Speaking my Mime

This morning Usurvivable Killer Hurricane Eta passed over my house. When I woke up after an uneventful and restful sleep, I looked out the window and noticed that it was completely still. Then I checked the Internet to find out if I had the date wrong. No, I was right under Eta. Probably in the north eyewall.

Have I been watching the news, like a responsible person? Of course not. People who watch the weather news are not responsible. They are just gullible.

They were telling us 73-mph gusts were on the way. Did they actually believe it, or were they just trying to sell more diapers and SUV’s? It’s impossible to know. When people lie to you over and over, you can’t evaluate anything they say without corroboration from credible sources. It’s like listening to Joe Biden talk about fracking. Or, well, anything else.

Remember how the Weather Channel got caught faking the intensity of the wind? A reporter was leaning into the wind like he was trapped behind a jet engine, and people entered the frame, walking normally. Guess what? They’re still doing it.

I think the worst thing about their antics is that they don’t credit the master. They never mention the man who taught them everything they know. It’s criminal. I won’t stand for it.

Here, then, is the granddaddy of all Weather Channel hurricane reporters. Enjoy.

Give me Dried Meat, Water, and Bullets, and I can Survive Anything

My first batch of beef jerky is done. I just took it out of the dehydrator. The verdict: pass. It’s real jerky. It will work.

I used about 2 pounds of eye round. I cut off maybe an ounce of fat, and I ended up with 14.8 ounces of jerky. I thought the yield would be a lot smaller. It looks like the ratio of jerky to fresh meat is nearly 50%. The meat is slightly drier than I would like, so I think the ratio, once I get it together, will be at or above 50%. Based on a perusal of per-ounce prices of store jerky, I believe I made between 20 and 40 dollars’ worth for $15 or so, including marinade.

I’m leaving the bag open so condensation will not settle in it and make the meat wet. I think that will cause mold. I plan to close the bag up when the meat is cool.

Is it worth the effort? It doesn’t look like a giant bargain compared to the jerky I could have gotten for $20 per pound, but it looks great compared to the stuff that costs over $40 per pound.

I can get Uncle Buck’s jerky from Bass Pro for $20 per pound, and I like it a lot. On the other hand, it’s not as dry as my jerky, so I would be paying for a considerable amount of water. Wild guess: with water taken into consideration, I’ll say an Uncle Buck’s price of $25 per pound would more accurately reflect the food value I’m getting. Maybe I’m getting a 40% savings?

I may keep making it. I think I can make top-notch jerky, and a 40% savings is pretty good.

As has often been the case, I am disappointed in Alton Brown. He recommends marinating for 3-6 hours. Based on my results, let’s make that 24 hours. I went over three hours, and the flavor could be stronger. Smoking for one hour (smoke time, not including warm-up) worked fine, though. I don’t know if his Liquid Smoke idea is any good. It would allow me to skip the smoker, so that’s a big plus.

Do I really want to make jerky as well as I can? If it tastes fantastic, it will be hard to go easy on it in lean times. Maybe okay jerky is best.

I saw a How It’s Made video about making jerky. Maybe I’ll watch it again and look for tips.

I plan to keep drying apples until I can no longer stand it. They’re wonderful.

Walmart sells nuts really cheap, so I bought pecans. I guess if I bought raisins and almonds, I could make my own trail mix. Lots of calories, good shelf life, and not much weight or bulk.

I got two big jars of Hoosier Farms powdered cheddar. This is the stuff they use in things like Cheetos. I pop corn with bacon grease and put powdered cheddar on it. It’s decadent. I figure I can also use it to make mac and cheese, along with my ghee and evaporated milk.

None of this is going to be very helpful if our dystopia doesn’t include electricity. I’ll have no water. I supposed it will be made available somehow, but people would probably have to wait in long lines at distribution points, which could be impossible to reach without gasoline or diesel.

I’m putting my chips on an electrified apocalypse. A generator and diesel would run me over $50,000 for one year, and if diesel were hard to find, I would be able to do it no matter what I was willing to spend. You can’t just put a 20,000-gallon diesel tank in your yard. Not unless you’re a hard core nut. If your tank isn’t enormous, you’ll have to refuel it often, and if there is no fuel, you’ll look pretty stupid after the first tank runs out.

I have relatives (long deceased) who had natural gas on their land. They sold the rights, and in the package, they demanded to have gas piped to their house, free of charge. People like that are sitting pretty. If you live in Appalachia where there are hills, and you have gas, a clean creek, and enough land to grow food, you will be an aristocrat when Democrats destroy civilization.

Conservatives have nearly all of the oil and coal, and we have lots of refineries. We have lots of ports. Presumably, some things will still be available to us even after demon-ridden leftists extend their Tiktok-video mouth-frothing and shrieking from 30-second periods to entire days.

Tomorrow I’ll try to knock off more dried apples, and I’ll probably hit Walmart one more time. Then it’s time to sit back, pray, and hope the people who expect an imminent rapture are right. Leaving for heaven would be a lot better than sitting in my house eating disaster food and scanning the woods for “protesters” with a rifle scope.

Today, as part of my doomsday preparations, I am trying to make beef jerky.

I think I made jerky a long time ago, but I don’t remember. This time, I looked at recipes online to get started. They all look pretty much alike, so I chose one from the Food Network, figuring their lawyers would have looked it over to make sure it couldn’t cause food poisoning.

The recipe is credited to Alton Brown, a guy I don’t trust. He makes biscuits with vegetable shortening, which is odd, and he slices steaks up and serves them lukewarm. He also promoted Shun knives and claimed he used them, but now he promotes, and claims to use, another brand. So he found a great set of products, liked it so much he stocked his own kitchen, and then inexplicable abandoned them and started using something else? Real cooks don’t do things like that. If something works, you keep it. Brown had some kind of problem with the Kershaw company, the real manufacturer of fake-Damascus Shuns. Either they let him go, or the money wasn’t right, or there was a dispute. There is no way he suddenly decided another company’s products were so much better he had to adopt them without a blink.

Shuns are fragile and very expensive. If you put one in the dishwasher next to flatware, there’s a good chance it will emerge with chunks missing from the edge. He had to know he was promoting junk.

If you can’t trust a celebrity cook with regard to one thing, why should you trust him about other things? But here I am, adapting his recipe anyway.

He uses a device known as a Blo-hard 3000 to make his jerky. Wild guess: this is a cardboard box with a fan. I don’t know, but I know he likes boxes, and I find it hard to believe there’s a real product called “Blo-Hard 3000.”

Might as well Google.

I can’t find much information, but a Youtube video says Alton Brown dries beef on air conditioner filters because they give a “tougher, longer-lasting texture” than dehydrators.

I think Alton Brown is once again confirming my suspicions about him. I am not sure why I would want a tougher product, and I have a lot of confidence in my ability to make jerky that will be as dry, and therefore long-lasting, as I want. If the dehydrator doesn’t get it dry enough, which would be odd, considering what dehydrators so, I can always put the meat in the fridge, uncovered, for a day or two. That really dries things out.

I’m not going to have a bunch of dirty air filters around my house, attracting bugs. Who does that?

It looks like he and other jerky chefs do not use heat.

I bought eye round roast, which is a rubber-like product useful chiefly for braising, a cooking method that can render nearly anything edible. I have read that eye round is a top choice because it has so little tasty fat in it. Fat can go rancid, so apparently, you want to keep it out of your jerky.

Based on what Alton Brown says, as well as some Googling, I chilled the meat to firm it up, sliced off the fat, sliced the meat very thinly, and put it in the fridge in a bag of marinade. Alton Brown’s marinade contains liquid smoke, which is one more strike against him in my book. It also contains honey, which is not the most flavorful meat condiment on earth.

