Well, it's dry

but a lot colder.  Not going out if I don't have to.  I'd suggest you do the same and have a look

I have no idea where this idiocy took place,

but the 'instructor' needs a major readjustment

It's wet, and cold, and probably some patches of ice on the roads later,

which means Security Staff would be happy to spend an hour or so roaming around sniffing and peeing on things.  He was not real happy about coming in.  Which he'll have to live with it.

And yes, despite the light rain, idiots were out with fireworks at midnight.  

As far as expectations, I can't argue with this

Well, it's raining, and there's a front coming in,

and I was too tired to bake cookies(dammit), so instead I labored at gathering something to distract from the general suckiness out there*

In which that lying bastard admits what a lot of people were pointing out, oh, more than a year ago?

“But the other important thing is that if you look at the children who are hospitalized, many of them are hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID,” Fauci added. “And what we mean by that — if a child goes in the hospital, they automatically get tested for COVID. And they get counted as a COVID-hospitalized individual. When in fact, they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that. So it’s over-counting the number of children who are, quote, ‘hospitalized with COVID,’ as opposed to because of COVID.”

Andy Swan flagged that clip Thursday evening, and sarcastically tweeted, “Fauci regurgitates CONSPIRACY THEORY that ‘hospitalizations’ data is bullshit because most people are in WITH COVID, not FROM COVID.”
...
Even in May of this year, researchers at Stanford stated that people were vastly overestimating childhood COVID-19 cases for the exact same reasons that Fauci laid out Wednesday. Fauci — of course — made no mention that over-counting COVID-19 cases was not a novel idea and that others had theorized this was happening before.

A reasonable assumption could be made that if hospitals are doing this for children — and
failing to differentiate between patients “with COVID” vs. patients in the hospital “because of COVID” — then it is possible they are doing this for adults as well.
Yeah.  Also pointed out a long time ago.  And inferred from Birx saying they were being 'very liberal' with diagnosis of Wuhan.  And because the PCR test was/is way oversensitive.  And the flu mysteriously disappearing, and now the CDC saying 'the test can't tell the difference, so you need to use different tests that can'.

It'll be a long time before most people will trust these bastards again.  With good reason.

Speaking of the medical/public health profession,

"Why won't you people follow the Science and do what you're told?"

Because you bastards lie.  Repeatedly.

And so we have no reason to trust much of ANYTHING you say.

I get really tired of the medical profession...

"We have to reschedule the call you were supposed to get tomorrow because we're short of staff because of the Wuhan,"

How about just telling me what the results are?

"We have no clinical staff to do that, and the Doctor prefers not to do it that way."
So I'm supposed to sit around for something like two weeks because you can't just tell me over the phone?

Etc.

This is bullshit.

As to our effing Professional Journalists whining that people don't listen to the news,

But, man, did the media oversell the vaccine.

In a March 29 broadcast, Rachel Maddow said, "Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person… The virus does not infect them…It cannot use a vaccinated person as a host to get more people."

She is the reason I don't call PhD's doctor.

It is not that the public is no longer interested in the news. It is that the public no longer believes the news media is delivering the news.

The distrust is bipartisan.
Oh yes.  The Professionals and bureaucrats told us "This vaccine will protect you!"
Then it was "It will mostly protect you."
Then "It won't keep you from catching the virus, but should(might) make it less nasty.  And it won't keep you from spreading the virus.  BUT YOU MUST GET IT!  THE UNVAXXED ARE A HEALTH THREAT!"
"Excuse me, but if you now admit that the masks you demanded everyone wear don't work, and the vaccine won't stop the virus, why-"
"SHUT UP AND DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD!"
Just inspires all kinds of confidence, doesn't it?

Absolutely true

Back in July of 2020, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he was banning all large gatherings in New York City except for Black Lives Matter protests. The month before, NPR featured a letter signed by dozens of health and public disease experts explaining that “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue” that needed to be dealt with as well as the coronavirus. Glenn Greenwald points to that nonsensical twist in lockdown history as the moment that “single-handedly destroyed trust in public health officials.”

