Cartridge cases, in this case. In comments on the post about reforming .284 to 7.5 Swiss Chris mentioned this. I should have covered it in the same post, but got in a hurry and didn't want to put off posting it.
As in steel, annealing brass is to reduce the hardness of it. If you look at most military rifle ammo with brass cases, you'll see that the case neck, usually going down into the shoulders, is discolored; that's from annealing. Commercial ammo they do this and then polish the cases so they're nice & shiny all over, but most military contracts(so I'm told) specify that the annealing colors be there to prove the cases have so been treated, so they're polished, then annealed, then cleaned- not polished- and loaded.
When you reform a case you work-harden the brass, sometimes a lot. This leaves it stiff enough that when it flexes under the pressure of firing it can crack, so after forming or, as Chris notes, after the first firing it should be annealed.
I searched through various gun boards and found a lot of opinions and methods. This is the one I used on these cases. In my case, I formed the cases, cleaned off the case lube and then annealed them.
You need a propane torch, preferably one with a narrow flame, a pan or bowl for water and something to hold the cases with. This is done in a dim room as you have to be able to see it when the brass starts showing red.
Take the cleaned cases(burning case lube makes nasty smoke) and start the torch, bowl of water standing close. I sanded a piece of steel wire to fit into the flash hole of the primer pocket to hold the case. Stick it in the hole and hold the case neck in the flame, just ahead of the blue center, with the case angled so the flame is pointing toward the case mouth, not the body. Ideally the point of the flame should be hitting at or just ahead of the angle where neck joins shoulder. Turn the case constantly as you have to heat it evenly all the way around. As soon as you see the case neck showing red, drop it in the water. With steel the quench would harden it, with brass it keeps it from hardening a bit as it cools.
I'd suggest that as soon as the first few cases are cool enough, put them under a good light and look them over closely. You want to see the color difference caused by the process running into the shoulders, down to where shoulders meet body is fine, but not way down into the case body, and it should be even all around as to how far down it goes. When you've got it right, run the rest of the cases through.
That's it. This should relieve enough of the stress set up by the forming to leave the brass with enough spring to hold the bullet securely but not so stiff that it'll crack.
Notes
I've read some people saying to hold the case at the base, and even if you don't see color to quench as soon as it gets too hot to hold. I like something to hold the hot case with.
Whatever else you may do, DO NOT anneal way down into the body, or at the base and the 'web' above it. Those areas need to be stiffer, so leave them alone. If the annealing color runs down that far, you're better off trashing it.
There are a couple of companies that make machines specifically do anneal cases. If you were going to do a lot of them on a fairly regular basis one of these would be the way to go.
Friday, October 05, 2007
You might be Taliban IF:
...You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.
...You own a $300 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't
afford shoes.
...You have more wives than teeth.
...You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.
...You've ever opened a can of falafel with a mortar round.
...You used a Stinger missile given to you by George Bush Sr. to shoot at
a helicopter sent by George Bush Jr.
...You've ever had your camel repossessed.
...You can't think of anyone you HAVEN'T declared Jihad against.
...You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry ammunition in
your robe.
...You've ever been asked, "Does this burka make my ass look fat?"
...You've felt the urge to rub one out after seeing a woman's exposed
ankle.
...You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than
setting off roadside bombs.
...You've ever uttered the phrase, "I love what you've done with your
cave."
...You wipe your ass with your bare left hand, but consider bacon
"unclean."
Thanks to Theo
...You own a $300 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't
afford shoes.
...You have more wives than teeth.
...You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.
...You've ever opened a can of falafel with a mortar round.
...You used a Stinger missile given to you by George Bush Sr. to shoot at
a helicopter sent by George Bush Jr.
...You've ever had your camel repossessed.
...You can't think of anyone you HAVEN'T declared Jihad against.
...You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry ammunition in
your robe.
...You've ever been asked, "Does this burka make my ass look fat?"
...You've felt the urge to rub one out after seeing a woman's exposed
ankle.
...You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than
setting off roadside bombs.
...You've ever uttered the phrase, "I love what you've done with your
cave."
...You wipe your ass with your bare left hand, but consider bacon
"unclean."
Thanks to Theo
Thursday, October 04, 2007
In case you're wondering how the Gun Juice is working out
for son, got this from him:
The microlon is working great, my M4 stays a lot cleaner with it than it did with the CLP. Works pretty good on the 240 as well, but its a dust magnet no matter what.
The microlon is working great, my M4 stays a lot cleaner with it than it did with the CLP. Works pretty good on the 240 as well, but its a dust magnet no matter what.
Reading 'Nanny State' by David Harsanyi
And found a couple of good quotes. For instance:
In an ideal world, karma would decree that these irritating and dangerous activists be taken behind the woodshed by a dozen minutemen reenactors for a momentous ass-kicking- with a post-beating lecture on the Founding Fathers, of course. But the world is far from perfect. Instead, these wardens of well-being are endlessly trotted out on morning and cable news programs, issuing distraught statements about the societal catastrophes that are ice cream and Girl Scout Cookies.
In an ideal world, karma would decree that these irritating and dangerous activists be taken behind the woodshed by a dozen minutemen reenactors for a momentous ass-kicking- with a post-beating lecture on the Founding Fathers, of course. But the world is far from perfect. Instead, these wardens of well-being are endlessly trotted out on morning and cable news programs, issuing distraught statements about the societal catastrophes that are ice cream and Girl Scout Cookies.
Forming cases
Something I wrote about before as a benefit of reloading is being able to form cases from one cartridge to fit another. That time it was pretty involved, but in some cases it's very simple. The one I'm thinking of right now is 7.5mm Swiss.
When the K31 rifles started getting popular, one problem was that the only ammo available was either the Swiss surplus(damn good ammo) or stuff from Norma(damn good and expensive). Usual fix for this is to handload, but you have to have reloadable brass for it. The Swiss surplus is Berdan primed, and those primers are hard to find. Norma is reloadable, but the expense discouraged most from buying their cases(see here). So the next thought is "Is there any similar case that I can form to 7.5 Swiss?" Answer, thanks to pointers from some people at The High Road, is yes.
In this case the answer was .284 Winchester. The case head is a bit different, but close enough to fit the bolt head and extractor, the body is very similar. The case neck is sized for a much smaller diameter bullet(.284 vs. .308), but that's fixable. Some cases require multiple sizing operations with different dies when you're drastically changing the dimensions. In this case all you need is a set of 7.5 Swiss dies, a .284 Win. shell holder and a case trimmer.
Put the .284 shell holder in the press and run the ram all the way up. Screw the 7.5 Swiss sizing die down until it touches the shell holder, then about 1/4 turn further: when you resize, you want to be sure the die goes all the way down. Lube the case well, and make sure some goes inside the case neck. Then put a case in the holder and run it all the way into the die and back down. It'll take some pressure, you're reshaping the body and expanding the neck quite a bit. When it comes out, trim it to length and you've now got 7.5 Swiss cases.
That's the quick & dirty of how to make these.
Now, as the Graf's site shows, there are more affordable 7.5 Swiss cases available, at least when they're not sold out. I've got 100 of the .284 cases I resized and they'll take care of me for quite a while on this cartridge.
When the K31 rifles started getting popular, one problem was that the only ammo available was either the Swiss surplus(damn good ammo) or stuff from Norma(damn good and expensive). Usual fix for this is to handload, but you have to have reloadable brass for it. The Swiss surplus is Berdan primed, and those primers are hard to find. Norma is reloadable, but the expense discouraged most from buying their cases(see here). So the next thought is "Is there any similar case that I can form to 7.5 Swiss?" Answer, thanks to pointers from some people at The High Road, is yes.
In this case the answer was .284 Winchester. The case head is a bit different, but close enough to fit the bolt head and extractor, the body is very similar. The case neck is sized for a much smaller diameter bullet(.284 vs. .308), but that's fixable. Some cases require multiple sizing operations with different dies when you're drastically changing the dimensions. In this case all you need is a set of 7.5 Swiss dies, a .284 Win. shell holder and a case trimmer.
Put the .284 shell holder in the press and run the ram all the way up. Screw the 7.5 Swiss sizing die down until it touches the shell holder, then about 1/4 turn further: when you resize, you want to be sure the die goes all the way down. Lube the case well, and make sure some goes inside the case neck. Then put a case in the holder and run it all the way into the die and back down. It'll take some pressure, you're reshaping the body and expanding the neck quite a bit. When it comes out, trim it to length and you've now got 7.5 Swiss cases.
That's the quick & dirty of how to make these.
Now, as the Graf's site shows, there are more affordable 7.5 Swiss cases available, at least when they're not sold out. I've got 100 of the .284 cases I resized and they'll take care of me for quite a while on this cartridge.
Tried the Lee Lube & alcohol idea the other day
Sprayed a couple of .30-06 cases as I mentioned. After it dried I thought might be just a touch too little lube so I added another dollop of lube to the alcohol and shook it up and tried it. Much better. So I stood up about 50 more, ten .30 Carbine and a few 8mm and spritzed them, then let them sit a few minutes. All looked nicely lubed so I started sizing. All went through perfectly, couldn't have asked for a more even coat or smoother operation.
The Code of the West
vs. the Code of the Left:
* Never order anything weaker than whiskey.
* Never order anything stronger than a decaf double latte made with soy milk. Yes, that drink will shrink your testicles and/or ovaries to the size of peas, but you weren't using them anyway. Make it a double.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
A bit more on the Lee Hand Press and case lube
In comments on this post it was asked if the Hand Press actually had enough leverage to full-length resize bottleneck rifle cases. On the stuff I did with it, it did. At that time the only rifle stuff I had/reloaded was .303 and .30-30. The latter was definitely easier, but it did indeed run the .303 full-length into the RCBS sizing die. Took a real push and pull to run it in and pull it out, but it did it. Heavier or longer cases, neck-sizing would definitely be the way to go with it, though. Something like .30-06 would be a pain.
On case lube in this post Guy mentioned dissolving Lee lube in alcohol and using a spray bottle to lube cases. Honest, I'd wondered about this once, but with water instead of alcohol and- critical thing- I never got around to trying it. He did. So while grocery shopping yesterday I got a small spray bottle and once home poured some rubbing alcohol in, then squeezed in a dollop of lube and shook hell out of it. Then set up some .30-06 cases in a row and hit them with one spritz on each side and left them alone for a while. Damn, that works! Very light coat of lube left behind, just about perfect. And if you angle the spray down a touch, it'll get some inside the case necks to ease the passage of the expander button. I will be using this in the future.
On case lube in this post Guy mentioned dissolving Lee lube in alcohol and using a spray bottle to lube cases. Honest, I'd wondered about this once, but with water instead of alcohol and- critical thing- I never got around to trying it. He did. So while grocery shopping yesterday I got a small spray bottle and once home poured some rubbing alcohol in, then squeezed in a dollop of lube and shook hell out of it. Then set up some .30-06 cases in a row and hit them with one spritz on each side and left them alone for a while. Damn, that works! Very light coat of lube left behind, just about perfect. And if you angle the spray down a touch, it'll get some inside the case necks to ease the passage of the expander button. I will be using this in the future.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
A bit more on handloading
Remember that .30 Carbine load I mentioned? With all the reloading stuff being put out right now, herein I will lay out how I worked that load up.
The general rule is that when switching to a new powder or bullet, and sometimes brass, you start low and work your way up. Powders have different burning rates, bullets have more or less weight and/or bearing surface and, depending on composition, can be harder or softer, and cases can have thicker or thinner walls(among other things). All of which means that changing any of those factors can make pressure go up or down, and can affect accuracy. And things that affect pressure can cause anything from less recoil to more to a semi-auto not functioning correctly to something failing. Sometimes catastrophically.
For instance, I’ve got a Turk Mauser in 8x57mm that I modified as a hunting/target rifle. Very solid, very strong and capable of good accuracy. While I was working up loads for it, I discovered that in 170-grain factory loads Federal shot very well; Remington just as well but hit about an inch higher at 100 yards; Winchester gave much worse groups that hit higher and to the right. I saved the brass to work up some 150-grain bullet loads. I hit a charge of IMR4064 that shot very well in the Federal cases with a Hornady bullet. The Remington cases gave equal accuracy with the same load, but- same as the factory loads- hit about an inch higher than the Federal. And the Winchester cases gave lousy groups that hit high and right. There’s nothing wrong with the quality of Winchester brass that I know of: that rifle just doesn’t like it. You run into that sometimes.
