Generosity Should be Rewarded

I want to send out a prayer request for a reader.

A while back, I put up a blog post about two young friends I called Diamond and Silk. They came to visit me on the farm, and I taught them how to shoot pistols. I wrote about the problems they had, finding ammunition.

Longtime Reader XC put up a comment offering to send them cartridges. He said he didn’t want to see women go about unarmed, and he had some .380 he was not going to use.

I put him in contact with Silk, and they worked out a shipment. Then nothing happened.

Eventually, the ammo showed up, and XC provided an explanation. He was delayed by a heart attack. In spite of a grave health issue, he still lived up to a promise he made to two strangers.

He sent 400 rounds, which he could have sold for about $300 on Gunbroker.

Anyway, I am asking people to pray for his health and a continually improving relationship with God.

Rodents Fall Victim to Improved Technology

Today, I tried out my new shooting bench, and I also did some rimfire research. I tested two rifles in my pasture.

As covered earlier this week, I built myself a massive square shooting bench. I welded it together from 2″-square steel tubing, and I put two-by-sixes across the top. It has two wheels so I can move it around.

Yesterday, I moved it to the pasture. I would have done it sooner, but I needed to have forks on my front end loader, and they had been removed so I could move dirt. My forks are held on by chains with big turnbuckles, and I learned that some bubba in the past had ruined one of them. I had to fix it before I could put my forks back on.

A turnbuckle is a tube with internal threads on each end. One set of threads is left-handed, and the other is right-handed. You screw threaded parts into each end, and these parts are attached to cables or chains. When you turn your cylinder, the threaded parts move into it, and you tighten your chain or cable.

Some master engineer had apparently used Vise Grips to hold onto a couple of my turnbuckles in order to get a grip so he could turn them. This compressed the tubes slightly. When you compress a threaded tube, you make it very hard to screw things into it.

I had to buy a 1″ tap and fix one of my turnbuckles. The other one isn’t all that bad. I put the turnbuckle in a vise, used a breaker bar to get the stuck part out of it, ran the tap through it, greased the daylights out of everything, and reassembled it. About 99% of tractor owners would have been lost, but because of my hobbies, I knew what to do, and I had all the tools I needed except for the tap.

I intended to fix this a year ago, but I forgot. I ordered and paid for a tap, and it never arrived. I didn’t check on it, so I’m out five bucks.

Anyway, I attached the forks to the tractor, put moving blankets on them, and lifted the bench. Moving it was no problem. I scuffed the paint while backing the tractor out, because I dropped the forks and forgot about the lower crossmembers in the bench, but I can fix the scuffing in two seconds, literally.

I put the bench by my shooting platform, 100 yards from my target area. Today I was shooting rimfire, and I wanted to see what the guns would do at 50. I lifted one end of the bench and rolled it forward. No problem. It was not light, but I was able to balance it on the wheels so I didn’t bear the weight.

I used a Home Depot folding chair. It was okay, but I need a higher chair or a board to put under the chair’s feet. I need to be down low, and the chair’s feet sink in the ground.

The bench was excellent. Like shooting from a boulder. It was also spacious. Lots of room for junk.

I shot my newish Savage A22 and my friend Mike’s old Marlin Model 60. I have a Nikon Prostaff II scope, and he has a Tasco which looks like it came from a drugstore. The Nikon is pretty nice for a low-end scope. Both guns are semiautomatic.

I wanted to try these guns on a rest, because I have been thinking about trying “precision rimfire.” I use quotation marks because I’m not sure “precision” .22 LR exists, for people who are not willing to rob banks in order to finance their shooting.

I have a Ruger Precision Rifle which will shoot 0.5 MOA, no problem, consistently. I saw that Ruger had come out with a Ruger Precision Rimfire rifle. The purpose is to give people a practice gun to shoot at shorter ranges, with cheaper ammo. I got all excited. Most .22 rifles won’t beat 2 MOA at 100 yards. In fact, 2 MOA would be much better than average. I figured if Ruger was willing to put “Precision” in the rifle’s name, it ought to shoot sub-MOA.

I watched some videos, and boy, where they disappointing. The reviewers who made the videos squealed like little girls. They were thrilled with the accuracy. And how accurate were the rifles? Maybe 1.5 MOA, at 50 yards.

I figured I could do that with a cheap semiauto, so I wondered why anyone would pay a lot more money for a “precision” .22. What were the reviewers excited about? Were they just bad shots?

I went to a sharpshooting forum and asked questions. I learned some things.

There is one well-known brand of .22 rifle that will shoot sub-MOA, and you can expect to spend close to $3000 for one. This is what the forum guys said, anyway. I was also told I would have to test the boxes of ammunition I bought. So I would be spending maybe 30 cents per round for post-coronavirus ammunition, testing boxes, and throwing out the ones that didn’t pass. Basically, I would end up paying 6.5mm Creedmoor prices, or more, to shoot a .22. Actually, I would pay more, because the rifle would cost over twice as much.

If I can shoot 0.5 MOA at 500 yards, why would I pay the same money to shoot 1 MOA at 50 yards? It seemed like a stupid idea, so I dropped it.

The company that makes the accurate .22 rifles is called Vudoo. After giving up on precision rimfire, I read that Anschutz and Lithgow (an Australian company) made cheaper rifles that would do nearly as well. You can get a Lithgow rifle for about a thousand dollars, which is not totally out of the question. This renewed my interest in accurate .22 rifles. I decided to find out what the rifles I already possessed would do.

Today I got out my dwindling bucket of Remington Golden Bullets and a box of CCI Mini-mags. I refused to use expensive ammunition, because it would make the test pointless.

With Golden Bullets, the Model 60, its 20-pound trigger, and its claw-machine scope annoyed me by outshooting the Savage. It shot around 2.5 MOA, and the Savage did slightly worse.

I wouldn’t wish the Marlin’s trigger on a mass shooter. It’s like lifting weights. At one point, the pull was so heavy I thought I had the safety on, so I checked. Nonetheless, it was accurate when I concentrated. The Savage has a very nice Accutrigger, but I had it adjusted too low, so it was tricky. You don’t want a rifle to go off before you’re ready.

I kept shooting, and I moved to Mini-mags. Both guns liked them better. What I found was that these guns, with this ammunition, in my hands, would shoot 1 MOA 5-shot groups, or similar groups that were ruined by one flyer. My best guess, which is only a guess, is that both guns will shoot 1 MOA most of the time at 50 yards, if I fix the triggers and practice a little.

That’s not bad. If I can shoot 0.5″ groups at 50 yards for a few cents a round, it’s worth it to do it regularly. All practice is good, and cheap practice is better.

I can’t be sure of my conclusions yet. I was not completely consistent. The trigger issues may explain that. A really good marksman who was used to these guns could work around bad triggers, but I was not able to make them behave 100% of the time.

I’m wondering if I can improve my accuracy by working on the Savage. I can’t hack up Mike’s rifle, but the Savage is all mine.

I’ve read that one reason the Vudoo shoots so well is that it has special magazines that make sure bullets don’t get damaged on the way to the chamber. Cheap .22 rifles don’t have features like that. My Savage has a crisp chamfer on the lower side of the chamber mouth. If a bullet hits the upper edge wrong, it may to get scraped, and this could cause it to fly crooked.

I’m wondering if I can put a smooth radius on that edge and make my shots more consistent. I looked it up, and I read that other people have already thought of this. They do it to pistols and some centerfire guns. I’m thinking about trying it. If I ruin my barrel, it’s not a big deal. Savage barrels can be replaced with simple tools.

If I can turn this gun into a 1-MOA rifle, maybe I should put better glass on it. I have an MRAD 4-14x scope which is gathering dust. It would make it easy to spot my own shots. It might work for hunting, too, since small animals suitable for rimfire hunting go well with high magnification.

