The snow, as previously mentioned, didn't show,

but the cold definitely did.  If you're indoors and warm, here's some material to take your mind off the temperature

'The Director regrets the omissions and errors his Holy Special Agents committed

and will see that training is done to prevent it happening again.'

Translation: "I'm really sorry a bunch of our agents and lawyers were caught lying under oath and faking evidence, and I'll see a training class is done to prevent it in the future.  But I have NO intention of further punitive action(at least that you'll ever hear of) against the Special Agents who committed these crimes.

Criminal charges?  Against FBI agents?  Are you serious?"

Apparently the idea that "Unless you ACTUALLY CLEAN THIS SHIT UP, including firings and prosecutions, nobody will ever trust your Very Special Agents ever again" just does not get through to these clowns.

"What they promise" vs. "What they deliver"

Collected by Kevin at Smallest Minority,
Promise

vs Reality

Friend, who hates Trump, had a link on Fecesbook

to a piece in NYMag titled
What Will Happen to The Trump Toadies?
Look to Nixon’s defenders, and the Vichy collaborators, for clues.*
I did a bit of skimming, and it's about what you'd expect: "Anyone who works for/supports Trump is either evil and connected with Putin, or stupid!  But the Arc of History always bends toward Justice, and will deal with them!"

I'll give you one bit from the start:
Donald Trump proves daily that there is no longer any penalty for doing wrong as long as you deny everything, never say you’re sorry, and have co-conspirators stashed in powerful places to put the fix in.
Amazing, isn't it?  And that level of projection is probably harmful to the brain.  I do wonder how they'd react to mention of lying EffingBI/CIA/DoJ hacks caught with their hand in the cookie jar.  And Democrats who cannot find any wrong in anything Hillary did.

First, it's amazing how much people who claim that 'Othering' people is Bad, work so hard at it when its someone they don't like.

Second, this is how they see anyone who doesn't mouth the right words and vote the right way: you're either evil or stupid, and should be ruled by the Correct-Thinking betters.

Michael Z Williamson once said that 'The only thing more stupid than a Trump lover is a Trump hater.'  Seems to be on to something there.

*No, I'm not giving these asshats clicks, if you want to read it it'll be easy to find

'Possible 1-3 inches of snow'

Which is actually a few stray flakes drifting around.

This is after the threats of 'Scattered showers all day, some may be severe!'

(grumbles of future "Why do we listen to these people?")

It's one of those nights, and the weather

is turning back into January crap, so it's a very good night to stay inside.

'...whose expertise includes urban ecological design, spatial politics,

and social mobilization in the issues of climate change and global urbanization'
Really tells you all you need to know, doesn't it?

No.  I don't want to live in either the old Soviet Union or the blocks of Judge Dredd's world, you scrofulous idiot.

Oh yeah, that left a mark

And probably made him a good criminal

About that range day,

Had half a dozen loads in .45-70 I wanted to test, but a phone call cut my time short, so was only able to try four.  All bullets were cast of 20-1.

First was the Lee 405-grain hollowbase over 70.0 grains of 2f black, with a .060 wad between bullet and powder

I have no idea where the first one went.  I suspected high, so I lowered the rear sight, and got this.  Not a bad group, not outstanding.

This was the prize: 500-grain Lyman roundnose bullet over 65.0 2f, .060 wad

That far/right was me, one of those where just as the trigger breaks you know you pulled it a bit.  Those other four were right on aim.

This was a smokeless load I've tried before, 525-grain Lyman Postell, 23.0 Accurate 5744, the usual wad under the bullet

Bad breath control on my part.  Every time I haven't watched it, I've gotten that vertical stringing.  It's shot quite well before, and if not for me would have this time as well.  Which leads us to #4, same everything except 24.0 grains

The first was that very high hole.  Lowered the rear sight, two more, my second 'knew I blew it' of the day, and one more.  Definitely trying this one again(yes, I recorded all the sight settings). 

I did remember to take the tripod and Chrony today but discovered that the tripod isn't high enough for the way the ground drops in front of the firing line.  I'll have to figure a way to extend the vertical pipe so I can check the velocities.  That last one must've made a big jump over the 23.0 load.  Easy ejection, no bad signs on the primers, and this is well below the max load in the Lyman manual.

