Time to Find a New Registrar

Scroll Down for Info on Godaddy’s Explanation

I registered a domain name at Godaddy.com, on a lark. Then it lapsed. It was a com name. After it lapsed, I decided to see if I could revive it.

Their site said it was not available, so I registered the net version. Then I sent an email asking what was going on with the com domain, because their site said something about a redemption period. I just got a reply. They’re holding it hostage. They’ll give it back to me for ninety dollars. I told them to keep it.

I’ve registered more domains than I’ve actually used. Sometimes I get a domain idea I like, and I register it for the hell of it. Until now, I reflexively went to Godaddy. But they can forget my business from now on. I hope they enjoy their worthless domain more than they would have enjoyed my continued patronage.

One unfortunate thing about Internet hosting and domain businesses is that they have no oversight. There are no ethical rules binding these people, and a lot of them are creeps. They should consider their customers clients and look out for their best interests, but they don’t have to. I’m surprised that a well-known outfit like Godaddy would resort to something resembling extortion, but I’m sure it’s completely legal.

I’ll be moving all my domains to my current hosting company as they near expiration. It’s time for Godaddy to go, go, go.

Glad I learned this lesson with a domain I don’t care about.

More

Godaddy now says “the registry” charges them $80 to “redeem” a domain name, and that this is why the fee is so high. I don’t know who they’re talking about. All I know is, somebody is trying to charge me a ton of money for a worthless domain which has never been associated with a website, and which would cost about six bucks to register, were it new.

Evidently, there are companies above Godaddy in the food chain. Googling around, I come up with one name: Verisign. Are there others? I don’t know. All I know is, they’re the folks who get the bulk of the cash.

Here is what I suspect. “Redemption” consists of clicking a check box on a website somewhere or typing a few characters into a form and pressing “Enter.” That’s how complicated most of the processes associated with creating a website are. If redemption is different, you have to wonder why. I’m still thinking “ransom.”

I also wonder why Godaddy doesn’t mention this when you email them about redeeming a domain. You would think they would want customers to know they’re not the ones applying the screws. It looks like I was mistaken and Godaddy is not evil after all. But it sure looks like somebody is milking this.

Even More

It looks like expired domain names are auctioned off on a site at tdnam.com. So I suppose what you’re paying for is the service of having your site yanked off the auction site. However my expired domain isn’t on the site. So I wonder what I would be paying for.

Hmm…someone on Metafilter claims a Godaddy affiliate called Wild West pounces on expired domains and buys them for ransom purposes.

I don’t know what the deal is, and I don’t care. I take care of the domains that matter. This one was just a whim.

This is How You Break World Records, I Guess

I set the DVR to record Tred Barta’s Versus Network show, almost out of morbid curiosity. If you don’t know who Barta is, I’ll fill you in. He’s a blustery charter boat captain who rose to quasi-fame as a columnist for Sport Fishing Magazine. His column was always fun to read, although the basic and shameless message was “Tred Barta is quite wonderful and everyone else is a moron.” He also hunts, and Versus airs his hunting and fishing adventures.

I wanted to see what this guy was like, because the things he says are so obnoxious and macho, and because he toots his own horn like he’s being paid by the decibel. And he’s a bona fide nut. He does things like shooting grizzly bears at 40 yards with a bow, which is about as smart as being a White House staffer and looking Hillary Clinton directly in the eye when she passes you in a hallway. Whatever is hardest and least likely to work, that’s what Barta does.

I was prepared to hate him, but watching the show, you can’t help liking the guy. He writes like a two-fisted he-man, but on video, he turns out to be an aging dad with a big belly and an insatiable thirst for chocolate milk. How can you hate a guy like that?

Last night I watched a show in which he took two fathers and their young sons fishing for marlin, off the South Carolina coast. It was hilarious. He made one of the kids sit in the cockpit with him while they spent ten minutes practicing the following drill. Tred yells “right long,” referring to the outrigger line on the port side of the boat. Then Tred points his hand at the rod and says “rod.” He did this over and over, based on the theory that it would help the kid get to the rod faster when the marlin showed up. And of course, the kid thought he was a mental case. And when the fish showed up, Tred grabbed the rods before anyone else could get near them and set the hooks.

