Happy New Year!

 My Happy New Year! will start off with a trip to Medical City, Dallas to see a new to me doctor. This one specializes in vein and artery repair. That's Wednesday, the 2nd. Then on the 14th Linda Lou gets her other knee rebuilt.

 The new Doc will be looking at the reason my circulation is almost nil in my right foot. The answer is actually simple, that's the injury that changed my plan of a military career. Seems those Docs back then didn't do such a good job. Oh well, maybe the civilian docs might repair enough damage to let me keep that foot. If not, ARRR! I'll be a real hit on Talk Like a Pirate Day!

So, I may be out of pocket a lot over the next few weeks. More likely though, I'll be sitting even more than usual. We'll see.

Christmas Call From An Old Friend

 I got a surprise phone call from one of my oldest friends on Christmas day. We have little or nothing in common anymore but memories of the days that we were each our Momma's extra kid. He's a high school teacher in an unnamed Blue State, just retired from the national board of a major "peace group". And I, well, I'm me, still thinking that the United States Military is the single greatest force for world peace.

 Our self-selected brotherhood overcomes that, though. Anyhow,after the Christmas greetings came the talk of the horrific Newtown mess. Now my old friend is an excellent shot, or was fifty years ago and he has no qualms about using force in defense of self or others. As we spoke he mentioned that he is thinking of a smaller gun than his six shot .357 Magnum. The last time he was here in Resume Speed, Texas he commented on how much stiffer the actions on our little five shot revolvers is than his six shot.

 Anyhow, this peacenik is looking at some of the smaller firearms to carry to his teaching job.

 I am sure his blue state legislature would never countenance such a thing but he's probably going to do it anyway.

 Dear Antigunners: If you have lost the peace movement high school teacher(s), perhaps you have lost the argument. The only thing to stop the bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. My friend, my brother, is a good guy.

Dear Andrew

 So I look in The Puppyblender's site  and notice that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo finally admits out loud that gun confiscation "could be the answer".  Well, it's like this, Andy: When those bodyguards of yours give up all their guns, my kids will give up theirs. Oh, you say, "I'm a public figure, I need protection." Foo, far more ordinary people are murdered every day than cheap politicos. You, Andy, are no more important than my daughter.

 I've noticed, Andy, that all you politicians and important (to whom?) actors have bodyguards. The New York Time, thundering about "high capacity ammunition" (idiots) has armed guards at the door. I'll tell you who doesn't have a taxpayer funded armed guard, Andy: my wife. She's on a walker, far more helpless than you, or would Be if you didn't have those guys with evil semiautomatic pistols and "assault rifles" handy. Oh, I forgot. Your bodyguards are active duty cops, they have access to real assault rifles, don't they?

 Here's the deal, Andy. This is not some stinkin' foreign place with royalty. My people came to get away from them. You, Andy, and all your lefty pals, are no more important than my grandchildren. Since neither the taxpayers or big media pays anyone to hang around with guns, just to protect them in the odd chance that a nut will  show up, like you and your pals, we have guns.

 Andy, we'll give our guns, right after you set the example. Until you do, we'll keep wandering through life, protecting our owns best we can.

What Changed?

 I've kept quiet about the Newtown massacre while I tried to figure out what happened. Meanwhile the usual suspects have been howling about guns. There have been hundreds of people spouting off about killing the NRA President and members. Aside from this not being particularly nonviolent I would posit that threatening armed people might just be a mistake.

 I have found a couple of strange things about this most recent massacre, one is that the Congress and the President have let a couple of school safety programs lapse, one funding police in schools.

 Another odd thing about Newtown is that it took twenty minutes for police to show up from the first calls of shooting inside that school.

 Twenty minutes. That is a pretty good response time for police to show up for a theft report, suspect gone. It might be a pretty fair response time for a deputy sheriff in rural northwest Texas. It is not a good response time for a city police responding to a shooting inside a grade school. Someone should be asking what those police were doing. The average citizen won't like the answer.The day of the first officer on the scene running to the sound of the gunfire is long over. Today we "establish a perimeter." We set up a chain of command. We establish a line of communication. We gather intelligence. We then wait for the heavily armored SWAT types to go in and only then does the shooter kill himself.

 I admit, I've never been to Newtown and have no idea of the terrain. I will say that it is damned well impossible to believe that the nearest patrol car was twenty minutes away.

 One of the reasons these killing sprees happen is that police no longer have commanders, they have administrators. Their key philosophy is to make sure that no blame redounds to themselves.And an ijured or killed police officer is a real drain on the municipal budget whereas a dead child does not financially affect the city.

 An important question: How many police have been killed or injured during one of these killing sprees since Columbine? Hint: More police have been killed or injured protecting government motorcades. Police administrators have forgot the addage of shedding blood to take the King's shilling. We spend a lot of money on officer safety, as we should. In reponse, the officers go into dangerous situations. Still, it seems the more we spend on officer safety the longer it takes said officers to actually do something useful when there is shooting going on. This is not the fault of the officers but is the fault of the administrators.

 Please note that I am not calling for a bloodbath in police work. I am saying that many lives would be saved by having those first officers go in and cause the shooter to kill himself, as almost always happens. I am further saying that the person who goes into policing to be safe had better apply, instead, to city road repair. The life of an officer is not worth more than that of a child. Again, no officers have been killed in all these school massacres since and including Columbine.

 It is, of course, more than poor administration of our police. I grew up in an era where we had a high school rifle team. Kids in Jr. ROTC got to fire fully automatic Browning Automatic Rifles. Many high school principals had large closets where the kids could pack their hunting rifles and shotguns during the seasons.

 A kid with money could write off to one of the advertisors in The American Rifleman and get a lot of really fine rifles, revolvers and pistols. There were 1903 Springfield rifles for around fortty bucks. German Mausers were even cheaper and at the bottom of the barrel were the Japanese 6.5 and 7.7 mm and those Italian 6.5 and 7.7s. There were M1 rifles and M 1 Carbines, both .30 caliber  but the M 1 fired the full sized .30-06 and the Carbine a hot pistol-type thing with a lighter bullet. As I recall, that was the round Charles Whitman used, mostly, in the Texas Tower massacre. There were thousand of the old British .303 let go, tons of .45 auto M1911 pitols, Webley revolvers in both .455 Brit and .38 S&W were cheap, along with bazillions of Colt and S&W .38s both .38 Special and .38 S&W.

 Yet we boys settled our differences with fists. And that is a big difference. Today a kid fistfight is pretty much beyond the pale. And THAT is a big difference. Somehow we have allowed education to be feminized. Recesses are almost gone, with none of the physical games boys of my day played. Today a child with normal boyish energy is medicated. He's no longer a boy but is hyperactive or has A.D.D. So, today they sit around, numb and playing games on their mobile phones. Or texting.

 I live where cell phone coverage is very spotty. The largest man made lake inside Texas is a half mile away by the trail kids (or adults) can walk. It teems with catfish and bass. It is a small game hunter's paradise. Our back roads are great for bicycles, we have lots of horses. Yet when I drive home after school hours I see kids standing around, in the spots where they can get coverage, with cell phones in both hands, not even looking up as cars go by. What do these boys do with their energy? And our "betters" blame the fast food industry.

 My own grandsons aren't allowed to roam. Kids are on such short leashes today and it's a crying shame.

 Most, if not all, of the people doing these spree shootings were on some sort of psychotropic drug. Something is really wrong and it ain't the guns. We've always had guns. We've had high capacity semioauto guns since the 1903 Winchester .32 and 35 self loading cartridges. Then in 1907 we got the more capable .351 and in 1910 the .401 Winchester SL. These stubby little carbines had short magazines from the factory although when I was a boy I knew an old bluesuit who had a .401 with a long mag he'd either cobbled together or bought. Of course far more LEOs had lever action carbines in .44 WCF and .38WCF. Few carried the longer .30WCF (.30-30) or .32 Special. Many carried 92 Winchesters converted to .38 Special and .357 Mag.

 My own Marlin .357, made in the mid 1970s spent some ten years in a county cruiser, far more useful in the country than a patrol shotgun. But, that's another story. It's just we've always had guns. And if we ban certain guns criminals and madmen will just use another form of gun. Suppose there was some kind of magic spell to remove all semi auto handguns? And it would take a magic spell, there are far too many for a law to get rid of them. After all, tell me again how people get heroin andcocaine wheen there are draconian laws about them.

 Still, without those dread semiautos, what could the Newtown killer do? Well, he could have shot his way in with one or two revolvers and then used gasoline bombs. How many one quart molotov cocktails can fit in a backpack?

 It ain't the guns, folks. We're doing things seriously wrong today and we're looking at the wrong things for solutions.

Cone Of Shame

 Bingo T. Pug has an allergy to flea bites. The flea pills the vet gives (sells) us kills the fleas but only after the flea bites him. Then he chews bloody holes in his hide. So I took him to Pet Smart and bought him a cone of shame.

Bingo T. Pug hates me now. I must check my shoes verrrrrry carefully now for fear of a Pug bomb.

 I haven't had much to say lately, I'll be back in harness soon.

Wax Practice Bullets

 A valuable art is being lost today, I haven't seen a trace of it since around 1970 or so. That art is making wax bullets for close range practice.It was old in the late fifties when I first saw it when I was barely able to shoot a double action revolver without first cocking it.

