Saturday evening

New data.  Still hot & humid outside.  Inside's cooler.

Case forming, The Shrinkage

Not much, but some.

Helping with the .310 Cadet loads, few days back modified a bunch of cases, then were able to fire thirty of them with a basic load.  It's not uncommon for cases, when fireformed in the chamber, to lose a bit of length.  This time I measured all the cases after trimming; a couple were a few thousandths shorter, but the rest all came out a 1.139".

The load was 7.0 grains 2400, a Remington Small Rifle primer, and the RCBS 120-grain bullet.  Thirty were fired, and twenty-five measured 1.130-1.131"; four were 1.128", and one was 1.125".

I suspect the five shorter may have been a touch shorter originally(measuring error on my part), so if you discount those these shrank 0.008" in length. 

You may ask how I came up with 1.139" for starting length: previous experiment showed that if you got much over 1.140('much' in this case meaning .003-.005) the bullet was being pushed into the rifling in order to close the action.  Which I don't like as a general thing.  So on 'if it's all consistent it's good' theory a case a few thousandths less than the useable max makes for easier loading, no worries about pressure spikes from having the bullet engaging the rifling, and, facing facts, this isn't a super-precise match rifle where that few thousandths is going to make a big difference in accuracy.

Something else I need to try: so far the bullets used were cast of 15-1 lead-tin alloy, I want to cast some of mongrel alloy and see how they work.  Since this bullet fits the bore nicely, I'm hoping for good results.

From the Professional Journalists who want to lecture us on firearms

.@PeteWilliamsNBC on the weapon used in the newsroom shooting: a shotgun is like a backwards funnel, you don’t have to have direct aim to hurt a lot of people. It was purchased legally. #AMR

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports)
Joyous, isn't it?


More Professional Journalism:
A reporter in Springfield, Mass., resigned from his job Friday after posting a Twitter message falsely stating that Maryland shooting suspect Jarrod Ramos had brought a "Make America Great Again" hat to the office of the Capital Gazette.


Every time the cry went up for more hate crime laws, they were warned, but did they listen?  Noooo...
Police officers in Crafton, Pennsylvania, arrested a 52-year-old black man, Robbie Sanderson, for shoplifting at a CVS in September of 2016. He called them Nazis, skinheads, and Gestapo as they cuffed him.

Because of those epithets, Sanderson was charged with "ethnic intimidation." Insulting the officers in such terms was an anti-white hate crime, from the perspective of the authorities. Sanderson had made bias-motivated "terroristic threats," they claimed. The alleged motivation increased the seriousness of Sanderson's crime from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.

All those people had to come from somewhere...

No wonder the Spanish found so many local tribes willing to help them fight the Aztec; they were sick of being sacrifice farms.

Something to add on that free speech mess the other day

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.               H. L. Mencken
But these (mostly)well-meaning people won't hear it, or won't believe it.  Or just don't care.

That time of week again;

and yes, the data arrived

Due to a discussion on Bookface,

which I really should start ignoring, I am informed
Bad people(generally lumped under National Socialists) should not be allowed to speak or demonstrate publicly.  Because some people are scared or threatened by it, and allowing that damages tolerance.

If you actually think the 1st Amendment includes people you don't like and ideas you don't agree with, you're a coward/scum lord(is that the new shitlord?)/fool who enables National Socialists with your idiot free speech ideas.

Etc.

Every time someone starts that "THOSE people should not be allowed in public!" and/or "THEIR speech should not be allowed!", I'm reminded of this


I've posted it in response a couple of times, but it's useless; they all think that the restrictions they want would never be turned around and used against them.

Enough to make you despair at times, it really is.

That's a LOT of skulls

from a LOT of human sacrifices.

No, the Triple Alliance were not nice people.

Ah, Californicated, you never fail to amaze

WUT? CA Supreme Court says the issue of the constitutionality of the law was not before it because no constitutional challenge was made.
and

WTH?  Oh yeah:
Attorneys for the state acknowledged in court documents that microstamping technology is “emerging,” but they said lawmakers often enact laws to force industries to innovate. They warned a ruling in favor of gun makers could take away that power.
"The tech to do this doesn't exist, but if we push hard enough maybe it will!"  The Magic Underpants Gnome Theory of Law...

General stuff

Watching a bunch of the left absolutely lose what's left of their minds

over Kennedy retiring... not sure whether scary or more "Their tears are delicious."

Really?  Hoping he dies, or wanting him killed, because he retired?  Insisting the only reason someone in their 80's would retire is being threatened or paid to?

Get a grip, people.  Insty has had a saying about the next election that
ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS NOT BE CRAZY, AND THEY CAN’T EVEN DO THAT
And they're demonstrating that no, they can't.  Far too many of them.  For instance,
'Read a f****** history book. Read a recent history book. The U.S. had thousands of domestic bombings per year in the early 1970s. This is what happens when citizens decide en masse that their political system is corrupt, racist, and unresponsive. 

 'The people out of power have only just begun to flex their dissatisfaction. The day will come, sooner that you all think, when Trump administration officials will look back fondly on the time when all they had to worry about was getting hollered at at a Mexican restaurant. 
Stops just short of outright calling for terrorist attacks.  Yeah, that's going to go over well with the people who aren't leftist nutcases.

Keep it classy, leftists; you'll ensure four more years of Trump.

I will note that, on an evening like this,

summer sausage, salami, a couple of different cheeses, and some soda bread, washed down with Honey Brown, is a damn good dinner.

With all the clowns threatening mob violence,

brings up an old argument: how much ammo should you carry?

Ok, this is messy and nasty for two reasons:
1: The possibility of being attacked by a damned mob howling for your blood, and
2: No matter the circumstances, the left(which includes much of the media) will portray anyone who uses a gun to defend themselves/their family or friends from said mob as a nasty right-wing bastard who MUST HAVE WANTED TO KILL PEOPLE, because otherwise why have a gun?  The fact that said howling mob was planning to beat you into mulch will be incidental; you using a gun to save yourself will be the 'crime'.

Complicating this is a bunch of professional agitators who will try to push things right up to the edge but not quite over to try to make someone fire a shot so they can scream "Evil gun-toting right-winger nazi* attacked us!" and claim victimhood.  You hit one of them, even kill one, that just makes it better; they can shed even more tears and scream for the cameras.  And they don't really give a rat's ass if one of theirs dies(we're talking, especially, the professionals) because The Party/Movement Trumps All.  So if you hold off, no matter how hard they push, you don't give them that; but mobs are nasty things, and if they get too close, too worked up, one of them is likely to decide "It's time!", and everything goes to hell.

And we're back to the original question of "How much?"  If you've got the answer, I'd love to hear it.  One shot in the face of said mob might break them, as a lot of these clowns are used to thinking "Bash the Fash!" and actually getting shot at, let alone hit, is not in their vocabulary.  The really dedicated, sure; but most of them aren't, I don't think.  Other hand, this not being tv, anything other than a head shot might not make someone just fall down, and to a howling-for-blood mob a sound that in other circumstances would back them up might be barely noticed.

Best of all is to stay the hell away from such, if you can("You can't lose the fight you don't get into").  If you're caught in a situation without a way to get out, then 'as much as you can reasonably carry' is the amount: at least one spare magazine.  Two or more might be great, but not everyone can carry that on their person.

Y'know, this is a really nasty discussion.  And every time some idiot politician calls for 'confrontation' of anyone they don't like, it gets more likely some poor bastard is going to be caught having to deal with it.




*Yes, I know; yes they're that stupid.

One of those "Should never have had to do this, but now some adults are in charge" things

Fighting will now take precedence over dealing with transitioning transgender troops, drug abuse and other issues as the Army seeks to overhaul its training regimen to hone its soldiers’ battlefield skills.
I think it was Limbaugh who once said the left considers the military- at best- a international Meals On Wheels and social justice experimentation branch of government.  Which costs lives, wastes time and money, and is just plain stupid.  they're also the micromanagers who want a lawyer- preferably in DC- to approve any action in the field, and gave us crap like "If someone shoots at you, you can't return fire until you receive permission, or else."


