Steel Targets Bring New Life to Backyard Range

Today I went out and shot my steel targets. It’s surprising how different it is from shooting paper.

First of all, you don’t have to take a lot of junk. When I shoot paper, I take a bunch of targets and tape. Then I have to tape targets up. Sometimes I have to replace them during a session. For steel, you just drive to the pasture and start shooting.

Another difference: you really blow through ammunition. When I shoot paper with a pistol, I aim very carefully and slowly squeeze off rounds because I want to hit an area the size of a dime. With steel, you have no small aiming points to shoot at. I’m aiming at targets that are at least 6″ wide, so I can fire a round every second.

Because I’m not aiming at tiny points, I can back up from the targets. Today I shot a .22 pistol from over 60 feet away, standing, and I hit a gong most of the time. When I missed, it was because I was playing around.

It’s really strange to shoot at something from 60 feet with a pistol and hit it most of the time. I would be hitting the gongs 95% of the time if I tried. I haven’t even sighted my gun in properly. I need to finish adjusting the sights and move back to 25 yards to make it a challenge. Didn’t see that coming.

Speaking of the gun, it’s a real surprise. I had a Smith & Wesson Victory pistol, and I thought it was great. Then I bought a Colt Woodsman, and suddenly, the Victory’s trigger seemed so bad I didn’t want to shoot it. I put it away and ordered a new trigger from Tandemkross, which is a company that specializes in gun upgrades. I believe they coordinated with Smith & Wesson before the Victory came out, because it seemed like they had a bunch of upgrades available right away.

The new trigger is flat in the front. I don’t know too much about flat triggers, but I believe they are supposed to be better for accuracy because you can choose a consistent place to rest your finger. On a curved trigger, you pretty much have to press wherever the curve puts your finger. Seems that way, anyhow.

The Tandemkross trigger is a little lighter than the original trigger, but the main difference is that is extremely smooth and consistent. You know exactly when the gun is going to go off. I can’t say for sure without shooting some paper, but I think this gun, and the Woodsman, may bring me to a completely new level of pistol accuracy. Or not. I have to put them to the test on paper.

The Tandemkross trigger seems to be truly excellent. The Woodsman’s trigger break is like snapping the stem of a wine glass sized for a Barbie doll, and that’s impressive. The Tandemkross trigger doesn’t have the same elegance, but it’s so smooth and predictable, it may be just as good.

I’ve been using CCI’s Troy Landry Choot ‘Em Mini-magnums. They’re very nice. They come lubricated from the factory, they cycle beautifully, they shoot well, and they don’t leave black filth all over your guns like Remington Golden Bullets.

I believe I shot 76 rounds in 20 minutes. My magazines hold 11 rounds, and one round failed to cycle. In fairness to CCI, I only clean my guns when they stop shooting.

Anyway, if I had been shooting paper, I would probably have shot about 50 rounds. On top of that, I will shoot more often now that I have steel.

It’s good to be hitting small targets easily at over 20 yards. That tells me I’m in good shape should I ever have to shoot in order to defend life. After shooting steel for a week or two, I’m going to be Dirty Fricking Harry. Stay away from me, or at least mind your manners.

Speaking of defense, I’ve gone back to carrying a 10mm. I decided to get a full-size 10mm Glock for carry on my property, and that got me thinking about putting the 9mm away. I was carrying a 9mm I bought for my dad. It has Tru-Glo sights and a Crimson Trace laser. It’s very nice. Still, there is a lot to be said for big bullets that go fast.

I need to put a rack on the utility cart, which I keep calling a golf cart. If I have a rack, I can put an AK-47 on it and forget about pistols.

I’ve learned a lot about steel targets. I learned that tilting targets downward to send metal into the ground isn’t as effective as it sounds. The stuff that bounces off a target isn’t bullets that bounce in one direction. Bullets splatter like water balloons when they hit steel, and the metal sprays back in a cone-shaped splash that covers something like 20°. You would have to tilt your target a lot to eliminate, say, 95% of the spall.

Based on my knowledge of physics, I think it makes more sense to use the lightest targets you can and make sure they swing freely. A target that moves a lot when a bullet hits it will take momentum (and velocity) away from the bullet, so fragments traveling toward a shooter won’t move as fast. That’s my theory.

If a target is infinitely hard and heavy, none of a bullet’s momentum will go into it, so all of the bullet’s energy will go into the formation of the spall, the spall’s velocity, and things like sound and heat. If a target is light, a lot of the bullet’s momentum, and therefore energy, will be transferred to it when the target swings. That leaves less energy to propel the spall back at your face or crotch or whatever. If you’re going to be hit with spall, slow is better than fast.

I learned that you don’t need anything thicker than 3/8″ for anything up to a .308. I have 3 1/2″-thick targets. Next time, I’ll go thinner.

I think I want 4 more small targets and one big one. Big targets just aren’t challenging for most guns, but I would like to have a big gong for shooting rifles with iron sights. You need to be a hundred yards back to shoot steel safely with a centerfire rifle, and I am not all that confident in my iron sight rifle skills. Also, I may want to shoot relatively inaccurate guns like the AK-47.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to shoot the .204 Ruger at steel. When velocity gets too high, steel can be damaged, and damage makes it reflect bullets. The .204 goes nearly 4000 fps.

I highly recommend you try steel. Paper is great, but it’s limited in what it can do for you, and steel is much more fun.

New Toy Graces the Compound

I finished building my steel gong stand!

I was so excited when I finished, I took the stand to the pasture and started shooting after 7 p.m. Here are some shots of the gongs after a few rounds from 50 feet.

My squirrel rage now has a ready outlet year-round.

I didn’t realize steel was so liberating. With paper targets, I concentrate on my grip, pull, sight picture, breath control, and whatever else matters, and I try to put shots into the tiniest area possible. With steel, you just aim in the general direction of the gong and let fly. This is what shooting used to be like when I was a kid, terrorizing my neighborhood with BB guns.

It’s interesting to see how the paint holds up. The black stuff is truck bed coating, and it seems to be holding onto the gongs in spite of being blasted with CCI Choot Em’s. The orange paint is plain old Rust-Oleum, and it comes right off. Maybe I can find orange truck bed coating somewhere. I don’t expect gongs to stay pretty forever, but it would be nice to do better than this.

I shot these gongs with my Marlin Model 60, and it worked so well, we have reconciled. The Model 60 is a great gun, as long as you spend a lot of money upgrading it and then force yourself not to think of what’s inside it. The inner workings of a Model 60 are not a lot better than those of a Daisy BB gun.

When I got my Model 60 in 2018, I found that it shot 4″ groups at 50 feet. I sent it for warranty work, and Marlington replaced it. They couldn’t make it work any better than I could. The new one worked okay for a brief moment, and then the magazine tube fell out. After that, I put it away. I figured I would send it to Remlin eventually.

I decided to fix it myself. I bought a new pin to hold the tube in. Pins like this are supposed to be so tight they have to be hammered in. My new pin went right in with a push from my fingernail. The band it fit into had an oversized hole.

I bought a new band and a second pin for insurance. Then I Loctited the first replacement pin in place. If it falls out, I’ll replace the band and put the second replacement pin in it. One hopes the hole in the second band is not oversized.

The Marlin has a peep sight, which I installed shortly before the magazine fell out. The original sights are pretty cheap. The peep sight is really nice. I love peep (or “aperture”) sights. I had one on my old Crosman M1 BB gun. Regrettably, it accounted for a number of unwary lizards on my block.

Let’s tick off all the stuff the Marlin has now. I altered the stock myself and installed a correct sling stud, and then I added a sling. I put an MCARBO trigger in it, which, while not stellar, is worlds better than OEM. I installed a recoil spring that allows the use of hyper ammunition. Finally, I put a Williams peep sight set on it. So for a little over $300, you can have a pretty good $180 .22 rifle.

The Marlin is a beautiful gun. The stock is highly figured for some reason, and the basic lines of the gun have always been great. The balance and handling give it a sweet feel. It cycles well. It’s accurate. I just won’t think about what’s inside it.

POT METAL! POT METAL!

That just slipped out.

I feel like I need more gongs. I didn’t realize they were addictive.

Can’t wait to blast these with a 10mm pistol. Should be a joy.

My Coronavirus Ordeal Intensifies

The coronavirus epidemic just got real to me. McDonald’s has stopped making all-day breakfast.

Prior to this, I was telling everyone the epidemic was a great misfortune but not a catastrophe. Now I must agree with the toilet paper hoarders. Suffering has begun in earnest.

Today I did my best to adapt. I was determined to be strong. I made myself a big slice of country ham and several bacon-grease biscuits with red eye gravy. I’m no longer sobbing now. I think I can handle this.

Yesterday I learned that two counties not far away have put lockdowns into effect. That was disturbing. It made me wonder if my county was next. I live in the most conservative county (i.e. “sane”) county in the state, so I have good reason to hope for relatively intelligent leadership.

I checked the local paper’s site, and it says they’re not locking us down. They closed Internet cafes, though. Not sure what that’s all about.

Honestly, if I’m locked down, I plan to go out anyway. They don’t have enough cops to prevent it, and there will be enough “essential” businesses open to let me blend it with law-abiders. In truth, I will probably end up obeying the law, because the businesses I frequent are generally on the essential list. Grocery stores. Hardware stores. Places that sell firearms.

I assume this county wouldn’t be crazy enough to close gun stores. Many liberal-dominated cities are shutting them down. It’s obvious that gun stores are essential. The right to self-defense is extremely important. Liberals don’t see it that way, however, and they are always looking for underhanded, back-door methods of taking away our civil rights.

If the disease becomes widespread here, I’ll probably be more careful, but right now, getting this disease is like winning the lottery. It’s not common at all when compared to colds and the flu.

I’m disappointed to see that the government plans to hand out over a trillion dollars in totally unnecessary vote-buying tax money. Our economic problems are being caused by panic, not a relatively minor epidemic. We will have higher taxes because of the handout. We should just get out of the way of progress and let capitalism do its thing.

Here’s something funny: leftist Sweden isn’t imprisoning its citizens. They’re taking a relaxed approach, because, hello…it’s the correct thing to do. Evidently someone over there is capable of understanding simple math. You have to wonder how America’s leftists will take this.

Sweden won’t have a catastrophe. Even Italy didn’t have a catastrophe. No country will.

Here’s something that will raise your spirits or give you heartburn, depending on how you look at it: the lady in charge of the White House response says the initial coronavirus predictions may have been WILDLY (my word, not hers) exaggerated. Welcome to Club Reason!

I’ll embed a video of her appearance. If you don’t want to watch it, I’ll mention a key point. Initial death toll prediction for the UK: 500,000. Current prediction: 20,000.

So they were only off by 96%. No biggie.

Extrapolate to the US, and you get around 80,000. Terrible? Well…it’s the same number of people the CDC says we lost to the seasonal flu last year. Did you mourn all last year? Were there mass cremations? Did we shut down stores and tell grown people they were grounded? Don’t think so.

Here’s a screaming uninentional admission from the video: there is no antibody test. Hello? Remember me writing about the Chinese researchers who said the false-positive rate was 40-80%? Am I a genius because I read a news story and told other people about it?

If you don’t have an antibody test, you’re guessing. They’re judging people by symptoms, and coronavirus isn’t the only bug that causes respiratory failure.

