Fun Turns to Tragedy!!!

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I am a gun enthusiast trapped in the People's Republic of Maryland. My political affiliation is Independent, as the Ruling parties are both full of crap, and long ago stopped representing the common man. If the Libertarians weren't such freaks I would probably be one. I am a member of the Nation of Riflemen and damn proud of it. I once took an oath that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As far as I know I never broke that oath, and will continue to follow it. I am not Politically Correct and will NEVER be Politically Correct. If you need to know more, feel free, Ask.

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Well this weekend was spent painting the stock.  I would have had it finished this weekend had I not kept putting my fingers into the wet paint.  The thing that kept causing me to put my fingers into the wet paint was the temperature.  I am used to using that paint in 70° weather but it was only 45° which meant that the paint that I was used to having dry in 3 minutes was now taking 30 ~ 40 minutes.  So I kept forgetting that little tidbit and consequently I kept screwing up the paint.  Here is the finished product…

The colors are Neon Violet, Neon Yellow, and True Blue.  I wanted a bright cheery stock as it puts the gun bigots at ease (NOT).  I just kind of like the bright colors.  If the fit ever hits the fan one can of krylon black spray paint will take care of the issue.  I was not able to get the clear coat down as mother nature was not participating in my plan for the weekend and kept spitting on me.  Clear coat should happen on Wednesday, after I pick up some activator for low temperatures (which should be 70° on Wed).

I did some more reloading on sunday night.  I figured out that one pound of Varget produces 158 rounds of loaded ammo.  I also did some component math.

The Sierra 175 grain match kings run $94.21 per 500 which comes out to ¢18 per bullet.

The Federal 210 Match primers run $19.86 per 1000 which comes out to ¢019 per round.

The Varget powder runs $17.10 per 160 which adds up to ¢10 per round.

The Lapua brass runs $37.24 per 100 which comes to ¢37, but I get on a minimum ten reloads of that brass, which in turn brings the price down to ¢3 per casing.

Adding all this up, it costs me ¢33 per pull of the trigger.

The reason that I did all that math was to illustrate one of the reasons that I reload.  Cost.  If I were to purchase my ammo from the factory (using the AnalogKid’s pet load of PMC 168gr Sierra MatchKing) it runs on average $16.39 per 20 rounds, which works out to ¢81 per round.  Now I am making my own at ¢33 per round, which means that I save roughly ¢48 a round.  Over the long run that is a pile of cash (a buck every 2 shots!).  The second reason that I reload is that the handloads are “usually” more accurate than the factory loads as you are in better control of the components and process, and can tailor your rounds to suite your gun.  Finally I enjoy the process, It is soothing and fun.

A progressive loader like the one in the picture is not necessary but it sure makes loading a large amount of ammo fast an easy proposition.  I just finished my reloading bench, before I had the reloader mounted on my sister’s desk from when we were kids.  It did not have the mass required to make a stable platform for reloading and I had to bolt it to the wall.  The new bench does the trick quite nicely, no bolting to the wall necessary, and it has much more surface area for me to

work with.

This would be an less than an hours worth of labor if I did it in one sitting, but as I did it in several sittings and with a bit of testing in between (yes it is shooting quite well I am seeing half MOA groups consistently) sessions.  I also had to go through some setup and cleaning pains as I had not been using the reloader in the past couple of years, it is all sorted now and I reloaded 200 rounds without a hiccup.  I have 400 rounds of Lapua brass loaded and I have 100 rounds of Black Hills Match brass ready to be loaded.  I will be doing a bit more shooting before I go to Boomershoot so there will be more reloading.  I have an additional 200 rounds of Black Hills Match to take with me to Idaho just in case my loads go to hell between here an there…

Well that about wraps this weekend.  Hope everyone had a nice easter.

Oh yea,  I don’t want to hear any snide remarks about the Violet on the stock.  I am secure enough in my manhood to have a gun with what some (Ben) may consider a girly color.  Remember why I am building this rifle if you decide to tease me about the color.

Well I volunteered for Say Uncle’s five questions.  I have been a long reader of his site even though I just linked to it recently.  So I thought it would be fun to volunteer for the questions…  Here is what I got…

1 - I assume you’re going to Boomershoot. What are you taking?

