Month: January 2011

Plumbing tip

/ hsoi

Yesterday had a plumber over to tackle numerous little plumbing tasks around the house.

The kitchen sink faucet cold water has run rather slow for some time. I knew flow was restricted but wasn’t sure how. A few years ago the water main into our house broke (on the city side of the water meter). City came and fixed it, but because the pipe did break grit and sand and small rocks got into our pipes and had to be flushed out. I wondered perhaps did a small rock get jammed up in the faucet cartridge?

Nope.

Calcium build-up.

Central Texas… limestone everywhere. It happens.

But here’s the tip. The faucet is a Kohler. To replace the cartridge would cost as much if not more than buying a whole new faucet. The plumber recommended instead to buy Moen or Delta, because they’re simple: just pop the old cartridge out, put a new one in, and it costs a fraction. And the quality of the faucets are just as good.

So there you go. Your plumbing product shopping tip for the day.

The sadder thing…

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Yes it’s sad and terrible what happened to Rep. Giffords and the others that died in the Arizona shootings. There’s no excuse for it, there’s no defending it.

But what’s worse to me is all the arm-chair behavior going on. As of now, the shooter, Jared Loughner, hasn’t said a word. We don’t know why we did it. Sure a few things about him have been obtained online and based on that everyone is painting him to be “the other evil”. That is, whatever group I’m a part of, he’s a member of the other group that stands as evil opposition to me. The right is painting him like a lefty-nutjob, the left is painting him like a righty-nutjob.  There’s a massive informational void, and everyone is filling it in with their own assumptions, their own bias.

There’s calls for more peaceable behavior, less vitriol and venom in political discourse, but yet in doing so so many are just escalating their anger at “the others”. Something about a log in their own eye….

Everyone is trying to jockey this for their own political gain. It’s very sad, and really serves to feed the very thing they’re supposedly rallying against.

Why aren’t you a member of the TSRA?

/ hsoi

This is for all of you that live in Texas.

The state legislature convenes it’s 82nd session tomorrow. It runs until the end of May. That means there’s only a few months to deal with the legislative needs of Texas.

Are you a gun owner? Do you care about gun rights? There are some important bills on the table for this session already and likely more could be introduced in the coming weeks. If you care — and you should — you need to get active.

One of the best ways to help? Join the Texas State Rifle Association. Yes, the NRA is important, but most laws in this realm are on the state-level and TSRA is going to have greater impact here. Alice Tripp and her crew need your support. In fact, here’s a letter written by Alice just yesterday about the upcoming session.

If you’re not a member of the TSRA, it’s only $30 to join as an annual member (reduced rates for juniors, seniors, and others). As well, the TSRA PAC, a separate group for political action, needs donations to fund their work.

Don’t do this tomorrow, don’t do this later. Do it today. Do it now, while you’re thinking about it.

(Disclosure: I am a Life Member of TSRA, but otherwise have no affiliation with them… not on a fundraising committee or any such thing…. just some dude with a blog that thinks it’s an important group to be a part of).

Addenda

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

A couple things to add to the previous range posts.

Shotgun stuff.

In my shotgun ammo trials, I was most impressed with the performance of Federal Tactical buckshot (9 pellet 00 buck, reduced recoil). I was curious if the results of any gelt tests were available. Sure enough, there are.

Federal publishes a PDF that provides data on their various law-enforcement loads. There’s gel tests, and gel shooting into bare, through heavy clothing, glass, steel, plywood, wallboard. They also show patterning at 20 and 30 yards. Results there were consistent with what I experienced, including that the full-power load generates slightly larger patterns at longer distances than does the reduced load. Since I’m using a pump shotgun in a home-defense situation, I’ll be just fine for my needs with the reduced recoil 9 pellet buckshot (LE132 00).

Other Stuff

Jay sent me a few pictures he took of me shooting during our recent range day. Here I am shooting his Winchester 94 .30-30 lever-action. Man, that’s a fun rifle.

Shotgun Ammo Trials

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

When I went shooting with Jay, the main focus was on shooting shotgun ammo.

You see, shotgun ammo behaves in unique ways. You need to check out how ammo performs in your particular gun. Winchester buckshot out of this Mossberg may not perform the same as the same ammo out of a Remington. Furthermore, Winchester buckshot out of this Mossberg 500 may not perform the same as the same ammo out of a different Mossberg 500. Truly, the ammo-gun combination can be unique, thus it’s imperative that any shotgun you wish to use, you must take the time and trouble to find the loads that work best in your shotgun.

And so, that’s what we did. 🙂 Continue reading →

Shooting with Jay

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

You may know Jay from his blog, Firearms and More in Texas!

He doesn’t live all that far from me, and so this morning we got together to have some fun! His family owns property in the country and so, we went shooting there.

Of course, goal #1 was to have fun — and we accomplished that. But we weren’t just going to aimlessly shoot. There was purpose!

  1. Shoot my shotgun to see how various slugs and buckshot behaved.
  2. Shoot my AR to see how the Aimpoint CompM4s worked out.
  3. Shoot some handguns and other guns, just because we could.

We actually started out by having breakfast at a local restaurant. Migas. Mmmmm. Then off to the property. Unpack, a little hauling and walking, and away we went.

We started with the shotgun shooting. Again, the intent here was to try out a bunch of shotgun slugs and buckshot, for home-defense purposes. See how they perform and behave. There was a lot of data collected here, so this is going to become a posting unto itself at a later time. You’ll just have to wait and see, but those of you that truly know how to run a defensive shotgun will probably not be surprised by the results (hint: it runs counter to “conventional wisdom”). Updated: the data is up!

