.22s from range day Updated

(Awright, awright, I admit it. The Western Field wasn't cleaned up for a guy; IT'S MINE. "Hi, I'm Firehand and I'm a gunaholic. I was at the flea market and I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF!!! It was hot, and it needed work, and he kept lowering the price...")

In the range day post I mentioned a couple of .22s that needed sighting in. Well, here's the first one.














It's a Western Field model 850A. This is one of the 'made by/made for' rifles you used to see a lot of. Sears and Montgomery Ward and other stores would have a rifle or shotgun made for them- in this case by Mossberg, I believe- with the stores' name and model number on it.
This one is a semi-auto that feeds from a box magazine. The mag holds seven, but loading the last one or two is a pain so I only loaded five. One of the interesting things about this is it's marked '22 SHV-L-LR' it's supposed to be able to function with high-velocity shorts and longs as well as long rifles. The stock is some kind of hardwood, birch I think, stained dark. It was in quite good shape, it just needed smoothing with steel wool and a coat of the linseed oil/mineral spirits mix to take care of it. I may use something like Tru-Oil on it later.

The metal was a different story. The bore is in fine shape, but the outside was worn shiny and had some fine pitting on the barrel and magazine. After figuring out how to disassemble the thing I cleaned the outside off, hit it lightly with a buffing wheel with 400-grit greaseless compound to clean it, then used Birchwood Casey cold blue on it. It worked very well, gave a nice, even blue.

The scope is a 4x Western Field, God knows who made it for them. It's got a horizontal crosshair and a vertical post that ends just above the horizontal. After I cleaned the dust off the lens, it proved to have a pretty good image, and a little adjusting made the reticle nice & sharp.

Happily, the guts, while showing no sign of lubrication, had no rust or gathering of dust(the bore had been really dusty from spending years in a closet). Cleaned and oiled, it all worked nicely. The one thing I don't like here is the trigger; it's a two-stage with a long takeup and heavy second stage. It breaks cleanly, but the curve of the trigger and the distance it pivots through seems to accentuate the pull weight and causes your finger to move into the bottom of the stock. If the curve were a lot less, it would feel better; it's also pretty narrow and has fairly sharp corners. I don't know about polishing, but I may either make a shoe or reshape the trigger to straighten and widen it.

More on that scope: the adjustments have no clicks(just reference marks) and they are not consistent. Turn it one way and it moves so much; turn it the other and it moves a lesser amount. Pain in the ass to zero. Good thing is when you make an adjustment, it does not wander around after a few shots.

With a better trigger design this would have been more fun to shoot but as it was I got pretty good results. With Federal Champion about 1.25 to 1.5" at 50 yards. Then, since I didn't have any shorts, I tried it with the Eley Sport, which is a subsonic target ammo and got about 1-1.25" groups and it functioned flawlessly; the empties didn't go far, landing about six or eight inches to the right, but they did eject and the new round chamber with no problems. I'd never seen an autoloader that would function with any kind of reliability with this ammo before.

Overall, it's a nice .22, that with a little trigger work would be even better.

The other rifle to sight in was that Remington model 34 I found at the flea market with a jammed bolt. I'd gotten the bolt out and figured out the problems; happily the couple of parts I needed, with two possible exceptions, were available from Gun Parts(more on those in a later post). It functioned nicely with one exception; the magazine spring seems to be a bit weak, and once did not push the cartridge all the way into the carrier. All it took was catching the rim with a punch and pulling it back a touch; I think I'll see if can stretch the spring a bit, if that doesn't work replacements are easy to find for it. Good clean trigger, and gave about 2" groups. Nothing to cheer about, but part of the problem is a tiny front bead; I may see if I can find or make a post to replace it with. I may clean up the crown, but I don't know if it really needs it, better sights(or eyes) would probably cut the group size down a bit.














The stock darkened nicely with a bit of oil; you find some nice walnut on some of these old rifles.

So that's the .22 report. Two(three counting the trainer) old ones that all worked out nicely.

Ref the Indian .308

I mentioned here, Kevin from Smallest Minority warned me off firing any more of it; he'd posted on the stuff here.

So just to check it, I took one bag of ten cartridges, pulled the bullets on five and weighed the charges on each. All were a ball powder; three had a cake of something stuck on the bottom of the bullet, in two of those it had broken up and was mixed with the powder(waxy-looking stuff). I got the following weights in grains:
40.8
41
42.3
42.5
42.6

That seems like a lot of variation to me. All headstamps were OFV opposite M80, with 7.62 opposite 96.

I get the time I'll pull more and weigh them. I'm eventually going to pull all the bullets and dump the powder and recycle the brass; I'm damn sure not going to fire any more of them.

Carnival of Cordite #66

Up at Mr. Completely. Guns short and long, news, cutdowns of idiot 'journalists' and general good stuff. Find it all here.

Hot

It's been over 100 the last ten days or so, every day. When I left for the range around 8 yesterday, it was 90; by the time I headed home about noon it was 101, and the high for yesterday was 107. It's been at least 103 or 4 every day for the last week. Today's expected to hit 110, just ahead of a front moving through and pushing the ridge of high pressure that's been causing this away(Move, you bastard!), with tomorrow expected to be mid-90's for highs, seasonal norm.

This kind of thing happens, just part of summer. One of the more uncomfortable parts. Like everything else, it changes back & forth.

So for today I'm going to do as little outside as possible, it's just too damn hot.

Polish Training Rifle

After I wrote about the Enfield trainer, a commenter told me about a Polish WZ48 trainer. It's made to look like the M38 Mosin Nagant, only made to shoot .22. And today I had a chance to shoot one.

What? Well, I... Oh, alright, I didn't just shoot one, I BOUGHT IT! Are you happy, dammit? Gerry, I blame you for this. You told me how neat it was. YOU told me how well it shot. YOU didn't care about my budget, oh no, and now it's blown and...

Ahem...

Where was I? Oh yes, after the bastard told me about them, while browsing around I checked the site of Military Gun Supply in Fort Worth. Clicked on 'New Arrivals' and there it was.














About the size & weight of a M38, but it's not as simple a change to .22 as the Enfield. There, they a: bored a barrel for .22, b: modified a bolt head to work the rimfire cartridge, c: took the spring & follower out of the magazine to catch the empties. Here, it's based on the MN action but...
Here's the barreled action out of the stock:














See that long, shiny bar attached to the trigger? That's the sear & trigger spring, with the sear pivoting on a pin through the spring just ahead of the trigger. The trigger is not set into the receiver like the MN; the spring holds it in place and it simply bears on the receiver. You pull the trigger, it flexes the spring and sear down until the striker releases.

Speaking of the bolt, it looks much like the MN bolt, but while the striker is offset for the rimfire cartridge, there is NO extractor or ejector as part of the bolt mechanism. Instead, riding in a slot in the bottom of the receiver is this:














It's somewhat similar to the extractor for the Martini; the bottom half of the breech face is milled out, and the extractor piece is shaped to match. In this case, to load you place the nose of the cartridge into the chamber and the rim over the extractor piece like so:














and close the bolt- it cocks on closing- and fire. When you open the bolt, as it rides back it pulls the extractor with it which extracts the empty and ejects it. Ejection is vertical and very positive.

The front sight is the MN-style round hood with a post inside. The rear sight














is much like the MN, only calibrated for .22. Lowest setting is 25 meters, longest is 100. And it is well-calibrated.

So how's it shoot? I tried two brands today, Federal Champion and Eley Sport, my two standards. I found that this is one of the few rifles I've tried that did not like the Eley, but it very much got along with the Federal. Set the rear sight for 50 meters, and here's the first ten shots at 50 yards:














Then I tried the Eley, not good. So I went back to Federal and a smaller target(I'd run out of the 3" bulls), and here's the next 5:















Not bad at all. So after I took care of some other things, I moved to 100 yards and fired ten:














Counting the one pulled off to the right, exactly 4". Not counting it, the other nine are in 2.5" by my caliper.

So it's a basic 'train the recruits' rifle made in 1954, and it shoots like this. I'm happy.

There are a few small dings in the wood, otherwise the stock is in great shape, and while the bluing is worn around the muzzle, stock bands and trigger guard, the rest of the metal is in fine condition. And the bore is spotless.

I'd never fired a Polish-made arm before. If everything they made is like this, I want more. Stands to reason; if you'd spent that long with Russians on one side and Prussians/Germans on the other, you'd want your arms up to snuff.

So my budget is blown. Do I care? Well, yeah. Sorry I grabbed it? Hell, no. As various people have written about, it's a terrible feeling to see something you really like, decide to think about it 'just a little bit', and when you go back it's gone. I decided not to wait till too late this time.

Damn you, Gerry, I STILL blame you.

"I'm not responsible enough to own guns,

so YOU'RE not, either!"

Which is what a lot of 'guns are bad' thinking boils down to. Kevin has a piece here on the subject; in particular read the general run of comments, which ALL come down to "I don't trust myself, why would I trust you?"

It constantly amazes me the lines people draw. I've known people(back when I played in the SCA) who spoke with great enthusiasm about the knife, sword or axe they kept by the bed; but mention firearms and they'd come unglued. As if there's something 'noble' about giving a burglar/rapist/murderer 'honorable combat'(BIG thing in the SCA, fine for the game but downright stupid when carried over to real life); something fine about sticking a couple of feet of steel through someones' intestines or an axe into their brain; but shooting an attacker? Why, that's downright terrible!"

Take this comment: "I started a sword collection a few years back (amazingly it's more than just *gasp* katanas!) and toyed with the idea of starting a gun collection as well. I knew though that I probably wouldn't have the responsibility and intelligence it takes to safely own them." So this one thinks having long, sharp steel weapons around is just fine, but apparently his brain wouldn't be up to the task of a: checking guns for loaded and b: not pointing them at people. Personally, I don't see why that's so much more difficult than not waving sharp blades around at people, but hey, maybe I'm just not smart enough.

How about this: if you're so unstable you can't trust yourself with weapons, why the hell should we trust you to drive a vehicle on public roads? Or handle any hazardous substance? Or own/use ANYTHING that might be harmful to somebody?

Stand with The Jawa Report

about websites being banned in India. Very good post here on the subject, both the reasons behind the action and why it's not a good idea.

Very short: India is scared of the Muslim population because they have such a tendance toward violence when they decide someone has not shown 'proper' respect for Islam. Problem is, 'proper' respect in the minds of many means 'on your knees, begging to convert and not be killed'. And no society that wants openness and debate and free speech can give in to that kind of crap.

Firearms and ammo can be weird

I having the day off, and it being too damn hot to do anything in the yard, I headed out to the range early today. Had a couple of .22 rifles to sight in(more on that later), wanted to try some of the cast-bullet loads in the 1903 Springfield, and run some through the K31.

I wrote about the original try of the cast loads in the K31. Good grouping, but they hit about 4" to the right of the point of impact of the Swiss ball. So today I set up a target, fired five, and looked through the scope. To see not a mark on the paper. I finally put up a big 2x3' target intended for scoped rifles so as to have a big background and stuck a bullseye target in the middle, which showed that the shots were hitting a full 12" to the right. Good grouping still, but damn! Maybe the wind today, I don't know. Put three rounds of ball through to check zero, and couldn't ask for better, they hit nicely in the bull, so the sights didn't get bumped.

Then I tried the loads in the 1903. Low, which I expected since they're much lower velocity than ball, but these hit about 4" to the left at 50 yards. Adjusted the sights and got very good results for a light practice load.

So one hits left, one right, and the one hit further right today than before. Sheesh.

Wow, I'm not a Flappy Bird anymore

I'm a Slithering Reptile.

Honest to God, don't really care; hadn't looked at this in months.

In any case, hopefully will be able to hit the range the next few days. Got some loads to try(among other things) but it's so damn hot- 105 yesterday and today, the same expected tomorrow- I don't know if I want to go until the temp breaks a bit.

Status

Go into attic before it gets too hot.

Lose track of things in shadow and bang head into beam.

Finish and go downstairs.

While typing, wonder why you're sweating?

Find out the sweat is red.

I just love mornings like this...

Why I don't trust the major media, ESPECIALLY on guns

Pistolero noted this from the Houston Chronicle blog, which sums up their thoughts on the UN gun-grab conference in one statement:What about the second amendment rights of Americans? Well, what about them? That wasn't the focus of this conference, unless an American is buying a shipment of machine guns from an arms dealer overseas.

Think about that. With all the information out there on the aims of this conference, he totally ignores all the statements from delegates and says "Nothing to worry about".

Either ignorant of what was said and written, in which case he didn't research it; or actively ignoring all that, which says what about the aims of the writer?

Carnival of Cordite #65 up

at Spank That Donkey. Including this sign, which I want in full-size:

If there was any question which side the NY Times was on,

this takes care of it.

I'll let others better with words than I get to specifics. To me it simply boils down to they will do anything to get a story, including standing by while American troops are being attacked; and then will use that story to puff themselves up and say laudatory things about the enemy.

'Course, apparently the NYT doesn't really think they ARE the enemy.

Over at Protein Wisdom, "Writes Times assistant managing editor for photography Michele McNally of a photo taken by NYT photographer Joao Silva showing an al-Sadr army sniper in the act of firing on US troops, “Right there with the Mahdi army. Incredible courage.”

Incredible courage? Well, far be it for me to question such self-congratulatory enthusiasm, but it seems to me that actual “incredible courage” would have entailed, say, Joao Silva getting word to US troops, or bumrushing the sniper and beating him unconscious with a heavy telephoto lens.

Whereas what we’ve witnessed here is the product of (admittedly) dangerous opportunism in the service of plaudits and cocktail party invites."


At Powerline, "t would have required courage to hang out with the Mahdi Army, if there were any likelihood that a member of the Iraqi "insurgency" would regard a representative of the New York Times as an enemy.

Finally, I found a post I remembered at Winds of Change about 'journalists' and where their loyalties lie. There was a show(saw it at the time) on the subject of ethics, and the journalists were given the scenario they're travelling with a bunch of enemy troops(enemy to the U.S. and allies, that is). They see them about to attack U.S. troops, what would they do? Would they warn the troops?
"Even though it would almost certainly mean losing my life, Jennings replied. "But I do not think that I could bring myself to participate in that act. That's purely personal, and other reporters might have a different reaction." Immediately Mike Wallace spoke up. "I think some other reporters would have a different reaction," he said, obviously referring to himself. "They would regard it simply as a story they were there to cover." "I am astonished, really," at Jennings's answer, Wallace said a moment later. He turned toward Jennings and began to lecture him: "You're a reporter. Granted you're an American"-at least for purposes of the fictional example; Jennings has actually retained Canadian citizenship. "I'm a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you're an American, you would not have covered that story." Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn't Jennings have some higher duty, either patriotic or human, to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot? "No," Wallace said flatly and immediately. "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!"

As they say, read the whole damn thing. This is just another case of a bunch of 'journalists' telling us that being members of U.S. society doesn't mean a damn thing to them, getting their 'story' means more. No matter who dies.

I just saw the tiniest 4-wheel vehicle I've ever seen

on a public road. Bright red, right-hand drive, boxy shape with a hatchback, the door windows slid fore & aft, I think the little red wagon my kids used to have had wheels almost as big as this car, and on the back it said 'Mini-Minor'.

