Happy New Year!

Well, I just looked at the clock, it's a new year. It doesn't feel much different than any other Midnight. Except a little bit of fireworks off someplace not too far. The main fireworks out here are off at the boat ramps on the lake but there are always a few people setting them off away from the water, I hope nobody burns their house down, or, more importantly, my house.

We thought about driving to see them shoot off fireworks, then we thought of the stop signs and stuff that get run over on regular nights around here and stayed home. The dogs don't like fireworks anyway. I did stop at the fireworks stand and bought five boxes of green sparklers. These should be cool cut up into my black powder shotgun shells for the Cowboy Action matches. White smoke, red flames and now green sparks. Maybe I ought to wear a Santa Suit and shout Ho Ho Ho every shot.

Yesterday was William's birthday, he's six now. During the afternoon will be the small party, since it's a day off for most people. We got the boy a nerf gun for now and two hundred rounds of .22 ammo in a fancy target shooter's ammo box for later in the spring when we start his training. Not that I'll let him run out of ammo after that two hundred is gone.

Sure seem to be a bunch of alleged humans mad because Israel is finally getting tired of Hamas flinging rockets willy nilly into their country. The Pals are lucky I'm not running Israel. Seems the Pals are allowing Hamas to fling those rockets from their crowded neighborhoods. I'd announce that this is unacceptable behavior and that each rocket launched gets a napalm canister on the launch site. I suspect it wouldn't take long for the behavior to stop. That should take out the screeching that the Izzies are being disproportionate, too. One rocket, one napalm canister. It's not the Izzies fault that Hamas can't aim.

Oh, and who is this idiot journalist (but I repeat myself) claiming that the Palis are just "taking potshots"? Somebody tell him that words have meaning. A potshot is a shot taken by someone needing a critter to eat. Back in the day that was the job of the boys and young men. And they'd better bring something home for each charge of powder and each ball. Folks doing that kind of hunting didn't have powder and ball, and then cartridges later, to waste.

Speaking of potshooting, a lot of folks in places like the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky, the hills of upstate New York and Vermont, places like that, held on to their muzzle loaders long after cartridge guns came along. Oh, many, perhaps most, had those newfangled ca'tridge guns but we can cast our own balls and find our own flints, even make our own powder, though that's still pretty dangerous. Not quite as dangerous as flinging missiles into the blue in hopes of killing anyone at all. Potshots. When did it become a requirement to not know the meaning of words to be a writer?

Levergun Shooters Take Note

It has been a while coming but Hornady's LEVERevolution bullets are finally available to handloaders. This is big news. Since there are those who do not read themselves to sleep with handloading books let's start at the beginning. Lever action rifles have always had one weak point, that tube magazine under the barrel. With those magazines we cannot use sharp pointed bullets for fear that a sharp pointed bullet might set the primer of the next round off. Considering that our own personal hands are wrapped 'round the fore end with that mag tube running through it, it is a valid worry.

This is why leverguns are woods rifles, the flat point and round nosed bullets are like trying to win a footrace in hip waders. But a couple-three years ago Hornady came up with a sharp pointed bullet that will work in a lever action rifle. They found a plastic tip that was stiff enough to maintain it's shape, yet soft enough to not set off a primer.

This just about instantly extends the range of your levergun by a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. Figure a .30-30 Winchester or .35 Remington levergun. We figure those as running out off steam by about a hundred and fifty yards. Where a rifle that could fire a spitzer bullet at the same speed is a three hundred yard gun.

These bullets aren't cheap but then today, no bullet is. They are available for most of the calibers used in lever actions. In .30 caliber they have a 160 grain bullet that might just bring the ol' thutty-thutty into the 21st Century.

The old .35 Remington has a 200 grain bullet, so far they haven't released one for the .357 Mag carbines out there. I would imagine it's coming soon, though, they make a nifty little 140 grain bullet with that sharp point for their factory loads. I suspect that bullet over a hot load of H110 or LilGun would zap a Texas Whitetail out past two hundred steps.

The folks shooting .44 Magnums or .444 Marlins have a nice 265 grain slug, start that one off at some 2250 feet per second from a .444 and you could bombard cities better than the Palestinians and their stupid rockets.

I'm looking hard at the bullets they make for my .45 Colt rifle. Here there are two, a 200 grain and a 250. Now I have clocked over 1900 fps out of the 24 inch barrel of my '92 Winchester clone with a 250 grain bullet, that same action is used for the .454 Casull Mag so I would probably make that weight bullet fly faster. I haven't bothered because those flat point bullets lose speed so fast. But with these pointy ones? Hmmm.

Guys with the '86 Winchesters and 1895 Marlins have a couple of bullets, too. Guys with a .45-70 or one of the others, the .45-90s and such have a sharp pointed 325 grain that would reach out way past Fort Mudge. Winchester fifties and the .50 Alaskan would be taking a long poke with the 300 grain pointy bullet.

Now these bullets aren't the end all and bee all of levergun bullets. There are a lot of times I'd want a bullet for something up close and big, say I lived where there might be an old sorehead Grizzly Bear popping out of the bushes with mayhem on his mind, I'd want my levergun loaded with the heaviest bluntest bullets I could fit in there.

It might be a while before the loading data for some of these bullets is found in every manual, too. But still, this is a big step.

So far the only folks I know of who are selling these bullets are the Potterfield gang at Midway USA. There may be others but I know Midway does, they're on the January flier on the "new products" page. I like to call them, 1-800 243-3200. They have country music while I'm on hold.

Latest Pics From NASCAR Country

Number Two son, Robin lives in a town called Huntersville, near Charlotte. Very near all the big NASCAR team headquarters. Thanks to the Democratic Congress they couldn't make it this year for Christmas but they did, finally, send new pictures of the kids. That's Christopher James in the red chair, next is John Mark with his heavy construction equipment.

Nathaniel Philip is just layin' there and Ethan Presley is getting ready for football.

That's a pretty good bunch o' boys and we miss them. Maybe next year.

The Big Christmas Adventure

So, on Christmas Eve we had a bit of last minute shopping to do. So we filled the car with $1.35.9 a gallon gas and started the adventure. After dog food and suchlike from Wally World we went to Petsmart, Ming the Merciless was her usual hit. Then to Barnes and Noble for something to read. I got a couple of paperbacks, the newest issue of Guns of the Old West and the 2009 Hodgdon Reloading Manual. Speaking of that, what's with all of these new cartridges, none doing anything unusual? In ten years will anybody buying the .300 Hornady or the .338 RCM or a half-dozen other new ones going to be able to get cartridges, or even cases to handload?

Anyhow, then we stopped for Linda Lou's favorite meal, a Sonic burger, then home.

Then Linda Lou was up all night and half the morning making her world class Cinnamon Rolls. These rolls take so long because she keeps having to wait an hour for the dough to rise, then she pounds it down, then she has to wait again.

Then came Christmas day, we didn't need to get there 'til noon, thank the Lord. So we drove to Plano, Linda Lou sleeping gently in the passenger seat, presents and Cinnamon Rolls safe on the floor or back of the van. An hour later we got there to a house with no children, they being with Dean's parents. Shortly thereafter, Stefanie's twin brother Michael, our youngest boy, showed up with his wife Jennifer, their two and Amanda, her younger sister, plus her boyfriend.

A while later Dean's folks and the three boys showed up and, while dinner was finishing, we all ate a cinnamon roll. Michael Junior declared them "the best ever" which made Linda Lou's day.

Eventually we opened presents, the usual stuff. This year the children got taken to the dollar store where they each got presents for the grandparents. Like my new hat? I'm not sure the color is perfect with my red bib shirt but that's what happens when a six year old boy is let loose to choose a gift.

Then it was time to drive home, bedtime came early.

Writing On The New Confuser

So Linda Lou and Ming the Merciless are lying on the couch for a Sunday afternoon nap and I am trying to blog on the new infernal machine. I forgot how easy it is to type on a brand new keyboard. There are a couple of downsides, though. I can barely point an' click with the new mouse, or maybe it's just the new mousepad is so smooth. Another minor downside is the new monitor screen has about a two-two and a half inch strip down the right side that has the clock, some headlines and a bunch of our pictures scrolling through, one at a time, over and over. Including lots of pictures of Eddie. I wish I knew where he is and how he's doing.

In other news I durned near burned up the neighborhood yesterday. We had a bunch of boxes so I took them out to burn them. Well, as soon as the fire was going good, the wind came up, hard and dry. The grass and weeds were also very dry. Ooops! We managed to get it out before the house burned down, though. Still, had all the neighbors investigating the fire, kind of embarrassing. Especially since I was doing this in the front yard where our hose doesn't reach, I wanted to burn a stubborn patch of bushes that are too thick to mow.