Here is what I’m trying:

2/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup soy sauce
1 shot Harvey’s Bristol Cream
2 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 heaping teaspoon Thai chili sauce
1 tablespoon sorghum

Brown says to marinate for 3-6 hours. Once I’m done with that, I plan to smoke the meat for one hour with hickory at 200°, and then I’ll stick it in the dehydrator. The smoker should wipe out the bulk of the bacteria and mold and whatever, even if it isn’t necessary.

This pretty much has to be good. It’s smoked meat with a lot of salt, sugar, and acid added. I don’t think much can go wrong. As Jeremy Clarkson says, “How hard can it be?”

Brown says he has kept jerky for up to a year. Probably next to his Shun knives.

It would be a lot of work to dry enough beef to make a real dent in a post-election dystopic famine, but it can’t hurt. I also bought canned corned beef, so I’m not putting all my jerky in one basket.

I don’t know if jerky is cost-effective. I’m going to get nearly two pounds of jerky (pre-smoked weight), and I believe I paid $5 per pound. Adding half a bottle of Worcestershire and half a bottle of soy sauce run the price up quite a bit. Maybe a total of $15? I can weigh what comes out of the dehydrator and compare it to store prices. If it can’t be cheap, it can at least be better than factory food.

Shortage Preparation Goes Well

Today I did something really great, and I’m here to share it. I modified my apple-peeling machine and improved it tremendously. It only takes about 15 minutes, but you have to have a tap.

The world’s most popular peeler/corer is a Chinese contraption made of cast iron. They run around $25. They look like they could not possibly work, but they’re excellent. You can peel, slice, and core an apple in around 10 seconds, including putting it on the machine and taking it off.

The machine has a screw, and on the end of the screw, there is a fork. You jam your apple onto the fork and turn the screw. The screw shoves the apple toward a stainless blade with a hole in it. The core goes through the hole, the blade spiral-slices the apple, and a second attachment removes the skin.

It’s not perfect. You will usually get a core that’s cut off-center, so you will often need to cut little hard bits out of the slices. If you think that’s a big deal, spend an hour coring, slicing and peeling apples without a machine. You will sing a different tune when you’re done.

The big problem with these machines is that the stainless blades move around. They’re held in place by a single screw, so the blades can rotate when the apples hit them, shoving the core hole off to the side. The solution? Drill a second small hole in the blade beside the hole for the original screw. Drill a corresponding hole in the cast iron of the machine. Tap the hole in the cast iron and run a small screw through the blade and into the machine.

Now you have a blade held in place by one big screw and one little one. It will never move again.

I modified the machine because I’m drying apples.

People who think they hear from God are predicting food shortages. I’ve written about it before. I don’t plan to try to become self-sufficient, eating bugs and worms and whatever for the long term, but as I have said in other posts, I think it can’t hurt to have enough food for a month or two. Dried apples are high in calories, they taste great, they can be used in things like fried apple pies, and they will keep you regular. In a big way, if you overindulge.

It would be hard to get the yellow transparent apples my grandmother used to dry in Kentucky, but Granny Smiths are somewhat similar, and they make fantastic dried apples. Forgive me if I repeat myself. I am too lazy to go back over what I’ve already written. I made a batch of dried apples yesterday, and I have a bigger batch in the dehydrator. The ones I made yesterday are so good it will be hard to leave them alone.

I should learn how to make fried pies. I have an excellent, authentic Eastern Kentucky cookbook, and the recipe is probably good. If not, I can use it as a starting point and improve it.

Fried pies seem to last forever. I know they will go at least a week in a covered container.

I now have protein bars, a jug of whey protein, corned beef, beef for jerky, lots of oatmeal, a good deal of flour, extra sugar, all the caffeine-free Coke in the county (they quit making it “just until the pandemic is over”), and two big jars of grated cheese to go with my many pounds of dried pasta. I now think getting through a month will be a breeze, as long as I have electricity. I won’t stop gathering, though. I want more nuts.

Here’s hoping this all turns out to be a huge waste of time.

No Let-Up in the Forecast

Tropical Storm Eta is oppressing the Southeast. How long has it been out there? It sat on Nicaragua for days, and now it’s finally stumbling around the gulf. The NHC thinks it will be around until at least Friday!

I wouldn’t care, but I think it’s killing the cool weather that should be here now. We’re under pre-hurricane-style clouds, and the air is warm and a little stuffy.

I’m used to seeing storms get it together or vanish in a few days. This storm is defective.

I can’t help wondering if it has supernatural significance. Storms vary in duration, but this seems crazy, and God has taught me that unlikely events can have supernatural origins.

Many people thought Katrina was a message. The name means “catharsis,” and the storm did great damage to an area full of sinful, unrepentant people. It killed people by flooding, and the strange thing about that is that the dead let themselves die. They could have escaped easily, but they chose to stay home, in areas that were likely to flood. A commonly held theory says they stayed home because they thought they had to be there in order to receive their government checks. I don’t know if it’s true, but it would make sense. Leftists who are addicted to welfare suffer from something called “learned helplessness.” Things that don’t faze conservatives devastate them.

I’ve noticed this in my dealings with friends who come from government-dependent cultures. They can’t do anything. They can’t fix their cars. They don’t know how to fix their credit. They can’t do home repairs. They always need advice with regard to simple matters other people don’t consider challenges. Maybe the War on Poverty is the reason. When you’re used to sitting at home waiting for handout checks, the police, and social workers, you don’t have much motivation to become capable. If anything, you are rewarded for weakness and passivity.

“Eta” doesn’t seem to mean anything. It’s the name of a letter.

An imaginative person might say it seems like Eta is hovering over us as a sign that there is a lingering battle among supernatural beings over the election.

The other day, I said the only earthly entities that could end the election and resolve the matter for good were Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and the courts. I forgot the electors.

Electors have traditionally had the liberty to vote as they pleased. It may disturb people to read it, but when you vote in a presidential election, you’re not really voting for a candidate. You’re voting for a representative, and your vote is a strong recommendation, not an order. It’s like Congress. Because of past electoral defections, many states have passed laws making it illegal for electors to go against their mandate. Not all states have done this, and at least some of the laws have no enforcement provisions. At least one law’s enforcement provision is so weak, it would not provide much discouragement.

When leftists say they want to abolish the Electoral College, it’s not a small thing. In fact, it’s revolutionary, in the sense that they want to accomplish a leftist revolution by destroying a Constitutionally created representative body. Leftists are the Antichrist’s children, and they want revolution, not mere change. Sadly, Americans don’t hate the notion of revolution. Our country was born in a revolution, and somehow that has persuaded many of us that revolutions are good things. There are a lot of Chinese, Cuban, and Russian people who feel differently.

The more I think about it, the more I think the American Revolution was a stupid, counterproductive act that has brought curses on us. People think we wouldn’t have been free had we not rebelled. Oh, really? So we would have been put in gulags and death camps, like Canadians and Australians? I admit, Canadians and Australians have lost a lot of freedom in recent years, but they have done pretty well for most of their history.

I now believe kings are better than mindless electorates. Putting ignorant, dishonest, selfish people in voting booths is a practice that has to lead to destruction eventually. Hitler came to power in a fair election, as did Daniel Ortega. I think deposing or killing or rebelling against a monarch is something Christians should only do in the gravest of circumstances. Eighteenth-century Americans were not miserable or desperate.

America was established as a leftist enterprise. We shouldn’t be surprised if leftism increases and destroys us.

Trying to abolish the college or nullify its purpose is not much different from trying to abolish Congress. It’s a gigantic power grab intended to turn people who don’t live in blue states into slaves who lack representation in the Executive Branch.

