Range Calls

I’m headed for the range. It has been too long, and Ivanka needs the air. I’m assuming it’s not raining out there; the farther you go to the west, the more likely that seems. If, indeed, it’s raining to the west, I will come home and pout.

I can test the hot Cor-Bon .38 Super rounds I bought and burn off a few dozen .45 reloads, so even though I won’t be using a laser, it should be a worthwhile outing.

Geez. I better print out a Vz 58 manual. I am still fairly clueless about how to strip Ivanka and clean her.

More

I came home to pout. Dang it. Wouldn’t you know the dry spell would end the night before I need to go to the range.

Positive note: my second “Rambo” brand laser arrived from Hong Kong, and I also received a laser mount for the Saiga.

Step Backward for Youtube Phenom

I’m kind of bummed out today. I was hoping to take the little Ivanka to the range, but it seems kind of pointless until I can mount the laser.

This is a very small gun. I don’t think a rest would work with it, and using a bipod would be like attaching a rake handle to a fork. I would be limited to shooting with the iron sights, unsupported. I’m not knocking that. I mean, it’s what the gun is for. But I really want to find out whether I can hit anything from the hip, with the laser.

I’m hoping the rest of my shotgun parts arrive soon. I need to get that machine up and running. One sad note: once it’s converted to a real AK, it probably won’t fit in the nice Bulldog bag that came with it. I suppose I can retire one of my older bags. The quality of the Bulldog seems superior.

Here’s some other horrendous news. Zo from Macho Sauce Productions has decided to besmirch his reputation by doing Pajamas Media TV. This poor guy. He really has something, but he’s going to wreck it by associating it with the laughingstock of the conservative movement. People are going to call him “Zo the Plumber.”

This man was made for radio. He has a voice and style that will keep people from turning the dial. By doing PJTV, which has no hope at all of being anything but a stillbirth, he’s going to turn himself into media kryptonite. I’m a fan, but there is no way I’d pay to see him or anyone else on the Internet. And I’m right in line with the vast majority.

I never dreamed that the PJ curse would get him. I can understand why people who are really bad at what they do and have no other hope have signed up to do video. But if you have a marketable talent, what’s the point? Joe signed up because PJTV was his only option. He seems like a fine person, but no one at a real media outlet would ever give him a job. Zo is a highly marketable young black conservative with original ideas. Surely he didn’t have to settle for this.

Speaking of video, it looks like the Internet personal broadcasting revolution has stalled. Nowlive will not be able to give members video as a matter of course. In the past, anyone who signed up could have a video broadcast. Now only a few will be so privileged. I don’t understand why they don’t do what real broadcasters do. Interrupt for commercials. Choose advertisers suited to the content of the shows. It worked for Blogads.

This stuff will eventually work. That’s my prediction. Bandwidth’s natural tendency is to become cheaper. But for now, no joy.

I never realized they were in such straits. I don’t know what they pay for bandwidth. I just assumed they had a business plan, and that they weren’t emulating the PJs by running on venture capital with no strategy for generating revenue.

The Internet is like the New World. At first, everyone who showed up was like a king. Then it got crowded, and success began to require more effort and ability. If you start a web media enterprise, the odds against you are astronomical.

The other day I realized that there are still people who do very well for themselves, using the web. If you can offer something unique and valuable, the web is a great way to sell it. Example: Tromix. It’s a couple of guys who machine gun parts and modify weapons. The things they do are not rocket science. There are millions of Americans who have similar skills. But there’s a strong demand for their parts and services, they promote themselves on niche websites, and they are highly competent. So they have to turn away business. That’s fantastic. It gives you hope, doesn’t it? America is sliding down the socialist drain, but individuals can still do well.

It occurred to me last night that it would be wonderful to market an invention on the web. The problem with this plan is that I have no invention. Another problem: you can put your inventions in the public domain by revealing them on a blog. So if I invented anything, I’d have to keep it to myself while I worked on it, and I wouldn’t be able to benefit from showing it to readers and asking for advice.

Last night I watched more milling DVDs. Man, it was beautiful. They skimmed layers off a block of aluminum using a fly cutter. I could watch that all day. Don’t ask me why. They machined aluminum at the start; this is a clean operation, because the only lube you need is WD40. When they went to steel, the guy had to hold a squeeze bottle and shoot oil onto the cutter continuously. What a mess. I didn’t realize it was necessary to do that every time you cut steel. Still cool, however.