Note to self: Never again try to burn stuff outside while wearing flip flops. Yes, it was that warm, thing is, the wind picked up as the cold front blew in, by the time I got the fire out I had icicles hanging off my toes. I blame Algore.

Update: I'm still reading about why the Secret Service let that bozo throw two shoes at Dubya. The answer is simple, it's very bad publicity when the good guys cut loose with gunfire on someone armed with two shoes. Even worse publicity when the bozo has already thrown them. Can anyone imagine what the lefties would be saying if the bodyguards had cut loose a burst each with those little subguns? Now I wouldn't complain too much if overpenetrating rounds, plus misses and ricochets had knocked down a half dozen media types. Far as I'm concerned there ought to be a bounty on 'em, but the same people that are complaining about how he managed to fling both shoes would be having a cow. Each.

What An Ordeal

So we set the new computer up and (of course) nothing worked the first time. We never did make the program that was supposed to transfer what we wanted from the old computer to the new. After trying to load it from the disc for an hour, with no end in sight, we just blew it off. Linda Lou will just enter stuff over the next few weeks.

Then I put Linda's computer in my room and got it half set up. Enough to use, for now. Meanwhile my old monitor wouldn't come on so I had to drag the ancient cathode ray monitor in here and put it on my desk, the thing is huge. Doesn't look as if I'll be eating many meals in here until I get my new flat screen monitor.

Meanwhile I'll have to few items at a time to my Firefox bookmarks. This is a pain as I have to put the laptop on line, write the urls down, move the phone line to the desktop, add those in, etc. Plus the thing won't let me register my printer because it's already registered. Ah well, at least I have a keyboard, as well as a new monitor coming.

Reversed Polarity

So it was sixty degrees out there yesterday and people in New England were coping with the loss of power from some big freezing storm. So I put the big box fan out on the deck and pointed it northeast and turned it on high. Hoping, of course, to blow some warmth up there. Well, there must have been a reversal of polarity somehow, it was 31 degrees in Dallas just before I turned the radio off. Seeing as how the city is always warmer than the country I don't even want to think about the actual temp out here by Lake Tawakoni. I knew something was wrong today when a Polar Bear showed up, begging for blankets. Fortunately Ming the Merciless chased him off. It's nice to have a vicious killer attack Pug.

It was cold enough to bring CAP back in the house. In other news, the Dell showed up today off the FedEx truck.After nap time we'll set it up, then comes the big deal about transferring of all Linda Lou's pictures, bookmarks and other stuff over. Then I have to transfer my stuff from the laptop to this computer. Then, at last, I'll be typing on a real keyboard all the time.

Quiet Here

Not much going on right now down here. I read where there are crooks in politics in Chicago. Imagine that. Next they'll tell me there are political crooks in south Texas.

We've got some cold wet weather coming, nothing like up in Massachusetts and suchlike places, but the high tomorrow is supposed to be in the low 40s. So Linda Lou is off at Wally World, shopping for grandchild Christmas gifts. Ming The Merciless is laying where she can look out for her Momma to come home. Meanwhilw I'm sitting around with an actual keyboard to write with, with nothing to say.

I'm still in a mild state of shock, I had bought some Hornady XTP hollowpoint bullets for my .45 Colt rifle and my .357 Mag carbine. Well one of the bags of bullets was mismarked. Instead of being 250 grain .45 bullets they were 210 grain .41 bullets. Well, I don't have a .41. Nor will Linda Lou let me have a .41. So I finally got around to taking the bullets back to the store. The bag of bullets that was $13.95 in late 07 is now $26.00. I know that prices were going up but jeez. Double? Primers are way up there, too. $28.00 a thousand now. This before Obambi.

Well, since Linda Lou is gone it must be naptime.

Bullet Material, Construction And Penetration.

I might as well finish that long and boring to most, treatise on bullet penetration. As I have said, in the same caliber, the heavier the bullet, the further in penetrates, all else being equal. Of course, all else is seldom equal.

Since smokeless powder improved velocities above the 1400 feet per second level that was common in rifles in the black powder era, there has been an argument among gunnies. One one side has been the velocity is everything crowd, we'll call that the Roy Weatherby bunch. The other side is the bullet weight is everything crowd, we'll call that the Elmer Keith bunch. These crowds join together on the internet bulletin boards and insult each other. In a few hunting camps there have been a few fistfights when the snakebite and anti-cold medicine flowed too freely.

Actually both camps are partly right. Velocity isn't everything but it is something. The old fashioned lead core, gilding metal jacket soft point bullets that we pretty much began the smokeless era operated best at between 2200-2400 feet per second, like the .30-30 Winchester and the .30-40 Krag and the .303 British. With their original bullets, the 170 .30-30, the 220 Krag and the 215 .303 these rifles were deadly out to around 200 yards. Now this range is still where 85-90percent of big game is taken. Unfortunately in these days of shortened seasons and people living away from the game fields, most folks don't really know the country the critters live in, nor do they have time to learn. So, instead of hunting the old way many folks are setting up and shooting the power line cuts, the beanfields and the southwestern senderos. Back in the day I simply would not shoot at an unwounded big game critter past three hundred yards, ever. Today I would cut that range down to two hundred, maybe 150, no matter what rifle I was shooting. Too many of us have forgotten our duty to the critters. Number one is a quick kill. If I cannot guarantee a quick death I won't pull the trigger. But I'm digressing again.

At any rate the old cup and core round nose soft points are the perfect bullet for 2200-2400 fps. Trouble comes when these old bullets go very much faster, they start blowing up. So the feller with the 3000 feet per second rifle needs a new kind of bullet. Especially since even though he's set up for a five hundred yard shot, still some 85-90% of the shots will be at two hundred yards, or less.

The first thing that the bullet makers did was make the bullets sharp pointed with less exposed lead. This did two things, it improved how the bullet held together on impact, plus the sharp point flattened the trajectory. This added a couple of hundred yards to the rifle. A regular sharp pointed, or spitzer bullet works well at 2800 feet per second. An ordinary .270 or .30-06 or a .308 or 7-08 with the proper bullet for the game is good all the way out to about four hundred yards with an ordinary Winchester poer point or a Speer Hot Core, Hornady Spire Point, Remington Core Loct, Sierra Game King, bullets like that.

We'll get the odd bullet blowing up on impact at very close range if we hit bone and we'll see a few failures to expand at the longest ranges if the bullet doesn't hit anything but hide and lung but within those limits the old cup and core bullets have worked very well.

Just after WW2, John Nosler has a 180 grain bullet blow up when he shot an elk with a .300 H&H Magnum. Losing all that venison was annoying so John did something American. He sat down and designed a new bullet. Instead of a drawn gilding metal tube he went with making his new bullet jacket on a lathe. He made a jacket out of copper alloy with a place in the front for a lead core, then a thick partition of copper alloy and a rear lead core. After experimenting around for a while he figured out the famous Nosler Partition bullet. This bullet will go through just about any critter from any angle. Often on something the size of a bull elk the bullet will go through until it hits the tough, elastic hid on the other side and that is where we find it. Typically this bullet will hit, the front core will expand and then slough off, creating secondary missiles, and when we find the bullet it will weigh some sixty percent of the original weight.

For decades the Nosler Partition was the best bullet in the hunting fields for rifles in the 2800-3100 fps range. During that time there were some attepts to improve on the performance of the Partition. These mostly were attempts to bond the core to the jacket. This kept the weight of the bullet closer to the original weight. We went through a period where hunters weighed their recovered bullets and started talking about how a bullet that weighed "only" ninety percent of original weight a failure, Even though they dug that bullet out of a dead critter.

Now if it matters you can buy the Swift A-Frame bullet in place of the Nosler Partition. The A-Frame is basically the Partition with the front core bonded to the jacket. This means that the only weight the A-frame loses is lead that is gouged away as the bullet punches through bone. Seeing as how the older Partition kills critters dead, I'm not sure I care but then, everybody doesn't ask me.

Several companies are now making bonded bullets. Swift is making a bullet called the Sirocco. This is a bonded bullet with a plastic tip (more on that in a minute). Hornady has their Interbond, Norma has the Oryx. All these bullets are pretty much the same, their idea is deep penetration.

There is another fairly new (we're told) idea, the plastic tip in a hollow point on a bullet. These plastic tips allege to solve two problems, they keep the tip of the bullet sharp, for a bullet that cuts through the air better. this flattens trajectory, making hits easier at longer ranges. Then when the bullet hits the plastic tip pretty much stops, not having much mass. The bullet keeps going so the tip starts the bullet expanding. This is great for light big game at extended distance. Trouble is, Remington did this decades ago with their Bronze Point ammo.

The major difference between Nosler's Ballistic Tip and Remington's Bronze Point is that the Noslers are made with different jackets for the various bullets. Noslers small caliber Ballistic Tips are varmnint bullets. They "explode" in small critters. The bigger bullets have thicker jackets and just expand.