Only picture I can find of one in a quick search is this from an Ebay ad:














It actually looks smaller in person. I'd be afraid somebody on a Segway wouldn't see me and would run over me.

Can you say "greedy"?

They're having some kind of drag-boat meet in the Bricktown area of downtown this weekend.

It was 100 yesterday, same expected today & tomorrow, with swamp-level, "the gators are thinking about travelling north" humidity. And they announced the other day that you're not allowed to bring water.

Oh no, you have to buy it there. At, if past experience is a guide, probably $2-3 for a 20oz bottle.

Fat effin' chance.

To the girls in the low-rise jeans

and bikini top at the laundromat:

Darlin', I realize you enjoy being looked at. Now, don't give me that crap about "No I don't!"; nobody who doesn't like it would walk around in public that way. To do laundry, no less.

Bikini top, ok. But those jeans... You took low-rise jeans, left the top button undone and rolled the waistband down so it barely coverd your pubic area in front and left the top of your buttcrack open to public view. And I've got news for you: you didn't look real good dressed that way.

Fact is, there's damn few who really would, that's a tough look for a woman to carry off without looking like either a hooker or music video background-wannabe. No, you're not fat, that's not it, you just don't look good dressed like that.

Remember Elsa the lion?

It was some years ago, she was one of several orphaned lion cubs raised by the Adamson family. There was both a book and a movie(Born Free) about them. Then, as so often happens when dealing with wild animals, Bad Things Happened.

Peter Capstick wrote about some of the events, when I have a chance I'll dig out his books and find it. For now, Keith the Commenter sent me this excerpt from Man Magnum magazine in South Africa, from letters to the editor:
Elsa 1

When I wrote about the demise of Elsa (Jan ’06 edition) I ended by saying “a can of worms I fear”. Adrian House’s letter (“Elsa not man-eater”, May issue) proves me to be correct. But he is writing about Elsa when she was under Joy Adamson’s control, I am not. I knew William Hale and all east African professional hunters knew Ian Grimwood. I am sure they all read and approved of Adrian House’s book.

Later, when Elsa was fending for herself and her cubs in the wild, but having no fear of humans, she chose the easy way out. Lion had been vermin in Kenya for many years and were shot on sight, hence had an inbred fear of humans; Elsa had none. Ken Randal was not dreaming when he was shown the half eaten body of the game scout, and was told by the other game scout that he could not shoot the lioness, as it was Elsa that they were supposed to protect. When Ken informed the game department, he was told not to touch anything, they were on their way, and after removing the game scout’s remains, they replaced it with game meat which Elsa later ate. Shortly after that, the game department announced that Elsa had died of worms!

The game scout was sworn to secrecy and Ken was told not to talk about what he had seen. I visited Ken in his catching camps, at which time we both shared the same sorrow of knowing our loved ones had terminal cancer, so he confided in me on condition I told no one. (Ken’s livelihood depended on licences obtained from the game department.) It was not until 35 years later, having read Harry Selby’s remarks in Magnum on man-eaters that I broke my silence.

As a farmer and hunter in Kenya and having been a hunter in other African countries, I have never heard of an indigenous animal dying of tick fever (ECF) to which they are supposed to be immune. Pictures in the Kenya press of Elsa and her siblings (when Elsa was going to Joy Adamson and the others to zoos), showed that they were about 14 inches high at the withers; I have watched and filmed lion cubs half that size eating at the remains of a kill.

The Kenya game department did not want the truth known, as they were afraid the money coming in from Elsa’s fame would dry up. Unfortunately the one person from the game department who would confirm this, the late Rodney Elliot, with whom I first hunted in 1947, passed on to the happy hunting grounds in December 2005. It was said of Rodney, “He would take his own mother to court for breaking the game laws in his area.” Rodney did not go along with the story of Elsa dying of worms. Rodney was the last European Senior Warden to leave the department and was quite willing to talk about the cover-up. It appears Adrian House was completely taken in by it.

John Northcote,
Zimbabwe


Elsa 2
I heard there was a problem with Elsa a long time ago. When the last three of that “brood” from the Adamson lion familywere released into the Tuli block in Botswana, it created quite a stir. The Zimbabwe Dept of National Parks & Wildlife were issuing heavy lion quotas to the Zimbabwe hunters association (who hunted the Tuli Circle at the time) and also to the campfire project.

I received at least a dozen letters asking / pleading / demanding that we stop hunting lion in that area before these three famous and semi tame lion were shot. End result? I had to shoot one as a man-eater. A local farmer shot one that was killing domestic livestock, and a Bo-tswana policeman bravely shot the third (with a handgun I believe) when he saw the lioness stalking a woman.

I returned both collars taken from the lion shot on our side, officially handed over by Zimbabwe Parks to Botswana authorities. At the time, Rowan Martin was deputy director research, and he refused to let me send them the bill for my mileage, time etc. Human acclimatized lion released into the wild were a major pain in my time as a parks officer, and almost all ended up with a bullet in them, for good reason.

Dr Don Heath
Formerly Senior Ecologist, Zim NP&W

Which further points out one of the big problems with 'rehabilitating' a lot of animals, espeically predators: they wind up with no fear of/respect for man, and unless they learn that, people get chomped and the critter gets killed. Capstick once wrote that in/around some of the game parks in Africa where hunting was banned, it used to be that the sound of a gunshot would clear the predators out; they'd either move away or hide out. But at the time he wrote, a gunshot from a ranger killing a cripple or culling a herd would bring lions from long distances; a shot meant dead animal, or at least the guts, to eat. Which led to less respect for the people and more problems.

And who needs more problems with 3-400 pound predators?

Speaking of painful injuries and possible death,

let me tell you about the first time I went rapelling.

Friend(who I still have) mentioned that he was going with a guy to a place on Fort Sill to practice rapelling. This sounded like a capital idea, as I'd never tried it, so I grabbed my motorcycle helmet and off we went.

Understand that I had absolutely no idea what we were about to do except 'dangle on a rope over a long drop', so my enthusiasm speaks of either possible terminal dumbass or courage through ignorance. I either case we met the guy at the spot where the Army trained people in this activity. Numerous towers facing a place called Medicine Bluff, and I(remember the dumbass part?) thought we'd try the towers a time or two first. Oh, no. The guy led us across the stream and over a trail to the top of the bluff. Very nice setup, big concrete block with back-angled pipes to tie off to with a pipe set into the front edge to protect the ropes, and a slab with another pipe in the face of the bluff. So the guy showed us how to tie a Swiss seat and hook the rope through the carabiner, then gave some advice on how to get over the edge.

Ok, no problem. I'd brought gloves, so after watching him I hooked up and edged over the face(a lot trickier than I'd expected) and started down. About 115 feet down on a 125-foot rope.

Went great. Numerous small slides & bounces and landed on the platform at the bottom without incident. Did this two or three times and loved it. No problem.

Until I got home. Walked in, Dad asked what we'd been doing and I happily said "Rapelling at Medicine Bluff". A moment of shocked look, and then he verbally had a cow. Angrily. Mostly at my going off to do this with Friend, who'd done it the grand total of once before, somewhat less as he advised me that the Army didn't use the face for training anymore because the engineers had advised them the bluff face was unstable. As in chunks large and small could break off. Say, from the shock of people kicking off the face as they went down. Maybe breaking off above said person sliding down the rope.

I was in the proverbial doghouse for a week after that, as I recall. Parents were truly pissed, somewhat tempered by the fact that I was uninjured. But they were pissed at Friend, too.

It was fun, though.