With the Carbine I was using the same brass, Lake City GI, and the same powder and primer but switching bullets. The Sierra Varminter weighs the same as the GI ball- 110 grains- but has a different shape and length. Measuring lengths showed that the Sierra would have to be seated deeper than the ball so as to keep the overall length within the maximum*. Being seated deeper means less space for powder. Some loads in some cartridges will compress the powder somewhat, and with some it causes them to burn more efficiently. In others it can cause dangerous pressure spikes. Which are Bad Things, which I would like to avoid. So I did some measuring. The bearing surface of the two bullets- the area where it actually bears on the bore surface- looked to be about the same length. I had no way to measure the comparative hardness of the jackets, so that was guesswork. Which I really don’t like, but I couldn’t find any ‘official’ information on this. It looked like dropping the powder charge one grain from what I’d used with ball for full-power loads would place the bullet base and the top of the powder column in the same relative position as the full charge to ball, so I decided to give that a try. So I loaded ten rounds and tried them next time I went to the range.
No chronograph as it turned out due to the dead battery, so I fired five on a 50 yard target. Accuracy** and where they hit on the target were same as ball, and the cases showed no signs of excessive pressure. The action cycled normally, and the empties flew out at the same angle and distance as ball. So I moved to 100 yards and tried the other five. Again the bullets hit about identically to ball and the other things were stable as well. So next time I set up the press I loaded ten more and made damn sure I had a good battery in the chrono. As noted a few days ago, velocity was just a touch above the nominal velocity for ball, and that combined with the other factors tells me pressure should be just about right for full-power loads.
No, this is not quite how they do it at the factory, or by the people who work up loads for a living. They’ve got universal receivers into which they can mount different barrels for different cartridges and/or strain gauges to indicate pressures, and a setup called a copper crusher(it uses a slug of copper of exact size and shape and alloy, how much it’s deformed tells you the pressure of the shot) that fits on barrels in the universal receiver; now there are electronic setups that do the same but without the copper being crushed. I don’t have any of those, so it was check around for loads others have tried, compare different factors, decide what should be workable and try it. Be very aware that when you step outside what’s in the manuals, you’re on your own. Screw it up(wrong powder, inappropriate bullet, too much or- in some odd cases- too little powder) and you can have a slight problem. As in ‘boom’. Resulting in anything from slight damage to failure of the action, anything from “Damn, that was loud!” to “Oh my, I think I’m bleeding.” No kidding, do not screw around with loads outside the manual unless you have the experience or equipment to deal with it. And experience doesn’t always count for crap.
*OAL, overall length, is important for a couple of reasons. One is simply that if a cartridge is too long it won’t feed through the action. Not a big factor with single-shot firearms, big deal with repeaters. Second is that there should generally be a short distance between the bullet position when chambered and where the rifling begins(called ‘freebore’ if I remember right). If you don’t have that space, it can cause the bullet to be delayed in leaving the case, which can cause a really bad pressure spike: Bad Thing. Third thing, if a bullet is long enough and seated far enough out it can hit the rifling and keep the action from closing and locking completely. VERY bad thing. On a bolt or a single-shot it will generally let you know there’s a problem, either the action will not close completely or is very difficult to close, both warning signs. On a semi-auto, if this happens and you don’t notice it and pull the trigger you have an ‘out of battery’ fire. Also known as a ‘kaboom’. It generally means a destroyed action and often means some level of injury to you.
**Accuracy in this case doesn’t mean ‘in the bullseye’, it refers to how tightly the bullets group. Different components in a load can cause the point of impact to vary, sometimes by a fair amount. That’s not a problem in testing, because when you find a load that’s good(tight groups, reliable, within specs for pressure and so forth) you adjust the sights to place it exactly.
The general rule is that when switching to a new powder or bullet, and sometimes brass, you start low and work your way up. Powders have different burning rates, bullets have more or less weight and/or bearing surface and, depending on composition, can be harder or softer, and cases can have thicker or thinner walls(among other things). All of which means that changing any of those factors can make pressure go up or down, and can affect accuracy. And things that affect pressure can cause anything from less recoil to more to a semi-auto not functioning correctly to something failing. Sometimes catastrophically.
For instance, I’ve got a Turk Mauser in 8x57mm that I modified as a hunting/target rifle. Very solid, very strong and capable of good accuracy. While I was working up loads for it, I discovered that in 170-grain factory loads Federal shot very well; Remington just as well but hit about an inch higher at 100 yards; Winchester gave much worse groups that hit higher and to the right. I saved the brass to work up some 150-grain bullet loads. I hit a charge of IMR4064 that shot very well in the Federal cases with a Hornady bullet. The Remington cases gave equal accuracy with the same load, but- same as the factory loads- hit about an inch higher than the Federal. And the Winchester cases gave lousy groups that hit high and right. There’s nothing wrong with the quality of Winchester brass that I know of: that rifle just doesn’t like it. You run into that sometimes.
With the Carbine I was using the same brass, Lake City GI, and the same powder and primer but switching bullets. The Sierra Varminter weighs the same as the GI ball- 110 grains- but has a different shape and length. Measuring lengths showed that the Sierra would have to be seated deeper than the ball so as to keep the overall length within the maximum*. Being seated deeper means less space for powder. Some loads in some cartridges will compress the powder somewhat, and with some it causes them to burn more efficiently. In others it can cause dangerous pressure spikes. Which are Bad Things, which I would like to avoid. So I did some measuring. The bearing surface of the two bullets- the area where it actually bears on the bore surface- looked to be about the same length. I had no way to measure the comparative hardness of the jackets, so that was guesswork. Which I really don’t like, but I couldn’t find any ‘official’ information on this. It looked like dropping the powder charge one grain from what I’d used with ball for full-power loads would place the bullet base and the top of the powder column in the same relative position as the full charge to ball, so I decided to give that a try. So I loaded ten rounds and tried them next time I went to the range.
No chronograph as it turned out due to the dead battery, so I fired five on a 50 yard target. Accuracy** and where they hit on the target were same as ball, and the cases showed no signs of excessive pressure. The action cycled normally, and the empties flew out at the same angle and distance as ball. So I moved to 100 yards and tried the other five. Again the bullets hit about identically to ball and the other things were stable as well. So next time I set up the press I loaded ten more and made damn sure I had a good battery in the chrono. As noted a few days ago, velocity was just a touch above the nominal velocity for ball, and that combined with the other factors tells me pressure should be just about right for full-power loads.
No, this is not quite how they do it at the factory, or by the people who work up loads for a living. They’ve got universal receivers into which they can mount different barrels for different cartridges and/or strain gauges to indicate pressures, and a setup called a copper crusher(it uses a slug of copper of exact size and shape and alloy, how much it’s deformed tells you the pressure of the shot) that fits on barrels in the universal receiver; now there are electronic setups that do the same but without the copper being crushed. I don’t have any of those, so it was check around for loads others have tried, compare different factors, decide what should be workable and try it. Be very aware that when you step outside what’s in the manuals, you’re on your own. Screw it up(wrong powder, inappropriate bullet, too much or- in some odd cases- too little powder) and you can have a slight problem. As in ‘boom’. Resulting in anything from slight damage to failure of the action, anything from “Damn, that was loud!” to “Oh my, I think I’m bleeding.” No kidding, do not screw around with loads outside the manual unless you have the experience or equipment to deal with it. And experience doesn’t always count for crap.
*OAL, overall length, is important for a couple of reasons. One is simply that if a cartridge is too long it won’t feed through the action. Not a big factor with single-shot firearms, big deal with repeaters. Second is that there should generally be a short distance between the bullet position when chambered and where the rifling begins(called ‘freebore’ if I remember right). If you don’t have that space, it can cause the bullet to be delayed in leaving the case, which can cause a really bad pressure spike: Bad Thing. Third thing, if a bullet is long enough and seated far enough out it can hit the rifling and keep the action from closing and locking completely. VERY bad thing. On a bolt or a single-shot it will generally let you know there’s a problem, either the action will not close completely or is very difficult to close, both warning signs. On a semi-auto, if this happens and you don’t notice it and pull the trigger you have an ‘out of battery’ fire. Also known as a ‘kaboom’. It generally means a destroyed action and often means some level of injury to you.
**Accuracy in this case doesn’t mean ‘in the bullseye’, it refers to how tightly the bullets group. Different components in a load can cause the point of impact to vary, sometimes by a fair amount. That’s not a problem in testing, because when you find a load that’s good(tight groups, reliable, within specs for pressure and so forth) you adjust the sights to place it exactly.
Starting handloading
Kevin did a long very longdetailed post the other day on getting started on handloading(take it easy, at least I didn't say 'verbose'. Oops, sorry) that covers just about everything, from a full startup set of equipment to the basics of 'how'. In the spirit of tagging along on a good post'if you're thinking of becoming an alchemist'(as Kim used to call us) I thought I'd add in how I got started.
I had a head start on a lot of people in that Dad handloads, and when I was a kid I was allowed toget in the way help out, so I had a fair idea of what I was getting into. He started for the same reason a lot of people do: expense. The Highway Patrol pay wasn't real good at the time and they provided no practice ammo(or rifle, but that's another story), so if he wanted to practice(let alone feeding my growing habit) he pretty much had to. A friend of his had the gear, including a bullet mold and sizing/lubing press*, so they'd both gather lead and cast a bunch of .38 wadcutters, split the cost on primers and powder, then load a batch. It was a couple of years before Dad was able to put enough free cash together to buy a used Herter's loading press and dies(which he still has), and he still had to do the casting work with the friend; there was no place nearby that carried bullets. When he started loading .30-30, bullets involved a trip to a city to buy a box.
Jump forward a fewdecadesyears. I was newly divorced, two little kids, getting back into shooting and knew I'd have to start handloading if I wanted to shoot much. At that time I had three cartridges to load: .38 Special/.357 Mag, .30-30 and .303 British. I was at a local flea market with the kids and a guy had a Lee Hand Press and priming fitting set out. I got it, local stores had dies, primers, bullets, a powder scale that happened to be on sale, case lube and powder. I started out with IMR3031 because the Lyman manual showed it as good for both .30-30 and .303, and Bullseye for the pistol. Took about a month before I had it all. And for the first while I only had dies for .38/.357 and .303, all I could afford, loading .30-30 was done when visiting my folks.
The Hand Press is so called because it doesn't mount on a bench, you hold it. I loaded a lot of .303 and .38's on that thing. And yes, resizing .303 cases on it is good exercise. It was actually quite handy, I could sit in the living room watching a show and resize cases, neck expand the .38's and prime. Once, when a lady I was going out with was feeling under the weather I went over to keep her company and took it and a bag of brass along. She was laying on the couch and I sat on the floor by the couch sizing and belling cases and talking. It put her to sleep, which either means it was relaxing or I'm boring. Shut up, I didn't ask for commentary. About a year after the Lee I picked up a used RCBS Junior press at a gun show, and bought a Lee hand-priming tool, both of which really sped things up. I also wound up with an 8mm Turk Mauser, so of course I needed dies, and there was IMR4064 recommended for it, and if I could start casting bullets I'd save some there... It kind of grows.
Kevin covered things very well. If you know someone with experience, they can help you get started. Whether you do or start on your lonesome, READ THE DIRECTIONS. AND pay attention to them. Pulling the trigger and hearing 'snap' instead of 'bang' is bad; pulling the trigger and hearing 'BOOM', accompanied by pieces of what used to be a working firearm flying around, is worse by far.
*Some cast bullets can be used as they come out of the mold, just put some lube on them and load. The bullets I cast for .38S&W and .455 Webley come out of standard .38 Special and .45acp molds; lubed with Lee Liquid Alox they work perfectly. But a lot of bullets need to be sized- squeezed to proper diameter- and lubed before use. A sizing/lubing press has a die that's bored to the diameter you need, and nose punch that fits the bullet you're sizing, and a reservoir that holds lube. You take the cast bullet and place it in the die, pull the lever and the punch forces the bullet into the die, forming it to exact diameter. Then you pull a small lever that puts pressure on the lube and forces it through passages into the die and from there it fills the lube grooves on the bullet. If you're putting a gas check on the base(only works on bullets designed for it) you put the check on the bullet base and then size & lube.
Generally speaking, a bullet with a gas check(short copper cup) on the base can be driven to higher velocities without propellant gas melting or cutting into the base.