 I had intended on providing pictures for this but. alas, my computer problems continue so I will have to make do with word pictures. Still, it ain't rocket surgery so, here goes:

 First of all, why wax bullets? Well, most folks can't shoot in the basement or hallways with real ammo, the holes through the house tend to offend the spouses. And those real bullets can punch through a lot of walls, even if they don't tear out the plumbing or the wiring they tend to drastically reduce the resale price of the house and, if you're a renter, boy, howdy, just think of the reference you'd get from your landlord.

 Back when holsters weren't all full of stuff to make it difficult for a bad guy to snatch the weapon* people used to actually practice the fast draw. There is a slight problem with practicing the fast draw, it takes thousands of repetitions and with live ammo that is very expensive. Not to mention that there is a real danger of being quick on the trigger and slow on the draw. Now that's bad enough with a strong side hip holster, back in the day there were quite a few would be gunmen with serious limps, especially those who were then just barely smart enough to become stable hands or whiskey drummers. It's even worse today with all those in the pants holsters.

 Anyhow, wax bullets are actually quite accurate up to around five or seven yards. The late Bill Jordan, after a career in the US Marine Corps and the Border Patrol back when that was a gun fighting outfit, became the Southwestern Rep of the NRA. Among other things did did shooting exhibitions. He was shown hitting aspirin tablets and then those little bitty saccharin tablets. In his shows he would pick a girl out of the audience and get her to hold one of those tin pie plates out and then, as he was talking he'd draw his S&W Model 19, fire and put a hole in the middle of the pie plate. Then, in his deep Louisiana drawl he'd say "Mam. you showed great courage there. Po' judgement but great courage."

 Anyhow, primer powered wax bullets are a great and inexpensive practice tool and they're things you can actually shoot in town without the SWAT people showing up. You can even shoot them in your house. If your neighbors are close and your walls thin, turn up the stereo!

 You will need some empty cartridge cases for your gun and a way to decap the spent cases. Now if you already handload ammo this is easy, you just decap them on your loading press. If you don't have a loading press you can go several ways, the cheapest is a block of wood, plastic or metal with a primer sized hole drilled through, Set the case with the primer over the hole and tap it out with a blunted nail through the flash hole. I used a Lee Loader for a couple of years, a Lee Loader is available in most handgun (and rifle) cartridges and, for less than thirty bucks most places. And they make serviceable ammunition, too, Hint: A Lee Loader, a one pound canister of powder, five hundred bullets and five hundred primers in a surplus military ammo can is a very comforting thing to have squirreled away, just in case.

 You will need to drill out the primer flash holes with a 1/8 drill bit. There is a long, drawn out technical reason for this but just trust me on it.I don't feel like typing it out. Anyhow, first you drill out the flash hole, right though it. Don't kill yourself trying to get the burr out, you drill from the outside in, right through the primer pocket.

 Now you need a box of primers. A thousand small pistol magnum primers for my .38s and .357s cost me about thirty buck last time I bought them, large pistols cost about the same. Primers are something you want to buy local, if possible, there is a twenty dollar HazMat fee for having them shipped. I'm not sure why, there didn't use to be and I haven't read of any gigantic explosions from powder and primers in trucks. Anyhow, a thousand primers is plenty to get started but you'd be surprised at how fast they can go.

 And you will need a couple boxes of canning wax. My supermarket had Gulf Wax, there are other brands and it doesn't matter which. There used to be inserts in some ammo boxes that had four plastic feet that you could cut off and then the cases were simply held by the rim. Those were great but I haven't seen them in a while. Any of the hard plastic inserts will work although you'll have to take a sanding belt or something to the bottom of them. Actually you won't die if you just do 'em one at a time but faster is better in most things.

 And a way to prime the cases. There are cheap and slow ways to do this but the really best way is to use a hand held priming tool from RCBS, Lee or Hornady. I have used the Lee and the RCBS and have read good things about the Hornady. I have worn out a few Lee Priming tools and so now use the RCBS, their lifetime "we'll fix it or replace it" policy is comforting, and I've had to use it. Of course I wore it out back when I was shooting hundreds of rounds per week but still, for the price of postage it wasn't bad.

 So, let's make some practice ammo! Take your block of canning wax and warm it up a little. Note! If you are shooting a short cased round like the 9mm or .380 acp you will need to make a shallow box of some kind, line it with wax paper and melt the wax into a sheet thin enough to not be so thick the case won't go through. Revolver cases like the .38 Special and .357 Mag, .44 Sec and Mag, .45 Colt, etc are long enough to go through the block, you'll want that shallow box later, though.

 Now you have to warm the wax enough to make it a little soft. In the summer you could just sit it in the sun or give it a little time in the microwave, run it under the blow drier, in the winter set it over the heat register, just figure out a way to where you can push the cartridge case through. Here you see the advantage of having a block of cases going through at once. You can push fifty cases through in the same time you can push one case.

 Obviously the case has to go all the way through the wax, otherwise you have fifty cases stuck in a block of wax. Once you've done that take a new pencil or a dowel or something and push the wax bullet down in the case until it stops. Then prime the cases. You must prime the case last so the air in the case doesn't compress when you put the wax bullet in and then the compressed air pushes the bullet out. Wax bullet loads aren't crimped in nothing holds it in except friction. Friction will keep it in there through all kinds of normal, and some abnormal, activities. Now you're ready to shoot!

 The best thing to use as a backstop is a big piece of scrap carpet. Put a big piece of plastic underneath to catch the bullets when they fall. You can actually melt the used bullets in that shallow box, along with the scrap wax from making the bullets and use it over and over again. Line it with wax paper, take the sheet of wax out, peal the paper and, viola!

 Now the only downside is that these wax bullets strike the target low as there is no recoil lifting the muzzle. Take a large sheet of paper and put a target near the top, shoot a group carefully and then use two targets, one to aim at, one to record the hits. Of course for fast draw practice, if you care to do that, it doesn't matter, a situation where a fast draw matters the target is so close that there won't be much difference.

 As you can guess the wax bullets work better, or at least faster, in a revolver. They will work in an autoloader but they will have to be fed in, one at a time into the chamber and then they won't have the whatittakes to eject without racking the slide.  Still, after you prorate the gear, you can practice for less than a nickle a shot. At home.

 Now when using wax practice ammo in town it's very important to shoot it in a place where there is no :real: ammo. That piece of scrap carpet won't stop a service round. Check it twice, then check again. Cleaning the barrel and cylinder (if any) is essential after shooting a batch of these but is very easy. A patch or two with any normal solvent, a dry patch and then an oil patch followed by a dry patch and, you're done.then return the firearm to your preferred state of readiness.

 Try to avoid shooting yourself or your little brother. Those wax bullets raise one big bruise right through a pair of blue jeans.



 *Not that there is anything wrong with that.

They Asked For It, We Got It.

  The small enclaves that run the country got uncontrollable power yesterday. We will see that red-blue map of the counties, nationwide for a while. As long as it takes for another "Justice" or two to be nominated by our new President For Life. He will appoint a few more "Czars" and pass a bunch more Executive Orders and we will all become "citizens" like those in Staten Island.

 Congratulations, America. Every right you had as a citizen is now a privilege to be dispensed or withheld by a loving executive appointed by some faceless group in Washington.

 The EPA will bankrupt coal and strangle other useful forms of energy. Those so smart folks will do utterly stupid things like destroying the Hetchi Reservoir out in California and then wonder why San Francisco is out of water. We already see how some two inch minnow is far more important that the farms that supply so much of the world's fruits and vegetables. What are we going to eat? Who cares, the world is overcrowded.

 Happy on your private property? Remember Kelo. Think your gun will protect you? Remember George Zimmerman. Remember that the Second Amendment was affirmed by a five to four majority and we have some very old Justices on the Court who will be retiring (or dying) replacements nominated  by whom?

 The swarm of new taxes is coming, our medical system is now being destroyed and and there is nothing we can do about it. And now, there is no place for us to go. There is no Galt's Gulch. My grandchildren will see the destruction of America and there is no bet that the replacement will be an improvement.

Stupid Computer

 Still haven't figured out why my computer won't start. I found one of the "F" keys , either F8, F9 or F10 that lets me run a bazillion different tests but, so far, the thing keeps going "Your computer restarted unexpectedly, click okay to continue installing Windows" So I click okay and then the same thing happens.

 Oh well, I'm going to keep running tests and maybe one will do the trick. Each test takes about one of the skinny Louis L'Amour books. Trouble is, I can't tell one test from another, I may be running the same one over and over, kind of like what the infernal machine is doing to me.

 I have things I'd want to say about what is going on in the country but well. all I really know is we must throw out this clown car regime this fellow Barry is allegedly running. He's a mouthpiece for Jarret and SHE has Soros' hand so far up her butt that he makes her lips move by wiggling his fingers.

 Well, Tuesday is our last chance, I don't think we will have anything left after four more years of this crowd. I don't think they want anything left but helpless peasants begging for alms.

Broke My Computer

 I was told that if I put the dic that restored only the factory progams into my big Dell Studio I could then add the programs to do everything it was supposed to do. So I put that disc in and followed all the directions and then it restarted. Only thing is that now it's saying "your computer restarted unexpectedly. Press okay to restart your computer and continue to install Windows." So I press Okay and it says"your computer restarted unexpectedly" etc, etc. And no matter how many times I unplug it and then try again I get that same message.