Ref the post on 'the wonderful past'

I did a few days ago(here), Keith had- among other things- this in the comments:
I´m working in the third world at present and have all the kids from the local slum coming to shite on my site, they all have coughs from parasitic worms in their lungs.

While we see a lot of kids, we don't see many people at all over 40 and anyone over 60 is a real rarity. The big killers here are the shits and malaria.

If that makes people squeamish, stop reading now!

Even in european countries like Ireland, you don't have to look far to find women who have had a pregnancy every year of their reproductive lives from age 17 or 18. In my age group, 5 kids was a small family, 15 was not unusual.

Go back a century and most of those births would have died inside a year.

Even those who survived childhood would have run a very high mortality rate from Tetnus, scepticeamia etc, not to mention being conscripted into armies, accidents with draught animals etc.

Metal miners lifespans depended on the rock type and living conditions, I gather mid thirties was about tops in the 19th century, once compressed air drills were introduced. miners working in sandstone and drilling dry were lucky to last a year! The same went for refactories workers.

Medieval coal (and associated iron stone miners were serfs (slaves) the men did the pick work, their women the hauling and their kids the sorting. working was by sinking a shaft, working the ground around it until it became too unstable then sinking another shaft. Metal and coal miners often lived in a coe, (a shelter built around the shaft top).

The bit about miners reminded me of something. In the cutlery industry in Sheffield everything was broken into sections; the smith who forged the blade, the grinder who ground it, the man who heat-treated it, the polisher, etc. The various grinders used sandstone wheels- which they had to buy themselves-, and as they wore down they would sell them to the guy who needed a smaller wheel(rough-grinder selling to fine grinder selling to razor grinder, etc.) Sandstone wears down quickly, putting a lot of dust into the air. And that dust will tear your lungs up. I can't remember the name of the disease(silicosis?), but it was called 'grinders disease' or 'grinders lung' it was so common. No dust mask, no dust collection system, lousy ventilation in general...

Oh yeah, some parts of the past sucked. Bigtime.

A morning at the range

definately starts the day off right.

Although when I awoke to thunder and pouring rain, I thought it was off. But I called the range which is about 15-20 miles west of town and found it hadn't rained there at all, so I loaded up, picked up son and headed out.

First time we'd had a chance to shoot in quite a while, and he went through most of the ammo he had for the #4 Mk1 Enfield he got for his birthday last year, and then, never having fired it before, went through a bunch of .22's in the Enfield trainer. Good day.

I had to do two things. First, sight in the Savage Scout rifle. I'd replaced the bead front sight with a white-line XS post and needed to zero it, and since the mount screws had loosened I wanted to make sure the scope was putting them where it should. It is now.

Second, I mentioned a while back helping work on one of the India-made Enfield rifles in .308(described by Kim here). First time shot it, it was with some of the India produced .308 ball and results were, to keep it short, bloody awful. The bore on that rifle is spotless, sights not loose or anything, so I thought it might be the ammo, so today took it along with a couple of boxes of Portuguese ball, and the difference was bloody amazing. With the Indian ammo it shot 'groups' of about six inches at 50 yards; with the Portuguese it was getting about 3" at 100. MUCH better.

So be warned: the Indian .308 we used is bloody awful. Don't know if all of it is that bad, but I wouldn't buy any unless I got it cheap to pull the bullets or something.

Ammo situation

is kind of weird. Went by two shops today. Lots of Wolf pistol ammo, most rifle ammo available. 7.62x39 is out in the 'Wolf Classic Military'. Last time I bought a 500 pack it was the newer-type coated cases for about $2.25/box or so; time before that was $2.00/box. Now it's at least $3.75/box, and at the last gun show I went to it was $5 a box at some tables.

One local store, Outdoor America, was out of .45acp. I mean completely out. Ball and HP. Had some .45GAP, but that was it. I think they have been out for a couple of weeks. The Gold Dot 9mm in the 124-grain loads was up about $2/box of 50; the 145-grain was up about $12/box of 50.

Only surplus .308 I saw was South African and OA had some if the India-made. Didn't see any of the battle-packs of .223.

So prices are up on everything but not with regularity, some just a bit and some a lot. Some stuff, particularly in military calibers is harder to find and the prices on some of that is way up.

Some of it I can figure, but why the run on .45? Just people buying it up, or is the government getting a lot more since they're using more .45 pistols and looking to replace more of the 9mm pistols?

Grinding

Not your dancing, dammit, the blade. Had time this morning to do the work on the blade I forged a few days ago, so here it is.

For heavy stock removal or odd shapes I use a regular wheel grinder, but for this one I can do everything on the belt sander.

It's a 6x48" belt with a 9" wheel on the side. Since I flat-grind almost everything, it's worked very well over time. If I've got a big blade or a lot of stock to remove, I'll use a 60-grit belt to take off the worst, then an 80-grit for the rest of the rough grinding. Remember, each finer grit has to get rid of the scratches from the previous, so if you take it too far down with the coarse ones you may have the choice of either leaving a ratty-looking finish or making the piece too thin.

I would strongly recommend having a bucket of water handy; the piece will get hot, and it's a good idea to cool it off before you yell "Ouch!" or something more expressive and the belt or disk shoots the piece off somewhere.

One more thing: use a sharp belt whenever possible. A sharp belt(or disk) runs cooler and cuts faster. Please note that 'cuts faster' holds true for your body parts, too; accidentally stick a knuckle into a moving belt, or- worse sometimes because it'll cut- the edge of the belt, and I promise you it will hurt. And bleed. And look like hell while it's healing.

This is not where I usually set this up, but with the chance of more storms I decided, for the one piece, to just set it here.

I started on the disk, using it to flatten the back and curve the point down a bit, then flatten the edge and curve it properly up to meet the back and form the point. Then clean up the butt shape, and touch up the bottom of the grip.















Then I used the 80-grit belt to clean up the work so far,














leaving a nice, clean profile.















Now I like to flatten the sides of the tang. I hold the piece by the point and use a push stick to put light pressure on. With a big blade you might need a heavier stick and a lot more pressure, but a sharp belt helps a lot and requires less pressure.














Do one side, then flip it over and hit the other and you wind up with something like this














If you're going for a clean finish, no hammer marks left, you'd take it a bit further than this, remembering to keep the thickness in mind so you don't take too much off. Generally you leave a piece a little thicker all around so you can grind off all the marks and have the piece the final size you want. A lot of times I'll not do that; for some pieces people like seeing the forge marks.

In any case, you you grind the bevels. You're holding the piece flat on the angle from the back to the edge, not level with the tang. So you have to keep that angle steady while you work; takes a bit of practice. And yes, use both hands; I had to take these with the camera in one hand. Use a push stick as needed to hold things in place. You can let a piece get pretty hot at this stage, there's no temper to ruin. I've seen people use either welding gloves or locking pliers to hold the tang and a push stick to put heavy pressure on, and the metal gets hot enough to burn the stick. So start on one side, work it a bit,














then cool it off and switch to the other side. It's generally best to keep the back toward the direction the belt comes from.















That gets you here















I wanted to clean up the shape where the tang & blade meet, so in this case I clamped it in the vise and used a file to touch it up.















Here it is now














Clean profile, bevels cut in, tang flat. I left some hammer marks in the bevels because taking them off now would make the blade thinner than I want it to be for hardening; with a small piece like this it's no problem to grind them out after. With a big blade, or if you left it thick enough, it's best to take it to at least a 120-grit finish, 240 is better. That gives nice smooth surface, less grinding after heat-treating and thus less chance of overheating it.

Notes
I took a hand-held belt sander and rounded off the corners of the table on this sander in the center, leaving the corners square ahead and behind. Did the same thing to round off the corners of the face of the anvil for about the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the face behind the horn.