I had a head start on a lot of people in that Dad handloads, and when I was a kid I was allowed to
Jump forward a few
The Hand Press is so called because it doesn't mount on a bench, you hold it. I loaded a lot of .303 and .38's on that thing. And yes, resizing .303 cases on it is good exercise. It was actually quite handy, I could sit in the living room watching a show and resize cases, neck expand the .38's and prime. Once, when a lady I was going out with was feeling under the weather I went over to keep her company and took it and a bag of brass along. She was laying on the couch and I sat on the floor by the couch sizing and belling cases and talking. It put her to sleep, which either means it was relaxing or I'm boring. Shut up, I didn't ask for commentary. About a year after the Lee I picked up a used RCBS Junior press at a gun show, and bought a Lee hand-priming tool, both of which really sped things up. I also wound up with an 8mm Turk Mauser, so of course I needed dies, and there was IMR4064 recommended for it, and if I could start casting bullets I'd save some there... It kind of grows.
Kevin covered things very well. If you know someone with experience, they can help you get started. Whether you do or start on your lonesome, READ THE DIRECTIONS. AND pay attention to them. Pulling the trigger and hearing 'snap' instead of 'bang' is bad; pulling the trigger and hearing 'BOOM', accompanied by pieces of what used to be a working firearm flying around, is worse by far.
*Some cast bullets can be used as they come out of the mold, just put some lube on them and load. The bullets I cast for .38S&W and .455 Webley come out of standard .38 Special and .45acp molds; lubed with Lee Liquid Alox they work perfectly. But a lot of bullets need to be sized- squeezed to proper diameter- and lubed before use. A sizing/lubing press has a die that's bored to the diameter you need, and nose punch that fits the bullet you're sizing, and a reservoir that holds lube. You take the cast bullet and place it in the die, pull the lever and the punch forces the bullet into the die, forming it to exact diameter. Then you pull a small lever that puts pressure on the lube and forces it through passages into the die and from there it fills the lube grooves on the bullet. If you're putting a gas check on the base(only works on bullets designed for it) you put the check on the bullet base and then size & lube.
Generally speaking, a bullet with a gas check(short copper cup) on the base can be driven to higher velocities without propellant gas melting or cutting into the base.
Monday, October 01, 2007
When an organization is screwed up
this bad, how can anyone expect good things from it? Or efficiency, or anything else worth having?
Apparently, we're costing Putin and the Russkies
a considerable amount of business.
The September 6 Israeli air raid in Syria has been a major setback for Russian arms sales. The Syrians had invested heavily in new Russian air defense systems, and the Israelis apparently brushed right by them.
Back in the First Gulf War, or the First Battle of Iraq, you may remember that on Day 1, the F117 bombers flew right through the Soviet-made air defense radars and all the AAA and blew the crap out of their targets. And kept doing so. The Russians, in the aftermath, were very wordy about "Well, we didn't sell them our VERY top-of-the-line equipment; if they'd had that stuff, the Americans would have been shot down left and right!" Uh huh. Right. And, as I recall, it turned out the Russians had sent a couple of generals to 'advise' Saddam's forces on using the stuff.
Now the Israelis waltz through the stuff and wipe out a tippy-top-secret installation. If the Russians say "Well, we didn't sell them the Very Best Stuff", Assad will be having some words with them, I'd think. And I doubt anybody would believe them.
Yeah, the Israeli and American, and I don't doubt some other countries intel and air forces are enjoying the hell out of this.
The September 6 Israeli air raid in Syria has been a major setback for Russian arms sales. The Syrians had invested heavily in new Russian air defense systems, and the Israelis apparently brushed right by them.
Back in the First Gulf War, or the First Battle of Iraq, you may remember that on Day 1, the F117 bombers flew right through the Soviet-made air defense radars and all the AAA and blew the crap out of their targets. And kept doing so. The Russians, in the aftermath, were very wordy about "Well, we didn't sell them our VERY top-of-the-line equipment; if they'd had that stuff, the Americans would have been shot down left and right!" Uh huh. Right. And, as I recall, it turned out the Russians had sent a couple of generals to 'advise' Saddam's forces on using the stuff.
Now the Israelis waltz through the stuff and wipe out a tippy-top-secret installation. If the Russians say "Well, we didn't sell them the Very Best Stuff", Assad will be having some words with them, I'd think. And I doubt anybody would believe them.
Yeah, the Israeli and American, and I don't doubt some other countries intel and air forces are enjoying the hell out of this.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Gun Juice and loading dies
I've written before on Microlon Gun Juice*, mostly about using it on firearms. I think I've mentioned it being useful for other things, too. Had a comment the other day: ...I understand that you used micro lon on your reloading dies. I would like to know how you did and what you found. I have never had a stuck case, but he said that you were not even oiling and were having no problems.... so I thought I'd expand on that particular use.
If you handload, you know that the only place you can normally resize cases without lubing them is with straightwall cases such as .45acp, .38 Special/.357 Mag and such when using either carbide or titanium nitride(TiN)-coated sizing dies; those dies are hard and slick enough to get by without it. And even then a touch of lube is suggested for some cases such as .30 Carbine(I have read that people doing LARGE numbers of cases suggest a light bit of lube, carbide or no). In just about any other case and die, running a case in without lube means the case gets stuck. BAD stuck. As I put it before, "teenage girls on Orlando Bloom-level stuck". This usually requires a stuck case removal kit, and sometimes a trip for the die back to the manufacturer to get it out without damaging the die.
Having had good results from Gun Juice, I decided to try it on my dies. I took my Lee .30-06 dies apart and cleaned the sizing die and the neck expander plug with solvent and made sure there were no traces of lube left behind. Then, it being a hot, sunny day, I put them in the sun for a while to get hot and then gave them a coat, putting them back in the sun for the volatiles to evaporate**. I did this five times, then reassembled.
I'm paranoid enough that I did not intend to use the dies dry, I was looking for both a way to need as little lube as possible, and a safety factor. I didn't use a scale when pulling the press handle down, but after the treatment I did notice that it took less pressure to run the cases in. So I treated all my sizing dies except the carbide and TiN with it, and also treated the neck-expander plugs of the dies that have them. Good results with all.
This went happily along until a few months later when I was resizing a BUNCH of .30-06 cases(I'd had a good day picking up once-fired stuff at the range). I usually lube a whole bunch of cases- using Lee Resizing Lube at the time- setting each handful aside while I do the next, then when done with all of them start sizing with the first batch***. I was merrily sizing away, when I noticed that the case I'd just run through had seemed a bit more difficult. So did the next. And now that I think about it, so did the previous few. I grabbed that last few and the rest of that handful and found that I'd missed them: not a trace of lube. So I'd done eight before I noticed a problem, and even the last two(total of ten) went in & out with no problem. Something that would normally have left me with a stuck case on the first one became a "Damn, that's neat!" moment.
Like I say, I'd mostly been looking for a bit less effort in sizing and a safety factor, and I got both. Now, when I buy a new set of dies the first thing I do is degrease them and hit them with at least five coats of Gun Juice. A little goes a long way, and the stuff is worth every penny.
*They also make the stuff for engines. Tried it in my bike and liked the results. Going to do my truck when I can.
**I now have a heat gun and use it to warm things up. However, a warm day and outside does keep the aroma down. They do warn you to use in a well-ventilated area.
***I tried something with the Lee Lube. It's a thick white cream that's water soluble. So I put a dab on my palm, added a few drops of water and rubbed my palms together, then laid a half-dozen cases in one hand and rubbed them together again. I found I could get about a dozen or more rifle cases at a time this way with a very thin coat, and by the time I finished the whole bunch the first handful were dry. Or I could leave them a while and size them later, just like the undiluted lube.
If you handload, you know that the only place you can normally resize cases without lubing them is with straightwall cases such as .45acp, .38 Special/.357 Mag and such when using either carbide or titanium nitride(TiN)-coated sizing dies; those dies are hard and slick enough to get by without it. And even then a touch of lube is suggested for some cases such as .30 Carbine(I have read that people doing LARGE numbers of cases suggest a light bit of lube, carbide or no). In just about any other case and die, running a case in without lube means the case gets stuck. BAD stuck. As I put it before, "teenage girls on Orlando Bloom-level stuck". This usually requires a stuck case removal kit, and sometimes a trip for the die back to the manufacturer to get it out without damaging the die.
Having had good results from Gun Juice, I decided to try it on my dies. I took my Lee .30-06 dies apart and cleaned the sizing die and the neck expander plug with solvent and made sure there were no traces of lube left behind. Then, it being a hot, sunny day, I put them in the sun for a while to get hot and then gave them a coat, putting them back in the sun for the volatiles to evaporate**. I did this five times, then reassembled.
I'm paranoid enough that I did not intend to use the dies dry, I was looking for both a way to need as little lube as possible, and a safety factor. I didn't use a scale when pulling the press handle down, but after the treatment I did notice that it took less pressure to run the cases in. So I treated all my sizing dies except the carbide and TiN with it, and also treated the neck-expander plugs of the dies that have them. Good results with all.
This went happily along until a few months later when I was resizing a BUNCH of .30-06 cases(I'd had a good day picking up once-fired stuff at the range). I usually lube a whole bunch of cases- using Lee Resizing Lube at the time- setting each handful aside while I do the next, then when done with all of them start sizing with the first batch***. I was merrily sizing away, when I noticed that the case I'd just run through had seemed a bit more difficult. So did the next. And now that I think about it, so did the previous few. I grabbed that last few and the rest of that handful and found that I'd missed them: not a trace of lube. So I'd done eight before I noticed a problem, and even the last two(total of ten) went in & out with no problem. Something that would normally have left me with a stuck case on the first one became a "Damn, that's neat!" moment.
Like I say, I'd mostly been looking for a bit less effort in sizing and a safety factor, and I got both. Now, when I buy a new set of dies the first thing I do is degrease them and hit them with at least five coats of Gun Juice. A little goes a long way, and the stuff is worth every penny.
*They also make the stuff for engines. Tried it in my bike and liked the results. Going to do my truck when I can.
**I now have a heat gun and use it to warm things up. However, a warm day and outside does keep the aroma down. They do warn you to use in a well-ventilated area.
***I tried something with the Lee Lube. It's a thick white cream that's water soluble. So I put a dab on my palm, added a few drops of water and rubbed my palms together, then laid a half-dozen cases in one hand and rubbed them together again. I found I could get about a dozen or more rifle cases at a time this way with a very thin coat, and by the time I finished the whole bunch the first handful were dry. Or I could leave them a while and size them later, just like the undiluted lube.
Gee, and why would we want to pick on poor ol' Bashar
and poor little Syria? And some of those poor little people in Pakistan?
Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s interior minister, revealed last week that the three arrested men had acquired detonators that originated from Syria and had received direct orders to act from operatives in Pakistan. “We know that there is a clear network, highly conspiratorial,” he said after two days of meetings in Washington with US security officials. “The demand came from Pakistan [saying], ‘You should go on for action. Do not go on preparing for months and months and months, but now is the time to take action in the first half of September’ and they did.”
Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s interior minister, revealed last week that the three arrested men had acquired detonators that originated from Syria and had received direct orders to act from operatives in Pakistan. “We know that there is a clear network, highly conspiratorial,” he said after two days of meetings in Washington with US security officials. “The demand came from Pakistan [saying], ‘You should go on for action. Do not go on preparing for months and months and months, but now is the time to take action in the first half of September’ and they did.”
Saturday, September 29, 2007
"Mr. Murtha, bend over."
Oh, isn't it wonderful? His ass must have puckered something terrible when the judge ruled.
Friday, September 28, 2007
High Standard M100
High Standard made rifles, shotguns and handguns for years, sometimes under their own name and sometimes as store brands or another maker's name. This one a friend picked up a while back.
4.5" barrel, ten-round magazine, 22lr. These had a couple of unusual features. For one, this model has no slide lock, so it does not lock back after the last shot. No idea why. Second, see that triangular piece in the front of the trigger guard? That's a spring-loaded barrel lock: pull the slide back a bit, push the lever up and the barrel slides forward off the frame. For cleaning, and for changing: they made barrels in several different lengths for these*. You could use a long 6" for target, the 4.5" for general use and the 2 or 2.5" for easier packing when hiking. I used to know a guy who had one with all three he'd inherited from his father, always thought it was a very nice pistol.
I got to find out how nice the other day when I fired it. This one had turned out to be picky about ammo, most the owner had tried either did not reliably cycle the action far enough to eject empties or gave jams. This one just loves the Remington Golden Bullet ammo, and went through almost a hundred rounds with no problem of any kind. Shot it at ten yards, and it was no problem with a solid hold to keep all shots in a 2" bull. Amazingly, I was able to do that shooting one-handed, and a bullseye shooter I am not. A light, clean trigger definitely helped. A light, fun to shoot, accurate pistol. One more of those "Dammit, why don't they still make these?" guns.
