Ammunition Glut

I’m such a liar. I said I was going to do .38 Super today, but then I went out to the workbench and saw the .45 stuff sitting there, and one thing led to another…

I now have 750+ rounds of pretty lead .45 ammunition, and I’m tumbling enough brass to get me to about 850. At that point, continuing will not be an option. I have around 180 .38 Super cases ready to go. That’s more than enough to make for a fine range day later in the week.

I truly need to improve the rigidity of the press’s attachment to the bench. Two bolts just won’t cut it. I’m still getting enough powder flying out of cases to jam up the primer punch every 150-200 rounds. I may have improved the situation by using slow force instead of plain old momentum on the upswing, which sets the primers in the cases. We’ll see on the next go-around. When you swing the handle into the up position, it really rocks the press, and mechanical things don’t like momentum. Seats the primers real good, however.

I’m getting advice on the OAL for Hornady hollow points. Someone said the OAL wasn’t important, because you can get any OAL you want by shoving the bullet into the case the right distance. However, I thought the pressure inside the case was related to the depth to which the bullet was seated. I thought that was the big worry, with regard to OAL. Otherwise, why would they vary so much for similar bullets? It can’t just be about feeding smoothly, can it?

It’s hard to believe I have to worry about .45 cases, where the pressures are below 15,000. That’s less than half the pressure you get with .38 Super.

I guess I’ll have 2-3,000 rounds of ammunition on hand eventually. Imagine how scary that would sound, if a biased journalist got ahold of it. And of course, it only reflects a common-sense effort to save by buying in bulk. I’d be totally thrilled to buy and store less, if I didn’t get hammered financially for doing it.

Marv has seen the story about the Japanese parrot who told the cops his address. Marv is not impressed.

Someone get George Holliday

Someone tell me why reloading companies have such great service. Is it because they’re terrified of losing their customers to frustration, or is it simply because they’re solid conservative people who believe in giving customers a good deal? Probably the latter. A lot of gun companies have great service, too, paying to fix stuff their customers destroyed through stupidity. And I don’t think they have the same worries about frustrated customers who are ready to throw their products into canals.

I have a Lyman XP1000 (or 1000XP) powder scale. I kicked the power cord and knocked it off my bench. The little plastic lid broke. I could glue it together, but I hate it when I buy something nice and new and I screw it up and I have to patch it up like a hobo. I contacted Lyman and asked if I could buy a new lid, and I admitted I broke it. Their response? “We’ll send you a new one.”

How about that?

The scale seems to work very well. I have had no problems with it.

I am thinking it might be a good idea to try to worm my way into gun writing. I know virtually nothing about guns, but I’m very enthusiastic, and I’m a lawyer, so presumably I can be of some use, writing about gun rights. Something to think about. I could bring some fun to the genre; that’s for sure. Is there a gun humorist out there, in line ahead of me? Can’t think of one.

I decided to get some new clips. If you’re one of those people who has a seizure when someone says “clip” instead of “magazine,” let me just say that I will try to clip this habit in the bud, although at present I tend to say the word “clip” at a very high clip.

Try not to swallow your tongues.

Up until now, I’ve thought of the 1911s as range guns, but it can’t hurt to have some real-life ammunition for them. If I buy some, I’ll want to load two clips permanently. So to shoot cheap ammunition at the range, I’ll have to unload one clip for each gun and then reload it later. That’s not great for the bullets, and it’s a pain. So extra clips are a must. Here’s the big problem: how do you store them with a gun in a bag? If you toss them in loose, everything gets scratched up (Glocks excepted). My tentative solution: buy a really cheap sunglass case for each clip. If you have a better solution, let me know.

I only have one clip for the Desert Eagle. I don’t keep it loaded, because I don’t use it for protection. I will regret this if attacked by an elephant or a brontosaurus, but around here, most burglars are people, and I don’t want to shoot through one and have the round go through a wall and kill my neighbor’s Mercedes.

I am still not sure what the .50 Action Express is good for, other than fun. One good thing about the Desert Eagle: pimps like them. And they’re very hard to shoot, so this makes it less likely that a pimp will be able to hit anyone.

I looked at some bullet-casting videos the other day. Doesn’t look too bad, with a 6-bullet mold. Talk me out of it.

Before you start, let me tell you I already heard about the parrot in Japan that gave the cops its name and address. If it’s on Drudgebart.tv.com, I have seen it. I haven’t taught Marvin his address. It’s not really a great idea. What if you move? The cops would force an annoying parrot on the people who bought your house.

Marv has little useful information to impart to the cops. If they interrogated him, they would hear things like, “Can I rub your fat head?”, “Let me squeeze your toes,” “TURD TURD TURD,” and “You’re stupid.” I guess I could teach him to say “doughnut” or “pension.”

There is a beatboxing parrot on Youtube. If it ever gets caught by the police, they’ll beat it to death. You know how cops hate rap. Here:

I know I tempt people to buy African greys. Don’t do it. Some are good pets, but many are miserable.

I’m going to try to make .38 Super ammunition. I was going to finish off my .45 lead, but I can’t take the boredom any more. And I’m out of empty boxes to put it in. I looked at the prices of plastic ammunition boxes. Like 3 bucks for a 100-round box. Are they high? This is the kind of thing you get free when you buy things other than bullets. In fact, a lot of cheap bullets come in reusable boxes. I’d be thrilled to pay a dollar each, but three bucks seems like a ripoff. Maybe I’ll just put bullets in my pockets.

You laugh now. Next year, everyone will be doing it.

Free Lead

Just made another 49 rounds of .45 ammunition. Why 49? Because I ran out of lead.

Sort of.

As I said yesterday, it looks like Oregon Trail includes extra rounds in their big boxes of bullets. I shot 50 rounds, I ruined a few more, and then I made a total of 449 rounds. They must have given me a dozen or so more than I paid for. But I still ruined so many I was not able to come up with 500 good ones.

I came in here to check Alliant’s site for reload data on my Hornady jacketed hollow points, figuring I’d crank out one more round and put it in the box. Unbelievably, I forgot about the 500 Laser-Casts in the second box. Ha.

Still, I have a problem. I have a Speer manual, which is biased toward their bullets. It has load data for a jacketed 230-grain hollow point, but how am I supposed to know the OAL? For all I know, the Hornady bullets are longer or shorter than the Speer bullets. Sooner or later, I’ll have to get the figures I need.

Maybe there’s some info in the mini-manual Hornady gave me with the press.

I may as well go ahead and buy whatever pistol primers are available locally. Everyone tells me the size of the primer, not the brand, is what matters. Hope that’s correct.

Cancer

I guess everyone knows about Ted Kennedy’s malignant brain tumor. Say a prayer. Let’s not be Democratic Underground.

Gas Mask Required

My habanero gold bush gave me an embarrassment of peppers. That’s the correct term, I’ve decided. A pride of lions, a murder of crows, an embarrassment of peppers. Because peppers produce so prolifically, you can’t find uses for them, and it’s embarrassing.

I couldn’t stand to let them rot. So I took every last one off the bush, fed it through a food processor, and added enough fresh lime juice to keep the result from spoiling. It would be even better with a little garlic and maybe a bit of oil, but it should be very good just as it is. These things are so sweet and fruity, they’re perfect for this use.

Aaron hates pepper sauce with vinegar. Lime juice is a pretty good alternative.

I wore nitrile gloves while I worked on the peppers, but I’ll bet anything I still got nailed. I’m afraid to put my hands near anything sensitive.

My Trinidad scorpions are turning red. I plan to try one tomorrow.

Which End Does the Bullets Come Out of?

My copy of America’s First Freedom came this week. I was just flipping through the article on the Heller case. This is the second amendment case the Supreme Court is considering, regarding the draconian and totalitarian D.C. gun ban.

I saw something interesting in there. Justice Breyer tried to make the facially absurd argument that the second amendment only applies to militias. Mr. Gura, the attorney representing Mr. Heller, countered with facts, noting that research has shown that men familiar with firearms in their private lives make better soldiers.

The other day, I talked to my dad about his military service. He laughed about the tough Detroit street kids he served with. He said they turned out to be pretty disappointing. He mentioned one who cried when they cut off his greasy gangster haircut.

