, as mine usually do (I work Sunday nights, my weekends run from Thursday to Saturday on my long weeks and Wednesday to Saturday on my short ones...and before you think I'm a lucky spud for having four day weekends, 1. yes I am and 2. I work 12 hour days), with a message on my dashboard saying it was oil change time soon. That came as a bit of a surprise since the sticker on my windshield clearly stated I had another hundred miles or so, but since I had a long-distance weekend planned I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and change it.

Anyway, I went to see if I could score some more .22 ammo, and failed miserably, then went home to catch about 4 hours of sleep before having to get up to go to the dentist. The crown prep went well, no root canal needed, and now I have a huge hunk of white plastic covering the tooth stump until the crown gets made and sent to the dentist, about 2 weeks from now. This one is going to be porcelain instead of white gold like the other one, but since it's so far back I really don't think it will matter much. Thursday ended with me getting everything ready for that long-distance weekend.

Friday I got the oil, went to the feed store and got my registration renewed (gotta love rural North Carolina), and picked up the other things on my shopping list for the house and such. I got home and discovered my car sits too low to be able to put it up on the ramps, so I had to jack it up to put the ramps underneath it. Fortunately Son In Law has a lo-profile jack.

Drain the oil pan, remove the three bolts over the front cover, spin off the oil filter and discover that Ford has cleverly placed the front radiator support brace perfectly to intercept the hot oil stream from the filter. Clean everything up, new filter, reinstall the cover and the drain bolt and jack the car back up to remove the ramps. Eight (yes, eight) quarts of 5W20 dyno-synthetic blend (the Coyote's oil fill spout requires the use of a funnel, for what it's worth, and I need to get one with a bigger spout) and that job is done for another 7500-10,000 miles (whenever the dashboard readout tells me it's time again). It was the first time I had ever changed the oil on that car, having bought the extended service warranty, and I think it went pretty well.

Friday evening found me in Alexandria, Occupied Territories Virginia for a get-together with like-minded morons. No pics by agreement, but it was fun to get together and put some faces to some names. Saturday morning found me on the road home, and Saturday afternoon I was back at home base.

The car's odometer reads a bit over 59,800 miles now, less than 200 miles from the 60,000 end-of-warranty period. Time to contact my crack parts dealer for that tune, by the time it gets here the warranty will be out and the tune can go right in.

Back to work Sunday night. Gotta pay for that tune somehow (not to mention the dentist).

Predictable Results

I don't remember where I saw this story first, but I'll give Old NFO the credit because that's where I saw it last. At any rate, the line that jumped right out at me was “We don’t feel neighborhood watch is sufficient, and we don’t feel the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office is sufficient.” (emphasis mine)

I think it was Sean that remarked the laws aren't there to protect me from you, they are there to protect you from me. I couldn't find the post, but his point was the laws are agreements between the Citizen and the State whereby the State will prosecute criminals via the courts and save the Citizen the trouble of having to deal with the criminals themselves (not to mention cleaning up afterwards).

The flip side of that, of course, is that when the State fails in that bargain eventually the Citizen can - and will - take care of the problem themselves. This was in fact one of the reasons the Second Amendment was adopted, so the Citizen would have the means necessary to defend himself (and the State).

More and more it seems the Citizen is becoming aware of this, which in my opinion is a good thing.

(For anyone who will cry vigilantism, you would do well to look up the etymology of the word.)

Happy Father's Day

Call your Dad.

Even if you don't get along with him. As I told one of my friends who didn't get along with his Dad, if these must be the last words you ever say to him, say "I love you Dad" and then just hang up the phone. He did, and a year later his Dad was gone.

Best advice I ever gave.

Range Day

Boy and I met Range Partner this morning after breakfast to spend some quality time making smoke and noise. Along for the ride were the two .22 rifles to be bullseye sighted (as opposed to pretty good sighted which is what they were). Also along for the ride were my freshly re-crimped reloads that had been tested good on the reloading bench with the Glock barrel.

The .22 shooting went well, about 30 rounds through each from the bench rest had them hitting bullseyes right where they were aimed. I shot eight of my reloads through the Glock without any problems, and then they wouldn't go into battery again. I stripped the gun and checked the reloads through the barrel and it was like I had never run them back through the crimp die. The 100 factory loads I brought chambered fine.

I shot the 100 rounds of factory ammo for the badly needed practice and then we finished up the day with the .22's at 25 yards, Boy on the scoped Model 60 and me on the iron-sighted Model 795. He had been bragging on his shooting prowess, so I made him a challenge; each of us would shoot 30 rounds and then we would check the targets and see who was better.

