Saturday, September 23, 2006

PULL!

Col. Jeff Cooper in bad shape

At Random Nuclear Strikes found a link to this: "Jeff Cooper is in extremely grave condition at this hour. Previously hospitalized for possible surgery, he suffered a heart attack and was revived in the hospital. The heart muscle suffered serious damage. I hope you all can spare a moment of your day for him and his family in your thoughts and prayers...Rob"

I'd heard his health was failing, but didn't know about this. I've written about the man before, partly through disagreeing with something he wrote. Doesn't change that I have tremendous respect for him; he's truly been and done and has done a world of good for shooters of all stripes.

May it go well for him; he's damn well earned it.

Damn, I'd forgotten about these!

And a flea market/garage sale report

A couple of years ago my kids gave me this package, along with a couple of others, for Christmas, which is not only cool but covers parts of my "I would like" list:














Yes, the drum comes off the Thompson. Yes the bayonet comes off and fits in the sheath. The other packages have a Lebel, a #4 Mk1, a sporran, a 1873 Colt, an '03, cutlass, Fairbairn dagger, a kukri & sheath, a PPSH smg and some other stuff. I remember putting it away so I wouldn't lose it when I moved, and ran across it while organizing today.

Which brings up the report. Couple of weeks ago at the market found some books, today found a 2-drawer filing cabinet for $5(filling it involved the organizing). But the biggie is the garage sale, and I didn't find it; Dad did. He called me and said he'd found some stuff at a garage sale, and did I want it. Description followed, and I said yes! So I'm now the owner of the following:
Nice steel desk, small.
MEC progressive shotgun press.
Somewhere between 500 and 1k wads.
About a dozen charge bars.
Two bricks of primers.
About 25 lbs. each of #6, 7.5 and 8 shot
About 4 lbs of powders.
And some assorted parts and pieces.
And you're just gonna love this: $75.
So now I have to learn how to use this, which is pretty straightforward, except for the primer feed. You advance the cases manually, and there's a feeder that's supposed to drop the primer in place. I can put in in place on the press, but I flat cannot figure out how to connect the chain that pulls the arm that drops the primer into the tube.

Screw more organizing for now, I'm going to go buy a bag of buckshot and see if I can find a load for them.

Just some general notes

The North Carolina 'justice' system needs an overhaul. And a bunch of members need a barbed wire enema from the sound of it.

Mayor Bloomberg(Dumbass-Socialist-D) just can't stand the idea of not controlling peoples' lives.

Why so many Jews still hew to the Democrat party is a mystery.

And the people running the Air Marshall program are, by the evidence, still idiots.

The RoP comes calling



StolenBorrowed from Coalition of the Swilling

Friday, September 22, 2006

Crowning

Gun barrels, that is.

The crown is the very end of the barrel where the rifling ends. It's the last place where the barrel affects the bullet, and if damaged accuracy tends to go to hell. Even tiny burrs or dents where the rifling ends can either damage the bullet slightly or let gas leak out at that spot, throwing the bullet off-balance by just a fraction.

Yes, this is one of my patented, "you can do it yourself but don't yell at me if it don't work" posts. Cleaning up the crown is actually fairly simple, and can be done without a lathe or other fancy(read 'expensive') tooling.

The most basic is you find that, after being dropped, the crown has a little ding in the corner of the bore. Or you find that someone cleaning from the muzzle(and some rifles and pistols have to be) let a steel rod ding the crown. Assuming that's all you have to repair, you've got two ways.

There are cutters made just for this, like this one from Brownell's:














It's a tool steel body with a handle that screws on. Pilots are made for different bore diameters and held in place with a set screw. They make one that's about 3/4" wide and square, for making sure a newly-cut muzzle is true, and a couple of smaller diameter ones with the cutting flutes at different angles, depending on what crown you want. This one is 79 degrees, and that's a .311 pilot for a .303 British rifle. The first step with either of the methods I'm using is make sure the damn gun is unloaded; it'll really, REALLY ruin your day/week/life if it's not and it fires while you're doing this. Then put a tight patch on a cleaning jag and run it up to about 2" below the bore with this cutter and leave it there. With a clean-from-the-muzzle arm, I run the jag in the appropriate amount, then unscrew the rod from it; in either case it'll keep shavings, cutting oil, whatever from falling down the bore and into the action.