 Does anyone have an idea? Um, an idea about the computer, not that, Harv!

Primer And ammunition Prices To Rise At Month's End.

 I was reading around the various gun blogs the other day and saw where the price of primers are going up. And since primers are a vital part of centerfire cartridges, ammo prices will also increase. There are a whole slew of Federal agencies that have been granted no law enforcement powers by the United States Constitution buying bazillions of rounds of fighting ammo. This does make me wonder, just whom are they planning to fight.

 Still, the various ammo and component factories are already at full production. No one is willing to build a new plant until we get our politicians under control. If we can. So, no increase of production, increased demand equals rationing by price.

 So I get paid before the end of the month. I'm buying a mess of primers.I've got plenty of powder, a few hundred pounds of lead. Primers are the key part of a cartridge. The cases can be used multiple times, I have handgun cases I've loaded a dozen times. On or two max loads and then milder loads until the case mouth splits. And with a little care, that's a long time. 

 Powder prices will probably also increase but a big canister will last for a long time.

 I've mine the backstop for spent bullets and dropped them into the cold melting pot. When they finally melt the dirt and any copper jacketing floats to the top and is skimmed off. A fingernail sized lump of wax or bullet lube helps with that. The fluxing agent helps the tin in the bullet alloy stay mixed. Drop the fluxing agent in, stir well and then skim.

 Don't roll your own? Well, get ready for another shortage.

Michelle O Says We're In The Middle Of A Giant Recovery.

 Who knew? There is a whole new industry growing by leaps and bounds, though. The theft of copper wire and other saleable items from abandoned houses. And stealing stuff from farms, although that isn't quite so common here where we're still allowed to shoot the buggers.

 Lord, these Obamas are dumber than a box of gravel.

A Quick Survey Of The .22 LR Ammo On My Shelf.

 I like my Ruger 10-.22. I actually bought a Shilen match stainless barrel and a Hogue overmolded stock when I didn't even have a 10-.22. I rectified this, back before the prices of anything that would go BANG went through the roof.  Then I went through the action and put everything but the bolt and trigger guard in with Voltquartsen parts and turned that $75.00 used clunker into a four hundred dollar tack driver.

 It is very easy to swap the barrel and stock. One screw to remove the stock and two allen bolts for the barrel so I have fired it in both configurations with much of the ammo. Then I had my son in law, Dean, slice a couple of one inch sections off the factory stock so his oldest boy ( and, soon the next one) can shoot it. As those boys grow the one inch sections will be put back on. It won't be as pretty but then I'm used to that.I never did get as purty as Mama wanted me to be.

 The carbine wears a Weaver 2-7X rimfire scope and sometimes I switch out and put the 36X target scope on, not very often anymore as I seldom go to that range with the big concrete shooting benches anymore.

 Now the ammo.  With either barrel it is best to avoid the unplated rounds. The combination of the waxy lube and the unplated lead bullets working through that semi-auto action means that I often had to strip the action down for detail cleaning. Otherwise, frequent jams and failures to feed and eject, Too bad, most of the real match ammo is plain lubricated lead. I'll mention some I've tried and used.

 I bought two five hundred rounds bricks of Aguila ammo, they have many different styles, I have used the Super Extra high speed 40 grain solid point and the 38 grain hollow point. Both these rounds are as accurate as I can shoot from any normal shooting position with the hunting scope. They give up a little off that big concrete bench with the 36X scope, not much, say one inch at fifty yards instead of the half inch that real match ammo can do. The downside is that with that tight match chamber and the custom extractor the empty cases start sticking once I've fired it some and the gun starts getting a little dirty. A pass or two with the bore snake and then all is well. Other ammo does this as well, with only a couple that seem to shoot all day.

 I did try one fifty round box of their 60 grain bullets. At 25 yards they shot well. At fifty yards they were starting to tumble in flight. Those bullets are made for a faster twist. Actually if I really cared about the Armadillos around or if I had a hen house I would probably keep some of these on hand. Not many bullets will expand big enough to leave as big a wound channel as a bullet turning sideways. Now a tumbling bullet is a no no for big game because the tumbling bullet can veer off course. A fox or raccoon isn't big enough for that to matter.By the time that .22 bullet has gone far enough to be far off course, it has done it's work.

 CCI.: This is the champ in the match barrel with the lower powered hunting scope.I never have a failure to feed, fire, extract or eject with the 36 grain mini mag hollow point. And it is accurate enough for any small game  or varmint out as far as I would care to shoot a .22. Come the apocalypse I'll keep myself fed with the bunnies and squirrels that live out here, and the turkeys, too. If Bingo T. Pug or Cochise' Apache Princess would ever learn to retrieve I could add ducks to the list.

 The CCI Minimag 40 grain plated solid point feeds and fires just as well, it might even be just a tick more accurate, not enough to matter unless I was shooting targets for money. The hollowpoint is better for game.

 The CCI Blazer ammo is minute of small game accurate, the downside is the unplated bullet. Unless you really get off on detail stripping the action, only to have to do it again in another fifty to a hundred rounds you'll save that stuff for a bolt action, or a single shot or revolver.

 The CCI Stinger ammo shoots well in my rifle in both configurations. It feeds fires, extracts and ejects just fine. The downside is that it's some noisier and it is effected more by the wind. It also ruins more meat. I have some around still, I'm not sure why. I ought to shoot it up. Oh well, I'll save it for the raccoons in the hen house, if I had a hen house.

 CCI has about eleventy other types of .22 LR ammo that I simply haven't tried. I'll stay with the Mini Mag hollowpoint when it comes to CCI.

 Federal: I've fired many different Federal loads. The Federal Gold Medal Match Standard Velocity is the accuracy champ of all the stuff I've tried. Trouble is, the standard velocity doesn't have the oomph to always extract and eject. And the unplated bullet.  If I had a bolt action I'd have a bunch of this. Instead the less than a full box will go either I'll give it to someone with a revolver or I'll shoot it up when my carbine is due for it's semi annual detail strip, clean and lube.

 The Federal Champion value pack of 525 rounds of plated lead hollowpoints is nearly as good as the CCI. The bulk packaging keeps it from being just as good, a few rounds of every brick seem to get damaged in handling and transit. Still, even if I had to throw away 25 rounds of every brick it's still be cheaper than CCI. It's good stuff. Just be willing to sit under a good light and examine the rounds, one by one.The Federal Gameshock plated 40 grain solid and the 38 grain hollowpoint are a little more expensive but are very good in my rifle. Any of the plated high velocity rounds will work well for anything I wanted to do with a .22.

 Remington: I have a couple of thousand bulk pack plated high velocity hollowpoints on my shelf. I buy it when it's on sale. It isn't as accurate as the CCI or Federal. And it will fail to extract or eject when the chamber starts getting dirty. A pull or two with the Bore Snake fixes that.

 When I say it isn't as accurate I mean I can tell the difference from a sandbagged rest or even from prone with a loop sling. Off hand or kneeling I can't shoot well enough anymore to prove the difference. Perhaps someone younger could. Still not too may younger guys anymore were in the NRA Junior divisions and on their high school rifle teams. Yeah, we had them and no, we didn't shoot up the schools or do drive by shoots. Instead we drilled and practiced in prone, sitting, kneeling and off hand. With both loop and hasty slings. Mayor Bloomberg would have had the vapors.

 I still have a couple of boxes of Remington Standard velocity. This is unplated so the same caveats apply. And the Standard velocity doesn't eject well. This would be fixed by a weaker, target mainspring but then the high velocity rounds would batter the action. Still, with all that, it was really accurate. I'll still not buy any more for this rifle. If Santa ever brings me one of the .22 single shot bolt action target rifle from my youth, though...

 Winchester: My very favorite round in Winchester is the hard to find 40 grain plated DynaPoint. That odd, small hollow point opens up fine on game and although it's a tad slower than the normal high velocity it's still stout enough to work the action and in some barrels it's slow enough to not be supersonic. As a matter of fact it's subsonic in the factory barrel of this rifle and barely beats super sonic in the Shilen. Why does this matter? Half the noise from a .22 is the CRACK! of the bullet breaking the sound barrier. This matters if I'm not wearing plugs or muffs. It matters even more to those shooting with a sound suppressor. which I don't.

 The Winchester Super X high velocity 37 grain plated Hotpoint is my second favorite Winchester round in this rifle. It is just as accurate but a tiny bit more wind sensitive. It shoots a couple hundred feet per second faster. The bad news is that the bullet doesn't seem to open up as fast as the Dyna Point. This is a plus on edible game, not quite so good on smaller varmints. Both of these rounds feed, fire, extract and eject every time, a lot of .22 ammo doesn't.

 The Winchester plated 40 grain high speed hollowpoint is just a tic or two less accurate my my heavy barrel. Please do not ask why.Barrels are like a high maintenance redhead, you never really know what they're gonna like.It ain't really like I can shoot so well, away from a sandbag rest, anymore to really prove the difference. And your barrel may like something else, anyhow.

 The 40 grain plated round nosed high speed solid point works just as well and shoots just as accurately. If I were out trying to murder poor little tin cans or dirt clods I'd use this ammo as soon as I'd use anything else.

