Saturday, February 23, 2013

Kahr PM Series Recoil

This video shows the polymer framed Kahrs from 380 to 45 ACP being fired in front of a grid to help judge their recoil.  Interesting to watch them in slow motion.

Kahr PM Seris Recoil



Found it at the Kahr Talk Forum

A Good One!


Stolen from Girls With Guns' Facebook Page

Friday, February 22, 2013

New Places to Go Most Every Day

I stumbled on a blog called Seraphic Secret.  Looks like high quality information & writing.  Definitely Pro-2A.

Also added the Gun Blog Blacklist, as I should have a long time ago.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Dog Tired


Worked late yesterday.  Got home late.  Ate supper late.  Went to bed late.

Had a dream that I heard the grandfather clock chime 1:00 O'clock.  Still in the dream, I thought "Good.  I don't have to get up for four and a half hours."  Then I thought, "We don't have a grandfather clock.  This is a dream."

So I looked at the alarm clock on the other side of the bed.  It said 1:00 O'clock.  I thought, "Good.  It says that I don't have to get up for four and a half more hours."  Then I  thought, "I can't read the blue numbers on that clock without my glasses.  This must still be the dream."

So I looked at the clock over the bedroom door.  It said 1:00 O'clock.   I thought, "Shit.  We don't have a clock above the bedroom door either."


Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Over Compensating?


Maybe just a little.

Seriously though, its not a Punt Gun.  It appears to be a bolt action rifle.  Perhaps for defense of a castle somewhere?


PUNT!




Found at Plan of the Day

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Spammers

I accidentally marked someone's legitimate comment as spam just now. I was cleaning out about 600 spam comments and just marked one as spam that wasn't.  If anybody gets any crap from their ISP about it, let me know and I'll try to make it right.

On the other hand, it seems there's a sub-culture of spider worshipers out there in the ether.  There was quite a pile of comments about my "Pest Control" post.  I left them all there for entertainment purposes.  Imagine what they'd say if I had shot a wolf.  We don't have wolves here but we do have coyotes.   I guess that gives me another hobby.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Mighty 10 Gauge






That's the title of Ballistic Products' load manual for the 10 gauge.  Sounded like something Winston Churchill would have called it and its hard to go wrong sounding like Winston Churchill.

This is as fancy a picture as I'm gonna post of it today.   I did determine that the chambers are 2 7/8" and that the butt plate for this gun is bigger than most.  I checked Numrich and Dixie Gun Works and I checked three smaller places that sell reproduction butt plates and nobody had one big enough for this gun.  Perhaps I should name the gun after my sister.  

No.  It deserves better.

I strongly suspect that it had springs to retract the firing pins when it was built.  It has rebounding hammers so it wasn't like they hadn't figured out  the pins need to retract.  I'll have to take the pins out and measure a few dimensions to see how big a spring to buy.  Its funny.  Brownells didn't have a firing pin spring for it.  Its only a hundred and thirty something years old.

Spent close to a hundred bucks at Ballistic Products.  I found a recipe in their low pressure load brochure and bought all the components that I didn't already have.  Since this is going to be a duck gun, I bought a pound of their ITX shot.  That was the biggest chunk of change.  Next up was two loading manuals.  One thing that got kind of tedious was finding the wad.  Their recipe called for their own "Deci-Max" wad but I couldn't find any wad by that name on their site.  I even searched it by name.  I finally Googled it, found it at Graf's and compared their picture of it to the picture on BP's site to figure out what it was. 

After that I ordered a new shifter for Ruth's transfer case.  Once I get it all set up that will allow me to use just the front drive if I want.  That would have come in handy a few years ago when my rear driveshaft came unglued.

It should also help isolate one or two of those annoying vibrations and driveline noises so I can decide where they come from.  There will be noises.   Its a real Jeep.

And nope.  Didn't nobody pay me nuthin' fer sayin' none of this.













More Advances in Guerilla Medicine

This could be as big as my recent  medical discovery   and almost as much fun:

Almost a Cure for the Common Cold



Saturday, February 16, 2013

The 10 Gauge Arrived

The old L C Smith 10 gauge arrived on schedule yesterday.  It was wrapped in so many layers of bubble wrap I told The Lovely Bride that I was going to call it "Tutankhamun."    Despite all the wrapping, the Post Office managed to break the toe off the butt plate.   Super glue made it functional again and I can get a replacement.  Not a big deal but still something I'd rather not have happen.

The old gun has been refinished and the bores aren't perfect but that's ok.  They are still useable and she locks up nice and tight.   I got it for duck hunting.  If it gets a ding or a scratch I won't have damaged a museum piece.  I figure that a 10 gauge will be able to toss a 2 3/4" 12 gauge payload pretty fast and still not build up lots of pressure.  We shall see next season. 