30 rounds later and it was pretty clear the old man still had it. We swapped rifles and repeated the challenge with the same results. After that I didn't have to hear about what a great shot he was any more. He shot his last 25 rounds through the Hi-Standard and I shot my last 25 through the 795, and that finished off one of the two boxes of ammo that I had picked up on Friday morning.

After the shooting was over we packed up and headed over to one of the Mustang Forums members houses to help with a header install on his '12 Mustang. The day was finished up with a ride to the shoe store to get another pair of Converses for Boy who had out-grown the ones he was wearing. I was shocked to see that the shoes that Mom bought for me because they were cheap weren't so much anymore; I guess that's what happens when they get featured in a Will Smith movie.

All in all a pretty good day.

Up And Around

I was out the door early today, the box store down the street from where I work was supposed to have .22 ammo in stock this AM. I got there a little before 7 and there were four boxes, I got two of them and the guy right behind me got the other two.

The Subaru got it's new lights today.

At first I thought the new light lenses were flatter, but when I got them out and side by side it turns out they are an exact match.

I had to use the old brackets because the bolt that holds them to the bumper cover on the new ones has a taper, which was just enough to keep the retaining nut from threading on. If it hadn't been for that (and if I wasn't such a perfectionist for it to make a difference) they would have been exact replacements.

Darn that auto-focus, it's not a good picture of the bolts, but you can see the issue. It turns out OK though because I liked the original wiring harness better and the original brackets seemed to be made of sterner stuff than the replacements.

The covers went right on as well, so everything is as it should be.

And now, with that done, the rest of the day is free. It's sunny and warm, and I have this convertible...

In The Mail

My goodies came in.

First, the lights for the Subaru. They're a bit different than what came on the trucklet, the lenses are flatter, but that shouldn't make a great deal of difference as long as the mounts are right.

It's a good thing they were well packed, it looks like the gorilla squad was in charge of handling.

Also, two extra magazines for the 795, so now I'm all set for Appleseed.

It rained like hell this afternoon, but now that it's gone the forecast is dry and sunny for the next couple of days. Just right for getting the lights put on the Subaru and doing some shooting.

She Don't Like, She Don't Like, She Don't Like...

Reloads.

My Glock, that is.

I attempted to put a few rounds through it at the Blogshoot but the darn thing wouldn't go back into battery, I had to smack the back of the slide every time. The round would eject, and then the next one wouldn't go into battery until I smacked the back of the slide again. The factory loads worked great.

Today I broke it down and tried fitting the rounds into the barrel. Both the earlier reloads and the latest ones with the moly bullets did this:

 but the factory loads were flush.

The reloads would seat all the way if I pushed them in, but then I had to pry them back out. The only thing I can think of is either the dies aren't set right or my Glock is being a picky bitch. Of course, there's nothing to say it can't be both.

I'm going to let Range Partner try the reloads, and maybe I'll invest in a Wolf barrel to see if that cures the pickiness, but until then I guess I'll stick with factory loads. I hope that it's something I'm doing wrong and can correct, with the present state of ammo factory loads are a pain to find.

In other news, my broken tooth is scheduled for a crowning. It's right across from the last one, so now I'll be balanced, at least in the bottom row of teeth department.

I also have a pair of foglamps coming in for the Scoobytruck, when I got it they were fine but within a couple of weeks they had been BB-gunned by a person or persons unknown (I have a feeling one or both of my boys were in the mix somewhere despite their denials). The left one came apart when I took it off the ramps after changing the oil on Wednesday, so it's time for new ones.

And last but not least, AGirl is hanging up her blogging spurs for a bit. I hope she can pop in once in a while now and again.

The remnants of TS Andrea are sliding through the Refuge for the next couple of hours and we expect to see scattered thunderstorms into next week.

That's it for now. I'll be ensconced in skating hell tonight for a few hours while Boy completely ignores me and chats up the girls, maybe I can get some homework done.

And maybe not.

UPDATE: A little adjustment on the seating die and all is, once more, good to go.

Big Brother Is Watching You

The other than network news has been full of the revelations, prompted by the Verizon order revelation, that the Government is watching us. That the .gov is collecting domestic call logs under the dubious cover of the Patriot Act and FISA (here's a hint...the F in FISA means Foreign, not Federal) is troubling at best, and downright frightening at worst.

Here's a hint to all the would-be political masters on Capitol Hill (or Beacon Hill, or whatever snobby knob your sacred cows gather on); never grant political powers to your friends that you wouldn't grant to your enemies, because your friends aren't always friendly and your enemies will one day be in charge.

