Lookie here!
I found some “common ground” with the White House. Regarding the statements Pat Robertson made regarding the situation in Haiti, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said:
“It never ceases to amaze me that in times of amazing human suffering somebody says something that can be so utterly stupid,”
Amen.
A couple days ago I received notice that some of my blog content has been made part of the Personal Armament Podcast. It was my posting on the top 20 selling guns of 2009, and was part of podcast #3.
I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to the podcast (been very busy this week), but it looks like a neat endeavor.
The company I work for, they’re opening a proper office in Austin. I’m still going to work from home. Been doing it over 10 years, I see no reason to stop, especially since my home office is better set up and equiped for the requirements of my job.
However, I did discover the new office isn’t too far from GT Distributors.
“Honey…. I need to uh… go to the office (yeah, that’s it).” 🙂
People keep wondering, why carry a knife.
This morning is a perfect example.
I had to cut open 2 bundles of furring strips, a package of weatherstripping, then cut the weatherstripping to length to go on the door.
It was sure nice to have an appropriate tool on hand, sharp, ready to go, able to be easily retrieved when needed and stowed when not (pocket clip) but yet handy at all times.
And all before 9:00 AM.
I know this isn’t glamorous, but it’s a tool…. it’s just about being handy and useful. Tools are most useful and most handy when they are available and ready to go when you need them.
More from Reason, including how many millions went into the palm greasing.
Work ran long today. I was determined to finish the compliance with the new open source software usage policy, so I could get back to more creative endeavors. I’m all done save hearing back from the CTO on a couple things.
Consequently I missed my martial arts class tonight. Bummer too, as it’s weapons night.
Tonight is also the sparring class. If all goes well, I’ll have something from the UPS man in a couple days that will make that class finally happen. Details will be posted after Mr. UPS stops by.
In lieu of proper class, off to the garage I go. Going to work out on the DIY mook jong. I think I’ll stick my blue gun in the holster too for a little “cross-training”. And on all that knife blarg I’ve been writing about lately? That is one benefit to the Delica: there’s a trainer version. Hrm.
Bob S. reminds us, at least in Texas, that we’ve got an election coming up. Massachusetts has an election underway too, and JayG posts a fantastic TV ad from Scott Brown, the Republican running for the US Senate seat vacated when the “Kennedy Dynasty” ended some months ago.
I’ve shrunk away from politics a bit on my blog because I’m a little tired. Last big political issue I spoke on was the healthcare debacle and boy, what a mess that’s turned into. Sure I personally continued to pay attention and take action, but blogging is a bit of an outlet for me, not a way to continue to raise my blood pressure.
Nevertheless, it’s time yet again for us Texans, and all Americans, to get up and get going.
What got me going was this from Bob:
Now you may be asking how I can say that local elections are more important then the national ones, right?
It’s a good question and I’ll answer with a question — where do you think those candidates for national office come from?
That’s right folks, from the people elected or who have ran for local office.  So, in my opinion, it is extremely important that we get out and vote for people now – at the local level – who reflect the values, traditions and principles we want to see at all levels.
He’s certainly right about that. Most people “rise through the hierarchy” in some way. It’s important to work at this “entry level” and put the right people in office.
But there’s an even more important reason to care about your local elections.
Your local laws, codes, regulations affect your daily life far more than anything that goes on on a national level. Obama doesn’t fix the potholes in the road outside your house. When the snowplows need to roll, Nancy Pelosi has nothing to do with it. Yes, we do have to care about national (and international) politics, but it’s a sad thing that most citizens seem to only care about politics on the national scale. Hell, we have higher voter turnout for fucking American Idol than we do for the elections of our public servants. Fucking sad, people.
For you folks in Austin, are you upset about the traffic cameras? Are you upset about urban development and how it affects the Edwards Aquifer? All this is local stuff folks. Mayor, City Council, your state Representative and Senator. You need to pay attention, you need to vote for these folks as well. Care about them today to ensure you can care about your tomorrow.
Via Every Day, No Days Off a video that demonstrates grabbing the slide of a semi-automatic handgun will disable the gun.