It looks like we’re going to find out we misdiagnosed a huge number of flu patients. The epidemic’s numbers may collapse inward. For this, we deprived each other of toilet paper.

Should we have locked the country down just to be safe? Of course not. We already knew, from looking at the numbers available to us, that this disease was not going to spread that widely. It would have been inexplicable had it come to the US and hit a large percentage of the population. That would have been totally inconsistent with the way it worked in other countries.

We should have sheltered fat people and old people from the disease. I’ll bet we could do a lot of that with a trillion dollars of tax money. Think about this: even if you spend a trillion dollars, if you let people work while you spend it, you have earnings to mitigate the loss.

Not that I think we need to spend a trillion dollars to help “bubble people.” I’m just using the figure we’re actually spending. We could do it for nearly nothing.

It’s scary being part of an unthinking herd. Even if you know they’re wrong, you can still get swept over the cliff with the lemmings. Thank God I’m in the country and among conservatives.

In other news, I watched a Hickok45 video this morning. He’s the old guy in Tennessee who shoots steel in his backyard. He reviewed a Glock 20, which is a full-size 10mm pistol. I was glad to see this, because I ordered a Glock 20. I already have a Glock 29, which is the compact version, but I thought it would be nice to have a bigger one with a bigger magazine, to wear in my yard. I don’t want a heavy pistol bogging me down in the grocery store, and I want to keep my out-and-about gun in a pocket, but it’s okay to have a big carry pistol displayed openly at home.

Should I be content with a compact in the car. I don’t know, but I can legally put an AK47 in the backseat, so it doesn’t matter. I used to keep a similar rifle under the seat of my truck. I’ll tell you what. In a traffic dispute with a carload of bullies, nothing gets you respect like a rifle with a 30-round magazine.

When I saw that ammo hoarding was starting up, I ordered myself some 10mm bullets, primers, brass, and powder. I did not hoard. To hoard is to buy more than is reasonable. Anything up to 1,000 rounds, in a particular caliber and load, is reasonable. Back during the Obama panic, people were buying pallets of ammunition, and a lot of them were flipping them on Gunbroker. That’s hoarding.

Anyone who says a thousand rounds is a hoard is not a good shooter, because that person doesn’t practice. If you practice, you know you can shoot a thousand rounds in a week.

I have another Youtube favorite: Paul Harrell. He’s a true expert. He has won prizes in tons of shooting competitions, and he has been through a bunch of military schools. He was a military instructor. He even killed a guy with a deer rifle. The man was attacking Harrell and his wife, who were on foot, in a pickup truck. Harrell put two rounds through him and got charged with manslaughter, but he was acquitted.

Harrell is a remarkable person. He’s generally a class act, although he has given people the finger in a couple of videos. He’s very smart and very patient. He would have made an exceptional attorney. He thinks his videos through very carefully, and he’s extremely thorough.

About 20% of gun lovers are absolute jerks who ought to be muzzled. Harrell knows this. He knows that no matter how carefully he words his videos, some couch commando will pop up in a comment and “correct” him. Watching him speak is like watching George W. Bush deliver the carefully constructed messages his team crafted in anticipation of leftist distortions.

Recently, Harrell was attacked by a much less popular creator: Caleb Giddings. Giddings was on a “reality” show featuring people who shot well. It was actually a multi-episode game show. He got weeded out and lost, but he still has an ego that won’t quit.

Harrell posted a video about shooting revolvers, and this set Giddings, a competition revolver shooter and former insurance agent, off. Giddings posted a response in which he accused Harrell of ignorance.

I’ll embed the video, but I don’t recommend watching it.

Giddings used the AH word to describe Harrell, and in comments, he made very arrogant remarks about his own shooting ability, compared to Harrell’s. He said something about Harrell’s championships lacking certification from recognized bodies.

Giddings drank Scotch all through is own video, which kind of looks bad given that it was a gun video. Guns and liquor aren’t supposed to be seen together. In Florida, alcoholics and potheads are legally barred from concealed carry, and this is probably true elsewhere. The federal NICS form lists drug and alcohol abuse as things that will prevent a transfer.

I have to admit, I’ve had more than a couple of beers while carrying. This was a long time ago. I wasn’t thinking. It’s a big deal, however. I rarely have more than one drink now, so it won’t be an issue ever again.

Harrell got fed up and responded to Giddings with a one-hour spanking that has to rank as one of Youtube’s all-time harshest rebuttals. He proved that Giddings said a lot of things that weren’t even close to true, and then he crushed what was left of his reputation by displaying a table full of awards. He took a plastic bin full of medals and dumped it on the table.

I don’t know who is the better shooter, but it would take at least two people to carry Harrell’s awards, and he even wins tomahawk-throwing matches, which is a little ridiculous, to be honest. Giddings has his credits listed on various gun-related sites on the web, but they don’t provide long lists of marksmanship championships, and knowing this guy, if there was such a list, it would be on every site he’s involved with.

My guess is that he would fare badly against Harrell.

A bunch of Harrell’s half-million fans went to Giddings’ video and left uncomplimentary comments. The dislike/like ratio was very high.

What did Giddings do? Did he admit fault? Actually, he turned the comments off and hid the likes and dislikes. This is not helping him. It makes him look cowardly and even more dishonest, and on top of that, he can’t get rid of the comments on Harrell’s video, which has a much bigger audience. Giddings only has about 50,000 subscribers, and he will probably have considerably fewer tomorrow.

His personality is very unpleasant. He drips venom. He seems very insecure. He doesn’t honor other people at all. He contemns them, and he does it from a pretty unimpressive position. He’s like a movie character who makes you long for the moment when he finally gets punched in the face. He is not someone you would want to know, unless you’re also a jerk.

Giddings is currently in the Air Force, so I guess he didn’t make it as a professional shooter or insurance salesman. If he had the kind of talent he thinks he does, he would be making a living shooting, like Jerry Miculek. If Miculek acted the way Giddings does, people might understand, but it looks awful coming from a semi-pro with a day job.

It’s very interesting. It reminds me of the days when blogs were actually blogs and not corporate pseudopods. Giddings trolled Harrell, who had done nothing to provoke him, and he got bitten very deeply in the rear end. The Youtube crowd wasn’t having his nonsense.

The whole kerfuffle makes me think of things I’ve done and said in the past. God is love, and his children should also be love. Men should be men, not boys. Not arrogant punks who have no appreciation for anything. I’m glad I’m finally improving.

It’s too bad there are so many insecure macho men in the gun crowd. They ruin things for everyone. I quit using The High Road because there were so many jewels filling the board with poison. I joined another board, and I make liberal use of their “ignore” feature. When someone says something nasty, I try not to respond at all. If I do respond, I try to say something mature but clear. The ignore list is wonderful.

Similarly, I quit watching Gordon Ramsay again. Earlier in the week, Youtube started suggesting his videos again. I don’t know why. I watched several, and then I quit and deleted them from my history. If you keep something bad in your history, Youtube will recommend similar things. Ramsay is a mess. He spreads hate everywhere he goes. I don’t care if it’s an act (it’s not). I don’t need that circulating in my blood.

Every day, when I look at Youtube, I tell it to stop recommending certain channels. The Mormons. News stations. Political vloggers. Movie-related channels. Keep that mess. It makes my stomach hurt.

I guess I’ll try to finish my steel target array today. Then I’ll do a lie-packed video about Jerry Miculek and see if I can get some attention!

No Soy Here

The Hickok45 starter kit is shaping up.

For those who don’t know, Hickok45 is a Youtuber who is so popular, he makes a living from videos. He shoots steel targets and containers of soda in his backyard. Wishing you had thought of it first? Who isn’t?

I have a berm and a target stand made from a realtor’s “for sale” sign frame. The stand is great for paper targets. I decided I wanted some steel gongs, too, so I needed a second stand.

The other day, I posted a video of the stand without paint and the bolts that tighten it. Today I have a photo of the [virtually] finished product. I just put the paint on it.

As you can see, it now has T-handles on top of the little sleeves that hold the crossmember in place. Those handles are made from steel I cut from a Hawaiian sling spear today. I welded them across the tops of a couple of 1/2″ black oxide bolts I happened to have on hand. With the handles in place, I can tighten the crossmember in position without a wrench.

I used Rust-Oleum truck bed coating to paint the stand. Truck bed coating is unbelievably tough. I screwed the bolts in as far as I could and painted the stand with them in place. This covered the exposed parts of the bolts without gunking up the male and female threads that actually hold the stand together.

The stand is surprisingly non-wobbly. The first time I fitted it up, I thought it needed more of an angle between the end supports, but with the bolts tight, it doesn’t move.

When the stand is fully painted and dry, I’ll mount the gongs on attachments made from pipe and flat bar. I already have the materials.

The friction from the gongs swinging back and forth will eventually cause rust, but come on. This is going to a cow pasture. It’s not a bench for Princess Kate to sit on. I guess I could wrap the abraded areas with Gorilla Tape before slipping the gongs onto the crossmember. That would greatly extend the rust-free period.

I don’t know how long Gorilla Tape lasts outdoors.

It’s very satisfying to be able to fabricate steel projects. For a long time, I was not able to do this, either because of lack of equipment or lack of skill. Now I have plenty of equipment and just enough skill.

Right now I’m going to make pizza. The faux plague and hysteria-related food supply problems got me thinking about making pizza with supermarket ingredients. My local Winn-Dixie sells whole-milk grated mozzarella, which is a dream come true, because part-skim mozzarella is generally nasty.

People snapped spaghetti sauce up after the insanity started, but I found some. I would be stunned if it was anything like as good as the pizza sauce I make myself. But it could be acceptable for times when the real thing isn’t available. Maybe it will even surprise me.

I hate to say this, but canned sauce has gotten so good, there isn’t much point in making sauce. I mean for pasta, not pizza. You can’t throw pasta sauce on pizza and get optimal results. Pasta and pizza are not the same. I can make pasta sauce somewhat better, but I would call it a 10% difference, if that.

I used to eat Paul Newman’s sauce sometimes, but plain old Ragu is better. They have a ton of different flavors, though, so you have to pick and choose.

Today I plan to make thin pizza with pepperoni, pineapple, onions, and ricotta. I make pan pizza better. I want to brush up my thin-crust technique.

On a related note, I wrote about a local chain called Five Star. I had a pepperoni slice that made a great impression on me, so I bought a small pie this week. It turns out their cheese is not fatty enough. The pepperoni slice was saved by the fat from the meat, so I didn’t realize the cheese was flawed. The pie I bought had little brown dots on it. The signature of dry cheese. Also, the crust was bloated, like Domino’s.

I think they would do a fine job if I ordered thin crust and a meat topping.

I tried their garlic rolls. Not good. The bread was fine, but they put some kind of salty yellow sauce on it. I assume it’s margarine. I don’t think they could afford to use that much butter. The garlic was burnt. Maybe I could make it work if I got rolls without sauce and nuked my own garlic.

I could make rolls today. I’ll try to resist.

Ballpark Prediction Equation Survives Another Day

I am still alive, and I salute all those who are in the same condition in spite of the underachieving coronavirus plague.

