I think it's called 'karma',

at least in part, when stuff like this happens.
In the past 48 hours 19 Palestinians have been killed, tossed from rooftops, executed at point-blank range, and shot in hospital wards. That number seems certain to rise. More than 80 Palestinians have now been killed since mid May.

Among yesterday's dead was a 14-year-old boy and three women, all killed in a Hamas attack on a Fatah security officer's home.

"They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews," the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

Minutes later both men were dragged into the streets and riddled with bullets.

Don't you just love these people? "We're not Jews", which makes this terribly wrong. Whereas if the Hamassholes(thank you for the term, Emperor) were killing Jewish men and women and children, it would be just ducky.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy to the Middle East, said: "The picture which emerges is very dark, and apparently getting darker. There are reasons for real concerns in the international community."

My first thought is that things will rapidly get lighter as the terrorists kill each other off. And to quote somebody, it serves them right. The Palistinians knowingly elected a terrorist organization to power, and this is part of what comes after. "...reasons for real concerns in the international community", which means that the UN will have a commission to appoint people to a study to examine the situation and make recommendations as to what the following letters of "Why are you doing this?" should say exactly.

And for more on why they deserve this(at least a LOT of them do), check this out:
A 'music video' broadcast on a Palestinian Hamas TV station on Wednesday had a simple message for its viewers: Carrying out a suicide bomb attack is more important than raising one's children.

The video, broadcast on al-Aqsa TV, was made available by Palestinian Media Watch and can be viewed on YouTube.

I think it was Golda Mier who said there would be peace when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated Jews. Looks like they're not there yet. By a long damn way.

And in other news, Angelina Jolie really is a jerk. Not bad looking, but a jerk.

Reason #216 why Sen. Harry Reid

(Disgusting-NV) is a sorry, worthless, walking piece of crap.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "incompetent" during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

Stinking, cowardly, corrupt, vile little excuse for a man. And do take notice of the picture; looks like he's copying the Castro & Co. 'socialism forever!' speechifying.

Among the reasons I like Oklahoma

is the way vets tend to be treated. In this case, the son of a friend, a Marine just back from his second tour in Iraq. Couple of days ago they went to a Pizza Hut for dinner, and a friend of the father who'd known the son growing up saw them, invited them over, and then announced to the place that this man was just back from the sandbox. The whole place gave him a round of applause.

Tonight he said a bit about it. He'd been in Ramadi and said that when his battalion arrived, for the first couple of months there'd been a bunch of firefights; for the last two months not a single American troop in his area had fired a shot. The Iraqi army and police had done all the fighting. From a trickle of information from the locals at the beginning they'd moved up almost to a 'flood' level, tips on bad guys(who and where), weapons and explosives caches and so on.

Also mentioned they'd had a bunch of bad guys who'd gotten sick of the fighting and killing and turned themselves in, often giving information leading to arrests of bad guys and lots of equipment.

He spoke of power restored to neighborhoods, schools and clinics opened and such. Finished with 'there's still bad problems, but they're moving ahead and taking responsibility; it's getting better'.

Oh yes, he got a round of thanks from us, too.

It's not quite 'Let Africa Sink',

but it's definitely 'Stop trying to save us!".

Couple of years ago Kim wrote Let Africa Sink, his thoughts on what might save that continent. This is an interview with a Kenyan economics expert basically saying that "all the aid is making things worse". Couple of key quotes:

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

and on the subject of AIDS:
Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it's only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why's that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

Interesting reading.

So the only time Mexico gives a damn about border security

is when A: it's their southern border and people are sneaking in and B: it's their northern border and they're blaming us for their problems.

Like this one:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that Washington is taking steps to address Mexican concerns the U.S. is not doing enough to stop illegal weapons from being smuggled across the border and into the hands of brutal drug gangs.

Oh yes, the drug gangs couldn't possibly be getting weapons anywhere except from the U.S. And it seems the Mexican government is getting talking points from the Brady Gun Ban Group:
Mexican officials have repeatedly complained that the U.S. must do more to stop the flow of potent weapons - including assault rifles and even .50-caliber machine guns - that drug gangs often purchase in the United States.
You know, those evil select-fire M16's and the M2 Brownings you find on the shelves at the local gun shop?

Except that ANY select-fire or automatic weapon can only be bought legally after a bunch of federal paperwork and background checks and taxes and fees, and only if it's one that was owned by someone before it was decided(back in the 80's) that no new firearms of the type could be sold to citizens. Which means, besides the cost, there's only so many of them and the authorities are pretty picky about inspections to make sure people still have them. Which means, (wonder of wonders), that the bad guys- IF they're buying them here- are(GASP!) buying them illegally.

And I have to wonder about that, because there's a very few companies that build these, and they have to account for every one built. Not just the completed guns, but the receivers. And even if you assume a company is willing to risk the entire business for the chance of making a few extra dollars sneaking out some pieces to sell, just how many could they manage to make and sneak out?

"The firepower we are seeing here has to do with a lack of control on the (U.S.) side of the border," Patricio Patino, Mexico's top anti-drug intelligence official, said last month. "What we have asked the American government ... is that they put clear controls on the shipments of weapons."

I call bullshit. I don't doubt that there are smugglers taking some weapons south across the border, and if somebody's sneaking them in to the U.S. first and then south, but the numbers they're talking about? And this 'shipments of weapons' crap makes it sound- again- like someone can buy this stuff in stores here and then sneak it south across the border.

And, with all the coastline to land things on and mordida being the way of business down there in so many things, just why would someone smuggle the stuff into the U.S. and then across a second border into Mexico? As much as anything, sounds like another way of blaming the evil, nasty, bigoted U.S. for the problem.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora argued that combatting violence was a cross-border issue, saying: "We recognize that we can't confront this problem alone."

Gonzales agreed, and said he and President Bush were "committed to collaborating in the development of a regional security and law enforcement strategy."

"Regional security and law enforcement strategy", right. When it's about something THEY want stopped and only in a way that(you can be sure) won't inconvenience the people crossing our border illegally.

Hey, I've got an idea! Let's build a damn fence along the border and stop ALL the smuggling going BOTH ways! And when the Mexican government bitches and whines about the northbound smuggling being stopped(people in particular) wave this article at them and tell them to shut the hell up.


Added: be it noted that Mexico has real problems with gangs of various types; I'm just damn sick of the U.S. being in some way called responsible for all of them.

The son has been heard from,

Yesterday while packing up to head out in the field again. They've been training hard(as they should) and spending a lot of time out in the field.

Pretty much everybody's been qualifying with everything, and he made expert with the M240B











.30 caliber machinegun. Also fired the M2 Browning, (only with the plastic bullet practice ammo, alas) and everything else that might come to hand in time of trouble.

He's supposed to have some leave and come back for a visit in the near future, which'll be nice. So far, so good.

If you've got someone joining or in who doesn't have one, may I make a suggestion? A really good folding knife. Gave him one for his birthday a couple of weeks before he shipped out, one of the big CRKT folders, and it's been a very handy tool.

Dealing with police

in a traffic stop is the subject of this post over at Kim's. Read it, and then read the comments. All 122 of them that got in before he closed them.

Something I'd read confirmed about .303 ammo

I'd read years ago that to increase lethality, the Brits had started putting an aluminum insert into the nose of the jacket to move the center of balance further back: the bullet remained very stable in flight and accurate, but on hitting a 'soft' target tended to go unstable much more quickly. This was the Mark VII ball.

Just looked at the Box o' Truth for the first time in a while and found this post testing just such ammo, including a couple of pictures. I'd never tried cutting a bullet in half to check the inside, here's the aluminum insert design:


















And, to make it even more interesting, here's a WWII round with a WOOD insert:


















Better than my describing it, go check out his results with this ammo on water jugs. Impressive, to say the least. A few years ago I wound up with several boxes of WWII Brit .303 ammo, I may have to move it up to my 'grab in case of trouble' box.

Ok, so I lied on one point

and was wrong on the other.

I looked at the parts of the pistol, sitting there all oily and disassembled, and I just couldn't wait. So I put it all together(minus the grips) and here it is in it's new, still very oily glory

















In my case, I can't blame the camera. Mine's pretty good, but I don't have the lighting or the skill to really show how well this came out. It's just as black and even as the knife blade. And if I'd spent an hour or two with a file and some 240/320/400 grit wet/dry paper polishing the slide and frame, it'd be just as smooth and glorious a finish.

