Decision Near?

The .308/.260 Remington puzzle seems to be unraveling.

I wanted a nice long-distance-capable semiautomatic rifle. The 6.5 Grendel looked good, but while it does well at long distances, it gives up some long-range punch in order to fit the AR15 platform. The .308 is a dandy choice, but other calibers do better at long ranges, and the recoil is bad. The .260 Remington looked really good, but the ammunition is expensive.

Last week I discovered that excellent .308 ammunition is cheap. That got me thinking. I can get a relatively short-barreled AR10 in .308, shoot it very accurately at my local range, which only goes to 100 yards, and put a .260 upper on it occasionally. And the .308 would be easier to carry, and if I ever got a chance to shoot pigs or deer, it would be a great choice.

So now I’m thinking about getting a .308 from DPMS. I considered other brands, but DPMS has a wonderful reputation for accuracy and reliability, and they don’t charge an arm and a leg.

This seems to be the smart choice, if I do this.

I saw a hilarious gun on the web today. A company called Knight Armament makes it. It’s an AR15-looking gun (“Stoner 16”) with a cool attachment under the handguard. The attachment is…a 12-gauge shotgun.

I’m serious. Here is a link.

I guess I don’t have to feel self-conscious about a laser and a flashlight now.

This is the craziest gun I’ve ever seen. It’s the gun equivalent of a double-necked guitar. It would be a great gun for a woman. Whenever they go anywhere, they like to pack everything they own.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get the Romak III working right. I have to reinstall the fire control group and fiddle with it. Red Star Arms does not answer emails about the fire control group they manufacture; something to think about before buying one.

The Romak is fun, but it’s a curiosity more than a practical weapon. The trigger that comes with it is complete garbage and will not permit accurate shooting. I don’t know how they manage to use it in battle. I guess they’re satisfied with 10 MOA shooting. It’s very popular with our enemies in Iraq, but then they probably can’t obtain guns that work correctly as manufactured.

If they took the trigger slap out of the trigger, the gun would be pretty good. But it ought to sell for $400. It looks like someone built it in his garage.

I got ripped off when I bought my specimen. They were selling for nearly $800. Now they can be had for $600. Cheap ammunition is still available, so the picture isn’t totally bleak.

If I had the decision to make all over again, I’d get a PTR91. Similar money, better performance.

I had a great experience last night. I asked for a scripture to read, and I felt like I should turn to 1 Peter. I went through it, making notes and underlining. It confirms so much of what I’ve come to believe, and what I’ve been taught. Prayer in the Spirit cleanses us and helps us behave. We are little portable embassies of the kingdom of heaven, living temporarily in a foreign land. The good things we receive, and even our good acts, come from God. Our contributions are relatively minor. And each of us is an essential and unique part of the machine that will change the world.

More and more, I feel the the Bible is being opened up to me. I believe this is a consequence of prolonged prayer in the Spirit. I’m not the only one who believes it. Perry Stone says it leads to revelation. He says he does it so much, people are amused by it.

The Bible yields its treasures, bit by bit, as we need them. Some things stay hidden, because the time is not right for us to understand them.

It’s a great relief, to be able to understand the Bible and see the pieces fit together. How many times have you been frustrated after reading a chapter? You make as much sense of it as you can, and you go on, figuring God will clear it up when the time comes. That’s better than not reading at all, but it can’t compare to getting divine insight as you go.

Twenty years ago, I knew prayer in tongues was a foundational gift. I knew it was the key to growth. But I wandered off and got lost. Too bad. I wonder what could have been.

I noticed something while reading a book Paul wrote. When he quotes scripture, sometimes he quotes several verses consecutively, even though they come from different parts of the Bible. I think this is something we are expected to be able to do. God stirred his word up, putting related parts in different places. It’s sort of like the Tower of Babel; he made it impossible for our natural minds to sort it out, because we were not ready for the knowledge. Now with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can take verses from different areas of the Bible and combine them so they work together and express God’s meaning. It’s like the valley of dry bones. The parts are spread out and jumbled up, but they can be reassembled and put to work. The Bible says, “Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth” (Psalm 141). Like the verses of the Bible, or like Jacob’s descendants, we wait to be re-ordered and given new life by the Holy Spirit.

This is unrelated, but I had a funny thought last night while I was watching a drug commercial. I thought about depression, which can be caused by a spirit. It occurred to me that it was ironic that a foul spirit could wrap itself around you and whisper depressing things about your future. Who has a better future than a Christian, and who has a worse future than a foul spirit? They have no future. They’re going to burn while we laugh.

I think it might be a good idea to fight fire with fire. If you hear a little voice in your head, putting you down and telling you you’re not going to have a good future, open your mouth and say, “The Bible says I’m part of a royal priesthood. I’m going to live forever in God’s presence. You, on the other hand, are going to roast alive–screaming in agony–in front of your assembled enemies while we shout and high-five each other. No one can save you. I’M the one who should be depressed?”

Maybe it’s a bad move, but it’s a funny thought.

Jesus was tortured to death in front of his jeering enemies, and then he ascended to paradise and took his seat at the right hand of God, and now he has all power over every spirit. Demons, on the other hand, are going to be killed painfully in front of their enemies, and then they’re going to be gone, and they will be remembered as creation’s biggest failures. The parallel is obvious, but the end results are very different. Maybe God gave us the burnt sacrifices of the Temple so the smell would remind the fallen of their fate. Maybe the death ovens of the Nazis and the altars of Molech and the burning World Trade Center were Satan’s pathetic parodies of the burnt offerings. The same may be true of abortion mills.

Incidentally, I am starting to think the book of Amos predicted the Shoah, as well as the renewal of Israel and the Messianic Age. Amos talks of bald heads and piles of bodies. Remarkable.

Enough stuff for one morning. I should be making strawberry goop for cheesecake topping.

He Also Makes Great Appliances

I was just reading about how Arizona has become the third state (after Alaska and Vermont) to allow concealed carry without a permit. Some whiner in the news article was moaning about how this would lead to accidental shootings involving people who had no training.

I would argue that being accidentally shot is better than being deliberately raped or murdered, unless the accidental shooting is really bad. When it comes to concealed weapons and accidental shootings, I think the leg is the usual victim.

It occurs to me that this would be a great opportunity to build a bridge between Second Amendment supporters and people who have an irrational fear of firearms. Here is something we agree on: people who handle guns should have training. So LET’S MAKE FIREARMS TRAINING COMPULSORY IN ALL OUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

The logic is inescapable. Now the folks with neurotic gun fears will be able to sleep easy at night. Or if not, at least the irrational fear that keeps them awake will be unrelated to guns. Maybe they’ll lie awake thinking every creak and crackle is Sarah Palin, sneaking into their houses in a moose costume, to force them to carry their unborn babies to term.

If we make our kids learn to shoot, the obvious danger is that one day America might be a crime-plagued hellhole like Switzerland. Or like America used to be, before gun control solved all of our problems.