 The bulk pack 36 grain plated hollowpoint is like the Federal or Remington bulk packed ammo. A few rounds in every big box will be trash from bouncing around in trucks and railcars. Bulk packed ammo used to have more failure to file episodes that we see now although bulk pack will still give some. The priming compound is dropped in the case and then the case is spun around so the priming goo gets centrifuged into the rim. Then it dries. Then the powder goes in and the bullet is seated. Some companies are a little less careful with the spinning. And then the bulk packaging gives it more of a chance for some, or all of the compound to be knocked out of the rim.
 The main problem with bulk pack is on the other end, though. The heeled bullet isn't in there really firm and so the bullet can, and often does, get knocked a little cattywampus.

 This is why bulk packed ammo is seldom as accurate as that in the fifty or hundred round boxes. Those fancy plastic boxes that have the rounds point down and not touching anything are the best thing to maintain an already accurate round as the bullets do not get knocked around. Bulk packed for plinking.

 If I were ever to have to have only one firearm, well I think it would be this .22. I could hunt small game and, yes, defend myself. I wouldn't choose a .22 long rifle to take to battle but then my battle days are long behind. And if I had a couple-three of those new Ruger BX-25 25 round magazines loaded with hollowpoints I'd be far from naked. The .22 isn't the perfect defense round but I know of no one who would gladly stand in a rainstorm of them. One thing about them is that they will stay in the body or skull, the skin is (usually) too elastic to let them out. So it goes and hits the skin or skull, or ribs or just about any bone and then just bounces around.

 The bad news is that there is almost no shock so those who must depend on a .22 should act like a big city cop and empty the magazine. Then reload and, if necessary, empty it again!

Well Joe, You've Got The Hard Part Done, You've Got It Talked About.

 Last night's "debate" beminds me of back when I was in the Service. Some twerp would be loudly and profanely telling someone how he was going to kick his hiney and that some one would quietly say "you got the hard part done, you got it talked about". Oddly, that was often the end of it, although usually if it came to blows the loudmouth would lose. Of course it's also possible that Biden listened to Algore and decided that he would not fall prey to the high altitude so he sucked on a bottle of Nitrous Oxide thinking it was oxygen. It ain't like he's the brightest of all God's little door prizes. That's an explanation. Stupidity, poor manners and laughing gas. That's Joe!

 Meanwhile the Twitterverse is full of folks saying "If Romney wins imma gonna riot!" Um, go ahead. Citizens learned from the Rodney King riots. Unarmed people had their homes and businesses trashed and burned. Armed people did not have their homes and businesses trashed and burned. People like to claim that the big surge in gun buying happened during Clinton and then continued. Um, no, it's people folks learned from those riots. So, go ahead. Riot. Remember your buckshot proof BVDs.

 I do not really understand the hatred from the left.Biden made no coherent points, he just giggled and tried to bully. The "moderator" would not let Ryan complete a sentence. And the left is rejoicing. No one but diehard leftists thought Biden did anything. Meanwhile undecideds were repulsed. Do we really want a babbling bully a heartbeat away from the Presidency? I don't.  Biden bullying Ryan is a nonsequiter anyway. Biden depended on Ryan being the adult in the room. Had Ryan stooped to Biden's level Ryan would have turned Plugs upside down, put his feet in his armpits and ridden him like a pogo stick.

 This is the M.O. of the left. Their very lives depend on the decency of their victims. Trouble is, they're betting on a losing horse. They are now endangering our children and grandchildren.  There is a reason that the outlaws of the old west never managed to "tree a western town". It is our side that has the veterans. It is our side that has the working LEOs. It is our side that has the hunters. And they're trying to bully us. I'm asceered! Mommy! Yeah, right.

Believing Your Own Press Releases

 Well, here it is, Saturday and the Blogosphere is still afire with Wednesday's big debate debacle for Obama. I think I know why he failed so badly.

 To begin with, Obama is only moderately smart. Okay, he's not dumb as a post but he ain't near as smart as the lefty blowhard media types want to say. He's maybe got a 115 or 120 IQ and not much intellectual curiosity. What he does have is a certain facile charm and an ability to sound off with slogans. I seriously doubt that his personal library is as well stocked as my late mother and stepfather's who were a railway clerk and a railway trainman. Yet as I was growing up they took me to museums, zoos and other places where I was forced to see (and think about) something besides  what really interested a boy from the fifties and sixties.

 I always read about how they take their kids, Malaria and Squamous on big fancy vacations, do you ever read about them taking those girls to the Smithsonian? I do not believe either Barry or Mich' care about things outside their own comfort level. There is a phrase I remember from somewhere, I don't recall where. All I remember is that some famous guy was failing and one observer said "He (or she?) believes his own press releases. In other words, Obama has started (and I don't know how long ago) to believe his own hype. He thinks he is The Lightbringer. When actually everything he has promised has turned to sh, um, fertilizer. Obama is surrounded by people that actually believe communism would work, if only the right people (them) were in charge. People very much like them believed that if only Stalin knew... as the pistol bullet went into the back of their necks.

 Obama lives in a bubble of his own making. Inside that bubble they squawk about how much they care about the poor while they give half a billion dollars to Solyndra. They congratulate each other on their lack of racism while their policies have black unemployment at double white unemployment, and black youth has a rate of fifty percent.

 Later, after some sleep: So I flip to Ace of Spades and notice that there is a post about Romney not being qualified to be President because he is only worth 250 million..Others in the same line of work as Bain Capital are worth far more. Meanwhile the WaPo shows no interest in how Grubby Harry Reid is a multimillionaire with never had earned $200,000 a year on a government salary. Um, Wapo? Governor Romney built Bain Capital and then went into public service, just as that industry took off, big time. There is also the little matter of the charities. I would really like to know if there is even one active Democrat who has ever given so high a portion of his income to real charities. Well, Soros gives a bunch to "charities" like Media Mutters. How much of HIS income goes to heal the sick and comfort the really poor?

 Oh well, time for me to do something else. In a sane world there'd be a bounty on the big Dems. The big unions that help themselves at the expense of the workers and their businesses. Linda Lou was a member of one of the postal unions, never once did her union give a nickle to the political candidates she supported and her pension is peanuts. Of course she was only a Federal Employee and not civil service. Yet they had millions for lefty Dems.  Meanwhile the Teamsters support the Party that puts "bumps in the road" in front of those trying to make a living in trucks.

 Ah, a pox on all those national Dems.

 Meanwhile I have about given up on trying to fix this computer until my son in law and family come out sometime during the third weekend of the month. Maybe he can figure it out. As we can see, I can read and type here. I have put a DVD of a movie into the slot and up popped True Grit, the John Wayne one not that new one. I dug through a ton of stuff and found the big speakers that came with this computer for I had lost the sound, only to discover that I had the old speakers plugged into the wrong jack. Oh well, I through a bunch of old crap away and discovered most of a box of Federal Gold Medal Match .22 ammo. So not all was lost.
  So, anyhow the 'puter will play a DVD movie but won't play any vids off the net. Sigh.

Going To Be Out Of Pocket For A While

 I am going to be pretty much away from the Internet soon, over the next few days. I got this fancy (and expensive) new dish to pull the magical Internet from the sky. Well, somehow I've lost the ability to view any You tube or any clips from news sites or even www.nakedchubbygirls.net.

 and the clips and such are why I got the fancy new dish. So the guy from the company came out and said it's not the dish, it's something in my software. He said  it's like maybe I have too many choices to run them on and the poor computer can't figure out which one. So I've been taking programs out, so far no joy. I got it as far as taking Adobe out. So then I looked a a post at Pamibe's spot and it told me I had to Have Adobe so I clicked to download it and lo and behold it still says I have to download Adobe. Poo.

 So, anyhow I'm going to be fighting with this 'til I somehow get it right. Worse, the laptop won't start so I don't even have that during the fight.Foo.

 The good news is that Mitt won tonight. Can't wait to see how the MSM tries to spin this.

Forty-Seven Percent For Mitt

 There is a whole lot of hooraw about Mitt Romney's talk about the 47% of people who get some form of government help. Well, my Linda Lou and I are both drawing social security now and it is the major part of our income. We are also on Medicare, of course and sometimes we must use the county's senior citizen bus service.

 Our individual pensions are small enough  that we no longer pay income tax, the main "tax" we pay today is the steady erosion of the dollars in our fixed income. The neighbor lady next door is in the same fix. The three of us would be proud to pay an income tax on our small incomes if only the damned government would stop inflating the currency so much that our planned retirement of genteel poverty became one of abject poverty.

 This is the reason that all three of us plan to pull the lever for the Romney-Ryan ticket. I may bee very wrong but I do not believe that Romney talking about how 47% don't pay income taxes is a gaffe. After all we payed a lot of taxes during our working lives. and had we been able to invest that percentage of our wages into something beside a politician's promise we would probably be a lot better off than we are today.

 I do not know that we will be better off under Romney/Ryan. I do know the crowd in Washington now is killing us.

 And the heroic watchdogs of the press are basking in the sun, thinking that Joe Biden is smart. And thinking that Obama has a plan to keep the Mideast from boiling over. God help us.

Talk Like A Pirate Day, 2012

 Well, I once had a puppy named Pirate but he was run over by the cokehead that used to live down the road.  He was a sweet boy, named because he had a big ol' black eyepatch. Other than that I have no particular love for pirates and still believe they should all be dropped overboard when caught. Or bombed. Or shot. Or burnt alive with blowtorches, starting at the toes.Or dropped in the woodchipper.