People who hate the Electoral College should also hate the Senate. It works the same way. The House of Representatives provides representatives for each area depending on its population, and that’s how leftists think the government should work. The Senate gives Alaska and Wyoming the same number of senators as California and Texas, in order to prevent low-population states from being enslaved. If the Electoral College is evil because it gives rural citizens more power per capita than urban citizens, then the Senate is much, much worse.

Will the Senate be slated for destruction when the left is in charge? I don’t see why it should not be. It should be a pressing goal for the revolutionaries. I’m sure they would be willing to give up Hawaii’s disproportionate power in order to conquer red America.

I don’t know if it matters, because I expect Skynet–the Internet and the wireless web–to overcome and replace the world’s government. Future human beings will be like the Borg, if God doesn’t show up and prevent it. Elon Musk is even trying to hardwire IT devices into our brains. The likelihood that such devices would not be made Internet-capable is zero.

People think the election is over, but it hasn’t been held yet. It won’t be held until the electors meet. A lot of things can happen during that time. Biden could be exposed as a criminal because of his China ties, he could die, or the press could “suddenly” discover his dementia and make such a big deal out of it electors would feel justified in abandoning him. Or the left’s astounding, proven campaign of voter fraud could be exposed so thoroughly, electors would be unable to make themselves vote for Biden. Maybe electors will switch their votes simply because they dislike the man.

This is a crazy year, so expect more crazy things to happen.

Like Tropical Storm Eta, the election fight hovers over us, spoiling the atmosphere and refusing to let us rest.

Biden didn’t lose his mind during the campaign. He has not been right in the head for a while. I can’t help wondering if it’s because of his two brain surgeries and his plastic surgeries. Many experts believe there is a strong link between receiving general anaesthesia and developing dementia. Is this why Biden is a shadow of his 2018 self? Is there any possibility that the condition that gave him two aneurysms has produced other abnormalities that would explain his reckless behavior and uncontrolled outbursts? These are things I think about.

Biden has hair plugs, and he has had work done on his eyes. I don’t know what else he has had done. Plastic surgeons say he has had a facelift, and there are scars in front of his ears to prove it. He also appears to be on botox, and he is famous for his bleached smile.

Trump’s first wife claims he had a scalp reduction, but as anyone who has seen a Trump rally can tell you, he is as sharp as a tack. He may be eccentric, but he knows where he is and what’s going on, and he can talk at great length without a teleprompter.

A shocking Trump resurgence would fit in beautifully with the rest of the 2020 perfect storm. This year seems to have been designed to infuriate the Antichrist’s children. We have a mild pandemic the press has convinced us is a major crisis, and the left is using it to control and imprison people. They have also convinced them it’s Trump’s fault. We have a president leftists hate with insane fervor, for no good reason. We have a 6-3 Supreme Court, thanks to a confirmation leftists wrongly believe was illegal, and that court has ultimate jurisidiction over the election results. If Trump had won handily on election day, it would have angered leftists, and riots would have ensued, but it wouldn’t be as provocative as a false Biden victory followed by events that put Trump on top before the electors met. Such a scenario would likely plunge us into immediate, widespread chaos and violence. If we are supposed to have a future of chaos and murder, a Trump rebound makes much more sense than a relatively clean election day blowout.

Pastor Dana Coverstone had some famous dreams about this season, beginning months ago, and he said he saw foreign troops on the ground here. He said he expected food shortages, too. As far as I know, none of the things he expected have been proven impossible. They keep coming true. Can it be that he really is a prophet? He doesn’t make that claim, but he’s doing as well as a true prophet could hope to.

I’m still working on emergency food. I dug out my food dehydrator, and I dried Granny Smith apples. The problem with them is that they taste too good. It will be hard to leave them in bags until I need them. I’m not positive my first batch is as dry as it should be, so after I removed it from the dehydrator, I put the apples in a bowl in the refrigerator. If that doesn’t dry them out, nothing will. I sometimes wonder why people don’t use refrigerators as dehydrators. They seem to do a great job of dehydrating things we don’t want dehydrated.

I should make a bigger batch today. It takes 4/3 of an apple to fill a dehydrator shelf, so I’ll do the math and work it out so I don’t end up with partial loads.

My apple peeler is a great help, but the sheet metal part that slices and cores moves around. It’s held steady by one screw. I may drill and tap and add a second screw so it can’t go anywhere. Or maybe I should look for a better machine.

I don’t know if homemade jerky is cheaper or better than the store kind. I’ll find out.

I keep praying for the rapture to come fast. I believe the WAP world is so rotten, it’s time for the tribulation. I want a better atmosphere, and I want to be with people who are like me. I want to be somewhere where I know I’m at home. That will never happen on Earth.

Fox News Can’t Really Call an Election

A great thing happened to me a few years back. God told me to get off social media. I was tired of dealing with proud boneheads who would not listen, and God told me to let them go. He also said I should quit reading the news. I listened. It brought peace to my life. People I know who remained engaged suffered with uneducated, biased individuals who let rumors and gossip rule their thinking. I was off on my own, enjoying life. I’ve written about it before. I call it “the little rapture.”

As the 2020 election drew near, I started looking at the news again. I felt God was telling me to. I felt he was saying that I used to be too weak to deal with the constant provocation, but that because I had grown, I could read the news without doing myself harm.

I started looking at political Youtube channels. It got to the point where I felt like a prisoner. I would go to Youtube hoping to find something interesting about guns or tools or science, and I would find myself watching the same angry people over and over.

This morning, God told me to let things go again. I unsubscribed to the Youtube channels, and I also gave up Parler. It’s a hopeless Twitter competitor. I joined a few weeks back. You know how it works. Conservatives and Christians get shut out of social media, so they start their own alternatives. It’s never as good. Even if you’re a Christian, no one you know will be there, and strangers won’t show any interest in what you say.

I feel wonderful. I don’t have to look at the fighting and scrapping–the carnality–any more.

What’s happening with the election? I could not help seeing that a few news outlets are calling Biden the president-elect. Trump says it’s not over. You know what? It’s not over.

Only three sources can shut down the election permamently: Trump, Biden, and the courts. If Trump concedes, it’s over. If Biden concedes, it’s over. If the courts say it’s over, it’s over. Both Trump and Biden have the authority to end the election by conceding. No one but the courts can end the election by declaring a winner. It’s meaningless if Trump, Biden, or any conglomeration of journalists or states call one person the winner. The courts have the final say.

I’m going to wait for the court challenges to end.

It’s strange that every news outlet in America waited for Al Gore to have his day in court after he made his ridiculous, unfounded challenge to the 2000 results, yet they don’t give Trump the same consideration when there are proven allegations of fraud in several swing states.

Anyway, I walk by faith, not the declarations of journalists and crooked politicians, so I will wait for a conclusive end to the election.

A bunch of Christians have predicted that Trump will win, claiming to have knowledge, not just impressions. Of course, most people who say they’re prophets are wrong.

Swamp dwellers, including journalists, don’t know how to deal with Trump. He isn’t Mitt Romney or John McCain. He has zero regard for what other people think, and he’s extremely tough. If he feels like battling for justice, he’ll do it, even if half of the country hates him for it.