I have good news to report. After several days with no changes, my coronavirus forecast equation, which will be a primary source when I create my upcoming Coronavirus Hysteria Index, is doing extremely well. The equation predicted 375,977 infections for this morning, and the actual figure was 387,382. I am trying to predict the Johns Hopkins running total, so please don’t make the mistake of correcting the actual total in a comment. It’s irrelevant. I don’t have data for it.

You would expect the actual, known-to-God-alone graph and the Johns Hopkins graph to run more or less parallel anyway, even if the former graph has higher numbers.

The difference between the actual and predicted values is so small, it’s insignificant. It would be amazing if an armchair epidemiologist were within 200% of the correct number, and I’m within something like 3%.

I don’t know if I’ll make any more changes to the equation. I would be excited to be within 20%, and there is no hope, short of a miracle, that I can improve on 3%.

Will the equation hold up? That’s the question.

Of course, it will not hold up. As noted earlier, it goes infinite with time, and there are only 7.7 billion people to infect. All epidemics plateau and go away to nothing or a very low level of infection. This one, will, too. There is a future moment for which my equation predicts an infection total of 4 trillion, and by that time, my equation will be pretty useless. I have high hopes that it will do well while the infection is still ramping up. That’s about it.

My best wild guess is that we will see a plateau within the next month. Before a plateau, of course, the infection rate will slow down. If the beginning of the plateau, which is something you have to define arbitrarily, is on April 20, then there will have to be a number of days prior to April 20 during which the rate drops off pretty quickly.

What happens when coronavirus goes away?

I was concerned about that yesterday, because you can have this bug more than once, and they don’t expect it to vanish entirely (although it could). What if we always have COVID-19 with us, from now on? The question disturbed me.

I don’t think it’s a big deal now. Officials seem to think vaccinations will work, and it won’t take that long to develop them, so within a year or two, you’ll be able to protect yourself.

This won’t help gullible, dangerous people who keep diseases alive by refusing to get their kids vaccinated, but then coronavirus doesn’t like kids, so maybe that won’t be a big factor. I’m not sure whether kids are relatively immune or they just get light symptoms. If they get infected just like the rest of us, they will spread the virus, so that will be bad.

I saw a piece of bad information on a website. They said no one is immune to this virus. That’s wrong. No virus can infect every person on the planet. There are many human beings who have never been ill in their lives. Look it up. There are definitely people who can’t get this virus, and there are people who can be infected yet can’t develop symptoms. The symptoms are what kill you.

What they should have said is that the majority of us are not immune, and they should have added that a whole lot of people get no symptoms or very, very mild symptoms.

When this is over, I will think a little bit, but not too much, about future preparations. I will put a few things in a closet, and I don’t mean a big closet. I’ll try to have enough food to keep me alive for a month, I guess. Beyond a month, there isn’t anything I can do. I can’t grow enough food to feed myself indefinitely.

I may pack away some more ammunition. That’s always a good idea, because the price keeps going up.

What did Jesus say about the future? He predicted wars, famines, and plagues. Does a mild problem like coronavirus count? I don’t know, but more stuff is in the pipeline, and it may be worse. We’re already having a sort of famine because selfish people who aren’t all that bright are filling their houses with food the rest of us want. Not much of a famine, but it’s no fun having to go to two different stores to find a baking potato.

The disasters aren’t the main problem. The main problem is the pig-like way people respond to them. Coronavirus hasn’t caused a single shortage. People have.

It’s strange that we can suffer lack while we are surrounded by an abundance of food. It’s there, even if you can’t see it. It’s in warehouses and in the houses of a few people who should be banned from grocery stores. It flows into stores every day, and the worst people in the world scoop it up before you get there.

I don’t believe in creating a huge personal cache of stuff. Jesus told us to take no thought for such things. If he won’t take care of us, there is no point in worshiping him. He gave us all sorts of great promises, and we should be connected with him and receiving his help. If you reject God, well, maybe hoarding is your best bet. But it’s no substitute for favor. God’s help can’t be defeated by people with bulging grocery carts. You can’t keep food away from me. Only God can do that.

I try not to scrap for things like a starving dog. When my sister conned my dad into buying her a house, and he asked for my approval because it affected my inheritance, I told him to do whatever he wanted. When my grandparents died, and some relatives competed over their belongings, I didn’t get involved. When you lower yourself to the level of a looter, what good does it do you? You get a bunch of things you like, but you become a filthy creature no one can respect, and you find yourself in a world of stress, striving, and defensiveness. It’s a bad trade.

The Bible compares God’s children to eagles, not maggots.

In the end, I did very well in spite of failing to engage, so it looks like I took the correct course.

It’s sad to think of all the people I care about whom I can count on to try to stick it to me at the slightest sign of pressure. You’re in the same boat. Something you should think about.

Before I go, more interesting information. I found a site saying it is estimated that the swine flu pandemic of 2009 caused 123,000-200,000 deaths, and that since then, the same virus has killed many more people. The article was written last summer, so it’s not someone trying to stifle COVID-19 fears. In 2009, we didn’t hide in our houses or shut down the country. We had ample access to toilet paper.

There are pandemics we barely notice.

It’s starting to look like the biggest change we’ve seen isn’t an attack from a new virus. It’s our new, snowflaky inclination to react to mildly bad news with hysteria.

People just can’t understand how many of us there are, and how little 100,000 deaths mean in a population this size. Not that we’ve seen anything like 100,000 deaths from coronavirus. In order to have a real global plague, we would have to see something like 400,000,000 deaths in less than a year. A slow plague isn’t a plague.

In a real plague, we would see hospital corridors filling up all over the world. We would see government trucks going around to get bodies. Instead, we’re seeing news stories about isolated individuals. An obese person here; a celebrity there. The fact that the press is stretching so hard to find stories should tell you everything you need to know.

If people were better at math, you would be able to buy hand sanitizer right now. I feel sure of it.

Innocent by Reason of Other People’s Insanity

It looks like I’m hoarding. But I didn’t mean to.

One reason I’m hoarding is that I was a hoarder before hoarding was cool. I started shopping for things like targets, pistols, and ammunition before I had any idea the American public would go nuts and start buying up toilet paper.

I went to Gander Outdoors to look at a Glock, which is probably pointless, since they are all nearly exactly the same, and I saw Aguila 9mm selling very cheap. I didn’t even want it, but I bought hundreds of rounds. I knew I would use it some day. Pay a little now, or pay a lot later.

I bought a neat Colt Woodsman pistol, and I felt I needed to quit relying on Remington’s not-quite-ideal Golden Bullets, so I ordered a fairly heavy box of CCI Mini-mags. I also bought a huge number of small pistol primers, because I was thinking about reloading. This was all before I realized people were going to snap up gun stuff. I also bought a large package of .50 AE, because I happened to be shooting that gun at the time.

I already had enough ammunition of other types to require many trips to move it from one room to another. This is just how bargain ammo shoppers roll. I accumulated this ammunition over a period of years.

The last time I bought toilet paper, I figured I might as well quit playing around and buy a lot so I would save money. When the panic set in, I still had something like 17 rolls.

I use disinfectant wipes when I go to the dump and when I leave the grocery store. I’ve been working on the same can for quite a while. After the supply dried up, I figured I was going to have to make that can last. Then I went upstairs and checked my bathroom. I had two cans that were nearly full. For me, that’s probably a 6-month supply.

I always have a lot of alcohol. I have parrots, and I used to have a parent with dementia, so I use alcohol to wipe things down all day. On top of the isopropyl alcohol I had on hand when coronavirus popped up, I had a big jug of denatured alcohol in my workshop. I haven’t checked, but my guess is that microbes don’t like it any more than isopropyl.

I checked. The Internet says it works great.

Factoid: coronaviruses have oily outer coatings, so solvent disinfectants work well on them, and soap kills them. Lysol wipes aren’t that great for coronavirus. But they will still help me when I visit the dump.

Since the Purge began, I’ve made another gun buy. It took slightly more effort than usual, but I got it done, and I got what I wanted. I needed reloading supplies, because the only good store 10mm ammunition is expensive. I was afraid I was out of 10mm powder. I couldn’t remember what I used last time. When I looked into it, I realized I had probably used Alliant No. 7, of which I have a large quantity. I also had large pistol primers because I had made a big buy while the Obama panic was subsiding. I thought I was out of bullets, though. I found 300 of the ones I like, so I ordered them. Then I looked at what I already had. Turned out I had around 200, sitting around. Oops.

I had to get some 10mm brass. I bought direct from the people who make it. I’m really hoping I don’t turn out to have hundreds of cases I forgot about, moldering in a storage box.

But it’s pretty likely.

I was planning to do some .308 shooting before crazy got ahold of us, and after it did, I was determined to go through with my plan. I found 300 rounds of match ammunition, which no one actually needs during an epidemic. If it were crisis ammunition, I would have bought something made for killing game.

Do I feel bad about any of these buys? Actually, I am having misgivings about the 10mm pistol. I don’t really need it. I just thought it would be handy, and I was concerned that the hysterical mob might make it impossible to get another one for several months. In retrospect, I think maybe I should have left it for someone else. To the person who needs this gun, I would like to provide a tip: Democrats say attackers will leave you alone if you soil your pants. They really say that, and I assume they wouldn’t say it unless they had done the research.

That was humor. Calm down.

The 10mm reloading stuff does not tickle my conscience. I did end up with more than I wanted, but no desperate person is running to gun stores demanding 10mm components for reloading. If you’re into reloading, you have ammunition already. The desperate are trying to find factory ammunition because they can’t make their own. Besides, 500 rounds don’t constitute a hoard. It’s three days of casual shooting, plus a couple of magazines for home defense.

Last week, I went to the store. I wanted to buy little red potatoes to go with a pork roast. I could not find loose potatoes, so I bought a big bag. This week, I went back, and I bought two New York strips for $5.49 per pound. Guess what? People are hoarding potatoes now. Unbelievable. The store did not have a single potato. But I did. I still had half a bag of red potatoes at home.

You can’t keep potatoes forever. They sprout or they rot. Hoarding them is a bad idea. What happened to make people hoard them? Did Oprah tell all her girls to buy potatoes?

It’s gross, the way women worship her. Millions of women think she’s a genius. She’s so influential, Weight Watchers pays her to do ads, and she’s obese! Unless she converts to Christianity and gets help from God, she will probably be obese until she dies. Obviously, she doesn’t know how to be thin, but they pay her, and many women listen.

If they want me to listen, they’ll have to hire Kate Moss.

Why would you hire an obese person to give people dieting advice? It’s like hiring Amy Winehouse to counsel drug addicts.

I was running out of paper towels when the insanity started. I found some online, through Office Depot. I only wanted 6 rolls, but when I bought a small package, the deal fell through. I had to buy 15. So now I have more than twice the number of paper towel rolls I would usually have, and because I bought an off brand, I got a deal.

I just found more alcohol in an upstairs bathroom. Sorry, but I did.

When are people going to start hoarding fuel? They’re hoarding water, which has a zero percent chance of a supply problem. Why not fuel? Maybe I need to fill my cans in case people get even crazier. I don’t think they’ll hoard fuel, but I didn’t think they would hoard water and potatoes, either.

I guess fuel won’t be a problem, because the supply is great and people have nowhere to hoard it. If you’re an average person, you can fill your car and maybe a few cans, but that’s it. We only have fuel shortages when the supply is bad.

Oh, buy. I checked. No gas cans at Home Depot! People never cease to disappoint me. I have more cans than I know what to do with, so it doesn’t matter.