It's a good idea to have a grinder set where, when it grabs something out of your hands(don't worry, it will) you won't have to search through the high grass/boxes/etc. to find it.

I think it was Wayne Goddard who wrote about using a long magnet as a holder for long blades he was flat-grinding; not only protects your hand from the heat, makes it less likely the thing will go shooting off the grinder if your other hand slips. Someone told him about it, so the idea continues on.

On living in 'The Wonderful Past'

Over at Kim's place there's this post on the 'noble savage' crap. I say 'crap' because that ideal is just that. Which reminded me of a similar situation someone once brought up.

At Medieval Fair, as I was hammering away on something, someone brought up the idea of being able to travel back to medieval or pre-medieval times to live, and wouldn't that be so wonderful for me? I didn't quite laugh at them, but it was close; I try to be polite to people. After regaining control I explained some of the reasons why it would NOT be all that wonderful, and thought I'd recap some of them here.

Steel, at that time, was usually damn hard to come by. So, for that matter, was wrought iron, which is why any blacksmith you'll find will still have a pile of bits & pieces left over from earlier pieces; recycling wasn't politically correct, it sometimes meant survival in your trade at minimum. Whereas nowadays I can go to a salvage yard and for $.20/pound buy scrap steel that is of better quality than most smiths through history ever saw. Want virgin metal for a special project? A little more expensive. I can pull up, for instance, the Enco catalog and order drill rod and other high-carbon stock in round or flat bar and have it delivered to the door.

I ain't no peasant, which with some exceptions all smiths were; and even the high-ranking artisans were generally still just a damn workman of no particular social standing or value. You depended on pleasing the lord of the area for both work and staying alive. And not pissing off some passing bandit who'd decide to rob and kill you.

Medical care at the time was, for the most part, nothing to look hopefully toward. I've been burned, cut and otherwise injured, and with the wonders of modern medicine had nothing more than stitches in the long term. I had a long term, which(especially in the case of appendicitis) would not have been the case in the past. Not to mention all the other stuff that's a nuisance nowadays; back then could be crippling and/or a death sentance.

Food is a lot more varied and cheap now. Bitch all you want about various aspects; fresh meat, fruits & veggies, cheese year 'round, bread you don't have to bake yourself, ways to keep it all fresh instead of going bad in a day or two. And, if you need a little something extra, supplements available cheap from vitamins to glucosimine.

Justice, despite the bullshit in our system is a LOT more available now than back then.

And, it being a fact that my shoulder is not up to a whole lot of swordwork now, having a firearm in case of self-defense need beats hell out of keeping an axe or sword and shield handy. You ever tried using a real shield? I'll keep my Benelli, thank you kindly.

Which all ties into something else; people who think that going back to, say, a 4- or 500 A.D. time would be better because things were so much cleaner without all the industrial crap in the air. Just to keep this to one field,
Do you plan to have metals? For farming and hunting tools(forget about fighting tools; in this view they usually think violence will be rare)? That means the following:
Mining to get the ores.
Fuel for the smelters and forges. With no gas or electricity, that means either coal or charcoal. Coal means more mining; charcoal means cutting down and burning trees. A LOT of trees, since charcoal has less energy per pound than you get from good coal. Say goodbye to lots of forest.
And so on, from there. No way to preserve meat except smoking and drying(unless you live near a place where you can get a lot of salt). Lots of diseases, including tetanus since there's no vaccine and you use lots of horses & oxen as draft animals. Like to sit in the evening and read? No books, or else so rare that you can't get one, and after sundown it's too damn dark to read. No music unless you make it yourself. And so on.

No question, there were good things about back then. But in the overall, if I could go back it'd be for visits; I like hot water out of a faucet and clean sheets on the bed and air conditioning. That's another point; a lot of the people talking about the 'wonderful old days' have never been without heating in the winter and cooling in the summer except when walking outside. I've been through Oklahoma summers without anything except a fan; like it is tonight, you lay with the fan on you and you still sweat and pray for fall to come soon. Screw that.

Sam; ANOTHER reason to tell the UN to piss off

Hot redhead with a gun, yum...

In which the UN, for now, gives up

I know a lot of other people have noted this, but The Volokh Conspiracy has note of the end of the UN Gun-Grabber & Nanny-State Socialist(I repeat myself) Conference, which basically gave up, and I have to say something about it.

Gave up with no plans for future conferences because "...that draft document eliminated various provisions that the U.S. delegation had found objectionable, but also declared that there would be at least two more conferences. The U.S. delegation refused to assent, and so the conference ended with no consensus agreement, and no plans for future conferences.

So, because the inimitable John Bolton & Co. passed on the word that if the weenies did what they wanted the U.S. would say "Up yours" in polite terms, this waste of time, oxygen and money ended without success in their primary aim: a treaty that would trash our Constitution.

No, I'm not being alarmist. Just about every amendment in the Constitution pisses off various governments, dictators and bureaucrats around the world; and because we ARE the 800-pound gorilla in the room, they can't get around us. And as pissed as I am at Bush about various things, as Volokh puts it, If a few hundred votes had changed in Florida in 2000, or if 60,000 votes had changed in Ohio in 2004, the results of the 2001 and 2006 U.N. gun control conferences would have been entirely different. There would now be a legally binding international treaty creating an international legal norm against civilian gun ownership, a prohibition on the transfer of firearms to "non-state actors" (such as groups resisting tyrants), and a new newspeak international human rights standard requiring restrictive licensing of gun owners. With a Presidential signature on such a treaty (even if the treaty were never brought to the Senate floor for ratification), the principles of the anti-gun treaty would be eroding the Second Amendment, through Executive Orders, and through the inclination of some courts to use unratified treaties as guidance in interpretting the U.S. Constitution.

Which is one of the reasons the thought of President Kerry or Gore or Clinton gives me cold chills. And the urge to load a bandolier of ammo, just in case.

Additional: if you're stupid enough to think I'm threatening those people, you're probably too stupid to read this and understand it. "...just in case" refers to gun-grabbing minions showing up at your door demanding "Give up your guns or else!" To repeat the Geeks' words to Rebecca Peters, Molon Labe, bitches.

Or his followup, "And to our enemies, well,

Fuck y'all, ya hear?"

Carnival of Cordite #64 is up

Over at Spank That Donkey, shirt contest and all.

Forging a blade

Having finally had time to do this, I now present the forging of a small general-use knife

I'm starting off with some flat bar stock, from what I can tell W2, a water-hardening tool steel of fairly simple alloy. Don't let the 'water-hardening' fool you; in a piece like this, or any other thin section, use a light quenching oil, preferably heated to around 100 F. If you quench a thin section in water, it's quite likely to crack.

First, bring the few inches for the blade up to heat














Then hammer it into a point tapered toward one edge. Remember that when you hammer on the edge it not only tapers it, it spreads it wider, so you'll have to make a few strokes on the side to keep the thickness even.














Reason for 'toward one edge' is that when you hammer in the bevels from the back to the edge, the edge side will be stretching- a lot in many cases- so you both taper toward one edge, and then bend it toward the edge side














When you start hammering, you'll be placing the edge section along one edge of the anvil and striking with the hammer face at an angle, starting at the back end of the blade and working forward. You're spreading the steel so it'll be thinner at the edge, and if you don't have it at the edge of the face you'll be banging the hammer and anvil faces up.














Start at the rear, and it'll straighten as you work forward














This is after working one side. The blade is mostly straight and the bevel from back to edge is visible.

Next heat, it'll be worked on the opposite edge of the anvil to shape the other bevel















Here's the piece now. The bevels are formed, the blade is rough-shaped in profile and length. You can do some more hammer work to refine the shape a bit and- very important- make sure the edge is straight and centered; if it's crooked or off-center, NOW is the time to take care of that.