 Still, if one wishes to talk like a pirate, today is the day. I mostly talk like I'm irate.

 Speaking of irate, I got a new ISP, well I think it's an ISP. I'm not much better at computer talk than pirate speak. At any rate I had Verizon satellite and then all of a sudden my Verizon bill was over 400 dollars. Seems that, unbeknownst to me, there was a big price to pay for watching too much video. So I went to my sat TV provider and they sold me a ViaSat Surfbeam 2 with a big ol' dish and everything. Now I can't use U tube or any other video, which was kind of the point of the whole thing. and I don't know why. I wonder should I try to clear out everything and then redo all the original discs? Or what. Arrr! There, I talked like a pirate.0

Profiles In Cowardice

It's hard to get straight what is happening over in North Africa and the Mideast right now. A few things have come out. Seems that the Egyptian Embassy of the United States of America put out a statement condemning the free speech of a group of Americans. Silly ol' Mitt Romney thinks that the First Amendment means that the United States Government, in all it's branches should support the rights of Americans, attacked this statement. Because there seems to have been an agreement to not campaign on 9/11 he put an embargo on the publication of his statement.

 Then the Religion of Peace attacked two of our embassies and, according to the Obama Relection Campaign and it's willing allies in some sections of the Republican Party and just about all to the DNC Propaganda Team that was once known as the Free Press decided that it was much better to talk about Romney's "gaffe" than the reports that United States Ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, required the Marines on duty to have no live ammunition. Now this is being disputed but there is precedence: In 1983 the Marine guards in Beirut were not allowed to have loaded magazines in their rifles. I'm not sure that the 5.56 rounds would have stopped that truck full of explosives  but I know that I would rather die shooting than fumbling with a mag, trying to chamber a round so that I could try to shoot.

 Worse, I beleive that the Marine guards in embassies do not carry rifles, or semi-auto pistols. At least they used to carry those nonthreatening S&W .357 Mag revolvers, which are even slower to load than magazine fed weapons. Don't get me wrong, I'm a revolver man but (a), mine is loaded and (b) I'm not likely to face mobs. An American embassy in a foreign land is American soil. If I were in charge of the security in an embassy I would want something belt fed. And lots of claymore mines.

 Then, again, the whole setup for guarding embassies has been wrong for decades. The Marines chosen for that duty are really chosen for their looks and "military bearing". Now a wonderful spit shine and a perfecly straight gig line are nice, sure. A ramrod up the butt makes for a really nice posture when it's time for inspection, and an embassy Marine is always on inspection. Meanwhile what they need are a few of those slouching, sleepy looking fellows from the rear ranks that have poor military bearing but have proven to be really good at killing bad guys.  Can't have that, though, it's undiplomatic. It would be really nice if someone in the United States Government would realize that diplomacy has failed when the bad guys are torching the effin' embassy. When they're shooting RPGs the time to talk has passed.

 I also find it very interesting that Eric "we are cowards for not talking about race" Holder's "Justice" Department has already announced the real name and criminal record of the fellow who led the syndicate producing this movie that the ROP types claim to be objecting to. Too bad they couldn't find out who authorized Fast and Furious. I wonder did Mr. Holder give directions to this guy's house and pictures of his wife and kids?

 Meanwhile the people who stormed the Consulate seem to have taken a lot of information out of it, including, I've read, lists of the Lybians working with Americans. I'm sure they did all this because they were butthurt over a video no one has seen.

 So, we don't have enough will to protect our people. And we don't have an administration smart enough to know that when they go around blowing up various Jihadi leaders with Hellfire missiles from drones that the Jihadi  followers might just get sorta mad and rush us on 9/11. And the DNC Propaganda wing, once known as the free and independent press, blame it all on Romney.

 Sure is a damned shame that President Romney let this happen. He should not have skipped his Presidential Daily Brief and gone to Las Vegas to campaign. Oh, wait.

 Speaking about being cowards for not talking about race, just how far back has this collection of thieves and fools set racial relations back, anyhow?

A Non-Shooting And Only Partially Political Post About Spam.

 Yesterday was Sunday. I am of the age where I only get to eat eggs and stuff for breakfast once a week, or less. Getting old ain't for the fainthearted. So, anyhow I had a block of Monterrey Jack cheese so figured on a cheese omelet. Trouble is, the bacon had sat in the fridge for so long that it wasn't looking too good. That's another thing my Docs don't like me to eat often. Foo.

 I usually have one of those football hams every month, one big ham and sweet 'tater dinner and then some sammiches, some potato, ham and onion hash and ham'n'eggs. Trouble is, it wasn't time for the football ham yet, especially after the Saturday Brisket (more on that coming up).



 So, no ham, no bacon. I had some of those Little Sizzlers with Maple flavor but they don't really go with that flavor of omelet so I went into the emergency stash. You see, I live out here in the country where it's easy to lose electricity so I keep my propane tank mostly over half full and plenty of canned stuff. I was also the child of folks who went through the Great Depression. Lastly I am a man who was in the Service in the '60s so I ate a lot of Spam.

 Speaking of eating Spam, you know how to spot a phoney? That's someone screeching about "the working class" who does not have a few cans of Spam squirreled away. Now, of course, a lot of folks who used to be poor don't eat it anymore but they ain't the folks talking about the workers.

 So, anyhow, I always have several cans around, more during the winter when on the rare times it snows I might be stuck at home until the roads get clear. and out here in Resume Speed, that's when the ice melts. Anyhow, slice Spam thin and fry it brown and it is pretty good with eggs. Cut it into small chunks, fry it good with a big onion and some potatoes boiled enough to be soft after they too are fried and it's a meal even a plutocrat can enjoy, if he didn't know it was Spam!

 So, anyhow, the last time I was shopping I noticed a new flavor of Spam, Spam with Hormel Bacon added. So, I bought my tuna, my beef stew, my canned chicken, etc, and a can of that Spam. Well, that's what I fried to go with my omelet. Spam with Hormel Bacon is going to be included in the ememrgency stash from now on.

 What's not to like? It keeps forever, heck I ate Spam in the Service in the mid-late Sixties that was canned during WW2. Fried and drained it tastes okay and what the heck, Spam is smarter than Joe Biden and more useful than Obama. and,better looking than Debbie Whatshername Schultz.

 In other news I bought a near five pound trimmed brisket last week and oven cooked it using one of the recipes in my new cookbook. from Cookbook Resources. It's called Essential 3-Ingredient, 4 Ingredient and 5 Ingredient Cookbook. And it's 1,000 quick and easy recipes from apetizes to desserts, each with, you guessed it, only three four or five ingredients.

 We invited the twins and their kids out, only Dean and Stephanie were able, but then, with their three boys, maybe it was enough.Anyhow I used one of the three ingredient recipes, a bottle of liquid smoke rubbed in, cover with BBQ sauce and let it marinate overnight, bake covered at 275 degrees F for hours and hours, then refrigerate overnight, slice off any excess fat (no problem with that trimmed brisket)  pick the congealed  fat out of the drippings, slice, pour the dripping over and reheat.

 Easy-peasy. And it came out well. And the raw brisket was prettier than Pelosi. Ah, what a cow leaves on the pasture is prettier than Pelosi.

Grandkids, Near And Far

 Somehow I managed to get Blogger to notice these pics out of the over four dozen I put into this computer. And then Blogger decided that the album wasn't visible, after I had got these two. sometimes I hate Blogger.

 anyhow the top pic is just one of the kids at the party, the bottom kid is Josiah Dean, the birthday boy.

 If I can ever convince Blogger to find that album again I have pics of all the North Carolina boys, and a really nice couple of pis of my Mary Grace..

Clint At Eighty-Two

 The screams from the left are nearly deafening. Eastwood scored big with the empty-chair routine. Those that never watched Bob Newhart simply did not get the joke. Even those who didn't get the joke got something very important, though. They learned that one can speak against the Chicago Jeeeezus and not be struck by lightning.

 It's been a while, Obama was actually conferred lefty sainthood way back when he read a teleprompter at the 2004 Dem Convention. This false sainthood has made it impossible to ridicule this man, even at his most ridiculous. Ever wonder what the comics would have done had Governor Palin talked about the moment that the seas stop rising? What would they have said if Senator McCain had, at no small expense, cause to be erected a mess of faux Greek "marble" columns made of Styrofoam?

 We all know what those lefty "comics" would have done, yet there wasn't a peep about the feller that actually did that. Oh, sure, we blogged about it and passed Day By Day cartoons around. Yet it was all preaching to the choir, among the real mass of the country, we didn't count. If any of the comics or regular Journolists heard it the screams of RAAAAACIST! came out and we would get tied up in noting that not only were we not RAAAAACIST! but that the real racists were those who constantly noted race.

 Eastwood may have saved us from that. A smaller man could not go first in public, A small businessman would not have the freedom.  a smart man remembers not to tick off some large portion of his customer base.Airheads like Julia Roberts might completely alienate some forty-sixty percent of the public and survive, smaller acts like the Dixie Chicks couldn't.

 Well, Clint can. He doesn't have too much more time and he's wealthy enough to where he simply doesn't need the Hollywood Left. How can they hurt him? He doesn't need their money and he's already got pretty much very award there is. They can only try to vilify him and when they do that they piss off everyone who grew up on Rowdy Yates and The Man With No Name. When they claim senile dementia they tick off the single most active voters in the country, us over sixty-five.