Why are things going so well here? Here is what God has to say, in Psalm 37:

The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.

Am I saying God rewards me because I’m a wonderful person? Of course not. That’s obviously untrue. My faults are not hard to see. But you don’t have to be perfect to get God’s protection. Give your life to him, be baptized with the Holy Spirit, move in the gifts and fruit of the Spirit, develop a powerful prayer habit, claim God’s promises, focus on being changed internally, and you will meet the criteria.

I am trying to keep listening to God so I don’t mess up my protection. I’m not saying this will work. I’m just saying it has worked for me for the last 12 years or so. That’s a pretty good run, for someone who is wrong.

If it works for 30 more years, I’ll be dead before my streak ends. WINNING!

When the real estate recession hit, God said, “This recession is not for you,” and it turned out to be true. I didn’t have any problems. Why should 2020 be any different? Same God.

The best retirement account is the one you build up through years of prayer. It’s an account in heaven, where nothing can touch it. I haven’t knocked myself out trying to make money, but I’ve been extremely consistent with daily prayer, for a very long time. I’m doing fine, and I live far from areas where the coronavirus psychosis is making people suffer. I don’t even have a mayor, so I am less likely to have my civil rights taken away during this ordeal.

It’s not good enough just to pray to “God.” You have to know JESUS, and you have to be full of the Holy Spirit. “God” doesn’t mean much unless the word is connected with Jesus, because to reject Jesus is to reject God. If you don’t know the Holy Spirit, you won’t have good communication with God, so you’ll lack guidance, and you’ll get out of his will, even when you think you’re doing things that make him happy. To be out of his will is to lack is full support. You can be a missionary and fail to please God.

As for the virus, it looks like my forecast equation is still doing quite well, although the actual numbers are still diverging upward from my prediction. It’s not a big deal, because a true plague would infect more people by orders of magnitude.

I check figures in the morning, and I saw something like 276,000 today. It’s higher now. My prediction for this morning was about 252,000. If this were a plague, we would be looking at hundreds of millions by now. Even if we are missing many cases, I am still being vindicated by the data. Even if the actual case number is 10 million, we’re not seeing anything like flu rates, and we have had plenty of time for the infection to spread.

Why is Italy doing so badly? Maybe it’s because Southern Europeans aren’t as clean as Northern Europeans. Sorry, but it’s true. The Germans and Scandinavians are much cleaner than people to their south. That would explain the high Italian transmission rate, but why are so many dying? The German death total is 73, and the Italians have lost 4,000. It can’t be because Italian cases have had longer to worsen, because China has a lower death rate than Italy, after 4 months.

If you take the figures for cases by nation and deaths by nation side by side, you will see that the order is different. Countries that are high on one list are low on the other.

Are more Italians obese? We know they’re older than other Europeans, but it’s hard to believe it makes that much difference. I just checked, and the median age, which ought to be close to an average, is higher in Germany than in Italy.

The average age of victims in Italy is supposedly around 80. This would explain the high death rate, but why are so many being infected? I suppose the general dirtiness of Southern Europeans is the explanation. They must not be protecting older people, and older people are probably dirtier anyway.

It makes people angry when you say one ethnic group is cleaner than another. So what? Read about personal habits in places like China and Iran. Gross. There are places in Africa where people use their fingers to shove food in other people’s mouths, as a sign of affection. Is it okay to admit this happens? Koreans eat out of the same dishes when they have meals. My family never did.

I would say my mother’s family was in the 90th percentile in terms of cleanliness, and my dad’s was much lower. His family was closer to what people in Kentucky call “white trash.” Southerners from good families are phobic about cleanliness, but poor Southerners will sit at a dinner table and scoop mashed potatoes from the common bowl with their forks. I picked up some of my dad’s filthiness and some of my mother’s cleanliness, and I have been trying to improve all my life.

When I was a kid, I had a friend whose mother was a Lebanese Arab. She wouldn’t let him go to Lebanon. I asked her why, and she said, “Because of the damn dirty Arabs.” She was afraid he would die from food poisoning. Different cultures have different standards. I’ve cleaned out apartments after Hispanic tenants left, and I saw things you would not believe. There are entire apartment buildings in Miami that smell like cockroach manure. My time in such buildings is the only reason I know what cockroach manure smells like. Ordinarily, there isn’t enough of it in a building to create a smell you can detect.

Speaking of Miami, I just got a really annoying text from Miami-Dade County, in SPANISH. It looks like it says, “Since we’re all staying at home, why not fill out the census?” Says it’s from Alcalde Gimenez. I absolutely hate being dragged into anything involving Miami. Their site says they will leave you alone if you text “STOP” back to them, but how did they get this number to begin with? That place is like a stink that won’t wash off.

Maybe old Italians are dying because they’re Italians. Imagine all the great food and drink an 80-year-old Italian has had. Maybe Italy had a high smoking rate when these people were young, and their lungs aren’t strong enough to stand up to the disease. Anyway, it sure looks like Italy is letting the aged down.

Journalists here in the US are trying to tell us young, healthy people are in great danger. They put out a story about a family in New Jersey. Several of them died after a gathering. I saw a photo of the family. Everyone visible in the photo was obese. The skinniest one was a lady who had to be 40 pounds overweight. None looked to be under 45. Most were older. They looked awful. Saggy and weak, with terrible posture and crepey skin. They were exactly the kind of people this disease kills. Reading the twisted coverage from journalists is very trying.

Coincidentally, or not, the sick family in New Jersey is Italian.

If Bernie Sanders were president, we would be hearing about his brilliant response, and journalists would be looking for ways to reach back and blame George Bush for his failures. They hate Trump and are conditioned to lie about him, and this is an election year, making things worse. They also love exaggerating crises because it makes them money and builds careers. It’s a perfect storm for propaganda. Until it becomes hard to find a new case anywhere, it will be impossible to get them to admit the epidemic isn’t that bad.

If you’re looking for a Glock 10mm pistol, I apologize, because it’s on its way to me. I felt like God said I should buy it. I pray before I buy just about anything. Maybe I was wrong. I don’t think it would matter, because there are still used guns all over the place. Nothing interesting is happening with the used guns on my Gunbroker watch list. There’s even a new Tanfoglio Witness that hasn’t sold.

Just try to be nice to the home invaders. It could work.

The other stuff was hoarded in advance, making it unintentional, and intent is an element of hoarding. Before you know there’s a shortage, hoarding is just smart shopping.

Gun-Buying Panic Finally Gains Some Logical Support

What is there to write about, except coronavirus?

I guess I could write about my mother’s giant credenza. I think it’s called a credenza, anyway. You would have to ask a guy who likes musicals. It’s an eight-foot-long china cabinet. I got rid of it today. It’s on the way to a consignment shop.

My dad didn’t buy my mother nice furniture or cars. We always got Buicks at cost from my grandfather’s dealership. We got used furniture or things from outlets. Then when my parents divorced, my dad got a girlfriend and let her fill his house with Miami Vice-style furniture that cost a fortune. It included a thousand-dollar credenza. Made from particle board.

My mother earned her own money after the divorce, and when my parents reunited, she bought furniture from an old lady who bought estate goods. That’s where the credenza came from. In addition to being a gigantic, heavy piece of furniture no heterosexual man needs, it’s a reminder of family dysfunction.

Now that it’s gone, I can move my indoor workbenches downstairs into the dining room, which I have been using as a storage area. It will be nice not walking upstairs every time I need a wrench.

If I leave this place, it will be a blessing to be rid of heavy furniture I never liked to begin with. Moving costs money. On the way out of Miami, a mover tried to charge my dad a grand for packing and moving one mirror.

I still have my mother’s bedroom furniture, which is not particularly good. It’s real wood and all that, but the fit and finish are not great. I think it was from an outlet. It’s about like Thomasville, but it seems like the quality control is lacking. No way am I paying anyone to move it. I have the first dresser my parents bought when they married. I already gave away the matching bed. When I was in high school, the dresser and bed were in my bedroom. High school itself was fine, but my life at home was not, so I look forward to not having that dresser.

I also want to unload her first set of sterling flatware. Both sets, in fact. The first set is just plain ugly, and the second set is ostentatious. It’s too fancy. I love my mother, but her taste was limited by her Eastern Kentucky roots.

Actually, now that I think about it, my grandmother had much better taste. That’s odd.

My mother collected Waterford crystal, which I do not like. It’s heavy and lacking in grace. Waterford makes fine vases and such, but no one wants a wine goblet that weighs a pound and looks like…a vase.

It would be nice to have heirlooms around, but what do you do when they’re ugly or they remind you of miserable times? The nice shotgun and terrible, cheap revolver I inherited from my grandfather remind me of good times. The furniture is different.

Actually, I inherited the shotgun from my dad. My grandmother gave it to him.

My dad’s mother, who did not give anyone a shotgun, knitted two afghans for our family. I threw one out a long time ago, and I’m still planning to take the other one to Goodwill. She was a very cold lady. She wasn’t nasty to us, but she had no interest in my sister or me. Didn’t send us Christmas gifts or cards. Didn’t call. On top of that, she liked olive green, which is a depressing color. Every time I look at anything she owned, I think about the fact that she was a stranger to me.

If the afghan were wool, I might be more reluctant to part with it. It’s synthetic.

I have the feeling that I’m cutting myself loose from things. Part of this involves my dad. Yesterday, I found out he had a Linkedin account, so I canceled it. I unsubscribed him from emails from the Kentucky Bar. I took him off a Morgan Stanley list.

I have canceled many accounts for him in the past. When an account has contacts, I look at them to see what kind of people he associated with. It’s interesting to see how many were the sort of people who take advantage of older men they think have money.

A woman who was an associate at his law firm emailed him a while back, out of the blue. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but then I decided to Google and see if she had divorced recently. I didn’t come up with anything. I emailed her from his account and let her know he had died. No response! Not a good sign. Seems pretty cold. But I can’t draw conclusions. Maybe my email went to her spam folder.

She and her husband have separate Facebook pages. His photo shows him with another man. Hers is a picture of a sunset. No human beings. There are also a couple of photos of her alone on a beach with her dog. Her husband tended to rub folks the wrong way. Maybe things didn’t work out.

It’s funny how smart you get when you get old. It’s too bad I didn’t have any older people to give me good advice when I was young.

It’s not exactly unheard-of for middle-aged women with financial problems to see older men as lifeboats. It’s a nasty business. When you start to fail, you don’t want to be at the mercy of someone who has been wishing for your death from the second the ring slipped on.

There were a couple of single women who emailed my dad regularly during his last years. I find it extremely hard to believe they were interested in him for reasons that were not financial. He was very overweight, and he was past 80. My grandfather had very young admirers when he was around 70, but he was tall and thin, and women had always liked him. Not everyone ages that way.

Anyway. Coronavirus. The epidemic is progressing very slowly, but the madness is still going viral, to use an appropriate metaphor. California’s governor just told his citizens they have to stay home. It’s an order. Oddly, he does not plan to enforce it. Because he can’t. Let’s be real. But he still had the nerve to issue it.

He says people can only go out for essential errands. He says you can’t go to work unless you’re in an essential business. I can already picture the confusion and inintended bad results. What if your essential errand involves a business that isn’t officially essential? Uh oh.

You can’t just imprison a whole state and expect it to work.

