Saturday, May 30, 2020

Why I don't like the NYeffingTimes, Part Whatever

No, the local authorities are not handling this well.  At all(not exactly a surprise, is it?)

Yet instead of focusing on that, the NYeT uses this as another occasion for "It's all Trump's fault!"

I'm sure that bitching about this makes me an Enemy of Journalism or something.

Friday, May 29, 2020

Friday has arrived,

the rain has stopped for now, and the data is in.

































Ah, MSNBC

Well, just maybe they were treated differently because THEY WEREN'T RIOTING?

Once again the experts advise us how to arrange our lives

We're back to "If you're healthy you don't need and shouldn't wear a mask."  From the same people who've changed their minds at least twice on this.

I'm waiting for the next "Why won't you people properly respect The Experts?" so I can throw this in.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Speaking of lack of trust,

It appears that officials in charge in Washington state want to keep the panic level as high as they can during this pandemic.

To do this, they have been listing some deaths as a result of the coronavirus in their statistics, even when the cause of death is something other than COVID-19 — like gunshot wounds.
...
Hutchinson said such deaths will eventually be removed from the state’s COVIC-19 count.
'Eventually'.  Isn't that nice?  Why not now?  And how many other deaths have been falsely credited to the CCP Flu so Inslee can pad the numbers?

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Repeating: either the EffingBI gets cleaned out, with some people going to jail,

or NOBODY will ever have reason to trust that agency again.  About anything.
Late last week the FBI document that started the Trump-Russia collusion fiasco was publicly released. It hasn’t received a lot of attention but it should, because not too long from now this document likely will be blown up and placed on an easel as Exhibit A in a federal courtroom.

The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John Durham, will rightly point out that the document that spawned three years of political misery fails to articulate a single justifiable reason for starting the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.

Those of us who have speculated there was insufficient cause for beginning the investigation could not have imagined the actual opening document was this feeble. It is as if it were written by someone who had no experience as an FBI agent.

Monday, May 25, 2020

A question about an old cartridge Updated

Friend of mine picked up an old British double rifle in .450 Black Powder Express(no pictures, I haven't even seen the thing yet).  I've been digging around to find some load data for him, and aside from "I've heard this" and "If you do X, Y, and Q you should have good results", very little.  Solid "This is what the main bullet would have been, using X grains of 2f" or such wasn't to be found, at least not yet.

Any of you familiar with this, or able to point to some good information?

Update: thanks for the responses, couple of new places to look along with the rest.
Have started looking at Cast Boolits(one of my go-to places), but if he's going to start on one we know nothing about, I want lots of sources.  My thanks to you all.

About that trip to the range,

now that I'm not running in circles trying to take care of various things at once, a bit more about that.

On .45-70, had a experiment to try.  I'd been reading this book, which has a lot of good stuff about loading for buffalo rifles, and one thing he mentioned was that for black powder loads he'd get a custom case expander so mouth and area of the case which covered the bullet is only about .002" smaller than bullet diameter, so as to have less chance of the case pressure deforming a soft lead bullet.  Well, I have a lathe, so...

On the left is the case neck/mouth expander of a Lee die, on the right the expander I made.

Once I got the die adjustment so it would expand the case to the depth the bullet was seated, I ran off eleven: five for Blackhorn 209 loads, five for black, and one to dirty the bore for the black loads.  Not always, but often a black powder load through a clean barrel will hit higher on the target, so one to dirty the bore, then the blow tube, then the shots for grouping.

All these were the Lyman 525-grain bullet, cast of 20-2, and a Federal Large Magnum Rifle primer

Five with Blackhorn
First was way the hell high, then three almost touching, then one to the right.  I should've fired a fouling shot first, I'd bet that's why the first was so high; the fifth was either wind(it was getting gusty at that point) or my fault.  I need to try this again.

Five with 65.0 grains of Goex 2f
I didn't fire the fouling shot for this group, figuring that though it wasn't with black, the previous shots should've nicely fouled the bore.  Not bad at all.  I've gotten a couple of previous groups about this good, but I'll definitely try this again.    The multiple efforts of getting an expander just right(don't ask) might not have actually made any real change, but I had to try.

Shut up, yes I did.

On to other things:
I also had several .40-65 loads to try out, and I did them first.  Because after the recoil of the .45-70 I sometimes am not that precise on later stuff.

One thing I wanted to try was a lighter bullet.  I had some 300-grain from a RCBS mold, and tried them at 100 yards with five 56.0 grains 2f, and five with 57.0.
56.0

57.0
At first test, the 57.0 seems to have a bit of advantage.  Or I blew the vertical on two.  I will find out.  From what I've read most newer rifles in this cartridge, with a faster rifling pitch than the originals, often don't shoot well with shorter bullets, if this is one of those that will at longer distances, it'll be interesting to mess with.

Some other groups were shot, but the wind was giving me some trouble on them, so no pictures of those.  This cartridge definitely has less recoil than .45-70, more pleasant to shoot.

No Chrony readings on any of these, too busy a day to take the time to set it up.  I'd love one of the radar chronographs, but I can't justify that much cash for it.

There are some judges who need to be decorating trees

right next to the politicians they're protecting.

Memorial Day


Sunday, May 24, 2020

Yeah, getting personally slapped in the face with what these idiot 'gun safety' laws really mean

has a tendency to change minds.
His March 11 purchase of a 9mm would have been the end of the story, were it not for a political standoff over shutdown orders and background checks. Now Kane, a former supporter of gun-control measures and AR-15 bans, is frustrated by the arduous process that has denied his family a sense of security. The pandemic has made the soft-spoken software engineer an unlikely Second Amendment supporter.