This piece is going to have a full tang, meaning the full length and width of the grip section; in this case it'll be drilled and the wood, stag or whatever will be pinned and glued in place. First I bring it up to heat, then, at the back of the blade, hammer it over the edge of the anvil to form the front of the tang














Then figure out how much stock you'll need to shape the tang and cut it off. If in doubt, cut it too long; you can always trim it. I usually bring it up to heat and cut it on the cutoff hardy, basically a chisel with a tang that fits into the square hardy hole; lay it on the edge and hit a couple of strokes, then use tongs to break it off at that point.














leaving this















Now, to lengthen the tang I heat it and use the peen side of a straight-peen hammer. By striking with this face, you stretch it lengthwise while getting minimal spread in width.














After working down one side, work down the other. You'll have to also work the edges a bit to keep them at the width you want. And watch how much you use the peen; it's possible to wind up with the tang thinner than you want. Plan on it being the fullest thickness where tang meets blade, tapering thinner from there.

At this point you'll need to watch the back to make sure it doesn't wind up with some odd curve or bulge you don't want; the overall straightness; make sure the edge is still centered. It's possible to do virtually all of the shaping on the anvil, leaving just a slight bit of grinding or filing to clean up the profile, then heat-treat it. If you want shiny sides and smooth lines, you'll want to plan on making the blade a little oversize. Then you can grind the profile clean, and it'll be thick enough that you can grind off the hammer/forge marks.

How much grinding to clean up the sides depends almost entirely on how carefully you work. One thing that makes a big difference is to hit the piece with a wire brush when you take it out of the fire, a few strokes on both sides to get rid of scale. You can put a little water on the anvil face and dip the hammer face, then take the piece straight from the fire to the anvil and hammer. It's messy, the first stroke or two can get very loud 'bangs' from trapped water flashing to steam when you strike, but it works very well. And remember, the more even your hammer strokes, the better the finish will be when the forging is done.

When doing the last work on it, keep the heat to a low red, and after the hammering is done and all is as you wish it, put it in the fire and bring it up to a low red heat, over as much of the length and as even as possible, then bring it out and let it cool. This is not annealing; that requires bringing it to heat and cooling it as slowly as possible to make it as soft as possible. This is normalizing, evening out the stresses in the piece. A lot of makers do anneal here, putting the hot blade into a can of pre-heated ash or something that will hold in heat. You make your choice of which to do.

Which leaves you with this:














Forged, normalized and ready to grind or file to profile, to clean up the edge bevels and flatten the tang. When I get a chance to do this I'll post pictures of that.

Flea market report

Delayed

This is actually from two weeks ago, but with one thing and another I flat forgot to post it.

Lots of stuff to look at, but what I came home with was this:














Old steel tool box with
3/8" Craftsman ratchet
1/2" Craftsman ratchet
bunch of sockets, standard and metric, about 1/3 Craftsman
short and long 3/8" extensions
bunch of combination wrenches, standard and metric
pliers, wire cutters, 2 oz hammer, screwdrivers, a tube of Permatex and a sharpening steel(!)

All for $20. I'd been thinking about getting a cheap inexpensive socket set for around the house stuff, this'll take care of that and a box to keep it in, and the other stuff will always be handy.

Last weekend ran across a guy with several firearms on a table, including an absolutely lovely thing: a J.P. Sauer und Sohn(sp?) double, 16 guage shotgun on the left, 8.something rifle on the right. The shotgun barrel was the most beautiful damascus barrel I've ever seen, and the whole thing was spotless. Beautiful wood, engraved lock plates, marvelous balance, a very fine example of the gunmakers art. Why he brought it out there, I have no idea; the chance of someone having the money to buy it was about zero(he did indeed know what he had), but at least it gave me a chance to look at it.

Oh, and as to trusting to the International Criminal Court

at The Hague?
Sarajevo, 3 July (AKI) - Bosnian Muslim war-time military commander Naser Oric, convicted of crimes committed against Serb civilians during Bosnia's 1992-1995 civil war, returned home over the weekend to a hero’s welcome, while Serbs on Monday voiced outrage at the light sentence handed down to him on Friday by the United Nations' Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Andreja Mladenovic, a spokesman for Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia, said on Monday that the verdict was “a slap at justice,” and proof that the Hague Tribunal had double standards.

“We have documents showing that 3,260 people were found dead around Srebrenica from 1992-1995, and 50 are still listed as missing,” said Mladenovic. “All the evidence shows that these crimes were committed by the units under Oric’s command”, Mladenovic added.

Double-standard? Gee, you think maybe?

Is there NOTHING that won't be done in England

to 'appease' the enemy?

Found this at Dhimmi Watch:
His dragon-slaying heroics have kept his legend alive through the centuries.

But the Church of England is considering rejecting England's patron saint St George on the grounds that his image is too warlike and may offend Muslims.

Clergy have started a campaign to replace George with St Alban, a Christian martyr in Roman Britain.

This is just bloody pathetic.

Happy Birthday, America

Lots of historical notes in lots of places; I'm not going to add to them. I hope to spend the evening after work with some friends, making noises and generally insulting the UN and every nanny-state socialist out there.

Enjoy the day.

The wonders of gun confiscation

At The Volokh Conspiracy, this post links to an article by David Kopel, Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen titled Human Rights Atrocities: The Consequences of United Nations Gun Confiscation in East Africa. They link to both PDF and HTML versions.

One of the good quotes: Stephen Ikua, a government representative, said that threats were necessary in order to get civilians to peacefully surrender their firearms. He said: "As a government, you should talk from a position of strength. You cannot come in saying you are going to respect human rights."

And be sure to check out the comments at Volokh.

In which the UN is told(politely) to go to hell

It's duly noted at the Geeks' place.

He also links to this at Alphecca in which the socialist and totalitarian gungrabbers reveal their true intention:
“We believe that no armed group outside of the State should be allowed to bear weapons. We also believe that regulating civilian possession of Small Arms/Light Weapons will enhance our efforts to prevent its misuse. In our view, the issue of ammunition should also be addressed in the context of the Program of Action because in the absence of ammunition, small arms and light weapons pose no danger.”

Hmmmm...... Remember this from the president-designate of the conference:"...the meeting is “not aimed at banning small arms or controlling weapons that are legally manufactured, purchased or traded in conformity with national laws”? And I seem to remember Kofi Annan saying that they were not trying to ban or restrict firearms ownership in the U.S.?

If there was any question before, there isn't now: these people are damned liars and cannot be trusted in any way.

Oh, and let's not forget the complete quote from that bitch Rebecca Peters(found by Kim):
I think American citizens should not be exempt from the rules that apply to the rest of the world. At the moment there are no rules applying to the rest of the world. That’s what we’re working for. American citizens should have guns that are suitable for the legitimate purposes that they can prove. I think that eventually Americans will realize that their obsession with arming themselves in fear, in a paranoid belief that they’re going to be able to stave off the ills of the world through owning guns, through turning every house into an arsenal, eventually Americans will go away from that. I think Americans who hunt—and who prove that they can hunt—should have single-shot rifles suitable for hunting whatever they’re hunting. I mean American citizens should be like any other citizens of the world.
"...like any other citazens of the world", in case you haven't caught it, means 'unarmed, not allowed to resist, and totally dependant on the gummint for everything.

As the Geek says, Molon Labe, bitch.

Cast bullets in rifles: why?

Og took me to task one day for shooting cast in my rifles. And the fact is, you can run into problems. So why do it?