I doubt this gun will ever break 2 MOA at 100 yards, but if it will get to 2 MOA, it will still be pretty great for a .22.

I feel like I should see what I can do with this gun before looking at other options.

The bench is great. The rifles and ammo are better than expected. I expect to do better with a little gunsmithing and practice. That sums it up.

If not, there is always Lithgow.

Dinner Destroyed by Transcription Error

You’re never too old to learn something obvious.

This week, I got a craving for kung pao chicken. I have yet to find decent Chinese food in my area. I learned how to make my own kung pao chicken last year. I have a bunch of non-perishable ingredients on hand. Yesterday I bought chicken and some vegetables, and today I cooked.

It’s a big, big job. Something you don’t want to do every week. I cut up green onions, ginger, chicken, and so on. I minced garlic. I measured stuff out. One of my ingredients was Sichuan peppers. I bought them last year, but I didn’t use them. I figured peppers were peppers, so I used something else.

Today I looked at my ingredient list, and it called for three tablespoons of Sichuan peppers. I decided to use the real thing. I thought they smelled odd, but I figured the Chinese knew what they were doing. I ground some up and added three tablespoons to my sauce.

When I tried to eat the food, it was disgusting. My tongue got numb. I put the whole batch down the garbage disposal. I thought the Chinese had poisoned me, the way they poisoned American pets with melamine and the way they poisoned American houses with bad drywall. I wondered if I would die. I decided that if I lived, I would take the rest of the peppers to the health department and rat out the Chinese grocer, who probably didn’t know she was selling tainted merchandise.

Then I looked at my computer, and I learned two things. Sichuan peppers are not peppers, and I was supposed to use three teaspoons, not three tablespoons.

Sichuan peppers are also called Sichuan peppercorns. They have a chemical in them that causes numbness, especially if you eat three times as much as you should.

Now my dinner is in the septic tank, and I am full of pecan twirls. I had to eat something.

In other news, I feel like I know what to do about getting a new welding table. I have been thinking about buying a factory-made table, but I have also been thinking about saving money by building my own. I just built a 4-foot-square shooting bench from steel tubing, and it’s nearly the same thing as a welding bench, so I know I can do the job. Before I built the bench, I was afraid of the welding job, and once that fear was put to rest, I was only put off by the difficulty of buying steel for the table top.

You can’t just go to the mall and ask for a 12-square-foot piece of 3/8″ steel with a precision-ground surface. People who live in the Rust Belt are lucky (in one way, anyhow) because they are surrounded by businesses that sell tools and materials. If I lived in Pittsburgh, I could probably walk out of my house and throw a rock and hit a place that sold steel for welding tables. Florida is different.

Today, through the magic of Google, I located a business that sells precision-ground plate. It’s in Tampa, 90 minutes away. I emailed and asked if they could help me. Haven’t heard back yet.

This is not the only encouraging information I got. I learned that the density of steel is 0.292 pounds per cubic inch, so the type of top I’m thinking of buying would weigh 188 pounds. Before doing the calculation, I had no idea what a decent table top would weigh, so I was afraid I’d be trying to work with a monumental object. I can deal with 188 pounds. For that matter, I could go up to 1/2″ steel and deal with 250 pounds. Drilling fixturing holes would remove something like 58 pounds from a 3/8″ table and 76 pounds from a 1/2″ table.

The steel for the frame would come in at maybe 100 pounds, which is not bad at all. It wouldn’t be like I was buying a gigantic piece of metalworking equipment I could never take with me if I moved. It would be more like buying a rolling toolbox.

I’ve seen smallish welding tables that weigh 400 or more pounds. I didn’t want to deal with that. Now I’m inclined to think they’re overbuilt. Men who like tools have a weakness for things that are too heavy. They think you can’t have strength or rigidity without lots of iron. This isn’t even close to true. It’s pretty much what the Soviets used to think, and it’s why they built machinery that was way too heavy. It’s poor engineering, based on ignorance.

I’m no engineer, but I used to be a bad physicist, and I can look at a table of figures and tell you don’t need a 300-pound frame to hold up a small welding table. The tubing I used for my bench will deflect 1/16″ if you hang 500 pounds from the end of a 4-foot stretch. That’s assuming you only use one tube, the weight is all on one point at the end, there is no thick steel plate attached to it to add rigidity, and there are no struts or legs under it to resist deflection. Add a few companion elements to your tube and refrain from putting tiny 500-pound objects at one end of it, and you should get, essentially, no deflection.

I should be able to use the exact same 2″-square tubing I used for my bench. I think it would be better to use 1″ by 3″, though, with the long sides oriented vertically. The vertical parts of the tubes would be the parts that resisted deflection, so a 1″ by 3″ tube would be a lot more rigid. It would also fit nicely between the fixturing holes on the table top. I would want 5/8″ holes on 2″ centers, so a 1″ tube would fit between holes without obstructing them.

Based on figures I’ve seen from overpriced online metal dealers, I may be able to get a 1/2″ ground plate for around $400 if I pick it up myself. The tubing would run another $100, and then I’d need paint and about $50 worth of casters. So $550, plus $30 for an annular cutter and the price of renting a magnetic drill press long enough to put holes in the plate.

It sort of looks like I could have a really neat table for maybe $700, along with bragging rights because I designed and built it. Compare that to $2000+ for a factory table.

If only I had a big welding table to build my welding table on.

Anyway, things are looking good. I have not been poisoned, and I may be able to create a nice welding table at a reasonable price. Hope your day has gone well.

I have a Shooting Bench

My latest creation is finished. I put the top on my new shooting bench, planed it, sanded it, and put more sealer on the wood. It’s ready to use.

I thought I was done with the metalworking yesterday, but then I realized the bench had no feet on it. The tubing on the rear side had nothing to prevent it from sinking into the ground. I fired up the dry saw and plasma cutter and made two 3″ by 3″ squares of 11-gauge steel, I ground the paint off the ends of the tubes, and I welded the squares in place and added truck bed coating. Done.

I also finished cutting wood for the top. I would have been done two days ago, but I had to go buy another two by six. I applied water sealer to the wood and left it out all night to dry, and today I was ready to assemble the bench.

I used 5/16″ by 3″ lag screws with big washers. I laid the wood out on a tarp, and I rolled the bench over on it so it was upside-down. I located and drilled pilot holes in the wood using the holes in the frame as guides, and I inserted and tightened the screws.

After this, I righted the bench. This was not fun. New pressure-treated wood is very heavy, and I had 36 feet by 5.5 inches by 1.5 inches of it to lift.

I got out some hand planes and made the top and edges of the bench a little friendlier. I sanded it lightly and rounded off the sharp corners. After that, I applied more sealer to the top, and I was done.

I’ve very happy with it. My welding got better and better as I worked, so there are a number of very pretty welds on it. The paint looks great. It’s very strong. I stood on it and jumped up and down, and it was not unlike jumping on a concrete driveway.

I have not gone through with my plan to add a way to pull it behind my cart. I’m thinking it over. It may be best to pull it by the bottom brace instead of the top brace. When the bench is tilted upward on the side with feet, it takes the weight off that end and puts more of it over the wheels. It would be easier to tow this way.

I was thinking of taking that strut off because I installed it by mistake, but now I see that it makes the bench much easier to move. You just lift so the strut is at chest level. All the weight goes to the axles, so you don’t have to hold the bench up. It’s like a balanced wheelbarrow.

This bench is very, very nice. It makes me regret buying a stainless table for my barbecue area. I spent well over $300. For maybe $150, I could have had a much stronger table set up just the way I wanted. It wouldn’t have been stainless steel, but truck bed coating and pressure-treated wood work very well outdoors.