The most striking thing I noticed when I got it unwrapped is how freakin' big it is.  It really is a whole heap bigger than any of my 12 gauge guns.  Its heavy too.   I bought a scale that doesn't work so I can't say how heavy it is but its heavy.  Its not something I'd want to carry all day in the woods but I bet it  will be nice when blasting away at ducks and such.  It may take a little tweaking here and there but I like it.

I may put up a picture tomorrow.  I went to bed early last night and slept in until 7:30 this morning.  When my back finally ejected me from the bed, my brain decided that it was going to be obstinate and stay asleep so I spent the whole day being a couch potato.  Needed to work on Ruth, the Jeep, but it was cold and damp and I have a thing about lying on cold, wet concrete getting drenched in cold transmission fluid.  I didn't enjoy that when I was 16 and I sure as heck don't enjoy it now.  Besides that, I've misplaced my welding gloves again and the project is at a stage that will require a lot of welding.   Come to think of it, I suspect that welding while drenched in automatic transmission fluid would be a good way to self-immolate.

 All I managed to do all day was shorten five of the 3" 12 gauge Active hulls to 2 1/4."

Mellow Mutt


From a friend's Facebook page.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Anticipation

Between my brother getting an old 10 gauge double and my brother in law hunting ducks all last month, I guess it was inevitable.  The 10 ga Powell got away and I couldn't bring myself to bid on an old Remington that was in beautiful shape but was just a homely design.  I finally settled on an L.C. Smith.   A hammered double in 10 gauge.   Its old enough that it doesn't have to go through a dealer but it looks to be in good shape.  

The tracking number says it will get here tomorrow.

A good friend has a part interest in a few thousand acres in Madison Florida that's used for hunting and on Monday he invited me to help them burn off some of the fields on the property.  A big part of the time would be spent shooting on the little ersatz range that they put up.  I was too busy  at work to escape for two days but the weather changed and they postponed it so I may get to go after all.  They haven't rescheduled yet.

 I feel like a dog on point with nobody paying attention.

 




Middle Ground

All I heard all day long was Valentine's Day this and Valentine's Day that.

As long as the sentiment is somewhere between a Hallmark Card and  Al Capone what's the big deal?

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

RMS Olympic

Some original video of the Titanic's older sister ship.

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3pu1jPGsQo&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Gun Blog Black List

Well slap me nekkid and hide my clothes.  Somebody must have nominated us for the Gun Blog Black List  !

I just looked at our teeny little stats and there's a bunch of traffic from the GBBL.  I check the blog and my latest post is linked there.  I don't know how long we've been linked but many thanks to whoever threw our name in the hat and thanks to Jay as well for letting our humble little blog join!


New York Boycott

An NC Gun Blog  has started a page where firearms companies can post their intention to not sell to anti-gun State governments.  Already has two signed up.   Imagine a world where the elites who know better than us suddenly find themselves unable to get the stuff they would deny us.

http://www.ncgunblog.com/new-york-boycott/


Here's  Free North Carolina's     Post about it:

  http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/




Exxxxxxcellent

Monday, February 11, 2013

Psalm 55:22

Works with Colossians 2:15 and several others too..

Sunday, February 10, 2013

A Video Worth Watching

I don't usually post videos or links to videos and I hardly ever watch them on other blogs but, for some reason, I did watch this one.

A lot of the conflicting information that came out the day of the Sandy Hook shooting could be attributed to confusion, the fog of war and such as that but watch this video.   There's no confusion about the girl that didn't go to Sandy Hook but was supposedly killed there even though she was there with the President after the shooting.  Watch her father smiling and having a good time and then putting on an act for the cameras and saying that his daughter was killed.  They even had a family photo to show the cameras.   Then there's the other girl that never went to Sandy Hook  whose picture was used as one of the murdered children.  There's lots more.  And there's no attributing it to confusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FFf5n0xbl08


Found at http://cmblake6.wordpress.com/


Saturday, February 9, 2013

Sounds Like Somebody Else I heard of



Marines' Rifles Disabled at Inauguration


Didn't that German fellow with the funny mustache have his guards disarm military men before he met with them in the bunker?


Found at Sipsey Street Irregulars


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Excellent Article on the "Context" of the 2nd Amendment

Found this:   http://onsecondopinion.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-mason-triad-context-of-second.html


Posted & linked at Robert's Gun Shop


Its really good.

Roger

A few years ago I worked with a fellow named Roger.  He was a decent, likable guy.  I never did get it straight whether he had been an accountant in the Navy or if he had been an accountant that worked for the Navy but, like I said, he was a decent, likable guy.