Maybe I’ll get off my butt and hit the range. It has been too long.

Every Girl Loves Presents

I think one of the most irritating things you can do to a gun-grabber is to tell him you named your gun. So I think I’m going to call the new Vz 58 “Ivanka.” It’s a nice Czech name, and it applies to a hot babe who takes no crap.

Also, “Vera” is already taken. First by A Man They Call Jayne, and then by Doc Russia.

It’s hard to think of a sexy Russian name for the Saiga. Russian girl names tend to sound like “Agripena” and “Ludmila.” I considered “Mariska,” but it’s more Hungarian than Russian.

Ivanka has some new accessories on the way. I got her a cute new laser/light mount, plus a nasty strobe to put on it. A reader told me about these things. Supposedly they make people nauseous, which is a good thing, when those people are in your house toting weapons. We shall see. I went Chinese again. My Chinese laser is gorgeous, so I figured they were also capable of making flashlights.

The Saiga will have a laser on the side rail, plus a light under the barrel. The Vz 58 has limited (i.e. no) mounting options, so it will have the light and laser on the barrel, riding the same mount. If a criminal enters my home, it will be very hard to choose. I know one thing. The pistols will remain asnooze in their bags. Pistols are great, but long guns mean more shots on target, plus much greater capacity and stopping power.

Okay, the shotgun does not have greater capacity. But it has a whole lot, and one shot on target ends the game.

I think the Vz 58 was an excellent move. It’s like an M1 carbine that has taken tae kwon do. I got one magazine all loaded up with Wolf ammo, and I am itching to get to the range.

With enough prayer and a lot of luck, I will be able to go to my grave without shooting either of these things anywhere except at the range. But you never know. I don’t plan to have wrecks, but I still have airbags.

All I need now is a little bag for the Vz. I’ll keep it folded, right where I can get to it. At last, real home protection. Now I can go back to buying utterly frivolous guns that serve no purpose.

I Project Creepiness

I don’t get Glenn Beck. I just don’t. If I want to see grown men cry like babies, I’ll go to the liquor store and start breaking bottles of Chivas. If I want hysteria, I’ll start reading Amanda Marcotte.

I am not alone.

And Rahm It

This is pure sex. Check it out.

That is a Czech-made Vz 58 rifle in 7.62x39mm. It has a milled receiver. It has two super-light alloy magazines that hold 30 rounds each. It’s a side folder, made so the stock doesn’t interfere with the gun when folded. It’s two pounds lighter than an AK-47. And it was made in a country whose president says Al Gore is an idiot.

Hard to ask for more.

What a contrast, between this and the Saiga 12 shotgun I ordered. The Saiga is completely feminized, with a bunch of bizarre components that make it unrecognizable as an AK; all that crap has to be taken off and flushed. This baby, on the other hand, is ready to rock right out of the box.

You should see how tiny it is. The photos don’t do it justice. I don’t have an M1 carbine on hand, but this thing looks even smaller, and it has much more potential as a home defense gun. That’s saying a lot. An M1 carbine is a great thing to confront burglars with.

I could have had plastic furniture on this thing, but I chose the crazy particle-board stuff. I figured it would increase the gun’s value if I sold it. I picked a folder because I wanted to be able to shoot from the hip, using a laser. Which I already have. The gun has no place to mount optics, but I think of it as a short-range weapon, so I’m not planning to get a scope. If I can put the laser on the barrel, that should be enough to get the job done. If I decide I want a light as well, I am pretty sure I can order a new foregrip.

I can feel sweat oozing out of my body as I think of shooting this piece at the range. I can’t wait until tomorrow.

It bothered me that I couldn’t find a good milled AK for an acceptable price, but now I’m glad I didn’t get one. The AK is an immortal design, but it has zero class, and the style is crude, and it’s made with very little precision. This, on the other hand, is a real gun. With actual TOLERANCES. And it’s…CUTE.

I finally have some decent weapons for defensive purposes. I can rest easy while Obama and his stooge Holder try to trample our civil rights. They don’t have the guts to go after guns people already possess; they always divide us using grandfather clauses. That means I’m safe. Until they decide the grandfather clauses need to expire. I don’t think they’ll be able to do what they want to do. Gun control, for Democrats, has become like abortion for Republicans. They can’t get serious about it without risking a lot of precious votes.

Thank God I live in a state where it is still possible to get some use out of the second amendment.