There is no reason why I couldn’t build a less-robust patio dining table. I could use 1″ tubing and 1″ lumber. When you’re having lunch, you don’t need a table that can hold a ton. Of course, I’m assuming the wood wouldn’t warp like crazy. Pressure-treated wood comes full of preservative fluid, and it eventually evaporates, causing shrinking and warping. I guess I could use wood that isn’t treated, though. My outdoor dining area is under a roof.

I’ll try to put the bench in the pasture and try it out later in the week. If the cattle touch it, I’ll have them deported.

More Evidence for my Antifa Tribunal

My new shooting bench is taking shape.

Today I put the remaining pieces on it and finished the welding. I was thinking about getting a new welding table, and I can now confirm that I need one. This afternoon, I had to take the shooting bench off my table and stand and sit inside it to weld. This was the first time I had ever had to get inside one of my projects.

Everything went well. I have a couple of lumpy welds I decided to grind down, but generally, I did an acceptable job. The table doesn’t rock when I put it on its top on the driveway, so it can’t be all that warped.

Once I was done with the welding, I put the wheels on it so I could roll it out for a photo. Then I shot most of a can of truck bed coating onto it. I figure I’ll need one more can to finish it.

I went to Home Depot and picked up some wood for the top, and I also bought deck sealer. I got the cheap kind. Pressure-treated wood may resist rot and bugs, but it soaks up water and swells, and it gets moldy. Maybe sealant will slow things down.

I’m hoping I can use the bench without paint. There may be times when I don’t want a slick surface. It probably doesn’t matter, but I’m playing it safe for now. I can always paint it later.

I’m considering making a cart attachment so I can pull the bench around with my EZ-GO. If I drill one big hole in the bench’s frame, I can come up with a way to attach it to the cart later.

The bench seems very low. Without the top, it’s low enough to sit on without jumping. The wood will raise the height an inch and a half, though.

I have to keep it low in order to do proper recoil management. If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a bench, you might as well make it correctly instead of making an amateur bench no serious shooter would want.

It’s very sturdy. If it were overloaded to failure, the axles on the wheels would probably collapse before the wood and metal box would give. An online calculator estimates that each of my steel crossmembers will deflect about 1/20″ if a 500-pound weight is suspended from the center, and I have three crossmembers with two by six lumber on top. I need the bench to be rigid, so it made sense to build it too strong.

I’m very excited about this project. Should be a great addition to the shooting area. I just hope the cattle don’t take a liking to it.

Two-day Project Expands Predictably

My daily adventures are finished, as far as I know, so I am writing to unwind.

I spent several more hours on my shooting bench project. I thought I would be done with the metalworking today, but as always, I decided to complicate things, so I lost a couple of hours.

The bench will probably weigh the better part of 100 pounds, and I would like to be able to move it easily so I can shoot at different distances. I don’t think it’s a good idea for old people to drag heavy objects across pastures. My obvious and hypocritical solution: wheels.

Why is this solution hypocritical? Because I’m using wheels I labeled trash a while back, claiming they were useless.

I bought a handtruck and turned it into a propane cutting cart. In the process, I took the pneumatic tires off and replaced them with solid ones. I have had bad experiences with pneumatic tires on things like handtrucks and wheelbarrows, so I don’t trust them. I have the feeling China is involved. It seems like small innertubes all leak these days, and that was not the case in the past. When I was a kid, I didn’t have to inflate my bike’s tires every time I rode it, but the last two bicycles I dealt with had to have their tires inflated over and over, just like handtrucks and wheelbarrows.

Maybe China has the only Schrader valve plant on earth, and it makes garbage.

When I took the pneumatic tires off the propane cart, I reviled them publicly, and I tossed them in the garage so they would be close to the car when I loaded up to go to the dump. I never took them, because it seemed wasteful. I had an idea that I might take the tubes out and use them for head pillows while watching TV.

When I got the idea to put wheels on the bench, I thought of the tires. They were here. They were free, sort of. Most amazingly, they were still inflated.

Maybe the Chinese got these innertubes right. I am willing to take a chance.

My bench has 2″-square legs. Instead of a big long axle running through two of them, which would require a long drive to my metal dealer, I decided to use junk I already had. I took two pieces of 3/4″ round bar, turned parts of them down to around 5/8″, drilled holes in them for cotter pins, chamfered the holes so the pins would go in easily, and cleaned them up for welding. I drilled 3/4″ holes through my bench legs, pounded the axles through them, and welded them in place.

It was a great deal of fun, and I saved a trip, although I want to get one more piece of steel for the bench, so okay, I didn’t save a trip at all. But for a while, I thought I had, and that illusion of success had a certain amount of value to me.

The really sad thing is that I had enough 3/4″ bar to make a solid axle. I found that out after I got started. Still, why use up metal when you don’t have to? It’s not free.

I’ll post a photo of my bench’s legs.

As of this morning, the bench had one leg, which made it okay for milking cows but not very good for shooting. I got two more legs welded on, and I added the final horizontal member.

Adding the last member was not what I would call a breeze. My table is 2′ by 3′, and the bench will be about 4 feet square. I can’t get all of it on the table at the same time. I have to make clever, or what seems clever to me, use of clamps to make it work. I have to set up one corner of the bench at a time, hoping everything will still be lined up when I weld the other corners. Of course, this did not work. I had to cut some tacks on a piece I put in place yesterday. It had turned out to be about 1/8″ too long. I had to shorten it. I had a fine old time getting the bench on the table so I could weld the piece back in.

Yesterday, I started looking at welding tables. I realized I had outgrown my second table, and I was wondering whether I should build a new one or buy one. I thought the only reasonable choice in a factory table was a Fab Block, made by Weldtables.com. These tables get great reviews, and they’re inexpensive. The problem is that “inexpensive” means about $2100 for a 3/8″-thick table.

While I was looking for answers, I found a company which had done what I had been hoping someone would do. They were offering cheaper tables to compete with Weldtables.com. I don’t think a small welding table is worth $2100, even if it has wifi and a built-in espresso machine. I think industrial tables are incredibly overpriced, and I suspect that when Weldtables.com decided to offer a less expensive alternative, they didn’t have much incentive to be all that much cheaper. They had no competition on the low end.

A company called Langmuir now makes “Arcflat” tables aimed squarely at the Fab Block. They’re cast iron. They’re basically iron boxes with supporting members inside. They’re covered with regulation 16mm holes for fixturing. They’re 3/8″ thick, whereas the default thickness for Fab Blocks is 1/4″. Here are the two best parts: they come fully assembled, and a 2′ by 3′ table only costs $650 plus shipping.

Fab Blocks have to be welded together. You get a really heavy box of parts, and after that, you’re on your own.

Arcflat tables are ground flat before you get them, so you don’t have to worry that your poor welding skills will ruin one during assembly.

Why would I want a 2′ by 3′ table, since I already have one? Simple. Arcflat tables are modular. You can buy two tables and clamp them up to make a 4′ by 3′ table, which is what I want.

I’m not all that excited about welding on cast iron. When you weld on steel, you can tack things to it to hold them in place, and you can grind the remains of the tacks off afterward. You can’t crack or snap steel, either. If you gouge it, you can weld new steel into it very easily to make it like new. That could be tricky with cast iron.

There are good things about cast iron, though. It’s rigid, and weld spatter doesn’t stick to it very well. There are high-end industrial tables made from cast iron.

Like Fab Blocks, Arcflat tables have vertical side panels with fixture holes. Those would have come in handy yesterday.

Based on what I know right now, I can forget about a Fab Block. I see no reason to buy one if I can get a bigger, thicker table, fully assembled, for less money.