 This goes way beyond what Eastwood said, it's what we have seen. Eastwood single-handedly got us permission to mock President Thinskin. He will not be able to handle it. When the left (and sometimes the right) hurled invectives about Dubya, he simply did not care. President George W. Bush is a man who is simply comfortable in his own skin. After all, Dubya managed to turn his life around. Dubya worships God and Christ. He went on with what he thought was right. President Obama worships his own reflection. Once this spreads out, Obama is a drunk, lying on the tracks of the Santa Fe, an accident waiting to happen. His own small nature and his hatred of ordinary people will bubble ovr.

 Yes, we're going to be called RAAAAACISTS! for it but, the word has lost it's effectiveness. Eastwood has shown that we no longer have to fear them. So we won't. It's Clint. It's the guys with the signs saying "I built this",, it's the TEA Party. We are in the American version of Berlin, 1989. And the left is powerless.

 It's not all sweetness and light, though. The left is lighting the fuse of race riots when they lose in November. The Democrats. The Party of the people. Yep. That's why they keep preaching division. We're gonna win but it won't be peaceful. Oh well, my kids have plenty of ammo.

I'm Twenty-Seven And Don't Look A Day Over Sixty-Five!

 Saturday was my twenty-seventh AA "birthday, the anniversary of my sobriety date. It was a double party, the more important part was Josiah's sixth birthday party held at McDonald's Germ Garden with about seven thousand screaming kids. I can only stand about two minutes at a time back there in Microbe Manor before I have to beat a retreat to the dubious refuge of the front of the McCafe.

 I don't really understand how the noise bothers me so much, seein' as how I'm just about deef as a post but there it is. So I shot a few pics and then went out and tried to get the laptop running. I managed to get it started and it worked fine, then I got it home and, dead, again. My new virus scan has been catching and blocking a portscan every few minutes, if I only knew what a portscan is.

 Meanwhile my big Dell has a Trojan and I don't think it's the kind sold only to prevent disease, meanwhile I don't have anywhere near the money it costs to have the professional geeks to defuse it.

 Anyhow, I'll be trying to post a few pics soon but other than that I've mostly been running from one place to another.

 Update: As often happens my dear sweet wife fell over again, getting into the house and this time she skinned her arm pretty good, causing a little bleeding. I whupped out my red bandanna to keep her from bleeding all over her clothes and, after we finally got inside, put the peroxide and anti-biotic salve on and then the band-aids. Told ya I carried bandannas for a reason! Although I really wish she'd learn to be careful.

Politics? No, Bandannas.

 I have had a bazillion political posts in my head since I last posted anything, each one half written before the next outrage hit. The main thing political is how we've become a pack, not a herd. Every time the left tries something and how desperate they seemto be. The actions against and for Chic-Fil-A, for instance. The Mitt didn't pay taxes and Mitt murdered my wife (who never had insurance under the company that was bought and closed down after Mitt had left Bain, and oh, by the way Bain was led then by an Obama bundler).

 All I really know about this year's race is that Bobo the Simpleminded could run the country better than this bunch of knaves and thieves. Whether is that clown Vice President Joe Biteme saying that Republicans want to put blacks in chains (anyone seen the black unemployment numbers lately") or King O-Bow-to -me claiming that Republicans want to deny money to "renewable energy" (Solyndra?) they are simply pitiful. And Americans have seen through them.O-bow-me will be lucky to win seven of the fifty-seven states.

 The Executive Branch of the Government of the United States of America has been reduced to a bunch of grubby bagmen and ward heelers. The only real question is if they will avoid tar and feathers.

 I read a blog post somewhere yesterday of some Japanese outfit making an electronic toilet paper dispenser and in the comments were a bunch of "what if there was a power failure while one was on the throne?" My answer is the bandanna, I never leave the house without at least two.

 And then, today we had a pair of doctor's appointments, me to have some stitches removed from the latest little skin cancer they find whenever they have a boat payment due, Linda Lou for a cortisone shots in the knee they'll rebuild next year. Well, my stitches came out no problem and I went back to pick up Linda Lou . She came out and we were walking down the hall when I noticed she had a trickle of blood coming out from under her band aid and running down her leg. A quick stop at the water fountain and the dampened bandanna solved the unsightly problem.

 Few people carry this essential tool anymore and they really should. Leave your car in a big parking lot? A bright bandanna tied to the radio antenna saves a big hassle. They are a Godsend at a wedding or funeral. I've passed them out in three directions. (Always double up for those events.)

 Separated in a crowd of some kind? A Bright red or yellow bandanna waved overhead can save a ton of frustration, even in the age of cell phones. A baby or small child running at either end? You guessed it. An emergency bandage or tourniquet? Grab a coffeepot off the campfire? Need just a little more force opening a jar? Some place between Midland and El Paso and the oil or temp light comes on?

 Power go out but you still have gas or a camp stove? Tie the right amount of coffee (or tea) into a bandanna, toss it in a pot of water and. viola! Need to wipe up a little spill somewhere that you never thought you'd see except through the service entrance? Need to sit on a bench you're unsure of? Ever had to deal with a large dead critter (or person) after it got really ripe? A little bit of gas on a bandanna  tied around one's mouth and nose prevents a big problem. This works for almost any foul smell so in case you must go downwind of an OWS crowd...

 Tie one around your neck in hot weather, not only will it keep your shirt just a tad drier and the sweat drying on the bandanna helps cool you off.

 At the rifle range in hot weather? Swab the outside of the barrel with a wet bandanna or, even better, a bunch of ice in the rag.

 City people mostly carry handkerchiefs or tissues.  Either will work for some little things. I could've wiped the blood off Linda Lou's leg with a handkerchief and then never get the bloodstain out. On that bandanna no one will ever notice. And they're cheap enough that I can give one away when needed, even to a total stranger (and I have, many times) and I never feel the pinch.

 As I say, I always carry two except when I carry more. One is always old and very soft for things like cleaning eyeglasses and such, one is always new enough to be real bright. In over fifty years of carrying them I'm still finding new uses.

Ted Cruz And His Big Win

 So Linda Lou and I went to vote today. We voted for the most conservative candidate we could find which seemed to be Ted Cruz. Now I do not know exactly how much more conservative Cruz is than Dewhurst, I do know that the second Dewhurst went into the runoffs his campaign got almost as nasty as an Obama campaign. Almost. I also know that Dewhurst was just a little too chummy with the Democrats in the Texas Senate. So, I became a Cruz man.

 Those who read this blog know that my Linda Lou is semi-crippled. We took a long time to vote, primarily because she can't hardly walk, even on her walker.  Where we had our regular primary vote the Republicans and the Democrats were separated by tens of yards, today, at a different polling place, they  were each at the ends of a fairly long table. Now because we were very slow there were some eight people behind us by the time we finished. (No one complained). None of those folks signed up on the Donk end.

 I will say this, though, the Democrats were as helpful as the Republicans were, and it took some doing to get Linda Lou off her walker and the electronic voting doohicky set up for her in the chair. I would submit that small town and country Democrats are about as conservative, and more friendly, as big city Yankee Republicans.

 So, now it's some twenty minutes to one AM and Cruz is around twelve points up. This is big. I mean big. The lord gods of the RNC had chosen Dewhurst, what is this upstart doing, jumping his place in line and who are those awful TEA Party folks to go against their choice?

 The RNC will probably not learn anything from this but that's their problem. The RNC can go the way of the Whigs for all of me.

 I didn't know a whole lot about some of the other races so I just went with the endorsements of people I trust.

 Then we ran a couple more errands. We dropped a box, one of those fake Tupperware types, of peanut butter fudge to an electrician that wouldn't take money for a Westinghouse circuit breaker we needed . He was still in his shop on a Saturday when I went to the electrical supply house that was closed. So I stuck my head in and he hado ne. I tried to give him money but he wouldn't take it. It has long been my policy that no one should ever regret doing me a favor so, since he wouldn't take money...

 Then we went to Half Price Books, spent some $96.00 and change. Praise the Lord we don't get there every week.

 And a box of CCI Mini Mag .22LR hollowpoints. I have a lot of Remington and some Winchester .22s and they shoot okay but the Mini Mags give the best groups out of the Shilen Barrel of my .22.

A Nation Of Strangers

Another mass shooting. These things never happened in my grandparents' day. They didn't have television or air conditioning, they had porches. They knew their neighbors and neighborhood.

 Over at The Ace of Spades they tout a pair of pictures, the Tucson shooter and this nut in Colorado. The expressions on those two faces are more or less identical. It's really not that hard to notice a nutcase, and today we see them all the time. Mostly wandering the streets having loud arguments with someone nobody else can see. Most are mainly just a pain in the butt, making noise, pooping in doorways, panhandling, etc.

 They would actually be better off in an institution if only we could find staff that doesn't either abuse them or ignore their needs, along with doctors that didn't believe they owned the patients for the practice of bizarre theories.

 After the left tried very hard to make the Tucson shooting a right wing plot the public eventually found out that Loughner was an apolitical nut who should have been involuntarily committed if the local law enforcement had been doing the job. He would have then had to jump through more hoops to get his gun, perhaps even discouraged by the initial official refusal.