I have been looking forward to Boomershoot for 5 months now (that is when I officially made the decision to come), I have spent that time acquiring the things that are needed to make a target out at 800 yards go boom.  I spent quite a bit of time deciding on what kind of rifle to get in order to make the trip to boomershoot worth while.  I decided on a Savage for several reasons.  The first was that I would be able to get it in left handed easier than the Remmington 700 (which was my second choice).  The second reason is that the Savage rifles seem to be the better shooter out of the box, this is important because I only had 4 months to get a rifle, and get it ready to go before Boomershoot.  I thought that would not be enough time for a smith to build up a gun for me.  So to wrap it up I purchased a Savage 10FLP in .308, I have since changed out the stock, glass bedded the new stock, and will be painting it this weekend.  If the amount of improvement from the factory stock to the new stock is the same with the addition of bedding I will be stoked.

2 - If you could have one and only one gun for the rest of your life, which gun would it be?

Crap what kind of underhanded lowlife ques-  I am pretty sure that it would be an M1A.  It is a trade off between the power and accuracy of a bolt gun but still has the capacity that you would need if the fit hits the fan.  Plus it has the bonus of making the GFWs pee their pants because it is one of those EVILLLLLLL looking guns.

3 - Boxers or briefs?

Did Ben over at ReasonableNut put you up to this one???  Briefs dammit.  I just like to keep the boys in check.

4 - Why do you advocate the abuse of gummy animals?

Because it pisses in PETA’s post tosties.  I hate when a special interest group tries to influence a company to take a product off of the market because it “offends their sensibilities”.  If you don’t like it don’t buy it. 

5 - You have a ton of hobbies, which is your favorite. How do you find the time?

Of all the hobbies that I have and have had Shooting is by far my favorite.  I have let a lot of my hobbies fall by the wayside.  I intend in the future to slim down, Shooting, Flying RC Helis, and eventually racing SOLO again.  Things like Scuba diving and Skiing will be reserved just for vacations.  Computers and Photography will never fall by the wayside as they are part of me.  Crikey, anyone have any extra time that they aren’t currently using???

Now that I have those questions finished up I guess that I need to get a few people lined up for my questions.  Ben, don’t try and weasel out of it you are already signed up.  I would also like to ask the Analog Kid and Joe Huffman but that is the extent of my list and I have a few open slots so if you want to get asked questions by a freedom loving gun enthusiast (or angry, gun toting, meat eating MF, depending on your leaning) let me know.  I promise I will not ask you what underwear you wear…

Well it seems that the Brady Campaign

Gun Bigots wasted no time in trying to take the recent school shootings and politicize them.  I would fisk their press report but that has already been done most effectively by Denise at The Ten Ring and many others who I have not included (sorry).

The kind of hysteria that the gun bigots are trying to generate, in a vain effort to breath life back into the Gun-Ban corpse is pretty shameful even for them.

But it does appear that they are trying to win emotional support for gun bans.  It is nice to see that their fact manipulation and lies are starting to kick back on them.  It is kind of hard to appeal to emotion when your statistics and lies are being refuted and dispelled at every turn

The same thing that happened to the MSM is now happening to the gun bigots.  If you make a statement, you have to back it up with facts.  Backing it up with flawed statistics is going to get you absolutely no where.  The facts are being checked by lots of people since they are now readily available on the internet for all to see.  Ahhh, Information.

They will continue to try and erode the Second Amendment, that is the only way they can obtain their goals, we need to be vigilant.

A man from Virginia said it best.

“[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.“ . . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.“

George Mason
—Virginia’s U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788

So even as we sit here today we have various gun bigots in congress doing their best to try and weaken our freedoms.  Sadly both of the representatives for my

state have signed on as sponsors of the latest round of the “assault weapons bill”.  Oh Joy…

The one thing that they seem to have missed is that WE have woken up to the fact that they are trying to ban them all, and WE are no longer going to sit still and take it up the ass from them…

The turnout at the MD state capitol during committee meetings on gun bills has proven that fact without a shadow of doubt.  The pro gun grass roots movement is showing up in large numbers, while the anti gun people either don’t show up, or only show up with one to two people.

Molon Labe

Well folks, that was quick.  I had the stock for a grand total of 4 days before I broke it.  I was cleaning the rifle after my range days this weekend and the butt piece kept shifting.  It was not very tight, I fixed that with the allen wrench.

It seems I over-tightened the allen screws and crushed the threads in the aluminum adjustable butt piece.  Farging hell.  Well I tried to no avail to spread the butt piece and free the threads but the damage was done.

So I called up the people that make the stock and begged and pleaded (actually I only had to give them my Visa numbers) and they rough fit a butt plate assembly to a stock and FedExed it to me, so I should have it when I get home.  I will have to do the final fitting myself but that should not be a problem since I have all the tools necessary.

I should also have my bedding kit from Brownells.  So this will be a busy week/weekend as I will also be painting the stock on saturday (weather permitting).