This is so damn pretty I will eventually take it back down, polish and re-black it.

The only post I will do about Paris Hilton

It's about damn time she was treated like anyone else would be. Anyone else would have spent time in jail when first arrested for DUI, not to mention the two times she was caught driving without a license after that.

When she showed up late for the sentencing hearing, anyone else would've been whacked for that, too. For that matter, as Lawdog pointed out, anyone else in any other venue, when the parents stood up in court and started mouthing off, they'd have either been whacked with a fine or jail time or both.

My primary thought is the parents need a serious kick in the ass. They raised this kid to believe that because they were rich, she was automatically something special. She became 'famous' for nothing more than being of a rich family, going to big-name parties and flashing her crotch at photographers when getting out of cars, and came to think she was immune to actually having to do things like obey the law.

Paris Hilton was taken from a courtroom screaming and crying Friday seconds after a judge ordered her returned to jail to serve out her entire 45-day sentence for a parole violation in a reckless driving case.

"It's not right!" shouted the weeping Hilton. "Mom!" she called out to her mother in the audience.

Maybe, just maybe, if her parents had held her responsible for her conduct in some real way years ago, she wouldn't be whining and screaming at being held responsible for it now.

The bluing tryout

A while back Og pointed me to this site with a home bluing formula/setup. At the bottom is a link to another, which has the formula I used. Having found the last ingredient needed, and having all the equipment, I gave it a try today. Here's the setup:


















The burner is from Harbor Freight, cast-iron with two burner heads. The enamelware pot I picked up at a flea market, and the stainless pot(for the rinse) from a local store who has them cheap. They're both 16-quart. Not visible is the bottle of vinegar(in case of spill or splash), the heavy rubber gloves and the respirator(just in case). I set this up outside with a breeze blowing, no damned way I'd do it indoors unless I had some kind of fan or ventilation setup; might not be necessary, but I'd feel better.

I went with the second site's ingredients for two reasons. First, I couldn't find ammonium nitrate fertilizer that did not have sulphur added(Fed requirement, aftereffect of the OKC Bombing) and I didn't know how that might affect it. Second, the original site notes that his mix outgasses ammonia badly when you're mixing it, and the second avoids that.

I did have to order the nitrate of soda, as nobody around here carries it(hell, they'd never heard of it) and I thought I'd have to order the lye until I found it yesterday.

I got the two-burner rig so I could heat the rinse water along with the bath, so I lit the burner under the rinse pot while I mixed the ingredients in the other. I'd been afraid the stuff would have trouble dissolving in only a gallon of water, but no, the lye and then the nitrate went right into solution, just add no more than a cup at a time and keep stirring. I shut off the burner on the rinse water about the time the bath came up to heat. According to my thermometer(Wally World, bbq section, $5) by the time I had the nitrate dissolved the mess was already up to almost 200F, and it only took a few minutes to get it up to a rolling boil. It didn't start to actually boil until right at 250F, and with the slide, frame and some other parts in the burner on full kept it at a touch over 275.

I left the parts in for about 25 minutes, stuck them in the rinse and put the rest of the parts in(all hung on iron wire from a rod across the top of the pot). Everything came out a nice black except for the slide, which had an odd-colored section on the left front. It I scrubbed with a steel wool soap pad and washed off, then put back in for another 20 and it came out nicely. I've got everything coated in oil, and I'm going to let them sit until tomorrow before I reassemble. However...

I wanted to try this on a knife, so I took a dagger blade and treated it while giving the slide the second bath. The blade had a 400-grit finish, not mirror but very smooth and shiny























Please note that the tang was left with forge marks on the sides(the better for the epoxy to grab), and the tang is annealed to be easy to drill. I wrapped a wire around the tang so it held the blade horizontal; the solution was getting a bit low and it would not submerge completely if vertical. It got 20 minutes, then a good rinse, then oil. Now, these are not the best pictures, but they do give the idea:























The above was shot in the house. This one was shot outside so I could get the sun glinting on it:























I need to get a better shot, these just do not do the finish justice; it's not just dark, it's gleaming BLACK. The only contrast on it is that there's a bit of difference in the color between the hardened blade and annealed tang for some reason.

The pistol doesn't look like it'll be quite this marvelous, simply because it wasn't polished. I went over it and smoothed everything very nicely, but did no actual polishing. If this blade is any indication, if you do take the finish to (I'm guessing) a 240-grit or above, the result should be just as pretty as this blade.

Overall, this seems to work very well. It's supposed to be good for another 5 guns minimum, which makes it pretty cost-effective. I was going to use the knife to test out how well this finish wears, but it came out so damn pretty I hate to mess with it.


Notes:
I had to use the wire it was hung on to hold the frame on its side; one gallon of solution in this size pot wouldn't let it submerge completely if you had it vertical.

Before putting the slide in for the second time I thought I'd add some water to bring the level back up from what had boiled off: Don't Do That, it is a Bad Thing. If I hadn't been standing well aside I WOULD have been spattered when the stuff spit. Wait until it's cooled off to add water.

It take the bath several hours to cool down, mine had sat for about two and it was still very warm when I put it in a plastic container for storage.

Do remember, lye will mess you up if you get careless with it.

Ok, Timmeeee, here 'tis

Lye has been found

at a local store. Ace Hardware, to be specific.

Understand, I'm glad to have found it. I just wish I'd found it a week ago. When I was in this store and asked, and they said "We don't carry that".

Just happened to be passing by on my way home from work and decided to check the plumbing supplies(just in case) and there, among the other drain openers/cleaners are 16oz. bottles of 100% Lye.

Moral: unless you KNOW the guy, and are certain he KNOWS the stock, go look.

Stock finish/refinishing Link added

There's lots of ways and lots of stuff to use, right now I'm going to hit one. I got the original information on this from a string at The High Road, but they've been unavailable for the last week or so and I can't find the thread to link to.
(update: this is the link)

The stuff I used here is Minwax Antique Oil Finish. Really nice finish, and there's no stain involved so it won't change the color of the wood. And being an actual oil finish, it soaks into the surface of the wood, fills pores and/or grain and once it cures it's a very hard, protective finish. Easy to repair if damaged, too.

Start with a stock that's been sanded, grain raised, etc. Use a soft cloth and put a generous coat on the wood. 'Generous' does not mean 'dripping off', just covering the wood nicely. Put it aside for a day to dry.

After dry, get the steel wool out: the first few coats are to seal the wood and fill in the grain, so you want to clean the surface off for the next coat. So use the wool to cut the finish off, down to the wood. That'll leave what's in the grain. Then put on another coat, set aside for a day, repeat as necessary. Depending on the wood, it can take anywhere from 2-5 coats to fill the grain most/all the way.

Now you're at the point the grain is completely or almost completely filled, so for the next stage you put on a light coat, let it sit a few minutes until it gets sticky and then buff it with a soft cloth, then set aside a day, then steel wool it off. This stage is to finish filling the grain and level the finish, so repeat as needed.

At this point you've got two options: you can go for a matte finish or the full-out gloss. If the matte, two ways to do it. One is to put on the final light coat, let it dry, and then wool it down to the wood; the stuff is soaked into the surface and will give good protection, and this gives a dull finish. The other is to put on a final very light coat, and buff it all off, as much as possible: this gives a bit more shine than the first, but not as much as the gloss finish. In either of these cases, after putting the final coat on let it sit for at least two days so it can cure hard.

For gloss, wool it down to the wood and then put on a very light coat and, after it gets sticky, buff lightly with a soft cloth. You don't want to remove much, just leave the last coat very thin and smooth. Again, let it cure for at least two days, and then buff it with a pad made of burlap.

Done right, this stuff makes a beautiful finish, very hard and protective. And if it gets scratched or otherwise damaged, you can sand or wool it clean(whichever is needed) and repair it by putting on a couple of coats.

The M1 Carbine I built turned out very nice, and the stock Og found is a very nice piece of walnut which I decided needed a proper finish. So I smoothed it a bit, then treated it with this finish. Here's the result













This is the semi-gloss finish. Took about two weeks with the drying periods, and came out flat beautiful.

It wasn't the NOR shoot, but

since I had some time yesterday afternoon the lawn went unmowed and I went to the range. No loads to test, just took a couple of rifles and pistols to shoot. Which was nice.

