And this weekend, the data came in

on time

Converting Berdan cases to Boxer

Interesting way of doing it.

Years back read an article by a guy who had a rifle in an oddball Euro cartridge, had some ammo and a bunch of brass but new stuff was unavailable and all the old cases(brass, happily) were Berdan primed.

He measured and found that a standard large rifle primer was the proper diameter, and as an experiment carefully removed the anvil from some primers, carefully seated them, and found they worked.  As he noted, it was a pain to do, but if you had something you couldn't get boxer-primed brass for, it allowed you to shoot it.

Missed one last week, so I'll try to make sure the data arrives on time

this weekend.

From 2017 eclipse, that's one hell of a picture

of the corona

I was going to do a list of links on "Why the HELL should I trust these people?"

but it would be long and depressing.  So I'm just going with one on Professional Journalists.
ABC News anchor Amy Robach said she and her network had the story about Jeffrey Epstein and the extent of his pedophilia ring years ago — but the network refused to run the story for fear of upsetting some powerful people.

Robach is seen and heard making the comments in a video released by Project Veritas, which shows her talking on a hot mic on an ABC News set in August about how frustrating it was for her to see the Epstein story blow up when she had all the information three years before.
Three years... that would be during the election, wouldn't it?

Considering the "I am proud of my years in the FBI!" start,

must've given him indigestion to write this:

One of the most damning charges contained within Powell’s 37-page court brief is that Page, the DOJ lawyer assigned to the office of then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, may have materially altered Flynn’s interview FD-302, which was drafted by Strzok. FBI agents transfer handwritten interview notes onto a formal testimonial document, FD-302, within five days of conducting an interview, while recollections are still fresh.

It is unheard of for someone not actually on the interview itself to materially alter an FD-302. As an FBI agent, no one in my chain of command ever directed me to alter consequential wording. And as a longtime FBI supervisor, I never ever directed an agent to recollect something different from what they discerned during an interview. Returning a 302 for errors in grammar, punctuation, or syntax is appropriate. This occurs before the document is ultimately uploaded to a particular file, conjoined with the original interview notes which are safely secured inside a 1-A envelope, and secured as part of evidence at trial.

With this in mind, this related text message exchange from Strzok to Page dated Feb. 10, 2017, nauseated me:

"I made your edits and sent them to Joe. I also emailed you an updated 302. I’m not asking you to edit it this weekend, I just wanted to send it to you.

Here's something else he ought to be upset about: when Eric Holder was AG he ordered these clowns to start recording interviews instead of "I'll take notes and write it down later."  Yet years later the bastards STILL aren't recording.  Why?

Only reason I can think of is an actual recording can't be screwed with the way notes can.  Which tells you a lot about the EffingBI continuing to do it.

After some "I was wrong, a few agents(but only a few!) did bad things", he ends with

I am physically nauseous as I type these words. I have long maintained that innocent mistakes were made and that the investigators at the center of this maelstrom were entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

No more.

They have tarnished the badge and forever stained an agency that deserved so much better from them. I am ashamed. The irreparable damage Comey’s team has done to the FBI will take a generation to reverse."

Hah. It would take a generation IF the EffingBI ACTUALLY DID A CLEANOUT OF THE AGENCY. Which I doubt we'll see.

Since, between weather and the eye thing

I don't know when I'll get a chance next, today was a range day.  Mostly trying out some loads.  Only going to note a few of those.  All .45-70, all at 200 yards.

I've mentioned before- I think- that with modern cases you cannot get 70 grains of black into this case and have the bullet seated so the case covers all the lube grooves*, especially with a heavy bullet like this.  I have gone up to 68 grains, and it takes a LOT of compression; 70 would probably cause the case to bulge a bit.  There's a writer named Mike Venturino who's written a lot on .45-70, and has expressed the opinion that with most rifles you can get as good a performance with 65 as you can with more, with a lot less compression.  So this was five rounds over 65.0 of 2f, using a .060" wad under the bullet

 That high/left was called, I thought I might've pulled it a touch, and I was right.  That's a quite nice group, and I'll shoot it again to be sure.