My dad grew up in Eastern Kentucky, where guns were–and are–a part of life. Like toasters and clocks and so on. For people like him, dealing with guns was not a challenge or a safety problem. But the Detroit boys were incompetent and dangerous. He said they had a bad habit of turning around at the range, with rifles in their hands, pointing them at instructors and other soldiers. You have to wonder what percentage of them got good enough to hit the enemy. Probably a very small fraction.

My father won some sort of marksmanship prize. I doubt he was competing against city kids.

He said he liked the M1 rifle, but that he couldn’t hit anything with the .45 pistol he was issued. Apparently, a lot of people had issues with them. Maybe they made them loose so they wouldn’t jam up.

I was thinking I would like to get him an M1, but then I checked the prices. Wow. A thousand dollars, for a beat-up milsurp. I love my dad and all, but geez. I have to think about that.

Part of our military strength comes from the private use and development of arms. Consider that when you vote against the second amendment.

Kim du Toit has written a bit about the importance of Supreme Court justices. I wish he had mentioned the lower courts, which have much more power. It amazes me that talking heads and second amendment pundits almost never bring this up. Federal district and appellate judges run your life, very directly. Much more directly than the Supreme Court or Congress. And the President appoints them, and they can’t be fired. They stay in office for life. They’re like the Pope, except they have power.

If you vote for a Democrat President, you’re voting for dozens of judges who will implement his policies. You’re voting for gun bans, late-term abortions, open borders, the disarmament of our intelligence operations, the end of privacy, freedom for criminals, and the end of states’ rights. You are voting for totalitarianism and the eventual abolition of state governments. If you can’t get that through your head, you don’t deserve to be free. You probably don’t want to be free, whether you realize it or not.

I keep thinking about the mess the GOP is in. People say it’s because of the war. They say it’s because of the economy. The most unfortunate thing they say, in my opinion, is that it’s because we don’t have a “big tent.” As a Christian, I think they have it precisely backward. The GOP used to be a party that was more closely aligned with Christian beliefs. Now we’re all about sexual immorality and abortion and coddling Israel’s enemies and every other non-Christian notion presented to us. And we’re getting the reward people always get when they get away from God. Failure. It may come soon, it may come later, but it always comes. In the Eighties, we were much bolder about our religious underpinnings, and our President utterly crushed the opposition. This was at a time when the country was more liberal than it is now. Now we cower and kowtow before the rudderless swing voters, and we are getting thrashed. I have come to believe that we were given success because we tried to do the right thing. Part of faith in God is believing that if you do what’s right, you’ll get good leadership.

I am so sick of “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” Doesn’t that mean “sinful but selfish”? Wouldn’t the exact opposite be less offensive to God? I’m socially conservative. Maybe if we please God with our behavior and our faith, we’ll be so prosperous it won’t matter if we’re fiscally liberal.

I’m not getting a bunch of convict tattoos. I’m not going to shave my head and grow a chin beard. I’m not going to smoke dope. I’m not going to sleep around. I will not grow a ponytail. I will not join the cult of self-esteem. I’m not going to imitate the lost. If I ever advocated buddying up to “hip conservatives,” I apologize, because I was insane. It was a mistake. I am not hip, and I never will be. I refuse. I just want to become a better Christian and be better to other human beings. When you die, you can’t take “hip” with you.

Man, do I need to get out of Miami.

You May Not Mention Mrs. Ob-ma

Help me understand this.

Michelle Obama is a middle-aged woman.

Michelle Obama is a Harvard-trained attorney.

Michelle Obama insisted on injecting herself into her husband’s campaign, and she runs for the camera every time she gets the chance, and she deliberately says provocative things, and there is no way to make her shut up.

Why does Barack Obama think it’s wrong to respond to her remarks? Where did he get the idea that he had the right to forbid it?

One more reminder that this guy is a noob and a hopeless amateur. Wait till he gets a taste of the White House Press Corps. Sure, they love Democrats. But even Democrats have to answer a question once in a while.

Is Obama running for President…or Queen?

Maynard = the New Che

Over at The Answer Bird, Maynard is crying oppression again. I think he has been listening to Jeremiah Wright.