The chambered round will of course fire, but that’s all you’ll get. As well, it doesn’t take much; he put a single finger on the back of the slide and while it hurt it was enough to disrupt the slide. Demonstrates that if you want your semi-auto to operate, the slide must be able to operate 100% smoothly and unobstructed.
From that I take two things:
That said with revolvers, let’s see if this guy perhaps makes the same sort of video with a revolver. That would certainly bring about powder burns, but I wonder if you could stop the double-action rotation of the cylinder. I’m not willing to risk my fingers/hand or revolver to find out. 🙂
After dinner last night I finished reloading 30 rounds. .223 Remington, Barnes TSX .224″ 62 grain, CCI #41 primer, used Remington brass trimmed to 1.750″, COAL of 2.250″, all with Varget powder. Started at 25.1 grain and loaded 5 rounds each at 0.1 grain increments (5 @ 25.1, 5 @ 25.2, etc.). Goal is to take the AR to the local indoor range, shoot at 100 yards for the tightest groups I can. See which shoots the most accurate and smallest group, and that will be what I settle on for my AR hunting load. To me, that will be “good enough” for taking down a Texas deer or a hog. Load up at least 50 of that one. Take it to the rifle club, put it on the chrono, and get the scope zeroed. Rifle club has 200 yard range and I should try it at 200 yards as well as that’s the maximum range at which I think this load would be OK at in terms of hunting and terminal ballistics (yeah on paper can go more, but 200 yards is the most I’d feel OK with, at least at this point).
BTW, I called Barnes a couple weeks ago to ask if they had 5.56x45mm NATO reload data. Guy on the phone said no not yet, but apparently that data is coming. Barnes website says they’re working on data manual #5 so maybe it’ll be in there. That’d be cool. Mostly it provides some known recipes, especially for flirting with safe pressures.
I bought some used .38 Special brass off a guy. Should arrive sometime this week. When I get it I’ll probably load another couple hundred rounds of my .38 Special recipe. I think the Lock-n-Load press was dropping 3.7 grains of Titegroup instead of 3.5, which likely explains why when I tried the loads they had a little more snap to them. Before I load these up I’m going to double-check all the press settings and go from there. I figure as long as the LnL is set for .38 I might as well get a few hundred more cranked out before I switch.
Because yes, I need to switch to work up a 9mm load. You see, Tom Givens of Rangemaster is returning to KR Training as a guest instructor teaching his Combative Pistol 2 course. If that course requires 1500 rounds, I need to get a load worked up and probably aim to load 2000 rounds. I need to get crankin’ on that; even with the progressive press it’s still going to take a while to crank out that many. I should have enough primers, powder, and cases, but I need more bullets. For cases, I’m going to use all the harvested range brass I have; it’s unlikely I’ll recover any brass from this class so I might as well use “throw-away” brass and reloads in the class. Keep all my new factory ammo and then “once-fired brass” for myself and use that at practice sessions between now and then. I tried Titegroup once, and that recipe was really weak, but should provide a good starting point. Titegroup jug says 4.8 grains with a 115 gr GDHP and COL of 1.125″ is a max load, so the load I had was below the 10% less starting point. If say I use my previous recipe with 4.4 grains, the gun cycles, things come out OK, I’ll probably just skip too much experimenting and go with that. I don’t need to spend forever on this one…. just need a load that runs and isn’t too ugly.
If all goes well, I can get all this done in the next week or two. The .223 loads are ready to go. .38 brass arrive this week and I can get a couple hundred rounds going fairly easily. Then do some preliminary 9mm setup and experiments. Once I have a fair lot of each load, off to the range to try them all out and see how things shake. Fun fun fun!
Had a very draining day at work today. Nothing necessarily bad, just had many things going on at once, lots of things to coordinate, people to wait on, things to do, and was doing it non-stop for a very long day.
After all was done I sat on the couch with Wife and Kids for a bit and talked, then went into the garage. I spent about 30 minutes in there taking 30 pieces of .223 Rem brass. Resize and decap. Trim. Clean the primer pocket. Debur and chamfer the mouth. Prime. Just getting the brass all ready to load my next round of .223 hunting load experiments. I’ll probably add powder and bullets after dinner.
But who knew it would be so relaxing. It was just a nice way to unwind from the day.
Stuff From Hsoi 