*This one is an early model. Later and other models used a different barrel and lock system, and they are not interchangeable.
As a side note, due to age it's hard to find magazines for these. This one wouldn't feed properly, turned out there are two spring arms that are part of the feed lips that were bent outward just a touch. Owner tightened them in a bit, and the problem disappeared with the ammo it liked. Second, there's a mag that says 'for non-military grip models' that fits ok, but the feed lips are different; the one he tried would not feed reliably with anything.
4.5" barrel, ten-round magazine, 22lr. These had a couple of unusual features. For one, this model has no slide lock, so it does not lock back after the last shot. No idea why. Second, see that triangular piece in the front of the trigger guard? That's a spring-loaded barrel lock: pull the slide back a bit, push the lever up and the barrel slides forward off the frame. For cleaning, and for changing: they made barrels in several different lengths for these*. You could use a long 6" for target, the 4.5" for general use and the 2 or 2.5" for easier packing when hiking. I used to know a guy who had one with all three he'd inherited from his father, always thought it was a very nice pistol.
I got to find out how nice the other day when I fired it. This one had turned out to be picky about ammo, most the owner had tried either did not reliably cycle the action far enough to eject empties or gave jams. This one just loves the Remington Golden Bullet ammo, and went through almost a hundred rounds with no problem of any kind. Shot it at ten yards, and it was no problem with a solid hold to keep all shots in a 2" bull. Amazingly, I was able to do that shooting one-handed, and a bullseye shooter I am not. A light, clean trigger definitely helped. A light, fun to shoot, accurate pistol. One more of those "Dammit, why don't they still make these?" guns.
*This one is an early model. Later and other models used a different barrel and lock system, and they are not interchangeable.
As a side note, due to age it's hard to find magazines for these. This one wouldn't feed properly, turned out there are two spring arms that are part of the feed lips that were bent outward just a touch. Owner tightened them in a bit, and the problem disappeared with the ammo it liked. Second, there's a mag that says 'for non-military grip models' that fits ok, but the feed lips are different; the one he tried would not feed reliably with anything.
Just to take the bad taste out of your mouth from the previous two posts,
Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran
Why would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war perpetrated on their soil? The first half of the answer lies in this story that appeared in the Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's Antiaircraft System Most Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying spree, spending vast sums on Russian systems, 'considered the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology.' Syria now 'possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world,' with 'more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types,' some of which are so new that they have been installed in Syria 'before being introduced into Russian operation service.' While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria: Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of Syrian airspace. And guess what happened with the Russian super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries when that penetration took place on September 6th. Nothing.
El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace, zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us) blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians didn't even know they were blinded. Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are defenseless. As in naked. Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as nakedly defenseless as Syria.
Tell the truth: doesn't that bring a smile to your face?
Why would the Syrian government be so tight-lipped about an act of war perpetrated on their soil? The first half of the answer lies in this story that appeared in the Israeli media last month (8/13): Syria's Antiaircraft System Most Advanced In World. Syria has gone on a profligate buying spree, spending vast sums on Russian systems, 'considered the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology.' Syria now 'possesses the most crowded antiaircraft system in the world,' with 'more than 200 antiaircraft batteries of different types,' some of which are so new that they have been installed in Syria 'before being introduced into Russian operation service.' While you're digesting that, take a look at the map of Syria: Notice how far away Dayr az-Zawr is from Israel. An F15/16 attack there is not a tiptoe across the border, but a deep, deep penetration of Syrian airspace. And guess what happened with the Russian super-hyper-sophisticated cutting edge antiaircraft missile batteries when that penetration took place on September 6th. Nothing.
El blanko. Silence. The systems didn't even light up, gave no indication whatever of any detection of enemy aircraft invading Syrian airspace, zip, zero, nada. The Israelis (with a little techie assistance from us) blinded the Russkie antiaircraft systems so completely the Syrians didn't even know they were blinded. Now you see why the Syrians have been scared speechless. They thought they were protected - at enormous expense - only to discover they are defenseless. As in naked. Thus the Great Iranian Freak-Out - for this means Iran is just as nakedly defenseless as Syria.
Tell the truth: doesn't that bring a smile to your face?
Among the reasons people don't like or trust lawyers
is the idiots who run the law schools. About like the idiots at universities who invite terrorists to speak and then screw around trying to look tough when they realize the stuff dripping on their head isn't rain.
There's been a lot on some blogs about this nonsense the last few days. This place seems to have a good rundown on the miserable bitch(who should be rotting in prison, not bragging about her actions at a freakin' law school). Sounding like the head of Columbia trying to cover his idiocy, a professor at the law school says the traitor is there "not as a role model but as a cautionary lesson."
Which is bullshit. "...the brochure indicates that Stewart will be a member of the final panel of the conference, the other members of which will be attorneys Ron Kuby and Richard P. Mauro." 'Cautionary Lesson' my ass.
This is how some very high-ranking law schools train lawyers. Any questions as to why we wind up wanting to hang them?
There's been a lot on some blogs about this nonsense the last few days. This place seems to have a good rundown on the miserable bitch(who should be rotting in prison, not bragging about her actions at a freakin' law school). Sounding like the head of Columbia trying to cover his idiocy, a professor at the law school says the traitor is there "not as a role model but as a cautionary lesson."
Which is bullshit. "...the brochure indicates that Stewart will be a member of the final panel of the conference, the other members of which will be attorneys Ron Kuby and Richard P. Mauro." 'Cautionary Lesson' my ass.
This is how some very high-ranking law schools train lawyers. Any questions as to why we wind up wanting to hang them?
Sen. Orrin Hatch(R-UT), UPDATE!
miserable, conniving, two-faced politician.
Which is about as close as I can get without going to language I'm trying to tone down on. Day before yesterday he was interviewed on Glenn Beck's show about theNightmareDREAM Act. It was one of those times I wished I could reach through the radio and throttle someone.
According to this miserable bleep, not only should we pass this piece of crap(and he wasn't even aware of some BIG parts of it, or so he said), but we should do it(big chorus here) "For The Chilldrennn!
I'm not kidding. He kept throwing in crap like "We shouldn't blame the kids because their parents brought them here" and "They deserve a good education" and so forth. Sounded like bloody Ted Kennedy(Scumbag-MA). Excuse everything, and make the illegals and the Mexican government happy.
Bastard.
UPDATE: Just went by Kim's place and found this. Apparently even the miserable politicians like Reid(Vile Being-NV) felt enough heat on this to take it off of the Defense bill. As Kim says,
Which is about as close as I can get without going to language I'm trying to tone down on. Day before yesterday he was interviewed on Glenn Beck's show about the
According to this miserable bleep, not only should we pass this piece of crap(and he wasn't even aware of some BIG parts of it, or so he said), but we should do it(big chorus here) "For The Chilldrennn!
I'm not kidding. He kept throwing in crap like "We shouldn't blame the kids because their parents brought them here" and "They deserve a good education" and so forth. Sounded like bloody Ted Kennedy(Scumbag-MA). Excuse everything, and make the illegals and the Mexican government happy.
Bastard.
UPDATE: Just went by Kim's place and found this. Apparently even the miserable politicians like Reid(Vile Being-NV) felt enough heat on this to take it off of the Defense bill. As Kim says,
"How nice. So instead of this monstrosity being hidden inside a “must-pass” piece of legislature, it’s now out there all by itself?
“Ready on the Left? Ready on the Right...?”
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Range day
Amazing how some things work when you have a fresh battery
Started out cool, humid and foggy. Clearing when I left the house, but the closer I got to the range the foggier it got. Happily, it cleared off shortly after I arrived. Unhappily, add bright sun and warming temps to that humidity and you get melting feelings by the end.
Main thing I wanted to do today was, since I had the aforementioned battery, set up the chronograph and find out what velocity I was getting with the .30 Carbine loads described here. Which information follows after this brief
DISCLAIMER
This load is not out of any loading manual: it's one I put together based on load information I read and comparing that to the bullet and powder combination I wanted to use. It works well(so far) in my rifle, it may not be safe or accurate or reliable in yours. You have been warned.
As I wrote before, I wanted to load for this cartridge with a bullet that would give better terminal performance* and hold velocity better as the range stretched out. After trying three different bullets I decided on the 110-grain Sierra Varminter. It's a nice spitzer shape, hollowpoint, and the same weight as the standard FMJ bullet. It's longer, so it has to be seated deeper into the case to reach maximum length for this cartridge. That leaves less room for the powder, so I dropped one full grain to try it. Functioned perfectly and gave good accuracy at 100 yards, but I had no way to guess at pressures due to the *!!#@)*#$ dead battery in my chrono last time I went out.
The load is 14.0 grains of W296 powder, CCI standard small rifle primer in Lake City cases. Max length for this cartridge is 1.680" according to the Lyman manual, I actually seated to 1.679", for what it's worth. I fired ten rounds in two groups of five with the chrono about ten feet in front of the muzzle, and got these velocities:
1913 1933
1926 1931
1925 1924
1930 1930
1922 1924
Average velocity works out to 1925.8, and according to the calculator I used that gives a standard deviation of 5.77, which is pretty small. That's very consistent velocity.
And since the standard velocity for ball ammo in this cartridge is 1900 fps, I'm guessing the pressure of this load is pretty close to the standard cartridge. The proper way would be to have a strain gauge to mount on the chamber or access to a test barrel, but I don't have either of those. So I'm going by velocity for a decent guess at pressure. Which is why the big DISCLAIMER up there.
So far, all's well. It cycles through the action no problem, empties eject roughly the same distance & direction as ball, and accuracy is good. So now I need to gather some milk cartons or something so I can shoot them & see how the bullet acts at this velocity. Be a pain to find out it's too low for consistent expansion, but if that's the case then this load isn't what I was looking for. According to the reviews at Midway on this bullet, one guy was getting very good results with it. So we'll see.
Started out cool, humid and foggy. Clearing when I left the house, but the closer I got to the range the foggier it got. Happily, it cleared off shortly after I arrived. Unhappily, add bright sun and warming temps to that humidity and you get melting feelings by the end.
Main thing I wanted to do today was, since I had the aforementioned battery, set up the chronograph and find out what velocity I was getting with the .30 Carbine loads described here. Which information follows after this brief
DISCLAIMER
This load is not out of any loading manual: it's one I put together based on load information I read and comparing that to the bullet and powder combination I wanted to use. It works well(so far) in my rifle, it may not be safe or accurate or reliable in yours. You have been warned.
As I wrote before, I wanted to load for this cartridge with a bullet that would give better terminal performance* and hold velocity better as the range stretched out. After trying three different bullets I decided on the 110-grain Sierra Varminter. It's a nice spitzer shape, hollowpoint, and the same weight as the standard FMJ bullet. It's longer, so it has to be seated deeper into the case to reach maximum length for this cartridge. That leaves less room for the powder, so I dropped one full grain to try it. Functioned perfectly and gave good accuracy at 100 yards, but I had no way to guess at pressures due to the *!!#@)*#$ dead battery in my chrono last time I went out.
The load is 14.0 grains of W296 powder, CCI standard small rifle primer in Lake City cases. Max length for this cartridge is 1.680" according to the Lyman manual, I actually seated to 1.679", for what it's worth. I fired ten rounds in two groups of five with the chrono about ten feet in front of the muzzle, and got these velocities:
1913 1933
1926 1931
1925 1924
1930 1930
1922 1924
Average velocity works out to 1925.8, and according to the calculator I used that gives a standard deviation of 5.77, which is pretty small. That's very consistent velocity.
And since the standard velocity for ball ammo in this cartridge is 1900 fps, I'm guessing the pressure of this load is pretty close to the standard cartridge. The proper way would be to have a strain gauge to mount on the chamber or access to a test barrel, but I don't have either of those. So I'm going by velocity for a decent guess at pressure. Which is why the big DISCLAIMER up there.
So far, all's well. It cycles through the action no problem, empties eject roughly the same distance & direction as ball, and accuracy is good. So now I need to gather some milk cartons or something so I can shoot them & see how the bullet acts at this velocity. Be a pain to find out it's too low for consistent expansion, but if that's the case then this load isn't what I was looking for. According to the reviews at Midway on this bullet, one guy was getting very good results with it. So we'll see.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Sometimes-weenie politicians and all,
the Israelis still tend to get the job done.
