Pistol Improvement; Rifles Still Depressing

I had a fine and dandy day at the range. The Good Lord was with me. Although I am starting to suspect He does not want me to shoot rifles.

I decided to give the Nylon 66 and scope one more chance. Last week I found that trying to make myself comfortable at the bench improved my shooting with the K31, so I thought it might work with the .22. But I think it’s futile. The zero was way off from the second I started shooting, and I never managed to get consistent. Here’s a target, from 50 yards. It’s silly to even put it up, because in addition to my inability to get the gun and scope to work, I fiddled with the windage and elevation while I shot, so even if things had gone well, the target would be a mess. Not sure if this is the first or second target.

I got out the K31 and produced this questionable result at 50 yards. Not all that bad, but it didn’t make me happy. I got so exasperated with the uncomfortable bench, I got up and twisted it sideways to give my left elbow something to sit on.

I was fairly happy with my result at 100 yards, although you can see the scope needs to be shimmed or something. I was aiming at the black dot.

Okay, so I still have a lot of work to do with the rifles. Time for pistols. I realized I never shot my tiny Glock 26, even though I carry it for self-protection. So I decided today was the day. I dug out some steel-cased Wolf ammunition, and here are my first 25 shots, at 7 yards. This is with a three-inch barrel and a short grip. If you can look at this and say Glocks won’t shoot, you’re a fool.

I was really happy with that. So I shot 25 more.

That is one fine carry piece. I can’t shoot any better with a full-size 1911, and this thing holds eleven rounds, and it’s super-reliable.

I felt it was time to shoot the .38 Super. It was getting late, so I put all 50 shots on one target. I’m thrilled with these results. Naturally, the last ten shots managed to open the hole considerably, but I’m still very happy with the way I shot.

Finally, I dragged out the SW1911 and shot 25 rounds. Things went very well. I’m improving.

I felt like it was time to try 50 feet again, so I went back and shot 50 rounds. Even though there are a lot of flyers, I was happy with this target, because I learned a lot while I was shooting it.

In the past, I always assumed the size of my patterns would increase linearly with distance, but that’s not what happens. It’s worse. Maybe that’s because the inaccuracies of cheap ammunition don’t increase linearly. I suppose anything that makes a bullet shoot more of a curve would give deviations that increased above a linear rate with distance. And maybe it’s even more complicated than that. Whatever the explanation, I’ve been shooting more than twice as badly at 50 feet than 21 feet. Today I realized part of the problem comes from the weak fingers of my right hand. If I don’t squeeze tightly with those fingers, I get more flyers. Maybe this is why I did so well with the Glock 26. I can’t put my pinky on the grip, so it has no negative effect. I now suspect that the best way to pull a pistol trigger is to lead with the weakest finger on the grip. Start squeezing with the pinky or ring finger, not the index finger.

I’m looking forward to my next range visit so I can check it out. And hopefully I’ll have nice, consistent reloads by then, so I won’t have to wonder about the vagaries of the ammunition.

I’m fairly sure my struggles with the rifles are improving my pistol shooting.

I’m thinking I should go ahead and buy a for-real, brand-new accurate rifle instead of farting around with milsurps. The K31 is accurate, but scoping it makes it uncomfortable to shoot, because the scope is way off to the right. Maybe I should drop a few hundred bucks on a Savage, learn to shoot like a serious person, and THEN fart around with milsurps.

In any case, I had a blast today.

Forty Bucks for Nothing

It looks like I can buy 1000 124-grain Laser-Cast bullets and load the damn things with Accurate No. 7 powder. However, to do that, I have to use slightly more than a pound of powder. So in other words, TWO pounds. This is supposed to be really swell .38 Super powder. I can use something called Ramshot True Blue and only buy a pound, but .38 Super nerds don’t get nearly as sweaty about it.

Here’s something fun. You have to pay a $20 hazmat fee per box, and that goes for primers and powder, and you can’t put the primers in the same box as the powder. Arrgh. Remind me again how cheap this hobby is. I’m going to be paying forty bucks right off the top, for absolutely nothing. Clearly, the only way to keep from getting utterly reamed is to order for as many calibers as I can. So I guess I better come up with loads for .45, .357, and .38 Super.

At least I got .38 Super figured out. The others ought to be easier, since they’re relatively normal calibers.

Reloading is Hard

Reloading has me more confused than ever.

A commenter said I shouldn’t use lead bullets at .38 Super and .357 speeds because of leading problems. But Oregon Trail guarantees no leading from their Laser-Cast bullets. Unfortunately, they provide no load data whatsoever. They refer customers to websites full of highly questionable data provided by random individuals.

On the one hand, everyone screams not to use data that isn’t published. On the other, Oregon Trail sends people to reference sites compiled by God knows who.

Also, their 9mm bullets are .356″ in diameter, which is supposed to be right for a .38 Super. Hornady recommends its own 9mm bullets for .38 Super reloading. But Oregon Trail has bullets labeled “.38 Super” which are not the same as their 9mm jobs.