I’m Ready for my Close-Up

I am finally getting my routine down. I am now able to anticipate a lot of the things that will go wrong when I make ammunition, so things are going much better.

I bit the bullet, so to speak, and dismantled my 40-plus questionable rounds and reassembled them. And I polished a new batch of cases while I was doing that. I thought I was done, but there I was with primers in the tube and brass ready to go, so I decided to crank out a few more bullets.

I looked at the kitchen clock and went to the garage. The clock read 8:38. I ran off 50 rounds and went back inside. The clock said 8:47. That press is really good, once you figure it out and you learn how to cater to its weaknesses. If it continues to work this well, I should be able to finish off my 500 remaining Laser-Cast bullets tomorrow. I have to remember to clean out the punch once in a while, and I have to watch the indexing on the decapping die; other than that, it seems pretty reliable.

Whoops. I don’t think I have 500 cases. But I probably have 300; that will put a severe dent in the Laser-Cast supply.

I am not sure about this, but I strongly suspect that Oregon Trails includes a few extra bullets. I have shot 50 rounds, and I have 400 in fresh ammunition in the garage, and I ruined a few. And it sure looks like I have 50 or so left in my first box of 500. I wish primer manufacturers did that.

Reader Mike W. was really onto something when he recommended these bullets. My gun’s barrel cleaned up fast, and I suspect that they were the most accurate .45 rounds I’ve used. The Unique powder may be a little grimy; it’s hard to know how much of the crud is powder and how much is lube. Other people say it’s dirty. I was somewhat worried that the gun would get gunked up and quit chambering rounds. But while it looked a bit nasty when I got home, it worked okay, and clean-up wasn’t particularly bad. As noted before, I used Hornady’s wonderful but expensive One Shot cleaner. I think the key to using this stuff is to fire very short bursts. It will get the gun clean without spewing too much of the pricey cleaner out of the nozzle. I still say the economical alternative is Hoppes #9 followed by Liquid Wrench dry spray lubricant.

I have the Lyman tumbler figured out. When you’re emptying the media through the little hole in front, and it gets slow, you have to pop the top and toss the cases around to get the cobs out of them, while the machine is running. Then you have to tilt it forward to get the media to the hole. If you do all that, it will empty fast, and you won’t have a lot of problems with cases full of corn cob.

I have started throwing out nickel cases. Reader Jdunmyer says they don’t hold up well, and I’ve noticed they seem harder to work and more likely to jam the gun. I have like 95 nickel .38 Super cases; I won’t be throwing those out. But the few nickel .45s I have are going in the trash. Brass for the .45 is free, and the supply is inexhaustible.

I was talking to George Moneo the other day, trying to find out when he was going to man up, buy a .45, and start hitting the range. He informed me that I was going to make his ammunition for him. I gave him some helpful information too, i.e., he was insane. But now that it’s getting to the point where I can crank out ten rounds every minute, I suppose I might help him out. Up until now, every batch has been a living hell, but things are changing in a hurry.

Oh, he’s buying his own components. You can be sure of that.

I figure I am now able to make .45 ammunition for about $8 per box. That’s not the figure that was quoted to me in the past, but it beats Cheaper Than Dirt’s lowest current price, which is $13.20. At a savings of five bucks a box, I’ll pay for all the equipment I bought in a scant 32 years.

It really does shoot better. That’s worth something too. And it’s a big relief. Some people were telling me it wouldn’t.

Here’s something useful. You can now buy adjustable low-profile sights. My SW1911 came with Novak carry sights. Now Novak makes sights the same size and shape, with adjustment screws. The .38 Super has sights which appear to be fixed (maybe you can move them with a tool; not sure), and I really don’t care, because it’s a pimp gun. But I might want to upgrade the .45.

I don’t know much about Novak sights, but they look great, and they appear to be designed to clear holsters and clothing with ease.

I’m going to get extra Glock magazines. I’m tired of unloading my expensive Cor-Bons before every range trip. I’m also tired of spending five minutes at the end of the day, trying to cram .40 S&W rounds into a 9mm clip. I think I’ve done that twice now, standing in the parking lot swearing. My practice has always been to keep two magazines loaded with extra-nasty ammunition, and Glocks only come with two magazines. I figure if I can’t kill you with 21 or 31 shots, there is not much point in continuing to try. I would like to have magazines for the range so I could keep my pricey ammunition where it belongs.