Langmuir also makes a $3000 CNC plasma table which is really tempting. I already have a plasma cutter. Best not to think about it.

Yesterday, I thought I was going to finish my bench today. Today, I think I’ll finish it tomorrow. I wonder what new features I can come up with to drive me into next week.

It’s looking really good. I look forward to trying it out.

…your Shooting Bench Costs Five Times as Much as Your Dinner Table

Work on the shooting bench is going very well.

Today I attacked the steel I bought yesterday. Most pieces had very little rust, and that was a rare blessing. I removed spots of rust from the shiny pieces, and I gave the rustier ones more effort. Then I started drilling holes.

This bench will have a nearly square upper frame with a crossmember bisecting it. When I put wood on it, the boards will lie across three pieces of steel tubing. Screws will pass through the tubing from the bottom, into the wood. That means there have to be lots of holes.

I used 2″ tubing, so I set my square to 1″ and used a carbide scribe to mark the centers of the tubes where I needed holes. I used a tape measure and a Sharpie to locate the holes along the lengths of the tubes. I used a punch to make dimples to guide my drills. I drilled through the tubes with a #35 bit, because I happen to have a whole package of them. I followed with a step bit, which opened the holes up to nearly 7/16″ and deburred them.

Using a pilot hole makes drilling go faster, because it gets rid of the hardest part of the hole to drill: the center. A drill’s flutes move very slowly near the center of a hole, so they don’t do much. It’s worse with big drills, because the flutes don’t go all the way to the center. If you drill the center out with a small drill, which has flutes that come much closer to the center of the hole, you get much higher RPM’s, you move fast, and you remove the metal which slows down bigger bits.

Once I had holes on one side of each tube, I was able to use the drill press to put holes in the other sides. I dropped oil through the existing holes, onto the areas where I was going to continue drilling. I used the existing holes as drill it guides. I ran a big drill bit through them, and the existing holes located the holes on the other side. When I was done, I deburred the new holes with the step bit.

I can’t say enough about step bits. Unless you’re drilling deep holes, they’re totally superior to ordinary bits. They cut much, much faster. You have to get good ones, though. Cheap ones just spin in place.

Once I was finished with the holes, I had to figure out how to weld a nearly 4-foot-square frame on a table measuring about two by three feet. I had to use all sorts of clamps, including wood clamps. You can weld metal with wood clamps. You just have to take them off before the pads melt!

Right now, enough of the capital B is tacked together to make an A, and one leg is tacked in place. Tomorrow, I plan to install the other legs, finish the welds, and get started on painting. I should be able to use the bench in about three days. Sooner, if I don’t insist on painting the wood first.

While I worked on the bench, I thought about my plan to upgrade my welding table. I don’t know if I want to deal with a project this big again on this small table, and a new table would be similar in size to this project.

I keep going back and forth: put my own table together for maybe $400, or buy one for around $1300?

If I were to build one, I would have to make somewhere close to 300 16mm holes in it, through 3/8″ steel. Every hole would take at least two minutes to drill. Ten hours of drilling? Seems like a lot.

If I were to buy one, I’d go for the 1/4″-thick Fabblock from Weldtables.com. The 3/8″ table is too expensive. So I would lose rigidity and durability.

Also, I would make a shopmade table bigger, since it would cost less. I would go for 36″ by 48″, whereas I was looking at a 36″ by 42″ Fabblock.

Welding tables have to be very flat, and welding makes things warp, so the pitfall to making my own table is obvious. Making welded objects flat is not easy. I would hate to spend a lot of money on metal and then end up with a bowl instead of a table.

As dilemmas go, this is a good one to have. I could be trying to choose between paying the rent and buying winter clothes.

I will put more photos up as I go. Can’t wait to put this table to work.

Meat-Eating Weirdo Builds Scary Shooting Bench

Recently, my friend Mike visited, and we shot in my pasture. I have a very nice roofed shooting platform which I built from pressure-treated lumber. You have to lie down to use it, and that didn’t work well for Mike. He used a Home Depot folding table.

The platform is a joy, but I can see that it won’t always work for guests, and it probably weighs 350 pounds, so moving it to different distances is not practical. I can do it on rare occasions, but I’m not going to keep the tractor next to it all the time. A bench will be easier to move, it will be easier on guests, and it will be nice when I want to shoot from a seated position.

I learned some stuff while I was planning the build.

1. Real sniper wannabees do not build benches with cutouts. A cutout will encourage you to sit beside your gun, not behind it. It will also make it too easy for you to sit upright. These issues will cause problems with recoil management.

2. A proper bench is low. I thought a tall bench would be nice because it would be comfortable. I learned that you need a low bench so your back will be nearly horizontal where you contact the gun. The idea is to make bench shooting like prone shooting. Again, recoil is the reason.

3. A bench should not have built-in seating. Every time you move your rear end, you’ll move your point of aim.

In order to see your own shots land, you need a muzzle that doesn’t jump or move to one side. To get that, you need to be directly behind your rifle, not beside it. You also need your body to be a good backstop, and that means you want to lean forward. It all adds up to a low bench with no cutout.

I never liked cutouts anyway. I always felt I had to strain to get behind the gun.

I’m building a simple table about 4 feet square. The height will be about 29 inches.

I thought about materials. First, I thought of wood. I decided against it. A strong wooden bench will be heavier than steel, it will require more ingenuity to put together, and it will require big, thick parts that are likely to get in the way when shooting. A steel bench will be lighter, and it won’t incorporate a bunch of two-by-sixes that make for cramped positions.

Today I went to my metal dealer and spent a hundred bucks on 2″ square tubing. I also bought a bunch of hex screws and washers. I plan to weld a metal frame and screw two-by-sixes to it for a top. I’ll put the screws through the tubing from the bottom. They won’t go through the top of the wood, so no hardware will be in my way.

I made a mistake by choosing 1/8″ steel. It’s pretty heavy. It will be much, much stronger than necessary. I guess I added 30 pounds to the bench’s weight. I couldn’t lift it even if I made it with thinner steel, though, so it’s not like it will be a problem. I should come up with a way to add wheels so I can pick one end up and move it.

The bench will be one solid weldment with a wood top, so it won’t break down. That will be a problem if I move. I can cut the legs off with grinder, though. If I did that, I could move the bench in pieces and weld it back together somewhere else.

I should be able to do all the welding tomorrow. Cleaning the metal to paint it will take a while, but it won’t be bad, because the steel they sold me is very bright. Once it’s welded, I’ll need a day or two to put truck bed coating on it, and then I can screw the top on. I think I’ll paint the top with farm implement paint. I just need a slick surface I can wipe down to get rid of mold or whatever.

I’ll need a mat for the bench. My prone mat is not suitable because it’s made in 4 flat sections. You can’t just unroll half of it and hang the rest off the front. I have a couple of very thick bath mats I don’t use for anything. They would be perfect.

It’s nice to have another welding project. It’s nice to know I’ll have a fantastic bench. If I couldn’t use tools, where would I be? Factory benches are not very good, and they cost a fortune.

Night Vision Bargain Disappoints

Back when I moved here, I bought myself a cheap night vision scope, thinking I would shoot coons and other critters with it. I believe I wrote about it recently. It’s an ATN X-Sight II. I used credit card points to buy it, on a lark. The cost was $600, which is not a lot for night vision. It came with an infrared flashlight to help it see things.

I was busy with my dad, and I never got around to night hunting. Now I’m trying to get the scope to work.

It’s a badly executed product. No two ways about it. Yes, it works, but it won’t do what the ads make you think it will do.