So I guess I’m going to have to call them and look stupid. I’ll have to ask if I can use their 124-grain 9mm bullets for .38 Super reloads. And then I have to find reload data I can trust.

Good Lord. I’m not trying to prove Fermat’s last theorem. I just want to make .38 Super ammunition that will move at around 1250 fps. And it’s impossible.

Gun-Grabbing Liberals Create Fake NRA

Moxie just showed me a story in which the American Hunters and Shooters Organization endorsed known gun-grabber Barack Obama.

THIS IS A TINY, BOGUS ORGANIZATION CREATED BY GUN-CONTROL NUTS. DO NOT LISTEN TO THEIR B.S.

Read:

AHSA was created with the specific intent to provide political cover for anti-gun politicians by allowing them to claim support from a “sportsmen’s” group. In truth, the anti-gun credentials of AHSA’s leadership is well documented. For instance, AHSA president Ray Schoenke has a long history of giving political donations to some of the most anti-gun politicians, including Al Gore, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Bill Clinton, Dianne Feinstein and Ted Kennedy. In 2000, Schoenke donated $5,000 to Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign) and the Ray and Holly Schoenke Foundation also made donations to the Brady Campaign. AHSA Board member John Rosenthal remains the leader of Stop Handgun Violence, the Massachusetts anti-gun group. And one of the leading organizers of AHSA is Bob Ricker, who has been a paid expert witness against gun manufacturers in a number of reckless lawsuits. (For more information, see Anti-Gunners Don Camo As Elections Loom.)

And:

AHSA supported Bloomberg’s effort to repeal the law that protects confidential law enforcement data from disclosure that threatens the privacy of gun owners and the safety of law enforcement officers—all so that Bloomberg could use the information in reckless lawsuits against the firearms industry . . .

More at the NRA site.

What a disgusting bunch of lying pigs. This is like Catholic priests forming an anti-abortion group and calling it the Coalition for Abortion Rights.

Pass the word. Don’t let these frauds get away with what they’re doing.

HELP

I have realized it will take a solar year for Hornady to get my free bullets to me, mostly because I screwed up the application process, so I am trying to figure out what I should order from someone else to tide me over. Help me out.

My three favorite handgun calibers are .38 Super, .45 ACP, and .357 Magnum. So that’s what I’m looking at right now. Going by the Speer book, it appears that I can get what I want from all three with a single powder identified as “Blue Dot.” Is there any reason I should avoid this stuff? I know nothing about it. I want a fairly hot .38 Super load, a typical .45 load, and a hot .357 load, at 125, 230, and 125 grains, respectively. Blue Dot appears to fill the bill. But some people on the web say Blue Dot is too slow for a .45. And dirty.

Also, do I have to find different tables if I use lead bullets? The stuff in the book is mostly jacketed. I would assume that for pistol velocities, the weight is important and the jacketing isn’t. I don’t think a lead bullet will screw up at 1300 fps.

It appears that Hornady wants me to use 9mm bullets that are .355″ in diameter, but the .38 Super is really .356″, and Laser Cast sells .356″ 124-grain 9mm lead bullets, which ought to be perfect. Is that correct, or will the gun blow up and kill me and everyone near me? My research suggests to me that you don’t want a bullet too much smaller than the barrel. If these will work, I can use the same bullets for the 9mm and the .38 Super.

They also have .358″ rounds for the .357.

The book doesn’t tell me what primers to use. What’s up with that? Am I supposed to guess? Oh, wait. I found it. CCI 500 for the smaller calibers; CCI 300 for the .45.

Here is what I want. For the .38 Super, I want 125 grains and 1200-1300 fps. For the .357, 125 grains and 1300-1400. For the .45, 230 and 850-1000. Those are figures typical of good defense loads, so they’re what I want to get used to. I want good accuracy, but I don’t want to water the loads down to the point where shooting isn’t realistic. Or maybe I could make a certain number of wimpy loads for accuracy and make the rest normal, to keep me used to the recoil.

It seems like it’s taking an eternity just to get to the point where I know what ingredients to use. I have to start gathering stuff and get to work, or I’ll never get anywhere. Reading will only get me so far.

More advice I need: I have been trying to get used to concealed carry, with the Glock 26. At first I kept a round in the chamber, but then I got nervous and removed it. Since then, I have been acutely aware that if I needed to use the gun in a hurry, especially with one hand, I would be screwed. I know cops carry Glocks ready to fire. If you’re attacked in your car, you may have to use your left hand to shut the window or shield yourself. You may be unable to use it to rack the slide. Then you die from being too cautious. What’s your opinion?

I’m inclined to go back to keeping a round chambered. You would really have to work at it to shoot yourself. When you carry, you are constantly aware of the danger, so you don’t make stupid mistakes. Unless you’re a vice cop giving a lecture in front of a classroom full of kids. But enough mean references to famous Youtube videos.