With this cutter/guide setup, use a small paintbrush to coat the cutting flutes and crown with oil, actual cutting oil being the best but just plain oil will do, it helps the cutter turn and cut smoothly. Ease the pilot in until the flutes contact the crown and then, with light, even pressure turn it. ALWAYS CLOCKWISE. If you turn it in reverse it can cause a burr to be rolled up on the cutting edge which pretty much ruins it until it can be honed to remove it. Turn it two turns, then take it out. Wipe off the shavings from both pieces and inspect. If you need to cut a bit deeper, oil and repeat.

When this is done, you may be able to use it as is, but you'll generally need to polish the new crown to get rid of the tiny burrs the cutter leaves. Which brings me to the next method, which can be used all by itself to clean up a crown. This high-tech method is














Yep, that's a round-head screw in a drill. Brownell's makes a brass piece just for this, or you can use a small carriage bolt(make sure the head is smooth) or round-head machine screw of steel or brass. I read of one gunsmith who takes steel ball bearings, anneals them, drills a hole in and solders in a piece of drill rod for a shank; he thinks the hard ball works better than a softer metal. Some swear by one with a screwdriver slot, as it'll hold some of the abrasive. They all work, as long as the curve of the head fits into the muzzle properly; small enough diameter & curve to contact the crown, large enough to not be able to slip into the bore. Power can be a cordless drill like this- as long as it is variable speed- or a crank-type hand drill. And you'll need some abrasive compound. I'm using some valve-grinding paste from a tool or auto parts store, this kind comes in a two-sided can with one side coarse and one fine. I've never needed any but the fine stuff.

If you're polishing after using a cutter, pull/push the patch out to clean oil & shavings out of the bore, clean it out then put in a fresh patch. If just using this method, put your patch in. Secure the gun or barrel so it's vertical. Dip the head of the screw or whatever into the compound. Gently set it into the crown and start it turning slowly. I repeat, SLOWLY. You'll be able to feel the compound grinding at first; when you stop feeling that, remove and dip the head again.














No, it's not vertical here; I'm holding with one hand and shooting with the other, so shut up.

Don't just hold the drill vertically, after the first bit start moving the drill in a small circle. After the second time I coat the head I put it in reverse and continue for a minute. The idea is to make sure the cutting occurs evenly around the crown and polishes both sides of the lands and grooves to get rid of any burrs or roughness.

Take your time. After running it both ways, set the rig aside and clean the crown off and inspect it. I use some cotton swabs, put the end in the bore, preferably without touching the compound, and use it to swab the stuff out of the bore. When it's done you'll have a clean, bright ring where the rifling ends, nice and smooth. Use a bright light and a magnifier of some kind to check it out. Remember, if you just had some small dings or a touch of wear it may only take a minute or two of this to completely remove the damaged section, so check often.














When it's done to your satisfaction, use more swabs and patches to wipe off all the compound you can, then pull the patch out to remove anything it caught. Clean the bore thoroughly to make sure you don't leave any trace of the abrasive, and oil. The mechanical part is done.

At this point you can use a bit of cold blue to get rid of the shine, or leave it as is and the next shooting you do will take care of most of that.

That's pretty much it for the basic crowning. The Serious Recrowning would be with, for instance, an old military rifle that was often cleaned without a guide, and the rifling for the last inch or two of the bore may be ruined. The only fixes for that are to either counterbore- basically cutting a cone out of the bore from the muzzle back for a couple of inches, lathe required- or cut an inch or two off the barrel and recrown. Which would ruin it as far as collectibility and authenticity and require putting the front sight back on. If you've got one like that you'll have to decide what you want to do.

Years ago I bought an old Turkish Mauser to turn into a hunting rifle. When I first shot it the best groups it would get were about 6-8" at 100 yards. I cut the barrel off right in front of the front sight, which only removed about 1/2", squared and crowned it and with the same ammo groups shrunk by half. In the end I took five inches off that 29" barrel, which removed all the damaged bore and that rifle will shoot 1" groups or a touch better, depending on ammo and if I'm doing my part that day.

This is one of those "It's simple, but it has to be done right" things. Most gunsmiths don't charge too much to cut & crown a barrel, so if you're worried about keeping things square that may be the way to go. If all you need to do is clean up or recut the crown itself, it is something you can do.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

So when did Klink get the sex change?

Mosin Nagant chargers

If you've ever used the things to charge your rifle, you know what a pain they can be. It's not simply that they're for a rimmed cartridge; the .303 British slicks right through theirs. It seems to be two things:
Different rifles will or will not work well with them, and
Most of those available are crap.

As to the rimmed part, you have to load them in so that the rim of one is under the rim of the one before, and then charge the rifle with them so aligned. No big deal, the .303 has to be loaded into the chargers in a proper pattern, too. But even with that done, a lot of the chargers/rifles just don't work well. A while back I saw a picture somewhere of a charger with a slot cut in it, don't know if it was original or modified. So I got the jewelers saw and cut a 1/4" slot in the ends of a couple of chargers that worked so-so and gave them a try. Big improvement. Then, at the gun show a couple of weeks ago a guy had some actual Russian-made chargers, Izhevsk marked and all. On the left is one I modified, on the right the Izzy:














I just tried the new ones out, and they work well.

So if you've got some of the reproductions that don't work well, you might try cutting a slot in one and see if it helps.

And on the subject of appeasement-minded fools,

remember Van Gogh? The Dutch filmmaker who was murdered because he didn't kiss the prophets ass?

Well, his son is being harassed by BPMs, and it seems the Dutch police don't want to do much about it.

I think Churchill called this 'feeding the crocodile in the hopes that he'll eat you last'.

The Governor of Arizona is an Idiot

Looking over at Ace of Spades found this: Gov. Janet Napolitano said she hopes the memorial becomes a “place to come and think about what happened'’ and what the United States needs to do in response to that.” We want it to be an educational tool for children grades k-12.” She's speaking of the AZ memorial for 9/11. Which goes back to take in, among other things, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

In a 9/11 memorial.

Which, of course, also has wise statements like “You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles,” …..”Congress questions why CIA & FBI didn’t prevent attacks.”……”FBI agent issued July 2001 warning in ‘Phoenix Memo’ “…..”Erroneous US air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians’……”Middle East violence motivates attacks in US”….

Is there some actual reason why so many people can't stand the idea of a memorial that says "We were attacked. Many died. Many acted with great courage during this mess."? Instead they have to use it to push their idiot political opinions on others. Remember the statue of the firefighters in NYC? The politically correct couldn't stand that it actually be a statue made from the picture taken because -gasp!horror!- all the firefighters in it were white! Oh, the humanity! So not only did they try to change the statue to be more 'inclusive', they gave all kinds of idiot excuses and implied- hell, flatly stated- that anyone who didn't agree with them was a bigot.

Well, Arizona, you gave us Sen. McCain(the gift that keeps peeing on your leg) and now Gov. Napolitano. You've got some serious making-up to do.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

George Fraziers' words

While back in this post on Britain, Windy commented "And my parents' generation sacrificed so much and so many dead to -- what? Make the UK safe for yobs? Safe from sardonic garden gnomes? At the expense of women and children? Anyone who works for a living in that country is a fool. Band together and bust some heads, and claim a youth in which the country did not provide what you needed. " Which reminded me of this passage from Quartered Safe Out Here, speaking of what Frazier thought they were fighting for:
...They wanted jobs, and security, and a better future for their children than they had had- and they got that, and were thankful for it. It was what they had fought for, over and beyond the pressing need of ensuring that Britain did not become a Nazi slave state.