Useful information: you always hear that leaving magazines loaded will ruin the springs. Some guy at Glock–can’t recall where–says this doesn’t really happen. Other brands? I dunno.

Reloading is working out. Not sure what I’ll whine about now.

Gorgeous

I now have 300 nice .45 rounds, sitting in pretty Federal boxes, waiting to be shot. Nice.

I solved my spent-primer problem AFTER wasting money on extra tubing at Home Depot. I put a binder clamp on the end of the tube. It will probably hold 400 primers, so it won’t have to be changed much. A better solution would be a 5/16″ metal screw in the end of the tube.

Blindshooter wants to know if I received a little bottle with my press, to catch primers. Not that I’m aware of.

I’m finding new ways to mess up bullets. For example, getting loopy and putting the fresh bullet in a case that’s on its way to the decapping die. I scratched one bullet doing that, but I’m going to shoot the damn thing anyway.

I emptied about 20 rounds that ended up without primers. That happened while I was experiencing frustration with the primer feed. Geez, what a drag. And I still have over 40 new bullets I’m going to take apart simply because I don’t trust them. I’m getting really sick of the bullet puller.

I came up with a new invention today. Self-cleaning cases. It works like this. While you’re putting cleaned cases in the press, you notice something that looks like powder in some of them, and you dump it in the container you’re using to catch excess powder. Then you dump that in the powder measure, and you realize the particles were really corn cob.

Yes, I did that. Only a few particles made it into the measure.

I figured out the big drawback to getting your .45 loads working. Once everything is going good, you have to keep doing .45s until you run out of components. Otherwise, you’ll have to set the whole thing up again, which will be even worse. And I still have around 600 lead bullets to go. I don’t have enough boxes. I guess they’ll have to go in a bag somewhere.

I’m going to go ahead and use my components. This load worked great at the range; there’s no point in messing it up much. I’m at around 5.1 grains of Unique.

Next up: .38 Super.

I wish I had something more exciting than the Glock to shoot 9mm from. It’s an incredible gun; any attacker within 50 yards is guaranteed dead meat. But it’s, you know…a Glock.

Interesting possibilities: Hi Power, Beretta, Tanfoglio Witness, CZ, and Baby Eagle. The Beretta is super elegant, but every time I mention it, gun nuts squeal in agony. I guess they’ll never forgive it for replacing the 1911.

I’d love to get an Israeli Hi Power. I think it’s called a Kareen.

I have to get back to work. I want to have enough bullets for a nice newspaper photo, when the cops come to get my “home arsenal.”

I Want a Revolver With Wheels

Is this a beautiful day or what? Trust me. It is. Granted, the dryness of May is wearing off, and the horrific heat of summer is starting, but it’s sunny and bright, and I’m healthy, and Marv and Maynard are fine, and my new tomato plants look good, and I have a lot of useful things to do today.

Lately it seems like every day is beautiful. Life has gotten progressively better for me since I entered law school, but over the last year, as my relationship with God has gotten closer, things have improved even more. I can’t remember the last time I went to bed without thanking God for the beautiful day I just had, or the last time I woke up and didn’t give thanks for a beautiful day, in advance. And the feeling doesn’t seem all that closely related to whether I did or expect to do anything pleasant on the day in question. I feel the same way on days that, objectively, seem pretty bad. That is possibly the strangest benefit of Christianity. You tend to feel happy and at peace regardless of the circumstances.

I can’t explain it.

I learned all sorts of good things yesterday. I found out that Messianic Jews believe Satan is a rebellious, evil spirit, just as Christians do. That’s not what the Orthodox believe. I also read about Corrie ten Boom’s experiences dealing with spiritual enemies. This is one of the more confusing topics in Christianity, because the Bible is vague about it. Some people run around verbally exercising authority over spirits all day. Others think it’s crazy or wrong. And then there is the problem of wondering whether you’re talking to yourself. You generally can’t see supernatural beings. There must be occasions when we assume they’re around, but they’re not.