Trump has a special anointing from God, and many people think it’s a two-term anointing. If that’s true, then it may be that we will witness the kind of spectacle found in the Bible. God saved Moses and the Hebrews when they were between the sea and the Egyptian army. He kept the lions’ mouths closed while Daniel was in the den, but he saw to it that Daniel’s enemies and their wives and children were eaten. He killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night to shame Sennacherib, his armies, and the rabshakeh. Maybe we’ll see the courts and law enforcement drag Biden off the stage. Or maybe Trump really will have to go. Whatever the case is, I’m a man of faith, so I’m not going to pay any attention to the wishful declarations of people who have no real power. We will have a firm conclusion soon, and pretending we know the truth now only does harm and sets us up for civil war. People who think journalists have the power to call elections would be irate beyond description if the courts ruled for Trump, especially if Amy Barrett were involved. Maybe that’s the plan.

Today I used my freedom to zero my first red dot scope. I put it on the AR-15 and adjusted it so it works at 50 yards. At 30 yards, it shoots through one hole. At 50 yards, I get about a 1.5″ spread. I think it’s because I can’t see well enough to shoot accurately at 50 yards. There is no magnification, so you end up with a big fuzzy dot that makes it hard to know exactly where the gun is pointed. It may be that I have the illumination turned up too high.

The red dot is pleasant to use, but it’s not magic. I’ll have to use it a few more times before I can come up with an informed opinion. My understanding is that parallax is never a problem with these sights. Is that the main appeal?

I also tried using jags and a bore guide to clean the gun. It was a 90-minute nightmare. The patches that are supposed to work with jags will not go through the barrel, even when you do what they tell you to do in videos. I got patches stuck in the gun several times. I finally cut tiny patches from patch cloth and made them work.

The bore guide seems like an asinine toy to me. It’s supposed to protect the barrel and chamber from damage. How can brass hardware and carbon-fiber rods damage steel? Hard to swallow.

I had to wrestle so hard with the patches and jags, the bore guide went all over the place. I’m sure brass and steel came together many times.

My suspicion is that hipsters have made cleaning AR’s way more difficult than it has to be. I’ll bet brushes and Boresnakes work just fine.

UPDATE

It turns out the people on gun forums don’t know anything about using jags. It’s a wonder they manage to clean their guns. They were useless as sources of information, but of course, they had plenty to say anyway.

They told me some really WRONG things, including this: if your jag is too tight, put it in a drill and use sandpaper to reduce it. So the engineers who make jags aren’t smart enough to figure out how big they should be?

I found the right information on a couple of manufacturer’s sites.

1. The main purpose of a bore guide is to protect the gun cleaning rod from sharp edges in the breech area.

2. The correct size patches for .223 and 6.5mm are 1-1/8″ and 1-1/2″. Multi-caliber patches don’t actually work. Maybe they’re okay for loops, but they’re not for jags.

3. To use a jag with a patch, you pierce the corner and wrap the patch around the jag. You can make the fit tighter or looser by fiddling with it.

I got out my Tikka T3x, which was already cleanish, and I tried the wrapping method. Worked perfectly. It was snug enough to get junk out of the barrel, but it did not get stuck, and I was able to control it so it didn’t jump out of the barrel and drop the patch. Because the patch was wrapped around the jag, it stayed on when I pulled it backward, so I was able to go back and forth.

I ordered 1000 patches in each size. That should keep me going for a while. I ordered a Dewey rod made especially for AR chambers. I tried wrapping a patch around a jag, and it worked great.

Montana X-Treme is the company that made my 6.5mm jag. Their site said to wrap the jag. Their jags have several sets of rings on them, so the rings cover over an inch. People were recommending tiny patches. There is no way on earth to get a tiny patch to reach all the rings, so when you use a tiny patch, you’re using about 2/3 of the jag you paid good money for. Bigger patches wrapped around the jag are the correct choice.

I ordered a 6.5mm Hoppe’s Bore Snake. I’ll use it to clean up the bore after using jags and so on. It’s faster than 52 patches in a row.

Man, life is better when you consult people who actually know something.

I Work for the Board of Labor

A few weeks ago, I ordered myself a chalkboard for my kitchen. I needed something in front of me to remind me of things I needed to get done. Amazon screwed up and sent me a whiteboard. I hate those things. I sent it back. Michelangelo and Da Vinci used chalk. Head start teachers use whiteboards.

I put a list of nagging tasks on the board as soon as I screwed it to the wall. There must have been 20 things on it. I’ve been wiping them out ever since. I highly recommend chalkboards.

Today I arranged for gutter companies to come by and give me estimates on some roof improvements. I also sold one of my old welding carts, and the buyer also bought my old 80 cubic foot C25 tank. He got a great bargain, but I had to get it out of my workshop. That put me in a position to knock another item off my list. I drove to Airgas and bought a 125 cubic foot tank. It’s on the new cart now. The cart is ready to work. I can still make little changes here and there, and I haven’t transfered all my welding paraphernalia to it, but I can pull it up to my table and start welding.

I wore my MAGA hat to Airgas. I’ll wear it until the fat lady sings. If a 74-year-old man who just got over coronavirus can do several rallies in different states every day for weeks, I can wear a hat. It’s not much of a gesture.

Things don’t look as bad as the MSM would have you believe. Trump seems certain to win Pennsylvania. Biden’s anti-fracking crusade really put a dent in his numbers. We are now learning that Arizona was called early. There are 400,000 votes yet to be counted, and there is a good chance they’ll put Trump over the top. North Carolina and Georgia look good, Alaska is a sure thing, and Trump is suing in Michigan and demanding a recount in Wisconsin.

If he gets Arizona, Biden is in trouble. If he gets Michigan or Wisconsin, Biden is in trouble.

My feeling is that God is making Trump sweat because of his pride. It’s not pure imagination. It’s a strong feeling I get during prayer. But a strong feeling is not a prophecy.

Of course, if I’m right, we will be up to our armpits in rioters soon, and it may be even worse than the riot routine we’ve gotten used to.

I’m sure they’re rioting somewhere today. They always are. Riots used to be unusual. Now they’re like rain. It may be dry where you are, but it’s always pouring somewhere. After Trump wins, we should expect heavy-duty simultaneous riots in as many cities as BLM and Antifa can afford to attack.

Maybe they won’t be able to riot everywhere. After all, George Soros and Hollywood celebrities aren’t made out of money.

The riots will be Trump’s fault, according to the MSM. Everything is Trump’s fault in Bizarro World. Hurricanes. Forest fires. A fat lady became Youtube-famous for claiming Trump made her obese. He really gets around, in the fantasies of the Antichrist’s children. In sane times, people would be amazed to see grown-ups blaming a Republican president–who isn’t allowed to send help–for terrorist riots performed by leftists. Now, it’s normal. Up is down, men are women, and blizzards are proof of global warming.

“Trump made me do it.” Flip Wilson should sue.

Trump reminds me of Jesus Christ. They are the most lied-about people in history. They are hated without reason by more people than any other figures I can think of. They do great things for others. The blessings are undeniable. Somehow, they are given no credit, the blessings are characterized as problems, and problems other people create are blamed on them.

The Antichrist’s children remind me of my sister, who appears to be one of them. The more you do for her, the more she hates you. Helping certain people is like playing war games with the WHOPR. The only way to win is not to play.

This is the only country on earth, apart from one outlier with a gigantic oil field, where large numbers of people pushed for socialism during an economic boom. It just isn’t done. You’re supposed to go socialist out of desperation. You don’t do it when unemployment is at a record low and the stock market is at a record high. It’s like demolishing a house because it looks too nice.

That blackboard is really something. It hangs there, silently disapproving of me. It motivates me to do things so I can erase items from the list. It does what nagging wives wish they could do, without the misery and dreams of divorce.

Here’s hoping Trump wins Arizona. I’ll write another item on the board: “Lie on face for three hours, thanking God.”

One Step Closer to Venison

I finally shot the Tikka T3x Superlite today. Things went well, mostly.