Tomorrow at 7:30, I expect to be standing in my church’s kitchen, making pizza and garlic rolls while carrying a loaded pistol with night sights. This summer, I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to teach a bunch of Jesus-loving Jews to shoot. Where did my mother go wrong?

Dang, my life sounds pretty good when I write it up like that.

I have a cheesecake waiting in the fridge. I made it for the church’s cafe. I’d kill for a few slices, but unfortunately, they belong to to God. And you know what he says. “I am a jealous God.” This cheesecake gives that scripture new life.

This cheesecake is arguably more tempting and more dangerous than the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If Satan had had this cheesecake, he would not have had to go to the Garden of Eden to tempt the first people. Eve would have smelled it and followed her nose to hell and agreed to whatever terms he cared to name. In fact, instead of bargaining with him, she might have just beaten him to a pulp and taken it.

I am not sure human beings were ever intended to have anything this good. When earthly pleasures get sufficiently intense, they might dull people’s enthusiasm for paradise. If the stuff they have up there is better than my pizza and rolls and cheesecake, we should all hoped to get martyred as soon as possible so we can get our hands on it.

I bought about a gallon of peeled garlic tonight. I have four gallons of oil at church, plus parsley and lots of flour. I don’t know if I can pull off rolls and pizza on the same day, but I am game to try. Using the new mixer, I can crank out dough for 6 dozen rolls in a couple of minutes. Making rolls is not nearly as hard as making pizza. I might be able to do it, if I can get the pizza going efficiently enough. I will want to try my new trick of adding the yeast after mixing the dough, which complicates things. It will be worth it to hear the customers groaning in ecstasy.

My assistant should be there in the morning. If I can get him up to speed, this might work.

I Need a Remote for my AR-15

While I get my truck worked on and make garlic rolls, I am occupying my mind with The Box o’ Truth, which is to guns as Cooking for Engineers is to food. Sort of. It’s a guy who tries to get the real dope on guns, instead of relying on Internet gossip. He tests everything.

He has an interesting piece about shooting a rifle from a rest. It can best be summarized as follows: “Go watch Steve at the range, and don’t do what he does.” This would explain my dubious rifle performance.

If you’re too lazy to go through it, I can hit some highlights. Put a bag under the buttstock. Keep your left hand and arm away from the rifle.

Actually, that’s most of it.

If you do as he says, you will find yourself shooting with a weird-looking rest in front of you, a weird-looking bag under the buttstock, one hand on the gun, and one hand under your arm. In other words, it will not be much like shooting as most of the world knows it, and you will look funny.

I am prompted to ask: at what point do you sacrifice accuracy, just to feel like you’re shooting the gun in a realistic manner? If you tell people how well you shoot, but you do all your shooting in this odd way, are you being completely honest? If you had to shoot somewhere other than the range, would you have all this crap with you, and would you use it? Maybe it’s better to buy a machine that fires the gun. I have one, although I haven’t used it yet.

If you want to find out how your rifle is doing, this kind of shooting makes great sense. But does it teach you how to shoot? If you shoot this way when you train, are you going to be able to hit anything when you have to shoot a deer or a post-Obama neighbor who wants to kill you for your beans and flour?

If this isn’t the best way to learn, what is?

Great site, even if it leaves you confused.

Fifty Bucks Buys More Than You’d Think

This is pretty surprising.

A while back I bought a CO2-powered BB pistol, to practice point-shooting. I have been distracted by various things, so I haven’t used it much. Today I decided to get back to it.

I set a target up in the garage. I shot a few rounds at 10 feet, to see what the gun was like, and most of them went into a pretty small area. I could not get 7 yards away, due to space limitations, but I was able to get past 6 yards. I reloaded and started again. Here is the result.

As you can see, for all intents and purposes, within twenty feet, this thing is as accurate as a Glock. You just have to get used to the fact that the BBs go a little to the right. The consistency is what matters. I don’t care if the gun shoots to point of aim.

The results are even better than they look. I had a hard time seeing the sights in the garage, and I have not eaten in a long time, so I am a little wobbly. The gun will definitely shoot better once I eat and put some white paint on the front sight.

This is a fantastic thing. Any time I want, I can go out and work on my marksmanship, and the results will be meaningful. There is no recoil to speak of, so you lose some of the challenge of avoiding anticipation, but that’s what? Five percent of accuracy? I shoot a .22 a little better than a .357, but not all that much. Most of the BB experience should apply to real guns.

I’m already learning good stuff. For example, lighting matters. I’m glad I put night sights on my Glock, because even in the relatively bright light of the garage, I can barely see where the BB Makarov is pointing.

I should be able to use each target for six rounds of shooting, if I put six small pieces of white tape on it to use as marks. Because the gun shoots to the right, I can’t shoot at the right side of the target, but still, six times eighteen shots (the capacity of the magazine) will be pretty economical.

I can’t swear the gun is the reason the shots are veering, but I don’t think I could screw up this badly with an accurate gun. Ordinarily, my big problem is shooting low and to the left. These BBs went in the other direction, suggesting the gun is at fault.

Pretty impressive for a tiny smoothbore pistol that cost 50 bucks. And I get to reuse the BBs!

To practice point-shooting, I’ll need a larger backstop. A tiny box full of newspapers won’t do it. I suppose one easy solution would be a flat box with a bunch of Miami Heralds in it, but I’d need a box at least two feet square.

The box I’m using works great. The BBs go in, hit the newspapers, and fall.

I wish I could adjust the sights. But what do you want for fifty bucks?

Grendel Too Weird

Here’s what I’m thinking, assuming I eventually go through with this craziness: .260 Remington. Unlike the Grendel, it’s a real high-powered round, not a weird technological triumph resulting from stuffing ten pounds of powder into a five-pound bag. I think. I may be wrong about everything, but that’s how it looks.

The .260 has better ballistics than the Grendel for long-range shooting, and you can make .260 ammunition from readily available .308 cases. If my facts are right, the .260 is more realistic for hunting, too, so I would look less like a doofus using it to shoot deer or taking it out west to exterminate prairie dogs or coyotes. And if I ever need to use it for self-defense (exceedingly unlikely), it will do the job better.

The Grendel seems to be an amazing round, because you can carry one rifle and do a number of things well with it. But what if you don’t want a Swiss Army Rifle? What if you want one gun for this, and another gun for that? Seems like the .260 is for people who like guns who do their particular jobs very well.

There is another round called the 6.5 Creedmoor, but it’s weird, so it would probably be a pain buying or making ammunition for it. And there is a Lapua something or other which is nearly the same thing. The .260 looks like a better choice, if I man up and buy dies for it. Using storebought ammunition, it’s expensive.

People are recommending the .308, but I have this fantasy that one day, I’ll be able to practice at distances where the .260 outshines the .308. Maybe that’s stupid, but guns should be fun, shouldn’t they? Why buy one that slaps you in the face with boring reality? I already did that twice. I bought Glocks.