They didn’t get any marlin. For some reason they were dragging rigged ballyhoo; maybe that’s a great marlin bait off South Carolina, but my guess is that he would have done better with fast-trolled plastic lures or maybe live bonito. It seemed weird to me. The ballyhoo did exactly what they do here in Miami, which is, attract dolphin. They HAMMERED the dolphin, and nearly all of the fish were big. At least one looked like it was in the twenty-five pound range. Tred was upset because they couldn’t get away from the dolphin and find marlin, but like all kids, the boys were happier catching nice fish often than great fish very rarely.

I didn’t see any evidence that the “right long, rod” drill helped.

Barta wore a ridiculous captain’s uniform while he fished. Khakis with a matching shirt, and the shirt had silly bars on the shoulders. I would feel like a complete idiot in a getup like that, but for a guy who practices saying “rod” over and over, it seemed like the perfect costume. When I fish, I get so hot I can barely stand to wear shoes. If I had to dress up like Ensign Pulver every time I went out, I’d have a stroke. And how do you get blood out of expensive khakis?

The appealing thing about Barta is that he seems to be exactly what he pretends to be. A well-meaning kook. He drinks his chocolate milk and does his rod drills and wears his captain suit with complete honesty. This is what he is. A bizarre and oxymoronic phenomenon: a sincere poser. He has decided not to fight it.

He hates the liberal media and says a blessing before each meal, so score two more points in his favor.

His show is a lot more fun than other things you may see on outdoor shows, like stuffy gun writers shooting hand-fed exotic animals on ranches ordinary people can’t afford to visit.

I wonder if we could get him to put on camo, stand in a hallway, and look the Hildebeest in the eye.

She Writes!

Great news! Leah Friedman is writing now!

As you know if you read my blog, Leah suffered respiratory arrest related to a heart condition, and she was comatose for a while, and now her brain has to recover from the insult. A bunch of my readers have been praying for her, and it’s working. I hope she won’t mind me posting this.

Hi, Everyone:
I’m Home! I am able to type, very slowly.
My brain still has trouble getting the message to my fingers.
In time the doctors say it will return. I have some memory loss and walking is
very difficult, therapy is three times a week. I have so many emails and comments from all of
you, THANK YOU for refuah shleimah.
As energy permits I will write to everyone.
G_d Bless!

B’Avahav,
Leah

Here is her blog, if you want to comment.

Wouldn’t Surprise Me

I have a pile of bullets on the way from Oregon Trail (the Laser-Cast people). I had a hell of a time getting load data. I managed to scrounge up a few recipes on my own, and I also contacted Oregon Trail, and they kindly faxed me pages from their old reloading manual. The obvious question is, if they have a manual, why don’t they sell it? As is so often the case when I can’t get a product I want, I smell the fishy, fetid aroma of tort lawyers. I’ll bet Oregon Trail has been sued.

Right now I have an opportunity to do some tort work. My father sometimes works with another lawyer, and this guy has a client who wants to do a case on a contingency basis. I could be useful, because it’s an area of law I know a little about. At first, I was interested, mainly to make my dad happy. But now I don’t want to do it.

If the client was looking to make peace, end the defendant’s destructive practices, and get reasonable damages, I could see doing it. But I think the goal here is to get as big a cash settlement as possible. That’s perfectly legal and ethical. But is it the kind of thing a Christian gets involved in?

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” That sentence keeps rolling around in my head. And we’re supposed to be merciful. How do you reconcile that with contingency tort suits? You can’t. No lawyer ever says, “We got a giant verdict, but it greatly exceeds our actual damages, so let’s give some back.” Lawyers are greedy, and so are clients. They take every dime they can get. It may be legal, but it’s not right.

I should have realized this back when I was practicing full-time. I represented clients who wanted all the money they could get, yet when I had opportunities to sue people in my own right, I chose not to do so. I do not like the idea of putting someone under that kind of stress, unless it’s truly unavoidable. The businesses I sued on behalf of my clients were large, wealthy, impersonal, and guilty, and I still feel doubts about the money we got. I’d feel considerably worse sticking it to individuals. I was stupid to do contingency work to begin with. It was a moral mistake.

I’m glad I got out of contingency work, and I am going to have to get out of the case I’m being offered now. I’m sure there is a way for a Christian to make a living practicing law–mediation, maybe–but sticking people up with a briefcase, as though it were a revolver, is not it. People call lawyers “hired guns.” It sounds flattering, but it’s not. It’s something to be ashamed of. Where do real hired guns end up? On death row, in little cells in which the sinks are also toilets. They’re losers. Pitiable people.