Sierra makes these plastic tipped in the varmint calibers and Hornady has the V-Max, plus the A-Max, a target bullet with a plastic tip. Target bullets are a whole 'nother story. Nobody much cares how a target bullet penetrates, it's only job is to penetrate a piece of paper. My target/varmint rifle can put five shots into a quarter to a half inch with great regularity as long as the loose nut behind the butt plate is doing his part. Yet those groups would lose a benchrest match.

The new big thing in hunting bullets are the lead free bullets. These bullets are a big deal now because of the war on lead. Seems the California Condors are dying out. They've been dying out since I was born, now the claim is lead poisoning. The anti-lead people say that the Condors are eating dead critters with lead fragments. Now far be it from me to disbelieve folks but the anti-lead folks I've seen sure look like anti-gun people. I'm pretty sure it's the same bunch with the newest line. Consider that the Condor doesn't live in varmint country. So the shot critters the Condor could eat are big game, deer, and black bear mostly. We try real hard to recover those so there aren't that many lead fragments. I suspect the Condor are really going because their habitat is filling up with Californians.

At any rate the lead free bullets are the next big thing. I strongly suspect that they will be all we can buy by the end of the Obama Administration.This wouldn't be so bad except for the cost. Fifty bullets (not whole cartridges, just the bullets for handloading) cost some forty bucks. Some are thirty bucks for twenty. these are .30 caliber for a general hunting rifle. The big bullets for an African rifle are even more expensive.

The big company making lead free bullets, Barnes, also has a lead free varmnint bullet. This is a thin jacket hollow point with the base filled with powdered metal. This bullet blows up going through a grape. Killing crop eating ground squirrles or prairie dogs is easy, the bullet blows up in the little critter, the little critter blows up into red mist, the ground around is fertilized. And no lead poisoning for the Condor that do not live in ground squirrel and Prairie Dog country. Everyone wins but the shooters.

Of course all this talk about bullets may just be about over. If my suspicions are correct we'll be first hit with a prohibition against lead bullets, like the no lead shot for shotguns around waterfowl. Next will be a five hundred percent tax on this new ammo. The Second Amendment says we have to have guns. It doesn't say anything about affordable ammo.

Now handguns are a different story. The jacketed hollowpoints make a big hole, for a very deep hole you want a blunt hardcast lead alloy bullet. Very few jacketed soft points expand at common pistol velocities although some of the hand cannons will. Say anything bigger than a .454 Casull Mag. The geneal rule for handguns is jacketed hollow points for self defense, hardcast lead for hunting.

Dude, We're Getting A Dell!

Our very old laptop computer gave up the ghost last night. It just sits there making grinding noises and trying to boot up. Consider that we bought this machine some time before we moved out here near the lake in April '98 it probably was just plain worn out.

At any rate we ordered a new Dell with lots of extra stuff, blue tooth stuff for Linda Lou's phone, photoshop and some other stuff. Did you know that we had to order a telephone modem in a new computer? Seems that city people don't need a modem anymore, it's now those fast things that STILL haven't got our here. Oh, we can get some satellite thing for a hundred dollars a month but no DSL yet. This is the price one pays for not knowing what kind of music the neighbors listen to, I reckon.

Anyhow I won't be around much until after the new computer gets here, Linda Lou doesn't much like me sitting in her chair, at her computer desk. She has everything arranged just so.

Please do not think I will get the new computer, though, I will get the E-Machine from out here. If I use the proper combination of bribes and begging I might be able to use Photoshop once in a while though. Note: Please do not make any remarks about how this or that brand is better. Too late. I have read where Dell has had a few complaints about customer service. Well, these E-Machines have the worst customer service I've ever heard of, I can put up with Texas lefties from Austin (aka the Berkeley of the Plains). The Red Chinese are even worse.

Update: I fixed the laptop, sorta. Seein' as how I had nothing to lose I took the cover off the cooling fan of the laptop and blew the foo out of it with canned air. I put the cover back on and it sort of works now. I'm pretty sure that it's still on it's last legs because it's making all kinds of noises that it's not supposed to. And it will suddenly start going and going with the four lights lit and the stupid hourglass on the screen when nobody told it to do anything.

If it just lasts 'til the new one gets here...The exciting thing is that I managed to pull the panel off and put it back on without losing anything or giving my moustache an Afro from shocking myself.

Sectional Density And Bullet Penetration.

The other day I made an offhand comment on another blog, Pamibe's if it matters, about using heavy for caliber bullets. This, unbeknown by me, started a bit of an argument over what I was talking about. I keep forgetting that most people, even most shooters, aren't ballisticians.

Ballistics has nothing to do with the scene on cop shows where they find a gun or a bullet and say "take it to ballistics", that is forensics. Ballistics is the science of the moving bullet, divided up it to three parts, interior, exterior and terminal. Interior ballistics is the science of what happens between the time the primer pops until the bullet exits the muzzle of the barrel. This is all acceleration and pressure. We care about that because if we have too much pressure the shootin' iron might blow up or the bullet might go too slow to do anything useful. Or, for that matter, go so fast it blows up in midair.

Terminal ballistics is what happens when the bullet hits the target. In many ways this is the hardest part of ballistics because there are so many variables. Impact velocity, bullet weight, bullet shape, bullet material, how thick the bullet jacket, hardness of the bullet core, how stable the bullet is, the media that the bullet hits, etc, etc, etc.

One of the most important things to know in ballistics the the sectional density of the bullet. This number is a simple equation, the bullet weight in pounds divided by the square of it's diameter in inches. So, a 180 grain .30 caliber bullet is .0.0257143 of a pound. So we divide that by .008992 and get .270. Actually we just look in the loading manual where this has already been done.

In the days before the fancy new bullets like the Swift A-Frame and the Barnes Triple Shock or even John Nosler's Partition, the first of those new ones, first made in 1949, the only way to increase bullet penetration was to increase bullet weight in that same caliber. Roughly speaking any two bullets of the same shape, construction and velocity, with similar sectional densities will penetrate the same distance.

For instance a .270 Winchester 130 grain bullet has roughly the same sectional density as a 165 grain .30 caliber bullet. The .270 is .242, the .30 is .248. This is why that famed gunwriter Jack O'Conner loved the .270. If the same critter were shot with both bullets they would each penetrate the same distance, only the .270 wouldn't kick as much.

Until hunters forgot how to stalk game the class of the hunting fields used moderate velocity, heavy-for-caliber bullets.WDM "Karamojo' Bell, the famous old ivory hunter slew bazillions of elephant with the old 7 mm Mauser and 6.5 mm MS. The long solid bullets penetrated just as well as the elephump guns. They left the guns at the same velocity as those big bores, about 22-2400 feet per second. Bell kept a big gun handy in case he had to stop a big critter but mostly he snuck up and popped a bull in the brain. This, of course, before the idiot environmentalists got in the game. Now, instead of Jumbo being a valuable resource he is a pest. Where before a Jumbo would add thousands in trophy fees, plus each ne feeding entire villages, they are poached, with no trophy fees for the governments, most of the meat rotting. Oh well, it makes liberals feel good. But I digress.

I shall look through the Speer loading manual at bullets with an SD of about .240-.250, each will penetrate similarly. The 100 grain 6mm bullet, the 155 .257 bullet, the 120 grain 6.5 or .264 bullet, by the way, those fine old 160s will still hit today and pentrate 'til a week from Tuesday, the .270 130 grain mentioned above. A 140 grain 7mm bullet, but if you want to drive really deep, the 175 grain works well.

Another aside, if I were wanting a hunting rifle that would take anything on this continent (except for Grizzly and Brown Bear in heavy cover where they might bite) and didn't want to be kicked silly by recoil I'd want a Seven mm Mauser or .280 Winchester and load the Hornady 175 grain round nose soft point to around 2400 fps and limit my shots to 200-250 yards.

Anyhow, the list goes on, the fine 165 grain .30 caliber, the 170 grain of the old .32 Winchester Special, the 200 grain .338 for those that want to use a moose and bear gun for deer, a 220 grain .35, the 235 grain .375, and the 350 grain .458. If we assume that all else is equal, each of these bullets will drive about the same distance through similar mediums, whether that be flesh, bone, old newspapers, ballistic gelatin, etc. A number that sticks in my head from my teens is that the original WW1 service load for the 1903 Springfield is that those old .30 caliber solids would penetrate sixty-one inches of pine board. Kind of plays the fool of the old cowboy or war movies with folks hiding behind a wooden wagon or empty barrel. Five feet of pine boards, space an inch or so apart. That was a 172 grain solid back in the day when the fastest such a bullet could go was maybe 2650 fps.

