Dawson Precision just posted a very rough video tour of their facility:
It’s a very rough video by their own admission…. drags on a bit, the soundtrack loops too much, but ignore that and just look at the facility and how it goes in a day. Pretty neat.
I’ve been wanting to post a bunch of pictures for a while now. So hey…. let’s just put them all up in a single big post.
All pictures can be clicked upon to see larger versions.
A few shots of the various neighborhood ducks. The pictures of the ducklings are actually a few weeks old; the ducklings are all much bigger now, but still just have the downy yellow feathers.
Here’s the one mallard hen and her ducklings:
The mallard ducklings are presently going through an awkward phase, where their legs are much longer compared to the rest of their bodies. It’s rather amusing.
One of the muscovy duck hens and her badelynge:
Another muscovy and her group.
That particular one… when the USDA people came to thin the flock, they took 7 of her ducklings (she had 12, lost one somehow, and now only 4 remain). My understanding is they weren’t supposed to take ducklings….
Now with the muscovy population so drastically reduced, we’ve had more not-muscovy ducks coming around. Just yesterday a new couple showed up:
Unfortunately, that’s the best picture I could get of them. They’re very skittish and constantly moving around. We’re guessing by their behavior that the brown/white one is male and the black/white one is female, tho the black/white one is slightly larger. What gets me is I’ve never seen a duck like the black/white one. The picture does not do her justice. The feathers are gorgeous. Lots of subtle coloring. Likely some sort of mallard hybrid. I do wonder exactly what it is, but despite the beautiful plumage I know it’s not a Norwegian Blue.
For the range qualification portion of the CHL Instructor course, they held it at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Firearms Range in Florence, Texas. It was a pretty nice facility. Here’s some pictures of the pistol range that we used.
Here’s a shot of the left part of the range:
And here’s the right:
There are 60 firing positions, 6 groups of 10. The first 10 yards or so have that rubbery surface, so it’s solid but there’s some cushion; very nice if you have to be there training all day. Then you can see it’s grass with concrete sidewalks that space out other ranges (e.g. 15 yards, 25 yards). All 60 positions have target frames that can be flipped sideways so you can’t see them, and exposed for set amounts of time. The chief range officer had a remote control and a headset with microphone for giving the range commands; the speakers were also remote speakers placed on the ground every so often behind us. That setup worked quite well.
Here’s a shot of the right side, from back at the parking lot:
There’s a small building to the left, the edge of which you can see. That’s the bathrooms, water fountains, etc..
There were other ranges too, for rifle. A skeet range was also there. One thing we got a kick out of? We saw a deer feeder, and when we first arrived in the morning numerous does came out to feed. I did see some BBQ pits up in the pavilion. I guess they have some fun during the winter. *grin*
After the CHL shooting test, I visited Dawson Precision.
Now if you really want to see some pictures of their facility, check out their Facebook page.
But one thing I thought was really cool? Their range/testing room.
You see, it’s a wonderful indoor room. It has a fully capable work bench:
This way when they test out a gun, if it needs a tweak they can tweak it right there. Very nice, well thought out. The shelves on the left hold a host of different ammunition, which is all reloaded on a bunch of Dillon Precision 1050’s that are in the room off to the right. Again, all for testing the guns.
See that chair in the bottom-left corner?
That chair lets you sit at this bench:
It’s a bench. There’s a good rest on it. That big contraption on the wall? It’s a brass catcher. There’s a bucket at the bottom of it. Simple enough, you make sure a fresh empty bucket is placed at the bottom before you test. You test, then once completed you empty the bucket. Makes recycling and sorting the cases really easy. It’s really well put together.
Now, you see that window to the left? Well, if you look closely you’ll see there’s a door and hinges along the top edge. Normally it’s closed. But with the press of a button it raises up and opens out to this:
And from your air-conditioned benchrest, you can shoot all that steel. All your brass is caught. If the gun needs work, you just visit the workbench right behind you. If the steel needs to be reset (some are LaRue resetting targets), then there’s a cord/handle just above you that makes it easy to do right from the comfort of the room.
Folks…. this is awesome. 🙂
Now remember I mentioned that the front sight they installed was different from the one I already had?
Take a look:
On the left is the sight that was installed by Springer Precision. I’m not 100% sure which one it is. On the Springer Precision website work order it just says “Dawson Precision Fixed Sight SET (.100 fiber optic front) target rear”.
On the right is the one that Dawson directly sold me and installed. It is the .205 tall x .100 wide Match (used with DP Fixed Rear), item number 021-019.
I pulled out the calipers and measured. Same width, same height, just different bases. I’ll have to ask about that. I ought to be able to shoot the gun with the new sights soon.
As if I needed another reason to not want to fly any more, Delta Airlines puts kids on the wrong flights.
Kieren and the unnamed Cleveland girl were both traveling as unaccompanied minors on a flight from Spokane, Washington, through Minneapolis-St. Paul, airline spokesman Paul Skrbec told Yahoo!. At Minneapolis they were “inadvertently boarded on incorrect connecting flights as a result of a paperwork swap,” Skrbec said.