If you don’t have serious defensive long guns yet, you better jump. For $550-$680, Classic Arms will give you what you need. Not a Vz 58, but a good stamped AK.

In other news, I received four new machine-tool videos from Smartflix. Honest to God, porn could not be any better. Which is good, because I can’t watch porn. The videos are from ATI (Accelerated Training Institute), and the ones I’m looking at are about the Bridgeport vertical mill. The guy in the videos runs some kind of firearms-related company, and he uses his machine tools in connection with that. He showed me all the parts of the mill, and he showed me various types of cutters, and by the time he was ready to cut some aluminum, I was in a trance. Like a crowd of moonbats, awaiting Obama’s next sneeze.

I’m not even kidding. I love watching people use tools. And I love big iron things made in America. I can’t really explain that.

I still have two and a half videos to go. Thinking about it almost makes my hands shake.

I better go sit on the couch and fondle my new rifle some more. Maybe I’ll be able to limit myself to two new guns this year.

By the way, I ordered this thing from Czech-Point. It’s a whole lot easier than trying to locate a new CZ-USA job. They claim some of the parts are reconditioned, but the barrel is like a mirror, and the only parts that look like they could conceivably have been used are the butt, pistol grip, and foregrip. It took them a while to get it delivered, but for a flat price, they cover everything. You just show up and do a background check. They pay the dealer fee.

Obama Subterfuge Works Better Than Papal Candor

Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall, says the Pope can’t wear a cross when he visits.

That’s up to him. He’s the boss; he writes the dress code. The wall is Jewish property.

But where was he when Obama showed up at the wall carrying his famous Hindu monkey idol in his pocket? Also, a cynical person might say Obama himself, being the self-anointed false messiah, is a religious symbol.

I suppose you can argue that the monkey idol was not visible, whereas the Pope’s cross is. Does that mean the Pope can please the rabbi by putting the cross in his pocket right before he approaches the wall?

My guess is that the rabbi has no idea Obama carries a Hindu idol around, or that he accepted a huge gold-plated version sent from India. It’s probably in our White House right now, since it’s Obama’s property. This is the kind of “diversity” Solomon favored. Sadly, God felt differently.

Interesting quote from the rabbi:

“I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a church.”

He may feel that way, but I very much doubt the Pope does. I can’t imagine any Christian, even in a weak mainstream church, telling a Jew to keep his Jewish paraphernalia out of the sanctuary. These days, even Orthodox rabbis sometimes speak in churches, and they don’t have to scrap their yarmulkes.

I don’t think the rabbi feels it would be disrespectful to Christians to wear these things in a church. I know of no basis for such a feeling. The overwhelming likelihood is that he feels it would be disrespectful to Judaism, but he’s trying to convey a different impression, which is pretty disingenuous. On the other hand, maybe he just misunderstands us. Very badly. To a degree which is not really credible.

The Pope should cancel his visit to the wall. Asking a Pope to take off his cross is like asking the rabbi to take off his yarmulke or work on Saturday. It would be a tacit yet undeniable and unambiguous denial of faith. Part of the Pope’s job is to profess and symbolize belief in Jesus. If he took off the cross, he would be letting down every Christian in the world. He would be telling us it’s okay to hide your faith in order to avoid trivial social awkwardness.

He can have a nice visit and mend fences without going to the wall. He showed respect by asking to go; that’s good enough.

The world is not ready for Papal visits to the wall. That’s the bottom line.

Saddest Thing Ever: Stealing Business Plan From Pajamas Media

FAIL FAIL FAIL

Has anyone EVER had a subscription news site that made money? I mean, regular news like you get in a newspaper?

This is why PJTV will fail. In fact, I would say the notion was “pre-failed” before it ever started.

Humorous Errors Logged for Posterity

I managed to use up the last of my Laser-Cast .45 bullets today. By that I mean I managed to make them into ammunition. I must have had every conceivable type of ammunition press malfunction by now. And not all are inevitable problems caused by the nature of the press. I made up a good number of completely new and unnecessary glitches.

The first die a casing hits in a Hornady Lock-N-Load AP has a pin in it that pushes the old primer out. The primer falls into a tube and goes out of the press. If the pin doesn’t push it far enough, it sticks halfway out. This locks up the press. It can’t turn because the primer obstructs it. Lots of fun.