Oh yes, there's more.

"What the hell?  You ordered everyone to stay home but you're at this big protest?"
"Protesting white supremacy is more important than the virus!"
"So I can't go to to work, or church, and my kids can't go to school, but you can do this, you crooked bastard?"
"RACIST!  Go home and stay there like you're told!"  Etc.

And they wonder why people don't trust or believe them.

Lot of response to the tumbler test,

thought I'd expand in another post.

My old vibratory tumbler still gets a lot of use.  I like to use it to give the brass a first cleaning soon as possible after firing to get much of the fouling out, using a decapping die to punch the primers out if I have time so the primer pocket gets a bit of cleaning. After I resize cases that need lube, I throw those in for half an hour or so to get the lube off because if any need trimming they slip less clean.  Then for really thorough cleaning, the rotary.

Be it noted that you can add to the cleaning with walnut hull with a suitable stuff, last I picked up was a bottle of Mother's Cleaning Wax at the auto parts store.  With fresh media about 4-6 tablespoons of the stuff added in and allowed to run for a while to mix it in thoroughly, then throw the brass in.  Cleans and shines it pretty well, and cheaper than most of the brand-name brass polishes.

On black powder cartridges I worry about that fouling, so for the start I take an old sports drink bottle to the range and fill it with water.  After I fire a shot, my old Lee hand press with a decapping die punches out the primer, then into the water(which also forces me to slow down and not rush).  When I've got 15-20 or so(rifle brass fills it up fast) put the cap on, swirl it around good, dump the water, fresh water and repeat, then spread it out in the sun in the truck bed.  When home I use a nipple brush and water to make sure the insides have most of the fouling out, dry them(truck bed on suitable days, either in front of a fan on a towel or on a cookie sheet in the oven on 'warm' if not).  After dry lube and resize, then any that need trimming go into the vibratory to get rid of the lube, trim and deburr, then- when there's time- into the rotary for the really thorough cleaning.*

Other brass that I want really clean, resize and straight to the rotary.  Yes, I do like shiny brass.

As to time, for normal stuff 1-2 hours depending on how many in the barrel, the more, the longer.  Stuff that's had black in it, 2 hours seems to work very well.  Most I've ever had in at one time after shooting was about fifty as I recall, that much .45-70 takes up some space in the barrel and I want it to have plenty of space for rolling around and letting the pins work through.  For smaller cases and smokeless, can fit in more.  I had a bunch of .32S&W I came into, and you can put a LOT of that in one load.

Stuff that I dry in the oven, I have an old pizza sheet just for that.  Piece of towel that does not overhang the edges, roll the brass around to get drops off the surface, then in it goes.  Hour or so dries them nicely.

As noted in the comments of the first post, you can get walnut media for the vibratory in various places for less than labeled 'Tumbler Media'.  One place is pet supply stores as reptile bedding.

that's about all I can write for now as my eyes are about to cross.  To bed with me.


*Probably more cleaning than needed, but .45-70 brass is expensive and hard to find, so I don't want to lose any.

A rotary tumbler test

This is one I put together a long time ago and lost track of.  Couple of updates added.


I've been using a vibratory tumbler to clean brass for quite a while.  Does a pretty good job.  Then came the Rotary Tumbler, and stories of used brass clean as new, even the primer pockets.  However, the old tumbler is still running fine, and the rotary types are a bit spendy.

Then came one of those damned 'Clearance!' e-mails from Midway, and they had the Lyman Cyclone rotary on sale.  Really on sale.  And I decided to get one.

For those not used to this, a vibratory tumbler has a bowl you fill with either chopped corn cob or crushed walnut hull media, to which you can add some cleaning stuff.  You dump some brass in, turn it on, the vibration causes the media and cases to work their way around in the bowl, letting the media scrub the powder fouling and such off the brass.  A rotary tumbler uses a drum which you fill partway with cases, a few pounds of media made of small stainless steel pins, and enough water to cover with a little cleaner added.  Seal the lid, put the drum in place and turn things on, and the drum rotates for however long you choose, and the pins help clean all the fouling off with the water and cleaner helping clean and providing a bit of polish.