Here’s something weird: there are major cities where the mayors have banned the arrest of people who rob houses and commit other types of theft. I think the point is to reduce the load on skeletonized city employee rosters.

I’ll try to be helpful here. When you issue an order like that, you may think you’re saying, “We will not arrest people who steal.” What you’re really saying is, “Go out and steal, right now. You can even break in people’s houses.” That’s how people will take it. You’re also saying, “Buy guns and ammunition so you can protect your home or protect yourself while you steal.” You’re telling people the purge has commenced.

Supposedly, all sorts of hypocritical leftists (redundant) are dashing to gun stores to buy weapons they don’t know how to use. I’m sure this will end well. I wonder how many noobs got their hands pinched by semiauto slides at gun ranges today.

People who pretended to be against the Second Amendment are showing they’re all for it when they think they need it. Why didn’t they just admit it in the first place?

One big difference between leftism and conservatism is that leftism is often a pose. Leftists get to say all sorts of nice things they don’t mean. They get to virtue-signal. Leftist men do it to get gullible women in bed. Conservatism is different, because conservatives have to say things people don’t like to hear. Leftists are like divorced dads who fill their kids with candy and burgers on the weekend. Conservatives are like the moms who make them do their homework and brush their teeth. Naturally, leftism attracts more hypocrites.

With regard to the gun situation, people like me are sitting at home, relaxing. I have enough ammunition to start a South American insurgency or support a typical Tuesday in Baltimore. I didn’t buy it to shoot people, for the most part. I just like to buy in bulk and get good prices. I like shooting recreationally. In the past, I used to think a lot about defending my property, but the closer I get to God, the less that mindset appeals to me.

I’ve been thinking about getting a full-sized Glock. I used to have one. I bought it because my sister, whom I had helped push into rehab, was threatening to send her addict friends after me. They are very lucky she didn’t follow through. I sold it because I didn’t like the caliber or the memories.

The other day, I saw Jerry Miculek carrying at home. He’s a freak pistol shooter. I subscribed to his Youtube channel. He does things you would not believe. He said he carried openly while working on his property. I generally carry a compact Glock with 11 rounds in it. I had to ask myself why I was cheating myself. On my own property, I can carry anything I want. It doesn’t have to fit in a pocket.

I thought about getting a Glock 40. This is a full-size 10mm. I’m already set up for 10mm, so the caliber is not a problem.

I have to think about it. Carrying in a pocket is very nice. Holstered guns are a pain in the butt. They bump into things. They’re hard to draw. I can draw from a pocket in one second.

Added capacity would be nice, but I could just as easily put an extra magazine in another pocket.

A longer sight radius would make for better accuracy, but I shoot just as well with my compact as I do with a full-size 1911. If you’re an assailant within a hundred feet of me, you are in serious danger.

The only way to make a real step upward in long-range accuracy is to carry a long gun or use a red dot sight. I think. Not sure about the red dot. I know nearly nothing about them.

A Glock 40 would give me 16 shots without a magazine change. I now have 11. I should also admit I’m carrying a 9mm at the moment. The 10mm was heavier, and the gun I’m carrying is one I bought for my dad. It has sentimental value.

On the one hand, I have no interest in shooting people; I want to return good for evil. On the other, I still carry, because I might be wrong, or I might have to defend someone else, so shouldn’t I do it right?

Someone said I should get a long-slide Glock. They have longer barrels. The only real advantage is higher velocity. I’m getting 1250 fps from the 10mm right now, with 180-grain hollowpoints. That’s awfully good already. It’s about like a .357, with a bigger wound channel. How much overkill do you need?

I could try carrying a 1911 in a holster to see how I like it. I don’t think I have any defensive .45 ammo, though, unless I’ve forgotten where it is. I’ll bet it’s fun trying to buy it right now. I may have some defensive .38 Super ammo, but I don’t want to carry my pretty barbecue gun and scratch it up.

Actually, I do have a lot of .45 hollowpoints. I had forgotten. I made them myself. I don’t know how good the bullets are. I got them for nothing when I bought my press.

I’m trying to be improved by the pandemic instead of rotting. This morning, I felt that God was telling me to get a grip on myself. I was starting to be overly critical of the people who are panicking, as though I were somehow superior. I made comments on Yahoo News stories, and some were snippy. Ordinarily, I avoid reading the news, and I do not make comments. This afternoon, I went back and deleted them all, except for one, which I thought was acceptable.

I can actually understand why people with dependents are panicking. I give them a little slack. When you have mouths to feed, it’s probably harder to resist buying 10 cartons of eggs. It’s still not smart, and it’s morally wrong, but the pressure is greater.

I do not understand the people who are purely selfish with no discernible excuse. Ellen DeGeneres has been hiding at home for days, and she has had the tone-deafness to post about it on social media. “I’m cowering in the living room of one of my mansions, and I’m sending the maids out for tofu.” This is the opposite of inspiring. I’m surprised she doesn’t understand how bad she looks. Well, no I’m not. She lives in a bubble, surrounded by toadies.

In 1941, celebrities ran down to recruiting stations and joined the armed services. Wow. That’s a little different, isn’t it? Jimmy Stewart, who had to stuff himself to make the induction weight requirement, flew a bunch of dangerous missions. He actually enlisted long before the war started. When he died, he was a general. Lots of celebrities were war heroes (John Wayne, who was having an affair with Marlene Dietrich, notably excepted). Now celebrities post snowflaky messages about their terror of getting the sniffles.

Tom Hanks showed a lot of class. He and his wife submitted to quarantine, and as I recall, he said it was about like having a cold.

I’m hoping the epidemic poops out here, as it did in China, in a month or so. T.B. Joshua predicted the Chinese coronavirus collapse. He seems to think his prophecy is for the entire world. I’m not so sure, but he knows more than I do. If this thing goes away quickly, it will be a nice, relatively painless warning we can all profit from.

Even if it doesn’t go away quickly, we will probably get used to it before long, and then we’ll start to get pretty angry about the ludicrous forecasts and insane restrictions. Life should become more normal by June regardless of whether the epidemic goes away.

I guess I should go to the store and see if they have any cheap rib eyes available. I have been trying to think of different things to fix for dinner that aren’t a lot of work. Seems like I keep coming back to beef. Maybe I should buy a pound of shrimp and have a giant shrimp cocktail.

I’ll check the toilet paper situation out. There is no way I’ll buy any, though. I can’t stand between needy people and their miracle cure.

Neighbors Said he Had an Arms Cache and Used to go to Burger King With a Loaded Pistol

As my 4 loyal readers know, I got myself a Colt Woodsman pistol the other day. I got it to make up for the fact that someone stole a similar (but not as nice) pistol from my grandfather’s estate.

The gun turned out to have unexpected problems. I have written about it, but I feel like repeating myself in greater depth.

To start with, it absolutely refused to eject CCI Mini-mags. Everything else worked fine. I pictured myself searching the web for an ancient extractor spring and paying $300 for it.

I took the gun inside and Googled around. Eventually, I did what I should have done to begin with. I hosed the breech with Hornady One Shot, and I went through it with a Boresnake. Suddenly, I had a pistol that ejected Mini-mags.

The other problem was that the magazine was hard to load. Ordinarily, a .22 magazine will have a pretty soft spring. My gun’s spring was so stiff, it was impossible to get 10 rounds into the magazine. On top of that, my hands got sore from loading it.

The Woodsman is a 10-shot pistol. This is not something people dispute. So what was going on with the magazine?

I Googled around.

I found that I would be lucky to get another used magazine for under $60. I would more likely pay something like $85. When Colonel Colt made the Woodsman, he didn’t see fit to make a lot of magazines. Either that, or jerks bought them up by the dozens. Like coronavirus cowards hoarding toilet paper.

Yes, I know Colonel Colt was not alive when this gun was made.

Colt has made new magazines during this century, but of course, they stopped as soon as they heard I had a Woodsman.

I found aftermarket magazines, but the general consensus was that they were pretty bad, and since they ran around $40 each, they didn’t look too good.

Some dude on a forum said it was possible to make a Ruger Mk II magazine work. I looked into that. Before I got anywhere with the idea, I learned that Beretta had copied the Woodsman magazine for its Neos pistol. The Beretta magazine is 100% identical, except it’s stainless, it has a fat plastic base, and it has a plastic follower instead of steel. The little doodad at the lower end of the spring is different, but that’s picky. Anyway, it’s completely superior. It will never rust. Cost: $17-$20.

I ordered 4 Beretta magazines for the price of one Colt. Two arrived today. I took one to my workbench and opened it up. I stuck the base in my Panavise and Dremeled and filed it until the magazine fit the Colt correctly. Problem solved. If I really want to go first-class, I can get some sheet metal and make my own steel base that looks just like a Colt base. I can also blue the magazine so it looks original. I can’t do anything with the follower, but I think plastic followers are better, so who cares?

While I was doing all this, I took the Colt magazine apart. The spring was very different from the Beretta spring. It was shorter. I cut about an inch out of it and stuck it in the Beretta magazine (because I had reassembled the Colt magazine with the Beretta spring to see if it worked). I confirmed that it would compress more easily than before. Happiness. I then put the Colt parts and Beretta parts in their proper places. Now I have three viable magazines.

I ordered a replacement spring for the Colt magazine. The magazine is so valuable, it actually makes sense to spend 10 dollars on a spring. When it arrives, I’ll throw the altered spring out. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s not OEM, and there is no point in keeping it.

In other news, I got tired of the fiber optic sights in my Smith & Wesson SW22 Victory. They seemed fine in good light, but the other day I shot with the sun behind me, and it was hard to see what I was doing. I realized I had never had problems with ordinary sights. I found out Smith & Wesson makes plain old black sights, so I ordered them. They arrived today, and I installed them. Very nice. Not only do they lack annoying fiber optics; the front sight is skinny, so you can actually see where it is in relation to the target and the rear sight.

I have a new trigger on the way. I used to think the Smith & Wesson’s trigger was dandy, but going to the Smith & Wesson’s trigger after shooting the Colt is like divorcing Sofia Vergara and taking up with Ethel Merman. Pulling the Colt’s trigger is like snapping the stem on a Barbie-sized champagne glass.

When the new trigger gets here and I get it working, I hope to have a gun which in some way begins to measure up to the Woodsman.

When I got the SW22, I thought I had found an amazing bargain. I paid $319, if memory serves. Then I started buying stuff to make it work correctly. Grips. Smaller magazine followers to increase the capacity. Now I’m paying for sights and a trigger. I’ll probably have $500 in the gun before I’m finished.

Hmm. Now that I write that out, it actually sounds pretty good. I was going to complain, but I guess I can’t.

The SW22 will never be as elegant as the Colt, but it shoots very well, and with a real trigger and sights, it should be nearly as enjoyable.

Maybe I should get a red dot sight for it.

No. I won’t think of it.

Maybe.

I now have two .22 pistols which are ready to go, and things should get even better with the new trigger. On top of that, I just received several thousand CHOOT ‘EM Mini-mags, so it should be a while before I run out of quality ammunition.

The same people who are filling their spare rooms with toilet paper are also buying ammunition. Why? Do they plan to shoot sick people? Whatever the reason, I feel blessed to have found a good deal on the Mini-mags at the time I found it.