The safeguard is to adjust the pin correctly and tighten it so it can’t slip back into the die. I do this, but you really have to crank down on it, and I’m reluctant to put too much pressure on the parts. So once in a while, the pin manages to work its way into the die, and a casing gets stuck.

My genius response? No, I didn’t throw away a two-cent .45 casing, of which I have piles. I put the casing on top of the shell plate and ran it up into the die, figuring the pin would poke the primer out. Here’s the problem with this idea. The same die has a sizing part in it that squeezes the casing back into shape, and when a casing goes into it, it gets wedged in very tightly. What pulls it out? The shell plate. IF the casing is situated so the rim is under the plate. If you do what I did, the plate pushes the casing in, but it can’t pull it out. So you have to find a way to pull the casing out, and then you have to readjust the pin. In case you’re wondering, Vise Grips don’t work too well, but a flat screwdriver does.

I also ran several rounds through the machine, with the part that loads primers sitting on the bench beside it. One of the irritating things about this press is that it’s easy to screw up the primer apparatus; there are several things that can keep primers from seating. When I started getting rounds with no primers, I figured it was time to diagnose a problem and fix it. In a sense, that was true. I looked at the part sitting on the bench next to the press, and I instantly diagnosed the problem: epic operator FAIL.

At one point I managed to do something really original. I somehow got a bullet stuck in the die that seats bullets in cases. I found this out when the stuck bullet mashed the next round halfway into a casing. I had to take the die out, put it in a vise, and drill out the stuck bullet. This may have been caused by an indexing problem. When the indexing gets messed up, you can have a situation where you can only push casings partially into the dies. In a situation like that, you could easily push a bullet halfway into a casing and then pull it back off, leaving it stuck in the seating die. If you didn’t catch it, you’d end up with the problem I had.

Other than my own interesting screwups, the press works as well as it ever did. The pawls were easy to adjust, but they crept out of adjustment while I made ammunition, ruining two primed cases and necessitating use of a hex wrench. I think this thing could use some Loctite to keep the pawl screws from creeping in and out. The little slide that moves fresh primers into the press got stuck once. As far as I know, this is normal. It has happened ever since I got the press. You can clean it and dry-lube it all you want. It’s going to happen once in a while. If powder spills on it and you don’t clean up every trace, it happens a LOT. Finally, the ejection wire caught one round, obstructing the press. Ho hum. I can deal with that. You just pull the round out.

On the whole, it’s a good thing. Five-dollar boxes are better than fifteen-dollar boxes, and it’s nice to know a little bit about ammunition, instead of just going to the store and pointing at the box I want.

I still have 1400 rounds of Hornady hollow points that I got as part of a sales promotion. I guess I should look up a recipe and start using them. I have read that they’re not optimal for self-defense, because they don’t always open up. I don’t know whether it’s true, but they’re fine for the range. Even if they’re not the best, this caliber does the job pretty well even with ordinary ammunition, so it would be comforting to have a few hundred rounds of hollow points in the closet.

With any luck, I’ll be shooting the Vz 58 at the range on Thursday. I bought .38 Super brass, so maybe I’ll take both 1911s and have a real session.

Buy a Gun Day Approaches

What are you buying for Buy a Gun Day?

I went to my local gun shop and asked for a surplus ICBM, but apparently the bedwetting liberals have managed to make it impossible to buy them.

Still Waffling

Mish Weiss’s blood cell counts are showing some improvement, but she has another cold and a very high fever. Here’s what a faithful prayer warrior has to say in her comments:

Of course, we will pray. Thanks for the specific info so we know exactly how to pray. I believe G_d answers our specific prayers. So we will pray that Mish’s counts continue to go up and the fever goes down the the cold goes away.

I’m joining in these prayers, and I hope you will do the same. Posting for Mish, Marc says “I know that I don’t even have to ask for prayer, thank you in advance.” What a day we live in, when Christians and Jews cooperate like this and see each other as allies. Many denominations, especially mainstream churches, display disturbing hostility to Jews and Israel, but there are at least 800 million Christians who have been taught that the Jews are the apple of God’s eye, and that we are to help them whenever we can.

In other news, I’m dithering on the lathe issue. A certain sum will buy me one of these three items: a Grizzly G4003G with a stand and a warranty, a used Clausing 5914 that came from a prison, and a South Bend 13 x 36. Og says the Chinese stuff is as good as ours now. If that’s true, the Grizzly is a good move. It will have a warranty and great customer support, and presumably, it will work right out of the crate. Still, I’ve read about little quality issues where the old US stuff is much better, and it’s possible that I might be better off with an old lathe.