The rotary comes with a sample packet of Lyman's cleaning solution(which works well), but a bit of research showed a lot of people just use a bit of Dawn dish soap and a little Lemi Shine, which is a dishwasher additive, so I decided to give a try.  Loaded the drum with a bunch of .303 British brass that had been tumbled with walnut hull and some cleaner, some .30-06 in the same state, and half a dozen HXP and Lake City cases that'd been picked up at the range.  These I deprimed so the pockets could be cleaned.  Here's some of the .303

This was ammo I picked up cheap because it was badly tarnished.  I pulled the bullets on some to check the insides, all were bright and shiny and useable; any I had doubts about I pulled the bullets to use, and relegated the brass to 'light loads only' use(any that actually worried me went to the scrap pile).  The mostly looked like this.

The half-dozen .30-06 in question looked like this(yes, I know, there's only five in the picture)

They were old, and had been in the grass for at least a few days and some light rain.  Dirty inside.

All went into the drum with the pins, water to cover, a small squirt of soap and probably about a teaspoon of Lemi Shine, then the unit was run for about an hour and a half. 
NOTE: This was the mix I used when I started.  Now I use the water, one or two drops of Dawn dish soap, and 1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar.  Can get it at the grocery store, it's cheap, and it really works.  Man named Don, who was a bank of reloading knowledge, now sadly departed, who told me about it.

The unit comes with two sifters, one to separate the brass and media, the other with fine screen to catch the media.  However, the manual does mention that if you have a case/media separator(mine's RCBS), you can pour the case/media/liquid from the drum into it and use it to separate the media out, then pour the water/media into the fine sifter screen to catch the pins.  Works beautifully.  Then after poured the mix into the screen, I poured some fresh water over the cases, tumbled again to both rinse and get any pins still hiding, and poured that through the pins to rinse them, then spread all the brass on a towel in the back of the truck in the sun to dry.

Here's how the stuff looked after:

The dark, tarnished cases came out as bright outside and clean inside as the previously cleaned stuff.  That .303 on the end is the one with the most tarnish remaining, this did an incredible job of cleaning them off.  The primer pockets aren't spotless, but they're a lot cleaner than the old tumbler ever got them.

I'm sold.  If you need/want a tumbler, I'd suggest saving up for the rotary.

No, not throwing the vibratory out, it's still useful.  This is the "I want it REALLY cleaned out" tool.

Pluses and Minuses
The vibratory type costs less, less to mess with, does a decent job of cleaning.  You have to replace your media regularly as it gets cruddy.

The rotary is more expensive, you have water and additives to mess with, does a really good job of cleaning, including the primer pockets and flash holes.  The media will last forever(except for any you lose).

Losing faith

This is that semi-uberpost(for me at least) I mentioned a while back.*  

I've mentioned before that Dad spent a long time- 32 years to be precise- in the profession, and along with the general attitude back then, his being at the job caused me to generally respect cops and tend to give them the benefit of the doubt if there was a question.  Stayed that way for a long time.  And I still have a tendency to do so in many cases.

Boy, has that changed.

Took a long time.  Years of growing and seeing things happen and hearing about them, and reading about them.  Not all trust was lost.  I've known a lot of overall good cops, men I'd have trusted with my childrens' lives without hesitation.  And I've never been in the middle of the really bad stuff, but I've seen enough to know we need people in that job.

Also learned that there are some who sneak in who should never have been allowed to wear a badge, or who went bad over time and should've been retired.  Some it should probably have been a medical retirement, they'd become so damaged.  It's the first who get in anyway, and the ones who become corrupted and are let get by with it that are generally the real bad ones.  Then you stir in those who become so tied-up in the "It's us or those civilians" mentality, and you've got a really vile stew.