The big difference between them and me is that I don’t think I NEED .22 ammunition. I just want it. I don’t expect it to affect my odds of survival.

I guess if people in New York and San Francisco knew how much ammunition I have, people would be all over the web talking about my “firearms cache” and “thousands of rounds of ammunition.” People who are ignorant about guns need to understand something: ammunition is not cheap. The best way to buy it is online, and when you do, you need to buy a lot to offset the shipping cost. Also, there is nothing weird about wanting thousands of rounds. It’s easy to shoot 200 rounds in a day. I think Antifers and vegetarians must think we sit around thinking, “Let’s see. I want to shoot 2,000 people, so I better get…2000 rounds.” But these are the same people who think “assault weapon” is a real firearms term. The same folks who think a shotgun is the same thing as a rifle.

I probably have neighbors who have 10 or more times the ammunition I have.

I sure hope so. Those are the kind of neighbors I want. If someone comes here to do violence, I’m not going to get much help from male whale watchers in pink breast cancer awareness tights. What are they going to do to a criminal? Take off their panties and strangle him with them?

I just talked to my buddy Mike. He runs a hospice. He is as annoyed as I am. He said, “I’m real popular on the Internet right now.” He’s telling people to stop panicking and move on with life. He says restaurants in Massachusetts are about to close for at least 30 days, except for takeout. I wonder how the employees are supposed to pay their bills.

The sad thing about coronavirus is that even though it won’t kill many people, it’s apparently going to have the same economic impact as a real plague, simply because we’re panicking and killing our own economy. I guess FDR was right. We should fear fear itself. You don’t need a plague if people are going to roll over and give up just because of media hype.

I hope I don’t end up living on poached squirrels. Surely the grocery stores will stay open.

Here’s to being out of the loop. I wish everyone was as confident about coronavirus as I am.

Beretta’s Plagiarism Saves the Day

I thought I was going to get to put a new chain on a chainsaw and get rid of some annoying trees. Instead, I ended up taking over two hours getting auto-pay set up for some monthly obligations. The people I deal with use Revopay, which is a company that takes payments online. The pay site does not work. When you call the help number, you get someone who says he can’t help with website issues. He transfers your call to a web person who doesn’t answer, so you have to leave a voicemail. Then they don’t return calls.

Thinking of using Revopay? Reconsider.

Since it’s too late to cut trees, I’ll write about the Cold Woodsman pistol.

This week I picked up a gorgeous Woodsman I found on Gunbroker. While I was shooting it, I noticed a couple of odd things about the magazine. First, it only held 9 rounds. It was supposed to hold 10, but there was absolutely no way to get a 10th round into it. Second, the spring was way too strong. After reloading it a few times, my hand started to get sore.

You don’t need a super-strong spring in a box magazine. Other guns have weaker springs that work just fine.

I started looking for new magazines, and I found out I had stepped into a trap!

1. Colt stopped making replacement magazines about 20 minutes before I bought this gun, so now you can’t get one anywhere. Another customer relations triumph for Colt.

2. Typically, a used Colt magazine will sell for $85 or more, if you can find one.

3. Aftermarket magazines aren’t very good. I don’t know if this is true of all brands. Numrich (the gun parts people) makes a magazine, but I haven’t been able to find out whether it works. It’s not cheap. They cost $55.

4. Beretta makes a .22 pistol called the Neos, and Beretta cloned the Colt Woodsman magazine down to the last detail, except they put a plastic (Can we stop saying “polymer”?) base on it. To make the magazine work, you have to cut some material off the base. In the past, Numrich sold used Colt bases which fit in Beretta magazines, but they stopped…about 20 minutes before I bought this gun.

5. Colt made a gun called the Cadet or the Colt Target Model, and its magazines are identical to Woodsman magazines. Unfortunately, you can’t find one to buy. Believe me.

What’s the answer? You have to buy Beretta magazines for a little over $20 each and shave down the PLASTIC or make new bases for them from sheet metal.

I get tired of hearing people say “polymer.” It means the exact same thing as “plastic,” but it sounds more expensive. “Composite” also means “plastic,” except it’s plastic with fibers in it to make it stronger. If you have a Glock or any other polymer or composite gun, you have a plastic gun. Get over it.

If you have a second-generation Woodsman, you can make a Ruger MkII magazine work, but it will be too long for a third-generation model. You may be able to make a Browning Buckmark magazine work with a Woodsman, but you’ll be breaking new ground.

There is a site about Colt Woodsmans that has a magazine compatibility chart. Look up “Bob Rayburn.”

My magazine has a feature that makes it compatible with a second-generation Woodsman, so it may not be the original magazine. I suspect the spring is new, too.

My magazine problems are solved. I ordered some Beretta magazines. I plan to see if it’s possible to make new bases from steel, so they’ll look and feel more like Colt magazines.

While I’m dealing with Woodsman-part logistics, I’m also thinking about other guns that were stolen from my grandparents’ estates. My grandfather had a Browning Hi-Power I liked. He also had an M1 Enforcer pistol, which is an M1 carbine with a short barrel and no buttstock. Terrible weapon, but very cool.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get an Enforcer, because I already have a good watermelon gun, but a Hi-Power would be nice. Guess when they stopped making them? About two years ago. They weren’t expensive then. Now? Different story. A good one will run you $1100 or more.

I found one online. I’m considering it. They may continue appreciating, and if so, buying now is the right move. On the other hand, Browning might start making them again. Who wants to pay $1100 for a used gun and then see new ones selling for $750? Browning won’t say the gun is gone for good. They’re leaving us to guess.

Here’s a tip for gun makers. You don’t say, “We just discontinued this model.” You say, “We are going to discontinue this model in two years.” Then everyone will flock to stores to buy anything you produce during that time. You make money, your customers get what they want…everyone’s happy. You don’t just pull the plug and force the public to play musical guns.

It’s amazing that I didn’t get a single decent gun when my grandmother died. If she hadn’t given my dad a shotgun, my haul would have been limited to a flintlock and an aluminum .22 with the bluing flaking off.

My grandfather had at least 20 good guns, and I got…one. Whoopee.

As noted in an earlier post, my steel gong targets arrived. I may try to hang them tomorrow. I should have gone to get steel today to build a stand. But I have surplus lumber lying around, so I guess I can improvise. I have two round gongs, a squirrel, and a hog.

In other news, it looks like coronavirus is going to plague me in spite of failing utterly as a true plague. I have started getting coronavirus emails from everyone I do business with. “We here at Burger King feel real bad about the pandemic, and we are doing everything possible to assure that your burger arrives with no more germs than usual. Our team of surly high school students and confused illegals will continue to uphold the hygiene standards fast-food consumers have grown used to.”

I’ve received 8 emails this afternoon. Thanks, Northern Tool, but I’m not really worried about getting sick when I dash in to get a box of welding rod, and frankly, I don’t think there is anything you could do to prevent it. Thanks, Consumer Reports. Thanks, electric company. I was really worried that viruses would sneak in through the cables.

I will not catch coronavirus, but it will still make me suffer. It’s good to be sane when everyone around you is wetting their pants over nothing, but a panic is still a considerable annoyance.

I own a rental home. The condo association sent me an email saying they’re sealing their office. If you want to pay them, you have to slide an envelope under the door. It must be like working in Al Capone’s vault. Total hysteria.

Let’s go back over the facts, not that it will help.

1. Coronavirus is barely infecting anyone compared to the flu.

2. The death rate is projected to be under 1%.

3. The symptoms, for the vast majority of people, are very mild.

It’s like we’re flipping out over chickenpox.

Obviously, after writing that, I had to look up chickenpox statistics. It kills between 5,000 and 10,000 people per year, and if you’re around a person who has it and you’re not immune, the odds are 10 to 1 that you’ll get sick. Then if you get well, you may go on to get shingles, which is one of the most painful diseases there is. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Americans are hospitalized because of chickenpox every year.

We’re terrified of coronavirus, but we snicker at chickenpox. Crazy.

I can’t wait for this epidemic to blow over. I’ll bet it ends in April, just like other cold-weather diseases. Trump suggested that might happen, and of course, the press treated him as though he had recommended torturing kittens, but what he said sounds reasonable to people who aren’t completely unable to set aside their hatred. What other respiratory disease continues spreading in warm months?

If this is how we act when confronted with the lamest pandemic in history, what will happen if a really serious threat pops up? I shudder to think. Maybe buying survival crackers isn’t a bad idea after all. What if I can’t get bread? What if I can’t get vegetables? What if I can’t get Twinkies, Chocodiles, Little Debbies, and Moon Pies?

It’s disgraceful to get this worked up over a feeble disease. Older Americans lived through polio, and they didn’t snowflake out.

It’s a good lesson. Now I know how people will react if a real plague occurs. The world will be paralyzed.

I should just go ahead and buy a hundred pounds of rice. And some milk of magnesia, because rice has almost no fiber.

Can someone explain the toilet paper fixation to me? Why are people hoarding it? What possible connection is there between a flu-like illness and a global toilet paper shortage? Are toilet paper factory workers especially susceptible?

The global total for confirmed cases is 142,000. Bad, but totally insignificant compared to the flu. Remember, America has to come up with 300,000 cases per day, all by itself, in order to get flu numbers.

I just got another panic email from a bank I only work with online. So inappropriate. They are working tirelessly to make sure I don’t get sick from looking at their website.

Maybe steaks will get cheap because people are buying things like crackers and rice. There has to be a silver lining in here somewhere.

I don’t have that much toilet paper, potential zombies. Don’t get yourselves shot coming here to take what I don’t have. You are welcome to clean your backsides using the garden hose in the pasture. Please face the road when you do it. Think of the kids.

About Those Blueberries Your Friends Ate…

A friend of mine can see blog posts but not SMS photos, so I am uploading this in order to get around the barrier.

I’m going to call him Sammy.

Screwball Squirrel fans will get it.

My Hypothetical Branch Office

Now that I’m shooting more, it’s time to confront a project I have been putting off: the shooting shack.

I shoot in a cow pasture. The shells go all over the place, and then I have to go find them. You can guess what they are likely to land in. I don’t want my brass disappearing, and I’m not crazy about handling it after it lands in poo. Another problem: there isn’t much shade out there. On bright days, the sun can be very uncomfortable, and it also makes it hard to see what I’m doing.

I came up with a plan a long time ago: build a three-sided shack with a metal roof and plywood floor. I could fix it so the floor was slightly raised, allowing me to move the shack around quickly using the forks on my tractor. My shells would always land right next to me, or on the person I was shooting with, and I could sit in the shade. I could make the shack 6 feet deep and 7 feet wide, to allow plenty of room for two people.

The project is intimidating for various reasons. I know a fair amount about building things with tools, but this knowledge doesn’t really extend to carpentry. I could weld a shack together pretty quickly, but making one from wood would be more challenging. The materials would be bulky and heavy, too, and I’m not anxious to handle them alone.

If I were to weld a steel frame together, I could save a lot of time. It would be hard attaching wood to it, however. I don’t think I could keep it from rusting. Even if I painted the steel, water would find a way to rest on it and create rust. This is my guess.

I had an epiphany that made the job less off-putting. I realized I did not need to have wooden sides on the shack. Screen or hardware cloth would be better because they would let the breeze through and they would weigh less. They would also be easy to install. I have to have plywood on the back to block the sun, however. On my property, I always shoot along an east-west axis, so the sun can’t really hit me from the side. I just have to protect my back.