1. The IR illuminator is not very good, so you need to get a better one for long distances.

2. The scope will eat the 4 AA batteries ATN says to use, so don’t even try. Buy a zippered butt pack and a 20,000-maH USB battery plus a micro USB cable and use these items to power the scope. It will run for hours. ATN sells its own version of this setup for $100, but you will pay more like $30 if you buy things separately.

3. The scope has Bluetooth, but it does not work well enough to be useful for anything.

4. ATN has an app for the scope, and it will help you change the scope’s settings or show another person what you see through the scope, but that’s about it. You can look at your own photos and videos, but you can’t save or share them. As for changing the settings, you can do that using the scope’s buttons.

A few days back, I tried to use the scope in the backyard, just to get ready. Without the illuminator, all I saw was a green mess. There was nearly no contrast between one thing and another. When I turned on the illuminator, everything went bright green, and I saw nothing at all.

Today I updated the scope’s firmware, and suddenly it started working. Here’s a photo.

As you can see, the scope is still a little confused about the date.

Now I can see well enough to shoot varmints. Unfortunately, the scope is zeroed for my .204 Ruger rifle at 100 yards, and I expect to be shooting at maybe 50. I have to take it out and shoot some close-up targets.

How do you shoot varmints if you can’t see them? That’s a great question. The scope has a small field of view, so there is pretty much no possibility that I will be able to spot game. I can put bait out and watch a small area, or I can get a different tool for spotting. I can find animals with the other tool and shoot them with the scope.

I think. I’m just guessing.

Night vision is the cheap way to shoot at night. The best way is thermal. A thermal scope will make any warm object light up, even if it’s behind leaves. If you take a thermal optic out in the woods at night, you will be able to see every animal around you a long way off, as long as the view isn’t completely blocked. You’ll even see birds in the trees, like little Christmas lights.

I’m thinking I should get a thermal monocular. When I spot critters, I can shove put the monocular down and use the scope.

I’m trying to get advice as to whether this is a good idea.

What if it works? Then I’ll use the night vision scope until I get tired of it, and I’ll upgrade to a thermal scope. I believe I’ll still need a monocular to find things, because monoculars have big fields of view.

After that, I should be able to hammer hogs at will, provided I can find them.

It’s annoying, buying a product from a company that doesn’t seem to care about whether it works, but as long as I accept the fact that it doesn’t do everything it’s supposed to, I should be able to have a lot of fun with the X-Sight. I will be very cautious about buying a thermal made by ATN, though. You only get to fool me once.

God Ends Lack

I got an unexpected surprise today, and I got relief from a long drought.

Yesterday, I wrote about my friend Tina. I used to drive her to church every day. I don’t hear from her often, but a few days back, she texted me and invited me to watch her online graduation. She had earned a master’s degree.

I watched the ceremony, and I was very glad. I mentored a young man named Travis for years, and he was supposed to graduate from college this school year. He died after an accidental shooting. Seeing Tina succeed where he had been cut off was rewarding.

Today, my phone rang before 9 a.m. It was Tina. She called to ask my advice about some problems she was having.

As I wrote yesterday, Tina comes from a broken family, and her sister had to raise her. Tina has had to look after herself and plan her own future. She is an achiever. She is extremely focused and goal-oriented. She worked hard and earned scholarships. Now she’s out on her own, she hasn’t been blessed with a husband, and she is still carrying too much weight. She is having some problems with her landlady, who doesn’t seem to understand how residential rentals work. She also wanted prayer because she wanted to hear from God more clearly and more abundantly.

As far as I can recall, I have not had anyone to pray with since March of last year. Of course, I’m available, but people I know don’t seem inclined to take advantage. I used to pray with Travis, and I was able to share things God had given me so Travis would also be helped. Travis helped me as well. For a long time, I’ve been asking God to send other people to fill the void.

I own residential rental properties, so while I am not an expert on property law, I know a few things, and I was able to give Tina some information so she would understand her situation better. That was nice, but the real blessings were that I was able to share tactics God had shown me, and that we prayed together.

Yesterday morning, I got a supernatural revelation concerning my connection to God. It helped open the channel so he could give me the things he wanted me to have. It helped me know I was not imposing on him and that he was eager to supply and support me. I got to tell Tina about it. She has been fighting her own battles all her life, with less help than she should be getting. She should have a Spirit-filled husband as well as friends who team up with her supernaturally. She should have a house. She shouldn’t be worried about bills. She should have someone to pray with every day. She shouldn’t feel she will sink if she stops paddling.

We prayed for God to help her landlady to become Spirit-led. We spoke defeat to her efforts to put unreasonable demands on Tina. We prayed for Tina to hear God’s voice and to know she is part of him. We prayed for God to bring her together with a man who will stand by her.

I told her she really needed to spend time praying in tongues every day. I said it was where revelation began. She accepted the advice.

It’s great to be blessed, but it’s frustrating when you can’t get anyone else to listen to your story and receive what God gave you. Being able to help Tina was wonderful, especially after what happened to Travis. I hope we’ll get together for prayer in the future, and I hope to see results in her life. Maybe soon she won’t have to call an old man a long way off in order to have someone to pray with.

I suppose praying with almost anyone is a good thing, but it’s especially nice to pray with people who know a few things and have some connection with God. You get tired of going over the basics with people who are still at square one.

I’m not a model Christian, but I know a lot of helpful things. I will be very grateful if God helps me share a few, effectively, during my remaining time here.

What Graduation Looks like in 2020

Today I’m getting a taste of everyone else’s 2020. I’m watching an online graduation made necessary by coronavirus. Even the classes took place online.

I was a deacon at a church called New Dawn Ministries. While I was there, I met a young lady named Tina. She was in her teens. I don’t know a great deal about her early life, but I know her family was very dysfunctional, and she was raised by her older sister.

Tina made the most of her situation. She was extremely motivated. She participated in beauty contests in order to get scholarships, and she ended up going to the University of Miami.

I lived near the University, and her family lived in Broward County. They asked me if I could drive her to church every Sunday, and I agreed.

Tina did well in college, and she decided to get a master’s degree in leadership and management, with a concentration in human resources. She has been attending Purdue’s online program, and today she graduates. A few days back, she sent me an invitation by text message.

The ceremony appears in a window in a web browser. There are only 4 or 5 people on camera in the room with the podium. They are all wearing masks except when they speak. It felt very strange, watching figures in robes and masks filing into that dark, lonely room. It was like watching a scene from a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie, except I was watching real life.

They’re announcing the names of the graduates in alphabetical order. They’re showing a photo of each graduate. We’re in the B’s, and Tina’s last name starts with H.

Tina knew my friend Travis, who died in May. They attended UM at the same time, and they were friends. I had some hope they would pair up and marry.

I won’t get to see Travis graduate, but at least Tina made it.

I saw her photo and sent her a congratulatory text. Now I’ve closed the browser. No point in sitting through dozens of photos of strangers.

I was thinking about Travis, and I decided to do some counting. I counted black male and female graduates, with the intention of stopping when I got to 10 of either. When I quit, I had counted 10 women and only three men. Unfortunate.

It’s funny that I watched the graduation today. I had a dream last night, and it seems related.

I used to write for Tropic, the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald. I met a number of the writers and employees. I remember them. Dave Barry, Gene Weingarten, Joel Achenbach, Michelle Genz, Philip Brooker, Ray Bubel, John Dorschner, and Doris Mansour. The editor I generally worked with was named Tom. I remember going to his house for a party. He had just built his own deck. Dave Barry’s young son was taking karate classes, and while I talked to Dave, his son kept punching me in the leg.

I never fit in with the group. There was a hardness to the writers, except for Dave Barry, who seemed to float above it because of his ability and his fame. They were cold, worldly people who looked out for themselves and had no romance in their hearts. Maybe it was because they were journalists. They published my work, but I felt there was a barrier I could never cross. I could never be an insider.