Like my Ruger Precision Rifle, which was a lot more expensive, this is a 6.5mm gun. The thing that concerned me was that it might turn out to be more accurate than the RPR, for a lot less money. That would make me feel stupid.

I’m not positive, but while I don’t think it will top the RPR, it may equal it.

I started out at 50 yards, using cheap Sellier & Bellot ammunition to foul the just-cleaned bore and get on the paper. I shot two rounds at the center of a bullseye. The first shot was very low, so I adjusted the scope. The next shot was in the center of the bullseye.

I moved back to 100 yards, and the next shot went through the same hole the second shot made. I would not expect a 50-yard zero to be the same as a 100-yard zero, but this is what happened. I shot several more rounds, realized I was wasting ammo, and moved to Hornady ELD Match 140 grain, which should be somewhat more accurate than S&B.

I’ll put up my first target. Believe it or not, I was adjusting the scope while firing these shots. Will the Tikka do sub-MOA? Oh, yes. And with bargain Czech ammunition, no less.

I moved to the next target. I intended to put up a 4-bullseye target, but I wasn’t paying attention, so I put up another 8″ bullseye. I turn these into 5-bullseye targets by shooting at various line intersections and then the center. There is a 5-shot group low on the target. That was the first group, and I was shooting at the intersection closest to it. Acceptable.

I adjusted the scope to move the point of impact to the left, and then I shot at intersection to the left of the center of the target. My first shot was around 2.5 inches to the right of the point of aim. I figured it was a bad flyer. Then I shot four more shots, and as you can see, they were in the same area.

At this point, I figured I was wasting my time. I needed to take the rifle indoors and check the torque on the scope screws to make sure the scope hadn’t moved. I just checked them, and they’re fine. I think next I’ll clean the barrel again. I’m wondering if something in there is affecting the point of aim.

I don’t know what the problem is, but this gun will shoot. Once I find out why the point of impact moved, I’ll be seriously accurate with this thing.

This gun doesn’t have a bipod on it. I thought it was a bad idea to use a bipod to zero a hunting gun, so I used a front bag. The bag was too low, so it was hard to keep the gun on target. Maybe this is why the last group shifted. Just guessing. I need to put something under the bag next time.

I don’t know if I should continue using match ammo. It’s an interesting question. I have 100 rounds of Hornady Whitetail ammo on the way, and if I were to hunt, I would expect to use it, so why play around with match ammunition? On the other hand, I’ve read that some people prefer ELD Match for hunting, even though Hornady doesn’t recommend it.

The trigger is very light. I adjusted it before I fired the gun, and I made it as light as it would go. I didn’t think it would go this far. I should probably dial it back a little if I hunt with it. I don’t want to shoot trees, the ground, or other hunters who may have lawyers.

I think buying this gun was a good move. It’s very light, Tikka quality is very good, and you can see it shoots well. It beats my shoulder up when shooting prone, but I suppose I can wear a padded shirt or just be a man about it and not whine.

I’ll clean it and shoot some Hornady Whitetail through it. For now, my next move is to mount my red dot scope and try it on the AR-15.

Hope Biden never comes for the Tikka, but if he does, he can give it to the cops and tell them they finally have a chance at hitting people in the leg. His contrarian advice on marksmanship and real-world tactics is always interesting.

The Pennsylvania Problem

I managed to avoid looking at the election results until a short time ago, at around 8 a.m. I have to say that things aren’t looking hopeless.

1. Our left-wing terrorists were not stupid enough to do their act while the polls were open, so there shouldn’t be any issues with suppression of Republican votes. I’m judging by the news I can find online, so be gentle if I’m wrong.

2. Biden lost Florida, and he lost BIG. The Realclearpolitics average had Biden up nearly a point, Florida had a huge influx of left-leaning Puerto Ricans, and Trump still beat him by over three points. That, all by itself, should have pollsters looking for new jobs. They really blew it. Again. They do nothing but poison the process.

3. Trump is expected to win Georgia and North Carolina. Alaska will go for Trump, of course. Not that it’s a major score. Michigan may well go for Trump.

4. Trump is way ahead in Pennsylvania, with the vast majority of votes counted. What if the uncounted votes are from Philadelphia County, home of a major den of incorrigible leftists? That must be what’s happening, because Trump is over 12 points ahead.

I said I was afraid Pennsylvania would be the new Florida, and I was right. Phildelphia is a slimy, corrupt city, and if my guess about the locations of the uncounted precincts is right, they may be forging and “finding” ballots in high gear right now. It’s very sad to see Pennsylvania caught up in this mess.

T.B. Joshua, the Nigerian evangelist who prophesied that 2020 would be a year of humbling, and who accurately said the Wuhan epidemic was going to end abruptly, made a vague prophesy about our presidential election. He said things don’t always turn out the way we want, and he said Amy Coney Barrett would be a major factor. Does it mean the Supreme Court will squash Pennsylvania-swamp vote fraud efforts? I don’t know. I don’t see Amy Barrett helping the Democrats unless the law is so cut-and-dried she has no choice. I don’t know if Joshua’s prophecy is real, and I’m not sure what it means. It’s interesting, though.

I’m not sure, but it looks like a Michigan win would leave Pennsylvania as the state that would determine the outcome. I don’t see how Trump can win without Michigan. Am I mistaken? I guess he could do it if Nevada went his way, but Nevada doesn’t look great.

The polls were wrong about Trump again, regardless of who wins. Is it because pollsters are incompetent (yes) and dishonest (probably), or because voters are afraid to say they support Trump? I think the last factor is a big deal this time around, but the more I look at polls, the more I realize the people who compile them are extremely inept. I’ve seen at least one pro-Biden result in which the vast majority of people sampled were Democrats. If you can do something that dumb, you have no business conducting polls.

I can’t recall ever hearing of a poll that oversampled Republicans. I wonder if it happens. If not, we should be asking why not.

The worst possible outcome, barring extremely unlikely events, is that Biden will win after getting stomped in states where he was expected to sleep his way to victory. I don’t see how this would help America, but it would provide some comfort.

My state made a big mistake. The public created a $15 minimum wage. Say goodbye to thousands of low-end jobs. Say hello to increased hiring of illegal aliens and higher unemployment. People never learn.

Ballot referendums threaten to make Florida a volatile state. Fringe nuts tried to put an anti-semiautomatic-weapon law on the ballot once. They could have caused real problems. Moms who vote with their maternal instincts instead of their brains could have turned Florida into Virginia.

I will continue to pray and hope for the best. My own peace, safety, health, and success come from God, not politicians, but a lot of people depend on presidents.

Things to do While America Tries to Kill Itself

It has been a pretty stress-free day. I woke up at 7:00, which was way too early because I was up past midnight. I prayed and so on, and when I woke up again, it was nearly 11. Not bad!

I had a strange dream. My grandmother was still alive, and she was driving me and another grandchild to Lexington, Kentucky. She was old, but her mind was clear. Nonetheless, her driving was scary. I kept suggesting she let me drive, but she said her doctor had told her driving was good for her.

We had to stop at a government facility where everyone emptied their pockets and set the contents in baskets on conveyor belts. I didn’t put my carry piece in the basket. When I got to the other side, my stuff didn’t come through. I remember longing for the good old days when Americans could get in the car and drive from place to place without stopping to be searched. Apparently, in the world of my dream, those days were over.

I don’t know if the dream means anything. My mother generally represents the church in my dreams. Who, then, does her mother represent? Catholics? The Jews? You would think it would be a body that gave rise to the modern church.

Last night and today, I received nice packages that gave me something to do.