Actually, some people do make stupid mistakes. I remember going into a store to buy shoes and finding a gun pouch on a bench next to me, where some genius had left it. But I’m really good about treating the gun with respect. Mostly because I dread the embarrassment of shooting myself. Not the pain. Not the injury itself. The embarrassment.

I can’t believe people carry 1911s cocked with rounds in the chambers. Seems like the 1911 safety would be very easy to bump into the “fire” position. I guess you have to have a super-safe holster.

Give me your handloading info, so I can load at least one cartridge before I die.

Improvement!

I had a very satisfying day at the range. I got my rimfire scope on the paper, corrected some rifle-shooting problems, and made real progress with the .38 Super. And now you have to suffer with all of it.

I stuck the scope on the Nylon 66 at 25 yards and managed to find the paper.

I was never able to completely sight the scope in. One of the pamphlets for my scopes says you can get shims. I had this problem with the K31, too. These .22 shots are aimed at the top of the bullseye, which is 5″ in diameter. You can see they’re all low. I think I used 25 yards for all of the .22 shots, but I’m not sure.

I guess people were right about the Nylon 66 being too wobbly for a scope. I’m not positive, for reasons I’ll explain later. But I should have shot better than this at 25 yards. As I recall, I shot this well at 50 with the open sights. The pattern was about twice this big.

I got out the K31 and went back to 50 yards. I made a change. The other day, someone sent me a link to something called the Appleseed Project, and it had information on rifle shooting. One thing it emphasized was finding a comfortable position. This is very hard to do at Trail Glades, because the cutout where you sit is about eight inches wide and maybe a foot and a half long. It’s nearly impossible to get behind the gun, so you end up pulling on it to hold yourself in position. I decided to improve things by moving the rest as far to the left as I could, and it helped a lot. The first five shots literally went through a hole the size of a nickel. The Caldwell rest kept moving around with the recoil, and it was hard to be consistent, but things went very well. I believe this is a dozen shots.

Next bunch, at 100 yards. If I figure out a position, I think I can do a lot better.

Final round at 100 yards. Two flyers, but it looks like I’m starting to get a clue.

The K31 was really starting to hurt my shoulder. Something about the new position. So I went to the pistol side and got out the .38 Super. Thank God, the blonde lady who shoots tiny patterns at 75 feet had left by then.

I decided to try to maximize my concentration by gathering brass after every 5 shots. It gave me a nice rest. First 25:

Those made me very happy. The reason is that, even though I lost concentration once or twice, the vast majority went into a very small hole. Nearly where I aimed them. I feel like I’m getting close to the point where I should start thinking about the quality of the ammunition and the state of the gun.

Second 25:

While I was shooting those, I realized that sometimes the trigger has a catch in the action. It stops and then continues back, driving the gun off the point of aim before it fires. That explains some of the vertical variation. So I’m going to get a trigger job. I think most of the horizontal movement is just laziness. But look how much better things are getting. I’m finally getting to where I can shoot about like I used to.

I think I’ll give the .22 one more chance, with the rest moved to the left, before I give up on scoping it. But my performance suggests to me that the scope is not working. Even if my position is bad, I should shoot better with a scope, off a rest, than I did with open sights and no rest.

I wore my “My President is Charlton Heston” shirt while I shot. I hope somewhere he’s smiling.

I am All About Green

Today Aaron forwarded an interesting mass email from Ruth Matar of Women in Green. This is a pro-Israel women’s organization. I know little about it, but I like what I see so far.

I was going to email Ms. Matar and ask for permission to reprint the email, but it turns out I won’t have to. Women in Green has a blog, and the current post is the contents of the email. You can find it here. If you would like to know when the blog is updated, send a blank email to list4-subscribe at the domain womeningreen.org. They also have a Paypal link. I like the way they’re taking “Green” back from the idolaters and communists and flakes.

Here’s a digression for you. The International Federation of Christians and Jews has a blog called Stand for Israel, and you can subscribe to updates by using the form on the blog’s front page.

Ms. Matar’s blog entry (I don’t know whether she’s Miss or Mrs. Matar) is titled “ISRAEL, AN EVANGELIST PASTOR, AND A REFORM RABBI.” In it you will get a taste of the frustration religious, clear-thinking Jews feel when they deal with the press and secular and reformed Jews. She points out that John Hagee, a bona fide Bible-thumping American Southerner, gets the picture better than Eric Yoffie, the appeasement-minded leader of Reform Jews in the US. Better than Yuli Tamir, Israel’s Education Minister, who is actively opposing religious education. How odd this must seem to a Jew. Millions of Christians–those pogrom-loving, unwashed, proselytizing ignoramuses who wear scary crosses around their necks–are supporting Eretz Israel, and many Jews are actively opposing it.

You shouldn’t get the impression that Christians are generally more positively disposed toward Israel. I’m sure that’s untrue. But there are about 14 million Jews, and there are over a billion Christians, and even if the supportive fraction of Christians is tiny as a percentage, they may still outnumber pro-Israel Jews by a wide margin. I’ll bet they do. There have to be ten or twenty million in the US alone. In all likelihood, if you could count Israel’s true friends, you would find that most of them are not Jewish.