I should point out that the G4003G is a gunsmith’s lathe. It’s a G4003 with better bearings and a few gewgaws. It should be considerably better than most non-Taiwan Grizzly offerings.

I’ve decided I’m not comfortable buying a used local machine unless I can be completely sure it will perform as well as a new Chinese job. The risk is too big, unless the machine is so cheap I can’t justify not trying it. A person of limited skills can’t really restore an old lathe, unless it has damage limited to certain areas. The Clausing and South Bend come from a dealer with a great reputation; I’d rather pay him a fair price than buy an iffy lathe really cheap.

Complicating the issue, I keep thinking the smart move might be to drop a few hundred on a Harbor Freight job and learn about machining. If I did that, presumably in a few months I’d be knowledgeable enough about lathes to evaluate used tools.

I hope my next round of Smartflix DVDs arrives today.

Friction Gone

More info for Hornady Lock-N-Load AP owners.

A while back I wrote about the problems I had with my Lock-N-Load. I want to emphasize something: this machine may have been completely perfect when I got it. It is possible that I screwed it up while learning how to use it. But I don’t think so, because it appears that the fundamental problem is excess friction, and that’s a design and/or manufacturing tolerance issue.

I had problems with indexing from the time I got the press. The ball detent things under the shell plate are of limited value; they don’t give enough resistance to prevent the plate from indexing incorrectly. You have to have the pawls set perfectly. These are little spring doodads that push the index wheel that turns the plate. They must be aligned with extreme precision; one quarter of a turn of an adjusting screw can mess things up.

The pawls move the plate by pushing the index wheel with their upper edges, which are very thin and somewhat fragile. The index wheel is hardened steel, and it will eat the pawls quickly if they have to work too hard. If it takes a lot of torque to turn the wheel, the pawls aren’t going to last. I think Hornady dropped the ball here. It seems to me that if you’re going to use a thin, delicate metal edge to push something, you should reduce the required force as much as possible. It would have been just as easy to make machines that turned with less resistance. Change two specs: the diameter of the drive hub, and the diameter of the drive shaft.

I figured I was having a problem with friction, so I took the driveshaft out, mounted it in a drill, and spun it inside a sheet of emery paper until it was shiny. When I stuck the shaft back in the machine, the decrease in friction was obvious. But I couldn’t test the press because while I was fooling with it I snapped a little key off the drive hub, and I put a lot of wear on the pawls. I ordered new pawls and a new hub, and they arrived a couple of days ago.

I put the hub on the shaft, mounted it in the drill, and gave it the emery-paper treatment. I cleaned out the inside of the sub plate (the hub rotates inside it), and I greased everything and put the machine together. When all was said and done, it turned considerably more freely than in the past, and it indexed perfectly.

One interesting side note: I had a hell of a time getting it to index when I first put it back together. Finally, I looked at the index wheel. It appeared to me that it was impossible for the pawls to push it as far as it needed to go, because of the shape of the wheel’s arms. They seemed to be curved in the opposite direction from the way they needed to go. And of course, they were. I had put the wheel on upside-down. This is probably why I couldn’t get the machine to index the last time I worked on it, after I ground the worn parts off the pawls. In all likelihood, I bought new pawls I didn’t need. Oh well. I’ll need them eventually.

I also have a habit of reassembling coaxial parts in the wrong order, so whatever I’m working on has to be taken apart several times before I’m done. I only did that about three times tonight.

The machine works great now. Slick as snot on a doorknob. And I understand it, finally. I suspect that every LNL owner needs to do what I did. Unless some units have less friction than others.

Hornady redesigned the shell ejection system. You have to buy a $30 replacement sub plate and pay $10 each to get your shell plates converted to work with it. I don’t know if I’ll bother. The old system relies on a stiff wire that pushes shells out of the plate. It’s very clearly at an angle which is suboptimal for the job. That’s not the whole problem; when the wire pushes on the side of the case to eject it, the rim rotates up against the bottom of the shell plate and creates resistance to ejection. But I think that if I bent the wire a bit, it would be reliable enough to keep using. I have two or three spares, so I don’t really care if I ruin one.

It feels great to get something fixed. So often now, when I have a problem, I’m able to go out in the garage and fix it. I can’t explain how wonderful that feels. I am finally getting something I’ve wanted all my life. It’s like coming up for air after a long swim under water.