I don’t want a bulky, expensive grill that costs $2000 and does nothing a cheap grill won’t do, so I have a turkey fryer and a small stainless Pit Boss Grill. For a long time, I’ve had them on the patio on a cheap Home Depot table. The heat did a number on the plastic, so I ordered myself a stainless prep table. They sell them on Amazon for a little over a hundred bucks, but the Amazon jobs use thin steel, and their lower shelves and legs are galvanized, so they will rust. I decided to splurge and get a real commercial table with stainless shelves and legs. It’s very sturdy. I should be able to clean it very easily, and any rust should be negligible.

I also got a stand for my smoker. They cost a lot, but it’s no fun putting meat in a smoker that sits nearly on the floor. I now have a much more convenient height, and the stand has wings for things like BBQ tongs, sauces, and seasonings.

I had to assemble everything. Putting the smoker on the stand was quite a job.

I’ll post a photo. Yes, there are shovels on my patio. I’m still not done removing the stump from the poolside planter.

I haven’t bothered getting a real patio table. I looked around, but I didn’t see anything good on the web or at the local consignment place. I don’t want to blow $1500 on a new set. It doesn’t matter. My plastic folding table is very practical, and no one seems to mind.

Tomorrow, I expect to receive a wireless BBQ thermometer with two probes, and it should be accompanied by some other items.

I installed an induction stove a while back, but I did’t get nonstick pans, and somehow, a couple of my saucepans didn’t make the trip from Miami, so I ordered two induction-ready skillets and some replacement saucepans. I have several pans I should get rid of because they don’t cooperate with induction. Time to visit the Salvation Army, I guess.

The thermometer will make barbecuing easier.

The runup to the election has been unpleasant. I would hate to see a great president who honors God and puts his country first put out of office by witches, terrorists, a corrupt and vile press, the Chinese, and a lying, demented hack no one in his own corrupt party respects. Now that there is nothing to do but watch and pray, I feel better. If Biden wins, it won’t harm me personally. God looks after me regardless of what happens around me. Other people won’t fare so well, but they will be getting what they chose, and I don’t have the power to control their actions.

I will try not to watch the returns, and I hope I can sleep without help. I don’t want to find myself staring at the computer at 3 a.m.

I hope I won’t continue watching the news after today, apart from occasional glances. I hate reading the news. Smith Wigglesworth wouldn’t allow newspapers in his house, and he did just fine.

It’s nice to have pleasant projects to pass the time during what could have been a rough day. Hope everyone who reads this has peace. Don’t forget: our president isn’t the source of your safety and blessings, so there is no reason to despair if a man the Democrats rejected for three decades somehow wins the prize. Like all hard times, a Biden rule would be hardest on people who don’t know God.

“You Have Already Been Found Guilty; Now we Must Look for the Evidence”

They say the Internet is forever. I have thought about this a lot. When you have a blog that amounts to more writing than a medium-sized dictionary, and when there are uninvited organizations that gather and store whatever you publish, there is zero hope of deleting your words and claiming you never wrote them. When twisted leftists rivaling Castro and Pol Pot run America, they will have a mountain of evidence to use against me when they purge society of deplorables and bitter clingers.

I’ve written a lot about firearms, and recently, I’ve written about my concern that the terrorists whose events are erupting like carbuncles all over America will one day show up on my farm to do me in, making it necessary that I either shoot them or accept martyrdom quickly.

“Red flag” laws are popular now. The idea is that if there is evidence a person is likely to commit violent crime, the state should drop in, take all of his firearms, and take whatever other action it finds appropriate. Have I red-flagged myself by writing about the possibility that I will have motivation to shoot people? Are you in the same boat? Have you posted things on the web that might tick the right boxes?

When the true kooks take over, the red-flag threshold will be very low. Owning a gun should do it. As of now, in a time when those in charge in my state are only mildly kooky, I believe you have to be a genuine, obvious head case to get in trouble. That’s probably more true in my county, where, my guess is, the sheriff himself would stand beside me and lay down fire from my front porch.

One of the things snowflakes look at when they determine whether a person is a dangerous nut is the number of firearms that person owns. They also look at ammunition. Anyone who has more than two guns or a hundred rounds has what is known as a “home arsenal.” The correct term for a big stockpile of arms and ammunition is “armory,” but never mind.

Snowflakes don’t know one type of gun from another. If they knew anything about guns, they wouldn’t be snowflakes. They think rifles and shotguns are the same things. They think semiautomatics are machine guns. A person who has 10 hunting weapons and one pistol for self-defense has a “home arsenal” as far as your average journalist is concerned.

Snowflakes don’t know the difference between a cache compiled in anticipation of conflict and a sporting weapons collection. They don’t know how many rounds a normal, law-abiding enthusiast might reasonably go through in a month. They can’t distinguish between stockpiles created by crackpots and ordinary reserves gathered by ordinary people who have nothing but good intentions.

Contrary to what snowflakes think, a box containing a thousand rounds of ammunition is not a cache. It’s enough for 10 normal range days, assuming you’re a frugal shooter. It’s completely reasonable, and for someone who likes to practice, it makes good economic sense to have 20 or 30 times that much. Every time you buy ammunition online (the cheapest way), you have to pay for shipping, and very often, the cost is the same whether you buy 1000 rounds or one round. You would have to be simple to buy small amounts. Also, America has a history of shortages now, so stocking up is just common sense. On top of that, it’s a good investment. If I had bought 1000 boxes of 9mm ammo at $8 per box last year, could sell it this year for $30 per box, and people would kiss my feet to get it.

Snowflakes can’t tell the difference between Fudds, 2A proponents who are firm but not aggressive, and Boogaloo, NFAC-style morons who pray for the day they can put on their plate carriers and shoot random citizens.

A Fudd, named for Elmer Fudd, is a left-of-center fake 2A proponent. Somehow, these people have gotten the idea that the Second Amendment has something to do with hunting. They think they should be allowed to have low-capacity rifles and shotguns for shooting animals, but they’re all for banning weapons that are actually useful for self-defense. Fudds are a problem because in their ignorance, they contaminate the true 2A community and drag everyone else down with them.

A sane 2A proponent understands that our Constitutional was written solely to allow citizens to own and carry military-style arms. Such a person objects to laws that infringe those rights, but he doesn’t sit around at night playing violent video games and wishing they were real.

Boogaloo-style nuts are mindless, hateful anarchists who are socially stunted and haven’t developed normal human characteristics like love, compassion, or a concern for fairness. They like firearms and firearms rights for the worst possible reasons, many are not conservative, and they probably represent less than 1% of the 2A crowd.

Snowflakes think anyone who has a lot of guns is a maniac waiting to snap. Well, maybe I should not do this, but I’ll be transparent. I have a fair number of guns, but when it comes to defensive weapons, the list is pretty short. I have a small number of defensive rifles and pistols. The other guns are for fun.

It’s true that my other guns COULD be used defensively, as could kitchen knives. I don’t think of them as tools of violence, though. I admit, I ordered myself a red dot scope just in case anyone ever needs to use my AR-15 to preserve human life or prevent a forcible felony, but I consider the AR-15 to be a poor choice for self-defense, and I bought it for pleasure. I have some revolvers, but revolvers are sorry choices for violent confrontations. They’re heavy, they take a long time to reload, they have low capacities, and they jam just like automatics.

Some people defend revolvers, but the truth is that a revolver is always a second choice. No informed person carries a revolver unless there is some reason why he can’t carry a semiautomatic.

So anyway, as HOME ARSENALS go, mine is pretty ordinary, except that I was smart enough to buy ammunition before things went crazy.

As for my intentions, you would have to be extremely determined and very persistent to get me to shoot at you, and you would almost certainly have to be in the process of invading my home. Do they red-flag people for threatening to process home invaders? Not yet. Not in Florida, I mean. Next year? Maybe.