The government I'd once trusted, yeah, not any longer.  More and more of it, because in the tv age you could often listen to the lie, then find out they'd done it, and wonder what they thought they were doing?  And when caught, most often their 'investigation and punishment' was a crapshow, you realized it was only to keep you quiet, making you think something had been done.

People die because of their lies?  They make an excuse and just keep going.  People have their lives trashed by these bastards?  They don't care as long as they can stay in that taxpayer-supplied chair in that office.  Because they REALLY like being called 'Representative' and 'Senator' and having their ass kissed, and all the perks.  Much more than they give a damn about other peoples' lives.


Now I come to what was once reporters, and became 'Journalists' because they wanted a proper title.  Yes, it's always been a trade with liars and bigots involved, and it's become worse.  Reporting only the part of a story they want you to hear, slanting what they do report so as to make you think what they desire, and flat-out lying.  During the last election a friend who used to work for a local paper put out some graph showing- by the standards of the journalists who made it- which news sources were trustworthy, and whether they were left or right.  One of them was Bloomberg, who she pointed out was just about in the center.  I asked 'Since they just said they won't investigate Mike Bloomberg during his campaign, and they won't investigate the other Democrats, but they will investigate the Republicans, are you sure you want to stand with that?'  No answer.

Respected Senior Professional Journalists who lied, over and over, who molested women, who were disgustingly open about their contempt for anyone who didn't think correctly, who were caught in unethical things, and most of the trade wanted more to protect them than hammer them for what they'd done, even knowing the damage to their trade that was being piled up by them.

And the stupidity... people who depend on the 1st Amendment to carry out their trade, yet a disgusting number of them are fine with the idea of trashing it 'to keep people from putting out bad information', never seeming to care how that can/will come around and bite them in the ass.  "It won't affect US because WE only put out good information."  Yeah.   Sure.


All this happened over years, insult by insult, group by group.  Eating pieces off that faith, sanding away layers and chipping off bits, on and on.  The EffingBI?  Anyone who trusts them about much of anything, especially if it's political, is a fool.

Politicians?  I'd spit but it's my floor.
News media?  Even with all the facts about Rittenhouse on display, a bunch of them kept lying.  Hell, until the actual trial a lot of people in the world thought he'd shot three black protesters, because that's how the 'reporting' came across.  A bunch of news assholes are going to get their asses sued off(some of them it's 'again'), and they don't seem to care.

So I'm at the point where any trust most of them want, they're going to have to earn it all over.  If they can.

*It was going to be longer, but I'm just too sick of this to continue

It should be noted the current NY governor

is just as big an asshole as the previous.  So are a lot of the other clowns in their legislature.
The remarkable part of this story is Perry’s insistence that all of the outrage over his bill was the product of “lies and mistruths.” If you go back and read the portions of the bill we highlighted on Monday, the bill proposed doing precisely what everyone was saying it would do. While the legislation didn’t use the specific term “internment camps,” there’s really no other suitable description for what he was proposing. Putting people in “medical facilities” where they are not allowed to leave and potentially forcibly vaccinating them is absolutely nothing short of an internment camp.

Perhaps more alarming was the way that Spectrum News, one of the largest local media outlets in upstate New York, unquestioningly jumped on the bandwagon, saying that the bill had “fueled false COVID-related conspiracy theories.” Since when is publishing and commenting on an existing piece of legislation a “conspiracy theory?”

I'm sure none of the reason for yanking the bill was people informing various politicians that trying to put them in a camp was going to involve lots of 'mostly peaceful' protests with said politicians being the targets.

Common problem: "I thought everybody knew that"

And I do fall to it at times.  Widener's blog has a lot of articles on basic 'here's what this is', one that just came out is on wadcutters.