We switched to shooting handguns for a bit. I shot his Glock 23 (a compact in .40 S&W). First time I’ve fired one and well… again, it’s everything as to why I don’t like Glocks. I don’t like the crappy sights, I don’t like the heavy gritty trigger, and the gun just feels like a turd in the hand. Yes it’s a good tool. It’s a solid tool. It works, it’s reliable. I was having a lot of fun shooting it at the swinging steel, even tho it was a compact in .40 and thus a little ornery to control (just use a solid grip!). There’s really nothing wrong with a Glock, I just want something that’s a little more than basic useful. I mean sure… you can marry an ugly woman, it works, it gets the job done, but why? (says the man married to a very pretty woman). 🙂

Also got to shoot his Beretta 92. That’s a brick. 🙂  I did like the Hogue grip panels. I hated the DA/SA trigger, but I have to say this gun’s trigger was very smooth and certainly serviceable. It was just a lot of trigger.

After that, we realized time was getting short. Pulled out the rifles. Jay had a Winchester Model 94 lever-action in .30-30. Never shot one of those before but gosh if that wasn’t awesome. One of these days I am going to get myself a lever-action.

Ya burned through a few magazines on the AR. He seemed to like it. Kept commenting about how little recoil there was and how much it felt like a toy. 🙂  Given all the heavy shooting we did earlier in the day, certainly this was nothing to our sore shoulders. I really like that red dot, but the write-up on that will have to wait for another time as well.

Really, just had a good morning. Good time with Jay, got some good data, weather was awesome. Really, can’t ask for much more in life. 🙂

Updated: Jay sent me a picture.

So it ends, so it can begin

/ hsoi

I’m done.

All of my Titegroup powder is gone. I loaded 300 rounds of .38 Special last night, and there was just a bit of powder left over. Not enough to bother with, so I’m calling it good enough and done.

I started with an 8 lbs. jug of Titegroup. 7000 grains in 1 lb of powder (56,000 total). I used it at a rate of 4.5 grains for the 9mm loads and 3.5 grains for the .38 Special loads. You do the math on how many pulls of the lever that was. 🙂

At the end of it all, I can say I really like my Hornady Lock-n-Load press. I’ve probably loaded close to 20,000 rounds on this press now with little problem. Is it perfect? No, but I’m quite pleased with it and it obviously does the job. And even here with me getting close to no powder, the powder drop was still dropping proper charges…. no worry about having to keep the hopper at least quarter-ish full to ensure consistent throws.

I need to run the press through some maintenance now, from cleaning, lubing, and so on.

And of course, I can now start on my .223 Rem reloading. But I’m not going to just yet; going to take a break. While I enjoy the reloading, the 9mm got to a point of “need to load all the bullets” which took quite a while. Then it turned into “need to use up all the Titegroup”. And it just loomed over me all the time… it became a chore, a chore I happily did and was dedicated to seeing through, but a chore nonetheless.

And now I done with it.

And now I can rest. 🙂

What can we learn here

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

HOUSTON (KTRK) — A local family was terrorized, ambushed outside their own home and held at gunpoint. They had just pulled into their driveway on Glenfield near Durango Falls in northwest Harris County Monday night when the suspects threatened the family, and the husband fought back.

Full story here. (h/t Robert).

 

He and his wife were with their young boys, ages seven and one, headed home from the Apple store at Willowbrook Mall when he noticed a red Mustang had followed him right to his driveway.

[…]

When he got out of the car, Del Rosario says a man had a gun pointed straight at him and was joined by at least two accomplices.

He said, “I ran away … to get away from them, to draw the fire to me if they were going to shoot. Then I started shooting at them.”

Del Rosario is a concealed handgun permit holder, and says having his gun and the training to use it properly saved his family.

He said, “I’m glad I did. You should, too.”

[…]

The neighbors say crime happens everywhere, even in this upscale Cypress neighborhood, and they encourage other people to protect themselves the way they did.

 

 

 

 

So, what can we take from this:

  • It happened in a good part of town. Crime can happen anywhere.
  • It happened in their driveway. You might be prepared for “home defense”, but what if you’re not in your home when crime happens to you? “Excuse me, Mr. Robber… can you hold on a moment while I go inside to fetch my shotgun? Thank you, yes, just wait right here, please.” No sorry, that doesn’t happen. You need to be able to go any where any time. There’s only one way to do that, and that’s to be prepared with the right tools all the time.
  • The right tools include mindset. Del Rosario was willing to fight to protect his family and himself. He moved, he was quick, he was decisive. He also was aware before it happened, because he knew the car was following them. Of course, one problem here is if you know someone is following you, you shouldn’t drive home.
  • One of the suspects was 17 years old; the ages of the other two were not released but it appears they are minors. You cannot envision your attacker to be of a particular demographic, because nothing says they will be. You also cannot be afraid to fight back against a child… because the sad state of affairs these days are 12 year olds are joining gangs and willing to kill you for your Nike’s.
  • He had his gun. He was carrying it when he needed it. He didn’t get to choose when something bad was going to happen to him, but he was prepared to fight when a fight came to him. I don’t understand people who have a CHL but don’t carry. Why have the CHL then?
  • He credits not just having a gun, but having training.

Mr. Del Rosario, good for you.