Armed America

Looks like a bunch of gun nuts and terrorists to me...

Armed America

Obligatory Zumbo Post

The dude's done. He didn't "accidentally" call us all terrorists, he just accidentally did it out loud.

He's done.

Lets Zumbo Washington now.

Why own guns Part 2

Josh tells us why he owns guns.

A must read for you, and your anti friends.

Give him a read.

Some truth from Illiad

Maybe the UN really CAN help solve the Apophis problem...

Urge to shop rising...

I just noticed that the Wii shopping channel has the most PERFECT shopping music!

Must... buy... Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past... GAH!

Hide-a-knife

THIS


PLUS

THIS


Equals

Hide-a-knife

I've been looking for something small enough to be hidden in an unobvious place that could be used in instances where I might be relieved of my knife (which are the situations where you would probably need it the most). On my most recent trip to the knife shop I saw the Spyderco ladybug which weighs only .5 ounces. Now, I'm the first to admit to being a total knife snob, and that's kept me from brands like Spyderco (spit) and CRKT, but I picked up a few CRKTs a bit ago and are confident in their limited use but still wouldn't use one for my EDC. This is my first Spyderco, and the only reason I bought it is because of it's esoteric task.

It didn't have a clip, so I had to find a something to add one... What better place to start fabricating a clip than with a clip?

Pick up a pilot pen of the model pictured above, and remove the clip by applying upward pressure on the clip from the bottom. There is a low profile cap that fits on top of the cap and holds the clip in place with pressure. Once the clip is removed, you'll find it is a "J" shaped and has a slightly serrated end. Remove the bend from the bottom of the "J" so it's now "L" shaped. Take the serrated end and put it into the lanyard hole on the knife with a hammer. It'll go in for the entire serrated section, and will stop at the edge where it gets wider, give it a few wacks to set that edge into the grip, but don't let it stick out the other end of the grip. I haven't tried it out for an extended period of time, but a drop of epoxy in the lanyard hole would make the clip solid.

I'm carrying mine at the 6 o'clock position on my waist, though it could just as easily be clipped onto a sock or inside the short sleeve on a shirt.

Ideally, you should bend the clip to copy this clip design.

Ouch?

I laughed at Tam when she scored an 81... But...

You Are 86% Misanthropic

You are misanthropic to the point of being scary. In your view, people are a disease. You may want to lighten up a little - before you become a super villian!

How Misanthropic Are You?

Tam.

Blogagog is Back!

Blogi has returned to the blogospheoroidy... thing.

Head on over there and welcome him back!

He's got two new pictures up!

My beautiful, ugly gun

But I live in a good neighborhood! Part5

Gunman still at large

Sometimes I drive to the el pollo loco at the Tustin Marketplace for lunch, and sit in my car about 50 yards from this Home Depot.

Range Report Part 2! This time it's personal

Eager to get my .22 back out to the range the next day, I went to Turners and (yet again) found them woefully lacking in ammo. So, I did what any self-respecting gunny would do; I went to Wal-mart!

When I got there, they only had some Remington Thunderbolt. Says high velocity; should be fine... As the woman rang up the 5 boxes of 50 ($0.0264 per round woot!) and I was enjoying the puny total that was being displayed, my attention turned to the gun accessories section. I asked her to put my purchase on hold, while I took a quick look. I checked if they had any bore snakes damn, and then allowed my eyes to drift across the small selection of goods. My eyes stopped on the rifle scopes. I couldn't.... Could I? It does have a 20 inch barrel... And it certainly has the mounts... But it's only a 50 foot range... Ah, what the hell. I grabbed a cheap BSA scope, and some cheap mounting rings. If I don't like it, I didn't spend too much on it. I can always upgrade. (I tried to find a picture of the scope, but couldn't without more details, I'm surprised to see that it has a very similar profile to the one in the picture.) I returned home and pulled my no-frills scope out of it's wrapping, and opened up the instruction book. X many clicks? Adjustable parallax? Battery compartment? Riboflavin? I just want to shoot the thing... Oh wait; it's a generic instruction book, my scope has none of those things! Nice.

I get the rings onto the weaver mount, and try to check that they're lined up. Hmmm... This one isn't fully seated on the weaver mount... Bugger. I reseat it, and try swapping the rings. Nope. Seems the weaver mount is wider in the front than to the rear. Hmmm... I seat them as best I can, and put the scope on. It's noticeably leaning to the left a few degrees. Well, as long as it's on solid, and it doesn't move, I should be able to adjust... Maybe I should have spent more than $6 on the mounting rings. :)

So now, I've got a silly looking gun, with a silly looking paint job, and an oversized scope mounted atop the whole package of nonsense! Oy. Oh well, it's cheap (and therefore fun!) to shoot!