If I were getting an AR15 and no dedicated long-distance gun, I would almost definitely get a Grendel version. It seems like it should do everything the 5.56 will do, plus most of what a .308 will do. But the .260 comes in a different (non-AR15) package. DPMS makes it. I don’t know if it’s considered an AR10 or what. They call it an “LR-260.”

Interesting info for Grendel fans: as mentioned earlier, some people are making Grendel rifles without the name “Grendel.” The name is a registered mark, but there is no way to bar people from making guns that fire the round, or from making the rounds themselves. Crazy. I already mentioned Les Baer’s version of the Round Which Dare Not Speak its Name. It turns out there is also one called 6.5 CSS, made by somebody named Lothar Walther.

I also read a forum post in which some guy claims Bill Alexander (the Grendel guy) has tried to get Wolf to quit making Grendel ammunition, due to some kind of fouling issue. That would eliminate the only cheap Grendel ammo available.

Here’s some amusing news. Remember how I decided I had the hammer in my PSL installed backwards? I took the gun apart, which is really a pain, and I put the hammer in the other way. It was even worse than before. Then I looked at the Red Star Arms diagram of the hammer again. Hey, guess what? I confused right with left. The diagram was a left-side view, but in my head, I decided the right side of the gun was the left side. So, in short, today I took the hammer out and installed it again, backward.

This has happened to me before. Oddly, I think it’s a consequence of being smart. Sometimes I tend to think of right and left as interchangeable. It’s hard to explain. I believe it started happening after I studied physics for several years. Right and left are arbitrarily defined (macroscopically, at least–don’t be a wise guy and post irritating comments about the universe’s inherent “handedness”), and once you start thinking of them that way, you can do some pretty stupid things.

I have had the same problem, confusing numbers with their reciprocals. I confuse 2 and 5 sometimes, because if you put a decimal point by 5, it becomes the reciprocal of 2, and it also works the other way around. If you want to multiply something by five, divide it by two and move the decimal. It’s easier. But if you start thinking this way, eventually you will leave a waitress a 50% tip and have to run back inside a restaurant before she picks it up.

It’s strange, but being smart can make you stupid.

The upshot here is that the trigger is still no good. I emailed Red Star to see if they could help.

I have been looking for 7.62×54 ammunition. I’ve read good things about Bulgarian surplus. Supposedly it will hold 1.5 MOA in the right gun, so that’s good enough for me. I also read a blog post by a Finnish military marksman who says the PSL will shoot better than that. I think. Apparently, you can improve it by getting the barrel off the lower handguard so it doesn’t push against the barrel when it heats up. Maybe the accuracy figure is wrong, but I have no reason to doubt this guy. A Youtuber has put up a number of PSL videos in which he gets 1 MOA accuracy with Bulgarian surplus.

I can’t figure out why the Russians won’t sell 7N1 ammunition any more. It’s not like we’re going to use it to shoot Putin. I wish I had bought five cans of it back when it was cheap. The Finnish guy claims 7N14 (the newer version) is not that great. Over 1 MOA, at best. He says to use Lapua 7.62x53R. I’ll just bet that’s cheap. I’m checking. The 180-grain (too heavy for the PSL) is $2.50 per round, so I assume 148-grain is about the same.

You can get Bulgarian ammunition made in 1953, in pretty brass cases. It’s a little more expensive than the newer stuff in steel, but you get to keep the brass. Down side: you can’t reload it unless you’re willing to deal with Berdan primer pockets. So forget I mentioned it.

I think Bulgarian is looking like the way to go. If I can get the gun to shoot. You can’t complain about a 20-cent round that will hit a lemon reliably at 100 yards. If the Finnish guy and the Youtuber are on the level, that should be possible.

Unleaded Starts my Day

I think I’m falling in love with decaffeinated coffee. I can get up and drink as much as I want while I start my morning routine, and nothing happens.

A while back, I started feeling I should give up caffeine abuse. I’m attention deficient, and I quit taking drugs about 14 years ago, and when I got to law school, caffeine helped me overcome the boredom and concentrate. It also helped in my practice. But lately it has been keeping me up nights, and I think it makes me crabby during the day.

For a while, I’ve felt like God has been cleaning me up. I had to quit smoking cigars because they kept me awake. Who ever heard of such a thing? But it happened. Now coffee is out. I am a man without vices. It is a strange sensation.

Drugs connect us with the spirit realm, somehow or other. Tobacco was a ritual herb smoked by pre-Columbian heathens. Peyote and psilocybin are used in worship. Hippies used to get high and say they had seen God.

I don’t think cigars and coffee are going to give me visions of demons, but there must be something about them that God doesn’t like, because I really had to quit. I had no choice. Something would not leave me alone, and I think it was God.

Maybe weak drugs are sharp tools Satan uses to open little holes in your temple. Search me.

I suppose this is undeniable: drugs that affect your mind are substitutes for things you should be getting from God. Maybe that’s the problem. God fixes people, better than caffeine ever could. Maybe caffeine was in the way.

I don’t have any reason to think other people should give up cigars or real coffee, but it seems to be true in my case.

Coffee is a comfort drink. If I can’t get up and have hot coffee when I first turn on the computer, my morning is damaged. Decaf solved that problem.

Coffee–even real coffee–is supposed to bring health benefits. So I suppose I’m still getting those.

I have been getting comments about the AR rifle. This has been bugging me lately. I don’t need any more rifles, and I don’t think an AR will change my life significantly, but I feel this nagging urge to get one.

I’ll tell you something weird. I think God is driving his people to arm themselves and prepare for hard times. Over and over, I see it. I’ve written about it before. I have a new friend who works for a religious charity, and she travels the country talking to Christian donors. She says lots of people–and this is not a tea party thing; they’re independently motivated–are getting guns and tools and rural land. She told me she met with two elderly sisters in northern Florida who inherited a ranch complete with a gun range. These women are retired missionaries! They can’t figure it out.

I do not believe God tells people to shoot at the FBI or the mailman or any other federal agent. I don’t think we’re going to have a last stand where we all go down fighting, while Janet Reno watches on cable news and claps her hands. I have no interest whatsoever in shooting people. In fact, I am not sure I’d shoot in self-defense, since a criminal is likely to need time to repent and turn to God, while I’m ready to go. I’d shoot to defend others; that’s a moral obligation. But I can’t swear I’d kill someone to protect myself. Still, I think God is somehow involved in the increasing interest Christians have in firearms.

If we are not intended to use these guns against others, I’m not sure what the purpose is. But I think that purpose exists. I suspect it, anyway.

Getting back to the AR, a commenter says a couple of interesting things.

1. I should get an AR15, because 5.56/.223 is sort of mandatory. I don’t really understand that, but there it is.

2. Good AR15s are “cheap” right now, so I should get a Rock River and then add a Grendel upper later.

I know almost nothing about the AR15. I know there are “uppers” and “lowers.” I think that means the lower is the part we think of as a gun, and the upper is the barrel and some other stuff. But I don’t know how interchangeable these things are, or whether combining parts from different companies is a good idea. And I don’t know what he means by “cheap.” Are prices about to shoot up? Have they been reduced recently? No clue here.