And thus went most of that trip, all I had time for otherwise was checking zero on another rifle.  So now I need to make up some more of these, and hopefully be able to shoot the others, next time.

There was insufficient headfire here,

he was able to walk away

Yesterday was a range day,

though it was cut a bit short.  Had a couple of interesting results, which I'll update this with more later.

Right now I've got to catch up on the stuff I'd planned to do yesterday after the range.

Tab clearing

Snowy owls in Detroit.  Considering the amount of rats and such to eat, why not?


March For Our Lives Raised Nearly All Funding from Secret Six-Figure Donations 

The gun-control group responsible for a 2018 march on Washington, D.C., raised the vast majority of its funds from undisclosed donations over six figures, a recently released tax document shows.


Let's say I'd want proof of actual 'threats of severe violence' before I'll believe them.


Yes, the enviroweenies are (still) full of shit.


Those states/cities trying to run the NRA out of existence?  Didn't go so well for them.


Apparently the dickheads at CNN really didn't want this to go to court.

Some of the asshats running Virginia really seem to want the boogaloo

to kick off.
They want to shut down every gun range in the state that isn’t owned by the government. 
According to House Bill 567, any indoor shooting range would be prohibited by law – UNLESS it was inside of a building owned or leased by the state. 

And any business owners who decided to defy the law could be facing up to a $100,000 fine and potential additional civil penalties.
And the ones allowed to stay open will have to have complete records of whoever shoots there.  Because that registration won't happen voluntarily.

Just how badly has the Evil Party screwed up the impeachment?

This badly.
The witness was Charles Kupperman, a deputy to former national security adviser John Bolton. Other than Bolton himself, Kupperman is one of the officials most likely to have direct knowledge of an alleged quid pro quo on aid to Ukraine. After subpoenaing him last fall, the House withdrew its request before the court could rule on compelling his testimony for the record. The House also decided not to subpoena Bolton or any other key witnesses in the administration. Judge Richard Leon dismissed the case before New Years Eve with a hint of frustration, if not bewilderment, that the House did not seem interested in hearing from a possible eyewitness. Historically, that lack of attention in not only witnesses but also a triable case will remain one of the most baffling blunders of this impeachment. 
... 
Schiff is not the only Democrat undermining the case for the obstruction article. Representative Eric Swalwell, who seeks to be a House manager at the Senate trial, recently declared that not only should a sitting president be impeached if he goes to the courts rather than submit to Congress, but that contesting demands for evidence is actually evidence of guilt on all of the charged offenses. In a complete denial of the critical concepts of the rule of law and due process, Swalwell claimed “we can only conclude that you are guilty” if someone refuses to give testimony or documents. It is unclear if his concept of due process would be extended to President Obama, who refused both critical witnesses and documents to Congress on the basis of claims that were eventually dismissed by federal courts as untenable. Likewise, former Vice President Joe Biden has made headlines by declaring that, if subpoenaed, he would defy the Senate. But someone must have explained to Biden that the man he seeks to replace was just impeached for defying the House, even without a subpoena, because he clarified his earlier remarks by stating the opposite in a later interview.

Why, you'd think this was being done by a bunch of incompetent partisan hacks or something...

Anyone messed around with one of the old Savage 340-series rifles?

Coworker picked one up recently, and likes it.  I'm wondering about the barrel band that holds the barrel to stock about 2" back from the forend tip.  If you've ever used on, did you try removing the band to see if it would affect accuracy?

I did do some digging around, and found the usual mix of opinions.  The design only uses one receiver screw to hold it into the stock, so the ones removing the band that sounded best(to me) involved bedding the receiver and first few inches of barrel and free-floating the rest, or bedding the receiver and barrel full-length.

"THEY'E JUST LIKE SLAVERY SUPPORTERS!!"

Yeah.  Right.  From a clown in the Washington Post:
In linking it to slavery, he wrote, “A sad irony is that the ‘sanctuary’ movement conjures the disturbing nullification movements of the past three centuries in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued that the states have the right to ignore federal laws they consider unconstitutional. That thinking was applied to proslavery movements, leading to the Civil War and the fight over integration in the 1950s and 1960s.”

How much you want to bet that he LOVES the idea of sanctuary cities and counties for illegal aliens?

But that, of course, is different.

I'd heard of Parker shotguns,

but never knew the history of the name.