I arrive at the range, and admit to feeling a little bit insecure about my silly looking gun with a $25 wally-world scope on top of it. The gentleman from last week is there with his wife, and I realize that I was there at the same time as before; Sunday morning. I look around, and realize that I recognize a few other people from last Sunday morning. Church? The gentleman recognizes me, and we talk briefly about the G22. I offer him a chance to shoot it, but he's just leaving (like last week). They must be getting in right at opening time. I'll have to get here early next week to let him shoot it. I grabbed some cheap targets, and a pen, and headed out to my lane.

I colored in the 1.5 inch X to make it more visible (like usual), and sent the target out to the end of the range. I put myself prone with my elbows on the naval-high bench, centered the crosshairs on the big black dot, and slowly squeezed the sloppy trigger. The shot was about 6 inches low. I was about to adjust, but I realized that I should probably put a few more shots downrange first to make sure I didn't just suck. I adjusted the scope, and shot until I was right on the spot. By now I was getting used to the trigger, it had a lot of take-up, and had a heavy portion at about 50% then got soft at about 65%, then broke at 75%. The trick was pulling hard enough to get past the 65% without pulling through to the break. I tossed up a fresh target with a few tiny target spots, and shot off the rest of the box of ammo.

Barring anyone shaking the bench, or my occasional inability to stop just past 65%, my shots were right on top of each other.

There's something cool about pulling a target, and seeing one .22 inch hole where three shots were placed. Something VERY cool.

After some nice shooting, some more people arrived, and with shots going off around me, I found it hard to keep the trigger controlled. But I took advantage of the time to focus.

About mid-way through my second box, someone the lane to my right started shooting off a .44 magnum. In an indoor range, you can feel that in your chest. I watched the flames shoot 7 inches out the sides of the large revolver, and smiled. I returned to my shooting after the 6 shots were spent, and heard one more shot. A long length of string came out of nowhere, and bunched up in the air for a second before falling to the ground in a small heap. Dude, that guy just shot the string off the target runner with a .44 magnum! The shooter swore up and down that the sights were off on his friend's gun, and after the string was replaced, and independent shooter verified that the gun was shooting about 6" high (at 20 feet!). Although their groups were all over the paper anyways, so I kind of figured it might have happened even if the sights hadn't been off...

Anyways, that ragged hole where 3 rounds of .22 entered is still fresh in my mind. Now I can't wait to get my scoped space gun out to some longer ranges to see what it can really do...

Range Report: Space Gun Fun

I went to Turners before the range so I could pick up a selection of .22 ammo to see if my new space gun preferred particular ammo. Unfortunately they were quite cleaned out (as they usually are), so I just picked up some CCI .22 LR JHP since I had read that they worked well in the G22.

I arrived about 30 minutes after the range had opened, so there weren't that many people there. When I showed up toting the Walther rifle case that came with the G22 I got some raised eyebrows from the employees there who had only seen me bring in pistols before.

"Got somethin' new?"
"Yep!"
"Walther? Got a G22 in there?"
"Yes sir!"
"I know a few people who have those. They love them. Great for plinking!"
"Yeah, it was kind of a hard sell. It's so impractical. But this particular model was discontinued so I got it at about $100 off."
"You mind me asking what model that is?"
"... Well, I'm a little embarrassed to admit..."
*opens case, revealing a Git-R-Done G22*
"Ha! For $100 off, I woulda picked up a pink one!... *pause* Well, maybe..."
"Yeah, I was thinking about giving it a paint job"
*At this point an older gentleman sitting on the bench got up, and walked over to take a peek*
"Hey, did you get that from Turners? I think I saw that one, I almost picked it up! Was that the one for (price)? Yeah, they had those in the corner for the longest time, and when I saw that one, I was this close to picking it up. Gotta love those .22s, you can go out for a day on $10, and you don't have to worry about any sore shoulders or ammo! Just great fun plinking all day!"
"Yeah, this is my first .22, so I'm looking forward to some cheap, fun plinking. You know, this is my first time out with it, so if you're interested in shooting it off a bit you're more than welcome."
"Oh, we're just leaving, but if I catch you again, I might take you up on that offer! *A woman walked in from the hallway to join the man* See, honey? This is what I was telling you about. No recoil, cheap to shoot, lots of fun!" *The man exits into the hallway*
The woman watches her husband disappear into the hallway, turns to us, and says flatly with a dry smile;
"The latest toy he's trying to convince me he needs."
*I smile broadly*

I smiled because it was exactly like a kid trying to convince his mom she should get the toy for him. Not so say she was in charge of him, but he was so much like a kid, excited about a new toy. When else can you see a late 50's Texan-looking guy in a cowboy hat truly excited about something?