Tort lawyers remind me of corporate raiders in that they let other people work to accumulate wealth and create jobs, and then they come in, take it away, and leave nothing behind. They create nothing of value. They only plunder. When you’re a tort lawyer, and you win, you don’t have to show up to help people vacate their offices. You don’t have to help them find new jobs. All you see is that clean, pretty check, when it arrives in the mail. Never mind what it may represent. That’s not your problem, right? The bar says it’s not. The law says it’s not. It must be okay.

I suppose tort lawyers have made some products safer, but they’ve also made them more expensive, and they’ve prevented great products from coming to market. And they stimulate litigation, which is something lawyers are not supposed to do. On the whole, tort law is a disease, and people who participate in it should be ashamed.

I’m glad I figured this out before spending a long career, raking in ill-gotten loot. I could very well have ended up in that position. I’ve done dumber things.

I don’t know if there is any point in fooling with law. I would truly like to continue writing. I used to be afraid that trying to please God would make my writing worse, but that isn’t true. It actually improves it. It makes it smarter and more useful to the reader. I think my voice will change considerably in the future, so I wonder if my existing work will be of any use in selling work that will probably appeal to a different market. But you can’t make moral decisions based on what will or will not sell.

Anyway, I will not be a bottom-feeding tort lawyer. I have done a lot of crappy things in my life; I don’t need to add that to my resume.

“Bulletproof” Real Estate Starting to Slide

As usual, I am starting the day with Drudgebart.com.tv. I’ve finally learned my lesson about clicking the blind video links. I used to find myself inadvertently watching one disappointing video after another, before realizing what I was doing. Now when I see “breitbart.tv” in the link, I avoid clicking.

One interesting story: Miami luxury homes are finally dropping in value. A LOT. The story has to be horrifying for speculators. Among the examples: a property that sold for $2.75 million in 2005, selling for $500,000 at auction. I knew the prices of ordinary homes had dropped something like 20 percent. But 80%? Wow. The story says the deal still has to be approved by the seller. I think I’d hold on and try to squeeze more out of it, before I’d eat a $2.25 million loss.

I know a realtor who got caught up in the tulip-bulb frenzy when it started, and for a while he made good money. Unfortunately, instead of merely selling real estate, he bought a bunch of spec properties he couldn’t afford. If I recall correctly, one of his loans has an interest rate of 18%. Why? Because “experts” were saying the interest rates didn’t matter. If you make a 50% return in six months, what do you care about an annual rate of 18%?

Now he’s trying to unload his own house, to save his credit. He may have to quit real estate. He hasn’t made a payment in months, and the only reason he hasn’t been thrown out on the street is that his lender is even more scared than he is. Better to have a nonpaying owner living in a house and taking care of it than to let the house go unoccupied and fall apart.

This neighborhood is looking more and more like a ghost town. There are several “for sale” signs on every block. There are vacant lots all over the place. When you drive down the street, you see one empty house after another. Houses that should have gone up two and three years ago aren’t going up at all, or they’re finally starting, after terrible delays. I would hate to buy one of these places. They’re being built to sell, in a county where construction is illegal-immigrant-built junk even in the best of times.

And people are RENTING here. That’s unusual. Anything to get the houses filled, I guess. If the economy gets a lot worse, this neighborhood could easily become a collection of unoccupied homes subject to vandalism, squatting, and arson.

Here’s what I wonder. Where did everyone go? Many, many houses are empty. They had to go somewhere. Maybe they did what I want to do. Maybe they moved north.

According to the story, things are going to get a hell of a lot worse here. A huge number of apartments have been built, and they’re going to get their certificates of occupancy soon. When that happens…WHEEEEE, you’ll be able to rent a nice place for three hundred bucks a month. For owners, that means no more positive cash flow. You won’t be able to charge 2x in rent and pay x on your mortgage and expenses. And that will drive selling prices down even farther.

It’s amazing how bad people are at math. Professional investors seriously believed home prices could increase 25% for year, for eternity. Someone do the math for me. What would a hundred-thousand-dollar house be worth in twenty years? Fifty million dollars? Some ridiculous number. I’m too lazy to figure it out. Wait, I found an online calculator. Looks like it would be worth roughly nine million dollars. Yeah, that’ll happen. With income increasing maybe one-fifth as fast. Assuming a five percent annual increase in income, which we’re not really getting, your income would increase by a factor of 2.65. So your house’s price increases by a factor of nearly 90, and your income goes up by a factor of less than three. Maybe in Bizarro World.