She said she spoke at a church in Poland, and that there was an oppressive atmosphere there, and she got sick of it and commanded the spirit responsible to leave. And the atmosphere changed. I am inclined to believe anything this lady says. Her track record seems too sound to doubt.

A lot of Christians think it’s fine to believe in God, but wrong to believe in Satan and demons. You have to wonder what Bible they read. I have no interest in arguing about whether spirits exist. I saw one a long time ago, while I was wide awake, on a very ordinary day. Conceited intellectual arguments can’t change that; don’t waste your time. Other people have seen them too.

Foul spirits seem to be associated with particular locations or people or animals or objects. The impression I get from reading and from personal experience is that they often work on a particular home or building. And it seems like they have a thing about doors and entrances. Maybe I’m wrong. Both times I drew closer to God, I felt an urge to clean up around doorways. I sort of think they like corners, too.

I don’t know. I wish I knew more about it.

I used to keep this stuff to myself, but lately I have ceased to care. We’re all going to be dead soon. What will it matter if wrong, lost people thought I was a kook? Also, many people thought I was a kook long before I mentioned any of this.

Talk about kooks…what about Jesus? He saw demons. He talked to demons. He said he was the Son of God. What about Moses? He claimed he saw God’s presence in a flaming bush. He said God handed him two tablets of stone. He said God spoke to him face to face. These days, that kind of talk gets you a straitjacket, a handful of happy pills, and a prime seat in front of the TV in the day room. It’s a little crazy for a Christian to call someone a kook, just because that person has had experiences consistent with those our revered predecessors have had.

I’m sure there are folks out there who have seen much more than I have.

I’m getting more reloading tips. I’m too lazy to look, but I apparently said I was putting sizing lube on primers. If I did, I was wrong. I meant to say I was putting it on cases. I gave Chris Byrne the impression that I was squirting primers right out of the brass tube on the press, but by “tube” I actually meant the clear tube attached to the brass one. The clear tube goes up and down and tends to come out of whatever container it’s in, spraying primers all over the place. Not sure what the best answer is; maybe I should get a tube six feet long and just not worry about it. Og says running a primed case through a decapper will set the primer off. I am happy to take his word on that, since the alternative is to put his statement to the test.

A commenter says target sights will do more for my shooting than match-grade dies. I ought to go to a gun shop and look at a gun with target sights. But if, as I suspect, they’re exactly like the sights on my .357, it would be a waste of time.

I’ve been told I should get plastic ammunition boxes for my reloads. But I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Every time I go to the range, I reach into the nearest trash can and pull out some empty ammunition boxes, and they seem to work fine. I already have a few plastic boxes; some of my .50 AE ammunition was packaged in them from the factory.

Speaking of that caliber, I’d love to reload for it. I can’t believe I can’t beat a dollar a round. My problem, however, is that I haven’t found cheap lead yet. The cheap stuff is heavy. I want 300 grain bullets. Oregon Trails (Laser-Cast) has .370-grain bullets. Not sure if they’ll work in a pistol.

Ay, caramba! It looks like the price of .50 AE ammo has doubled. Cheaper Than Dirt wants almost forty a box. Hmm…Midway says they are eventually going to have Hornady ammunition for about $25/20. I didn’t know Hornady made loaded ammunition. I’m not sure, because I’m not positive what diameter I need, but checking around, I think I can get decent bullets (jacketed!) for about 20 cents each. So–checking powder and primer prices–I should be about to make ammunition for about 33 cents per round.

For crying out loud. I have to do that. After a hundred rounds, the dies would be paid off. I’m disgusted that the margin is so high on .50 AE ammunition. Did I make a mathematical error? Three cents for the primer. Ten cents for around 30 grains of powder. Twenty for the bullet. I already have brass. Let’s see…new brass is 29 cents per round. I guess that explains why new ammunition would cost a dollar a round, but two dollars still seems high.

Geez. I can shoot .50 AE for less than the price of new .45 ACP.