Handgun bullets, being shorter than rifle bullets of the same caliber, have lower SDs. My two favorites the .357 and the .45s have SDs ending at about .180. for the standard heavy bullets. I load a six shot .357 revolver with the 125 grain Federal hollowpoints when I'm loading for serious business. My little five shot Ruger SP101 gets a handload, 5.1 grains of Bullseye for an average of 1007 fps with the Speer or Hornady swaged lead semiwadcutter hollowpoint. Note, I live where my DA only cares about why you shoot someone, I've read of jurisdictions where it is financial suicide to shoot a bad guy with a handload.

For my .357 Carbine I like the Hornady 158 grain XTP hollowpoint. I've never had one stay inside our smallish Texas Whitetails, no matter the angle. I keep thinking about trying the 180 grain Remington hollowpoints but then I get distracted and forget to buy some on the rare occasions I have any money. The SD of the 125 grain .357 is .140. At full velocity a good hollowpoint will seldom exit a grown man. The soft point will. The old Remington medium velocity 125 grain hollowpoint, at about 1000 fps from a four inch revolver actually penetrated a little further than the full steam loads at 1450 fps. The bullets expanded more with the hot loads so, pushing a larger frontal area they lose steam a lot quicker.

In my .45 Colts I use the same bullet weight in all my guns, 250-255 grain. The difference is, in my handguns I shoot softcast or swaged lead bullets at standard velocities, about 8-900 fps. My rifle shoots those loads well, for play. At a cowboy action shoot those loads ring the steel of the targets just fine. A slight sight adjustment bring up the hot loads, though. A max load of Hodgdon's Lil Gun or Hodgdon's H110 will fling a 250 grain Hornady XTP hollowpoint out the muzzle at close to 2,000 fps. Now that is very close to the old Trapdoor Springfield Cavalry Carbine Ballistics, lower velocity with the Springfield of course, with a heavier bullet.

These days bullet weight is not as important as it used to be, todays fancy bullets penetrate as deeply as the old heavy bullets. John Nosler invented his Partition bullet after the failure of an old cup and core bullet failled in his .300 H&H Magnum. Today a 130 grain Barnes .30 will penetrate like a 165 grain cup and core jacketed lead bullet. The thing is, those fancy bullets not only cost a lot but they are very much attuned to impact velocity. You can't hardly drive a Barnes fast enough to hurt anything but if the velocity is too low they just pencil right through. With the old bullets the bullet weight is always there. If the critter is too big for a 150 grain .30, those critter will fall with a 220 grain soft point.

 Update: I just noticed that comment about Terminal vs. exterior ballistics. Semper fi guy is correct, I don't know how I made that silly mistake, except that I usually write these posts in a house full of dogs and a wife, distracting me. I shall leave that comment, he's not quite correct though. I ain't all that nice.

Avast, Ye Scurvy Pirates!

Here is another thing I don't understand...Last I heard we had literally thousands of semi-obsolete 20 mm. and 40 mm light antiaircraft guns. It would cost pennies to mount those guns on merchant vessels, put small Navy crews on them, or train the civilian crews. There is nothing particularly difficult to mount those guns for close range surface engagements.

Anybody want to guess what would happen if a 40 mm flak shell explodes over one of those Somali pirate speedboats? Or a half-dozen explosive 20 mm rounds?

For that matter, The Dillon people out in Arizona sell brand new electric miniguns. The put out six thousand rounds per minute. A one second burst would put a thousand 7.62 NATO rounds into a small craft. Instant floating debris and small oil slick.

We also probably have hundreds, if not thousands, of five inch dual purpose Naval Rifles sitting on mothballed Navy Ships. Just in case the pirates choose to go with bigger ships.

When I was in the Service I spent time on several sorts of troopships, as a matter of fact I sailed across the whole Pacific Ocean on LSD. (Landing Ship. Dock.) This old WW2 ship had 20s, 40s and five inch thirty-eights. Nothing much could get too close to that old tub without a fight. Plus, of course, the shootin' irons of the Battalion of Marines aboard. Of course we weren't allowed to have ammo. I suspect as many as five or six guys actually obeyed that rule.

During WW2 merchant ships were armed as a matter of course. Matter of fact, merchant vessels carried cannon from the invention of cannon to about WW1, without government permission.

So, with thousands of various kins of naval weaponry sitting on mothballed ships, costing money to keep from rusting away, why can't anyone but me figure out what to do about pirates?

India Proves That We Are Playing By The Wrong Set Of Rules

We are in a contest with Islam for how we are going to live. Now I have been in a few contests in my life and all contests have rules. Somehow we in the West have decided we are going to play by the same rules no matter what rules our opponents pay by.

So since well before Sept.11, 2001 we've been fielding the world's best baseball team while facing Rugby, hockey and football teams.

I have an idea? why not play by their rules? So, Islamists kill Americans, Brits, Israelis and Indians in hopes that we all change. Since I don't particularly want to change, plus I have a serious allergy to having my grandchildren harmed, how about we start knocking off bunches of their civilians? We could start with the wealthy Muslims who finance the Jihad. We could then proceed to carpet bomb neighborhoods where Muslims dance in the street and pass out candy when news of these atrocities comes out.

We have been waiting for moderate Islam to stop the Jihadis. We'll keep waiting, the moderates have no reason to stop the Jihadis but plenty of reason to fear them. Meanwhile the moderates do not fear us, even when we move against the Jihad we avoid hurting the moderates.

We used to be pretty durned good at killing ourselves. Many of us still are. We find radical mosques in Yorkshire and they keep preaching hate and murder after the London bombings and that nut trying to drive the flaming Jeep into the departure desk in Glasgow. Would the British Mosques change their tune if Brits flung petrol bombs inside?

We find radical Mosques preaching that same hate in India. How about if the Indians surrounded those Mosques carrying those old Enfield .303 rifles? And because they were invented there, Bangalore Torpedoes. As well as petrol bombs.

I'm told that the Mosques in places like Detroit and Houston speak that same hate but also caution, only partially because of George Bush. Just as much because of the armed citizens of America. Anyone want to make bets on how long Calypso Louis' Fruits Of Islam would last if they started trying to blow Joe Sixpack's family away? The deer rifles would come out of the closets.

Here is my plan. The next Islamic attack we send the zoomies to bomb the rich guys in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the government of Somalia, just because, and the neighborhoods of "Palestine" that passed out candy on 9/11. Then after that, the next attack we blow up Pakistan's nukes and ISI headquarters, plus some more rich Arabs, maybe a few rich Malaysians.

Anyone think we'd need too many lessons before the world wide Jihad is over?

Thanksgiving Feast

Linda Lou baked two sweet potato pies and we eventually got in the car to go eat dinner with the some of the kids and and our son in law's parents. I got in the car and the battery was dead. The only neighbor that was home, then, was the guy that shot George, my German Shepherd. I did not ask him for help.

Eventually our other neighbor came home and we charged my car battery. You see, George ate the wires from my battery charger and I haven't replaced it. Yet. So we gave the extra sweet potato pie to the neighbor. I think the battery died because I left the car open with the interior lights lit while I unloaded the five hundred dollars of groceries and "stuff" from our payday shopping trip.

So for Thanksgiving I had something unusual, a leftover pork chop and peas. I've eaten far worse. I am thawing a half rack of pork spare ribs for tomorrow's supper. Ranch Style beans, french fries and ribs. Not bad for a po' boy.

It's a gray, rainy day today, it's dark, now, though. The Cowboy Action Shoot scheduled tomorrow, has been canceled, due to mud. Too bad, there were supposed to be two vendors there. Shows how the club has grown, we didn't use to get any vendors as it just wasn't worth it, not enough people.

Happy Birthday, Darlin'

It was a year and a half before I was even born that my life became complete. Linda Lou has her birthday today. I do forgive her for robbing the cradle like she did.

So, happy birthday Linda Lou.You've made my life work.

Victory In Iraq?

I don't know why someone decided that we are supposed to celebrate victory in Iraq on Saturday. We lost the chance for victory on 11/4/08. Sometime after the 21st of January the Shia Militias of folks like Mookie will make another move in the southern part of Iran. At about that same time more of these nutcases from Arabia, as well as other countries, will again flock into the Sunni sections of Iraq. Obambi will hem and haw. These new Jihadis will eventually kill some troops and the Donks will bring them home. More Shia and Sunni nutcases will pour in and the slaughter will begin anew.

I've seen this movie before. We beat the pants off the VC and NVA. We then pulled the troops out while leaving Hanoi in charge of the north. Then Hanoi pulled back into the fight and the Donks would not let us supply air and naval power, the power we were obliged to provide by treaty. The Donks wouldn't even let us send ammo. So the Arvins fought until they ran out of artillery shells, then ran or surrendered.

No now John Kerry has a picture in the museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

I knew we would eventually lose this war when we stopped short of ending the regimes in Teheran, Riydh and, least important, Damascus. Since each to these countries were attacking our troops in Iraq we had all the excuse we needed to finish the job and, in 2003 we had the military to do it.