Adding up all the materials, it looks like it’s around $240 before paint and fasteners. Not too bad. I have some materials lying around, so I should be able to cut the cost a little bit by scavenging.

I still have some engineering problems. For example, what would I use for a table? If I use a folding Home Depot table, it will pretty much fill the length of the 6′ by 7′ interior of the shack, making it hard to get to the chair. They make 5′ tables, but that would still be a little tight. Maybe I could make a permanent bench with one section that swings up to let people pass, or I could build two podiums.

Why not put wheels on it so I can keep it forever? Wheels would put the floor maybe 15″ off the ground. This is too high. I don’t want to shoot down at everything. With a wooden-framed base, I figure I can get down a lot lower.

Why not build it on four-by-fours in cement slugs in the ground? Because I don’t want to be forced to shoot at the same distance all the time. I can’t move my berm, so I have to be able to move the shack.

It’s doable. I have to make my mind up to do it.

In other news, the pandemic seems to be stuck in the mud. The total number of detected cases has not been able to break 130,000 yet, meaning transmission is slowing down or testing is not working. I saw an article today from a major newspaper, asking why people were so worried when the virus wasn’t all that scary. I’m not the only one who sees that the plague has no clothes.

Two American celebrities have COVID-19 now: Tom Hanks and his wife. They’re in Australia, quarantined. They’re both over 60, and Hanks says they’re not very sick. No shock there. It’s typically a mild disease. No one seems to understand that.

I should not be surprised to see people ignoring logic and falling apart under the influence of rumors that aren’t very credible. This is how humanity works. Logic is way down on the list of things that motivate us. On top of that, it’s a safe bet that spirits are behind the panic. Most people are not connected to the Holy Spirit, and he is the Spirit of truth. If you’re not full of the Holy Spirit (and maybe even if you are), you’re full of other spirits, and they run your life. You may think you’re steering your own ship. It’s a delusion.

It’s distressing to see how we’re allowing a mild disease to push us into very bad economic decisions. People are calling off events. Trump has banned travel from most of Europe. The Chinese have closed factories. It’s overkill, and the financial cost will be tremendous in view of the disease’s inability to cause a true plague.

Why are politicians and others doing these things? I’ve already mentioned the supernatural cause, but there are more-obvious reasons. Anyone who fails to panic and overreact will be held accountable by a public ruled by ignorance. People are covering their rear ends, at great expense.

Democracy is a bad thing. I have to say it. The public has extremely poor judgment. As Plato said, a wise king is much better. Here in America, we don’t see ourselves as leftists, but we are. The American Revolution was a leftist uprising, believe it or not. The term “leftist” comes from the French Revolution. Democracy is a leftist concept. No wonder it’s so dangerous.

A strong king could respond to the COVID-19 epidemic with common sense, but our politicians are at the mercy of people whose ignorance is astounding, so they have to do unwise things in order to stay in power.

Airlines aren’t bringing enough sick people to America to make a big difference in the numbers, and closing businesses is not going to be all that helpful, because people will still spread disease while they’re off work. The best way to fight the disease, apart from supernatural means, is to wash your hands a lot and refrain from dirty practices like kissing everyone you greet. Dirty people will always be dirty, however, so most people will not change their behavior.

One of the nice things about leaving Miami is that I don’t have people I barely know kissing me all the time. Latin women feel like they have to kiss every person they meet, and it’s disturbing to a person who is used to cleaner, safer customs. I submitted to it while I lived there, because objecting offended people, but I’m glad it’s behind me.

Kissing may be a sign of affection, but that doesn’t take the microbes out of the spit. You really shouldn’t kiss people indiscriminately, and people shouldn’t hold onto backward customs.

If I were king, I’d say, “Stop being filthy. Quit kissing strangers. Avoid getting close to old people. Go to work and stop hoarding.”

I’m going to keep thinking about my shack design. I’ve waited way too long to get started.

Magnum Research’s Synthetic Booger Lets me Down

I bought a Desert Eagle in .50 AE to support Israel. The gun was made by Israeli Military Industries. It was very expensive, and a .50 AE pistol has no legitimate use, but I thought it would be fun to shoot.

The other day, I took it out and shot a few rounds. I had some problems.

The gun failed to extract spent shells most of the time. When it did extract, the shells generally hit me in the face, leaving cuts and bruises. This is a known Desert Eagle issue. The manufacturer’s response is to tell people to hold the gun more firmly, which doesn’t actually work. At least not when your extractor spring is shot, which mine was.

I figured the problem out by Googling. Magnum Research does not put real springs in Desert Eagle extractors. They use little red plastic globs that look like tiny cherry Jujubes. The extractor mashes the glob, and the glob resists, behaving like a spring. This works great until oil or gun-cleaning solvent hits the glob. Then it starts to fall apart.

Yes, Magnum Research uses extractor springs that dissolve in products commonly applied to guns.

I learned that you can stick an AR15 spring (steel) in the Desert Eagle, so I ordered one. I also ordered two OEM Jujubes in case the AR15 spring failed. I knew my next Jujube would fail because that’s what they do, so I bought two in order to extend the time that would pass until I had to order more of them.

Today I got started on replacing the Jujube. I found some videos about Desert Eagles, and I tried to apply what I learned.

Ordinarily, you begin disassembling a Desert Eagle slide by removing the firing pin stop. You push a little button on the slide’s rear, and the stop slides out, releasing the pin so it can be removed. The video I watched showed one button. My manual showed one button. My gun had two buttons.

It turned out I had a California gun, even though I bought it new in Florida. Really embarrassing. It’s like thinking you’re a man and finding out you’re really a woman.

California forced Magnum Research to add a second button to the firing pin stop, for reasons no one seems to be able to figure out. You have to push both buttons a certain way, and it’s a pain.

Kahr (owner of Magnum Research) sells 49-state stops and pins for a total of about $50. I have these parts on the way. My gun is stainless, and the new stop is black. That doesn’t make me happy. It’s a simple part, however, so I should be able to fabricate one from stainless eventually.

When I got the bolt out of the gun and removed the extractor, I found the old Jujube sitting there, looking a little worn.

HA. Never happened. What I found was red grease, smeared on the extractor and the cavity where the spring should have been. The Jujube–the grease–had completely dissolved. If I hadn’t known what I was looking at, I would have thought the spring was missing and someone had lubricated the gun with red Mobil grease.

Here’s a photo of my Desert Eagle’s original extractor spring.

This is not good engineering. There is no way to justify making gun parts from materials that dissolve in oils and solvents. It’s like making a baking sheet that explodes in the presence of flour.

I stuck the DPMS spring in the bolt and put the gun back together. I have no faith at all in the Kahr “springs.”

I haven’t shot the gun yet. I’m hoping the tension on the extractor will help toss shells away from my forehead. That would be nice.

This is a fun firearm when it works, but I’m starting to think it’s fundamentally bad, like the Marlin Model 60 .22. There are bad products that bring people a lot of pleasure, so when I say the Desert Eagle is bad, I’m not saying I don’t want it. I’m just saying I know what it is.

The Desert Eagle is very heavy. The grip is huge. It shoots shells in people’s faces. It’s hard to break down and clean. It’s expensive. It serves no purpose. You can never really say, “I need a Desert Eagle.” All you can say is that you want one because it will be fun to shoot.

I know people love the Marlin Model 60, but it has the guts of a BB gun. Open one up and see. It can’t shoot hyper ammo. It’s hard to put a sling on it. The trigger is very bad. It’s a pretty gun, it feels good in the hand, and it’s accurate when it works. But a real rifle like the Savage A22 will outperform it in every way.

I’ll feel much better when the California parts on my Desert Eagle are at the landfill. I guess I should go out and shoot it. I’ll have to go find my face shield.

MORE

I got my face shield out, put 7 rounds in the Desert Eagle, and tried it out. As you can see from the photo, it’s working again. Only one of the casings hit the face shield as far as I know. I could be wrong. Your brain shuts down for an instant when you shoot this gun, so it’s impossible to know exactly what happens in that instant.

The gun shoots way high at this distance (7-8 yards). I can’t change that by adjusting the sights, because they’re fixed. I see that Kahr offers adjustable sights, but 1) they’re fiber optic, which is not good, and 2) they cost $234. Not a reasonable price for a $40 item. Williams sells sights for $65, full retail.

I adjusted the trigger while I was working on the gun, and it doesn’t help all that much. Still too hard to get it to go off.

I am not really in love with the Desert Eagle. I like it better as an idea and a pro-Israel statement than as a firearm. The trigger is still not good, it’s probably never going to completely stop firing casings backward, the sights need to be replaced, and because the blast and recoil are so strong, it’s only enjoyable to shoot for maybe 25 rounds. After that, you get tired of wrestling and having your wrists snapped. It’s not fun wearing a face shield, either. Maybe the .357 version works better. Of course, you can get an 8-shot .357 revolver for less, and it will be lighter and more like a serious firearm.

When someone says a revolver is lighter and more sensible in a certain caliber, while carrying nearly as much ammunition as a semiauto, it sounds impossible. But that’s what happens when you make a 4-pound pistol.

With the rounds I’m shooting, the Desert Eagle’s projectiles carry twice as much momentum as my 10mm carry handloads, and FBI agents’ complaints about the 10mm forced the agency to transition to .40 S&W, so obviously, the Desert Eagle is not user-friendly.

Whatever the gun’s virtues and flaws may be, at least it works now. I should send Magnum Research a bill for fixing their design.

The End of Cheap Target Practice?

I took my new Colt Woodsman pistol to the range today, which means I walked out of my house and fired it while the cows stared at me. It was a strange experience, and not just for the cows.

First strange thing…the gun has a 9-round magazine. That’s supposed to be an impossibility. The Colt Woodsman has always held 10 rounds. When I tried to load it for the first time, I thought maybe the magazine spring was stiff because it hadn’t been used much, but no, the magazine was full at 9 rounds. Bummer.

I looked at the magazine to see if it was some kind of Chinese fake. It looks like the real thing, and it has “Colt” stamped on it.

Oh, well.

I have a small variety of .22 shells. Some time ago, I bought a bucket of Remington Golden Bullets. They’re cheap. I figured they could not possibly be bad enough to affect my accuracy at 7 yards. I also have some CCI Mini-mag hollow points, and until today, I had 40-grain Mini-mag CPRN’s. The Woodsman is so nice, I don’t want to shoot Remingtons in it. They cover everything with black residue. I decided to stick with CCI.

When I tried to shoot Mini-mag HP’s, they did not eject. This was disturbing. I was picturing myself trying to find a new extractor for a 70-year-old gun. On top of this, the accuracy was not good. I was around 8 yards back, and I was getting about 2″ for 9 rounds, which is not good by my standards.

I stuck some CPRN’s in the gun, and lo and behold, they cycled perfectly. Problem: I kept missing the target entirely. Or so I thought. It turned out 7 rounds went through one hole. When I got close enough to look at the target, I saw that I had two flyers plus a hole big enough to stick your finger through. So…pretty accurate. Startlingly so.

In this photo, the surprising shots are in the top left bullseye. Those bullseyes are 4″ across, so the lines are 1/2″ apart.