My tool journey has been much more than a frivolous waste of money or a passing interest. I has been a genuine voyage of self-actualization. Christians don’t use that term much, but we should, because self-actualization is something the Psalms promise us. “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.” God knows us before we are born, and he designs each of us for a purpose. So it’s only natural that faith and obedience lead to a life in which you find yourself doing the very things that fill your innermost needs.

It’s funny. Non-Christians talk about the importance of “finding yourself.” That’s exactly what’s happening to me. So often, we spend our lives trying to find the things we know we need, when we should be living by faith and letting God bring us those things. You don’t need to find yourself. God already knows where you are, and he can show you.

I am starting to wrap up my lathe search. I have a couple of candidates. The prices are merely fair, but I can live with that, if it means not having the headache of coping with disappointing tools from shady dealers. Sometimes you have to pay for things. That’s just how it is.

I’m thinking I’ll get a 12″ by 36″ lathe and possibly a Millrite. I would prefer a Bridgeport, because there is a good chance I’ll eventually want to upgrade from a Millrite, but space is an issue, and a Bridgeport is about half again as big as a Millrite, in linear terms. The Millrite I found locally appears to be very nice, and I can get it at an okay price, with a shipping charge much lower than what I’d pay to drag one in from out of state. Once I have a mill and a lathe, I’ll be pretty well set for major tools.

Just don’t talk to me about Bobcats.

There’s Some Lovely Filth Down Here!

This is going to be a weird day.

It already started out weird. I got a comment from a guy claiming to work for King Arthur Flour. Apparently they have a very limited sense of humor about their marketing approach. They sent me a junk email advertising a recipe for “doughnuts without frying,” and I wrote a short post saying what a disgraceful and disturbing idea that was. The comment I received was sincerely defensive. I think maybe somebody needs a little time away from the mill.

It’s a bad sign when an executive runs around defending his company in blog comments. Especially when he defends the company from humor instead of serious criticism.

To [probably] misquote Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven, “Everybody thinks they have a sense of humor, but they don’t, really.” A person who laughs when he sees other people fall down thinks he has a sense of humor. But if he can’t take or even detect a joke, he really doesn’t. A person who has a sense of humor laughs when he, himself, falls down.

It’s a wonderful thing. Humor takes the most miserable moments in life and turns them into causes for celebration. It’s bizarre, if you think about it. Think about all those home videos of ruined weddings. The cake falls over. A bird poops on the bride. Whatever. If the people in the video have a sense of humor, they break up. It’s the greatest thing they’ve ever seen. They all want a copy of the video. If they have no sense of humor, it’s a horror that will be relived for 50 years. And as long as she lives, the bride will use it to make life hell for those around her. It will form the basis for her permanent vendetta against fate. It will be her excuse for distributing misery like a runaway manure spreader. A lot of women would give anything for an excuse like that.

For what it’s worth, I use King Arthur flour. If I didn’t think they made good products, I would not be on their junk email list. They make a strange pizza blend which is pretty good, but it’s unavailable except at mail-order prices, so I only bought one bag. It’s long gone. I don’t know if their bread flour is any better than anyone else’s. I have made tons of pizzas for test purposes, and I have not noticed a difference I could put my finger on, but I got in the habit of buying King Arthur for the reputation, so I still have it in the kitchen. I made Texas toast with it last week, and Mike says he’s still in withdrawal. My favorite pizza flour, however, is all-purpose biscuit flour from Gold Medal or Pillsbury. Whatever is cheapest. Anything low in protein, with no leavening. I bought 00 flour, but I used it so rarely, the bugs got it.

Baked doughnuts are an abomination, like soy milk. I stand by that. A baked doughnut is a cupcake with a hole. Okay, sure, I have probably eaten baked doughnuts. I’m pretty sure Entenmann’s faux-chocolate doughnuts are baked. I’ve eaten them, but I have no illusions about what I’m getting. Frying rocks. Especially when you use a particularly tasty fat, like coconut oil.

And–this will make the King Arthur people even madder–the best doughnuts are full of potato starch, which cuts way down on the flour content. Oh well.