Pictures will be forthcoming of the stock, and the procedures/steps for finishing it up.

Well it has been a very busy couple of days.  I finished my reloading bench after work on friday night, by 10PM I had the reloader mounted and started calibrating the Dies.  By 11PM I was ready to go into production…  By 1:30 AM I had been able to reload a grand total of 13 rounds…  Thats right I had a few problems between finishing the calibration and getting the first reloads done. 

The primer feed system was having a few issues and would jam up after only a few primers being fed…  I finally gave up on it around 1AM and would look at it with fresh eyes after shooting on Saturday.  Well this was the first time out with the new stock and it made a hell of a difference as far as being able to shoot with the scope and to stability of the overall shooting platform. 

I started off at 200 yards and had three of the first Five in the X ring the lowest one was the cold barrel shot.  I spent a lot of time wiggling around on the ground trying to get into a good shooting picture and being able to get a good sight picture.  I need more practice shooting from the prone position I think.  we were shooting on the Tactical Tommy range (read sniper training range) so we had all kinds of interesting places to shoot from. The best one was the roof of a building set up for training the good old rooftop swat team response.  The only problem was that the building was wood, if anyone else moved while you were getting ready to take a shot the whole sight picture moved.  The swat teams also appear to practice taking shots through glass windows, there was an awful lot of broken window glass right in front of the target stands.  It also seems that the police are too good to pick up their brass as there was tons of .223 strewn everywhere along with cheap .308 cases.

I got home and went to work on the reloader and it seems all it needed was a really good cleaning.  It has been in a quasi storage in the garage and was a bit dirty.  The primers were hanging in the feed system where they should have fallen out into the overflow system, because the holes were dirty they were not falling out and got lodged in the primer index system and jammed up the works.  So at around 11PM I had 150 rounds ready to go to the range on Sunday. 

Sunday it turns out was the perfect day for shooting there was NO wind.  Dead calm and just a bit misty with a sprinkle of rain thrown in for good measure.  I started out with the load that everyone on the savage web site said was working well for them with the same weapon.  175 grain Sierra Match King with 44 grains of Varget and Federal 210 match primers (the max load for varget is 45 grains so I was safe), there was not much room left in the cartridge once the powder was in.  It had me a bit worried as this was the first time I was reloading for rifle.

I started off in the center and the Zero is set at 200 yards.  The shot that is not in the group is the cold barrel shot.  the group next to it is 5 shots.  The third group of shots was the tightest at .75 inches.  But overall I am quite pleased with these groupings as I do expect them to tighten up a bit more once the action is bedded this week.

Next up Black Hills Match.

Once again I started with the center. All I could do was wonder what happened?  The second, third, and forth groups were better but not as good as my reloads.  The fifth group was all over the place once again…  I changed nothing.  Breathing was good trigger control was also good, they just flew everywhere.  I will shoot some more of this and see where it goes but I am happy that it will be my backup as my hand loads seem to be coming along.

My one issue out of the weekend is that I am having a hard time getting a good sight picture out of the scope.  It looks great but I have a hard time finding the same place on the cheek rest every time.  I am also having a hard time keeping the sight picture clear.  Its hard to describe but it will grey out a the edges of the scope if you don’t look through at the right angel (sorry but that was a poor explination) Any hints or thoughts out there (Joe)???

Boomershoot is getting close…  38 days till it is time to fly…  Everything is under control, just keep repeating that…

Just one day shy of a month since I ordered it and it is finally here…

Man the difference is like night and day…  Very stiff and the adjustments make it very very comfortable both prone and bench…

Daddy Like.

Pics to follow…

It is quite frustrating to start a post reviewing a book, only to discover that the book you wanted to review has been loaned out of your collection, and you have no clue as to where it went…

Book review postponed for a day or two…

I have wasted spent a lot of time playing Xbox Live with a group of friends on the internet for the last crap its been a year!

year and have thoroughly enjoyed the playtime.  We play mostly first person shooters with a smattering of other games thrown in just for balance.  Alex is usually pretty good at choosing the games to introduce to our little group but he does occasionally have a dud (Men of Valor).  The games that we play are usually cooperative based games where we play against the Xbox AI.  There are a few notable exceptions, Halo2 has been a big hit as well as Crimson Skies which is an airplane game.  Well we picked up a couple of games, Brothers in Arms and Project Snowblind.  They are both XBL (Xbox Live) enabled games.  Brothers in Arms requires you to run a bunch of computer generated friends.  The commands to do so are unusually simple, but I still can’t get all that excited about playing the game as I am unusually bad at controlling the computerized friends.  On a side note, BIA game players throw grenades like a sissy, when I was in the army I could throw that grenade at least 100 feet (nothing like having live explosives in your hand to inspire throwing distance).