The bad news is that not all Jews have come around yet. The good news is that the people who have come around are probably richer and more powerful than the Jews, and impossible for the terrorists to reach, and their numbers will probably increase.

Think how wonderful this will be, if it continues. Will it be an end to anti-Semitism? No, that will never happen. But an Israel with its power multiplied manyfold, by the assistance of foreign Gentiles…a Jewry with true non-Jewish friends in the modern era, in large numbers…that would be a major shift and a tremendous blessing. And a fulfillment of prophecy. And a satisfying blow to Israel’s enemies.

While I’m on the subject of Israel, let’s check in on Leah Friedman, the young Haifa blogger who suffered respiratory arrest last week. Her family has been requesting prayer, and they continue to do so. Today a look at her blog reveals good news. She isn’t walking yet, but she has finally spoken. And what did she ask for? A Coke. The national beverage of the United States. She’s also using her hands. Things are getting better; keep her in your prayers. God heals in response to prayer. I’m a witness to it. So pray for Leah today. With a glass of Passover Coke in your hand.

In less important news, I’m headed for the range. I’m going to try my new rimfire scope, with the Nylon 66 and my giant box of bulk .22 bullets! I can’t wait. I love shooting this gun. My dad bought it for me when I was 12, and while I truly enjoy my other guns, this one and the two my grandfather owned are special. If you have a kid, and you haven’t bought your kid a gun and taken him or her to the range or on a hunt, you are missing a great opportunity that will not come around again. When you’re gone, that gun will be a priceless reminder of special childhood moments.

I’m going to tighten the screws on the receiver and see if I can get decent accuracy. If not, my next move will be to get a Savage. People are recommending Marlins, and I’m sure they’re great, but Savage has a reputation for flawless barrels, and they’re really cheap, so that’s what I want. Does anyone know if it’s possible to put a scope on a Mark II-FVT? I love peep sights, but they’re pretty big.

I’ll also take the K31 today. I need to do some grinding on the PSL’s trigger assembly to make it work, and I don’t think I have time before the range opens. Otherwise, I’d take it, too. And I plan to inquire about the shotgun range.

It occurs to me that you can’t be confident in your ability to defend your home unless you know how to hit a moving target. And using a shotgun will give you that skill. Something to think about.

Rimfire Scope Installed

I got me a new scope. Ordered it off Ebay. It’s a 3-9x40mm Bushnell rimfire scope, for the Nylon 66 rifle. Some say the receiver on this rifle is too flexible to work well with a scope. Others say it will work fine. I’ll find out on Thursday.

Seems like the .22 is the biggest bargain in shooting. It’s accurate at under a hundred yards. The ammunition is nearly free. The rifles are cheap. You can kill surprisingly large game with it. You barely need ear protection. And it’s easy to shoot.

Milsurps can be very cheap and accurate and useful. But the ammunition costs money, and the optics are three times as expensive as rimfire optics. I know milsurps are useful for game a .22 can’t reliably kill, and I’m sure they’re better for self-defense. But on the whole, I give the nod to the .22. What do you think? Kim du Toit described it as a tool everyone should have, if memory serves. Like a beer opener.

If I can’t get good accuracy with the Nylon 66 and a scope, I’m going to get a Savage. They’re very cheap, and they’re supposed to be like lasers. I can’t think of anything that would improve my rifle shooting as much as a gun that accurately shoots dirt-cheap ammunition, with no recoil.

I still have to fill out the forms for my C& R license. If you ever want to pee yourself with fear in the middle of the day, send a request to the DOJ, forget about it, and then reach into your mailbox and take out a thick DOJ envelope with your name on it. I started thinking about all the tax returns I’ve ever filed. I overpay, because I’m lazy. But you never know when you might misplace a decimal point.

I know the IRS does its own black ops. They don’t need the DOJ to send their horrifying emails. But I couldn’t think of anything else I might have done wrong.

Eric the Half a Rabbi Explains

Top story today: Leah Friedman is doing better. She is awake and reacting to people, and she is regaining control of her body. Thanks, all who said a prayer for her. Don’t stop now.

More news from Israel, forwarded by Aaron: there are indications that Jews in Israel are coming to accept a couple of important truths. American “Christian Zionists”–a phrase that needed to be coined at this point in history–are their friends. And Jews should be armed.

Here’s a quote (when did we stop saying “quotation”?) from the first article, from Yesterday’s Jerusalem Post: “Israel has no better friends in the world than Christian Zionists, Likud opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.”

It turns out evangelist John Hagee has put together something called the Christian Aipac. This is an organization that enables American Christians to funnel money to Israel, and which does not proselytize. I can’t recommend this organization, because I don’t know if it has been investigated the way other pro-Israel charities have, and because there have been a lot of truly disgraceful charities operated by conservative Christians. But it sounds like a fantastic idea. The International Federation of Christians and Jews is safe, so there is no reason you can’t support Israel and help unite Jews and Christians right now.