Also from the Times article, a note about something from the past. Remember the train that blew up in North Korea three years ago?
The outlines of a long-term arms relationship between the North Koreans and the Syrians are now being reexamined by intelligence experts in several capitals. Diplomats in Pyongyang have said they believe reports that about a dozen Syrian technicians were killed in a massive explosion and railway crash in North Korea on April 22, 2004.
Teams of military personnel wearing protective suits were seen removing debris from the section of the train in which the Syrians were travelling, according to a report quoting military sources that appeared in a Japanese newspaper. Their bodies were flown home by a Syrian military cargo plane that was spotted shortly after the explosion at Pyongyang airport.
Let's see, Syrian and Iranian techs getting killed while loading chemical warheads on missiles, now this stuff. All kinds of interesting things going on.
But Washington was not satisfied. It demanded clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing. The task of the commandos was to provide it.
Today the site near Dayr az-Zawr lies in ruins after it was pounded by Israeli F15Is on September 6. Before the Israelis issued the order to strike, the commandos had secretly seized samples of nuclear material and taken them back into Israel for examination by scientists, the sources say. A laboratory confirmed that the unspecified material was North Korean in origin. America approved an attack.So the commando sneaked in, got into the site and got the samples, brought them back. Then after the analysis went back in to set up the attack, all undetected. Damn.
Also from the Times article, a note about something from the past. Remember the train that blew up in North Korea three years ago?
The outlines of a long-term arms relationship between the North Koreans and the Syrians are now being reexamined by intelligence experts in several capitals. Diplomats in Pyongyang have said they believe reports that about a dozen Syrian technicians were killed in a massive explosion and railway crash in North Korea on April 22, 2004.
Teams of military personnel wearing protective suits were seen removing debris from the section of the train in which the Syrians were travelling, according to a report quoting military sources that appeared in a Japanese newspaper. Their bodies were flown home by a Syrian military cargo plane that was spotted shortly after the explosion at Pyongyang airport.
Let's see, Syrian and Iranian techs getting killed while loading chemical warheads on missiles, now this stuff. All kinds of interesting things going on.
And from a Philadelphia paper, yet!
Classical Values notes this editorial. A key bit:
"But some people are sending that message on a wider scale. Look at the 79-year-old man in Dry Ridge. Gun control would have told him, in essence:
"But some people are sending that message on a wider scale. Look at the 79-year-old man in Dry Ridge. Gun control would have told him, in essence:
You're going to have to let the robbers do with you as they will. You might survive their blows, and you might not. You might avoid a fatal heart attack, and you might not. In the event that you survive, you can call the police, who may or may not catch the perps. Will the courts and jails keep them off the streets? Sheesh, how naive are you?"
Speaking of Giuliani and the Joyce Foundation,
and that offshoot of the Joyce Foundation known as IACP, check this out.
For an even richer helping of irony, the event will be held in New Orleans--too bad former New Orleans Police Superintendent Edwin "we're going to take all the weapons" Compass had to resign--this sounds like just his cup of tea.
Also, a little further down he has this quote from Giuliani I hadn't heard about:
"You should know I understand that the right to bear arms is just as important a right in that Constitution as the right of free speech and the other rights ... It's not going to change, unless something dramatic has happened to make it change, and then I'll explain to you why," he said. [emphasis mine]
And we're supposed to TRUST this clown?
For an even richer helping of irony, the event will be held in New Orleans--too bad former New Orleans Police Superintendent Edwin "we're going to take all the weapons" Compass had to resign--this sounds like just his cup of tea.
Also, a little further down he has this quote from Giuliani I hadn't heard about:
"You should know I understand that the right to bear arms is just as important a right in that Constitution as the right of free speech and the other rights ... It's not going to change, unless something dramatic has happened to make it change, and then I'll explain to you why," he said. [emphasis mine]
And we're supposed to TRUST this clown?
Making and fitting a guard
Had the chance to do a couple of these, and did remember to take pictures. I will apologize that a few of the shots are a bit fuzzy; they were shot outside and I didn't think to use the flash.
Ok, you've got the blade finished: forged or ground, final-ground, heat-treated, polished. Now you need to make a fit a guard. On this I'm starting off with flat brass stock.
And yes, this would be faster and simpler with a mill. I don't have one, so.
First, figure out how long and wide you want it to be. If in doubt, make it a little oversize, you can always cut it down. Mark the width and length and draw the lines, using either a fine-line marker or a scribe. Then mark the centerline of the guard-to-be. Lay the blade on it so you can mark the width of the tang;
here I'll usually mark it so the slot will be a touch less wide than where I want the guard to sit; you can use files to widen the slot, but it's a problem if you've made it too long. If I use a marker for these, I'll go back and use a scribe to cut the centerline from side-to-side of the tang, reason to be shown later.
Now to the vise and hacksaw. Cut the guard from the flat stock, I'd suggest cutting just outside the lines.
With the guard cut,
you need to mark it for drilling. Here I use a prick punch. Same as a centerpunch, except a much longer taper to the very sharp point.
Use a prick punch when you want to lightly mark a spot, centerpunch for a deeper mark. Here's where the reason comes in for scribing the centerline: the fine point of the prick punch fits into the line the scribe cuts, making it easier to keep the marks all in line. With brass, you can use a pretty good whack if need be; for steel or other harder metals, only a light tap or you'll smash up that nice, sharp point. Make a series of marks, spaced as you see fit.
Now to the drill press. You can do it by hand, but use the press if you have one/can get the use of one. Measure the thickness of the blade where tang meets ricasso, and choose a bit just a touch thinner. On each hole, just ease the bit down to the punch mark and it'll help center itself, keeping everything nicely in line.
There's a piece of fine wet/dry sandpaper handy on the table; no matter how sharp the bit it'll leave a bit of metal sticking up around the hole when it goes through, so after drilling lay the piece flat on the paper and give it a few strokes so I'll lay flat. Then on to the next hole, repeat however many times.
Now you have to join the holes into a slot. Out with a jeweler's saw. Clamp the blade on one end, slide it through the end hole, then clamp the other end. Clamp the stock in a vise and start cutting*.
Take it slow and very light pressure, as these blades will break easily(there's a reason they come in bundles of ten or twelve). Takes a bit of practice, but you can hold the blade right on one side of the hole and take it down to the edge of the next hole, giving a nice straight cut. You can use just two holes, one on each end, and on short slots I do, but if it's very long the holes give you places to stop and lay the saw down and rest your hand. When you reach the end you can either work the saw back up to the top, or flip the stock over and cut the other side.
The slot
should now be a little more narrow than the tang/ricasso where it should sit, and a touch shorter than needed, so out come the files.
Cutting out a slot this thin means thin files, sometimes hard to find. If you plan on making guards this way, plan on getting a handful of files and modifying them. Remember that belt sander I've mentioned as being so useful? You can use it to make 'safe' sides on a file(smooth sides that won't cut)**, to narrow or to thin it. I use needle files about 6" long for opening the slot up, then a couple of fine-cut regular files 6" or 8" long that've been ground to different widths and thicknesses to I can fit them in where needed. Take your time here. A sharp file will cut a lot faster than you might think, especially on a soft metal like brass, so it's easy to cut too much. Also, keep a wire brush handy to brush the filings out of the file surface, you'll get smoother and faster cutting.
Slide the tang into the slot and get an idea of how much stock you need to remove, mark with a pencil or something if need, then clamp the piece in a vise and start filing. Cut a few strokes and try the fit, cut a bit and try. There's no way to rush this that won't wind up with a slot either too wide, too long or uneven. Ideally, you want a fit that gets to just a tiny bit short of where you want the guard to sit, so you have to give it a tap or two to seat.
It may well be that you wind up with the width of the slot just right, but the slot is a bit short.
That's fine, use the files to widen it. Here's another reason to make the slot a little shorter: you use the files at an angle here, so you widen the slot on the blade side, keeping it shorter on the tang side.
On tapping it into place, two ways. One is to narrow the jaws of the vise to just a touch wider than the tang, hold the blade***, slide the guard onto the tank and the tang into the jaws and tap. The other is to get a piece of hardwood longer than the tang and either drill a hole into it from one end(narrow tang) or cut a slot from one end back long enough to fit over the tang. Clamp the blade in the vise at the ricasso(padded or some non-marking jaws, please), put the guard on, slide the wood punch in place and tap on it.
You've now got a guard tightly fitted to the blade. Now's the time to finish the guard(shape, polish, etc.). Here I want it bent forward on both sides so I use a spacer to keep the slot from being bent and clamp it in the vise and use a hammer to tap each side forward.
Then I'll grind the thing to final size & shape, then polish. In this case I used first 100 grit wet/dry paper(used wet) to remove the deepest marks(I slipped a couple of times), then 220 grit to clean up the 100 grit marks, and on up to 1000 grit(If you've been careful not to ding the metal up, you can often start with 220). If you're doing a flat guard this is much easier than a shape like this one. Don't forget the edges. As the final touch you can hit it on the buffing wheel to final-polish.
Here I wanted a hammered finish, so I polished it and then proceeded to beat it up. I've got a 4oz. ball-peen hammer with the faces polished very smooth just for this kind of thing. Here I used the peen to work the entire surface, edges and all. Which means I had to do a bit more filing: when you work a piece like this it upsets some metal into the slot. Not much, just a few strokes on each side should do it. Then tap it into place, and there it is.
You can stop here, and fit a grip and pommel to it, or take the next step and either epoxy or solder the guard in place. This does two things: First, it locks the guard in place permanently and second, it seals the space between blade and guard. No matter how carefully you work that space is there, and- especially in a working knife- moisture can get in there. Water, blood, sweat, any of it is bad.
Epoxy is simple. Make sure the surfaces are clean of any oil or buffing compound. Mix your chosen stuff according to the directions. Move the guard down a bit and put the epoxy on the tang, all the way around and up onto the shoulders and ricasso. Seat the guard in place, making sure it's exactly located. Wipe the excess on the blade side off carefully so as not to disturb the fit and set it aside to cure. After it's done, clean off the bottom and tang.
Solder is a bit more complicated but done right it's worth it. There are some low-temperature silver solders out there that work very well for this, generally coming with a tube or bottle of flux. They're lead-free, they stay nice & shiny and they're very strong. The one I used for years is Stay Brite. I ran out of it a while back and couldn't find any, so I decided to try some I found at a local tool store, which has worked just as well. Mind you, not all of them are good. I tried one a few years back- again, couldn't find my favorite at the time- and whether it was the solder or the flux, the stuff didn't work worth a damn. My procedure is
First, make sure the guard slot and tang are absolutely clean.
Second, you can put a bit of the flux on the tang, or put the guard into place first, which is what I do. If the latter, clamp the blade in the vise, tang up, and put a drop of flux on each side of the tang just above the guard. Not much is needed, and if you use too much it will get through the joint and slide down the blade. This stuff is slightly corrosive, and in some steel can slightly etch the surface fairly quickly. Not deep, but enough to leave a nasty drip line on your nicely polished blade.
Third, cut two pieces of solder.
If you look close, you can see the solder in the gap at the edges of the tang, one piece each side. Only small pieces needed; if you've got a good tight join, it doesn't take much. Some put them on each side, I generally put the on the edges.
Fourth comes the torch. Don't use a big flame or put the flame on the solder, heat the tang about an inch above the guard, then the ends of the guard. You want to heat the metal so that first the flux migrates all around the joint, and second the metal melts the solder. This stuff flows at about 430F.
Once the solder flows, take the blade out of the vise and turn it blade up.
I've got the guard sitting on a V-shaped piece of thin steel to support it. Another way is to get a piece of pipe(NOT galvanized) two or three inches long and cut a slot in a inch or two from one end, set the solid end on the vise. Either of these holds the guard while allowing you to play the torch on the tang & guard. The scribe I'm holding(tasteful grip-enhancing tooth marks courtesy of the dog) has a fine round point and is used to 'guide' the solder. When it's flowing freely, assuming a tight and clean joint, you can put the point at the juncture of guard and blade and slide it along; capillary action pulls the solder into the joint, this mainly makes sure it flows evenly all the way around. When you're sure it's done, take the heat away and let it sit a few minutes so the solder can cool and harden. Once it does, you can use the scribe again, slide it point-first along the joint. Do it carefully, and you can shave away any excess solder, making for a neater joint. Remember that if you push too far or it slips, that steel point will gash a line into your polished brass.
Once it's cool, wash it thoroughly with soap & water to get rid of all traces of the flux, then dry thoroughly. At this point I use a dremel with a polishing wheel to shine the guard up, then use something like Metal Glo to clean off the polishing compound, then oil the blade.