Roger put the "F" in Frugal.  We drove a lot in our line of work and he had a 3 cylinder GEO.  We called it the door stop.  He could buy a whole set of tires for less than what it cost me for one tire for my Jeep.  He never went out for lunch either.  He brought a can of tuna every day and sat in his office and ate that for lunch.  He did that every day for as long as we worked together.  He would fight you for work orders that came in over the fax.  You'd never ask him to handle a job for one of your clients because, in his mind, if he had done work for anybody, they were his client. He wasn't being dishonest.  That's just how his mind worked.   I still look up when I hear the fax machine ringing something like five years after Roger left our office.

Politically Roger was conservative.  A big fan of Ronald Reagan long after Reagan was dead. Roger was a Christian but not one that was always telling you what a Christian he was.  He just was.  All in all, he was kind of geeky but a decent guy.

I met Carolyn, his wife, a few times over those years and she seemed like a good fit.  Didn't get to know her well enough to have much more opinion than that.  The two of them just looked like they belonged together.

Roger and Carolyn had one son.  I don't think I ever met him. I believe his name was John.  Roger was always proud of him.  He did well in school and went on to do well in law school.  We always thought John's schooling might be why Roger was so frugal. 

A couple of years ago, and that would be a couple of years after Roger left our office, He and John were on a sight seeing trip to Canada.  They took a side trip to hike up some mountain in Washington State.  Roger fell into a ravine, went over two waterfalls and was killed.  The search team didn't find his body until the next day.

It was a shock to all of us.  I know that's kind of a "well - duh" thing to say but it just didn't seem like good old, conservative Roger to lean out over a ravine to take a picture.  The only witness was John and that's how he said it happened so we all just sort of made peace with the idea.

Shortly after this past Christmas, Carolyn was found murdered in her bed.  The back door to the house was unlocked but not much else was out of place.  The Sheriff's Investigators were pretty tight-lipped about it.  I guess that's normal with a new homicide. They probably didn't want to give anybody any idea of what they were learning.

John lived up North and had just come down for Christmas.  It didn't take long to find out that John had bought a gun up North just before he drove home for the visit and that it was the same kind used to kill Carolyn.   It didn't take much to track his route home by tracking his cell phone records.  Carolyn's purse and phone were found in another State and John had driven right by where they were found.  The forensic analysis of his computer showed that he had been doing research on ways to shoot someone without getting gunshot residue on yourself.

When our Deputies and the Police up North knocked on his door this past weekend, John killed himself.

John had a law degree but wasn't making any money.  In hindsight, it looks like he probably pushed his dad into the ravine.   I'm not sure what-all I think about all of it just yet.  I can't help but think that the world would be a better place if he had just killed himself instead of his parents. John destroyed his whole family.  Its just gone now.    How they managed to raise a son that would embody that level of evil is something  that I don't think I really ever want to understand.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Feral Irishman Raised the Bar

Just when I had decided that the skeet shooting pictures couldn't get any better than the one with the teleprompter saying 'PULL,"  the Feral Irishman      puts this up as his background.



Awesome!

The Best One Yet



For some reason I thought this was the best one yet.  Found it at Theo Spark

Is it just me or does the smoke in these pictures look fake too?   It doesn't look like there's a whole lot of pressure behind it and smoke coming from the ports in the barrel looks like its coming out the right side.  Come to think of it, it looks like there's a choke in the top barrel but not in the bottom one. 


Sunday, February 3, 2013

4 Wheeler Progress





Got the 4 wheeler cranked up and drove it around the yard this weekend.  No big issues.  Just the routine reassembly.  The fire was a small one, easily extinguished by putting the lid back on the air filter.  For some reason, the plastic shell of the seat was misshapen and wouldn't go back on.  I had to heat it with a torch and use a furniture clamp to squeeze it back to a dimension that would work.  It still doesn't fit right but it will at least stay where its put.  Needs a little juice in the gearbox but that's no biggie.   The clutch cover is very loose and makes a hell of a clanking noise when the clutch disengages.  It acts as if there are no bolts holding it to the transmission.  Fortunately, it rarely disengages because I haven't convinced it to idle yet.   I dumped some Seafoam fuel system cleaner in the gas to see if that will help.  It won't but it beats taking the thing apart again.   I'm going to get the recommended transmission oil and fix the clutch cover before I start fooling with the carb.


Saturday, February 2, 2013

Actual Reloading Content



A W W Greener 12  gauge followed me home a few weeks ago.  Its a well used gun but also cared for.  The right firing pin hole is worn and the lockup isn't as tight as I'd like but that's fixable.  If only I could expect to be in as good a shape when I'm 140 years old.





The figure is still visible in the damascus barrels and they aren't particularly pitted.  Its a svelt little upland game gun with hammers, an under lever and 2 1/4" chambers.   My gunsmith told me to go ahead and shoot it.  You know, just to use up all those 2 1/4" shells I've been tripping over in the reloading room all these years.