I don’t know why I need a 5.56. I’ve seen people call it a “poodle shooter.” For self-defense, I really like my Vz 58 in 7.62x39mm, which is fairly powerful yet easy to shoot. What are the advantages of the 5.56? Do they really exist, or is it one of those things, like a 1911 in .45 ACP or a .22 rifle, that you just have to have, no explanation needed?

I looked at my PSL last night, and sure enough, the hammer is in backwards. I think the same could be said of my brain. I’m going to reverse it and take the gun to the range, but I’ll need ammunition first. I’m not going to shoot the rest of my 7N1 until the Russians release more of it. I could sell the remaining rounds and buy a Corvette.

I don’t know where I can get cheap accurate ammunition for it now. There is lots of surplus out there, and Wolf is not too expensive, but I would really like something that will do 2 MOA out of an ideal gun. That way, I can work on my shooting without wondering if the ammunition is holding me back.

I guess I could drive over to Samco and see what they have.

The glass for the AR is a problem. The gun itself is not cheap, and I would want a scope which would work well at long ranges. Prairie dog range, in case I ever get off my butt and go varmint hunting. I assume such items are not cheap.

Maybe the urge will go away.

Shooting poodles…isn’t that a public service? Is there some way we could train them to pop out of prairie dog burrows? Just a thought.

More

To clarify, I would like an AR in a good long-distance caliber, so whatever I get, I want it to work with a varmint barrel and a good scope. But if I also get a 5.56 upper for shorter ranges, do I have to worry that the original lower will not be appropriate for long-range shooting?

Stalking the Varmint Cong

I keep thinking about getting my first AR15. Only I think I actually want an AR10.

It’s confusing. I used to think the correct name was M16, but it turned out…wait, let me see if I have this right. Okay, “M16” is military for AR15, but apparently, an AR15 in a bigger caliber is actually an AR10. I may be wrong. I figured this out from a blog comment.

In any case, for a long time, I’ve wanted a semi-auto rifle suitable for distances over 200 yards. Why? I can’t believe you have to ask. It’s just so obvious that I need one.

I bought a PSL, which is…it gets confusing again…based on the AK74, which is based on the AK47. The PSL shoots 7.62x54mm rounds, which are sort of like 30.06 ammunition. It’s a lot of fun, but it has limitations.

First of all, the PSL is really crude, so you have to do a certain amount of work on it to make it function. For one thing, you have to replace the trigger group. If you don’t, you end up with trigger slap, which means the trigger kicks forward after each shot, so hard and so fast you can’t feel it. At the end of the day, you notice that your finger is sore and you’re shooting badly. That’s no good.

I put a Red Star trigger in the gun, and since then, it has never worked right. The other day, it occurred to me that I might have installed the hammer backward. Or, rather, not backward. Some aftermarket triggers (one, at least) require you to install the hammer backward, which is more than a little confusing. I need to take the gun out and check, but in any case, it is not working. When it did work, it shot well, but not really well. Supposedly the accuracy drops when the barrel gets warm. On top of that, there used to be lots of cheap top-quality Soviet ammunition available, but now it’s gone, so you have to suffer with dubious surplus probably made in people’s garages in the former USSR and Hungary and China.

I bought a K31. It shoots well, but the scope is permanently out of alignment with the barrel. I bought an aftermarket mount to make a Burriss scope fit the gun, and at the most extreme adjustment, it’s off by six inches at 100 yards. I could fix it by jamming a piece of a Coke can in there, but I’d rather have something that works without being subjected to Sanford and Son modifications. And the K31 is not semi-automatic.

Someone suggested the 6.5mm Grendel version of the AR10. This is an interesting thing. The stupidly named Grendel is a caliber invented by a guy named Alexander. Apparently he was not happy with the .308, because it slowed down too much at long distances. The Grendel is still supersonic at 1200 yards, according to highly reliable Internet forum blatherings I Googled. Can that be right? That seems like a long way. Anyhow, it shoots farther than the .308. Sort of.

Unfortunately, Mr. Alexander registered “Grendel” as a trademark, effectively killing industry interest in it. As I understand it, you can make Grendel ammunition and Grendel rifles all day, but you can’t call them “Grendel,” or else you get sued. This makes it hard for other people to join in the fun, so the popularity of the round may be doomed. Once that happens, you might as well have a Commodore Amiga in your gun case. I cite the sad demise of .440 Cor-Bon as an example.

Les Baer (genuflect) makes an extremely similar gun called the .264 something or other. Word on the street is, Mr. Baer got mad at someone who works with Mr. Alexander, and he decided he did not want to deal with them, so he made a gun which will chamber the Grendel round, and he did not trademark anything. The problem with this is, his gun is a Les Baer, so it costs approximately 3 googol dollars or the ratio of Barack Obama’s ego to his achievements expressed in shares of Berkshire Hathaway, whereas you can buy a licensed Grendel rifle for the low price of the weight of Col. Jeff Cooper in rubies. In other words, the new round is a big economic boon to Mr. Baer, but not to anyone else. In fact, it is so unhelpful to shooters, it was pointless for me to mention it.

I don’t know a whole lot about long distance shooting. It amazes me that a 6.5mm bullet can hurt anything. But I suppose it can, because people buy them. It’s close to the same diameter as a .25 caliber pistol round, which is like being shot with an unusually spunky BB gun.

Hmm…it looks like the Grendel is actually an AR15, which somehow manages to combine low recoil with long distance punch. But the AR10 is available in .260 Remington and 6.5 Creedmoor, which are better than 6.5 Grendel at long distances. I think. Maybe.

Man, this is confusing.

The reality is, I am extremely unlikely to find the opportunity to shoot at anything over a hundred yards away. You have to get pretty far out to need a caliber that shoots well at six hundred yards, and I have a feeling that will never happen in my lifetime. But does that really matter? Of COURSE not.

I don’t know why this little bullet would shoot well at long ranges. Maybe it’s long and thin. My dim memories of studying physics tell me the performance of bullet should be limited by the amount of mass in the channel in front of it, compared to the mass of the bullet, so a longer bullet ought to hold its speed better at long ranges.

I am pretty sure I know less about rifles right now than I did before I started studying this topic.

On the Loose

I have free time! I have free time! Can you tell? Was it a clue when I blew up my pizza stone in a pointless backyard experiment?

Mike’s visit is over. I will not be making pizza at church today. I do not have to serve as an Armorbearer tonight. I do not have to get up super-early tomorrow or go to bed late tonight.

I have free time!

I think I’ll hit the garage and try to finish the butt attachment thing for my Saiga 12. Look out for flying swarf.

Rest, at Last

I can’t believe I went two days without blogging.

A Mike visit is always a whirlwind of food, guns, and church. You end every day exhausted. We went to the gun range. We tried Five Guys. We hit Sonny’s barbecue. We ate at Krystal. On Saturday, we went to my 8:00 a.m. prayer meeting, and it turned out the head Servant Leader from our church was qualifying some Armorbearers on the pistol range, and I was invited to that. Then we went to a classic car rally. Then I attended church on Saturday night. Yesterday, we got to church at 8:30, and we made pizzas until 3 p.m.