Regrettably, hidebound throwbacks want to sabotage Christian support for Israel, and with it, God’s promise to the chosen people. Here’s a bit from another article:

“What [Hagee and his allies] mean by ‘support of Israel’ and what we mean by ‘support of Israel’ are two very different things,” Yoffie said. “Their vision of Israel rejects a two-state solution, rejects the possibility of a democratic Israel, and supports the permanent occupation of all Arab lands now controlled by Israel.”

“If implemented, in fact, these views would mean disaster for Israel, and would lead to diplomatic isolation, increased violence, and the loss of Israel’s Jewish majority,” Yoffie said.

That’s leftist rabbi–what a concept–Eric Yoffie, the leader of reformed Judaism in America. In Israel, he’s considered a layman. His brand of Judaism is so far-out, it isn’t recognized there. He’s a gun-grabber and a gay rights crusader, who somehow feels qualified to teach people about the Mosaic laws. I think I’ve said all I need to.

Why call him a throwback, then? Because his views are rooted in the reflexive, self-hating, God-opposing, Christian-fearing Jewish leftism of the 20th century.

His remarks are absurd. What Hagee means by “support for Israel” is 1. sending money, and 2. praying a lot. That’s the bulk of it. American Christians can direct their money toward people in Israel who will do things of which American Christians approve. But we can’t give marching orders. Hagee’s willingness to remove proselytizing from the package reflects the fact that Christian Zionists will work to find ways to support the Jews, even if it means compromising the overall agenda of Christianity.

It appears that what Yoffie wants is to choke off funds to people in Israel with whom he disagrees. He wants to limit foreign support to money aimed at leftist-approved efforts. My bet? American leftists donate about as much money to Israel as they do to Bob Jones University. I’d be willing to bet that Christian donations to Israel far outweigh those from American liberals. Liberals are generally stingy when it comes to charity, in comparison to conservatives. And given the increasing anti-Semitism of the left, I would be shocked to learn that this imbalance does not apply to money for Israel. I wasn’t even aware that charities for poor Jews existed until I came across the IFCJ.

On top of that, leftists never donate money without attaching strings. Money is the fuel of social engineering.

Choking off donations from the God-fearing would probably mean a gigantic reduction in Israel’s foreign support. I just can’t see Moveon stepping in to fill the void. If leftists were supporting Israel to any significant degree, why would Israel need Christian money so badly?

How can a man call himself “rabbi” and support the destruction of Eretz Israel? Is God real or not? Is His promise a joke? Is Yoffie saying, “I believe God made the promise, but I’m smarter than God, so I’m repealing it”? Is he saying, “The promise is a myth”? “By the authority of God’s equal, Eric Yoffie, Jewry is turning the promise down”? I don’t get it.

I’m thrilled to see Netanyahu supporting the acceptance of Christian Zionism. Take the money. Just take it. Manufacture weapons. Guard your borders. Feed your poor. Pay lobbyists all over the world. Take it. Take it. Take it. Once in a while, a Christian may mention Jesus to you. You’ll get over it.

Hagee can be annoying; no doubt about it. So what? Take the damn money. John Hagee is not going to run for mayor of Jerusalem. He is not going to be an MK. Christians do not think of themselves as the real Jews, and we are not going to move to Israel and boot you out. Take the money, grow crops, move Jews to Israel, and don’t worry about John Hagee. He would probably keep sending the money even if you put billboards up all over Israel, calling him a jerk.

The second article is about the way many Jews in Israel are accepting the fact that they need to be armed so they can defend themselves. It turns out the armed Jews who subdued the terrorist morons at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion were trained by an organization called Mishmeret Yesha, founded by Brooklyn-born Jew Israel Dantziger. Mishmeret Yesha trains Jews in rapid response tactics. They ought to put an Amazon tip jar on their website.

Here’s a great QUOTATION:

“It takes at least 10 minutes for the IDF to respond when an infiltration incident occurs. An armed terrorist can kill a whole lot of people in 10 minutes,” says Rabbi Moshe Hager-Lau, a reserve colonel who serves as assistant division commander for reserve forces in Judea and Samaria. He is also head of the Yatir pre-military yeshiva in the southern Hebron Hills, and goes everywhere with an M-16 slung over his shoulder.

Hmm…something about that sounds familiar. I guess the authorities in Israel are just as human as the ones right here. They are somehow unable to materialize instantly at the scenes of crimes, put down their doughnuts (or hamantaschen), and prevent killings.

It looks like they have an uncomfortable relationship with the IDF. They cooperate, but every so often the IDF confiscates weapons. Which is completely justified, because Jews commit so many acts of terrorism.

Sorry, did that sound sarcastic?

I think what Israel really needs is for Eric Yoffie to walk unarmed through the Gaza Strip, helping Palestinian terrorists to understand that Jews are their warm, fuzzy liberal friends. That would help a lot. Sheryl Crow once said the United States should solve its problems by not having enemies. Maybe she’d volunteer to go with him and explain how to do that.