I'll never understand what kept Bush from pulling the trigger. Saudi Arabia has no real military. They have lots of tanks, maintained by foreign civilians. They have lots of airplanes. Maintained by foreign civilians. Syria's military is at least half as strong as Saddam's was and we saw what happened to them. Iraq's Military is just like the others. The militaries of Islamic counties started a big slide when Ferdinand and Isabella threw the Muslims out of Spain and haven't hit bottom yet.

This is what is so annoying. We took Iraq in just a few weeks and then stood by, losing men and women, and allowing the slaughter of thousands of Iraqis by Arab and Shia Jihadis entering from Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. All while we had brigades and Regiments of troops on their borders.

We do not need to occupy Syria, Iran and Arabia. Just go through like a threshing machine destroying every military item more powerful than a beebee gun, smash up the governments and split, muttering something Arnold like "I'll be bach!" as we leave. Maybe paint some large bullseyes on stuff that we didn't blow up so they'll remember us. A bullseye on that black rock in Mecca, for instance.

The Donks used to be smarter. Franklin Roosevelt did everything he could to keep England from going under before Pearl Harbor, things that were technically illegal, because he knew the country wasn't ready for war. We, at the time, were not interested in war. FDR knew, though, that war was interested in us.

Which Set Of Religious Extremists Are Changing America?

So the anti social conservatives are saying that WE are trying to make everyone live our way. Funny, I didn't know that Mayor Bloomberg of New York is a social conservative yet it is his administration that has made smokers' lives miserable. It was his administration making restaurants put all sorts of new stuff on the menus. Now he's going up against the use of salt.

I didn't realize that Algore is a social conservative. Yet the religion of global warming wants us all to change our lives while the leaders, starting with Pope Al, jet around and buy humongous boats. I am still curious about that house of Pope Algore's and Dubya's home in Crawford. One was built from the ground up to save energy and save the environment, one was, it seems, designed to use energy. Yet it is Dubya who is trying to make us change our lives. So they say.

Social conservatives do not wish to make people change. We want to be left alone. We wish to teach our own children about sex, we do not wish them to be taken to gay marriage ceremonies unless WE decide to take them. We will teach them about condoms when we want to, not in kindergarten.

We social conservatives have nothing in particular against gays, we did not object to civil unions. Leave marriage alone. When was the last time Christians assaulted gays? When was the last time Christians threatened to burn down gay bars and tax the ashes? Or the bathhouses or interior design firms?

So, how come nobody complains about those who are trying to change the way we live, those who, if they went to church, would go to Our Lady of Professional Busybodies?

In other news it's National Ammo Day. In celebration I made a hundred rounds of practice ammo for our daughter's .38 as well as started a hundred rounds of .30-06 for her husband.

Working Together

So McCain has pledged to work with Obama to fix the country. Yup, I had my dog fixed, too.

This is what happens with the open primaries, we had a conservative Democrat up against a far left Democrat. Kind of like those conservative Democrats of the south that make a little noise but still support Pelosi. Of course McCain will support Obama. In the end Democrats always support each other. Too bad a Republican, er conservative didn't get the nomination. We might have lost but a conservative wouldn't be kissing Obama's backside.

South Park Republicans Got Their Wish

So I was over at Classical Values and noticed the usual suspects complaing about how they want social conservatives to go away. Thing is, they got their wish. Evangelica Christians voted somewhere between a third and half for Obama. The social conservatives did not man the phone banks. The social conservatives did not walk the precincts. Few drove people to the polls.

So we lost some thirty million votes. I suppose these Republicans that want to throw the Socons out of the Party will be happy to lose the elections for the rest of their lives. Thirty million votes. What was Obama's margin of victory?

The funny thing about the vendetta against the social conservatives is that the Socons are not the aggressor in this fight. Socons do not go out of their way to attack gays, rather it is those gay pride parades with men walking around with their dangly bits exposed that brings Socons to protest. Very few Socons have anything to say against gays being in relationships, we do like the definition of marriage to be left alone. So we said "civil unions, okay, marriage no. So we compromised but it isn't good enough. So now the gays are attacking Catholics and Mormons and small churches. Why don't they go picket the churches of South Central? Or the Mosques? Same as the abortion crowd. Every time they get a new idea of how to kill more of the unborn they claim that the Socons are attacking them. More like the Socons are trying to defend themselves.

Anyhow you country club and southpark Republicans got your wish. The Socons stayed home. Enjoy the complete control of Congress by the Donks. Enjoy the Obama judges and the Obama presidency. You earned it.

I Can't Get No...

November the tenth is a special day here on the Poor Farm. While I am a country and western fan I have some small history with Rock.

Linda Lou and I got married in old east Dallas on a special night. It started off a special day, Marine Corps Birthday. It was also a night that the Rolling Stones hit the Cotton Bowl on one of their tours. The little hall we got married in was only about a mile or so from the Cotton Bowl. Probably a little less goin' right through trees and parked cars. So we could hear Mick and company clear as a bell.

So we got married with the Stones providing the music.

The preacher said "I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." Ever since then, I can't get no satisfaction.

Proposition Eight

I am kind of glad that Proposition Eight has passed. I have nothing against gay people and it wouldn't matter much if I did. No one has ever asked my permission to be gay and I doubt it will suddenly start happening.

Still, the only folks who should support gay marriage are lawyers. I'm the furthest thing from a psychologist but I have noticed that many, maybe most, gay relationships are volatile. Many are violent. Perhaps this is because of the double dose of male hormones, I neither know, nor care why. I have troubles of my own so I don't dig around in things that don't concern me.

Still, when we finally do end up with gay marriage gays themselves will be the worst hurt. Divorce is extremely expensive. I do know what a lot of street cops know. A lot of what is mostly ignored now will become domestic violence once gay marriage becomes a reality. I'm not sure gays really want this, there are a whole lot of lifetime issues that come with the movement of a misdemeanor fistfight over to the domestic violence column. This will happen sure as night follows day. The lawyers have plenty of practice with this. Already in heterosexual divorces the complaints of abuse are regularly used, even when there isn't abuse. This is considered good lawering for child custody and support. Never mind the actual harm caused.

Since gays, as a group, are one of the most affluent groups in society, we will see lawyers making a pile with each divorce.

The fun thing about Prop Eight is how the gays voted in droves for Obama. Meanwhile the blacks and hispanics voted, overwhelmingly for Prop Eight. If blacks and hispanics had voted in their usual numbers it would have been defeated. Then gays too would be owned by the lawyers.

Here is something I don't understand. We have two big groups in America, politically. We have one group, the Republicans, that are not particularly interested in the gays. We would, on the whole, prefer traditional marriage to be left alone but few of us have any major objection to civil unions. Just off the top of my head I'll call this side the Sarah Palin Republicans. You know, the governor who vetoed that law in Alaska denying any State benefits to those in civil unions.

The other major side in American politics, just to pull a name out of my head, the Obama Democrats will do. This side wants to ally America with Iran, where they hang gays from construction cranes. The Dems think we lean too far toward Israel and too far away from "Palestine" where they throw gays off the top of tall buildings.

I think we need a new Pug puppy. I'm spending too much time talking about politics.

Kiss Your 401k Goodbye

Well, we got our wish. Change! Hope! The stock market falling. Notice that, the dollar is falling too. We had the largest economy in history, one important reason is that we had a safe place to store wealth. Everyone talks about Swiss banks as well as banks in tiny little countries. Liechtenstein is really going to protect the wealth, without the United States Military, not so much. This is why the market is falling. Smart people are selling off and buying stuff they can bury in the back yard.

In other news the mainstream media is now telling us that they don't know who Obama is. Now they tell us.Too bad they couldn't take a look before the election. They had plenty of people to go through Wasilla with a fine tooth comb. Now I'm not the world's greatest expert on Yankee geography but it seems to me that Chicago is a lot closer to the New York-Washington axis than Alaska. Of course they've always know that the Vice Presidency is more important than that Oval Office thing.

There is some good news. The MSM is dead. So is big University, there simply won't be the money. Hollywood is crumbling. That's something, anyway.

How long will it be before President-elect Obama pulls that same old Democrat trick as Clinton did and tells us all that the tax cut that 95% of us were going to get is another tax increase? Meanwhile the folks that worked for him up in Indiana are crying because they're getting shorted on their pay. Imagine my surprise.

The Democrats are in big trouble. The Republicans do not have enough power in Washington, DC to be blamed for what goes wrong. They'll try to blame Bush, kind of like they have blamed Bush all through his terms, sooner or later, though, they must govern. And since half the Democrat ideas are from cloud coocoo-land, that is going to be a problem.