The concept of baking things like doughnuts in order to make them healthier is fairly ludicrous. The fat is the least harmful thing in a doughnut. The huge pile of refined carbs that shoot into your bloodstream as glucose ten minutes after you eat…that’s the problem. That and the calorie load. If I had to choose between giving up refined carbs and giving up healthy, versatile, delicious saturated fats, I’d drop the carbs in a heartbeat. Out of fear, more than anything else. You can’t jam yourself full of flour, rice, potatoes, and sugar all the time and expect to be healthy. If you take those things out of your diet, the fats pretty much cease to be harmful. Look up homocysteine.

That reminds me; I have to get to McDonald’s soon so I can get my weekly McBiscuit, dripping with salty grease.

The other weird thing about today is that I have to run down to the warehouse, put a new padlock on it, and figure out what to do with all the junk. If I’m going to have a Craigslist sale, I have to find out what I have and make a list. And I need to make sure that sweet Genie Superlift is safe.

I should take more photos. What do you do with a light globe two feet across? Surely someone will want it. It would be a great planter.

What am I going to do with a ten-foot-long workbench? Even if I get it out of the warehouse, it’s not the kind of thing you can just throw out. Maybe I can bust it up with a crowbar.

Dang, the deadline is drawing near. I better hit the drive-through.

Oh the Wrongness of It

Tonight I got the dumbest junk email. It came from King Arthur Flour. The subject was “Doughnuts without frying? Here’s the secret.”

Why on God’s green earth would I want doughnuts without frying?

FAIL FAIL FAIL

DELETE DELETE DELETE

Free Stuff!

I got some comments touting the reliability of pump-action shotguns and implying that the Saiga I got is a product that lacks the pump’s long history of trouble-free use. I have no reason to doubt that pumps are reliable. I don’t know much about them. But I think I should point something out, if only to keep people from inadvertently making themselves look silly. The shotgun I bought is made by Izhmash, and the brand name is Saiga, but what it is, is a KALASHNIKOV. It’s an AK-47 shotgun. So maybe it’s best not to call it “untried.” That is my thinking, anyway.

I have had an interesting day. I got two new tools. Are you ready for this? One is a huge GENIE LIFT.

I know what you’re thinking. I have a giant Gomez-Addams-style vault under the floor, so I don’t care what I spend. No. Sadly. I got this thing for nothing. It’s really incredible.

My father owns some warehouses. The economy is bad. People are going out of business. He lost a tenant. The tenant was in construction. He told me the warehouse was full of “junk” up to the ceiling. He could not get the tenant to remove it. They called Habitat for Humanity, and they wouldn’t take any of it. It has been abandoned. He said there were “two big machines” in there, and he invited me to go look.

We drove out there today and opened the place up, and lo and behold, there was a Genie Lift in the back. And I don’t mean a little one. This thing looks like the suit Sigourney Weaver wore to fight the alien queen. It has the outrigger deals and everything. You could lower a 600-pound tool from the back of a truck with this machine. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it , but I know one thing. It’s coming home with me.

Can you believe that? On the way out there, I kept thinking how great it would be if one of the machines were a mill or a Genie Lift. I guess a Genie Lift is better, because I am willing to pay for a mill, but I would never have sprung for a Genie Lift.

It’s beat-up, but who cares? It’s in working condition.

The other machine, I could not figure out. It had two big tires on the bottom and a big flex shaft about eight or nine feet long, running from a Baldor motor to what looked like a platform for lifting drywall into place. I looked it up when I got home. It’s a ceiling grinder.

I would guess that even among my bizarre readers, there are few people who would recognize this thing. Here’s how it works. You make a concrete garage. It has cruddy excess material at the seams on the ceiling. So you go in with the ceiling grinder and grind them down. It works with wheels that look just like 10″ cutoff wheels. Google it. Very odd.

It’s in excellent shape. Unfortunately, I can think of no earthly use for it. So I plan to Craigslist it.

I plan to Craigslist a lot of stuff. My father wants no part of this mess. He just wants it out. He made me a key, and he told me it was my problem. I guess I’ll have to go out there and catalog and photograph it. Here is some of the junk I found.

1. A huge Ridgid brand driveshaft. For what? I don’t know. It’s brand new, still in the box. It’s around six feet long.

2. Boxes and boxes of grey PVC fittings. Lots of “end bells.”

3. Nuts for electrical conduit. Many boxes. I’d say most are 3″ across. Maybe 2″.

4. At least four stainless in-wall restroom towel dispensers.

5. Five sheets of 3/4″ sheathing plywood, plus other scraps.

6. A ten-foot-long formica workbench.

7. Three air cleaners. These are huge box fans that take air filters. Very heavy. One is still in the box.

8. Miles of rigid and EMT conduit. I will never lack for scrap again, if I can just find a place to put it.

9. All sorts of leftover steel from a modular mezzanine put in by a previous tenant. Beautiful for welding.

10. About 30 sheets of painted 3/16″ steel, in one-foot squares. These are panels intended for some specific purpose, but to me, they are some of the most gorgeous welding scrap imaginable.