I remember the passage in the book of Joshua, where God told Joshua to go to Jericho and offer the inhabitants cookies and apologize for being Jewish. Oh, wait. Is that not in the Bible? Well, it will be soon. Because as some liberals tell us, the Bible is “an open book.” You can just get out the Liquid Paper, white out the stuff you don’t like, and write things in which are much groovier. I wonder how much Liquid Paper Eric Yoffie’s followers go through in a month.

Christian money for Israel, yes. Guns for Jews, yes. Eretz Israel, yes. Appeasement, no. That sums it up for me.

Today we are Disarmed

I guess by now all of you know Charlton Heston is gone. What a wonderful man. In a town where people celebrate themselves as rebels while doing exactly what everyone around them does, he stood out as a man driven solely by his own convictions. He married once and only once, he did not divorce, and he never had a scandal. He torpedoed his own career by being openly religious, and by working as a civil rights activist. Defending the only civil right that is in any way controversial. He also marched with Martin Luther King. Funny how no one seems to remember that.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia: “Heston died on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills, California with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, by his side.” I wonder if George Clooney has ever made it 64 weeks with one woman.

Greatness becomes rarer with each passing year. The loss of Charlton Heston makes it still rarer. They ought to bury him with a sidearm, so he could smile down from heaven at his enemies and say, “No, not even THEN.”

I may spend an hour at the gun range tomorrow, just to celebrate his life.

How Clean is Clean?

Reader MKL has a question. How often to you have to clean the primer pockets on the brass you reload? He says sometimes the crud accumulates until the primers won’t go all the way into the casings.

Greenjeans was Always Smarter

Let’s start the day with a fresh quotation from the memoirs of Christopher Walken:

Keeshan thought he was a player, until Mr. Greenjeans sold him out to Rogers. He was always at Keeshan’s side, with a 12-gauge pump under his overalls. He kept Keeshan safe while he muscled his way into cereal sponsorships and got free content by obtaining compromising photos of Tom Terrific and Mighty Manfred. Sick stuff. Straps and ropes, I mean. Pulleys, I’m talking about. Cables. Not just the bestiality angle.

Anyway, one day Greenjeans put chloral hydrate in Keeshan’s corn flakes, and when he woke up, he was in the Land of Make-Believe, in Rogers’s compound, tied to a papier-mache mountain. Sad scene. He looked around and figured out where he was, and then he looked at Greenjeans. And he said, “I always thought it would be Dancing Bear.”

So Fred offers us milk and cookies and then he gets down to brass tacks. “Boys,” he said, “I have a wonderful opportunity for you. That’s a very big word, isn’t it? ‘Opportunity.’” We both agreed that it was quite large. So Rogers goes on. “There is this fellow down at PBS, and I’m afraid he doesn’t know how to play nice. He doesn’t know how to share. Sharing is very important, don’t you think?” Definitely. No argument from us. Then Keeshan starts mumbling, like he’s having a dream. “Ping pong balls…NO…no more ping pong balls. Jesus help me…can’t breathe…” But he shut up again, and Fred went on.

I had a real crisis this week. I lost my Winn-Dixie reward card. I’ve written about it before. This is a bar-code keychain tag that opens the door to a world of glorious discounted pork. It’s not really mine. Years ago, my father got one, and I stole it. I don’t want to get one in my own name, because they use the damn things to spy on you, and I don’t want David Chertoff monitoring my pork habits. Although now that I think about it, it would probably convince him I was not a terrorist.

I tried signing up online and having them send me a new one, using my customary alias, “Red Butz.” But I guess they smelled a rat, because it never arrived.

Fortunately, I thought to look in my jeans. I wear long pants about five times a year, sometimes for periods as short as two hours, so the jeans don’t see the washer very often. I’m not one of those disgusting people who wear jeans until they get greasy brown stains on the thighs and they stand up all by themselves, but I’m not washing my jeans after two hours. Come on. So anyway, it turned out the precious card was in the pocket, and I am overjoyed.

WD has center cut pork chops on sale; buy one, get one free. Not quite as good as the regular chops, but I’ll take them. No word on chitlins this week. The lamb chops look tempting.

If you are willing to brine your pork, you can eat dirt cheap for the rest of your life. Picnic hams and Boston butts often stink, but a nice baking soda brine kills that, and then you have like ten pounds of great pork for eleven bucks. And if you bake it with the skin on, you get delicious, crunchy crackling-type things. I baked a picnic ham last week, and even though I eventually got sick of it and gave up, I still got five meals out of it for eleven dollars. I’m not cheap about food, but when you can get top-quality grub for ghetto prices, why not do it?

Switching subjects due to the discontinuation of my Ritalin prescription, I guess you’ve heard about my wacky neighbor, Mr. Calin Wong. He lives in Homestead, a few miles down the road. The cops just busted him for making online threats to reenact the Virginia Tech massacre. It would have worked, at the University of Miami. Gun-free, brain-free, safety-free. On the streets, however, he would have lasted a maximum of five minutes. Red state.