Three reasons for me:
1. Cost
2. Tailoring loads
3. I enjoy rolling my own

Cost:
Admittedly, for some rifles not much difference. You can often buy FMJ bullets for very good prices, especially if you buy them in bulk. For others, for which pulled military ball is not available, there can be quite a difference. You do have to figure in the costs of a method of melting the lead, lube and(where appropriate) gas checks and, for many, a size/lube press. Happily, you can get some good stuff for not very much, and if take care of they'll last damn near forever.

Tailoring loads:
I started using these for my Model 94 back when my son weighed about 70 pounds and loved shooting it; my standard loads whacked him pretty hard, so I started making these so I could put together light loads for him. And the fact is, light loads that work in your rifle are good for practice. For some rifles can cut costs quite a bit(less powder for one) and give you a low-recoil, low-noise load that gives good accuracy. Which also makes them good for introducing someone to a centerfire rifle.

One more good point here: there are a lot of old rifles out there that in some cases should not be used with modern full-power ammo, or you just don't want to stress them that much even if in good condition. For these you can put together loads that won't stress things too much, and allow you to keep shooting them.

I just like it:
It's really neat to take old wheel weights and other scrap, melt & clean it, then turn it into shiny new bullets. In some cases you don't even need the size & lube press; if the as-cast diameter of the bullet matches the bore, you can lube it with something like Lee Liquid Alox and go from there.

There is another factor to consider, and it's the same as in handloading in general: is it worth your time? A lot of shooters(like Kim)don't handload because they consider any benefit in savings/tailoring loads not worth the time, and casting bullets does take some. For a lot of people, while handloading may be fine, the extra time and the expense of getting started just isn't worth it.



Quickie size/lube procedure

Take a cast bullet & gas check














Take the sizing die and top punch














The die is machined & polished perfectly round and the exact diameter you want the bullet to be, in this case .309". The nose punch fits the bullet nose so it isn't distorted in the process.

Put the die & punch into the sizing/lubing press.














The lock ring on the right holds the die in place. The press holds a stick of bullet lube and, since I use the hard, high-temp lube which has to be heated, it's bolted onto a heater. When the lube is up to temp, you place the gas check in the die, set the shank of the bullet into the check,














And press down on the lever. The bullet is forced into the die and formed to exact diameter and the gas check is crimped onto the bullet heel. You can't see it in this picture but there's a lever on top of the press that puts pressure on the lube, forcing it through the passages, into the die and then into the lube grooves. Then you raise the lever, which lifts the bullet out, and you have a ready-to-load bullet. The picture I took of the finished product didn't come out; when I get the chance I'll take another and add it in.

Update: here 'tis:
















Notes:
A gas check is just a copper cup that fits on the base of a bullet designed for it; they will not fit on a plain-base bullet. A gas check bullet has a 'heel' on the base of smaller diameter where the check fits.

There are two kinds of gas checks. One is just a cup that slips on and the sizing process squishes it in a bit; the other has a thicker rim that's actually crimped onto the heel. I prefer the second type, as I've heard of cases of the other type coming off in the barrel. Which is bad.

The purpose of a gas check is to protect the base of the bullet from the hot propellant gas. Up to a point it's no problem; start loading the bullet up to higher velocities, and the gas winds up cutting into the base/corners and two things happen: accuracy can degrade, and the barrel WILL have a fouling problem.

Having spent the last couple of days in hard work

helping my parents out(hey, putting up the gazebo roof took damn near 15 minutes of hard work!), in exchange for which I only got fed, I'm now going to work on too little sleep.

Ok, so I got fed well(fresh squash out of the garden, etc.) And I got to use Dads' size lube press on a bunch of cast bullets. It was still hot outside.

Shut up. It was hot.

Oh well. More on the cast bullets later. Hopefully I'll be more coherent after some sleep.

Just saw the new(er) Shakira video,

Hips Don't Lie

I don't know if they lie, but hers damn sure carry on a conversation...

If someone hasn't noticed,

This is what we're dealing with

The enemy is a bunch of pre-civilized filth.

A thought about the chemical warheads they found in Iraq

They were a mix of Sarin and mustard gas, as I recall. A bunch of people said that after this long they'd be useless, and with mustard I don't doubt it; I've read that stuff is corrosive and doesn't last too long.

However, the sarin could be a whole 'nother story. If mixed, it won't last long either from what I've read. But, remember the IED that was a sarin shell? It was a binary; the two chemicals are kept separate until the shell is fired, then the barrier is breached and they mix. If these were binary shells too, then the damn things might still be very dangerous.

And how many more are out there?

Enfield Trainer

I mentioned shooting this the other day, and while I wrote about this rifle before(I think), I can't find the post, so here it is again.

Every army has had the problem of training new recruits. In many countries, many times they had never even held a firearm before, so starting them off with a .30-06 or 8x57mm or something was not the best of methods. Could be done, but add LOUD noise and substantial recoil in some rifles to new shooter and that's not a recipe for quick learning.

Some just picked a good bolt-action .22 and went with it, and some did this: take a standard infantry rifle, bore and chamber it for .22lr, modify the bolt- and sometimes the magazine- for the smaller cartridge, and you have a rifle slightly heavier than the standard(due to the smaller bore), but otherwise everything- trigger, sights, safety and all- was the same. So a new trainee could learn the fundamentals of shooting with the standard rifle, only with .22-level noise and no recoil to notice.

In the case of the British:














It's a #1 MkIII Enfield in all ways except cartridge and being single-shot. To simplify matters, and so as to not worry about a new troop accidentally chambering a round without realizing it, the magazine is the shell only, and there's no ejector; you place a round in the chamber, close the bolt, fire, and when you open the bolt the extractor pulls out the empty and it falls into the magazine body. Very simple and neat. And for a country worried about costs, makes collecting the brass easy.

This one has two differences from the couple I've seen before. You'll notice that it has the standard rear sight, but this one also has something interesting: a Ross rifle rear sight mounted on the receiver. In the down position it's a low, wide 'V':














and when flipped up














it's an aperture with a screw-adjustment for elevation. Which is what first caught my eye; I was at a show and, walking past a rack, saw what I thought was just another #1 until I saw that odd sight on the receiver. Which made me look more closely and when I saw it was a .22 I about freaked. I'd seen one once before; a friend had spent a couple of years looking for one before finding it, but that one did not have this sight. There's a bracket mounted to the left side of the receiver with a dovetail slot; the base for the sight fits into the slot, and a thumbscrew locks it in place:














And, right in front of the magazine is a third sling swivel. When I mentioned the rear sight and the swivel to Og, he had a fit; apparently it's not just a trainer, it's a match rifle.

All in all, it's a really neat piece of history that I get to care for for a while. The receiver is marked 1916; I don't know if it was purpose-built from the first, or if they picked a standard rifle and rebarreled/modified it for training. In either case it was very well cared for; the metal and wood are in beautiful shape, and the bore is pristine. With both Eley Sport and Federal Lightning it'll shoot very well; as the target I posted the other day shows, less than 3" at a hundred yards. I think with a solid rest(or a better shooter) it might group a bit better, but all things considered I ain't complaining.

Oh, and this is one of the reasons I take every good opportunity to tell the UN to piss off; "Prohibit civilian possession of military-style rifles", as the IANSA would force, would mean this beautiful piece of the past would wind up in a smelter.

Assuming some thieving bureaucrat didn't sneak it away for himself. The bastards.

My Acidman goodbye

It's possible you never saw his place; he called it Gut Rumbles, and he wrote about everything, including every damn thing in his life, good and bad, past, present and possible future. Once worked a lot with acids; thus he used Acidman as a moniker.

He died the other day; between health problems, despair and- in the current 'I feel like I'm gonna get stomped' situation- the IRS, I think his system just wore down.