I was disturbed. I’m out of practice, and I know I’m not able to shoot as well as I have in the past, but here I was, shooting .22’s into a single hole. I had to start thinking about things.

1. Am I a much better shot than I understood? If so, proceed to next question.

2. Have I been screwing up my shooting results by using cheap ammo? Maybe what I’ve been attributing to lack of skill and talent has actually been the result of using inexpensive ammunition.

3. Do I need to start buying or making better ammunition and working on my guns to make sure they’re functioning as well as they can?

Another question: what am I supposed to do with all my cheap ammo? I just ordered thousands of CCI Mini-mag CHOOT ‘EM HP’s. I can’t return them.

The Colt shot like a laser with the CCI CPRN’s, and the trigger felt the way the triggers in heaven feel. I was overwhelmed by the lightness of the pull and the total lack of creep. I’ve been dreaming of a trigger like this one. I was awed.

I was out of CPRN’s at this point because I only had a few on hand, so I drove around trying to find new ones. None of the local places had them. I found some lead CCI Select rounds that were pretty similar, and I bought a 100-round box. I also picked up some Aguila Super Extra, which is incredibly inexpensive yet gets very good reviews.

I got home, hosed the gun with Hornady One Shot, Boresnaked it, grabbed my Smith & Wesson Victory pistol for comparison, and went back to the pasture. The cows were happy to see me, as were their three new calves.

I shot some of the new CCI’s with the Colt, and again, I got fantastic results. I put up another 4-bullseye target. I shot the upper two bullseyes with the Colt, using CCI on one and Aguila on the other. I repeated the process on the lower bullseyes with the SW22.

I didn’t get the same fantastic results this time. Maybe I was tired, or maybe it was because the blazing sun was directly behind me, making the target harder to see. Both brands of ammo cycled perfectly, although I had a couple of FTF’s with the Aguila. I didn’t see a difference in accuracy.

Before I quit, I shot some Mini-mag HP’s at a metal target, and they cycled. I guess the cycling issue was caused by dried-up gunk in the Colt’s breech. Well and good. I was not going to have to pay a smith to fix it.

Until today, I loved my SW22, but now I’m souring on it a little. The trigger is utterly inferior to the Colt’s. Not in the same league; not in the same universe. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I shot the SW22 after the Woodsman. Now I feel like I have to get a new trigger.

I’m also unhappy with the SW22’s fiber optic sights. They’re hard to describe without photos, but you will see what they’re like if you Google. The black bits reflect a lot of sunlight, and the sight picture just seems loose. With the Cold, you know where you’re aiming. You may not know where your bullet will land, but you’ll know where it was supposed to land. With the SW22, the cone of uncertainty is somewhat larger. That’s okay for people who shoot 12″ groups, but I’m not one of those people.

Here’s my new take on the SW22. For what I paid–which was $319, if I recall–it’s a wonderful gun. If you want it to be a good gun compared to a more expensive .22 pistol, you’ll need to spend some money on it. You’ll want a $50 Tandemkross trigger (which I haven’t tried), Tandemkross Hive grips, and target sights.

Smith & Wesson now makes an SW22 with target sights. I emailed them to find out if I could put them on my gun. Hope so.

The Colt is unbelievable. It’s perfect. That’s all there is to it. All it needs are new magazines.

Now that I suspect I may be a better shot than I knew, I am going to have to start taking some measures. I’ll have to start using a grip exerciser, because if your hands aren’t in shape, they will shake a tiny bit after a few dozen shots. I’ll have to wear different shoes or work harder to get a stable stance, because wobbling around on work boot soles can open groups up; people argue with me about this, but I don’t think they know what they’re talking about, because they can’t shoot well enough to see the effect. I’ll need to compare types of ammunition and be willing to spend on whatever works. I’ll have to stop shooting when the sun is directly behind me. I’ll even have to clean my guns once in a while.

I’ll have to stop going 8 months without shooting.

If I do all or most of these things, and I don’t get consistent 1″ groups at 7-8 yards, I can quit and go back to junk ammo.

I’ve been thinking about getting a High-Standard pistol to replace the one that was stolen from my grandmother’s estate. I learned a lot about the High Standard line over the last few days. I’m pretty sure my grandfather had a Sport King, which is a cheap model. High Standard made top-notch target pistols that competed with Hammerli, so when you shoot a Sport King, you haven’t really had the High Standard experience.

I would like to get a Sport King or something very similar, simply because that’s what I shot with my grandfather on his farms, but I’m tempted to get something a little better. They’re not expensive. You can get a really nice High Standard target pistol for $800.

I’m considering getting a Field King, which is somewhat better than the Sport King, plus a Citation, which is a very accurate target gun. If I have a Citation, I should be able to shoot with complete confidence that nearly all of the variation in my groups is my fault. Once you take your gun’s failings out of the equation, you can see what you’re doing wrong, and you can work on it. If your gun shoots all over the place, you may try to correct technique problems you don’t actually have, making your shooting worse.

It’s good that I shot well. It’s good to know I may have more potential than I realized. It’s good to know my SW22 needs work. But now I have new work to do. Until today, I was content to let things go the way they were going. Now I may have to exert myself slightly.

Yesterday I saw some guys competing in an Olympic-style event. They used expensive semiauto pistols to fire at 4″ bullseyes about 80 feet away, and to win, they had to hit them most of the time. They were shooting with one hand, and they had to shoot 5 rounds in 4 seconds. That tells me the .22 can do some amazing things if you do your part and use the right equipment.

I don’t want to spend $20 for a box of .22 ammo, but maybe I can find something that will shoot into 1/4″ at 7 yards. That ought to be good enough. If I can put 20 rounds into 1/2″, I will probably be satisfied.

I’ll shoot again in better light and see what happens.

GunBroker Exceeds Admittedly Low Expectations

I’m out of control. Third blog post today.

I picked up my new old Colt Woodsman pistol, which I found on Gunbroker. If you know anything about buying guns, you know Gunbroker’s reputation is not that great. There are a lot of overpriced things there, listed by opportunists. Nonetheless, if you watch and wait, you can do very well. I bought a brand-new AR10 for something like $200 below typical retail, and I got a very nice price on the Woodsman.

People are listing fairly nice Woodsmans for between 900 and 1000 dollars. If you go check Cabela’s Gun Library, you won’t find anything really nice for less. I paid $750.

When I saw my gun at the pawn shop, I almost wondered if they had sent the wrong pistol. It was so nice, I had to look at the breech to see if it had been fired.

It’s not perfect. The handles aren’t in mint condition, and there are one or two tiny (I mean tiny) areas where the bluing has been nicked. There is a trace of holster wear on the end of the barrel. That’s about it. For the most part, it looks new.

I was looking forward to picking it up, but I didn’t expect it to be this exciting. It always bothered me that someone stole my grandfather’s Woodsman (and his High Standard .22 semiauto pistol) without giving me a fair chance at it. Now I have a much nicer gun, and I didn’t get cheated on price.

As Jesus said, life doesn’t consist on the amount of possessions you have. Physical items aren’t that important. Nonetheless, I feel as though God made a kind gesture in helping me find this pistol.

I’ll post a photo, but it won’t do the gun justice. It can’t capture the near-mint look of the thing, and it can’t make you understand how elegant the design is. I love my S&W Victory .22, but it seems to weigh twice what this one does. John Moses Browning, who also designed the 1911 pistol and a bunch of other renowned firearms, knew how to make a gun light and pleasant to hold.

The pistol is so nice, I am reluctant to shoot it. I don’t want to get powder residue on it! But that’s silly. Firearms were made to be used.

I had thoughts about getting a holster. Not so sure now. A holster will rub against the bluing on the muzzle!

New Baby on the Way

I guess it’s silly to put up a blog post right after putting up a blog post, but my giddiness can’t be restrained. The USPS says my Colt Woodsman pistol has arrived at a local pawn shop.

Why send it to a pawn shop?

I used Gunbroker to find the gun, and Gunbroker connects buyers with dealers who have federal firearms licenses (“FFL’s”). The dealer I chose runs a pawn shop which is also a gun shop.

When you buy a gun, you have to do a federal background check, and you need a licensee for that.

I’m going to take my reading glasses this time. There is a long form to fill out, and a year or two ago, I checked the wrong box. I checked a box for something like, “I am buying this weapon so I can shoot up Congress.” There were two YES and NO boxes, and I checked the wrong one. Fortunately, a clerk corrected the error before the nerve gas drones and the guy wearing a single rubber glove arrived.

I’m not sure why the feds would write a form that allowed people to affirm that they were felons. What kind of idiot would do that?

Okay. I did it. But who would do it intentionally?

Now I remember what the form said. It said I was buying the gun for someone else, which is a felony. Slim chance of that happening. I want all the guns for myself.

If you use Gunbroker, and you choose one of their licensees, you need to put the seller and licensee together the day you buy the gun. Gunbroker is supposed to do it, but they screw up. Don’t wait like I did.

I think I’ve solved my .22 ammo problem for the short term, not that I really had a problem. A few years back, Obama’s amazing gun-selling skills resulted in a .22 drought that was unprecedented in scale. It seemed to be impossible to get .22 LR anywhere. I was scarred by the experience, so I always feel like I have a shortage.

Anyway, I found bulk CCI 36-grain Mini-mags on sale. The price wasn’t phenomenal, but I doubt I’ll see a better one.

CCI makes great stuff, even though their factory looks like it was set up in someone’s mom’s garage.

The ammo is signature ammo. It has a picture of reality star Troy something or other on the box. He’s a Cajun, and he has a side job shooting alligators. His show is called Swamp People. He zips around the swamps in a little boat, gathering gators that have bitten down on chicken legs on big shark hooks. The gators don’t like being pulled into the boat, so Troy and his pals shoot them in the head.

Troy yells, “Choot ‘im,” when it’s time to kill a gator. CCI has put “CHOOT ‘EM,” which isn’t really correct, on the boxes in big letters. So now I have a few thousand CHOOT ‘EMs on the way. Should keep me going for quite a while, and they’re not as dirty as the cheap Remington rounds I now shoot.

I’m hoping the CHOOT ‘EMs are more accurate than Remington Golden Bullets. If so, I can use up the Remingtons on close work where accuracy doesn’t matter, or I can make them my guest ammo.

I watched a little bit of the show last night. It’s a fun show, but how many times can you watch people go up to the bank of a swamp and shoot a gator in the head?

I felt bad for the gators. Fish are stupid and incrediby insensitive, so they don’t suffer a lot when they’re hooked or gaffed, but it’s disturbing to see a reptile with a big hook in its mouth or its side. They’re pretty tasty, though, and they make fantastic wallets.

Golden Bullets are perfectly okay, but the propellant is dirty, and they seem to misfire a lot. Maybe a couple of rounds out of a hundred. That’s just a guess.

MidwayUSA is selling CHOOT ‘EMs for 20% off, which is not bad.

The pawn shop called, and the gun has arrived, so color me happy. Next, I need a nickel-plated 1903 hammerless pistol in .32 ACP or .380, and then I need to put pearl grips on it, simply because George Patton didn’t like them.

I also have a bunch of pistol primers on the way. I remember how hard it was to get them when Obama was in office. What a horrible, incompetent president.

Can’t wait to see the Woodsman. Someone stole the one my grandfather and I used to shoot together, so this gun means closure.

All right, Mr. DeMille. I’m ready for my background check.