Wong owns several AKs plus some other crap. Like a number of people I could name (cough), he had a lot of ammunition. Scary! HELLO, ammunition is cheaper when you buy a lot. And no matter how much you have, you can only shoot one bullet at a time.

Even right-leaning Fox News went into pants-wetting mode over this guy’s “weapons cache.” Greg Kelly, a Marine reservist (colonel!) who used to appear on camera in a windcheater haircut, marveled at this character’s paltry weapons collection of a dozen guns. Thanks, Greg. That was very helpful.

Here’s a quote from The Miami Herald’s typically even-handed coverage:

He’d been banned from websites for fraudulent selling tactics, he’d been buying and selling weaponry over the Internet for two years, and he owned six or seven AK-47s and other firearms.

Still, they couldn’t charge him with a crime until they unexpectedly received a fax a month later from the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

Good God. All this apparent kook did was complain to the sheriff about an Internet ripoff, and the Herald says, “Still, they couldn’t charge him with a crime.” They mean before he supposedly made his threats. So if you work at the Herald, your default position is, if a person has a gun collection, it’s amazing that he can’t be arrested!

I probably have three hundred readers whose collections put this guy’s to shame. I wonder what the idiots at the Herald would think of you. No, I know what they’d think. If “think” is the appropriate term.

Anyway, Mr. Wong allegedly threatened to perpetrate a massacre, and he was turned in, and now he is no longer a gun owner, and he won’t be owning any guns in the future, unless he buys them illegally. Looks to me like the system worked.

Here’s another genius for you. Detective Rocky Rivera, of the Homestead PD: “Unfortunately, the way the law is written now, you can have as many guns as you want.” Thanks, Justice Cardozo. Thanks, Thomas Jefferson. Thanks for offering your help, rewriting the Constitution. I’m sure you’re qualified.

What is it with cops and their desire to control the public? This is the kind of person the founding fathers wanted to protect us from. A possible lunatic in Homestead has a few semiautomatic rifles, so the rest of us should be disarmed. Next, we need to get rid of those pesky fourth and fifth amendments. Because Officer Rocky the social engineer knows how to run your life better than you do. The cops are perfect; the rest of us need to be told what to do. Funny, wasn’t Drew Peterson a cop? Weren’t the Miami River Cops, who murdered in order to protect their cocaine-selling ring, cops? Isn’t Chicago having a major scandal right now, over lovely events like the beating of an unarmed female bartender who hadn’t committed a crime? We just had three faultless, infallible Miami cops convicted for planting guns on people they had shot, and lying about the shootings. And oh, yeah, cops aren’t famous for domestic violence beefs in their own homes. That never happens.

You know what? I’m sorry the cops have a dangerous job. I mean that sincerely. But the answer isn’t disarming the rest of us and trying to create a Nerf environment for the police to swagger and bark orders in. If you think we need to be disarmed so you can be safe while you work, it means you don’t have enough guts to do the job you signed up for. So quit and let somebody tougher than you step up to the plate.

Someone needs to explain to me how the number of guns Wong owned is an issue. How many can he shoot at once and hope to hit anything? Duh. Are you going to be more scared of an assailant with five rifles than an assailant with one rifle and five magazines? Sure. If you’re a moron. If you want to be concerned, be concerned that he didn’t have them in a safe, to keep them from being stolen and distributed to career criminals who aren’t stupid enough to announce their intentions on the Internet.

The folks at Fox were amazed that this guy got out on bail. WHAT? Look, his guns are gone. He’s going to be tried. He didn’t commit any acts of violence, and now he lacks the means to commit them in the future. I would be amazed if he is ever allowed to buy a gun again. He thought he was a big man, but now he’s No-Gun Boy and an object of ridicule. He now lives under a microscope. Bail is almost certainly appropriate, by the standards applied to other criminal defendants. O.J. Simpson got bailed out after being credibly accused of armed robbery with a firearm. Use your head, Greg Kelly. Due process exists, even for complete idiots who make Internet threats.

You know, I love to shoot. It gets me outdoors. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. It’s tremendous fun. I think I might want to hunt in the future, because it’s a good skill to have, but I can’t stand watching anything die, and would much rather hand over my wallet than shoot another human being. While I believe in the right to self-defense, I’m not at all sure I could exercise it, unless another person was in danger. But the tiny minds at the Herald conflate boring, harmless hobbyists like me with immature cranks who threaten to murder people over the Internet. And if you have guns, you’re in the same boat. You should be arrested NOW, because some day you MIGHT make a threat. It’s Minority-Report-style pre-crime, only instead of relatively intelligent psychics, we have far-left fascist pinheads.

Great. Always nice to know you’re going to get a fair shot from the media.

I can’t believe Greg Kelly’s reaction to the guns. Which part of the Marine Corps does he belong to? The Martha Stewart Brigade? The Marines still have weapons, don’t they? There’s a fan site dedicated to him. It calls him the King of the Embeds. I’m sure he saw a weapon or two in Iraq, and I know he has a positive attitude toward the military. How could he get so excited over the obligatory “entire collection piled on a table” photo? Those photos represent a classic cop and newspaper tactic intended to inflame public hysteria and help get gun control laws passed. They rarely pose with other confiscated items. Gun collections? ALWAYS. How could he fall for it? I’m a Fox fan, but come on.

