Saturday, May 06, 2017

It's Saturday, which means

busy day, and data to check over











































While doing some mowing yesterday

(which was quite unpleasant at times, won't bore you with why), in a place where it had to be cut, was a lovely outbreak of yarrow.  And me with no shovel.

I did find a steel T-post, and was able to dig up a couple of the smaller plants with it.  Which are now in the herb garden.  We'll see how they do.

I cannot find a video or mp3 of this song;

places to buy it, but not to get a taste.  So I'll post the lyrics from Leslie Fish:
They were having a sale at the gun store; the Jukes boys decided to go
With the moonshine gone bad, and the poaching gone thin
Their business was doing quite slow
So they bought them a lot of hand-cannons, intent upon robb'ry and more
But they never once thought to consider
That they weren't alone in the store.


Next in line was a little old lady, and next was a handsome young dame
After her, came a man in a wheelchair
Then a lad with an underweight frame
They watched while the Jukes boys were buying, and considered what such boys would do
Then they looked at each other, they said not a word
But bought themselves hand-cannons too.


Well, that night Billy Jukes went out hunting; he spotted a girl who looked great
But when he pulled her into an alley
She pulled out a big 38.
He thought this was feminine bluffing; "Naw, girl, you can't shoot me," he said
Well, the very next second she proved he was wrong
And Billy Jukes quite lost his head.


Well, Joey Jukes went for the money, so he went to a big liquor store
And he hauled out his two-barrelled shotgun
The moment he walked through the door
He aimed at all present, and bellowed "Give me all ya got, or yer dead!"
So the counterboy lifted his 44 mag
And did just what Joey Jukes said.


Now, Beauregarde Jukes chose his pickin's with more care and planning by far
He jumped on a little old lady
Who was just getting into her car
But she promptly reached into her handbag and used the best choice she could make
For a 25 auto has such light recoil
As even a frail hand can take.


Now Roy Jukes was good at house burgling and still thought he'd escape without harm
When the owner rolled in with a shotgun
Braced on his wheelchair's arm
"Well, they'll bust you for shooting--" Roy started, but the man's shotgun cut off the lot
And he said, as he muscled Roy's corpse out the door
"There are no ballistics on shot."


So that was the end of the Jukes boys; the cops had to clean up the mess
So they slandered gun-owning civilians
All over the liberal press
But the victors who might have been victims go silent, although this is true:
So long as there's one weapon left in the world,
You better have you a gun too.

Friday, May 05, 2017

Friday night has arrived, and I'm beat

So join me in resting and checking out the new data.









































A confession to make:

Short while ago I became the owner of one of them old-style boom-makers
Pedersoli Sharps in .45-70, with that lesson I learned demonstrated by the presence of the recoil pad.  That's a Pedersoli mid-range tang sight, and a Lyman hooded front sight

About that pad, I'd thought of getting another stock and cutting the thickness of the pad off the back end(as the length of pull was just about perfect), but ran into two problems:
Nobody had one, and ordering it from Pedersoli would be damned expensive.  So pad mounted on the original it is.  And yes, the buttplate is safely put away.

Among the things I've learned about such:
Fun.
Take care of the cartridge cases, and they'll last for many loadings.  With black-powder loads, you don't resize them after firing, just check the length and expand the case mouth enough to allow the bullets to freely seat(we're talking just push it in by hand).  For smokeless, resize about the first half-inch or so to get the neck tension needed on the bullet.  Either way, little stress on the brass.  I've read that you should anneal that half-inch or so every half-dozen firings.
When you're casting bullets anywhere from 330 to 500 grains, you go through a pound of lead fast.

I've been using the pan-lube technique on the bullets, which you may not have heard of. 
You take a small metal pan with a flat bottom.
Place the bullets in it, sitting up and with a little space between them.
Melt the lube.
Pour it into the pan until it's deep enough to cover the lube grooves.
Let it cool.
Use a cartridge case with the base drilled out and the mouth expanded to remove them: push it down over a bullet, twist or tilt to break the bullet free of the pan, lift out, then use a dowel through the hole you drilled in the base to push it out of the case. 
It's slow, but it works.  Then, depending on the bullet, either use as-is, or run it through the sizing die, which in my case is a Lee push-through type.
It came as a .457"; I did slug the bore of the rifle, and it's .457, so exact fit.  However, past experience with cast bullets showed best performance with the bullet being 1-2 thousandths over bore size, so I polished it out to .459"(because they don't sell a .459), which seems to work well.  But it does bring up a question: with black, I've read that it was common to have the bullet at or a fraction below bore diameter, as the ignition characteristics of it are such that it causes the soft alloy used to 'bump up' to tightly fit the bore.  So should I use .457 for those loads?  I'll have to obtain some to try that out.  With smokeless this diameter seems to work quite well, and so far with black as well.  At least as far as I can tell at 100 yards.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to some of the house stuff I've been putting off with all the rain and chilly lately.  And because I'm lazy.

Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Well, the striker works

Yes, it's a new part from the manufacturer, but I wanted to make sure.  If I won't carry a magazine until it's been tried, I wouldn't want to trust a firearm with a major new part without trying it out.



Comey, you suck. I mean 'Hoover with a ungoverned turbocharger'-level suck.

Found through Ace:
Multiple U.S. senators are now demanding that FBI Director James Comey disclose whether Fusion GPS, the Democratic opposition research firm that produced the debunked dossier on President Trump’s alleged Russia ties, was itself a Russian agent working on behalf of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
...
Graham: Are you familiar with Fusion?
Comey: I know the name.
Graham: Are they part of the Russian intelligence apparatus?
Comey: I can’t say.
Graham: Do you agree with me that if Fusion was involved in preparing a dossier against Donald Trump, that would be interfering in our election by the Russians?
Comey: I don’t want to say.
...
Grassley asked for information on March 6 about the FBI’s relationship to Christopher Steele, author of a political opposition research dossier that alleged collusion between associates of Donald Trump and the Russian government. The FBI failed to respond, despite a March 20 deadline.

On February 15, Grassley and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked for a briefing and documents related to the resignation of Trump National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and the leaks of classified info involving him. There was a “startling lack of responsiveness” to the request, Grassley wrote. Comey finally briefed Grassley and Feinstein in mid-March, addressing also a small number of the questions about Steele.

On April 19, the FBI claimed that the meeting addressed the concerns of both letters. “That is incorrect,” Grassley noted. Not only has the FBI failed to provide the documents requested in the March letter or answer the vast majority of its questions, there appear to be “material inconsistencies” between the description of the FBI’s relationship with Steele that Comey gave in the briefing and information contained in Justice Department documents made available to the committee after the briefing.
Comey needs to be informed "Answer the damned questions or be charged with contempt and placed in a cell."

Also, Tapper finds it "damning" that Comey didn't think Loretta Lynch had the credibility to "credibly end this," that is, the investigation into the Clinton email scandal, and to "decline prosecution."

I find it equally damning that Comey viewed it as his, the FBI's, and the DOJ's mission "to credibly end this" [investigation] by "declin[ing] prosecution."

Seems like Comey already had his pre-ordained conclusion firmly in mind; he just didn't think Lynch had the credibility to do the dirty deed herself. So he'd step up to the bat and do what Establishment Washington needed him to do: