Scenes from the range

Ring.

"Hey, do you have any .40 Magnum ammo?"

"No, sir.  I've never even heard of .40 Magnum."

"Yeah, it says 'SD40VE' on it."
"Sir, that's just .40 S&W, and we do have that."
"That's right, the magnum is a damn revolver, isn't it?"

Jeez.

Later, involving an inline muzzle-loader, I came so very close to saying "There was a thing in the box with your firearm called an 'owners manual', have you ever considered reading it?"

Then you have the people who show up less than half an hour before close and want to check in and shoot.  Worse are the ones who want to rent a gun as well.  Explain to them "By the time we get you checked in and all done, you'll have about ten, maybe fifteen minutes."
"That's ok" is almost always the response.  It generally isn't, but they say it anyway.

Sometimes working at a range is anything but fun.

It's one of those nights,

so take a look at the new information dump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday night,

take a look

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Jews are revolting!"

And it's about damned time.

So as the Jews of New York City are enjoying Sukkot and approach Simchat Torah, the Governor targets them for having the Synagogues locked down and the Mayor threatens to fine them $15,000 a day.

 

There was a protest.

Apparently not a real, proper protest, as nobody threw rocks at cops or broke windows, and there was a decide lack of looting.  But a protest nevertheless.

 

Put it all together, wonder if there's going to be a shift in voting patterns among the Jews of New York? 

The supposed 'right-wing militia' that talked about kidnapping a governor

inexplicably includes some anarchists and such.  And, for some reason, information on the others seems missing.

 

Anyone else see some possible problems with the Preferred Narrative™?

Good; universities that play "We don't hate Jews, we just won't cause problems for people who do"

need to pay a price.

B: It should be noted: worst white supremacist ever.

Only a few days after Adela’s speech, the president signed a landmark executive order including Jewish students as a protected class under Title IV. Crucially, the EO also defined anti-Semitism according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) classification, which includes bigoted anti-Israel behaviors common to groups involved in campaigns to boycott or demonize Israel.

Just how stupid is it out there?

Had to run to the store, and there was a guy on a Kawasaki Ninja, with no helmet, wearing a damned face panty.

 

I swear, there's a shortage of brain in the world

I present to you two penal colonies:

The one on our west coast.and

The one Australia has turned back into(found on Fecesbook):

 

This afternoon, Officer in Charge of SAPOL’s Firearms Branch, Superintendent Stephen Howard, announced that effective 8 October, gel blasters will be classed as imitation firearms. 

 

“The firing mechanism in a gel blaster compresses air to fire a projectile and therefore meets the threshold test to be defined as a firearm,” said Superintendent Howard.

“A gel blaster can easily be mistaken for a real firearm, with potential to cause concern in the community and trigger a police response that could involve the use of police firearms, or other tactical options.”

The changes mean some 62,000 gel blasters currently circulating in the South Australian community will now be subject to licensing and regulation.
Seems that's their term for paintball guns.  Which, much like Formerly Great Britain, are now a threat to public safety, etc.

Speaking of things that ruin shows,

it appears Longmire is worse than I'd thought.

Well, China hates the idea of armed peasants just as much as Kelly,

so him being their hireling isn't exactly a surprise.

 

Him being a standard-issue "He'll lie to get into office, then he'll do what you want!" politician isn't either.

 

Something that really screws my enjoyment of a book or a show

is when an author you thought knew better throws in something that is absolute bullshit.  Often involving firearms.

 

Some of the Longmire books have this, and I'm told the tv series does as well, for instance.  But my prize-winning choice is L. Sprague de Camp* in some short stories collected in a book called Rivers of Time.  Rivers is longtime hunter who, due to the invention of a time machine, takes people on safaris to hunt dinosaurs.  So far so good.

Then comes the mess: 'My clients must be able to shoot a .600 Nitro Express, because that's the only rifle capable of actually knocking a dinosaur down, so it is the only rifle that makes it safe enough to hunt them.'

If you're one of the folks who comes through here occasionally who doesn't know much about firearms, you may be wondering why that bothers me so much.  Short version: Firearms Do Not Work That Way.  Period.  And claiming they do means he either doesn't know what he's writing about, or he's writing this crap because it sounds good and screw facts.

Give you an example:  Winchester makes a load for .45-70 that fires a 300-grain bullet at about 1800 feet per second as it leaves the muzzle; that works out to that bullet carrying 2355 foot-pounds of energy.  That's a serious amount of energy.  It's advertised as being for hunting deer and elk.  I've seen numerous accounts of people hitting deer with it, and the result is either the deer falls down dead, or takes a few steps and falls over.  Same thing with bear; it does not physically knock them down.

So let's play with numbers: say you've got a big whitetail dear that weighs about 150 pounds.  That bullet, at 100 yards, still carries 1545 foot-pounds which is ten times the weight of the deer.  Normal result: bullet often penetrates completely, animal makes a few steps(at most with a good shot) and falls over.  

Now let's look at that .600 Nitro: a .60-caliber 900-grain bullet moving ~2000 feet per second, so about 7600 foot-pounds(I'm averaging this by the data I found); it's a monster of a cartridge, with recoil to match.  Now, let's say we've spotted a average size Tyrannosaur, which weighs roughly 9 tons, or 18,000 pounds.  Say the beast is close enough that the bullet is at full velocity when it hits.  The T-rex weight is 2.36 times the muzzle energy of the cartridge, and it's a solid bullet, non-expanding, designed to be able to penetrate deeply enough that it can go through heavy skin, muscle, and bone to reach the vitals.  The .600 cannot knock down a five-ton elephant, but it's supposed to magically knock down a dinosaur weighing close to two times as much?

Now, it being something you carry and shoot and not a artillery piece with a carriage, the recoil is going to be horrendous, making it very uncomfortable to shoot.  Not many people have used it because of that and the expense of the ammunition.  Most people go with something less powerful but still capable of penetrating to the vitals, such as(one I'd love to own) a .470 Nitro Express.  That's a 500-grain bullet at about 2100 fps, about 5100 foot-pounds at the muzzle, and if you place the shot where it needs to go it'll kill anything.  And, just like the .600, it cannot knock a large animal down.  And it doesn't have to to kill it.  Just like self-defense, shot placement on something large and dangerous is The Key; you cannot carry something powerful enough to stop an attack if you miss anything vital**.

 

So that's my bitch about Things that ruin Books and Shows for the night.  

*I was pissed at him already for his editing of many of the Conan stories.

*Shut up.  I know, but this is still the basic fact we have to work with: to stop animal or man, you have to hit something vital.

One of the few firearms I'd still like to find

would be a Sharps or Trapdoor in .50-70(why no, I can't just want something simple).*  According to various listings Pedersoli and a couple of other companies(not Shiloh or C. Sharps, if I find one I don't want to have to wait for months to a year to get it) make them, but I can't find any listed for sale anywhere.

 

There are some originals listed at various auction sites, with prices ranging from 'that's not too bad' to 'Nope.  No way.'

 

I doubt I'll find an original that's both shootable and affordable for me, and right now I can't find a reproduction in that cartridge.  Ah well, keep looking and see if something turns up.

Ah, the things they can do with some tech (link fixed)

Now, as Jeff Farrell reports for the Independent, a team of researchers is using new technology to uncover texts that were erased and written over by the monks who lived and worked at the monastery. Many of these original texts were written in languages well known to researchers—Latin, Greek, Arabic—but others were inscribed in long-lost languages that are rarely seen in the historical record.