*When clamping a blade or guard in a vise, use some leather to pad the jaws, some of the non-marring inserts, just something to keep from messing up the surface.
**A file with safe sides can be a very handy tool. Grind the edges smooth and you can flatten a piece up to an angle with little worry of cutting into the angle. Grind the flats smooth and you can cut the narrow end of a slot without worrying about widening it. Files are inexpensive enough that you can set a bunch up with different combinations of safe & cutting sides.
**Make damn sure the edges are dull. If it's still sharp from the cutting testing and you don't want to dull it, then tape over the edges & point. Depending on the tape, with multiple layers. Otherwise you WILL cut yourself.
Ok, you've got the blade finished: forged or ground, final-ground, heat-treated, polished. Now you need to make a fit a guard. On this I'm starting off with flat brass stock.
And yes, this would be faster and simpler with a mill. I don't have one, so.
First, figure out how long and wide you want it to be. If in doubt, make it a little oversize, you can always cut it down. Mark the width and length and draw the lines, using either a fine-line marker or a scribe. Then mark the centerline of the guard-to-be. Lay the blade on it so you can mark the width of the tang;
here I'll usually mark it so the slot will be a touch less wide than where I want the guard to sit; you can use files to widen the slot, but it's a problem if you've made it too long. If I use a marker for these, I'll go back and use a scribe to cut the centerline from side-to-side of the tang, reason to be shown later.
Now to the vise and hacksaw. Cut the guard from the flat stock, I'd suggest cutting just outside the lines.
With the guard cut,
you need to mark it for drilling. Here I use a prick punch. Same as a centerpunch, except a much longer taper to the very sharp point.
Use a prick punch when you want to lightly mark a spot, centerpunch for a deeper mark. Here's where the reason comes in for scribing the centerline: the fine point of the prick punch fits into the line the scribe cuts, making it easier to keep the marks all in line. With brass, you can use a pretty good whack if need be; for steel or other harder metals, only a light tap or you'll smash up that nice, sharp point. Make a series of marks, spaced as you see fit.
Now to the drill press. You can do it by hand, but use the press if you have one/can get the use of one. Measure the thickness of the blade where tang meets ricasso, and choose a bit just a touch thinner. On each hole, just ease the bit down to the punch mark and it'll help center itself, keeping everything nicely in line.
There's a piece of fine wet/dry sandpaper handy on the table; no matter how sharp the bit it'll leave a bit of metal sticking up around the hole when it goes through, so after drilling lay the piece flat on the paper and give it a few strokes so I'll lay flat. Then on to the next hole, repeat however many times.
Now you have to join the holes into a slot. Out with a jeweler's saw. Clamp the blade on one end, slide it through the end hole, then clamp the other end. Clamp the stock in a vise and start cutting*.
Take it slow and very light pressure, as these blades will break easily(there's a reason they come in bundles of ten or twelve). Takes a bit of practice, but you can hold the blade right on one side of the hole and take it down to the edge of the next hole, giving a nice straight cut. You can use just two holes, one on each end, and on short slots I do, but if it's very long the holes give you places to stop and lay the saw down and rest your hand. When you reach the end you can either work the saw back up to the top, or flip the stock over and cut the other side.
The slot
should now be a little more narrow than the tang/ricasso where it should sit, and a touch shorter than needed, so out come the files.
Cutting out a slot this thin means thin files, sometimes hard to find. If you plan on making guards this way, plan on getting a handful of files and modifying them. Remember that belt sander I've mentioned as being so useful? You can use it to make 'safe' sides on a file(smooth sides that won't cut)**, to narrow or to thin it. I use needle files about 6" long for opening the slot up, then a couple of fine-cut regular files 6" or 8" long that've been ground to different widths and thicknesses to I can fit them in where needed. Take your time here. A sharp file will cut a lot faster than you might think, especially on a soft metal like brass, so it's easy to cut too much. Also, keep a wire brush handy to brush the filings out of the file surface, you'll get smoother and faster cutting.
Slide the tang into the slot and get an idea of how much stock you need to remove, mark with a pencil or something if need, then clamp the piece in a vise and start filing. Cut a few strokes and try the fit, cut a bit and try. There's no way to rush this that won't wind up with a slot either too wide, too long or uneven. Ideally, you want a fit that gets to just a tiny bit short of where you want the guard to sit, so you have to give it a tap or two to seat.
It may well be that you wind up with the width of the slot just right, but the slot is a bit short.
That's fine, use the files to widen it. Here's another reason to make the slot a little shorter: you use the files at an angle here, so you widen the slot on the blade side, keeping it shorter on the tang side.
On tapping it into place, two ways. One is to narrow the jaws of the vise to just a touch wider than the tang, hold the blade***, slide the guard onto the tank and the tang into the jaws and tap. The other is to get a piece of hardwood longer than the tang and either drill a hole into it from one end(narrow tang) or cut a slot from one end back long enough to fit over the tang. Clamp the blade in the vise at the ricasso(padded or some non-marking jaws, please), put the guard on, slide the wood punch in place and tap on it.
You've now got a guard tightly fitted to the blade. Now's the time to finish the guard(shape, polish, etc.). Here I want it bent forward on both sides so I use a spacer to keep the slot from being bent and clamp it in the vise and use a hammer to tap each side forward.
Then I'll grind the thing to final size & shape, then polish. In this case I used first 100 grit wet/dry paper(used wet) to remove the deepest marks(I slipped a couple of times), then 220 grit to clean up the 100 grit marks, and on up to 1000 grit(If you've been careful not to ding the metal up, you can often start with 220). If you're doing a flat guard this is much easier than a shape like this one. Don't forget the edges. As the final touch you can hit it on the buffing wheel to final-polish.
Here I wanted a hammered finish, so I polished it and then proceeded to beat it up. I've got a 4oz. ball-peen hammer with the faces polished very smooth just for this kind of thing. Here I used the peen to work the entire surface, edges and all. Which means I had to do a bit more filing: when you work a piece like this it upsets some metal into the slot. Not much, just a few strokes on each side should do it. Then tap it into place, and there it is.
You can stop here, and fit a grip and pommel to it, or take the next step and either epoxy or solder the guard in place. This does two things: First, it locks the guard in place permanently and second, it seals the space between blade and guard. No matter how carefully you work that space is there, and- especially in a working knife- moisture can get in there. Water, blood, sweat, any of it is bad.
Epoxy is simple. Make sure the surfaces are clean of any oil or buffing compound. Mix your chosen stuff according to the directions. Move the guard down a bit and put the epoxy on the tang, all the way around and up onto the shoulders and ricasso. Seat the guard in place, making sure it's exactly located. Wipe the excess on the blade side off carefully so as not to disturb the fit and set it aside to cure. After it's done, clean off the bottom and tang.
Solder is a bit more complicated but done right it's worth it. There are some low-temperature silver solders out there that work very well for this, generally coming with a tube or bottle of flux. They're lead-free, they stay nice & shiny and they're very strong. The one I used for years is Stay Brite. I ran out of it a while back and couldn't find any, so I decided to try some I found at a local tool store, which has worked just as well. Mind you, not all of them are good. I tried one a few years back- again, couldn't find my favorite at the time- and whether it was the solder or the flux, the stuff didn't work worth a damn. My procedure is
First, make sure the guard slot and tang are absolutely clean.
Second, you can put a bit of the flux on the tang, or put the guard into place first, which is what I do. If the latter, clamp the blade in the vise, tang up, and put a drop of flux on each side of the tang just above the guard. Not much is needed, and if you use too much it will get through the joint and slide down the blade. This stuff is slightly corrosive, and in some steel can slightly etch the surface fairly quickly. Not deep, but enough to leave a nasty drip line on your nicely polished blade.
Third, cut two pieces of solder.
If you look close, you can see the solder in the gap at the edges of the tang, one piece each side. Only small pieces needed; if you've got a good tight join, it doesn't take much. Some put them on each side, I generally put the on the edges.
Fourth comes the torch. Don't use a big flame or put the flame on the solder, heat the tang about an inch above the guard, then the ends of the guard. You want to heat the metal so that first the flux migrates all around the joint, and second the metal melts the solder. This stuff flows at about 430F.
Once the solder flows, take the blade out of the vise and turn it blade up.
I've got the guard sitting on a V-shaped piece of thin steel to support it. Another way is to get a piece of pipe(NOT galvanized) two or three inches long and cut a slot in a inch or two from one end, set the solid end on the vise. Either of these holds the guard while allowing you to play the torch on the tang & guard. The scribe I'm holding(tasteful grip-enhancing tooth marks courtesy of the dog) has a fine round point and is used to 'guide' the solder. When it's flowing freely, assuming a tight and clean joint, you can put the point at the juncture of guard and blade and slide it along; capillary action pulls the solder into the joint, this mainly makes sure it flows evenly all the way around. When you're sure it's done, take the heat away and let it sit a few minutes so the solder can cool and harden. Once it does, you can use the scribe again, slide it point-first along the joint. Do it carefully, and you can shave away any excess solder, making for a neater joint. Remember that if you push too far or it slips, that steel point will gash a line into your polished brass.
Once it's cool, wash it thoroughly with soap & water to get rid of all traces of the flux, then dry thoroughly. At this point I use a dremel with a polishing wheel to shine the guard up, then use something like Metal Glo to clean off the polishing compound, then oil the blade.
*When clamping a blade or guard in a vise, use some leather to pad the jaws, some of the non-marring inserts, just something to keep from messing up the surface.
**A file with safe sides can be a very handy tool. Grind the edges smooth and you can flatten a piece up to an angle with little worry of cutting into the angle. Grind the flats smooth and you can cut the narrow end of a slot without worrying about widening it. Files are inexpensive enough that you can set a bunch up with different combinations of safe & cutting sides.
**Make damn sure the edges are dull. If it's still sharp from the cutting testing and you don't want to dull it, then tape over the edges & point. Depending on the tape, with multiple layers. Otherwise you WILL cut yourself.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Currently trying to take over the garden,
or so it seems, is this mass of green:
It measures a touch over three feet on the north-south axis, and a bit less on the east-west, and that is one habanero plant. 'Bush', rather. If you look real close, you can see some spots of orange; those are the ripe chilis, and there are green ones of various sizes and blossoms all over the thing.
Last year I mentioned that the plants I had produced peppers that were hot, but not the 'Andrew sullivan-proof your mouth' hot I expected, and someone in comments said they thought that too much watering could cause them to be not as hot. Well, these have had plenty of water- first from all the rains, then from the hose in the times needed- and they're hot. As in 'pick some, touch your cheek to brush off a mosquito and a minute later your eye starts watering' hot. So much for the water theory.
It measures a touch over three feet on the north-south axis, and a bit less on the east-west, and that is one habanero plant. 'Bush', rather. If you look real close, you can see some spots of orange; those are the ripe chilis, and there are green ones of various sizes and blossoms all over the thing.
Last year I mentioned that the plants I had produced peppers that were hot, but not the 'Andrew sullivan-proof your mouth' hot I expected, and someone in comments said they thought that too much watering could cause them to be not as hot. Well, these have had plenty of water- first from all the rains, then from the hose in the times needed- and they're hot. As in 'pick some, touch your cheek to brush off a mosquito and a minute later your eye starts watering' hot. So much for the water theory.
Ref the previous post, always remember
this quote:
“How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”
~Texas State Rep. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp
Change of heart for Giuliani? Somehow,
I don't think so. As Sebastian says, "Sounds like horse crap to me."
Apparently it's become the standard thing: thepeasantspeople are too stupid to remember or research what you've actually said and done before(campaigning with Clinton for bans, etc.), so you can talk about your 'change of heart', etc., and expect them to believe it. Marfi, indeed.
Also, the International Association of Chiefs of Police has apparently made being an offshoot of the Joyce Foundation official. Key bit:
"We are grateful to several key staff at the Joyce Foundation; President Ellen Alberding for her leadership, passionate concern for quality of life in our communities, and particularly for her interest in partnering with the IACP to address gun violence, Program Officer Roseanna Ander for her dedication to reducing gun violence in the Great Lake States and the nation, and her relentless enthusiasm as she worked with IACP staff to make the summit a reality and Communications Director Mary O’Connell, who has aided in highlighting and supporting the vision of our summit participants through her editing, writing and consistent work to produce this report. "
So a supposed organization of law enforcement bigshots basically acknowledges they're owned by this statist gun-grabbing organization. Just wonderful.