I have never desired to join a militia, where I might have to take orders from a guy who works at Tractor Supply, and I am positive guerrilla warfare and civil war are not the answers to our problems.

I suppose I’m safe until the hard core wack jobs take over. May I be gone from the earth before that happens. I’m sure they would join me in that wish.

Maybe you’ve been cagey and kept your beliefs and capabilities off the web. Good for you. The rest of us will understand if you put on Biden hats and wave at us when they haul us away.

One More Cloud in the 2020 Perfect Storm

For a long time, I’ve been expecting a Trump victory followed by a huge, prolonged, possibly unending explosion of leftist terrorist riots. Tonight, it occurred to me that something even worse might happen.

Most Democrats have already voted. They’re terrified of coronavirus because they’re addicted to the screeching, unscientific nonsense coming from leftist networks and politicians, so they were afraid to go to the polls. Republicans have generally chosen to wait until election day to vote. As a result, we have a situation in which conservative votes could be disproportionately suppressed if terrorists rioted and kept people away from the polls.

The question is whether the terrorists are smart enough to understand this. If they are, they will surely riot. If that happens, and there is significant voter suppression, the election may be delegitimized, and we may end up in a situation in which the President justifiably refuses to vacate the White House until a fair election is held. That would throw the nation into chaos for months.

I’m writing this to ask people to pray terrorists will stay home tomorrow. Maybe God can influence them without violating their free will.

It looks like Pennsylvania is the new Florida. Florida used to be the state that gave everyone heartburn during elections. Trump is doing very well in Pennsylvania, the state’s attorney general has made an ass of himself by declaring that Trump can’t win the state, and Philadelphia is a current terror hot spot. Maybe Pennsylvania will be the spark that sets off the civil war.

Of course, it maybe that terrorists will disproportionately suppress Democrat votes, since they concentrate in leftist strongholds. Maybe their plan will blow up on them. But I don’t think that could happen. Even in cities, the remaining voters are probably mostly conservatives.

Anyway, I’m throwing the topic out there and suggesting people pray.

Isn’t Democracy Wonderful?

Today I dove deeper into the sea of pre-post-election-dystopia preparation. I picked up some more panic-related items while I was shopping.

I grabbed a bottle of ghee. I don’t know how well butter will keep if left-wing terrorists manage to mess with the power, but I want to be able to make macaroni and cheese while the apocalypse dawns. I picked up 8 cans of evaporated milk, and I may go back and buy Velveeta. It may not be cheese, but it’s pretty close, and bacteria are afraid of it.

I bought oatmeal and disinfecting wipes, too. Oatmeal can be eaten raw, and sanitizing wipes are supposedly in danger of vanishing again, just as they started reappearing on shelves. I love sanitizing wipes. Being without them is not an option.

I should dry apples. I should do that whether or not the world ends. Dried apples are wonderful.

Right now, I’m smoking a chicken. I still haven’t produced a decent smoked chicken with the new smoker. I used too much of this and that. Hoping for a home run this time.

I injected it with Jim Beam, salt, and sugar, and I gave it a cautious sprinkling of my BBQ rub. I’m smoking it with citrus wood taken from the diseased trees I had to cut down. I don’t know if citrus is the best choice, but I want to see what it tastes like, and even if it’s not optimal, it will surely be good.

I have a wireless thermometer on the way so I can keep a close eye on future smokes. It has two probes. One will go in the food, and the other will measure the smoker temperature.

I guess I should have waited until tomorrow to smoke the chicken, because I still have some smoked ribs. Oh, well. I’ll manage to deal with the surplus.

Some time tomorrow night, we should have some idea whether or not America is irredeemably insane. They say mail-in ballots may delay the election results, but we’ll probably have strong evidence as to who won. I hate to think of Kamala Harris running this country. She strikes me as a nastier person than Biden, which is saying a lot, and she’s the farthest-left senator we have. She will do incredibly stupid things if she finds her way into the Oval Office. When I pray, I keep feeling very strongly that Trump is going to win. That would be wonderful. The morning of November 9, 2016, was one of the best of my life. Reliving it would be even better.

I just found out I’m better prepared than I thought. When I moved 3 years ago, I left a box of junk in the garage and ignored it. Today I looked inside and found 4,000 pistol primers, a bunch of brass, and unused pistol bullets.

Anyone who says laziness doesn’t pay is a fool.

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The chicken did not make me happy.

I have come to the conclusion that the people who wrote the directions that came with the smoker know a lot about how much wood to use but not much about anything else. Today I set my smoker at about 225, and I cooked the chicken until it hit 172 inside. The directions said to go to 165, but it just didn’t seem right. Anyway, I was only a few minutes off, and the chicken was extremely juicy but tough.

I think I need to go back to my old ways. Go down to 200 and go 4 hours. It invariably worked. If you can pick your barbecued chicken up by the leg, it’s no good. The leg should fall off. I don’t want a chicken that fights with me.

I stuck the chicken in the oven in a covered dish at 300, and I’m giving it an hour and a half. I know I can save it.

As for the citrus wood, I don’t like it. It reminds me of the smell of burning shrubs. Next time I’m using hickory again, and I’m going to cut up some oak so it dries out for future use.

The mac and cheese was wonderful, but I think I can make it better. I think I should forget about baking it, because that breaks the cheese into chewy clods. I like the chewy clods, but I also like smooth, silky cheese sauce. Next time, I’m going to make it in a saucepan on very low heat, move it to a casserole dish, and only bake it long enough to set the bread crumb crust. It will be magnificent.

Citrus might be good for smoking fish. People say it is. It’s not for chicken. Avoid.

Read This and Get Triggered

I finally got to try out my new Timney trigger at 100 yards. It looks like it works.

That’s 22 rounds from my Ruger Precision Rifle. I started in the center with two fouling shots of cheap ammo, and then I went around the bullseyes, starting at 7:00 and going clockwise. I put 5 rounds into each. The bullseyes on the left were shot with Hornady ELD Match 140-grain, and the ones on the left got 147-grain. Before I shot the last bullseye, I adjusted the scope to put my shots in the center.

I would call myself “giddy” at this moment.

There are three kinds of shooting problems. Lack of ability, bad equipment, and failure to understand the equipment. I was concerned that I might be dealing with the first problem. Not any more! Obviously, if I can get the right equipment and learn how to use it correctly, I can hit things.

The trigger that came with the gun was good by hunting standards, but Ruger fixed it so it would not go below a certain pull weight. I think the number is 2.5 pounds. You can change this by removing a spring, but I wanted to go first-class for once, so I bought a Timney trigger. I believe it sets at half a pound and goes off at a pound. I don’t remember. Anyway, it’s a very easy trigger to shoot. You can see the difference it makes. I would say it reduces the diameter of my groups by around 2/3.

My second group, not counting the fouling shots, really opened up, and it was still well under 1 MOA

The gun can shoot. The ammo can shoot. I can shoot. What a relief. Now instead of despairing about my potential, I can think about fine-tuning.

Hornady ELD is showing up for sale again, and I wanted to find out whether my gun preferred 140-grain or 147-grain before ordering more. I can’t see a difference, so I think the best thing is to get the weight that has the best ballistic coefficient. I can buy enough to keep me going until I figure handloading out.

Does my experience mean the original trigger is bad? I don’t know. I would think there must be people who could shoot this well with the stock parts. I am inclined to believe the problem wasn’t so much that the trigger was bad, but that I was not good at fighting suboptimal triggers. If that’s true, then I should be able to improve with all my guns.