 We will probably eventually read or hear about James Holmes, the accused shooter being somewhat strange. I've already read about "shy but intelligent". The simple reality is that no one just wakes up and decides to off a bunch of strangers. It takes time for such a mental state to grow. In the old days people would notice. As we saw in Tucson, people did notice but, again, law enforcement failed. In my grandparents' day he would have been hauled downtown, perhaps with a minor tuneup along the way. The second or third time he would have been committed.

 We let crazies roam the streets because of their "rights". Nobody mentions the rights of the people who have to put up with them. And the Loughners and Holmses have their "rights". No one mentions the rights of the folks in that theatre. The same crowd that excoriates the Second Amendment, the NRA and the Tea Party would never allow the Holmses and the Loughners to be locked up. That would be judgemental. Somehow a lack of judgement has become a virtue. No wonder we have Joe Effin' Biden as VP.

Hodgdon's Eraser 223 And A Couple Of Shotguns

 Toward the beginning of the year the Hodgdon Powder people announced, with great fanfare, a new powder geared toward the high volume semi auto rifle crowd. This powder is the right burning rate for cartridges like the .223 (5.56 NATO) and the .308 (7.62 NATO.) and suchlike cartridges. It's a little fast for my beloved .30-06.

 Hodgdon's literature ballyhoos the fact that this new powder contains a secret ingredient that reduces or eliminates copper jacket fouling. This is a big deal to folks like prairie dog shooters and the military who might find it advantages to be shooting rather than cleaning.

 Now the thing Hodgdon is not saying is that this revolutionary secret ingredient in the powder isn't the first use of such things. A couple of Alliant's powder have it and Ramshot's TAC has something doing the same thing, if not the same "secret ingredient". This isn't to say that such a thing is useless, just that it's not a brand new thing.

 I haven't been into that type of shooting, I've been out of the service for well over forty years and I don't live in Prairie Dog country. So I corespondent with a couple of pals and got some non-advertising  words about it. One Pard claims that he has two .223s one that has a rough barrel that starts losing accuracy after only around fifteen-twenty rounds, the other with a smooth tube that keeps it's accuracy through a three hundred round shoot.  This Pard claims that the rough barrel keeps it's accuracy through a hundred round test and cleans up with only a few patches wet with Sweet's 7.62 solvent where before it was a task cleaning it after only a couple twenty round mags. He also claims that this new Hodgdon powder gets awfully small groups on a paper target.

 Another Pard is a National Match shooter. He shoots the .308 and also reports good accuracy and easier cleaning.

 It's important to note that this, nor any other, powder will clean copper deposits out of a barrel, the chemistry merely helps to resist causing such deposits. Start with a clean tube. In my near dotage I shoot mostly black powder  and lead alloy "boolits" and durned few smokeless rounds except from my .22s. I still have some smokeless though. Mainly for jacketed hollowpont rounds in my defensive guns. Anyhow, if you are a high volume shooting or are simply lazy, give this powder a try, me, I'm waiting for the no-leaning ingredient black powder.

 The Savage Arms people have a couple of new pump shotguns out, geared toward the non wealthy. Each has a short barrel model available for those thinking about slingin' buckshot. Each model is under $300.00. The more interesting to me is the one with the bottom feed, bottom eject receiver like the old Winchester 12 or Ithaca Mod 37. After all, the fewer openings, the fewer chances for junk to get in and tie up the action. This model, with a synthetic stock and rifle-type sights has an MSRP of 270.00

 The other one is a side eject gun like the Mossberg or Remington 870. With that odd pistol grip hanging down and only a bead sight it has an MSRP of $235.00. Each has several variations, including at least one switch-barrel, giving the owner a chance to switch from a bird gun to a defense gun. Anyhow, one can look at www.SavageArms.com There is a real advantage to having at least a couple knock around guns where a scratch or ding won't bring tears.

Yankee DoodleDandy

 Stephanie and Dean's youngest, Karson had his birthday party on the fourth, we drove up and sang "Happy Birthday" and watched the pinata and opening of the presents. The kids broke a pinata, a good time was had by all.

Still Alive, Still Offline

Still offline until we pay the Verizon bill. Just a note to say that we're both still okay. It's funny. between our insurance and Medicare we pay nothing for doctor visits and hospitalisation. Yet the hospital is so durned far away that it's put us way behind. Oh well, we're muddling through. A couple more months and we're gonna be caught up.

 When I get back to typing on a real keyboard I'll have to write a bit about a new powder from Hodgdon, CFE223. A pard of mine has been using it and gave me a nice report. Also I have to mention the new Stevens shotguns, built for defense and very inexpensive.One lists for less then $250.00 and has bottom feed and eject like the old Model 12 Winchester or the Ithica Mod37. Very handy in inclement weather, And it's got the sights for hunting with slugs , just in case you have any venison in thick cover.

 Meanwhile the Supremes will announce if we are free people or live at the beck and call of the Nanny Bloombergs of the world. It's really long past time we told all those nannies that we are grown ups and don't need or want them. What would happen if everyone in New York brought their own great big cups, bought two 16 ounce sodas and poured them into their own big cups? Then carried them to city hall? It's really about time for around ten thousand folks to pull a LEAVE US ALONE Rally.

 Anyhow I hope to be using a keyboard again, soon so, until then, Adios

My Intertoobz Is Broke!

 In case anyone has wondered, I"m offline at home until payday. Something about bein' poor. The good news is that the running water in our house has been fixed. Seems that we had a big rainstorm and water started pouring out of the ceiling in our master bath. Well, I said an ugly word, put a trashcan under the leak and then said another ugly word. Unfortunately the water continued to pour after the rain had stopped. Turn out the water was coming from the stand-alone shower, running up the wall at high pressure and then down. I finally got it capped off. No shower anymore but We never use that shower anyway, now that we've gotten so fat.

 So, anyhow, see you after payday when we can pay the Verizon bill. I'll mostly be washing and drying wet stuff from the flood.

They Hardly Ever Visit Anymore

 Memorial Day. It started, contrary to Yankee lies in the south, the old Confederacy. There was no attempt by the Reconstruction gang to do anything about the graveyards filled with the Confederate dead, the surviving family members started out decorating the graves after cleaning up the weeds and trash that collects.

 Then the whole towns started in. There were graveyards everywhere and a family from, say, Arkansas with a son, husband, brother or father who died outside of Richmond could know that their family member was taken care of while they cleaned up a grave of a soldier from Georgia.

 This spread all 'cross the Nation, Lord knows there were plenty of graves. Some six hundred thousand American dead when in 1870, while memories were still fresh, the whole population was only thirty-eight million.

 Fast forward to my war in the 1960s. I saw my first war death on May the Seventh, 1965. A Marine somehow fell off the net while climbing from the troopship to the landing craft. He managed to fall between the ship and the boat and the weight of all the crap they made us carry sent him straight to the bottom. His was not nearly the last death.

 Some fifty eight thousand of us died for no good reason. God only knows how many uf us died too early after our tours.Cancer from the Agent Orange, PTSD, , pain from wounds, depression. Many of us were literally in the war one week, flown home and separated from active duty and back in our hometowns the next.It was jarring.I left the US near the end of '64 or the beginning of '65. We were supposed to go on some amphibious exercises on the Siver Strand beaches of Coronado, California and then in Hawaii. We did all that and then were supposed to come back to Pendleton. Somehow the Sun was in the wrong place, though and it didn't take long before we figured out that we were heading almost due west, into the Sunset like Roy Rogers.

 Next thing I knew we were in Okinawa. My next stop, Chu Lai.

 This day isn't about me. It's about the young men who flew home in shiny aluminum boxes. Yet it's about me, too. How those young men would visit me almost every night that I didn't drink myself to sleep. I don't do that anymore, I hardly think about it. When I do think of them it isn't like it used to be, they do not look at me accusingly.

 I do not believe it is possible to do enough for those young men. And I wonder. Did the young men of The War To End All Wars have their buddies visit them?Or today's kids from Iraq or Afghanistan? Do those young men (and now, women) drink themselves to sleep?

 It took a couple-three years of sobriety through the 12 step program for me to finish exorcising my demons.Twenty+ years after the first landings at Chu Lai. I pray today's kids don't take that much time.



 

Kimberlin

 The country is full of ex-cons and I do not mean former conservatives. There are far too many process crimes and men and women like Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart who ended up not guilty of the crime they were suspected of but guilty of misspeaking to a federal investigation.

 There are real criminals out there, though, people like Brett Kimberlin, the Speedway Bomber, convicted of bombing in the Midwest, and the jailbird behind the "I supplied cocaine to Dan Quayle" lie.

 He's still at it, conducting "lawfare" against anyone bringing up his criminal past. I've been too busy the last week or so to pay a lot of attention but, apparently, Stacy McCain, who is The Other McCain of the conservative Blogoshere. For some reason blogger keeps putting www.blogger in front of my lame attempts to create a hyperlink but, heck, if you don't know Robert Stacey McCain, how did you get here.

 Anyhow, Patterico is blogging about this, the Puppyblender is blogging about this and McCain is hiding out.There are about a bazillion conservobloggers mentioning this and now I have too.

A Little Of This, Some Of That

 Midway USA has a monthly flyer and you can find them on the Intertoobz.  There are a few real bargains in their monthly sales. This month they have some good practice ammo like .380 brass cased Blazer ammo for $18.75 per fifty and .38 Special American Eagle for $20.49 for fifty. Good prices for some 9mmP and .357 Mag, too. I've never made, nor have I been offered a nickle from any outfit I endorse here, I just know good service and good prices. I've been doing business with Midway since around 1988 or so.

 another mail order outfit I've done a lot of business with is Graf and Sons. I buy my black powder from them and sometimes their prices on any one thing will beat Midway.  Graf's always has a lower shipping and handling charge than Midway but their prices usually runs just a tad more.