I don’t understand why there is so much data for the S&W .500 and so little for the .50 AE. Both are excessively large, but the .500 takes you right to the “stupid” level. The .50 is arguably useful for hunting or for bear protection. Or whaling. The .500 appears to be too big and heavy and clumsy to be of any use for anything. I love silly, oversized guns, but even I don’t want this one. I guess the “mine is bigger” factor has proven irresistible to a lot of reloaders.

That’s the morning drivel. Use it as you see fit.

New Ammunition, in More Ways Than One

Today I felt like my head just would not hold any more religion, so I took a break and made 50 rounds of .45 ACP. Things went pretty well, although I am getting severely annoyed with Hornady’s spent-primer tube. This thing hangs off the press, and dead primers go into it. Sounds, great, but the tube goes up and down as you work the press, so it’s not easy to find a container that will catch the primers. Short containers don’t work because the primers bounce out or the tube drifts out. Tall ones fall over. I taped a Baggie to it, but one side of the mouth fell down, and the primers started spewing out on the floor.

I was thinking I might weight the bottom of an old 2-liter soda bottle.

I tried to put a little Imperial sizing wax in my brass, but I don’t think I accomplished much. I’m not sure how to do it. Maybe I should get a dedicated cloth bag and wipe wax on the inside of it and then toss the primers around in it. I know I don’t have to use it, but it seems to make things go more smoothly.

I still have 40 rounds I don’t trust, so I have been taking them apart. I thought I could spread out the agony, substituting one of these for every tenth casing while making rounds. But that doesn’t work, because you have to push the lever all the way down to charge the shell ahead of the one in the decapping die, and you can’t depress the lever completely when a primed case is under that die. Either you deprime a primed case and lose a good primer, or you fail to charge the case ahead of it.

Wish I could shoot on Mondays instead of Fridays, but they don’t ask my advice when they set the range schedule.

Can anyone give me advice on target sights? I’m not sure, but I think the single biggest problem I have right now is figuring out what the gun is aimed at. The front sights on my guns are too small; they don’t fill the gaps in the rear sights, so it’s easy to end up with the front sight off to one side or another. Also, the front sights are just too damn big. I can tell I’m shooting at the center ring, but that’s about it. Of course, once the middle of the bullseye is gone, you have to guess, anyway.

I know a lot of 1911s have target sights, and I wanted to get one. But then it occurred to me that “target sights” probably means the same thing I have on my revolver. A giant front sight coupled with an adjustable rear sight. I don’t think that would be any more precise than what I have now.

Someone suggested a peep sight. I’m not sure what a pistol peep sight is like. I’ve seen giant weird sights on race guns, but I don’t know if they’re suited for precision shooting, or just for hitting the same object over and over, quickly.

I’ll figure it out.

The Complete Jewish Bible and the related New Testament commentary are wonderful. They make me realize how lucky Gentiles are to know about Jesus, who is, after all, the Jewish Messiah. You can see from the commentary how much easier it would have been for Jews to understand and worship Him. Christians do their best, but we have had to guess a lot, and we’ve made mistakes.

As Bible translations go, I find this one easiest to read, except for one thing. You have to get used to the Hebrew names. A name will pop up, and you’ll have no idea who it is, and then it will turn out to be someone you’re very familiar with.

One fun thing about it: about half the men have names ending in “yahu.”

Another small quibble: the Christian tradition of printing Bibles in two columns, broken into verses, with annotations in the middle is very helpful, and you probably won’t understand how helpful until you see a Bible where the text goes clear across the page, with two or three annotations at the bottom.

I love The Spirit-Filled Bible, and these two volumes will take their places beside it now.

I am Master of the Press

Here’s a great tip for people who want to get used casings really clean before reloading them. Put them in a tumbler in the afternoon, turn it on, and then FORGET ABOUT IT UNTIL RIGHT BEFORE YOU GO TO BED.

Man, those casings look good.

I read a lot of Corrie ten Boom’s Tramp for the Lord today. Highly recommended, if you’re trying to get used to the idea of obeying God and living by faith.

Hopeless

I had something taking up my time during the last two weeks, and I let it cause me to completely forget about the Cuba Nostalgia convention, here in Miami. I thought I was not going to be able to go. It turned out that wasn’t true, but I was still off in my own world.

If you’re in Miami, Cuba Nostalgia is still going on.