Still, the Britain they see in their old age is hardly "the land fit for heroes" that they envisaged- if that land existed in their imaginations, it was probably a place where the pre-war values co-existed with decent wages and housing. It was a reasonable, perfectly possible dream, and for a time it existed, more or less. And then it changed, in the name of progress and improvement and enlightenment, which meant the destruction of much that they had fought for and held dear, and the betrayal of familiar things that they had loved. Some of them, to superficial minds, will seem terribly trivial, even ludicrously so- things like county names, and shillings and pence, and the King James Version, and yards and feet and inches- yet they matter to a nation.

They did not fight for a Britain which would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people's will;; they did not fight for a Britain where successive governments, by their weakness and folly, would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale; they did not fight for a Britain where thugs and psychopaths could murder and maim and torture and never have a finger laid on them for it; they did not fight for a Britain whose leaders would be too cowardly to declare war on terrorism; they did not fight for a Britain whose Parliament would, time and again, betray its trust by legislating against the wishes of the country; they did not fight for a Britain where children could be snatched from their homes and parents by night on nothing more than the good old Inquisition principle of secret information; they did not fight for a Britain whose Churches and schools would be undermined by fashionable reformers; they did not fight for a Britain where free choice could be anathematised as "discriminisation"; they did not fight for a Britain where to hold by truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called "fascist"- that, really , is the greatest and most pitiful irony of all.

No, it is not what they fought for- but being realists they accept what they cannot alter, and reserve their protests for the noise pollution of modern music in their pubs.


In a way that bit in the last sentance is the worst of them all: "they accept what they cannot alter". Which seems to be where it is now; they can protest and yell, but the government ignores them, or worse, tells them they can't be expected to understand why things are actually good.

Maybe what we really need to send to Britain is some tar, feathers and a few rails.

I've got to second the man from mAss Backwards on this one:

Senator McCain, fuck you. This oath-breaking, Constitution-trashing idiot wants to be President?

No way in hell.

Carnival of Cordite #72

over at STD

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Camera's back! Photo updates

to the earlier range reports.

Went to visit my parents the last couple of days, only borrowing their pc long enough to post my pissed-off post at the nun-murderers. While I was gone my daughter got back from her trip and I now have my camera back, so here's the shots.

First off, I mentioned the Federal Tactical low-recoil slugs, here's that five-shot group at 30 yards:














The one low left was my fault, I felt things shift just as I squeezed off. That's not a bad group a'tall, for resting the left hand only. I need to hit a range where I can try some of these at 50 and 100.

Second, the M1 Carbine with the scope, first trial, shot at 30 yards. The group on the right was shot with some GI-spec ammo, the left with some handloads using 2400 powder:














A few days later I had a chance to shoot at 100, and was having a lot of trouble, not grouping well at all. I'd bumped the scope loading it into the truck and wondered if I'd damaged it. That mystery was solved when I started to adjust it and realized the thing was moving. Not the reticle, the scope. AND the base. Note to self: it really, really helps if you make sure the screws holding the base on are kind of tight. I'd run out of time at this point, just had time to dismount the scope, tighten things up, remount it and try a couple of groups. Not bad, about 2.5" as I recall. I'll test it again next time I go out, this time with all screws tight since after I got home I took it down and put threadlocker on the screws.

Last, when I was ordering the carbine bullets from GI Brass, they had some 173 grain boattail match bullets for a good price, so I got 100 to try out in the M1 Garand. Loaded up ten, five in some military WRA brass and five in commercial Federal cases with the 'most accurate' load of IMR4895 shown in the Lyman manual to try them out. The WRA-brass loads produced a group about an inch tall and a little less than 2" across,

the Federal-brass load close to an inch larger. Two things here, first that while a single group with each is not a real test, it's very encouraging; second, some of the horizontal spread could very well have been my fault. Which means more testing is in order. Oh, the drudgery.