In general I suck at PvP (Player vs Player) first person shooters, anyone who plays Halo2 with me can verify that for you.  But when I have to try and multitask by running computer buddies, I really suck.  I don’t mind getting killed a lot, but I get frustrated quickly when dying constantly because I can’t get my buddies to do anything right.  Once I get frustrated the game is no longer any fun for me.

Project Snowblind looks to be a good game as far as the PvP aspect goes.  I really like how when you die you get the opportunity to change your player class to possibly even things up if your character is overmatched (I need Nukes if Polerand starts playing this one).  We have yet to figure out if there is a coop mode, but as we have had if for less than a week there may be options that allow coop.  Now all we have to do is recruit a few more of our gang into getting Project Snowblind.

No shooting this weekend, it was just too darn windy to be worth putting rounds down range.  The Analog Kid has a very nice range report for his boomershoot rifle.  He has a picture of targets that he has been putting rounds into.  All and all quite impressive especially the cheap factory ammo being better than some of the nice match stuff.

My stock should be in by this Friday finally.  I guess you have to wait a bit longer when you get all of the extra bits put on the stock (accessory rail, adjustable cheek and butt pieces).  So I may have it up and shooting this weekend.  Paint will wait till next weekend, but I have to get that done before pollen season as my friend and I don’t have access to a paint booth and there is nothing like having pollen in your clear coat to ruin your day.

With only 43 days left I need to get my rear in gear on my reloading.  I now have all of the components and reloading equipment that I need.  I got my order from Mid South shooting supplies and not having mail ordered components before I had a small SNAFU.  I had never purchased match primers before and they showed a picture of a box with 100 primers on the front.  I thought that it was a little pricy for 100 primers, but never having purchased any match components I though that the normal rules for the anything labeled “match”, or “tactical” may apply here. Those rules being that anything labeled with those words is marked up at least 20%. 

So upon opening my box I found that I have a few more primers than the 500 that I though I had coming.  It seems that I now am the happy owner of 5000 federal 210 Gold Match primers, so if you find that you are in MD and have an urgent need for a few match primers, I am you man.  I also got my varget powder and sierra 175 grain match king bullets.  So once I have my bench finished (this week) I will get started building bullets.

Our congress critters must have solved all the problems that we currently have facing the Republic.  They must have solved the trade imbalance issues, the illegal immigration issue, and secured all of our ports. That is just a hint of a few of the issues that they must have solved this session.  Why have they solved all these problems?  Well it seems that they must have gotten all of the important work done since they are on to wasting tax dollars by having public hearings about Baseball of all things.  Yes, Baseball, they are now meddling in baseball.  That is a Baltimore oriels reference for the rest of you out there who may not know that a lawyer who has often ‘been accused of meddling in baseball’ owns the team.

It seems that our federal government seems to think that baseball having a drug problem warrants their attention.  They are wrong.  What warrants their attention is the fact that they don’t read the bills that they pass.  When they pass an omnibus law or any law that none of them has read is a MAJOR problem.  Who gives a flying flip if a few overpaid jocks do/have done steroids, congress critters pass bills that effect the entire country without having done more than read a summary page. 

Current rules say that a bill has to be available for three days prior to passage for reading.  WTH? Three days to read a bill that is hundreds of pages of legal speak?  That is absolutely outrageous.  We need a law stating that if a bill exceeds 5 pages in length, and is not in plain, easy to understand english ( a high school junior should be able to understand the bills impact), then it must be available for reading for 6 months prior to being eligible for a vote.  There also needs to be no way for the critters to override this law as the do with the current 3 day requirement.

Our politicians need a reality check.  No one can negotiate the tens of thousands of laws that we currently have on the books, not even the cops, and especially not us, the common citizen.

Ben and I were talking about the recent McCain-Feingold campain reform bill blow up on the internet.  It seems that there may be some thought that they will try to apply these laws to individual personal websites and blogs.  The campaign finance reform act in general started out as a good idea, but in typical Washington D.C. fashion, it turned into a piece of crap that no one understands but the lawyers, and they can interpret it in any way they want.  Hence, the interpretation that we are currently hearing from the Federal Election Committee.  You can check out what Ben has to say over about this subject at his site and he does have a couple of posts up about the issue.