Democrats from 23 states are trying to keep Trump off the ballot unless he makes his tax return public.
Oh yeah, that's going to go well.  Just think of all the options that opens up: "You can't run unless we see your college transcript" for one.  Maybe "You can't run unless you agree to take no lobbying job for five years after leaving office", that'd be a nice one.


I think Civil War II has already been going on, it's just not been at the point of open combat yet.  Attacks by leftists, yes, but no real battles; if those begin...


We've got a disturbing number of politicians and leftist leaders like that.
Orwell goes on to quote a poem by W. H. Auden, who during the 30s was a Communist supporter. It contains the phrase “necessary murder” (of the type that is necessary under Communism), and of this Orwell writes [emphasis mine]:

Mr Auden’s brand of amoralism is only possible, if you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled. So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot. The warmongering to which the English intelligentsia [on the left] gave themselves up in the period 1935-9 was largely based on a sense of personal immunity.

Speaking of: Know your enemy #1: The violent "progressives"

One of the things the media isn't reporting on

because they're too 'busy' screaming about illegal alien kids:
A top aide to Democrat Rep. Yvette Clarke told Capitol Hill investigators she believed the New York congresswoman’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, was working with IT aide Abid Awan to steal equipment from the congressional office.

Clarke “wrote off” one-tenth of her annual budget after $120,000 in equipment could not be located.

She did not mention it publicly and waited to fire Abid until House officials approached her about it months later. Davis no longer works there, but has not been arrested. 
Add this to all the other crap that's come out, and this should be a BIG story.  But it's not.  For some reason.


The leftists are not going to like it when some people start using their own rules against them.
"The video they are choosing to share is of the least aggressive portion of the attack that transpired after police arrived to control the scene. What they are not sharing publicly are several previous encounters involving large men getting in the Attorney General's face, spitting and blocking her exit," Ray said in an emailed statement. "The Attorney General tried to have a conversation with these individuals, however, when it became abundantly clear that they were not interested in a constructive dialog but were only there to cause a scene, the attorney general tried to leave the volatile scene."
She needed an escort.  To LEAVE the movie.


An idiot wants to follow the Chavez method and destroy Mexico.  And thinks
"And soon, very soon – after the victory of our movement – we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world," Obrador said, adding that immigrants "must leave their towns and find a life in the United States."

He then declared it as "a human right we will defend," eluniversal.com reports.
Oh yeah, this is going to work.  That wall will start appearing real quick if this crap begins.


The UN speaks of murders and horrors in Venezuela.  Mentions corruption and mismanagement, but somehow there's no mention of 'socialism'.  For some reason.


So, a baker who refuses to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding is a horrible bastard who must be destroyed.

But a restaurant owner who says "We don't serve your kind here" is heroic.

Yeah, the left is really going to hate it when their new rules come around and bite them.

Amazing what happens when they face real consequences

The Justice Department says it has given House Republicans new classified information related to the Russia investigation after lawmakers had threatened to hold officials in contempt of Congress or even impeach them.
And yet they're still trying:
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan said Saturday that the department has partially complied with subpoenas from the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees after officials turned over more than a thousand new documents this week.
'partially complied'.  Too bad there's not a 'partially impeached' option.


Crap like this is why "Build a wall!" has such resonance.  Hell, this makes "Minefields and sniper towers!" sound better.
Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) called for mass immigration to the United States during a speech Tuesday declaring it a “human right” for all North Americans.

“And soon, very soon — after the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world,” Obrador said, adding that immigrants “must leave their towns and find a life in the United States.”
Someone who considers his own country's borders sacred thinks our don't exist; yeah, that'll go over well.


One of those "Only Ones professional enough to have a gun" people.
Justin T. Fahy, 27, who was an agent with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, pleaded guilty Friday for attempting to take photographs of women in bathrooms.
At least BATFEIEIO fired him(helping drug cartels won't do that), but the prosecution...

However, he will not serve any time in jail.

Instead, the former ATF agent was sentenced to 12 months of probation and required to undergo a psychological exam and counseling as a condition of his probation.

What the hell?