And the "Dammit!", because when I got home and checked the site to order more of the bullets, they were, of course, out of them. So I'll either have to find more somewhere else, or a commercial bullet that matches up. Good commercial match bullets are out there, just not at nearly as good a price.

I think with a bit of tweaking this loading is capable of very good accuracy. I think I'll tweak it a bit the next day or two.

Basic Training update

Damn, the toys tools they get to play withtrain with!



















Let's see, AT-6, M203, couple of machine guns, automatic grenade launcher and a M2 .50 caliber simulator. Would(to an extent, anyway) make up for getting up at 0h-dark-thirty to get yelled at and exercise.

Only about three weeks left, and so far he's doing well. I've got the day off to make his graduation("Well, I can take a leave day or retire, but one way or the other...") and I'm looking forward to it.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Solution to the illegal immigrant problem

Lets begin by bringing our troops home from Iraq to guard the border. When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq. Tell him if he wants to come to America then he must serve a tour in the military.
Give him a soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it.
After his tour, he will be allowed to apply to become a citizen since he defended this country. He will also be registered to be taxed and he'll be a patriot.
This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying to make a better life for themselves.
If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway.........
...........without the canteen, rifle or ammo.
Problem solved.


Sent by a friend

Some further thoughts on eventual reactions to the RoP

A comment from said the following:
Oh yes, it will be very good for everyone if we get the British, Germans, Japanese, Russians and Chinese back to a killer philosophy. Even better if they all go crazy at once.

Very clever of these muslims to ecourage an attack by today's equivalent of her majesty's Regiments, the Wehrmacht and SS, the Imperial Japanese Army and the Red Armies. Not to mention the Americans. All at the same time.

One problem is that after the 15 minutes it took to destroy all the muslims in the universe the lads might turn on each other.


For the moment overlook the bit about the Chinese and Russians; I think they're already willing to kill anybody anywhere(their governments are) if it'll advance their position. If the Russians had a government that wasn't spending a lot of energy trying to bring back the Soviet state and could properly direct actions against the islamists, there'd be a lot less trouble in that part of the world. But when the Soviet Union fell apart, and the Soviet army fell apart with it, too many people were too busy grabbing power and/or money to actually care about building up Russia. Which is why the mess in Chechnya & assoc. has dragged on so long and been so bad. If the Russians had actually worked to build their military on a modern design as the Russian Army, I think that would've been mostly settled down a long time ago. The Chinese are busy using the islamist states and groups as customers for weapons and to generally cause trouble for everyone else, and between that and knowing exactly how the Chicoms would react to terrorist incidents on their soil, the nutcases have shown restraint there.

All those other countries? Look back through history, and(it's been pointed out before, this is not original to me) every country in Europe has a long history of war and, very often, being highly effective at it. Poland did not survive between two hostile powers for centuries by being weak. In fact, if I remember right the Poles were a large contingent of the forces that stopped the Ottomans cold at Austria. Hungary produced fine officers and shooters, and so on through the countries. For that matter, remember where the Dracula legends began? And why?(hint: 'fighting the Ottomans'). Britain we know about, the problem there being the same as the other countries; EU-suckup 'elites' screwing the nation over in the name of their ideal 'European Union'.

So the islamists finally, somewhere- or several somewheres at once- finally do something so big and/or horrific that the people in a lot of places kick the 'elites' in the ass and out the door and say "Enough". Does anyone except the islamists really think they can't begin kicking ass on a major level? The Poles sent some of their best spec-ops troops to Iraq, and from what I read they're damn good troops, for one instance; what happens when the Polish army and LE forces, for one, get the order to clean house? Or the Brits have enough and decide to remember that overall they were once the best and most respected military forces in the world, and the Brit police are told "Enough with the PC bullshit, time to round up the terrorists; already-trained officers pick up your arms, everyone else we have time for cycles through training, and then Tally-ho!"

So far the Japanese have mostly been concerned with the Chicoms and Norks, happily for them. Tell the truth, unless some idiot decides the old "we need resources so let's conquer Asia" attitude is a good idea(not bloody likely) then a Japanese Self-Defense Force with some serious muscle sounds like a good idea. Among other things, having the Norks worried that a Japanese knockoff development of a EMP bomb will be dropped and fry Dear Leaders' genital stimulation equipment( you don't think the little bastard actually reproduced without help, did you?) seems to be a Good Thing(which would cause damn little harm to the common people there, since electric lights- let alone anything else- are mostly a stranger to them).

Problem with thinking about the good side of this is you have to consider the bad side, and that would be very bad indeed. First in the islamists getting tired of murdering nuns and priests and defiling bodies and committing the aforementioned atrocity at the level that brings this about, then the mess that happens because of it. And I'm very afraid both will happen. Someone wrote about how we can't take it as a given that most of the moslem world actually supports the 'behead those who insult Islam' and murdering people as a part of it attitude, that many may simply be going along with it because they don't want to be a target of the nutcases.

Unfortunately, the answer to that is "So what?" Put a nation in fear of its very survival and it's not going to give a rats ass about how many are supposedly 'our friends we just don't know yet', it's going to say "Time to play whack-a-mole with multiple BIG hammers". At which time they'll have the options of A: help whack the islamic fascists, or B: be taken out with them. And history has shown that lots of innocents WILL be killed, in this case not simply because of the 'fog of war', but because the damned fascists will be using them as shields.

And yeah, in some cases there damn well would be problems after the islamic fascists are whacked; old slights and wars and border disputes might get, let us say, a bit heated. Overall, though, I'm hopeful that in most of the world that wouldn't amount to more than some noise. Some places, like Africa? THAT could get really, really messy.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Oh, brave muslims!

Murdering old women and hospital workers. Burning churches. Threatening to level the Vatican. Because you don't have the balls to listen to a speech where a prince said a bad thing about islam six hundred freakin' years ago. Oh yeah, these are just WONDERFUL ways to show how peaceful and accepting Islam is.

I repeat what I said before, we've got a bunch of bloody-handed idiots who are in CHARGE of millions of moslems threatening death and blood and fire once again because somebody dared to say something they don't like. And the same idiots will whine and moan that people are prejudiced against them, therefore they DESERVE to die. Moslems are ENTITLED to act like the bunch of seventh-century barbarians they still are, according to them.

I'm sick to death of this crap. I referred to these as acting like spoiled brats; that was in error, and an insult to brats. The BPMs are exactly what I said above, seventh-century barbarians who, it seems, will only understand force.

You know what's going to happen. They'll do something so bad that even most of the nanny-state socialists in various governments will shut up(they'll whine about it, of course) and, as the guy said in the move, hell will come to breakfast. And afterward the surviving idiots will whine about being mistreated(of course) and the dumbass types here will whine about how mean we were(of course), but the threat from these clowns will be stomped. Maybe not forever, but for a long time.

No, I'm not looking forward to it. Yes, I think it'll happen. Among other things, before they turned into the modern incarnation, Italians produced the Roman soldiers that conquered a large part of the world. Various other nations currently playing games(directed by their betters, or course-as the 'betters' see it)have a warrior past that the islamist murderers would do well to consider. Because for the people- not the Euroweenies, the people- WILL hit a limit, and it will get nasty.

And at this point, I think it will happen simply because the dumbass people in various governments and the useful idiots in many countries have gotten the islamist murderers and whiners used to being catered to. "Oh, you're offended! How may we make it up to you?", etc., so they think they can do it forever. I don't think so. I think there are lots of people ready to tell them to go to hell now, but their governments don't listen to them("Listen to the peasants? Surely you jest!"). Piss them off enough, and their governments will be given no choice.

And it'll get messy. And at that point, there will be no other choice.

Oh, excuse me, for the multicultural fools the choice of becoming dhimmi would probably be considered acceptable, and I invite them to move their sorry asses to some of the barbarian parts of the world now; it'll be easier to get there now than it will after.