When the (currently tapering down to some extent) ammo panic was roaring, a lot of people were pulling out anything they had and looking for food for it.  Including a lady who came in with an old revolver her father had left her.  It was a beautiful old S&W .32 Long, looked like he'd loaded it, set it in the nightstand, and never fired it.  The action was stiff due to dried up old oil, but mechanically it was perfect.  The recommendation was 'Take it to the gunsmith for a thorough clean and oil, and then practice with and keep it loaded with this.'  Before we were cleaned out, we had a bunch of .32 Long wadcutters, and she got a box to start with.  All we had at the time were round-nose and these, these would be a lot better if she had to use it for real, and personally I wouldn't trust any hollowpoints to reliably expand at those velocities*, or penetrate deeply enough if they did.

Personally I saw a number of similar pistols come in in similar to worn-but-working shape that needed ammo.  We even sold out of the .32 Short we had for some older ones.


*In Jim Cirillo's book he mentioned using wadcutters on the stakeout squad because the performance was so much better than the issue round-nose.  One day some captain(I think) saw it and asked why he was loading with that.  Upon hearing the answer the guy said "That stuff is not approved!"  
"Ok, take me off the squad."
Never heard another word about it.

One last thing, about a doctor

I hadn't heard anything from the cardiologist about that day of tests, and was figuring on calling them Monday.  Then, on the 23rd, I found an email: 'Confirm your next appointment'.  No mention of which doctor, and up opening it was 'Confirm your telehealth appointment'.

That led to a response that I don't have the software(and no desire to find and download it), and my pc has no camera or mike, so the doctor will have to either talk to me or send me a letter.  We'll see if that outrages the staff, or him; I really don't care if it does.  He should be sending all this to my regular doc, and if either of them has seen some "You really need to get in here now!" indication I'm pretty sure they'd have said so by now.

I'm just enjoying all this so much.

Ok, I've got some loads to test again, and one to refine, and

brass and all.  Now I've just got to get some other things taken care of, and enough sleep so that when I'm done with those I'm not too tired to mess with powder and primers and so forth.

Few days ago was able to get out and fire some stuff to try, which produced a mix of "This load shows promise, this I should test again, and these are crap."  'Bout what you'd expect.  Which gives me the 'try again/refine' list.  Have plenty of bullets cast, though I'd like to get a bunch more done so they can sit a while before sizing and lubing.

Which brings up another thing: weights.  In all the reading I've done, the people who go for real precision in things like .45-70 tend to not just weigh the bullets, but the cases, and have very tight tolerances they'll accept for their serious loads.  Which works well for them.  Problem is I don't have so many cases that I can set aside half (or more) of them because they're not within1/2 grain.  Also, I don't think I'm good enough that variation above that is going to kill my groups(I can do that well enough on my own).  Bullets, I can cast a bunch and weigh them and have a fair number within 1/2 to 3/4 grain, some a little above or below that span, and the occasional "What the hell?" with one a 2-5 grains or so above or below.  Which gives me a fair number within about 3/4 grain, while I'm wondering if that extra bit would actually make a difference?  Which gets me to wondering if it'd be a good idea to go to Steve Brooks' website and order one of his moulds.  I don't know if it'd help me, but from all I've read I wouldn't be able to blame the bullet for any problems.

Which reminds me: Lee makes this one, I had one, and despite a lot of yelling about Lee I got some very good groups with this bullet(before I started weighing and being overly picky). I've got several Lee moulds, and the early ones are fine.  The more recent have a couple of problems:
They used to have a pin to lock the sprue pivot screw in place.  They got rid of that, and the two I have will loosen up as you're casting, so every second or third bullet you have to tighten the damn thing.
The second, with this bullet, is there's very little material between the tip of the bullet and the bottom of the block.  Which I didn't worry about until I finished some casting, set the mould down to give my hand a rest, and the next time I poured lead in it ran out the bottom.  For whatever reason, a tiny area, maybe 1/8" long, at the tip of each cavity had warped.  Nothing you can do about that.  This led to a Lyman mold for their Postell bullet, and later I bought used one for the old round-nose 500 grain.  They both work well, though I think the Postell cavity is just a fraction out of round.  Which makes me consider scraping enough up to order from Brooks.

At the moment I'm going to finish this and try for a longer sleep tonight.