Only One Chance

You only get one chance to do things right. After that you are doing it over.

In the case of firearms safety if you are lucky all you have to do is do it over. Most safety rules are written in blood, and in the case of firearms safety the four rules have gallons of ink to illustrate them.

You have to violate at least two of those rules to have a bad day, and the correct course of action when it is pointed out to you that you have violated even one is...DON'T DO IT AGAIN! What you don't do is double down and try to put the pressure on the one who tells you about it.

Each one of us has our Delta Sierra moments. I had one this weekend in fact, while I was showing off Grand-dad's High Standard. I handed it to someone in the room...names aren't important, but keep in mind I spent the whole weekend with gunnies...and he looked at me strangely, dropped the magazine and checked the weapon clear.

It took me a few seconds to realize what I had done, and by then the moment was over, but when the "D'oh!" finally hit me it was all I could do not to melt through the floor. Nothing was said, but nothing needed to be. I had screwed up royally.

I'm glad to say the error was not repeated, and it never will be, but I'll remember that look for the rest of my life. Here I was, in the company of shooters, trying to make a good impression, and there was that pooch...

Nothing was hurt but my pride, and that's the good thing.

Stay safe. You only get one chance.

UPDATE: Sean has firewalled the post, apparently in response to being told he was over-reacting to being muzzled. I guess some people don't have a problem with it. My mind is boggled.

Three

Image from http://plantedblackrose.blogspot.com/

I Would Like

to see a situation where, if someone tells you that you are f*cked up like a soup sandwich, the follow-on conversation deals with how to take the soup out of your sandwich rather than the fact someone said the word f*ck to you and hurt your feelings and made you feel bad by pointing out your obvious incompetence.

Take the soup out of your sandwich and then you won't have to hear about your deficiencies, this solves both problems. It all seems so simple...but I suppose this is what we get with all the various "studies" degrees. Worthless people get promoted to positions of power (or hired in a mis-named "HR Department") and now we reap the inevitable rewards.

I don't know what brought that on. I suspect it has something to do with this. Flame if you wish, but at least have the integrity to admit, if only to yourself, that there is some truthiness to it. Individuals may be different, but groups are predictable. Flak and targets.

BlogShoot 6-1-13

We came, we saw, we destroyed many rounds of .22 LR (and a few rounds of other things as well).

(updated as memory of details allow)

Why yes, those ARE black powder rifles above my Marlins and on either side of the lever action, and the Tapco catalog in the middle lost a few pieces as the day went on.

 

We had a few handguns as well, including THE Handgonne, although it did not make an appearance on the range. Still, I can say I have seen it, I have held it in my hands, it does exist, and when it is out of ammo it would still be a formidable weapon.

I can now put faces to a few more names; New Jovian Thunderbolt, A Girl (and her guy, and 3 of the 4 up-and-coming Olympian shooting team members), AJ and Clay to name a few.

The board you see in the background has dum-dums stuck in holes drilled in the top. I didn't see "Use them as targets" in their "20 Ways to Use Dum Dums Lollipops" list, but the setup was certainly fun and interesting. The white smiley face target is above and to the right, the face didn't last long but a can of white spray paint kept it visible all through the day.

Youngest Son got some instruction from the Appleseed instructors as well as from Old NFO, so he had a great time as well.

The new scope on the Marlin 60 and the new Marlin 795 with its TechSights both worked great, and were actually sighted in right off the bat much to my surprise. The magazine release on the 795 isn't the best designed mechanism in the world, and you have to pull the magazine free because it won't drop out. Irritating, but not a show stopper. The Marlin 60 consumed the bulk .22 ammo without issue (unlike last time), but the Glock hated my reloads with the moly coated bullets. I'm going to see if they will go through Range Partner's guns. If they will, I'll make a gift of them.

The Appleseed instructor also had a 795 and he brought a 25 round ProMag magazine for it which I got to try out. I was considering getting a couple but was worried about feeding issues. He said the only problem he has had with it is there is no indication to show how many rounds are loaded, and the last 5 rounds are hard to load, but no issues with feeding rounds into the chamber. Not having a visual indication means you have to count the rounds as you load them, otherwise you won't know how many are in the magazine. This is a relatively minor issue, although I'm sure it is an annoyance. I must have at least one.

Afterwards much grub was consumed, and I brought both kinds of sauce (right and wrong) for the pulled pork. No pictures of that, too busy eating!

All in all, a great day with great people and fun shooty goodness.  I'm looking forward to the next meet.