Now that I have a load I like, I can head out to the long-range gun range I found and start learning. The cheap Sellier & Bellot FMJ I used today for fouling shots will be good enough for nearly anything I do out there, and when I get better, I can break out the good stuff and try to tighten my groups more.

The cool weather is starting here, so I should have a lot of good days for shooting at 100 yards on my farm. Tonight the bugs tried to eat me, and it rained in the afternoon so I couldn’t shoot until it was starting to get dim.

Should I buy any more junk for the gun? It has a new bolt shroud and the Timney trigger. Some people like Atlas bipods, but I’m not sure how a bipod can make a gun more accurate. Some people like fancy buttstocks, but I have no problems with the one the gun came with.

I think there are people who attack the equipment too much and their own problems too little. It really helps to have a gun you don’t have to fight, but tactical pants and $2500 scopes are not substitutes for criticizing your technique problems.

Should I try a real sniper caliber, like .300 Lapua? I see no reason to. The ammunition costs more, and it beats up your shoulder. Also, 6.5 Creedmoor is a real sniper caliber. It’s just not a super-crazy sniper caliber. If you can hit people at almost 1400 yards, you are a sniper. Carlos Hathcock couldn’t do that with his .30-06.

Next, I have to get the Tikka T3x out. If it shoots better than the RPR, I’m going to have mixed emotions. I have over $1600 in the Ruger, the Tikka was about $1000, and it’s a deer rifle.

Remember to stay out of my yard. It gets more dangerous every day!

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This is How You Prepare for Guests in 2020

Today I decided to take a small step toward preparing for post-election leftist terrorism. I looked into protective gear, and I ordered a red dot scope and a better laser for my rifles.

I have been through a number of elections, and I have been concerned about election outcomes before, but I can’t recall being concerned about the other side trying to harm me physically or take my home, my possessions, and my wealth. This is new, for the United States of America. I don’t think we’ve seen an atmosphere like this since Sherman marched through Georgia.

I’m not overreacting, either. Leftist terrorism started months ago, so no one can say I’m concerned about something that isn’t going to happen. It’s happening today. It happens every day. The only uncertainty concerns degree and duration. Will the terrorism decrease or increase? Will it go away quickly, or is it a permanent part of a new way of life?

It’s a permanent part of a new way of life. You can take that to the bank. The terrorists have no goal, so they have no reason to declare that their campaign of violence is over. When sane people fight for a cause, they have a goal in mind, and when they reach that goal, they stop. Leftist terrorists don’t have a goal that has been articulated or which can be achieved. Some say they will stop when racism is abolished. Of course, that can never happen. It would be like the abolition of bad table manners or shoplifting. There are nearly 8 billion people on earth, and they can’t all be changed. Even if they could, leftist terrorists redefine racism all the time. These days they say all white people are racists. That means racism can never end until all white people are killed. Terrorists have come up with a farcical goal which, to them, justifies unending anti-white racism and violence against innocent people.

Will terrorism decrease or increase after the election? I think it will ramp up until our cities and suburbs are Iraq-style “red zones,” at least where Democrats are in charge. Terrorists in such areas have no reason to quit, and they have ample incentive to continue. They get free stuff by looting. Many are paid by BLM, which is a multi-billion-dollar concern funded by insane Caucasians. The lowest people on earth, who would ordinarily be ignored, are now given bullhorns and the privilege of cursing at random citizens; they enjoy a certain type of local fame, so their already-swollen egos are pumped up. They don’t face prosecution. They don’t have to compensate their victims. What possible reason could they have for quitting? It’s not like they have productive careers they’re putting on hold.

Today I went so far as to look into body armor and helmets. I couldn’t resist. I’ve even considered spending $3000 on an infrared rifle scope so I can kill terrorists who invade my property at night.

Helmets are interesting. These days, armies use plastic helmets which can turn small-arms fire. They’re more resistant than the steel helmets our soldiers wore in Vietnam. There are problems with them, however. If you hit one near the rim, it’s much more likely to let a round go through. If you hit it once, you will shatter the plastic where the round lands, and the next round will either go through or push the shattered plastic in so far the round will shatter the wearer’s skull. Plastic helmets are only good for a few rounds.

A couple of companies have tried to market steel helmets made from better steel than the old Vietnam helmets. When you shoot these helmets, it doesn’t matter whether you’re near the rim. The protection is the same. And they don’t shatter, so if two rounds land in the same area, you aren’t relying on a floppy mass of kevlar to protect you. They don’t deform as much as plastic helmets, so if you’re hit, the round is less likely to push the helmet into your skull. A damaged helmet can be pounded back into shape. And steel helmets don’t weigh any more than plastic ones.

People ridicule steel helmets. Do they know what they’re talking about, or are they like the backward folks who resisted the use of rifle scopes for 50 years? My guess is that steel is better, but asking me about ballistic helmets is like asking a podiatrist about astronomy.

Steel bashers say plastic helmets confine bullet fragments after they’re hit, while steel bounces them in random directions. You can coat a steel helmet with stuff that supposedly reduces this problem, but does it work? And is the risk of being hit by fragments more important than the higher risk of being killed by an intact round while wearing plastic? I don’t know.

You can get a used military helmet for $200 on Ebay. A new steel helmet costs the same amount, without accessories. A new plastic helmet from a top company like Wendy will run over a grand. That’s a lot of money for a helmet that caves in and becomes flexible after one round. Are you supposed to buy several and keep spares on hand in a conflict?

Here’s the only thing I know for sure: protecting your head from bullets is very expensive.

I checked out vests called “plate carriers.” They have pockets for armor made from steel and other materials. Depending on how badly you want to stay alive, you can get different types of plates. Supposedly, ceramic is the best, but if you drop one, you ruin it. I don’t get that. How can a plate that can’t be dropped survive a rifle round? There are also bare steel plates, which throw fragments, and there are coated steel plates which throw fewer fragments. And some plates are heavier than others.

It looks like I would have to blow close to $700 to get something that would work against typical rifles.

When you start thinking about preparing for war, you understand how inexpensive peace is.

There is good news. The best material for building bulletproof barriers is cheap. It’s sand. You just need bags. It’s too bad you can’t buy a vest full of sand, plus a sand helmet.

I think it will be a long time before terrorists make it to my farm, but many people aren’t so blessed. I wonder what people who are stuck in cities are feeling right now. I wonder about people who live in suburbs that are close to cities. They used to be safe from rioting, but the terrorists are now making a point of taking it to people who fled cities for protection.

Not only are people close to cities more likely to be harmed; they are more likely to be prosecuted for defending themselves. Look at the McCloskeys and Kyle Rittenhouse. Where I live, the McCloskeys would never have been charged, and Rittenhouse–as pure a victim as has ever existed–would have been given a parade. If you’re trespassing on my land with a weapon and bad intentions, I can shoot you dead, and that will be the end of it. If I lived in a place like Chicago or Austin or Atlanta, and an armed invader approached, I would have to choose between death and a high likelihood of a bankrupting prosecution followed by an unjust imprisonment.

I’ll say it again: the rapture can’t come soon enough.

The Bible calls the tribulation “the hour of temptation.” Murderous feelings will increase, and people will menace each other. Leftist terrorists are in tribulation mode already. When you know a group of evil, incorrigible, unthinking people are out to get you, you will naturally be provoked to anger. Provocation is a form of temptation. It’s one of the things raptured Christians will be spared. God doesn’t want us to be down here dealing with extreme temptation which is likely to land us in hell due to bad decisions.

God raptured me out of Miami, and if I play my cards right, he will rapture me off the earth before I find myself looking up the barrel of my rifle at a deranged animal in man’s clothing.

I’m still preparing a little. If I had more certainty about the immediate future, maybe I wouldn’t bother.