Are the Democrats smart enough to leave the Proposition Eight victory be? I doubt it. So they'll try to override the vote of the people. This will, of course, just tick off their own base. Proposition
eight did not pass because of white evangelicals, it passed because Blacks and Hispanics voted for it.

Will the Democrats try to move against guns? Of course they will, energizing the Right. Will they try to investigate and punish the Bush Administration? Probably. If they do, though, they'll run up against juries. Now they'll try to stack the juries, both sides try that, but I cannot see even a jury in the big, red cities, going along with that.

I, personally, will do okay for a while. Since our big deal was to get out of debt before we started to save for our retirement we are broat everyone will do for ake. Seems that about six weeks after we paid everything off I got sick and retired early. So I have no 401k or anything, Pelosi's economic bailout is aimed my way. With my age and health I won't last long enough for the Donks to kill the country.

In other news the country club Republicans are finally fighting. Trouble is, they're fighting Palin. Idiots. The Republican Party has a very thin bench. We have Palin and Jindal and a few others no one has heard of. Palin, being one of those Christians that embarrass the elites, is more of an enemy than is Putin, who gave the order to put new missiles up in Europe.

I don't quite know what everyone is going to do for heat and air, though. Half the electricity in the country comes from coal and the President-elect has vowed to bankrupt the coal companies.

The Exit Poll.

Well, I somehow decided that Uh-uhbama wouldn't buy us a new Pug puppy so I pulled the straight R ticket. Then I went and polled Linda Lou on the way out to the car, she pulled the straight R ticket, also. So according to my exit poll it's a Palin landslide. Seein' as how neither one of us is real big on McCain. No matter how this election ends up we Republicans should never again let Democrats and Independents choose our nominee.

By the time the Red States started voting in the primaries McCain had the big lead as if Michigan would ever go our way in the general. Oddly, states like Michigan should vote Republican, ever since they became one Party Donk states their economies have sunk like the Michigan bedrock turned to quicksand. I'm old enough to remember when people left the south to go make their fortunes in Detroit.

We aren't watching election returns here, we'll know soon enough. I never trust the teevee people and their alleged news. It is too bad that the trade of reporting became the profession of journalism. The bright kids from the farm and factory families aren't there anymore, now it's the dimmer members of the upper and upper middle classes infesting the J-Schools.

It won't end the "rich Republican" meme, although it should. Wall Street put out record numbers, mostly for Obama. Soros and and that billionaire from Omaha, for Obama. Hollywood for Obama. Joe the Plumber for McCain.

I'll either update or write a new post when I know something.

Ready For The Election Riots?

Really the only preparation I need for the election-night riots is to stay out of the city, no hardship there as I don't like the city. Too durned noisy and full of people.

You folks that live in the cities have a different problem. Some fifty or so shotgun shells would be handy, a mix of the various sizes of buckshot and the rifled slugs. I have some number four buck, some #1 buck and some single ought and some double ought buck, plus a dozen or so one ounce rifled slugs.

I always keep at least a hundred or so rounds of very hot jacketed hollow point ammo for my .45 Colt and .357 Mag rifles, this stuff will stop a deer or a man or a charging Buick. Not these new Buicks with tissue-paper body panels but those old '53 Roadmasters that used to get drunk on hundred octane and then go pick fights with Rhinos and Horrible Heffalumps, and win.

Our revolvers are well fed, we keep at least one fifty round box of the best factory ammo for each of the carry guns, plus a minimum of eight hundred rounds of handloads, that's what fits in the ammo cans. So the .38 had an unopened box of the Winchester Plus P lead hollow point ammo and a couple of partial boxes of other hot .38s, Corbon and Speer, my little .357 has a full box of Federal .357B stuff, the 125 grain hollowpoint that came in first in many tests a few years back.


The single action .45s aren't really defense guns but if push ever came to shove there is nothing wrong with a 250 grain soft lead flat point at some 800 fps and I have hundreds of those sitting around.

The advantage of the shotgun is not just the deterrent factor, which is considerable. The next big advantage is that the big loads are mostly in five packs for less than five dollars or so each. So folks with small paychecks can stock up a little at a time. A person can buy a couple-three five packs of that low recoil double ought, a couple boxes each of number four and number one buck and a few boxes of rifled slug and be ready for just about anything. I have a butt cull on my shotgun with a mix of buck and slugs as well as a full 25 round shell belt, one of those cheap nylon and elastic things, rigged loose enough to wear as a bandoleer. This thing has ten rounds of Winchester's low recoil buckshot, five rounds of slugs, and the other ten rounds are assorted buckshot, the high velocity 9 pellet double ought, some number one buck mag ammo, 20 pellets per load, and 00 Mag, 12 pellets per load.

Cute Overload, But No Eddie.

We drove to Canton today to the big flea market. We did not visit the actual flea market but the secondary one with all the critters in the universe. At least half of the puppy breeders show up there, along with cows, goats, chickens, horses, etc.

I walked my legs off but did not see Eddie. It was sort of a last resort, anyway. Linda Lou sat down in one dealer's shop and I went looking down a couple of rows, when I returned she was being climbed by poodle puppies. We did see a lot of Pug puppies, including several Black Pugs Of Doom. That is, I think what we will save for.

I had no idea there were so many English Bulldog breeders around, Texas is really too hot for them. Lots and lots of Pit Bull puppies, too many people with jailhouse looking tattoos clustered around them. There are too many meth cookers in this part of Texas.

When we left there we went to The Dairy Palace, a local shrine. If you are ever driving through Northeast Texas on Interstate Twenty, stop in Canton, the State Highway 19 exit. They always have thirty-three flavors of Blue Bell ice cream as well as amazing burgers. It's probably not a good idea to order the double bacon cheeseburger unless your mouth opens up at least as far as the late Linda Lovelace, though. Do not, though, wear your good clothes and order a double dip cone and then try to drive.

Oddly the breeders there charge about half of what the breeders charge at home. Dallas Pug Rescue charges $300.00 for a puppy, $200.00 for an adult, these puppies ran $250.00 for males and $300.00 for females. Of course the rescue puppies are neutered.

Well, it was depressing but we know where to go when we save up the money. Or do we need to save? If Obama is going to pay that woman's mortgage and put gas in her tank, why can't he buy us a puppy? Thank the Lord that I didn't vote early!

His Brother's Keeper

So Uh-uhbama is mad because Republicans call him a socialist. Imagine that. Here is a multimillionaire whose Aunt lives in public housing. His half brother lives in a hut on less than a dollar, cash, a month. This multimillionaire promised to help those living in the village his father lived. Sum total of that help from Uh-uhbama? So far, zero.

The beautiful Baldilocks, who is also of Kenyon descent, has donated far more. Of course if she'd donated $1.39 it would be far more. One would think that a multimillionaire would shut up about greedy Republicans if he cannot send a twenty dollar bill to more than double his half brother's income. But, no. Uh-uhbama is his brother's keeper as long as it isn't his money.

I don't get it. All these folks who seem to adore Uh-uhbama and he won't even help his own family. Yet he is going to save the country. Should we not have seen some evidence by now?

The Election Is Almost Over

Here you see some pictures of why I cannot vote for the Democrats. There are many more reasons but the main reasons are my grandchildren. I already know that my grandchildren will never have the opportunities I had. They will never be on a high school rifle team, for instance. Funny thing, when I was in school guns were common. It was nothing to see a bunch of boys (and the rare girl) on bikes with a .22 or a single shot shotgun 'cross the handlebars and a dog or three runnin' alongside. Now they'd call out the SWAT teams. In the '50s and early '60s no one had ever heard of school shootings and drive bys, either.


Here is what I don't understand about this election. People seem to actually believe Uh-uhbama. He claims that 95% of people will get tax cuts. Um, forty percent of the people don't PAY taxes. Haven't we been through this before? Remember the last time a Democrat got elected promising a middle class tax cut?

I don't really understand the Obamamania. The Obama crowd claims to be for the working people but we see how they treat working people. They claim to be for women, unless that woman is Sarah Palin.

Here is something interesting. There was a law passed by the Alaska Legislator to deny benefits to the significant others of gay and lesbian state workers. Governor Palin vetoed that law. So naturally Uh-uhbama is the choice of the gay community. No one knows what Uh-uhbama has ever done for the gay and lesbian community but since Palin is not gushing all over for gay marriage, she is the enemy.

I am not sure how it has become holy writ that Governor Palin is stupid. Uh-uhbama thinks there are fifty-seven states. Senator Hairplugs says the problem is a three letter word J-O-B-S and Donks call Sarah stupid. Even our side complains. Yet if Palin is unqualified, how is Uh-uhbama? Has Uh-uhbama ever been a small town mayor? Has Uh-uhbama ever defied Party leaders and won a governorship? I doubt that Uh-uhbama has the courage to defy Party leaders.