Fortunately, I had suspected that a Greener was stalking me when I started buying supplies for loading 10 gauge shells and I also bought a few tools and components in 12 gauge.  Long before that, I bought a bunch of "junk" at a garage sale for $125 because amongst the junk was a MEC Grabber in 12 gauge that only needed about $10 in parts to make it work again.  Also present was a bag of 25 year old, brand new Active 12 gauge 3" hulls.   The Grabber got used and the hulls sat in a box on the floor for a couple of years until the little Greener came along.

Turns out the Active hulls aren't tapered inside and they have a pretty low base wad so they looked perfect for black powder loads.  Ballistic Products    sells a neat little tool they call a Trim Doctor for trimming shotgun shells  so I got one of those and trimmed two cases to 2 1/4" for test purposes.  The Lyman Black Powder Handbook has a 2 3/4" load that uses 100 grains of black powder  and an ounce of shot and my Lee adjustable shot dipper won't throw less than an ounce so it seemed like a good starting point.

I didn't want to experiment on plastic shells with real black powder because I don't like the idea of pouring black powder into anything that can build up static electricity so I substituted Pyrodex "Select" RS on a volume for volume basis.  "100 grains" took up a little more space than I wanted so I dropped to "90." 

I wanted to use some old Winchester Red wads that I had accumulated but they proved to be too long so I ordered some gas seal wads and some special wads for short cases from Ballistic Products.  The wads for short cases turned out to be  a tad longer than the old Winchester wads but the gas seal wads looked promising.  On top of 90 grains of powder and the gas seal wad, the ounce of shot was almost where it needed to be to take an overshot card wad and a roll crimp.  There was just a teeny little bit too much empty case for a roll crimp and I really wanted a roll crimp.

The thing about a roll crimp is that you get to use more of the case for powder and payload than in a case closed with a folded crimp so a  2 1/4" shell with a roll crimp doesn't really give much up to a 2 1/2" one with a fold crimp.  I definitely wanted the roll crimp but what was to be done about the extra space in the case?  I had already ordered stuff from Ballistic Products three times in as many weeks and I wanted to get this project moving this weekend so I just didn't want to order again.   I had a thin sheet of cork but no way to cut it into wads to fill in the space.  That got me  to thinking about the old lathe and making my own wad cutter.

Half inch iron water pipe looked like a promising raw material.  The Lovely Bride Googled the outside diameter and came up with whatever the number was.   I measured the inside diameter of the Active case and it was right at 0.73."   The nominal iron pipe O.D. less the proposed I.D. left enough metal to make a nice cutter.   The lathe had come with two five gallon buckets full of used motor oil sludge within which all kinds of lathey stuff had been steeping for 35 years.  That included a few drill bits to fit the tail stock.  One that looked about right was marked 23/64."  My calculator said that was 0.7185."  Thank you Lord Jesus, Amen!

An early morning trip to Lowes netted an eight inch piece of 1/2" iron gas pipe  (galvanized would have looked cheap) and I chucked that in the lathe, cut the threaded section off one end and drilled  out about 1 1/4" of it with that bit.  It was the first time I had used the tail stock and it went so well that I drilled more than I had planned just because it was fun.  (Didn't take  pictures because I didn't want to stop to get the camera).  Then I set the lathe bit at an angle and cut a bevel on the outside edge of the pipe to make the cutting edge on the wad cutter.

Put the cork on a wood block, put the cutter on the cork, tap it with a mallet and that cutter cuts the most perfect little cork wad you can imagine.  They fit the case perfectly too.  Two such wads tamped down in the case before the shot goes in and it's set up just right for an over shot card wad and a roll crimp.

By now you may have guessed that one of the tools I bought from Ballistic Products was a roll crimper.   Its a little device that goes in your drill press.



You spin it and press it to the top of the shell.  Friction heats up the plastic and the tool forces the hot plastic to curl over and hold the card wad in place.  It worked the first time I tried it.  The only thing that didn't go as planned was that I didn't realize how tightly I'd have to hold the shell to keep it from turning with the tool.  I ended up using some coarse sandpaper for extra grip  and that scratched the outside of the case.

This is no high volume, automated loading system.  Its a take your time one at a time proposition.  I think that's appropriate.  The old Greener was hand made too.  Even the screws are regulated.  I never had a gun with regulated screws before.  I will show it the care and respect it deserves.

Before the weekend is out I plan to make half a dozen or so test shells.  I will try them out in an H & R Topper first and, if all goes as expected, might have a go at some squirrels with the Greener later this week.

And no, nobody paid me to write any of this.  Nobody even asked me to.  Sheesh.