I know almost nothing about economics, but for at least two years I’ve been pointing out that we were headed for a cliff. The free market didn’t cease to function simply because a lot of misinformed people got into house-flipping. Sooner or later, the money to pay for a house has to be earned. And if it can’t be earned, the price has to drop.

Does this mean we’re headed for a buyer’s market? I dunno. The prices will be low, but a low price doesn’t make a good investment. We have a lot of other problems hurting us. Oil prices, food price increases caused by the ethanol scam, increased competition from India and China. Real estate may drop to a plateau where people feel safe buying and then it may plummet even farther. I guess the only good reason to buy a home these days is to have a place to live.

My instincts tell me the credit crisis has to hurt real estate badly. Not just because it will reduce the number of loans, but because it will make buying more unpleasant. If people have to pay more for homes up front, they’ll feel the pain much more directly. Credit is like insurance. It takes the suffering out of high prices, driving prices up. I would venture to guess that the more money people have to put down, the more prices will drop. Here in Miami, small, ordinary homes have been selling for four hundred thousand dollars. It’s one thing to put fifty grand down and pay a thousand a month. It’s another to come up with a hundred thousand or even the whole cost of the home. Those little houses are going to stop looking like bargains soon.

Ironically, Miami has been blessed by the dollar’s slide. Foreigners love it here, and the dramatically increased buying power of their currencies lured them to buy homes. That’s all over now. With Sotheby’s withdrawing home after home, without a bid, the flow of foreign cash is going to dry up fast.

I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned. You never try to surf a wave all the way to the beach. When I was in law school, I traded stocks, and I paid a big chunk of my tuition that way. When the techs started looking bad, I quit. And I kept my capital. A lot of people lost their retirement money, because they seriously believed the NASDAQ could double in value every year until Judgment Day. Sometimes you should be satisfied with a really, really good return. Otherwise, you’re like a gambler who stays at the table until he craps out. I’m sure there are people who got rich flipping properties. They’re the ones who got out two years ago.

I know I’m no expert, but the experts are losing their homes, going broke, and jumping out of windows. And I’m not. If anyone asked for my advice, I’d say the same thing I said two years ago. Stay out of this mess.

Try It

I had a pretty productive day today. I read the book of Galatians, and I studied up on the Trinity, and I read a fair amount of Such a Firm Foundation, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s book relating Christianity to Judaism. And I created a new pork recipe. I wasn’t planning to do that, but I had to fix something to eat, and I had a lump of Costco tenderloin, and I threw something together.

Here’s the basic idea. Cut a tenderloin into medallions and marinate it in a little Marsala, garlic juice (solids strained out so they won’t burn and stink later), several sliced cayenne peppers, and salt. Cut up a big white onion. Fry the onion in butter until it starts to clear, and then remove the onion from the butter. Add more butter if needed, or even if not needed. Fry the pork in the butter to brown it. Splash a little Marsala in while frying. When you have a pile of browned medallions, fry the onions a little more and add them.

The Trinity is an interesting concept, because it’s one of the main things Jews cite when they criticize Christianity. Even though Islam is a bigger threat to the Jews, Islam is considered less heretical than Christianity, because Islam is purely monotheistic. Christianity has the Trinity, which appears polytheistic to Jews. And to a lot of Christians, I might add. I didn’t know until recently that many Jews consider themselves forbidden to enter a church or even walk in front of one, whereas mosques pose no problem.

I tend to think Christians have screwed up the Trinity concept. While Jesus is clearly divine, it’s also clear that He considered himself completely subordinate to Jehovah. As for the Holy Spirit being a person separate from Jehovah, I’m not so sure. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was referred to as “the Spirit of God,” and it was no threat to monotheism. I see it as an extension of the life of God into the human body, just as a plant’s life extends into a leaf. I think it’s part of Jehovah. If it was not considered a polytheistic concept in Samson’s time, it shouldn’t be any different now.

Rabbi Eckstein’s book is informative. I’ve read the first chapter, and so far the obvious underlying message is, “It is a waste of time to try to convert us.” He talks about the way the Judaic legal system works, the way a modern legal scholar might explain the American legal system. And it’s impressive. There is no doubt about that. First there was the Pentateuch. Then the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Then there was oral law, supposedly dictated to Moses but not reduced to writing until the time of Jesus. Then there were endless commentaries, and commentaries upon commentaries. And there are immutable procedures for resolving questions, and man–not God–is considered the final arbiter.