I once wrote in a comment somewhere about him that it's amazing how someone you know solely from a blog, a few pictures and a few e-mails could come to touch you. He reminded me a bit of Jed Clampett(had Jed had a seedy youth playing in bars), had that same southern country gentleman attitude. Though a lot more rough-tongued about things, without question.

There's a bunch of people posting on what he meant to them, and how they'll miss him, like here, and here, and here. There's not much on that line to say that someone else probably hasn't said better.

Like Og said, athiest or not, he's in my prayers. 'Bye, Rob.

The previous post brought to you- especially-

by a day at the range

With a friend and his son. Lots of ammo expended, lots of holes in targets, a hot and thirsty good time had by all.

In particular the kid. He'd been with us once before and couldn't hit the paper at 50 yards. At all. Moved up to 25, he could usually hit the paper but in patterns, not groups. BIG patterns. Today he started with his dads' Winchester 94/22(looks like a scaled-down model 94, but in .22lr with side-ejection) and did much better than before. And then he tried the Martini model 12(similar to the 12/15 here) and fell in love. And shot even better. Mind you, he had to use a rest, as it was too heavy for him to hold in any offhand position, but he liked it anyway. Can't blame him.

I fired a couple of things, but mostly enjoyed the #1 MkIII training rifle. I can't find the post I did on it a while back; if I can later I'll add a link. Think the #1 Enfield .303, but bored to shoot .22lr ammo. It's a marvelous thing, in this case with a Ross rear sight added on. The Ross has a wide, low notch, but when you flip the ladder up it's an aperture. Large aperture, but still works well. Enough to to allow me to do this at 100 yards with it:














A little over 2.5" spread, which I'm quite happy with. I just love shooting these old rifles.

And now, I need to put the trash out so it isn't missed(again).

More on the UN 'Ban Guns From Anybody Except Governments' conference

I wrote on it here and here; in the second Noddy very kindly posted addresses in the comments. I remembered seeing something(ok, a lot of somethings) at The High Road, and tracked down this thread on the matter. Which includes a very interesting excerpt from the IANSA report recently issued.

In this article, it quotes Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka, who's president-designate of the conference as saying "...the NRA campaign is totally misguided because the meeting is "not aimed at banning small arms or controlling weapons that are legally manufactured, purchased or traded in conformity with national laws". . Sounds good, right? Except that the excerpt has the following:

2. Regulation of civilian ownership of weapons

To maintain public safety, civilian gun possession must be
recognised as a privilege with associated responsibilities for
maintaining public safety. In most countries, in order to drive a car,
applicants must pass a test proving their fitness to drive before a
licence is issued. If a car crashes killing a pedestrian, the owner of
the car can be identified by checking the registration plate which
will be linked to the owner’s name. Guns are specifically designed
to kill. Yet the majority of countries do not have effective licensing or
registration systems for guns.
So it's a 'privilege', not a right. And 'privileges' can be taken away at any time, can't they?

Regulation of guns in civilian hands was omitted from the agreement in 2001 and thus did not form part of states’ obligations in the Programme of Action. Despite this, 70 per cent of governments have included information on controlling civilian possession in their reports to the UN since 2001. Governments clearly understand the importance of regulating civilian possession in order to prevent diversion; it is time for the UN small arms process to recognise it too.
"...the importance of regulating civilian possession in order to prevent diversion..." Because you can't have a bunch of uppity peasants able to defend themselves, now can you? And if the peasants have arms, there's not telling where they might get to.

Governments should agree to:
• Promote gun owner responsibility by requiring all firearms to be
registered. Individuals permitted to own guns and ammunition
must be held to account for their security, use and misuse.
Promote "...owner responsibility by requiring all firearms to be registered and Individuals permitted to own..." There's that 'permitted' thing again, and a UN-approved registration system of course; can you say 'nightmare'? I knew you could.

• Define minimum criteria for private ownership of guns with a national system of licensing. These should include proven capacity to handle a gun safely; knowledge of the relevant law; age limit; proof of valid reason; and a security screening based on criminal record or history of violence, including intimate partner violence. Licences should also be required for ammunition.
So you have to show 'proof of valid reason to have a firearm, and to buy ammo. And who decides what a 'valid reason' is, I wonder? Someone like Rebecca Peters, I'd guess. Who thinks there is no such thing as a 'valid reason' to own a gun.

• Prohibit civilian possession of military-style rifles, including semiautomatic rifles that can be converted to fully automatic fire and semi-automatic variants of military weapons.
So there goes your Garand, you M1 Carbine, your FAL, your AK, your anything. And, let's see, 'military-style rifles, including..." That means their list includes that 1903 Springfield, that 96 or 98 Mauser, that old S&W or Colt or Webley/Enfield or Nagant pistol or any other firearm they decide is 'military-style'. I wonder how many they'll decide don't fit the list?

• Block access to guns for people with a history of violence, particularly against intimate partners or family members.
Sounds not too bad, until you remember the crap the Lauterberg Amendment has caused. And you damn well know they'll count anything, including self-defense, as a 'history of violence'.

• Introduce safe storage requirements to prevent gun accidents, suicide, misuse and theft.
So you have to have a certified and approved safe(as expensive as possible) and let agents of the government into your home any hour of day or night to inspect. Uh-huh.

• Regulate manufacturers and dealers. A national register of all manufacturers and their distribution network, including firearm
dealers, would help prevent diversion to illicit use.
Now, we've already got all that. But just think of the layers of bureaucracy and cost these clowns could dream up to add to it.

And all this, according to the president-designate, is "not aimed at banning small arms or controlling weapons that are legally manufactured, purchased or traded in conformity with national laws"

My aching redneck ass it's not. Can you say 'lying, two-faced nanny-state socialist politician who hates our freedoms and liberty'?

I knew you could

In honor of Og

getting his bike license, I present Sluggy:

A Bitch tells the UN to 'grow a pair',

But I doubt they will. Or can.

At the Bitch Girls found this, linking to this at Uncle. Two things strike me about this;
1. The letter writing campaign to the UN officials involved in this 'disarm the victims conference' is having an effect, and
2. An awful lot of people at the UN are a: very thin-skinned and b: really, really don't like free speech that doesn't kiss their ass or at least agree with them:At last count, his Mission had received over 100,000 letters, post cards and email messages — most of them arriving at the staggering rate of about 4,000 per day — all of them with an identical anti-U.N. message in what appears to be a rigidly coordinated letter-writing and hate-mail campaign for which the NRA is notorious in this country.

'Hate mail'? So telling UN officials that we don't like them having this conference on our soil on July 4, our Independance Day and telling them we will not trash our Constitution because it doesn't suit them is 'hate mail'? Excuse me.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You KNOW when something sticks these nanny-state socialists, they squeal so loudly.

Oh, and from "Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka, president-designate of the two-week long conference beginning Monday, we get this: "...the meeting is “not aimed at banning small arms or controlling weapons that are legally manufactured, purchased or traded in conformity with national laws”. Oh, really? Remember the definition of 'small arms' from the UN website? Broadly speaking, the website says, "small arms" are weapons designed for individual use. They include revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns.

'Hate speech' my ass. They just don't like being told "We will not do what you say" so openly and loudly.

I posted earlier that I didn't think sending letters to the UN personnel would do any good. Looks like I was wrong; at the very least, it's upsetting them terribly and causing cases of the vapors. So I need to find those addresses and start writing.

Well, lookee here, WMDs found in Iraq

Just up at Fox

Not surprising. I remember the news when the Polish troops managed to buy a bunch of chemical warheads from some people who'd sneaked them out of an ammo dump during the invasion. VERY QUICK blip on the news(gee, I wonder why?).

Now the question is, what'll the major media do with the story? And how'll a bunch of them try to spin it?