And just in case you've forgotten, or you're new to this mess, here's a rundown of what the gun-grabbing politicians had in mind for Brady II. Including this piece of garbage:
"Brady II" redefines "firearm" to include magazines and "any part of the action" (such as pins, springs, or screws). Thus, if a person has two Colt pistols, three Remington rifles, and four magazines (of any size) for each gun, then he own an "arsenal." Or if he owned two guns, six magazines, and a box of disassembled gun parts that contained five springs, five pins, and five screws, then he would own 23 "firearms" and would have to obtain an "arsenal" license.
Got that? That box of assorted screws you bought now means you have more than 200 guns, according to these people. And let us not forget, Giuliani supported this crap.
Apparently it's become the standard thing: the
Also, the International Association of Chiefs of Police has apparently made being an offshoot of the Joyce Foundation official. Key bit:
"We are grateful to several key staff at the Joyce Foundation; President Ellen Alberding for her leadership, passionate concern for quality of life in our communities, and particularly for her interest in partnering with the IACP to address gun violence, Program Officer Roseanna Ander for her dedication to reducing gun violence in the Great Lake States and the nation, and her relentless enthusiasm as she worked with IACP staff to make the summit a reality and Communications Director Mary O’Connell, who has aided in highlighting and supporting the vision of our summit participants through her editing, writing and consistent work to produce this report. "
So a supposed organization of law enforcement bigshots basically acknowledges they're owned by this statist gun-grabbing organization. Just wonderful.
And just in case you've forgotten, or you're new to this mess, here's a rundown of what the gun-grabbing politicians had in mind for Brady II. Including this piece of garbage:
"Brady II" redefines "firearm" to include magazines and "any part of the action" (such as pins, springs, or screws). Thus, if a person has two Colt pistols, three Remington rifles, and four magazines (of any size) for each gun, then he own an "arsenal." Or if he owned two guns, six magazines, and a box of disassembled gun parts that contained five springs, five pins, and five screws, then he would own 23 "firearms" and would have to obtain an "arsenal" license.
Got that? That box of assorted screws you bought now means you have more than 200 guns, according to these people. And let us not forget, Giuliani supported this crap.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
My daughter gave me a virus
Ebola, in fact.
She meant well. It was to thank me for taking care of her new dog while she & her mom went to Fen-Con(sci-fi convention). She also returned with a bumper sticker that says
"Dead men tell no tales.
Unless you're into forensics"
The things that come into your life.
If you've been hearing about the 'Jena Six' and are wondering
just what the hell did happen/is going on, two places you might check that seem to have some information I hadn't heard elsewhere. Patterico and Mostly Cajun.
Things like there was no fight: the white student was knocked cold from behind and then kicked and stomped.
Things like the 'noose in the tree' incident happened three months before, AND was part of pre-football game thing to mess with the other team. Who were the Cowboys.
Just in case I haven't mentioned it, the distaste and disgust I have for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is almost beyond description, and their playing with this mess just makes them deeper.
Things like there was no fight: the white student was knocked cold from behind and then kicked and stomped.
Things like the 'noose in the tree' incident happened three months before, AND was part of pre-football game thing to mess with the other team. Who were the Cowboys.
Just in case I haven't mentioned it, the distaste and disgust I have for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is almost beyond description, and their playing with this mess just makes them deeper.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Rachel Lucas Torments Dogs
Film at ten
After being directed to her site by Kevin on a different matter, I ran across this. Take note: not only does she do this, she's trying to pull her boyfriend into this horrible plot against canine dignity. Happily, the boyfriend is standing firm.
What IS it with women doing nasty things like this to dogs? It's not enough to get a poodle, it's got to have some disgusting haircut that makes it look like George Michael's date after they leave the men's room in the park. Or tie little ribbons on their head. Gah.
When I was going with what later turned into my second ex, one evening I went over to watch a movie. She had a dog that looked a lot like a husky(can't remember the breed) with long off-white fur, and every summer she'd have the fur cut short. She'd had that done the day before. I walked into the living room, looked out the window to the back yard and stopped moving. I may have stopped breathing for a moment. Fur cut short, except for the poofy ball at the tip of his tail. I think my actual words were "God, what did you do to him?"
She smiled and informed me that A: she thought it was cute, and (you know this is coming) B: "He likes it."
"He LIKES it?" At this point the dog heard us and looked in. And saw me looking at him. I swear, he ducked his head and looked away. "Look him! He's ashamed!" She looked out the window and saw him hiding his face, and she actually looked shocked. "Look at that!" as he turned his head enough to look, saw us and turned away again, "He's wondering just what he did to be treated this way! Just look at that face: "Mom, what did I do to deserve this?" "
Oh, that was a merry evening for a while. And yeah, that SHOULD have been a warning.
His fur grew back out and the poof on his tail disappeared, and I made sure to act like I didn't see a thing until then. But DAMN, what a thing to do to a dog.
After being directed to her site by Kevin on a different matter, I ran across this. Take note: not only does she do this, she's trying to pull her boyfriend into this horrible plot against canine dignity. Happily, the boyfriend is standing firm.
What IS it with women doing nasty things like this to dogs? It's not enough to get a poodle, it's got to have some disgusting haircut that makes it look like George Michael's date after they leave the men's room in the park. Or tie little ribbons on their head. Gah.
When I was going with what later turned into my second ex, one evening I went over to watch a movie. She had a dog that looked a lot like a husky(can't remember the breed) with long off-white fur, and every summer she'd have the fur cut short. She'd had that done the day before. I walked into the living room, looked out the window to the back yard and stopped moving. I may have stopped breathing for a moment. Fur cut short, except for the poofy ball at the tip of his tail. I think my actual words were "God, what did you do to him?"
She smiled and informed me that A: she thought it was cute, and (you know this is coming) B: "He likes it."
"He LIKES it?" At this point the dog heard us and looked in. And saw me looking at him. I swear, he ducked his head and looked away. "Look him! He's ashamed!" She looked out the window and saw him hiding his face, and she actually looked shocked. "Look at that!" as he turned his head enough to look, saw us and turned away again, "He's wondering just what he did to be treated this way! Just look at that face: "Mom, what did I do to deserve this?" "
Oh, that was a merry evening for a while. And yeah, that SHOULD have been a warning.
His fur grew back out and the poof on his tail disappeared, and I made sure to act like I didn't see a thing until then. But DAMN, what a thing to do to a dog.
From what I'm reading,
this situation stinks. I heard something about it yesterday, and today found this. So I looked at Blackfive for more information. I'd suggest go there and search 'sniper' and find all the posts on this mess.
This sounds an awful lot like the Haditha bullcrap, but worse(at least there's no jackass named Murtha running around braying). Here there's no question what happened, when, how and why, yet this general decides these two troops need to be tried. Just bloody amazing.
This sounds an awful lot like the Haditha bullcrap, but worse(at least there's no jackass named Murtha running around braying). Here there's no question what happened, when, how and why, yet this general decides these two troops need to be tried. Just bloody amazing.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Remember the al Dura kid?
Who the palistinians and French tv claimed the Israelis killed? Well, check this out:
Many have accused the photo of young Mohammed Al Dura’s father shielding him from Israeli bullets of being a fake, but the original videotape from which this photo was drawn was hidden from view by France 2. Yesterday a French judge finally ordered the channel to produce it. PJM’s Nidra Poller was one of the few journalists witnessing this stunning turning point.
Besides the interesting look at the French system, we come to this when the judge says "We want to see the original, unedited footage":
The court recesses. (Even though an informed source has already whispered the result in my ear, I am gripped with suspense.) The judges return and report their decision on the question in suspense. The expertise. The raw footage. They want it. They will not go forward until they have seen it. Maître Amblard drops her pencil. She is sincerely stunned.
Now, us uneddicated rednecks have an observation: unless there's footage that proves that a lot of this was staged, they wouldn't mind people seeing it. But oh, boy, do they mind.
Many have accused the photo of young Mohammed Al Dura’s father shielding him from Israeli bullets of being a fake, but the original videotape from which this photo was drawn was hidden from view by France 2. Yesterday a French judge finally ordered the channel to produce it. PJM’s Nidra Poller was one of the few journalists witnessing this stunning turning point.
Besides the interesting look at the French system, we come to this when the judge says "We want to see the original, unedited footage":
The court recesses. (Even though an informed source has already whispered the result in my ear, I am gripped with suspense.) The judges return and report their decision on the question in suspense. The expertise. The raw footage. They want it. They will not go forward until they have seen it. Maître Amblard drops her pencil. She is sincerely stunned.
Now, us uneddicated rednecks have an observation: unless there's footage that proves that a lot of this was staged, they wouldn't mind people seeing it. But oh, boy, do they mind.
Kim's 'No Response Necessary'
post is downright interesting. Especially so since I just ran across this:
London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.
But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime.
Gee, ya think maybe?
London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.
But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime.
Gee, ya think maybe?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
And speaking of foul beings,
Our Lady of the Thong points us to this:
May I repeat, Mahmoud is a miserable offspring of a rabid dog and a distempered pig.
What? I hadn't said that before? Ok, then
May I repeat, Mahmoud is a miserable offspring of a rabid dog and a distempered pig.
Also, Our Lady points to Gates of Vienna who point us to this:
O sultan, turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.
You have GOT to read the whole thing.
May I repeat, Mahmoud is a miserable offspring of a rabid dog and a distempered pig.
What? I hadn't said that before? Ok, then
May I repeat, Mahmoud is a miserable offspring of a rabid dog and a distempered pig.
Also, Our Lady points to Gates of Vienna who point us to this:
O sultan, turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with his naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother.
You have GOT to read the whole thing.
In honor of the miserable politicians
who would even consider letting that pimple on a camel's ass go to Ground Zero(or anywhere else except a high-security cell), my own version of the Col. Bogey March:
Mahmoud has only got one ball,
Bashar has two but very small,
Moqtada has something similar
And Osama has no balls at all
It being difficult to have balls(or anything else) when you've been converted to mulch spread all over Tora Bora.
Anyone able to make it to the Pimple's visit to NYFC, feel free to sing it to him. If I could get there, I'd do it myself.
Mahmoud has only got one ball,
Bashar has two but very small,
Moqtada has something similar
And Osama has no balls at all
It being difficult to have balls(or anything else) when you've been converted to mulch spread all over Tora Bora.
Anyone able to make it to the Pimple's visit to NYFC, feel free to sing it to him. If I could get there, I'd do it myself.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Ammo price differences
There's a Wally World not far from my house, and a while back looked in on their ammo cabinet. Blazer Brass in .40S&W was almost $10/box, in 9mm about $8.50.
Couple of weeks ago went to Sportsmans Warehouse to get some primers, and there's a Wally nearby. I remembered it often has more movies in the discount bin than other stores, so stopped in to look, and while there I checked their ammo. Mostly to see if had any .223 for a friend. At this store, the .40S&W was $2.00 less a box, also that much less for 9mm. But the .223 they had was about a dollar higher than the other store.
Big difference for a few miles apart.
Couple of weeks ago went to Sportsmans Warehouse to get some primers, and there's a Wally nearby. I remembered it often has more movies in the discount bin than other stores, so stopped in to look, and while there I checked their ammo. Mostly to see if had any .223 for a friend. At this store, the .40S&W was $2.00 less a box, also that much less for 9mm. But the .223 they had was about a dollar higher than the other store.
Big difference for a few miles apart.
My family expanded by more than a daughter-in-law
when son got married. Daughter-in-law's brother(does that make him a form of son-in-law?) headed back to the hot & sandy region today. He's going back for the third time.
And just to make things merry, he got married recently(yay!) and found out shortly before his ship-out date that she's pregnant(damn, that's fast, even for Airborne!)
May wear out God's ear by the time this is done.
And just to make things merry, he got married recently(yay!) and found out shortly before his ship-out date that she's pregnant(damn, that's fast, even for Airborne!)
May wear out God's ear by the time this is done.
Double rifles
Kim has a post up about a lovely CZ double, which reminded me of something seen at last years fall Wanenmacher Show up in Tulsa. It looked like this:
Holland & Holland double, in .470 Jeffries Nitro-Express. In the original case with the turnscrews, oil bottle and so forth. Obviously used, and well cared for. God, it was BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately it also sold for a little over half the cost of my house, so it was just a bit out of reach.
But if I had the money, I'd have written a check right there.
Holland & Holland double, in .470 Jeffries Nitro-Express. In the original case with the turnscrews, oil bottle and so forth. Obviously used, and well cared for. God, it was BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately it also sold for a little over half the cost of my house, so it was just a bit out of reach.