Now I admit. We’re human. Shit happens. As a parent, this isn’t the sort of shit I’d want to happen to me. But also consider that many unaccompanied minors fly all the time and shit doesn’t happen. So I grant, this is a rare event.
But what I never understood?
“We apologized to the families, re-accommodated the children to their final destination cities at no cost, arranged full refunds for the children’s tickets, provided credits to the families for future travel, and refunded their unaccompanied minor fees,” Skrbec added.
John Stossel’s latest article is titled “Free to Choose”.
I always find it interesting how the “enlightened” amongst us love the notion of choice, when it benefits them. That choice is good, when it’s a woman’s body. That choice is good, when we choose the lifestyle we lead. But then somehow choice becomes a bad thing when it comes to buying and selling goods and services. When it comes to our health, it’s bad that we’re allowed to choose (yet wasn’t it “my body, my choice”? I guess they can choose when to apply that choice.). Of course, so much of it comes down to them knowing what’s better for us — they can choose for us, because they know what’s best for us. Thank you, Mother.
But you see, the reason “free market” and true choice tends to work out better is because there are real consequences for failure. Stossel sums it up:
“The free market enables people … to trade with whomever they want; to buy in the cheapest market around the world; to sell in the dearest. … (B)ut most important of all: If they fail, they bear the cost.”
Actually, he’s quoting Milton Friedman. The point is solid: if they fail, they bear the cost.
When we look to government to solve our problems, it rarely works out. Why? Because they don’t bear the cost. Think about it. A businessman makes a bad business decision, spends all his money on a crappy ad campaign, it drums up no business for him, and he’ll go out of business. Thus why the businessman will do his best to make the right decisions up front because they don’t want to risk failure.
Ever notice when you have to turn to a government official or body for help on something, it doesn’t work out that great? Just take going to the DMV. Why don’t they care? Because even if they fail, even if all things suck, it doesn’t matter to them. They have no personal investment in the success (or failure) of the entity, of serving you, of anything. There is no choice in the matter.
So who ends up bearing the cost? I do. You do. That’s not how it should be. Yet there are those that continue to clamor for the government to solve all our ills, never thinking through the cost of making that fatal choice.
There’s been a proposal to create a shooting sports complex in Hays County.
Of course, the news reports are not necessarily supportive:
Jim Camp is a member of the Parks and Open Space Advisory Board.
“A shooting complex, although it may be a good idea, might not be the thing that should be funded with this money,” he said.
And why not?
Camp worries that a shooting range would go against the wishes of area residents.
“The voters wanted to create lands for parks, open space and aquifer protection,” he said.
And exactly how is this against the wishes of area residents? It’s area residents that are wanting a shooting sports complex. It’s not like a few select people wanting to bring F1 to the area and not asking any of the citizenry if we want that or not. *roll eyes*
How is this not a park? How is this not preserving open space? And so long as it’s managed well, there shouldn’t be issues for the aquifer. Plus being all that open land (instead of getting paved over), that allows rain water to get to the aquifer.
Methinks someone just has a problem with the notion of firearms.
Here’s a link to the group trying to set up the complex. Take their survey (if you’re in the area). Show you support.
Updated: I found a few more local news stories. A little older, but a lot more depth.
It’s interesting to read. There are habitat issues, which I can understand because things like lead and loud sounds may not be the best place for a bird sanctuary. But then the proposal for the complex includes making a profit, which “in these tough economic times” especially when city and county governments struggle with ways to obtain revenue without raising taxes well… that seems to really have the ear of a lot of board members.
This will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Apple released Safari 5 yesterday.
Being a software developer as long as I’ve been, I know better than to get the 5.0 release — wait for the inevitable 5.0.1. 🙂
But I’ve been having so many problems with Safari lately (I think more due to the websites visited than Safari itself, e.g. Facebook) I figured what the hey. I needed to reboot my machine anyways, the Safari 5 install would require a reboot, so might as well.
So far I’m pleased with the update. Rendering of pages is a lot faster than with Safari 4. The new “reader” feature is pretty spiffy, like Quick Look for a multi-page web story. It makes the text bigger, more readable, better layout, no ads. That it’s more readable is certainly a big win. I’m sure I’ll be using this feature more and more as I get used to it being there.
There are finally “extensions” for Safari. I’ll be curious to see what people come up with.
Last Friday I was in Florence, Texas for the CHL Instructor range qualification.
Just so happens that Dawson Precision is located almost next door to the DPS range. So I went to go visit because I’ve never been there.
Oh, I’m so in love. 🙂
Everyone there was super nice, especially Kathy (lady up front, likely the one that answers the phone when you call). She gave us the tour around. Their testing range is just wicked cool. The whole facility is just neat.
I dropped off the slide from my XD-9 5″ so I could get a set of their sights installed onto it. I dropped it off on Friday. I didn’t expect to get it back until maybe end of this week?
I just got it back.