Now I can’t move. Mike just left for Delray.

I’m thrilled that I got Mike to go to the prayer group, because most of the benefit of belonging to a church comes from things you do with other church members, and I wanted him to see what I was getting from time with my friends. I’m not knocking sermons, but pastors can’t be with you 24 hours a day, and you can’t expect to prosper on forty minutes of teaching per week, with nothing more.

Easter services at church were insane. They did one on Good Friday, the regular Saturday service, the three regular Sunday services, and an extra Sunday service. The place was so full, they put chairs in the cafe. Yesterday we recorded 922 salvations. Not bad.

Mike volunteered to make garlic rolls, so I turned him loose with the old Kitchenaid mixer, and I made pizza. By the end of the day, we had sold 22 dozen rolls and 19 pies. We ran out of dough. I’m almost glad they closed the cafe before the last service.

The rolls were unbelievable. You can’t get rolls that good anywhere in Miami. I don’t know why. It’s not brain surgery. But people raved about them.

Not only did he make the dough and sauce from scratch; he tied each roll in a knot before baking it. Very fancy.

We set the roll price too low, at $1.00 for four big rolls. A local chain called Mario the Baker is known for rolls, and they get $4.00 for half a dozen. And Mike’s rolls are bigger and much better. We should have charged fifty cents a roll. As it is, we netted somewhere around sixty bucks. Should have been over a hundred.

Five Guys is very good. The food is a little better than Wendy’s. The fries are much better, because Wendy’s makes really bad fries.The big problem with Five Guys fries is that there is almost no oil on them, and they get no flavor from the fat. The portions are too big, too. Their regular fry order comes in a large drinking cup.

The preparation was very slow, and they had the radio on so loud we couldn’t talk, and they had no drive-through. Other than that, very nice.

I didn’t see any shakes on the menu.

When I went to the range with the Armorbearers, I only fired 50 rounds. The range allows rapid fire, so I practiced three-shot drills. I did very well. I have no doubts about my ability to deal with any assailant within 25 feet, and I would be very surprised if I couldn’t do well at 75 feet. Better than a crackhead who shows up without training, anyway. That’s the kind of person we worry about.

Some of the newer guys need to learn shooting fundamentals. I offered to go out with them and get them up to speed. I don’t think they need to be doing rapid-fire practice before they can shoot well slowly.

I read the book of Amos on Friday. It was very disturbing. In this book, God is angry with just about everyone. He pronounces judgment on Israel’s neighbors, and then he lays into Samaria and Israel, complaining of idolatry, backsliding, and corrupt departures from social justice.

Here is some stuff from chapter 4, directed to Samaria:

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the Lord.

Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:

And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord God.

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.

So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.

That made an impression on me. It reminded me of what we have gone through since 2001.

Fishhooks symbolize weapons that lure us in. When God chastises us, sometimes he creates situations that are so inviting or even compelling, we can’t resist. Then we feel the pain. A housing bubble is a great example. When you see your neighbors making five or six figures flipping houses, or you see them taking equity loans based on inflated values, it’s tempting to jump onboard. Then when the air leaves the bubble, you have the debt but not the assets to cover it. A lot of Americans did this over the last few years.

“Cleanness of teeth” refers to hard times, as does “want of bread.” We’ve seen a lot of that since 2007.

The reason this passage bothers me is that we have not learned anything. We have a socialist President, trying to finance our present by bleeding our future, and when you turn on shows about finance and investing, you’ll see that many “experts” think he’s succeeding. Mind you, these are the people who didn’t see the tech crash or the housing crash coming.

We don’t hear many people telling us to repent, or that our sins are connected to our problems. As far as I can tell, we haven’t changed. In fact, we are offending God more, in all likelihood. Socialism is inherently anti-Christian; it attempts to replace voluntary giving with taxes, and it tells us man, not God, can lead us into an age of prosperity. Our treatment of Israel now borders on persecution. And our morals haven’t improved at all. I have to ask: are we better than Samaria? Does God love us more than he did the ancient Jews? Should we expect to avoid judgment?

Tradition says Amos was murdered by King Uzziah, presumably because Amos refused to prophesy pretty lies about his people’s future. No surprise there. Today, we still heap scorn on any clergyman who has the guts to connect sin and misfortune.

This morning I read the book of Hosea. The idea came to me while I was praying, and I decided to go with it.

Hosea married a prostitute named Gomer. God ordered him to do this. Some believe Gomer was not a full-blown prostitute. They think she was merely an immoral woman whose flaws did not become known to Hosea until after he married her.

Needless to say, Gomer was not a faithful wife. Her purpose was to symbolize God’s people, who were also unfaithful. God gave them wealth and peace, and they backslid and turned to idolatry.

After Gomer ran off, Hosea redeemed her from her new man for thirty shekels, which was the standard price of a slave. Half the payment took the form of grain. I have to wonder if shekels are the same as the pieces of silver that constituted the price of Jesus. If so, there would appear to be prophetic significance to the figure’s appearance in Hosea’s story.

Gomer was a “bigger, better deal” girl. She gave her attention not to her husband, but to those who gave her money and things. She forgot her husband as we tend to forget God when we do well financially.

A lot of the book is devoted to God’s method of dealing with unfaithful backsliders. Hosea had two children, Loruhamah (“no mercy”) and Loammi (“not my people”). Through Hosea, God told them:

Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

Shortly thereafter, he says:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

The message seems to be that God will afflict believers in order to get them to turn back to him so he can bless them. That’s encouraging.

Some of the language following this part suggests that a day will come when God will remove the Adamic curse and give us peace and plenty. It may be that this refers to the Messianic Age. It clearly follows repentance.

I don’t think America’s problems are ending. I think Barack Obama has managed to delay them and increase them. Denial is like a loan; you always have to pay interest. I believe we should be trying to clean ourselves up. Instead, we’re behaving exactly the way we did before the towers fell.

Maybe we’re getting a little time to pull it together, so the people who have chosen to return to God can get themselves prepared for the problems that lie ahead.

Amos 5:13 appears to describe the time of chastisement as “an evil time.” Psalm 37 says, “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine, they shall be satisfied.”

Incidentally, The Jerusalem Post is offering a subscription deal for Americans. You get their Christian edition, their international edition, and something called the Jerusalem Report. I believe it’s $49 for a year. I had a hard time understanding the guy on the phone. I decided to sign up. If you’re interested, email me and I’ll give you his email address.

Guns, Sun, Fun, Memories

I’ll tell you what. I had a severely blessed day today.

Mike was in town with his son Ben, and we decided to go to the range. I got my dad to go, too. He brought the Glock I bought him for Christmas. Ben had never fired a gun before, and Dad had never used the Glock.

The weather was astounding. Clear skies, lots of sun, dry air, and temperatures in the low seventies.