But if I had the money, I'd have written a check right there.
Some general things
Dozens died in Syria-Iran missile test:
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in Jane's Defence Weekly, which reported that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.
What do you call dozens of dead Iranian missile engineers and 15 Syrian officers? A start.
More problems at the State Department:
"Dissent within the State Department, particularly from a guy who doesn’t like the administration, who goes outside the policy and tries to put focus on himself, there’s nothing unusual about it," he said, adding that most career diplomats were Democrats. "If you don’t have dissent at the State Department, there’s probably a Democrat in office."
This should be known as 'more proof the striped-pants weenies at State think they should run theworldcountry. And should be canned.'
Gee, school choice actually works! The only problem I have is with this: The second replaced the money for public schools that was lost when a student used the vouchers. If the school is no longer responsible for teaching/caring for that student, THEY DON'T NEED THAT MONEY. But even with that crap, this is a program that's showing strong results. Good for it.
And last, Captain's Quarters notes this piece of... I'm not sure what to call it. Anything that starts with I know why I chose Columbia: the campus is magnificent, the education is top-tier, and my peers are intelligent. I could look at a stranger, tell him or her that I went to Columbia, and hear the predictable, “Wow, you must be smart.”, tells you that disconnected BS is following. In large amounts.
Come on, people, there's no way that anybody with three working brain cells to rub together CANNOT know that it's a military adademy; how could 'Naval Academy' not register? And this:
She begged me to call a naval lieutenant Monday morning to start the out-processing forms for my brother.
Yeah, I'm sure the brother was just freakin' thrilled to find out that his mom and sister tried to get him out. Without asking his thoughts on the matter, of course; after all, he chose to go there so he's obviously too stupid to know what's good for him.
And she's mad because he couldn't call mommy and her more than occasionally. Hey, lady, when my son was in Army Basic, barring emergency(real ones, not freaked-out relatives), no calls. Period. Letters you could write and receive, but no phones or e-mail. So shut the hell up and let your brother get what really is a top-class education as well as Navy training.
God, some of these people...
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in Jane's Defence Weekly, which reported that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.
What do you call dozens of dead Iranian missile engineers and 15 Syrian officers? A start.
More problems at the State Department:
"Dissent within the State Department, particularly from a guy who doesn’t like the administration, who goes outside the policy and tries to put focus on himself, there’s nothing unusual about it," he said, adding that most career diplomats were Democrats. "If you don’t have dissent at the State Department, there’s probably a Democrat in office."
This should be known as 'more proof the striped-pants weenies at State think they should run the
Gee, school choice actually works! The only problem I have is with this: The second replaced the money for public schools that was lost when a student used the vouchers. If the school is no longer responsible for teaching/caring for that student, THEY DON'T NEED THAT MONEY. But even with that crap, this is a program that's showing strong results. Good for it.
And last, Captain's Quarters notes this piece of... I'm not sure what to call it. Anything that starts with I know why I chose Columbia: the campus is magnificent, the education is top-tier, and my peers are intelligent. I could look at a stranger, tell him or her that I went to Columbia, and hear the predictable, “Wow, you must be smart.”, tells you that disconnected BS is following. In large amounts.
Come on, people, there's no way that anybody with three working brain cells to rub together CANNOT know that it's a military adademy; how could 'Naval Academy' not register? And this:
She begged me to call a naval lieutenant Monday morning to start the out-processing forms for my brother.
Yeah, I'm sure the brother was just freakin' thrilled to find out that his mom and sister tried to get him out. Without asking his thoughts on the matter, of course; after all, he chose to go there so he's obviously too stupid to know what's good for him.
And she's mad because he couldn't call mommy and her more than occasionally. Hey, lady, when my son was in Army Basic, barring emergency(real ones, not freaked-out relatives), no calls. Period. Letters you could write and receive, but no phones or e-mail. So shut the hell up and let your brother get what really is a top-class education as well as Navy training.
God, some of these people...
They never, learn, after the first report is TOO LATE!
"That said, the first Peruvian cannibal story I hear, I’m loading up on canned goods and firearms."
Dammit, people, that's waiting too long. After the reports come out is when the run on arms, ammo and supplies have started.
Stock up now, avoid the rush!
Dammit, people, that's waiting too long. After the reports come out is when the run on arms, ammo and supplies have started.
Stock up now, avoid the rush!
When the title of the sympathetic reporter's story is "We're ****ed",
I think the weenies have a problem.
An hour into the event, a woman passed me with a disappointed look on her face and said, “This is pitiful.”
And it was. “We are not insignificant,” a speaker read from his prepared speech, but the numbers assembled before him gave lie to his words. And the repeated references to the will of the people seemed pointedly indifferent to the fact of the rather listless group that milled around, carrying the same sorts of banners and placards that might have been seen a couple of generations ago in much larger and much younger gatherings.
A very sympathetic journalist, who gives the expected "the war has become deeply unpopular, and the disgust with Bush policies in Iraq is high.", and the 'nasty Texas president, etc. Who is honest enough to point out what a sorry mess this protest was.
An hour into the event, a woman passed me with a disappointed look on her face and said, “This is pitiful.”
And it was. “We are not insignificant,” a speaker read from his prepared speech, but the numbers assembled before him gave lie to his words. And the repeated references to the will of the people seemed pointedly indifferent to the fact of the rather listless group that milled around, carrying the same sorts of banners and placards that might have been seen a couple of generations ago in much larger and much younger gatherings.
A very sympathetic journalist, who gives the expected "the war has become deeply unpopular, and the disgust with Bush policies in Iraq is high.", and the 'nasty Texas president, etc. Who is honest enough to point out what a sorry mess this protest was.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Something to check on old .22 rifles
I mentioned in this post that the rifle appeared to be entirely a stranger to lubrication. Rifles like this are often like that, people bought them and used them and never did anything except load and fire them.
Which eventually led to function problems, which leads to them being sold. Sometimes downright cheap, as in this case. The previous owner looked amazed when the current owner performed the amazing feat of pulling the bolt to look down the bore; he not only had never done it, he didn't know how.
So if you find an interesting old .22 but things don't seem to work right, check it out as carefully as you can. It may be perfectly sound mechanically but needs lube desperately. Or- especially in repeaters- just has fouling and dust built up to the point it won't work right.
Which eventually led to function problems, which leads to them being sold. Sometimes downright cheap, as in this case. The previous owner looked amazed when the current owner performed the amazing feat of pulling the bolt to look down the bore; he not only had never done it, he didn't know how.
So if you find an interesting old .22 but things don't seem to work right, check it out as carefully as you can. It may be perfectly sound mechanically but needs lube desperately. Or- especially in repeaters- just has fouling and dust built up to the point it won't work right.
On the subject of Mo cartoons,
this guy in Sweden has balls. Amnesty(for thugs) International and the ACLU & Co. do not.
Also, ref the post on the Day by Day cartoon, Chris Muir said There are none. Zero. Nada. Zip.
The impression out there is it's dangerous, and it's not. There are more of us than them.
I admit to being surprised. Seems like there's an awful lot of islamists and their PC buttmonkeys always ready to have screaming fits, it's amazing they haven't been calling for death and destruction on this. Hell, I don't think I've heard anything from Islamic Rage Boy having a cow, even.
Also, ref the post on the Day by Day cartoon, Chris Muir said There are none. Zero. Nada. Zip.
The impression out there is it's dangerous, and it's not. There are more of us than them.
I admit to being surprised. Seems like there's an awful lot of islamists and their PC buttmonkeys always ready to have screaming fits, it's amazing they haven't been calling for death and destruction on this. Hell, I don't think I've heard anything from Islamic Rage Boy having a cow, even.
Monday, September 17, 2007
'Fat children seized by government'
Make more bureaucrats, and they'll find something to do. All for the public good, of course.
According to a BBC investigation, at least 20 child protection cases this past year have involved a child’s weight. Details on most of these children’s situations and their fates are unavailable.
"Oh, it's because we CARE, you see!"
Dr. Capehorn appears to be on a tireless mission to lock up fat children, but there’s more behind his interests in promoting fears of fat and threatening such dire consequences for those failing to be slim. The Independent made a brief mention that he “runs an obesity clinic in Rotherham, South Yorkshire” in a story last summer. But he isn’t your ordinary weight loss doctor.
But there is some hope:
Growing numbers of parents aren't buying it, as they see their naturally fat children eating and active and just as healthy as other kids. Hysterical headlines driven by vested interests cannot change reality, create a nonexistent crisis, or make sound healthcare policies.
How much good it'll do depends, of course, on if they can get their nanny-state government to listen to them.
According to a BBC investigation, at least 20 child protection cases this past year have involved a child’s weight. Details on most of these children’s situations and their fates are unavailable.
"Oh, it's because we CARE, you see!"
Dr. Capehorn appears to be on a tireless mission to lock up fat children, but there’s more behind his interests in promoting fears of fat and threatening such dire consequences for those failing to be slim. The Independent made a brief mention that he “runs an obesity clinic in Rotherham, South Yorkshire” in a story last summer. But he isn’t your ordinary weight loss doctor.
But there is some hope:
Growing numbers of parents aren't buying it, as they see their naturally fat children eating and active and just as healthy as other kids. Hysterical headlines driven by vested interests cannot change reality, create a nonexistent crisis, or make sound healthcare policies.
How much good it'll do depends, of course, on if they can get their nanny-state government to listen to them.
Sometimes I'm especially glad some of my ancestors
left Britain.
SIR Menzies Campbell yesterday pledged to "hammer" households earning more than £70,000 with higher taxes.
The Liberal Democrat leader said the rich have done "too well" under Labour and agreed the wealthiest 10 per cent should pay more taxes.
...
The Lib Dems want to reduce the basic rate of income tax by 4p in the pound by environmental taxes and changes to capital gains tax relief on investments and pensions, which are currently skewed in favour of those in the higher tax bracket.
In calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, the Lib Dems are following growing concern about income inequality. There was public uproar when a private equity boss recently boasted in front of MPs that he paid less tax than his cleaner.
Idiots make the tax system rediculous, and then get mad when people find the ways to avoid taxes which are only there because the idiots made the mess. And then they want to rip pockets open because "I don't like what you did!" Listen, dumbass, they could only do it because of you.
Oh, and why 70k pounds as 'anyone above that I'll hammer'?
The Lib Dem leader's salary - the £60,227 paid to any backbench MP - would not make him liable for greater tax.
Oh, of COURSE not.
"There is genuine disgust at some of the tax dodging ... and a large majority share our wish to see a crackdown," he said.
'Tax dodging', just like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, who pay a lower percentage of income in taxes than I do because of the bullshit, complicated tax code. Simplify the mess, and knock off this 'the rich should pay a higher percentage' crap.
Scotland, now Socialist Paradise. Crap.
Found through The Englishman. Which somehow seems appropriate.
SIR Menzies Campbell yesterday pledged to "hammer" households earning more than £70,000 with higher taxes.
The Liberal Democrat leader said the rich have done "too well" under Labour and agreed the wealthiest 10 per cent should pay more taxes.
...
The Lib Dems want to reduce the basic rate of income tax by 4p in the pound by environmental taxes and changes to capital gains tax relief on investments and pensions, which are currently skewed in favour of those in the higher tax bracket.
In calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, the Lib Dems are following growing concern about income inequality. There was public uproar when a private equity boss recently boasted in front of MPs that he paid less tax than his cleaner.
Idiots make the tax system rediculous, and then get mad when people find the ways to avoid taxes which are only there because the idiots made the mess. And then they want to rip pockets open because "I don't like what you did!" Listen, dumbass, they could only do it because of you.
Oh, and why 70k pounds as 'anyone above that I'll hammer'?
The Lib Dem leader's salary - the £60,227 paid to any backbench MP - would not make him liable for greater tax.
Oh, of COURSE not.
"There is genuine disgust at some of the tax dodging ... and a large majority share our wish to see a crackdown," he said.
'Tax dodging', just like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, who pay a lower percentage of income in taxes than I do because of the bullshit, complicated tax code. Simplify the mess, and knock off this 'the rich should pay a higher percentage' crap.
Scotland, now Socialist Paradise. Crap.
Found through The Englishman. Which somehow seems appropriate.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
More on the threat to our kids
Few days ago I posted on possible 'what then?' actions if the terrorists do manage an attack on our kids in school. JR has a post I just found(got to get by there more often) on the same subject, with a bunch of links.
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