 I shoot very little factory ammo, I have a crowded and cramped little room in this house that has my computer on one desk and my reloading gear on the other, components and such on a bunch of steel warehouse shelves we've scrounged.  I do keep a few boxes of factory ammo for the defensive revolvers we live with. On the other hand only one of my .45 (long) Colts has ever had a factory round through the tube and that was because it was picked up from our oldest boy in Arizona. By the time I got home I had dies and components for it, and then the other three never had a factory round. I load my .45 Colt ammo to three levels, depending on what I'm trying to do. I load the revolvers to the ballistics of the original 40 grains of black and a 250-255 grain bullet, meaning anywhere from about 700 feet per second to about 950 fps.  And don't scoff at those 700 fps loads. Shortly after the .45 Colt was issued to the Army back in 1873 they lightened the loads.to equal the .45 S&W round, a 230 grain bullet at around 725. This is the load that conquered the Sioux and Cheyenne and, later, the Apaches. I load these rounds in both black and smokeless to those ballistics, going up to te 900+ loads when I want to play with them. The main difference between my bullets and factory bullets is that mine have a much broader flat point than factory bullets due to the fact that my bullets are cast in a mold that is designed for both handgun and tube magazine rifles and carbines.Sometimes when I'm running about places where handguns are verbotten  I'll toss one of the Colt clones into the console. If I ever have to tag something with one of those big fat soft flat point bullets it will be well and truely tagged. I know it is popular to carry something with which you could fight off an entire platoon without reloading. Horsecrap. If a problem requires that many rounds I'd be dead anyhow.

 These loads also work in my clone of the '92 Winchester. When I get home, though, I clean the thing, adjust the sights and load it up with Hornady XTP JHP bullets over a max load of either Hodgdon's H110 or LilGun. That Brazilian clone will actually move a 300 grain bullet to the same velocity as the old Remington .45-70 300 grain JHP that used to be a big staple in deer camps all over the country in the late 19th and early 20th Century. A big fat hollowpoint at 1900 fps? That'll stop anything up to Bison. And for those critters there are heavier bullets.I don't have the molds but places like Montana Custom bullets sells the heavyweights by the hundreds. Beartooth Bullets goes all the way up to 405 grain gas checked bullets, just in case there is an unexpected Rhino infestation. The 350 grain are really more practical in the .45 Colt case. And I've read that the black bear is coming back to east Texas. I wonder could I grin down a bear like Davey Crockett did?

 I only load black powder in my shotgun rounds so all of the buckshot and slug loads in the house are factory, although I do have a five pound box of Hornady buckshot I can load in my brass shotshell hulls. Shotguns being what they are I can load black powder shotshells and get the same ballistics as smokeless loads. Plus I could hide in the smoke as I reloaded the double barrel.

 There is a twenty dollar per shipment HAZMAT fee for any powder and primers so, except for black powder it usually is more economical to buy those local, except for Black. The mess of regulations and fees for BP make it really expensive to buy local. Now if I only wanted a pound it would be one thing but what handloader has ever been satisfied with one pound of powder?

 Oh, and notice that Graf's has Schuetzen black powder at $2.00 off, only 12.99 a pound. When Linda Lou can move about safely and I go back to Cowboy Action shooting It's no trouble at all to split up a 25 pound case to where everyone gets enough powder to last awhile. Now I do know a couple shooters who can burn up a 25 pound case in a year, most of us aren't nearly wealthy enough to shoot that often. I usually end up with ten pounds at a time, either buying just that amount or splitting up a case.

 If I'm looking to buy components or ammo in person I usually end up at either Southwest Ammunition Supply in Mesquite, Texas. I used to shoot at Gibson's Outpost and buy components there but now that what shooting I do is usually at the range where my Cowboy Action club is located.  Anyhow, if one lives in the Dallas area both those places are worth a visit.

 I usually buy a brick of .22 ammo whenever I slip into Cabella's or Bass Pro Shops. The only wat to have too much .22 ammo is if the steel shelf collapses under the weight. I have two kinds of Remington, some CCI MiniMag hollowpoints, some Winchester and two kinds of Agulia. I'm out of Federal so that's on the list.The stock barrel on my little Ruger will eat anything. The match chamber on the Shilen barrel is somewhat more fussy.It likes the CCI and Remington hollowpoints, oddly the Remington match ammo has a little trouble. It likes the Winchester Power Point ammo better than the hollowpoint. I've never had a bit of trouble with any Federal so far, in either barrel. I have a family of bunnies living under my deck. When they see me they just freeze, thinking I don't see them, even when I say "Hello B'rer Rabbit!" as I walk by. They are my first batch of meals, come the apocalypse.

 We're going to our son in law's graduation ceremony on Friday. Dean is getting his MBA. His bachelor's in in mechanical engineering.  He is gonna be someone important there in the ceremony because he is giving a speech. Linda Lou disremembers  the title he's been given but they don't usually let the class clown give a speech. Otherwise I would have given a lot of them when I was younger. Of course Dean studied, I majored on coeds and beer.

 Our neighbor Patsy is home from the hospital. She had something like a 90 percent blockage in her heart so they put in something called a shunt. I dunno what that is but they had to open her up, stop her heart, put in the implement, restart her heart and, I assume, sew her up. and she's already home. She says she feels a lot better but, due to the tube down her throat she's not eating solid food yet because those tubes hurt. So when I took Trespasser Dog back to her she was eating egg drop soup from the Panda Restaurant in Wills Point. That's another place I like but they don't pay me anything. Well, actually they do. You know that Chinese BBQ chicken on a stick that most Chinese eateries have? They always give me one of them in a bag for the dogs. Because we have a Chinese Pug. See, I can be bought. The usual way to a man's heart is through his stomach or points south.  I'm so durned old that the way to MY heart is through the dog's stomach. Sigh.

 It's a Texas Formal event so I have to wear long pants.

Obama's War On Black Americans

 Black Americans are about as aware of the war the Obama Administration has declared on them as was the Clinton Admin aware of Osama's war on us.

 In both cases denial has robbed them of a good look at reality. And it's a crying shame.

 Black Americans have been drafted, unbeknownst, as the foot soldiers in the Obama war on dirty colonizing America. And we know what happens to foot soldiers when led by leftists.

 The more I look at what is happening today I see the Obama/Soros Admin throwing a huge fit because Americans are rejecting them. and, like the wife beater whose family finally really tries to leave, grabs a gun and screams, "if I can't have her, no one can!" and tries to kill the family, well, black Americans are that gun.

 If Obama and his master, Soros, cared about black Americans he would have at least tried to pump some of those billions of dollars into jobs for black Americans, instead it was all sluiced into the coffers of already wealthy leftists. Solyndra, anyone? This isn't anything new, either. When Obama was Bill Ayer's lapdog in Chicago they ruled the Annenberg Challenge, a billion dollars to improve Chicago's disastrous public schools. The lion's share of that billion went to wealthy leftist academics. The schools did not improve, they got worse because of lefty programs instead of enforcing behavior that allowed students to learn.

 How about those low income housing projects championed by then State Senator Obama? the ones closed due to being substandard and unfit for habitation. Yet an already wealthy Obama supporter got even richer.

 Now I have no complaints about folks making money. If I'd have had the sense to make better choices I wouldn't be poor today. No, my complaint is that these crony capitalists have not earned money by providing a good or service for which people voluntarily pay , instead they bought a lapdog politician.

 The real tragedy for black Americans is that the Obama regime is priming them for violent unrest during the election season. He is hoping that violent unrest will scare the voters into keeping him on. He has nothing else to offer. Jobs for black Americans? No, that money went to his masters. In the antebellum south polite people called men like Obama house negros. Most folks back then used a different word. Still, the situation was the same. Use the house negros for personal gain and for their slightly improved conditions the house negros would spy and sell out the rest of the slaves. And sold out they have been. Come election season if there is violence it will drive race relations even further back. And the violence will be in the Democrat strongholds, again. The difference this time is that after the violence there will be no money left to try to rebuild, it all went to Obama's white masters.

 There is a political movement that would allow black Americans to advance. It's not that individualism cares any more for blacks than for anyone else, it just gives everyone a chance to excel. I have lived with and worked with enough black people to know that they can, it's just that they cannot with the whole Democrat Party standing on their backs.

 There are enough black Americans living in suburban Republican areas to show us which areas allow black Americans to thrive. Hint. It ain't the Democrat areas.

 I hope this makes a little sense. I have been thinking on this since Eric "my people" Holder's "Justice Dept" dropped a winning case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation. The "knockout game" played by feral "youths" has made me think more and the Trayvon Martin thing has added to it. Race relations are not my thing, really. I don't like white people anymore than I like anyone else and I don't hardly like anyone very much. I'm more comfortable with my books, my shootin' irons and my dogs, to tell the truth. Still, my grandchildren will be living in the country long after I'm gone. I'd really like them to live in a country that isn't divided up into warring tribes. I'd like them to live in a country where entire city centers are not burned out shells. And we ain't getting there with the still segregationist Democrats leading us.