Rifles, took the M39 Finn and the M1 Garand, pistols a Ruger Single-Six .22 and a S&W .357. And except for a sight check/adjustment I didn't use a bench, shot the rifles sitting and prone(note to self: elbow pads are nice, but I do need a mat of some kind for the prone stuff).

It was fun. I really do need more practice in general, and in the different positions as well. This is about my average for prone at 100 yards with the M39:























And yes, it will do better than this. I couldn't decide if I kept pulling a bit to the right or if the adjustment was off, so I took a rest and fired two:




















Adjusted the front sight a touch, and it was dead center in windage, with the next two equally tight. This is one of my favorite rifles: good sights, excellent trigger, smooth action. The Finns did a wonderful job on these.

On to the M1. Again, I need more practice, this was about as good as I got:




















The one way off to the left was a called flyer, I knew it was off as the trigger broke. I was using Greek HXP ammo, which(from a rest to cut down on my error) will usually give about 2.5" groups in this rifle.

I need to make more time go to out for stuff like this, I really enjoyed the hours.

Course, I really need to make sure I get to the next NOR shoot, too.

And of course there's nothing more important

for the Ministry of Defence to worry about than somebody, somewhere, possibly being offended by the nose art on a Harrier:

The Ministry of Defence has decreed they could offend the RAF's female personnel.

Officials admitted they had no record of any complaints from the 5,400 women in the RAF.

But commanders are erring firmly on the side of caution and "nose art", as it is known, has been consigned to the history books.

Because this is obviously more important than the British Navy being turned into a coastal defense force, and the infantry and air force units being cut down- again- and so forth. Somebody might be offended, and that's all that counts.

I've mentioned differential hardening of blades,

and here's a picture that shows it.

For this process you can do one of two things: one is to bring the whole blade up to heat and quench it to harden, then use a torch or other heat source to heat it from the back so that when the edge section is at the desired hardness the back will be a bit softer; or heat the blade so that only the section you wish to harden is at full heat and then quench it, like this:















The effect is very visible here, with a fairly sharp demarcation between the fully hardened edge section and the softer back. I do one other thing to add to the effect, which is to hold the blade into the quenching oil almost horizontally so only the lower half is in the oil. You do move it up and down just a touch until it's lost most heat, then go ahead and lower it all the way down*.

After tempering this gives an edge that's hard enough to hold an edge well, with a back that's more of a soft/springy hardness; makes a blade that's very tough and flexible.

The GFW reading of the 2nd Amendment,

found here:
The Population of the nanny State, being composed of irresponsible rednecks, rejects, and retards, must not be allowed to have Arms.

Found through The War On Guns

Have I mentioned the Brits

are screwed?

Middle-class wine drinkers will be the focus of government plans to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking, The Times has learnt.

How truly joyous.

Please note the following:
But the British Medical Association said yesterday that such measures did not go far enough, adding that customers in licensed premises needed better information to raise awareness of the dangers of excessive drinking and drink-driving.

Anytime some nanny-state socialist uses the term 'raise awareness', you know they're measuring you for a shock collar.

If there's anybody in the damn world who lives in a place where cars are affordable who DOESN'T know about the 'dangers of excessive drinking and drink-driving, they're too stupid to be allowed out without a keeper. Of course, this crap gives the nanny-staters one more excuse for assigning a keeper to every damn one of us.

And this from the President of the Royal College of Physicians: “We really need the spotlight more on health. While crime and antisocial behaviour is important it’s too easy to concentrate on that because it’s somebody else causing the trouble."

God, yes. Just stop worrying about the assaults and murders and rapes and terrorists, you bloody peasants, and worry about a real problem.

On the subject of changing tires,

ever had the desire to find the idiot with the impact wrench at the tire store and use the wrench on him?

While back came across someone with a flat. This was on an old Oldsmobile full-size car with the old-style jack & lug wrench that doubled as a jack handle, which gives you a lever damn near three feet long to remove the lug nuts. I weighed about 175 at the time, and I actually had to bounce on the end of the wrench to break three of the nuts loose; this was an old couple and there's no damn way they'd have been able to change that tire.

New tires, mind you(sidewall blew out on the flat), put on two weeks before. I told them to go back to that store and get the tire replaced, and tell the service manager to make sure an average human could get the damn nuts off without having to play acrobat.