We loaded up the giant Dodge diesel and took off for Trail Glades Range, which has been renovated. It’s magnificent! They have a real roof now, made from pressure-treated lumber and aluminum. They got rid of the old podiums, and now they have a marvelous wooden structure divided into stalls. They even have hardware-cloth screens between the stalls to deflect shells. And they have labeled target stations now, and the old steel target frames are gone. Now they’re all wood, and they can’t spin when the wind blows.

The berms have been built way up, and there is a new pistol-side berm about fifty yards out. Incredible.

I brought my Glock 26 and SW1911, and Dad brought his Glock 26.

Mike and I got started while my father and Ben took the mandatory safety course. I shot the 1911 pretty well, but I had a box of reloads that weren’t sized well, and they kept jamming the gun. Mike shot better than last time, but he still needs to practice to get his eye back.

When Ben saw the targets at seven yards, he complained that they were “way too close.” Then he started shooting. Hey! It’s not this hard on TV! After a few shots, he realized he had been conned by TV and movie shooting scenes, and we started coaching him. I gave him a few pointers, and he started putting shots in the black, and I said, “You are now better than 90% of the people out here.” Which was true. Most people will never ask for or receive instruction, so they’ll be bad shots until they die.

My dad had some trouble with the Glock misfeeding, but it turned out he wasn’t holding it firmly enough. Once he got it together, he and the gun did fine. I’m glad he finally has a decent weapon for self-defense, as well as a carry permit. I feel good about the financial contributions I made, which got him to this point. No older person should be unarmed.

We finished up the day at El Exquisito in Little Havana, where we had fried masitas and Cuban sandwiches. Dad and Mike talked about horse racing. They do that pretty much continuously, unless I stop them. Mike used to be a trainer.

Mike is driving Ben back to his mom right now, and I guess I’ll see him tomorrow, and we plan to cook at church on Sunday. Should be a great week.

I’m so glad the four of us got to shoot together. Outside of church, there is no better activity for family and friends.

I learned some new stuff about the Glock. Hard to believe. Before I started shooting, I prayed we would be safe and that we would learn, and danged if God didn’t come through. It turns out a lot of my perception of how tightly I’m holding a gun comes from my index finger, so it’s easy to let the other fingers get too loose. By thinking more about the third and fourth fingers, I was able to tighten things up a little. I’ll post a gallery. The target all by itself shows what 20 shots from the Glock look like.

I was very happy with that. The Glock is a fantastic shooter, and it’s nice to see it getting closer to its potential.

I guess I have some work to do before I overcome pride. Today I realized it would disappoint me if I went to the range and didn’t have at least one range officer stand behind me and watch me shoot. But I managed to attract one, so I didn’t have to face utter disgrace.

Potential Right-Wing Terrorist Takes his HOME ARSENAL to a Known Gathering Place of Obama-Deniers

The Bosch Universal Plus worked great. I made a nine-pound dough batch, plus a six-pound batch. The mixer had no problems with these amounts, and cleanup was a breeze compared to the Kitchenaid.

Mike and I are taking his son to the gun range. The boy’s mom managed to prevent him from firing a gun until today. Hard to believe. I still remember Mike and me, hanging out in his room among a big pile of firearms. No parents in sight. Somehow we lived.

Might get my dad to go with us. Finally, some supervision.

Reproducible Pizza Results

I made another pizza with both Sorrento and Arrezzio cheeses. I learned that the cheese conclusions I drew the first time I made one of these are still true. Hey, it may sound like I achieved nothing, but this kind of research is important. No matter how big a drag it is. Making delicious pizza. Over and over.

I also learned that everything I concluded about overnight pizza fermenting was nonsense. I fermented this baby in a couple of hours, and it was very much like the one I fermented overnight. So I still don’t see what the fuss is about.

That Publix pan is a wonder. It fries the bottom of the crust beautifully. The texture is breathtaking. If you live near a Publix supermarket, try one. I no longer recall the exact name of the thing, but it’s about 8″ square, with sides maybe 1 1/2″ high. The inner surface is some kind of nonstick, but it’s not Teflon. I believe it’s aluminum oxide. Sounds crazy, but it works, and you can’t burn it.

A cast iron skillet won’t do this, unless you go through a lot of pointless work. The Publix pan works like this: put dough in pan, let dough rise, put sauce and stuff on dough, put pan in oven. Bam, as Emeril says. You have a perfect crust, except possibly for a little stone touch-up. No pre-baking, no preheating the pan. I suggest you try it.

I put the pan as close to the lower heating element as I can, and I bake for 9 minutes. I make sure the lower element is cycling on when I put the pan in, so the element will be red-hot for part of the time the pan is over it. When the pie is done, I pop it out and give it 30-60 seconds on the stone, but you really have to watch it, because the pan gets it very done, and the stone cooks the pie fast.

The pie I just made was beyond bizarre. I used my usual no-oil recipe (oil added to the outside later), but instead of activating the yeast, I sprinkled instant dry yeast over the dough as soon as I got the water and salt and pepper mixed into it. Then I mashed the dough around and folded it until the yeast was pretty much inside the dough. Sounds nutty, but it was great. There was yeast stuck to the outside of the dough, and I thought it would be nasty, but it was perfect.

I’m starting to wonder if there is a wrong way to combine pizza dough ingredients.

I got some new stuff for the garage today. A while back, I got a 16N Jacobs chuck, because the used 14N I bought to save money was junk. The 16N was a new chuck some guy had bought but not used, and while I got the chuck, I did not get the key. Today a new key arrived. It’s so big, you could literally use it as a tiny hammer.

Now I can actually use my chuck.

I also got several new center drills. All but one are cobalt. The other is carbide. I have HSS center drills, and they’re crap. I keep hearing how great HSS is. They’re crap. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s not my fault. After you use one twice, it stops working. When I finally bought a big drill bit set, I went with cobalt, because the difference is very obvious, and the cost is not much different.

Maybe the HSS bits I’ve used were lame imports, and that’s why they got dull so fast. Maybe I applied too much pressure. I don’t care. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life trying to prove everyone who promotes HSS to me is right. If I’m wrong, I’m out maybe a hundred bucks I didn’t need to spend, and meanwhile, I have tools I can actually use. If my bad technique is the problem, isn’t the smart thing to buy tools I can’t hurt with bad technique? Obviously, I should try to do things well, but every little bit of insurance helps, and it’s extremely annoying to have to quit a job because a 30¢ drill bit is fried.

I tried to use my drill press to take the lower handguard retention pin out of my Vz 58, before I was persuaded to beat it hard enough to drive it out with a punch, and I learned something. Drill presses are not rigid. I knew that already, but I didn’t know how true it was.

I have a big industrial Rockwell press with a cast iron head, and the drill bit still wandered all over the pin. Even when I tried a thick center drill, it wandered. Some of this may be due to a need to tighten up the head, I suppose, but I can tell this thing will never drill like a mill. So if you’re looking for serious drilling technology, my recommendation is to get a drill press and a small mill. I may be wrong, but that seems like the way to go. You can get a little used mill for a few hundred bucks, and on those occasions when you need a mill or a rigid drill, you will get down on your knees and thank God you bought it. When you need a mill, you NEED a mill.