I seemed to connect better with the art people. Of course, I wasn’t in a position to compete with them, although one of my drawings did get published.

In my dream, I was at an outdoor table, eating lunch with several Christians and Tom. In the dream, the Herald still owned its gigantic waterfront headquarters. The table was maybe two miles north of the building, on the other side of I-95.

In the dream, I had quit writing for Tropic. In real life, I quit in about 1988. I had become a Christian, I felt Tropic and the Herald were not very helpful, and again, I didn’t fit in. As the relationship diminished, Tom sensed it. The last thing I remember him saying to me in real life was, “Don’t disappear.”

It felt like Tom was having lunch so far north of the Herald because he wasn’t comfortable being seen with me. I could tell he wanted me to do some more work for him, and I was willing to do small jobs, just to be helpful. He wasn’t direct, but he hinted at a desire to bring me back in.

Our lunch companions started talking about his choice to have lunch so far from his office. I got up to throw my soda can in the trash, and I said, “It’s because we’re conservatives. Or because we’re Christians.”

I woke up, and I felt distressed. I found myself thinking about the years I had wasted, trying to get the devil’s world to accept me. I tried to make it as a writer, and I had two comic strips that reached the development stage. Many times, I had the feeling I had finally broken the ice. Success was just a few weeks away. But it never came. I was grabbing Satan’s bait over and over. I didn’t realize there were two different families on the planet, and when it came to earthly promotion, I belonged to the wrong one.

If you belong to God, you’re not supposed to get wrapped up in secular accomplishments. The word says God sets him that is godly apart for himself. You shouldn’t feel you have to win prizes or titles. You shouldn’t believe you have to have your name on buildings. You shouldn’t feel like a failure because you’re not a big name in some field or other. Secular accomplishments are God’s garbage. They don’t go with you to heaven. Up there, your service to God is what makes you rich. You get to see your wealth every time you see a person you helped to make it.

Satan likes to dangle bait in front of people. He’ll say, “You can serve God and be an Oscar winner. You can be a billionaire. You can win a Nobel Prize.” He’ll give you the idea that you glorify God with your silly achievements, as if God needs you to help him get publicity. Generally, in order to get what he offers you, you have to whore out. If you don’t, he keeps you from winning, and he gives his tacky prizes and ribbons to people with less ability but more plasticity.

I didn’t feel good, thinking about the wasted years, but then I got a supernatural revelation that made me feel wonderful.

Every Christian who understands the Holy Spirit and grace knows we are not supposed to serve God through hard work or superior natural ability. We are not supposed to earn; we are supposed to receive an inheritance. This is why the volumes of the Bible are called testaments. A testament is a will. Jesus died, and we are supposed to inherit what he earned.

Spirits work and move in every person. The only spirit a Christian should carry is the Holy Spirit, but many of us are inhabited by more than one spirit. People who don’t know God are full of evil spirits, but they don’t know the Holy Spirit.

A Spirit-led Christian is supposed to be like a hand connected to a body. A hand doesn’t feed itself. It doesn’t even have a mouth. It doesn’t get a job to pay for its upkeep. The body feeds it and looks after it. A Christian who thinks he has to take care of himself and guide himself is like a severed hand with delusions.

If I am truly God’s son, I am supposed to be as much a part of him as my hand is part of me. My hand is supported from within the body, through various vessels. As a Christian, I am supposed to be supplied by God at all times, and–this is the important part–I should never feel that he is reluctant to supply ever need, more abundantly than I need. He allowed himself to be tortured to death so he could do that.

I really am God’s son, and he really is eager to do things for me.

I knew these things before last night, but you know how it is with revelation. I hope. You can know things perfectly well and still not have a good grasp of them. A supernatural revelation will make knowledge part of you, undeniable and suddenly obvious.

Things like faith, love, peace, and knowledge are supposed to flow into us without end, just as blood flows into hands. God didn’t put us here so we could be isolated and poor.

Satan isolates people and makes them feel alone and small, and that makes sense, because he’s a predator. Predators like to get their prey alone. God binds us to himself so we have his power and invulnerability of God. If we don’t see these things fully manifested, it’s because we’re blocking God with our misconceptions and disobedience.

There is always symmetry in the supernatural. If Satan cuts me off from help and prevents me from succeeding, God will make me an important member of his family, and he will give me victory.

If I had gotten rich writing or drawing a comic strip, I would be a mess. I wouldn’t have realized I needed to get closer to God. I would be subject to tremendous temptation, and I would probably give in all the time. I would have a social circle of cold, godless people who would keep drawing me away from God. I might have a horrible atheist wife (or ex-wife) who would be like a painful tumor to me. I would have friends and business acquaintances who would take advantage of me and make me feel bad about myself. I would have no prayer life. I would not know how to get God’s help when I or someone else needed it. I would be a rich failure.

The revelation I got last night is life-changing. Things will be much better from now on.

I hope you will keep trying to get close to God. It’s the only plan that works. The others are just traps.

Uncensored Upstarts Ease the Pain of Youtube Tyranny

Today I went against common sense and joined another conservative social site. It’s called Newtube. If you can’t tell from the name, it’s a Youtube competitor that doesn’t do political or scientific censorship.

I have very little faith in niche social media sites. They appear, they crawl, they stumble, and they disappear. They fail to serve their primary purpose, which is to spread information to the general public. If you’re on Gab or Full30 or Parler or Newtube, you’re probably only reaching other conservatives, and they already agree with you, so you’re not accomplishing much.

I have to admit: Newtube doesn’t seem quite as weak as the other sites. It functions, which is something other sites can’t always say, and there are thousands of people using it.

A scientist named Tony Heller has a very popular Youtube channel I enjoy. He also has a website called Realclimatescience.com. He has presented some very powerful information which does great damage to the coronavirus and global warming party lines. Youtube censors him. They are threatening to shut him down, because dissent is violence against humanity in the Antichrist’s homogenized future. Heller started a Newtube channel, and he tells people about it in his Youtube videos.

He has 8169 Newtube subscribers. That’s around 8% of his Youtube subscriber count, but it’s not negligible. Also, Newtube’s site loads without balking, so it looks like Newtube isn’t suffering from technical problems caused by undercapitalization.

He just did another video complaining about coronavirus propaganda. As you may know, South Dakota has a conservative governor. Her name is Kristi Noem. She refused to lock the state down, and South Dakota has done well economically and epidemiologically. The MSM can’t stand it, so they publish facially absurd criticisms, and Heller is going after them.

Here’s an example. Her grandmother died in a nursing home. The Daily Beast, which is appropriately and perhaps prophetically named, put out a silly message saying Kristi Noem’s grandmother had died in a facility “ravaged” by covid. Problem: she didn’t have covid. She was 98, and she died because she was old. It’s horrific that CBS left this information out. Tony Heller corrected the problem.

CBS put out a deceptive story saying South Dakota had one of the two highest hospital bed occupancy rates. Problem: 17% of ICU beds are free, and overall, 40% of hospital beds are free. If you’ve ever been to a hospital and looked around, you know they do a pretty good job of keeping beds filled. A hospital with 60% occupancy or 17% ICU occupancy is not a busy hospital. Heller’s video points these things out.

Only about 8100 people have seen the video. Pretty good for a conservative site. His Youtube videos typically get several times that many views.

It’s nice that someone is making an effort to provide an uncensored alternative. I think it will fail, however. The tech mammoths have too big a head start, and Newtube will probably never attract anyone who isn’t conservative. Spreading information among conservatives is helpful, but it won’t do much to change minds, since the minds that need to be changed have chosen to live under censorship.