Nor do I understand the constant complaints of the Bush economic policies. Except for a bit of problems after 9/11/01 the economy was really good until the Pelosi/Reid Congress in January '07. I suspect that a whole bunch of people voting for change will not like these changes. The Obamaniacs laugh at the idea that there will be massive layoffs, everyone thinks that is just right wing paranoia. Except that is what many small business owners are saying. Who do you believe, Biden or your boss?

How about your 401K? Now more tax break and it put into government bonds at three percent a year. Then the check rolled into your social security.

That Was Disappointing

I was sleeping the sleep of the rightous when Linda Lou rushed in and woke me. Seems that someone called saying they thought they had seen Eddie.

I got a little less than half a cup of coffee while I dressed in sweats and we rushed out the door. Note: I do not go out in sweats. Since I was born without a butt I can't hardly keep them up. Of course I also never go out in the morning.

So I rushed off to West Tawakoni and actually found the street I was looking for and drove down and we saw a fawn Pug. He did not recognize us and he had a different bark. Then the people living there came out and we talked. Seems that this Pug's name is Arnold and had shown up there months ago.

Linda Lou is not happy. Neither am I. The only good part of the whole trip is that since it was still early I dropped by the supermarket and bought bones for Ming and CAP along with yesterdays's pork chops on sale, half off. Mmm, pork chops.

Load Up, Just In Case

I, of course, would never advocate anything illegal. Nor am I concerned that we have already lost this election. We may lose it, we may not.

Still, it's best to be prepared. I read that lots of folks are buying guns, trouble is, nobody is thinking of ammo. We have a little time before things get tough. I would submit that having a small ammunition factory in the basement might be very handy.

As I write this there is no record keeping requirements for reloading equipment or components. This means that for the price of a gun, with all that paperwork, you can buy a complete ammo factory.

A Lee turret reloading press is less than $70.00 at Midway. A set of dies, (a seperate set required for each cartridge)is a little less than $25.00. Powder is about $20.00 a pound, primers someplace around $25.00 per thousand.

My favorite .357 jacketed bullets, the Remington 125 semijacketed hollow point, runs $95.00 per thousand. In rifle cartridges that bullet is more expensive, the Winchester 150 grain .30 caliber power point runs $179.99 per thousand. If you have a .5.56 (.223) those bullets run cheaper, $62.00 per thousand.

Just remember, the Second Ammendment says nothing at all about ammo. There is nothing at all to prevent ammo being taxed at fifty dollars a bullet or a thousand dollars a round. Think the Democrats won't do it? I have bullet molds, though. I can cast my own nice fat .45 bullets or my .357 bullets. I also have a nice little .30 caliber bullet mold for the .30-06.

I've got mine, what are you going to do?

We Miss Eddie

We spent the weekend wandering the local flea markets over the weekend looking for Eddie T. Dog, no luck. We are banking on the really big one in Canton, a once a month deal.

I'm looking at the Donks, doing everything possible to steal this election. Meanwhile Biden is guaranteeing that something awful will happen in the first six months. The question is, does anyone think that the bad guys will test McCain? Hmm. Grumpy old man with the world's finest military and these peabrains would want to test him? Just like they tested Bush after 9/11.

Meanwhile Uh-Uhbama is someplace having a job summit. I can see how much the Donks like the working stiff, ask Joe the plumber Yeah, the Democrats really love the working stiff. Kind of like how the Dems love women. Unless the women lean right. That bumper sticker "she's not a woman, she's a Republican" says a lot about the Dems. The Dems love women and minorities just as long as those don't try to escape the Democrat plantation. Ask Thomas Sowell. Ask Clarence Thomas.

Don't kid yourself, the Party of the People has declared war on the little guy. If you don't toe their line you are an enemy. I don't know how this is going to work, though. I keep seeing comments from Donk trolls on conservative blogs that we had better shut up, there a new Sheriff in town. I will shut up all right, just like they did the last eight years.

Do Not Talk To The One!

So the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are on a Jihad against that horrible Rovian plant, Joe the plumber (hereafter JTP).

Never mind that JTP was is his own yard when Uh-uhbama showed up, unannounced and uninvited. He said something that the left didn't like. Therefore he was a McCain plant and must be defeated.

Now no matter what crimes JTP has ever committed (if any), Uh-uhbama went to him. Unless McCain knew, in advance, of this unplanned campaign stop and then posted operatives all over that town, there is no possible way that JTP was a plant.

So, the Party of the People is attacking an ordinary working man. The media, which cannot understand why people are a little nervous about Acorn and Ayers, Wright and Rezko, have given this guy the major league anal exam. That same media cannot find uh-uhbama's Illinois Senate Records, his college transcripts and any of his writings.

I remember the media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself again) are constantly attacking folks like us for being incurious. Because we don't read much Naked Lunch or something. Yet the same folks who cannot vet their Presidential candidate are at war with any ordinary working stiff who gets in their way.

The Party of the People. Unless that ordinary working man is Todd Palin. Or Joe the Plumber. Or you.

Update: If The Lightworker should make an unscheduled, uninvited visit to you, just kneel and kiss His ring. This may prevent the left from attacking you.

When Are You Going To Start, Barry?

Everyone has heard that Uh-uhbama wants to spread the wealth around. Well, someone else's wealth, anyhow. Biden, too wants to spread the wealth. Just not his own.

I really understand that plumber who doesn't want his taxes raised. He wants to take that money and buy more trucks and hire more people, instead. Sure would be nice if he could. Plumbers make pretty good money. Now THAT spreads the wealth around.

We have seen the results from Uh-uhbama spreading the wealth around, though. As a state Senator Uh-uhbama had seen that a whole lot of taxpayer money was given to Tony Rezko. Tony bought or built public housing with that taxpayer money. His projects now stand mostly empty and uninhabitable.

That is how the Democrats spread wealth.

A Seinfeld Post About Nothing.

Not much to talk about. I was going to try to go to the Cowboy Action Shoot Sunday but decided my right shoulder isn't quite ready for the recoil of my twelve gauge blackpowder shotgun shells. So I'll try for the last Saturday of the Month or the second Sunday of next month. I haven't talked about my shoulder much, the range of motion is "almost there" now. It's still pretty weak, though or maybe I'm imagining I'm thirty. Anyhow I'm almost done with the in office physical therapy.

My therapist is having me work with the rifle some, at home of course. Before the surgery the rifle and shotgun were pretty light. I did not know that if a rifle or shotgun doesn't get exercise it gets heavier, too. They seem to have gotten fat. So have I.

When I left the physical therapist I decided to drop by the little county substation there in Quinlan and spoke with the Justice of the Peace for what I should do if we should spot Eddie. Anyone following this blog, all five or so of you, should know that we have a TON of pictures of all the dogs. These pictures, plus the crime report, should solve the problem, well that and anyone should clearly see who Eddie loves if he sees his Momma.

So, the only thing I have to do is keep Linda Lou fairly quiet about theft accusations until the working lawman shows up and we probably won't need to even go to court. The bad news is that if we do it without courts and lawyers is that we let the thief get away with the "I just found him" defense.Considering that dognapping isn't something they get the death penalty for (the justice system needs an overhaul) I guess I can live with that.

Note to self: Make sure Linda Lou doesn't have her Ladysmith .38 with her when we go looking.

I see the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled that three judge panel and now the Ohio SecState must do her job and weed out those phoney baloney Acorn voters registrations. I'm sure, though, that she will find a way to drag her feet.

I keep reading that the lefties are so sure of winning this election. So, why do they have to cheat?

I'd Pay To See It.

So now I'm hearing about threats of violence. I don't watch the teevee much, I have to turn the sound up so high that it annoys my wife. If I had real close neighbors it would annoy them too. Oddly, I can hear older movies on teevee at a much lower sound level but the modern shows and movies it doesn't matter how high I turn the sound.

At any rate I get no news from teevee, I do read a lot of transcripts. This may be why Uh-uhbama does nothing for me. I'm told that he speaks marvelously if he can read from a teleprompter. The transcripts say nothing, though. But I digress.

I spend a LOT of time reading about the folks drawing posters about how they'd like to punch Sarah Palin, that woman "comedienne" with the black "friends" who would gang rape Sarah, those folks who firebombed a McCain/Palin yard sign, etc. So I was pleased to see the news finally hitting the Legacy Media.

Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be the horrible threat of Republican violence that has the Legacy Media all up in arms. Um, all up in the air, they don't believe in arms as in weaponry. I never heard the New York Crimes complaining about posters at leftist rallies showing Bush beheaded. Yet Republicans booing Uh-uhbambi is violence! Meanwhile those fat black kids in quasi-military garb is hopetitude and changiness.