But enough people-watching...

Loaded the magazines, set rear sight to the lowest setting, set the target to the minimum distance, took aim unsupported, and fired off five shots. The trigger was sloppy in all aspects, and it seemed to be shooting high. 40 rounds later I had the sight set to 5 with a 6 o' clock point of aim, dead on at 50(?) feet, and the trigger seemed less sloppy. Once settled in I tried to get my groups as small as possible. I fired off the remaining rounds supported on my elbows on the naval-high tray/bench (while sticking my ass out like an idiot). My groups got smaller but not as small as I would have hoped. When my 100 rounds were used up, I had two 2nd stage failures to feed. The rounds were half in the barrel straight, slight pressure to the bolt put them fully into battery (odd failure to feed). After the failures I realized that people found they needed to clean out their G22s, because they came from the factory with some kind of odd grease, and when I switched it from righty to lefty, I didn't take the opportunity to oil it (dumb).

Not too bad, all things considered.

I returned to the counter and asked what kind of .22 they had; the employee recommended some Remington Cyclone because they were pretty hot, and helped cycling problems. While I wasn't too concerned about the failures, I was interested in getting something hotter into my gun.

50 rounds of Cyclone got me my best group; 9 in one inch, and one flyer put me at one and a half inches. Pretty damn good for me. I found the Cyclone seemed to shoot more accurately through my G22 (might have just been me, but I'll find out when I pick up more CCI). One failure to feed, same as before; my baby needs oil.

Plinking is a new experience for me, since this is my first .22, and I can honestly say that it is a helluva lot of fun. There's just something different about it. Not worrying about recoil, flinch, or the cost of rounds is just freeing. Not to mention the ability to make some great groups! It's different. In a good way. (A very good way)

I should like to pick up an inexpensive scope to free me from the blurry target, and really find out what kind of accuracy I can get out of my funky plinker.

I really look forward to bringing my space gun back to the range.

Cigar Smokery Part 2! Revenge of Castro's Ghost!

I've been sniffing for long enough. Yesterday I pulled my larger-than-expected partially smoked Cuban cigar out of the brushed aluminum (looking?) cigar tube my girlfriend got me for Christmas, and fired it up.

I only puffed on it for a short while before putting it out and returning it to it's tube.

I suspect I got more enjoyment from the after-smell and after-taste than from the actual puffing. Perhaps I should have just limited myself to only enough to get the taste in my mouth and smell on my fingers.

The smell faded from my clothing rather quickly (much to my girlfriend's pleasure), but the memory and the taste would linger much longer.

Even now I remember fondly the spicy flavor, and smell.

I knew that I had an addictive personality, so I wanted to make sure that even if I longed for one, I'd be able to resist. No problems there. A few months without a cigar, while wanting the flavor a few times a week is pretty good for me. Good enough that I felt no guilt as I struck the match yesterday.

Last night I told my girlfriend that I had heard that cigars were not as bad for you as cigarettes. She said that she'd heard the opposite. So I hopped on the net today and looked around.

A quick Google search revealed that cigars were not only as deadly as cigarettes, but they also were MORE deadly. Additionally, one could expect a 10% shorter life span if one were to smoke a cigar, hold a cigar in ones' mouth, or be within 20 feet of a lit cigar. Further troubling news was discovered when I found report after report noting that cigars cause erectile dysfunction, minor blindness, male pattern baldness, ugliness, getting kicked in the shin, and makes your nipples fall off! Even minor cigar smoking causes paralysis, uncontrollable bowels, impotence, your fingernails to fall off, your retinas to detach, your limbs to fall off and attack you under their own power, and an assortment of voodoo curses to be placed on your children, spouse, extended family, coworkers, mailman, doctor, and people who owe you money. Also, you have to fight Metal Gear.

It seemed that I couldn't get a single straight answer. My research results were flooded with biased "studies" and interestingly-worded "findings". Then I remembered this. Guess it applies to cigars too.

While it may be that cigars have much of the same bad stuff cigarettes do, I don't think there's much risk in my incredibly infrequent smoking of a quarter of a cigar.

As for those idiots and their agenda; they can all go blow a goat. I'll smoke just to piss them off.

The Moonanites are Terrorists.