I like Newtube. Maybe I’ll enjoy it, although I can forget about watching it on my Roku sets. I don’t think it will have much of an effect on public discourse. The left won and won big, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to catch up.

It’s sobering to see my predictions about thought control coming true. When did I start saying the left would do this to us? Long, long ago. Somehow, I am still shocked to see it happening. It’s cliche, but I’ll say it: this is America. This isn’t supposed to happen here.

I think the rapture is imminent, and if that’s true, so is the tribulation, which follows the rapture immediately. I wonder what censorship will look like during the tribulation.

Right now, there are millions of real Christians on earth, praying and doing what Christians do. Our presence restrains God’s anger and Satan’s evil works. The day after we leave, the restraints will be gone. Things statists wouldn’t dare do today will suddenly become acceptable.

Right now, the penalty for dissent is censorship, or you may lose a job or get doxxed. What will the penalties be like after the rapture? The past tells us what humans are capable of doing in the future. Actually, we don’t have to look at the past. We can look at extreme behavior that takes place right now, in places like Iran and North Korea.

The British had an empire that was at least as bad as the Third Reich. We don’t like to talk about it, but it’s a fact. They used to drag dissenters through London naked, hang them until they were nearly dead, sever their genitals in front of crowds, remove their internal organs, and fry their body parts while they were still alive. The monarchs themselves ordered it. If a Christian nation could do that, then godless 21st-century America will be capable of arresting, imprisoning, torturing, and killing those who reject propaganda.

Consider the Catholic Church. It used to be the biggest terrorist organization on earth. People were terrified of the church. They knew they could be burned alive for saying the wrong things.

Think of revolutionary France. Think about Cuba. Think about the USSR and China. Things can get very, very bad here.

We say, “It can’t happen here,” but we don’t ask why it can’t happen. The presence of praying Christians is the reason. Once we’re gone, it can and will happen here.

I mentored a young man named Travis Quinn, and he died in May from an accidental gunshot wound he received a month earlier. Today I happened to look at some Whatsapp texts he sent in March. He said he had had a dream of a world war. He said everything was exploding. Ships and planes were everywhere. The planes were dropping bombs. He felt surrounded.

Travis had prophetic dreams. I know, because I interpreted some of them. I think Travis foresaw the Antichrist’s coming world.

If you want to enjoy the company of people who haven’t been completely deceived yet, Newtube will probably bring you some satisfaction. If you’re hoping it’s the start of a movement that will change the world, I think you’ll be disappointed. It’s more likely that its membership records will be used to help leftists round conservatives, Jews, and Christians up for “special treatment.”

Three Lemons in a Row but no Jackpot

I guess I’m now the world’s leading critic of the Marlin Model 60 .22 rifle.

I bought a Model 60 in 2018, I believe. It shot 4″ groups at 50 feet. Not yards. Feet. I sent it back, and Marlin gave up on it and sent a new one. I shot that one, and the feed tube fell off.

My buddy Mike wanted another .22, so naturally, he settled on the Model 60. I told him he couldn’t be my friend if he bought one, but he didn’t listen. He bought two. He bought an old one, and he also bought a new one. He liked the old one because it had a bigger magazine and a longer barrel.

This weekend, he brought the old one down, and it stovepiped about 50% of the time. A stovepipe is a failure to eject. The spent casing sticks out of the action, and it looks like a pipe.

When he left, he left the gun here. He was having issues with his gun case, and he figured he would be back soon.

Today, I decided to try to fix the gun, which came from Gunbroker. I have never been cheated on Gunbroker, but it looks like Mike drew the short straw. His gun had been modified several times by a master gunsmith. It was modified in the same sense that what puppies do to carpets is modification.

The Model 60 comes apart when you remove two takedown screws under the stock. Mike’s gun had three screws. The forward screw was normal. There were two screws at the rear. One went through the trigger guard. The other was set in a very nicely drilled hole in the stock, to the rear of the trigger guard.

I removed the middle screw, and it turned out to be a wood screw which didn’t fit tightly. It probably came from Home Depot. The top was black, but the rest was zinc. Apparently, the unknown master gunsmith took a Sharpie and painted it.

It ran into a pot metal or aluminum (Marlin, so probably pot metal) block at the rear of the action. The threads in the block didn’t look too hot. The factory screw is probably a #8 machine screw, and the master gunsmith used a #8 wood screw, so there was conflict.

I went to Numrich and looked the part up. They had a reproduction part. The price was great, but…fake part. I found the real thing on Ebay for $8.75, delivered. Consider that ordered.

I considered the possibility that the loose-fitting stock contributed to the stovepiping issue. It seemed worth checking.

I took the corresponding screw out of my 2018 Model 60 and tried it in the old gun. It fit, even though the threads had been abused. That told me the new Ebay screw would work.

The far-rear screw was in a blind hole. Explain that. Someone took the time to do a very good job drilling a hole that went nowhere.

Maybe the rifle stock was snapped off at some point, and the screw was inserted to add strength after it was glued in place. Of course, this would be a stupid idea. When you put wood back together with good glue, the joint is stronger than the wood was to begin with, and drilling a hole would make a weak spot.

I don’t think this is what happened, because I can’t find any sign of a split.

The gun still stovepiped when I was done, so I looked for answers online. People said Marlin 60 ejectors tended to need adjustment.

The Model 60 does not have an ejector, really. It has a cheap spring which is consistent with the low-grade engineering found elsewhere on the gun. If the spring gets bent, which it does, you have to fix it. I opened the gun up again, removed the action, and found that the master gunsmith had put a totally unnecessary S-curve in it.

I took the curve out with pliers, and then I did what is known as the penny/nickel trick. You can find it on Youtube. You fix the spring so the distance between the end of it and the cheap feed throat part is between the thickness of a penny and a nickel. It’s easier than using feeler gauges.

I put 5 rounds in the gun. Four shot just fine, and the last one stovepiped. I opened the gap on the spring up slightly, and I tested it again. It shot perfectly. For a Marlin.

Now Mike has a gun that works, and he owes me $8.75. I told him he could put a new roof on my chicken house.

If you’re wondering how to take the action out, there is one pin at the rear of the receiver, and you can push it out with your finger.

The best way to get a gun labeled “Marlin” to shoot correctly is to buy a Savage, a can of spray paint, and a stencil. Actually, I saw two messed-up Savages this weekend, so let’s go with Ruger.

The Marlin 60 is junk. There is really no way to defend it. It looks good, it shoots well when it shoots at all, and it’s light and handy, but Mattel has made sturdier, better-designed products.

But enough about the AR-15.

ZING. Rimshot.

I thank God the problems with this gun were easily fixed. Now I just need to convince Mike to quit buying them.

Stuff We’ll Miss When the Left Succeeds in Gutting America

My friend Mike spent several days here, and now he’s on his way to the airport. I’m glad he managed to make it, because he has been working way too hard, in an area where it’s not easy to get out and shoot.

He brought an assortment of firearms, and we got a lot of range time (i.e. backyard time) in. We had successes and failures.

He has two new Savage rifles. I like Savage because their rifles are very accurate, they come with great triggers, and they’re not expensive. I have a Savage bolt action and a semiauto .22, and they have been trouble-free. Sadly, Mike’s experience has been different.

He brought an A17, which is a semiauto rifle in .17 HMR. I suggested he get a bolt gun, but he wanted to be able to spray at will.

We put up some targets and got to work zeroing the scope. Things went poorly. The gun fed very badly, crushing a lot of cases. Mike finally noticed that it fed reliably when he wedged a piece of plastic between the magazine and stock. The hole for the magazine was too big, so something was needed to make it fit. It’s going to have to be worked on. Many people who own this gun have similar complaints. Maybe Savage got a batch of bad stocks. There is no excuse for letting a gun with this kind of problem leave the factory. It’s a known issue, and it’s simple to check before packing the gun.