Meanwhile I can't get over that clown, Shane Bokhari and his desire to punch Governor Palin. I cannot do links, somehow, even after following the directions they don't come through, So, it's http://www.afineexample.com/other/other02palin.html Now, assume that the Secret Service types all went on a long coffee break. They don't, of course, all go on break at once but just for assumption...suppose he tried with Todd handy? I'd pay ten green Yankee dollars to see Mr. Bukhari try. Of course Sarah might not need Todd for light work.

Now I make no claim to be the most knowledgeable Christian in the County but I do know that turn the other cheek has noting to do with being punched. In the days Jesus was speaking a slap on the cheek was a deadly insult and a challenge to a death fight. Jesus did not approve of such things. He had no brief for fights over insults. He also commanded his followers to have swords to defend themselves and their families and neighbors. Many people forget the distinction.

Jesse and Frank James found this out with the Younger Brothers up in Northfield Minnesota a century and a half or so ago. Those peaceful Christian small town types shot them to doll rags when they tried to rob the bank and tree the town. The survivors fled back to Missouri.

Now I know that is a long time ago. Of course the complaint from the Left is that we small town and country folks don't change with the times. I'm not the guy to try to form up a gang and try shooting up the town of Northfield, population about 13, 000 the last census, today either. I suspect that Minnesota Nice would mean a nice funeral.

This is something else I don't understand. According to our leftist "betters", we of the right are uncurious. Now uncurious Governor Palin manages to hunt Caribou and other big critters. It takes a sight of curiosity to manage that trick. Todd Palin is a successful snowmobile racer, among other accomplishments. Now I never studied snowmobiles, seeing as how I live here in Texas where we got a bunch of snow back in '76, why it got up to five inch drifts! But I suspect it takes another sight of learnin' to succeed at that. Yet according to our coastal geniuses these people are incurious. These coastal elites are never curious about the things that interest Todd and Sarah, or me for that matter.

Dear Ms Dowd. Can you tell us where to aim to hit a Caribou standing 325 yards away, facing partially away with a 32 mph wind coming from 8 o'clock? But Maurine! You claim to be so much smarter than Sarah!

Dear Mr. Krugman. How do you you tune a snow machine to win a race? If you are so much smarter than poor benighted Todd Palin, why don't you know? What? You are incurious about such things, right? Seems you were incurious about Enron, too. But you are so smart! Just ask you.

Anyhow, the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) seem to be afraid of Republican violence. Why, because some of us are maybe one tenth as angry as the editorial board of the New York Crimes. The difference is, my side doesn't key cars when we get really angry. We aren't going hit anyone with our NYC man purses, either,

Dognapped?

So Eddie went out to pee and to survey his domain and hasn't been seen since. Since it was broad daylight we do not suspect coyotes nor wild hogs. Nor have there been buzzards or crows picking over small bodies.

The good news is that he disappeared the week after the First Monday Trade Days down in Canton. This is where most disappeared dogs show up and where I shall be on the next one. I know that nobody there lets their dog loose the week before that shindig.

The good news is that the local kids all know and like Eddie. Since kids know everything, we have a chance if he's still around the neighborhood. If it is a traveling dognapper, who knows?

Anyhow, spare a good thought for Eddie and Linda Lou.

Nothing Much To Say.

I don't have much to say right now, I'm too angry. I do not understand why Senator McCain and President Bush are insisting on turning the economic mess to the very ones who caused it.

It would be nice if we could solve this "crisis" without adding billions of dollars for ACORN and wool subsidies and other waste of the taxpayer's dollars. Why the way Congress is acting makes me wonder if there IS a crisis or if they're just helping out their campaign donors.

Meanwhile the money they are talking about is enough to pay off somewhere between $50,000.00 and $75,000.00 on EVERY mortgage in the country. Including Chis Dodd's "friend of Angelo's" sweetheart deal. Meanwhile the Pelosi Congress has not passed the budget.

Get a rope.

Eddie Worries About His Investments

I couldn't post
Friday, seein' as how I'm not a pirate and I know of no pirates with my accent. The big news is still the economy. As anyone can plainly see, Eddie T. Dog is worried about his investments. Poor Eddie, look at all those wrinkles.

I am gradually getting somewhat of a handle on this financial mess. Seems that there are two major components of this. The first components is, of course, the insistence that lenders loan large amounts of money to people who had no chance of paying it back. Otherwise it would be racist. Even though most who were caught up in this are white. The main problem seems to be that folks thought that the astronomical housing prices would keep going up, forever. So folks kept borrowing more against their houses. Unfortunately, bubbles burst. When the housing prices started falling those big loans remained. This does not count those who bought houses to flip. Those folks didn't help but there weren't enough of them to cause this mess.

So, that started it. Worse came the idea that they could bunch up millions of dollars of these shaky mortgages and sell them like stock. Now that is not so bad but then other geniuses got the brilliant idea idea of doing this on credit. There is a major difference between FDIC regulated banks and the other entities buying these "investments" on credit.

Now those are things I know. Here is something I wonder. We know that there are a LOT of bazillionaires who are Democrats. We also know that George Soros, one of those bazillionaires, hates Republicans and has no problem hurting people to make money, see his raid on the British Pound. We also know that the Democrats in Congress laughed at that "incompetent" Bush when he tried, through both of his terms, to get Congress to fix Fannie and Freddie.

We know the Donks hate Bush. How much of this mess would have been prevented if the Democrats were not fighting fixing Bush? I suspect a lot, just reading what the Donks are saying in blog comments.

So, is it stupidity or malevolence? Or some combination? The hard thing is convincing Eddie that we will keep buying Milk Bones and Beggin' Strips.

Must Be Nice

I must confess, I am no economic guru, never having much in the way of money to practice on. I mean when I got the only windfall of my life, my family inheritance, I paid off the mortgage and had a rifle rebuilt for accuracy. So, I'm no genius, I admit it.

Still, I seem to be smarter than the big time Democrats. Why did they put Jamie Gorelick up as vice chair of Fannie Mae? Just what made her worth twenty-six million dollars in bonuses?

Let's look,she set up "the wall" that made it much more difficult to figure out that a bunch of Arabs who wanted to learn to fly, but not land, were up to no good. Great, lets give her authority over a trillion dollar industry! This is, it seems, smart when you are a big time Democrat.

It's not that I don't believe in second chances but still, this is a little much. Screw up law enforcement, then get put on the commission studying the results of that screw up as happened to our Jamie. Set up "the wall". Then when we got the 9/11 attacks she gets put on the commission asking how that happened. Um, shouldn't she have been in front of that commission, under oath? Oh, right, she is a Democrat.

I am counting the days before Gorelick is on the commission studying what went wrong with Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Just wait. This whole stinking Democrat mess will be found to be all the fault of George Bush. After all, it was Democrats writing the rules to say lend a bazillion dollars to folks with no possible way to pay back those loans. Stupid Republicans like me paid off our mortages.

Still, somebody tell me, using small words please because I'm not smart enough to be a Democrat, just what did Gorelick do to earn those twenty-six million dollars in bonuses? Or did she learn something about a lot of big time politicians while working in the Justice Department, ensuring vast riches for the rest of her life?

From here it looks like a pretty good deal. Anything you mess up, blame on Bush. Meanwhile take your millions and bleat loudly about the little people. After all, the little people get to pay for it all.

Missed Me

The big storm of '08 missed me, for which I am thankful. We got some heavy rain, the wind blew some and then it was over. No damage, the trees didn't lose limbs and I did not get to see Oz. Or even Oklahoma. My community is still not organized, though. My cheap plastic deck furniture didn't even blow away. I wonder how that .is possible, I would think that without a community organizer sitting on it, it'd be gone.

Speaking of needing to be organized, the people who ignored the mandatory evacuation order down in Galveston are complaining that government isn't helping them enough. Seems to me that they ought to get a big fat bill for every drop of water, every bite of food they get. Then a big ol' "in the way" bill for slowing down the actual recovery effort. It just stands to reason that every man-hour spent on taking care of those yahoos is a man-hour that could be spent on clearing roads, restoring power, etc.

I wonder how many votes McCain got by showing up at the NASCAR race in Louden, New Hampshire today? I wonder how all those people managed to get to the track without being organized?


I have a question. Folks keep talking about the Bradley Effect. Seems there was a Democrat named Bradley who was ahead in the polls for an election for Governor out in California. He lost. Ever since then we have been plagued with The Bradley Effect. Trouble is, there hasn't been an election since Truman where the polls did not overcount the Democrats in their samples. My lord, they had Mondale ahead of Reagan at one point! And there has never been a candidate whiter than Mondale. So, why is there a Bradley Effect and not a more general "we overcounted the Donks" effect? Remember Kerry? The polls had him beating Bush.

How come there was no Steele Effect? I reckon that these "effect" things are only for Democrats. So, if we don't vote for the Democrat we are racists. Democrats, though, they get to call black Republicans vile names.

Oh well, time to start mowing.