“Weapons cache.” I used to have an “arsenal,” but now I have a “weapons cache.” I guess I also have a CD cache and an aged beef cache and a beer cache and a birdseed cache. David Koresh had nothing on me.

Anyway, if you’re ever in Homestead, feel free to drop in on Calin Wong and demand his lunch money. There isn’t a hell of a lot he can do to stop you now.

In the Black!

FINALLY a satisfying day at the range. With my exceedingly tactical Stanley rolling toolbox.

I started out with the PSL/Romak III. I thought I had fixed the trigger spring problem, but it failed to cock itself after two pretty awful shots. So I put it away and got out the K31, and I shot this target at 50 yards with my Rock, Jr. rest.

I felt pretty good about that. The shots at the upper edge are PSL shots. I didn’t do great, but I was getting better. Turned out the scope was loose for a couple of those, but I wasn’t shooting well enough for it to matter.

Second bunch:

Much better. So I got cocky and moved to 100 yards.

Given my previous efforts, I was pretty happy. And I realized something. My trigger pull was most of the problem. A guy next to me was telling me I needed a rear bag to keep the gun on target, but the sights stuck to the red dot in the center of the bullseye like they had been nailed to it. So I worked on it, and things got better. So much better I sometimes thought I had missed the target entirely, because the pattern didn’t open up when I shot.

I am totally thrilled with these results. I had one flyer, but working on the trigger pull made a gigantic difference. Now I know what my big problem is, so I expect to improve a lot from here on out. And even now, I can shoot well enough to kill stuff.

I moved on to the pistol side. I missed the old days, when I shot better than I currently do, and I wondered if going from a Glock to a 1911 was the problem. So I shot my Glock 22, in .40 S&W. It really is easier to hang onto and shoot. First 25, at 7 yards:

I was actually happy with that, because while I wandered vertically, I started noticing and fixing things about my trigger pull. I seem to be flinching sometimes, from back in the wrist. It’s obviously not a bad flinch, but it’s something to work on. I shot another 25 rounds, and then I shot 25 with the SW1911, to see the difference. Trail Glades has a ridiculous rule that you can’t have more than one bullseye on a pistol target, so I decided to shoot a hole in the upper right area and use it as a second bullseye. Let’s see them make a rule against THAT.

My concentration went to hell on the last 25 because I was tired, and because one of the range officers dragged a bunch of noobs over to my area and started using me as a teaching example. Very flattering, but not great for my aim. Anyway, the first 10 or so shot well enough to convince me that the 1911 is more accurate for me.

Man, I feel better. Finally, some progress. I was starting to think I would never be able to shoot a scoped rifle. Now I have hope again. And I think the lesson I learned from the rifle is going to make a big difference in my pistol shooting. I really look forward to that.

Nice $350 scoped rifle, huh?

Whee

For some mysterious reason, Trail Glades keeps changing its hours and failing to post the information on the web. So last week I was pretty surprised when my shockingly late arrival at the range turned out to be uber-punctual. They open at 1:00 on Thursdays. But wait…those are the winter hours. According to a sign at the range, during the rest of the year, they open at…1:00.

I’ll be making a visit today. I fixed the Romak III so it would cock itself properly, and I received a new ring for the scope on the K31, and I want to shoot a few .40 rounds, too.

I couldn’t find rings that would fit the Accumount anywhere, so I emailed the guy who made it, and he sold me a new ring for five bucks, shipped. Not bad.

I’ll be taking the new Tactical Trolley with me. This is the Stanley toolbox I got for the range. Very exciting. Don’t you wish you were me? I just bet you do.

My Speer manual is on the way. I can’t believe it’s impossible to walk into a store and buy it, but there it is. On the way to the range, I’m picking up a drill guide, and I’ll get a two-by-six for the bench, too.

I guess I’m a gun nut now. Although I’m not positive I qualify, since in addition to owning a lot of paraphernalia, I also put bullets inside the black on occasion. And I’m still holding off on a full-body camo tattoo.

I’m glad I wised up about going to the range on weekends. Weekdays are much better, although the likelihood of being embarrassed by better shooters is dramatically higher. I think weekdays are safer. Last time I went on a weekend, a bus full of kids unloaded, and for a while, it was like March of 2003 in Baghdad. The rangemaster probably lost his voice by the time the range closed.

Wish me a totally tactical afternoon.

More Tool Woes

Once again I must call on the tool gurus for help.

I have to mount my reloading press on my workbench. The best way to do it is to drill holes and use hex bolts. But the holes have to be over 7″ deep, and they have to go vertically through a two-by-six. And obviously, it will be bad if they aren’t straight, because they will come out of the side of the wood.

So, what’s the deal? I have a foot-long bit already.