I put him on my shooting platform, and he was not able to get comfortable. He has some problems with his neck. He has a cervical fusion operation scheduled.

He managed to shoot maybe 2 MOA, which was good under the circumstances.

The next day, after setting up a table and chair, we tried to shoot his Savage Model 110 in 6.5 Creedmoor. It refused to fire. Something is going on with the bolt. You have to activate the safety and go through a complicated procedure to get the gun to fire. Very annoying. Time and again, he got set up to shoot, pulled the trigger, and got nothing.

The scope was also a problem. It hit him in the nose when he shot. I thought he wasn’t supporting the gun with his shoulder, but then I shot it, and it hit me in the nose, too. To make the gun work, you have to lean over so your nose is off to the side. I have never had a gun with that problem before. Is the stock too short? No idea. I should have checked the length of pull.

We were really hoping to get the gun working. We lapped his scope rings and bought match ammunition, and we expected good results, but it didn’t work out. I shot a few rounds and got about 1.5 MOA, which was definitely the gun’s fault.

On the up side, Mike will only have to make one trip to get the guns fixed, since both will go to the same place, and he’s within one hour of the Savage factory.

He also brought an old Marlin 60. It gun stovepiped about 50% of the time. I Googled and found that a lot of people have feeding problems with this gun.

I’ll say it again. I think the Model 60 is junk. So far, I’ve worked with three, and all three were losers.

He left the Marlin here. I’m going to clean it and see what I can do to make it feed.

On a positive note, I shot my Savage A22 on the same day, and it ran perfectly.

The nicest gun he brought was a Dan Wesson 1911. Very nice weapon. It’s beautifully made, and it shoots fine. I got my PC1911 out, and we lit up my steel targets. I think the Dan Wesson’s trigger is too heavy, and Mike wants fiber optic sights, but it’s an excellent gun.

If you buy a new gun, and you want to travel with it, I strongly suggest you get the bugs worked out before you get on the plane. Otherwise, you may eat up vacation time trying to get it to work.

I shot my Ruger Precision Rifle and my Tikka T3x Superlite. The Tikka was disappointing. It’s a great rifle, but it’s not the right shape for prone shooting, and I was not really prepared to prop it up effectively. I didn’t want to use a bipod, because I figured a hunting gun should be zeroed the way you plan to shoot it in the field. I shot a little over 1 MOA, which is more than good enough, but I know the gun can do better. The factory recoil pad was a horror. It feels like it’s made of iron, and it has a sharp point on it so it goes right into your shoulder when you shoot. I have ordered a Limbsaver pad to replace it.

The Ruger Precision Rifle was a joy to shoot, as always. Strictly sub-MOA. Never a problem. If your groups are bigger than five eighths of an inch, you’re doing it wrong. My Savage 93R also ran perfectly. I fiddled around with it at first, but when I got it where I wanted it, I made a neat little string of 5 holes covering less than an inch.

The 93R has been discontinued, and people who review the successor model criticize the 93R over piddling things. Hmm. Great trigger, astounding accuracy, complete reliability, a good rigid stock that works fine once you put a cheap adjustable cheek rest on it…and the gun cost something like $280! I don’t see the problem. I have a $400 scope on it, and I feel it was 100% justified.

I can literally shoot ping pong balls with it at 100 yards and expect to hit them nearly every time. I couldn’t be happier with it.

The RPR is almost boring, which means I need to get to a long range and shoot at longer distances. Shooting endless 5/8″ groups at 100 yards isn’t going to teach me much.

I find myself wondering if there is any point in trying to make the Tikka shoot better. I’m pretty sure the whole problem is that it’s just harder to shoot than an RPR. I think it’s possible to develop more skill and overcome the rifle’s unfriendly geometry and relatively stiff trigger. Is it worth it? Will I ever want to shoot a hunting rifle that accurately? My guess is that if I ever have a legitimate need to shoot that well, the smart move will be to lug the RPR with me instead of fighting the Tikka.

I have at least three rifles that will reliably shoot sub-MOA from a rest, and I have two more that will do nearly as well. I have some others that might come close if I fiddled with them. I think the bases are pretty well covered.

Mike is planning to change his work schedule, so he should be able to visit more often. Maybe we’ll hire a guide and kill something edible.

Ribs and Rifles

My friend Mike is visiting. We’ve had quite a day.

We went to Core Rifle Systems to pick up some ammo he ordered, and it turned out they had Hornady ELD-M 140-grain match ammo, which was better than what he had asked for. We arranged a switch, and now he’s all set for the weekend. We plan to get his new rifle running.

We also hit Rural King, where, unbelievably, they were selling Norma match ammo at a Rural King price. He snapped up several boxes.

Before running our errand, we stuck two racks of ribs in the smoker. Mike was the first person to fix decent ribs for me, about 30 years ago, and he inspired me to get my new smoker. This week, I was only able to get baby backs and trimmed St. Louis ribs. No full racks of spare ribs. I decided to make one rack of each type and do a comparison. We also had macaroni and cheese, barbecue beans with smoked sausage, and Texas toast made with homemade bread.

This was a good opportunity for me to compare baby backs to St. Louis ribs. I’ve never been a fan of baby backs. They’re small, dry, and expensive. That’s what I believed, but I decided to give them a fresh chance anyway. Turned out I was right. They’re worthless. The St. Louis ribs were nearly perfect, but the baby backs were on the dry side and had a lot less flavor.

I don’t know why people eat baby backs. Ignorance, I guess.

I have finally produced what I think is nearly perfect macaroni and cheese. How did I do it? Predictably enough, by correcting Alton Brown. The more I know about cooking, the less I think of him.

When I created my old recipe, I used Brown’s recipe, along with at least one other, as a starting point. The dish was good, but I felt it could be better. I thought the cheese could be smoother and cheesier.

Brown says to put cheese, panko bread crumbs, and butter atop macaroni and cheese and bake it. This is a bad idea. It tends to make the cheese separate. You don’t want to overheat macaroni and cheese. Baking it is not a good move.

Here’s what I did. I made the noodles. I made the sauce using cheese, half and half, butter, starch, an egg yolk, and sodium citrate, among other things. It was silky-smooth. I did not boil it.

I put the noodles in the microwave and nuked them until they were blistering hot, and then I stirred them into the sauce. This way, I got hot macaroni and cheese without boiling. I put the crust ingredients on top and broiled them. This gave me a perfect crust without heating the rest of the dish too much.

It’s magnificent. Couldn’t be much better.

I used 12 ounces of cheese and 8 dry ounces of noodles. This doesn’t include the top crust.

It was great having Mike in the kitchen, because when I needed help with something, I didn’t have to explain it, do it for him, or do it over. And he knows good food when he tastes it. Most people don’t.

We were talking about the microwave. I said I didn’t like using it when I cooked for guests. He said he always used it to cook for guests, because they couldn’t tell the difference.

He has a point.

If we ever recover from dinner, we’ll get some guns ready for tomorrow. We plan to do a rimfire invasion in the pasture.

Yesterday we shot .22 pistols. Mike was concerned about his skills, but we set up around 50 feet from the 6″ steel targets, and he had no problems. I had to explain that most people would have a hard time hitting a 6″ target from 7 yards. Tomorrow we’ll probably start with .22 rifles and move on to .17 HMR.

I suggest never eating baby back ribs, and be careful about listening to Alton Brown. He’s entertaining, but sometimes I wonder if he can cook at all.

I don’t want to get back into cooking heavily, but when I cook things I already know how to make, I might as well do it right.

Hope your Black Friday went well.