Frankly if the government thinks that they can regulate my free speech they can go do what Dick Chaney told the house minority whip to do (which was “go fuck yourself” in case you forgot or missed it).  The other thing that Ben and others (Joe Huffman) have put forth, is that there is really no way to enforce the FEC interpretation.  I could have a site up in an offshore location in hours, I would have to wait for the DNS systems to update, or could point people strait to an IP address with ease.  There is nothing more foolish for a politician to do, than to put forward than an unenforceable law. Ok, there are probably several things more foolish, but this one happens to be one of my pets.

The bulk of the posts that 2A people have put up boil down to one point (which I also hold).  Go ahead and try to violate our first amendment rights, unlike the vast majority of the left, we do have to means to back that up.  Oh yea, we also posses the will.

Geek with a 45 has summed up things nicely with his McCain-Feingold Insurrection site.  Though on his normal blog he does a nice question and answer session on the Insurrection.  I would rather use the word “revolt” as insurrection hits too close to a MSM term that is a synonym for a terrorist faction, supporting the Bill of Rights is by no means a terrorist action.

Geek’s Q and A on his normal blog is well worth reading, but I will put in the two most telling things in my opinion in my blog.  These being the first and last of the Q&As.

Q: Don’t you think this is a bit premature?

A: Nope. Sometimes, the best defense is an immediate, explosive reaction. That’s a quote I attribute to John Farnam, who knows a thing or two about defense.

And Finally

Q: Anything you want “them” to know?

A: Yeah. Get used to the “unwashed masses” taking an active part in politics, and running around in what used to be your private game preserve. We’re not going away, and we will not be silenced.

That last part may just be the most profound statement to come out of this little flap.  The Internet has leveled the playing field in many places.  No longer are we relegated to getting our information and opinions spoon fed to us from the Main Stream Media.  That point has been pressed home by the recent public embarrassment of both CNN and CBS for putting lies out as fact.  The people of America have access to all sorts of information today, if you want to lie to us you better be prepared to either back it up with facts, resign, or be fired.  Seems that the MSM is just not prepared to be called on for bogus and error filled reporting.  Get used to it and clean up your act, or be prepared to loose your viewers and what little credibility you have left.

You see the MSM has finally woken up to the fact that bloggers are out there, they are doing their best to discredit the whole lot of us, in a vain effort to regain their once omnipotent power over the flow of information. Much like Pandoras experience with the box, once opened it is impossible to get everything back in and the box resealed.  But that is a tale for another post

I had wanted to post this a bit earlier but work and being sick intervened.  Now it may be too late to rile against the pathetic PETA, and animal rights wackos with no sense of humor.  It seems Kraft who owns Trolli candies may have killed the product.  The product of which I speak is this:

Now as the Gummi market is pretty hotly contested and is fairly saturated, a new marketing gimmick is always welcome.  But what Kraft failed to remember is, that America bows to the special interests.  You see this fine product got PETA (people eat tasty animals) and the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals all hot and bothered.  Now it appears that neither of these groups has much of a sense of humor when it comes to candy, and have entered fantasy land.  They think that it send the wrong signals to kids, they seem to think that this candy is sending the message that it is ok to harm animals. 

Wait, yep there went a ten year old chasing down a squirrel on his big wheel, all the while clutching a bag of gummies.. 

Get a life…

Ok, clue for the terminally humorless, Road Kill Candy is pretty damn funny, not to mention tasty.  So here is what all the fuss is about.

BFD.  Well it is time for me to have fun with defenseless gummies. 

Slither little snake, Slither. 

You can make it!!!  Slither Faster lil snake.

Not fast enough…

Damn Squirrels they jink and jive but somehow they end up under tire so to speak…

Had to get at least one under the back tire…

So at the end of a hard day out collecting the local road kill, I have a full truck bed.

Disclaimer:
No Gummies were harmed in the making of these pictures, many were eaten but none were harmed.  Well maybe one that the dog got a hold of and made a sticky mess out of, but did not eat, yea that one was definitely harmed.

If this offends you, you may need to get some therapy, and a real life…

Just one more instance where a minority thinks that their opinion is the only one that counts.  I wrote my email to Kraft, voicing my support for their product, not that it will matter much but at least they are not getting all negative emails.  They need to hear that there are people out there that will support them if they decide to push on with a product that will alienate a small fraction of the 250 million americans.  In the end it is candy, just plain old candy…

Nothing worse than traveling and the getting the dreaded airplane ick… 

I am finally back from a trade show in Florida.  Sick the entire time I was there.  But I did win a cool phone from Nokia and an iPod Shuffle.  So the trip was not a complete waste of time.

More posting today when I get caught up on all the work that piled up while I was away… 

Off to the doctors office.