11. Lots of electrical boxes, including some about two feet high and two feet wide. Full of tasty salvageable breakers begging to be ripped out and stored for later use.

12. Gigantic commercial lighting fixtures, including at least one street lamp about two feet across.

13. Miles of Romex and Cat-6 wire.

14. A steel desk with a very sturdy plastic top. Looks like a solid sheet of nylon or polyethylene. It would make a pretty sweet workbench.

15. A big Ridgid tool stand with no tool on it.

What a mess. I guess I should catalog it, find out the retail prices, list it for 50% off, and see who buys.

Express Yourself

Today I got an email which sort of suggested it was silly to want a shotgun that holds more than five rounds.

I realize that the pump-gun people are almost a cult, like the .45 ACP people and the revolver people. I don’t think it’s possible to convince a real pump fan that there is anything better than a pump. It would be like trying to make me like soy. But I’ll ask anyway. Do you think there is a good reason–I mean a good reason, not some ridiculous BS like “three more ounces of weight will make it impossible to carry the weapon”–why you would not want to have lots of shotgun shells at your disposal in a gunfight?

Back in the days when the cops were slowly realizing revolvers were obsolete for law enforcement (because they were being killed by criminals with Glocks), the notion that more ammunition was better did not seem controversial. Even the TV news heads got it. They would say, “The standard service revolver holds six bullets. The WICKED SEMI-AUTOMATIC INVISIBLE-TO-X-RAYS GLOCK holds sixteen. The police are now outgunned.” And they were right. Is there some reason why that logic does not apply to long guns?

Liberals seem to believe it, although I know that’s a sorry authority to cite. They wet their drawers constantly over “high capacity” magazines, because they realize an armed man who can shoot fifteen times without reloading is a bigger threat than a man who has to fumble with a ridiculous speedloader after five or six shots.

I read an FBI document the other day. I’ll bet many of you have seen it. The authors pointed out a sad fact. I’m assuming the document is legitimate and the “fact” is really a fact. They said that most shots fired by LEOs miss.

Again, I am probably using a bad example. If you’ve seen the police shoot, you, like me, may have been tempted to turn to a life of crime simply because of the astronomically low odds that a cop with a gun can hit you. They are really bad most of the time. It must be ego; anyone who is willing to listen can learn to shoot. If you show up at the range in ludicrous black pants with 92 pockets, plus a SWAT T-shirt, plus insulated black boots, in the summer heat, you probably are not the kind of person who thinks other people can teach him anything. Also, I suppose many cops are primarily quiet, mature civil servants just hoping to get benefits and pensions, so they’re not all that gung-ho about marksmanship. They miss most of the time, but maybe that has more to do with their skills than the stress of the gunfight.

Anyway, most law enforcement bullets miss completely. To me, that suggests that more ammunition can only be helpful. The more you shoot, the more likely you are to hit something, and you can at least lay down suppressing fire a little longer.

I have seen at least one good argument for fewer rounds. I wanted to get 12-round magazines for my shotgun, but the Saiga nuts say the 8-round jobs are more reliable. So much so that you can actually buy a part so you can saw up a perfectly good 12-round magazine and convert it. Still, I think the people who do this plan to make up for it by carrying more magazines. That would be my guess.

You can’t hope that a shotgun’s spread will make up for a lack of ammunition. At self-defense range, a load of buckshot isn’t significantly wider than a bullet. It might be an inch and a half across, instead of .45 inches. That means you still have to aim. The advantage in short-range accuracy comes from a shotgun’s sight radius and the fact that you shoulder it, not from the width of the pattern. You shouldn’t think you can get away with a few shells just because you’re shooting a “scattergun.” You should think of it the same way you think of a rifle. I have a rifle that holds six rounds, and I wouldn’t even think of using it for home defense.

These things seem self-evident, but I am well aware that there is a difference between armchair experts like myself and people who actually fight criminals. So if there is some reason why I should stick with the tiny 5-round magazines that came with the Saiga, tell me what it is.