 This one was the same bullet and wad over 24.0 grains of Accurate 5744, which is one Venturino really likes for this cartridge(so do a lot of other people)

Again, I managed to pull one.  That's a very good group(especially for me).  I didn't think to throw in the tripod for the Chrony before I left, so no hard knowledge of velocity, though the Lyman book shows 1101fps.  Also shows this as likely to give the best accuracy with this bullet.

I did try a few with the Lee 405-grain hollowbase over 26.0 A5744, didn't group as tight as last time.  Which is quite possibly me, by that point I was getting to the 'concentration slipping' point.  Ah well, I've got a few more for next time.

By the way: I can't remember if I mentioned this before(and I'm too lazy to check right now), there's a very good piece(in pdf form) on 'Introduction to Black Powder Cartridge Rifle Loading' by a guy named Chuck Raithel available online, and it's got a lot of good information in it.  I'd post a link, but the one I had saved isn't working right, you should be able to search by that title and find it.



*A lot of guys loading specifically for long-range matches will seat the bullet as far out as it will go until it almost touches the rifling, and do not crimp; that lets them get as much powder in as possible for a little more velocity.  It also means some of the lube grooves are exposed, and if you turn the cartridge over the bullet will fall out.  Not shooting a those kind of distances, I want the case to cover the lube grooves, and use enough crimp to keep the bullet in place.  That's with black, with most smokeless propellants you get better performance from a strong crimp as well.

Without going into a bunch of details,

the reason for the low bloggage has been:
Notice problem with eye.
Doc says "You need a specialist."
See him.  "You need the retina specialist."
See him.  "you need this surgery, we'll do it in three weeks."
Two days before: "The doctor had to go out of the country, call tomorrow and we'll reschedule."
Call tomorrow: "She's not at her desk, she'll call you back." 
Followed by a effing WEEK of trying to find something out.
This morning: "We'll do it next week."
So, I have an eye problem(which is both annoying and somewhat terrifying).  Which should be either fixed, or mostly fixed(damn you, old age) by this.  When it gets done, and the following days of "You'll have to do this" are over.  Don't know when I'll be able to shoot anything with real recoil again, may be a couple of weeks, may be longer.

And in the meantime, it screws with my vision, which causes various problems and the occasional need to scream "God-DAMMIT!"

So the intermittent bloggage will continue.

And I think I need to get a bottle of good whiskey.

Typical leftist control freak: "Lie until you're in office, THEN

start raiding people's homes and taking their property."
“They should not tell everything they’re going to do,” Behar jumped in then, suggesting that candidates shouldn’t warn Americans the gun confiscation was coming. “If you are going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected and then take them away. Don’t tell them ahead of time.”

Now they're all saying this in the open.  Anyone who questions if they actually mean it is an idiot.

It appears some of the anti-vaccine idiots need to join communists

in getting half a helicopter ride.
The anti-vaxx harassment campaigns have gotten so extreme, that parents who are working to combat the reams of misinformation about vaccination, are hiding their identities in fear. A woman who recently lost her little boy to the flu experienced just such intimidation, and apparently nothing is considered too cruel.

Interviews with mothers who’ve lost children and with those who spy on anti-vaccination groups, reveal a tactic employed by anti-vaxers: When a child dies, members of the group sometimes encourage each other to go on that parent’s Facebook page. The anti-vaxers then post messages telling the parents they’re lying and their child never existed, or that the parent murdered them, or that vaccines killed the child, or some combination of all of those.
[…]
Some anti-vaxers told her she’d murdered Jude and made up a story about the flu to cover up her crime. Others said vaccines had killed her son. Some called her the c-word.
The worst ones — the ones that would sometimes make her cry — were the posts that said she was advocating for flu shots so that other children would die from the shots and their parents would be miserable like she was.

There's more.  Breakables warning in effect*


*unless the breakables are the horrible asshats doing this, then proceed.