Truthfully, I’m a little worried that the drill press will turn out to be useless, but I guess that’s just neurosis. I’m sure it’s fine when you’re not trying to drill rock-hard Eastern Bloc steel that came from melted-down Trabant pistons.

I ended up putting my drill press vise in my milling machine vise! That was my strategy for drilling the pin out. But when I mounted the giant chuck on the mill, I realized I had no key. I tried to tighten it as best I could, but I couldn’t get it tight enough to do the job. The bit kept receding into the chuck. That’s a good thing, because otherwise, I would have wasted three hours trying to drill an inch-long pin out.

Those pins are insanely tight. You have to beat them so hard, it’s scary. I marred mine up, but instead of buying a new one for three bucks, I think I’ll make one on the lathe, slightly thinner than the original, with some means of yanking on it. Maybe a loop in one end. I realize pins in guns should be tight enough to resist falling out when the guns fire, but this thing was way past that degree of tightness, and anyway, my gun is semi-auto, so it’s not like it’s getting pounded ten times a second.

Now that I think about it, a brass or aluminum pin might not be a bad idea. Easy to make, easy to hammer out, and it won’t hurt anything around it. Brass would be pretty, too. And I have lots of 360 brass. I don’t know if brass galls when it contacts steel. Something to consider. I also have 304 stainless. That would work, and I wouldn’t have to blue it.

The Slop Flies on Friday

Obamacare has been signed into law, and I feel healthier already. I think I’ll get pregnant with octuplets, demand free prenatal care, and then decide to abort in the eighth month, because a pregnancy belly makes me look fat.

Obamacare is an amazing thing. Like the mortgage mess, it’s an example of knowledgeable people going against their own best interests, in a way that is bound to cause great misery.

My take on things like this is that they have their root in the supernatural. There is no other way to explain such a dumb course of action, taken by so many people who knew better. Democrat politicians are virtually begging to be recalled. When has that ever happened?

They supported Obama’s law, which is extremely unpopular among Republicans and Democrats, in order to prop up a very unpopular President. There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and we know they wouldn’t do it out of principle.

God clouds people’s judgments and lets them believe lies, when they’re far enough out of his will.

Obamacare will be a disaster, sooner or later. I wonder when the pain will come. I heard Rush Limbaugh’s show a day or two ago, and a lady in the insurance business called in. She said insurance companies jack up their rates in February, and she predicted 200%-300% increases. She was afraid these increases would come too late to affect upcoming elections, because elections are held in the fall. That would be a textbook example of a curse at work. Imagine people voting to perpetuate this insanity, two months before they understand what they’ve done.

If God is merciful, we’ll start suffering sooner, not later. Nothing is worse than prospering at the beginning of a self-destructive course of action. This is how junkies, alcoholics, and compulsive gamblers are made.

I wish Christians were doing more to help the poor. I believe our failings may have left this opening. I’m not sure about it. The fact is, bad behavior and lack of faith will lead to poverty, even when charities exist, so maybe it’s not possible for us to close the opening. Maybe God himself would stand against it. Jesus told us we would always have poor people among us. Still, any time believers fail, it leaves a way for the enemy to get in.

Aaron sent me a link to a wonderful Dennis Prager essay, explaining why secular Jews support Obamacare. Politically, Jews are suicide bombers. They vote against their own best interests, and the interests of the countries in which they live, in support of the religion of leftism. By and large, they are committed to justice, but they have abandoned the God who created their justice-driven culture. Man cannot solve his own problems without God’s help. That means obedience, faith, humility, and total submission. You can’t get these essential ingredients from Marxism Lite.

Secular thinking just doesn’t pan out, in the long run. That includes secular pride in our species. I have often noted the giant error Americans commit, when they claim human beings instinctively love liberty. I sometimes cite Star Trek. Kirk was always spouting off about the impossibility of domesticating and enslaving earthlings. He could not have been more wrong.

The history of humanity shows that often, it doesn’t take much pressure to enslave us. The Bible provides a proper method for people who desire to become slaves; you allow your ear to be pierced in a certain way. People were allowed to make that choice, and many did. Today many Americans are doing the same basic thing, voting for leftists. You give up control of your wealth, which is tantamount to selling your freedom piecemeal, because you can’t use freedom unless you have wealth. In exchange, you get to live like a hog at a factory farm. Mommy-State Dearest slops you and hoses out your pen, and in return, you accept a poor but stable standard of living, and your liberty is restricted.

We were created to trust God to give us health and prosperity and safety. Instead we rely on politicians, who are among the people we respect least. Crazy, if you think about it. We trust people like Jim Traficant and William Jefferson and Randy Cunningham more than we trust God.

Everyone has faith and lives by it. The question is, in whom is that faith placed?

God knew all this when he tried to get the Israelites to accept a church-state. Through Samuel, he told them kings would steal from them, treat them unfairly, and send their men to die in wars. Everything Samuel predicted came to pass; even David and Solomon did great evil. And we are no different from the Israelites. They’re at the center of God’s story. We’re peripheral, and unlike the Jews, we have no promise that we will be preserved as a nation. Compared to Israel, Gentile nations are disposable.

In continuing their blind devotion to Marx, Jews are perpetuating the decision they made back in Saul’s day. And any Gentile who votes the same way is doing the same thing.

On a lighter note, I’m planning to get back to rifle shooting. I got some .17 HMR ammunition. The price has dropped back to sane levels. I’m also finishing up the modifications on my Vz. 58/CZ858 (whichever you choose to call it).

Here’s something for suffering Googlers. If you bought a FAB Defense handguard, you need to know this. To remove the old handguard, place the gun on a very hard surface. You can put something under it to protect the finish, but don’t use anything thick. Take a punch and a sledge (I used a 3-pound hammer) and beat on the right-hand end of the retainer pin under the receiver. You may have to hit it really hard, but it will eventually come out.

To put the FAB part on, force it. The rear will be gouged by the receiver, but the gouges will be hidden once it’s on. Make sure you install the rails before installing the handguard.

I’m going to try to install mine today, and I may Dremel some of the polymer away to make it go on easier.

I still want a decent semi-auto long-distance rifle. The Kommunist Kannon (PSL/Romak III/FPK) isn’t that great. The trigger will slap you silly, leading to numbness and poor accuracy, and very few people report tight groups, especially with a hot barrel. Also, the supply of good Russian surplus ammunition (7N1) is gone. I think it may be time to get an AR15 and unload the PSL.

The Vz 58 is great for short distances, so I don’t need a light AR15 which is highly portable. That means a .308 with a varmint barrel. I think Rock River is the way to go.

This would pretty much complete my defensive arsenal. Not that I foresee a reason to shoot anyone 200 yards away. Or at any distance, for that matter. Prepare for war, if you want peace.

I also need a holster for church. The pocket method is working fine, but a holster would provide faster access. In the outside world, it would be a pain, but in church, it’s cool, and I can wear a shirt or jacket over it to provide concealment. And I feel like getting a Galco Miami Classic II for my .38 Super, for more formal occasions. Maybe it’s possible to get different holsters for the same harness, so I can use it for the Glock, too.

We have a lady armorbearer now. That’s pretty cool. And it makes sense. The greatest church-shooting hero of all time is a woman named Jeanne Assam.

I still have no pimp handles for the .38. Sad.

More

More info for Vz 58 owners.

It turns out the FAB Defense foregrip (pistol grip) with the integrated flashlight holder is worthless for the Vz 58 rifle. The rear of the pistol grip interferes with the magazine, no matter how far forward you put the grip. You can put the grip on the gun once the magazine is installed, but in order to remove the magazine, you have to take the grip off. Not really what you want to be doing while defending your house at 3 a.m.

Another fun issue: you can’t change the battery in the light or laser without removing it from the mount, unless your light or laser unscrews from the front. My light works that way, but my laser does not.

I’m emailing Israeli-Weapons.com, trying to get a refund. They don’t seem interested in returning my correspondence.

Another problem: I bought a plastic holder for a 1″ flashlight or laser. Israeli-Weapons thoughtfully includes a 1″ rear cap with a pressure switch. But the holder is too small for a 1″ flashlight cap, including the one they supply. How about that?

I had to put the holder on a milling machine and cut a hole in it to make my flashlight fit with the cap behind the holder. That way, you can screw the cap into the flashlight when it’s installed in the holder.

It Never Stops

Life continues to improve. Seems like I say that every day.

This morning, I thought about a problem many people have. They work all their lives and achieve things that are important to them, and then they slow down, and finally, they are no longer able to do what they used to do. They sit on the sidelines and reminisce and feel ignored. Nostalgia makes them suffer, which makes sense, since “nostalgia” is formed partly from a Greek root meaning “pain.”

A Christian who walks by faith should not have this problem. When you walk by faith, God never stops challenging you and putting you to use. Your function may change, but you’ll always have to get up in the morning and set your heart on obeying God. You’ll have to make a conscious decision to ignore the ever-present deceptive evidence that he will not stand by you and help you. Faith is a job from which you can’t retire. And because it never stops, you should expect to keep growing as long as you live, barring dementia.

That’s a wonderful thing. Maybe nostalgia for your glory days is a sign that you were chasing the wrong dream. Christianity is about progress; it’s not about amassing a certain number of achievements and then waiting to die. It’s always about the present and future. Maybe this is what the Bible means when it says God will renew our youth like the eagle’s.

My pastor makes our worship team learn new songs all the time. It’s annoying, because probability guarantees that new songs are not as likely to be good as old ones, and because you can’t sing along with a song you don’t know. But he does it anyway, because he wants us to continue renewing our minds. He mentioned it last night. He said he didn’t want us to get Alzheimer’s. He understands the need to keep moving.

Whatever a Bible-believing, Spirit-filled Christian may lack, he always has something other people may not have: a bright future. There is nothing you can do to us that God can’t turn into a great blessing later on. Eleven of the Apostles were martyred, but they died in victory, because their futures were assured. How can you top that?

Worldly people and Satan own the things that dissolve and pass away. God and his servants own everything else. If you don’t believe, you’re like a passenger clinging to a sinking ship. You can take supplements and have yourself injected with cells from aborted babies and have plastic surgery and exercise compulsively, but the ship will still sink. Sooner or later, you’re going to be in the water. The thing that makes you feel secure is going to vanish. The thing that makes a Christian feel secure can never be touched. We’re like the Whos down in Whoville. You can’t steal our Christmas. You can’t take away a reward which is in a world you’ll never be allowed to enter.

Paul used a word meaning “dung” to describe the things he valued before he came to Christ. Can a man with that attitude ever feel nostalgia? Can he ever feel that his past was better than the present? I don’t see how.

So anyway, life continues to improve.

The church has a new mixer on the way. A commercial mixer was too expensive, so we’re getting a Bosch Universal Plus with a stainless bowl. This will be fantastic. I’ll be able to make dough for 14 pizzas at a shot. If I run this thing twice in a day, I’ll cover my needs. This is going to get me out of the kitchen.

I’m also preparing to do pizzas with better toppings. Pepperoni isn’t solving all our problems, but I didn’t want to do toppings on demand, because it would require maybe ten bowls of prepared toppings, and it’s also a logistical impossibility, since most people won’t wait long enough for specially prepared pies. I realized I could put together toppings for a loaded pizza and then add them to pies as needed. I’d only have to prepare toppings once a day, and we’d have some variety. I’m thinking I’ll do a mix of ham, black olives, onions, and green peppers.

I can also do other varieties from time to time. I need to find out whether people will eat pineapple. If so, I’ll do pineapple, ricotta, onions, and ham.

In fact, I think I’ll do that whether they ask for it or not. Sometimes people have to be trained.

Mike will be in town soon. That will be a blast. I’m going to put him to work making garlic rolls for the church.

I’m thinking about making a trap for my BB gun, so I can put targets up in the garage and do rapid-fire drills. A frame about two feet wide and three feet high should work. I think point-shooting skills will be a great asset to me, and it’s much more fun than slow fire.

My weight loss continues. I’m down 26 pounds now, and I’m doing virtually nothing. It’s all God’s work. I’m getting into clothes I couldn’t wear for years. I haven’t been this thin since about 1996.

My social life gets better and better. I feel like part of the church now. I don’t wander in and out unnoticed. I enjoy the people tremendously, and their wonderful outlook is a powerful remedy to Miami rudeness. It’s hard to tolerate Miami when you never get a break from the hostility, but now I have a stronghold to which I can retreat.

Christianity is not just about avoiding hell or getting dribbly bits of help in a catastrophe. It’s about a God who will show his power in your life every day, in proportion to your devotion and willingness to pray. The God who fed Elijah and parted the Red Sea and made Solomon rich and reanimated the rotten corpse of Lazarus is still in business. I’m a witness, and I have nothing to gain by telling you.

Hope your day will be as blessed as mine. Or more.

“It Could Put a Lodge Under the Skin and Cause a Bad Infection”

My Makarov BB pistol just arrived. This thing is a riot.

I put a Caldwell Orange Peel target on a box full of newspapers and put it on the garage floor. The first magazine-load of shots was sort of random, but the second 16 all went into a 4″ circle, shooting from the hip at 8-10 feet.

I wish I had time to fool with it, but I have some stuff to do before church.

Oddly, I am much more scared of this thing than my real guns. I’m not automatically conditioned to treat it seriously. I have to learn that, so I don’t find myself pointing it in bad directions. And I don’t trust the safety.

I didn’t realize how hard it is to load BBs. I haven’t done it in decades. They seem to fly out of my hands under their own propulsion.

I’ve only fired it in the house once. So far.

The power is surprising. It goes through both sides of a box with no problems. I should have ordered a BB trap.

If you’re too old to enjoy a BB gun, you’re just too old.