The peculiar thing about man being the final authority is that it places his interpretation of scripture and commentaries and so on above even divine revelation. Rabbi Eckstein relates a story in which a group of rabbis have a dispute, and God speaks from heaven, giving them the answer, and they reject it, because tradition says they’re supposed to vote. And God agrees, even though their answer disagrees with His, and He says they’ve beaten Him! And He’s happy about it!

How do you convert people who believe things like that? We rely on faith and the action of the Holy Spirit; modern miracles, if you will. And Jews are trained to distrust these things. It’s not unreasonable; they’ve seen fraudulent messiahs come and go for centuries. And they haven’t had a prophet in over 2000 years.

Jewish scholarship is much deeper and older than ours. Christians tend to reinvent the wheel every time a church becomes unsatisfactory. Jews–at least the Orthodox–build on old foundations and don’t abandon them. If you look at it from an intellectual standpoint, you can hardly blame them for thinking they’re on firmer ground. It’s remarkable that any Jew with a religious education ever comes around. I suppose they only convert when they decide they see Jesus in the Bible, so convincingly that they’re willing to disregard the bits of the Talmud that were created after the advent of Christianity. I haven’t read the Talmud, but it’s my understanding that it’s not a document that could ever be used to support the divinity of Jesus. To put it lightly.

I’m not concerned. If Jesus is the Messiah, then creating intellectual barriers is like like building a house of straw to protect yourself from the Big Bad Wolf. Illuminating reading, however.

I can’t figure out whether Rabbi Eckstein is Orthodox or Conservative. I assume he must not be Orthodox, since he is willing to speak in churches. He hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Wonderful day. I recommend the “sabbath” observation to one and all.

Vacation

It’s Sunday, so once again I’m going to rest and give the day to God. No Nowlive show. I don’t know when I’ll get back to Nowlive, if ever.

I’ve noticed a few things about keeping the “sabbath” (I’ll bet there’s a better term for a Christian’s Sunday observation). The Jews are right when they say it’s something you look forward to.

When I was a kid, I thought it was a day of punishment and misery; you put on an uncomfortable suit and sit on a hard bench and listen to a boring guy talk about how rotten you are, until you think your head will explode. Then you go home, and you find out about all the fun bad things your friends have been doing all morning without you. I wrote a screenplay in which one of the characters says his mother told him God would take him to heaven as long as he allowed God to “rurn” all his Sundays.

I don’t see it that way any more. If you’re a believer, you presumably have moments when you feel God’s presence, or moments when your faith is confirmed, and they’re very enjoyable. You miss those sensations when they’re not with you. They give you strength and encouragement, and they reassure you that the choice you have made is right. During the week, earthly concerns tend to make those moments happen farther apart. You have too many other things to worry about. So by the time Sunday rolls around, you are very anxious to revive the sensations.

Also, Sunday is the only day when you really know what you’re doing. During the rest of the week, you have a variety of things to worry about, and things come up unexpectedly. On Sunday, you rest, you pray, you read the Bible, you watch religious programming, you spend time with your family, maybe you do good deeds, and that’s about it. It’s a relief to have that other stuff off your back, and to know that what you’re doing is correct and profitable.

When Jews compare the sabbath to a vacation or a holiday or an oasis, they’re right on target. You should try it. If you believe in God, you can’t believe it’s a net loss. Surely He will repay you more than you’re giving up.

Anyway, I’m off to enjoy the day. Hope your day goes as well as mine.

More

If you like beginning your Sunday with an offering, you may be happy to learn that World Vision now has eightfold matching donations set up for malaria prevention and treatment.

The .38 Super Curse Continues

Give me some brass opinions.

I’m eventually going to need more .38 Super brass; I only have maybe 500 cases. And I can forget about scrounging it at the range. No one shoots this caliber. I’m considering “once-fired” brass, which supposedly comes from police ranges. The prices are attractive, and it ought to be as good as my own recovered brass.

Is this a great idea or a recipe for misery?

Scary Nemesis of Brave Islamist Warriors Now Able to Sit up and Eat

Leah Friedman continues to improve. Prayers still needed.

Hope the death threats from the extreme regions of the Religion of Peace have stopped.

I Proved It

It looks like reloading is going to work out okay. I drove all over town and learned that shopping for reloading supplies in Miami is a complete waste of time. It looks like there are only two shops here that have anything, and they don’t have what I need. So I’m buying almost everything online, with huge hazmat fees. But it’s still better than paying for factory ammunition.