Have You Even Showered Yet?

Today while refusing to get out of bed on time, I flipped from The Weather Channer to Fox News. I used to use Fox as my alarm channel, but there is something soothing about The Weather Channel, which Fox lacks. In spite of Heidi Cullen’s campaign to destroy the careers of meteorologists who disagree with her about global warming.

Greg Gutfeld and some other Internet personality were guests on Fox and Friends. The host said they were going to look at Youtube videos. He joked that Gutfeld scoured the Internet for material all day every Sunday, because he had nothing better to do.

I thought about that. Sunday is like that for many Americans. A wasted day. You get drunk and have fun on Friday night. You rest and recover from your hangover on Saturday. Sunday rolls around, and you lie in bed with a newspaper.

This is what people do, while refusing to give one weekend day to God. It’s what I’ve generally done. Lying in bed with a newspaper, or barbecuing, or watching sports, is better than a day of rest and devotion.

I am here to tell you, it’s no bargain. You can use that time to rest AND improve yourself AND heal and strengthen your family. Sleeping until noon, or slouching around drunk on a lawn chair is not a good substitute.

People have all sorts of stubborn problems. Addiction. Divorce. Bad relationships with their kids. Depression. Anxiety. Loneliness. Boredom. Miserable jobs. The sensation that life is meaningless. We look for answers all the time. Psychiatrists. Physicians. Prostitutes. Hobbies. Cults. Fast living. Oprah. My belief is that we have these problems because we don’t have proper relationships with God. These are problems to which God is the natural and effective solution. Without Him, we are SUPPOSED to have these problems. A miserable person will look for ten different inadequate remedies for ten different challenges, instead of praying to the one God who can fix everything. We get a little relief here and there, but it’s illusory. It’s usually temporary, or it’s not really satisfying, or it has a cost so high, it’s not worth it. The Godless life is like communism; it offers a promise it never keeps. The communists were supposed to take over the world, and every time they made a trivial bit of progress, they took it as encouragement. Now that’s all in ruins. The same thing applies to other ineffective solutions that come from earthly sources.

I remember trying drugs to fix ADD. What a disaster. It ruined my chances of becoming a physicist. And I thought I was a Christian at the time. I don’t know why I didn’t make a better effort to use my faith. Anyway, it’s a great example of a very hard problem that human solutions can’t fix. It was amazing, how resilient my ADD was. At first 10 milligrams of Ritalin fixed it. Eventually, I could take over a hundred per day and not get relief. Wellbutrin worked for a while. First thing you know, I was taking two and a half times the maximum dose in a desperate effort to make my mind work. After that, I found that a tiny dose of Prozac that most people wouldn’t even feel affected me right away and drove me around the bend for weeks.

Why didn’t I just find a church? At the very least, I could have prayed more and gotten my life right. Things would have worked out. Maybe I would have had to give up physics anyway. But I would have had peace, and a door would have opened eventually.

A weekly day of devotion would have helped me toward my goal. Instead, I lay around watching TV and playing Duke Nukem on the Internet. Wow, that paid off real good.

Businesses have meetings even when they’re going well, don’t they? I think the sabbath fulfills the same purpose. Meet up with God. Remember your priorities. Look for problems. Find encouragement. Fill out a TPS report.

Okay, don’t do that last part.

Obscure reference.

Maybe I should publish a Talmud to help people understand this blog.

The sad thing about earthly answers is that they work so well for short times. It’s hard to quit when you think you could get it right with just a little more effort. Ask the socialists.

It seems like every week, I get a new lesson on what Jews go through on shabbat. This week? How it feels when you think you didn’t get enough done during the previous six days. I would really like to make myself some .38 Super ammunition today; I felt like I was finally getting on top of the reloading situation. But it’s going to have to wait, most likely. I don’t rigidly enforce my policy of not doing anything that isn’t God-related, and if I feel like I need a break, I might spend an hour with the press. But at the moment, it’s not in my plans.

I hope some of you will give the sabbath a try, and also that you’ll find someone better qualified than I to teach you about it. You may be surprised. Like a lot of the things God wants us to do, it sounds like a tax, but it ends up feeling like a gift.