From the way the emails went, it looks like they took it on Friday, installed the sights first thing Monday morning, then got it to the UPS man before lunch (it was cheaper to have UPS Ground deliver it because it’d get here quickly and only cost $10… cheaper than what I’d pay in gas and time if I picked it up myself). Took more time for UPS to deliver it than for them to do the work!
And the work looks good. Haven’t taken it to the range (because it was supposed to be raining today… but it’s all bright and sunny out now… *whine whine whine*), but looks alright. I can say, the front sight is a slightly different design than my previous sight (I’ll get a picture later if I can).
Anyway, just writing to give a little love to Dawson Precision. Great folks!
I was planning on going to the gun range this morning.
Weatherman says we’ve got some ugly rain storms on tap. While normally that wouldn’t bother me too much, the Austin Rifle Club is located in a floodplain… thus rain at the range is NOT a good thing. The ARC leadership basically tells you that if you’re at the range and it starts to rain, leave immediately. You really don’t want to be at the club in the rain, because flooding and getting trapped (or worse) is always possible.
But just watch… I’m postponing the range trip, and it won’t rain worth a damn this morning. 🙂
I was hoping to not only do some pistol work, but also take the 6.8 out and recheck the zero issues. I was going to work with Oldest on this. You see, he’s had an aversion to shooting firearms larger than .22’s because he doesn’t like the noise. Understandable, especially when you shoot under the tin roofs at the range (far less problem out in the field). But he’s really itching to try out hunting, so he’s got to get used to shooting something bigger than that Ruger 10/22. Might as well have him work the 6.8, or maybe my .308 bolt action.
I’m not going to be upset about the rain tho. We need the rain. And frankly, that we’re still getting rain in June? That’s a Good Thing™. Just have to be satisfied with more dry fire this morning.
Being a Mac developer, it used to be an annual ritual to attend Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC).
I was supposed to attend this year, but opted out of it because I knew it’d be nothing but an iPhone love fest. I’ve nothing against that, just that it’s nothing directly relevant to my present-day money-making, so the cost of sending me out there isn’t worth it. Nevertheless, I still like trying to catch the keynote because important things happen. Funny thing is, I remember when WWDC specifically was NOT a horse-and-pony show. That the keynote was purely a developer thing, there weren’t product announcements and other such things. Ah, to be an old-fart remembering the good old days. 😉
The iPhone 4 looks to be rather impressive, both from a consumer perspective and an internals geek perspective. iOS 4 as well looks to be quite a nice advancement as well. Apple’s really working to knock things out of the park and continue to set the bar that the rest of the industry will chase. Will I buy an iPhone 4? No, only because I don’t really need what it offers. But without question I like what’s being offered. As soon as I heard about the “front facing phone” I knew it would be about video chatting, and lo, FaceTime.
I am curious about the details of the WiFi stuff messing up the demos. Exactly why did that cause such a problem?
I did notice, no mention of 4G. I wonder why not.
Of course, we’re still stuck with AT&T. *sigh*
But as you could see from the keynote, it’s all about the iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, for Apple that’s where it should be. But it reinforces why I’m happy I stayed home. WWDC just isn’t what it used to be. And even while the topics have changed well… let’s just say the old WWDC’s were a lot more fun. You old timers know what I’m talking about. 🙂
I’ve been slack at getting myself to the reloading bench.
In large part it’s been because I’ve been busy with other things and thus when I think about getting out there I’m just not motivated. Furthermore, it’s getting quite hot outside and I just don’t feel like taking a schvitz to reload.
So I’m going to attempt something. Every morning, wake up, tend to morning things (e.g. get dressed, eat breakfast, etc.), then get out and reload 100 rounds of 9mm. That should take me about 30 minutes in total. Not a huge time investment, and if I do it every day I’ll build up a good supply, even as I burn through some of it in my own practice. If I can get a few thousand stockpiled, then I’ll see about switching out the press setup and perhaps go back to my .223 efforts.
I’ve shifted away from using the Berry’s bullets towards using the Precision Delta bullets. While I like the full plating on the Berry’s, their local availability, and being the least expensive of what’s available locally, I’m having problems with them. That is, I’ll go to seat the bullet and something messes up during the seating… typically the bullet seats wrong and “shaves” part of its side off, but whatever happens it equates to a wasted load. I may be able to pull the bullet and recover the powder, but the bullet is certainly wasted and maybe the case and thus maybe the primer. Apart from the wasted components, it also throws off your groove as you’re working. *sigh* It’s happened more than enough with the Berry’s that I’m starting to not want to use them. Besides, when you buy Precision Delta bullets, they’re a lot less expensive than the Berry’s, plus when you buy in bulk it’s even cheaper. So far all the Precision Delta’s I’ve loaded have worked out great, at least in the loading process. So far, so good.
I really want to keep up this routine of wake up, do morning things, then reload 100 rounds. What I really need at this point are some good .30 cal ammo cans to store the reloads. The best place to buy them is “John’s Guns” out in Bastrop, but it’s not a place I can easily get to, and whenever I am out that way all too often I drive by outside of business hours. 😦 I’ve struggled to find a good place to buy such things within Austin, at a reasonable price.
Stuff From Hsoi 