I had to pay TWO hazmat fees, believe it or not. No one stocks all the stuff I need, so after exhaustive Googling, I gave up and ordered from two vendors. I also ordered bullets from Laser-Cast.

It appears that I will be able to put together 40 boxes of very good ammunition for .45 and .38 Super for around $8.60 per box. That’s an average. Don’t make me break it down. It does not include the gigantic investment in tooling, but that will be partly offset by around three hundred dollars’ worth of free bullets from Hornady.

The tool costs are mostly behind me, and I don’t plan to spend a lot more. So the $600 or so net expense will eventually be defrayed to some extent. I’ll kill about $350 of it on the first batch. I think. It’s hard to find decent .45 ammunition for under $15, and .38 Super might as well be bricks of cocaine. I got lucky and got a good price on my first 600 rounds, but ever since then, I’ve been seeing crap prices. And we never have gun shows any more! What’s up with that?

I hope my figures are right. Once again, I have to state how amazingly confusing addition and subtraction can be, to a person who had no trouble with advanced calculus.

If this hobby still sounds expensive, compare it to golf, which is possibly the most worthless thing you can do with your life. A few years back, I heard my cousins say they were willing to pay over a hundred bucks each in greens’ fees alone, for one day of golf. WHAT? To knock a ball around on a giant lawn and come home with nothing to show for it? Not even a useful skill? Count me out. Fishing is even worse, if you do it right. Begin by spending $35,000 on a used boat in okay condition…well, that makes the point, right there. Once you’re that far in the hole, there is no point in discussing the other expenses, like gear and fuel. You can fish well, or you can buy a second home or commercial property as an investment. That about sums it up. I know freshwater is cheaper.

Of course, now I face the predicted temptation: shoot as much as possible, because THAT WAY I’LL SAVE MORE MONEY! I don’t care. I think shooting 200 rounds of pistol ammunition a week will be great practice and well worth the effort.

It was Starting to Scare me by Making Sense

Today I’m going to drag my behind to Bass Pro Shop and see if they have any reloading stuff I can use. Their online catalog is sad, but they may have better stuff at the actual store. I’ll also see if there’s anything in the Miami phone book, but my hopes are very low. I truly do not want to pay $40 in hazmat fees to get powder and primers, but I suspect I have little choice.

I’m still confused about what I want to do. My original plan was to simulate the feel of defensive loads. However, a lot of people say lower-powered loads are more accurate. And you can learn more about shooting from accurate loads than crazy ones.

Complicating the issue still further, it occurs to me that most people can’t shoot. That applies to reloaders as well as the rest of us. Suddenly, I have no faith in forum posts saying one load is more accurate than another. Judging from what I’ve seen at the range, over 95% of shooters–even regular shooters with tactical accessories and camo pajamas–can’t keep their shots in a four-inch circle at 7 yards. You have to shoot better than that–or use something like a Ransom rest–before you have any right to say what is or is not accurate. Maybe when they say lower powered loads are more accurate, what they really mean is, they just aren’t good enough to shoot loads that are loud or produce a lot of recoil.

I shoot pistols pretty well, and I wouldn’t claim to know which loads are most accurate. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t think anyone shoots a pistol that well.

Yesterday I was reading up on the Glock 26’s accuracy, after the fantastic results I got with it at the range. And I saw people on the web, talking about how the Glock and the comparable Kel-Tec were equally accurate, and that was when it hit me: they may mean they shoot pie-sized patterns with both. “Accurate” may mean “suitable for hitting fat burglars at close range.” For a person who shoots like that, any difference in inherent accuracy would get lost in the noise.

I’m going to stick with my plan. Around 1200 fps for .38 Super, 800-900 for the .45, and 1300-1400 for the .357. Maybe 1000-1100 for the 9mm. My best wild guess is that ammunition consistency will mean a hell of a lot more than muzzle velocity.

The goal here isn’t tiny groups by any means possible. If that was the point, I’d buy a .22 target pistol and use match ammunition. The goal is to learn to shoot, so I can do well with whatever happens to be available at the time. My assumption is that you don’t learn to shoot by pampering yourself.

I may also get an airgun, if I can find a pistol that shoots really well at 7 yards and costs almost nothing.

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.

Artists Now Scarier Than Serial Killers

I have been busy dealing with an HVAC guy. Until I get it together, check out Moxie’s new pro-abortion art project.

Warning: the images are horrifying.

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.