Memory Lane

I usually don't play videos that are linked in blogs and I never play music so I might as well post something that violates both of my traditions at once.

The Colored Recruits


Now that I'm getting an Edison phonograph in just six more days, I got to thinking about some of the records my brothers and I used to play on the old Edison that stood in the storage room on the second floor of my Grandparent's house in North Carolina.  

While looking through the 44 pages of Edison-related stuff on Ebay I actually ran across one of the records.  I told the Lovely Bride that I'd bid on it but there was already one bid and there was a chance that my brother was the bidder.  She didn't think so since he is the one who has the Edison and all the records now but I held off until I could contact him. 

I emailed him about the record being on ebay and he emailed back asking if I was bidding on it.  I told him that I wanted to but didn't want to bid against him if he was the bidder.  He was and by the time we communicated someone else was bidding too.  He bowed out to let me have a clear shot at it and now five of us are bidding.  I'll bet two of the others are my cousins.

Trying to tell the Lovely Bride about how much fun it was for little kids to listen to those old records  was about like trying to give a haircut over the phone.  She just doesn't appreciate it for what it is.  Its totally analog and acoustic and she's thinking its not worth listening to unless its digital.  You wind the thing up with a crank.  Its "Spring-Punk."  The blank stare started to really bore through me so I told her about this one record that was a recording of an old Vaudeville skit called "The Colored Recruits."  Its been about four decades since I last heard it but I could remember a lot of the jokes and parts of the song at the end.  She suggested that I Google it to see if I could find the words to the song.

No way, says I.  There's no way that anybody would have heard of it  and there's even  less way anybody would let them put the words to it out in public.   Being probably 95 years old, there's words used in it that just aren't used anymore.  Words with "gg" in the middle.  The way it portrays the characters is intended to be comical and some of the jokes are funny but, viewed from a modern perspective when everybody is just itching to be offended about something, its a friggin' tincture of poison oak. 

Like everything else in the history of mankind, its there. 

I'm linking to it because it brings back memories of trips to North Carolina to visit my Grandparents for Christmas.  The earthy smell of their basement, helping Grandfather shovel the coal into the furnace, all the wonders concealed in the garage and even snow by Christmas the same year I got a plastic M-14 that shot spring loaded plastic bullets and yes, sitting around the Edison playing their WW1 era "Diamond Disc Records."

By modern standards its offensive to some.  Sorry.  I don't post it to offend.  Everybody's entitled to his own sense of humor.   Take it for what it is.  This was mainstream entertainment in its day.  Its not anymore.  The fact that you can't go into a music store today and find anything remotely like it that makes fun of African Americans proves that we don't have racism in this country like we used to.  Not that we don't still laugh at people that are different from us.  Its just that the only character in our current pop culture that comes readily to mind is Cletus the slack-jawed yokel from The Simpsons.  He's a stereo-typical hillbilly so its perfectly acceptable to ridicule him. 

Now that all the disclaimers are done, go back up and hit the link to the time machine.  Just don't go bidding on any records until after 8:00 AM tomorrow! 

Lathe Repair

Finally got the tailstock on the lathe fixed.  When I got it, the tailstock was rusted together and someone had tried to force it apart with the feed screw.  That ruined most of the threads inside the barrel.  It was easy enough to get apart but the barrel wouldn't go back in.  I had to sand the rust off the barrel and inside the bore and then buy an Edison phonograph to get it back together.  

Actually, I didn't have to buy the Edison to get it all to go back together and work but I ran across the Edison while looking for a motor for my polisher.  I was looking for a motor for the polisher because I was going to polish the tailstock barrel instead of sand it.  When I  plugged in my new polisher, it blew the circuit breaker and the GFCI in the kitchen.

While I was looking on Ebay for a used electric motor for my old polisher, it suggested "Edison Phonograph."  I hadn't thought about my Grandparent's Edison in a long time so I went shopping through 44 pages of stuff on Ebay and I found one that was affordable.  How in the hell Ebay knew I'd be interested in that is beyond me.  Edisons have a crank.  They don't have motors.  Never did find a motor for the polisher.  Can't afford one now that I bought the Edison anyway.

Got all that done today and then used the feed screw to chase whats left of the threads inside the barrel and it works.  It has a few tight spots but it works. 

From what I was told when I bought it, this may be the first time since the late 1960s that the tailstock has worked.

Hard to believe I've written all this about a tailstock without posting a picture  like this

but I did!

Funny

Innovative Technologies Belted Magnum Sizing DIe

Probably fifteen years ago, a good friend who owned a pawn shop gave me one hundred "once fired" 300 Weatherby cases that were in a bunch of stuff that he got when he bought out a competitor.  These were the real deal.  Norma-made and in the boxes with the tiger on them.  I thought I had struck gold.

The very next hunting season, I grabbed twenty of those cases and loaded them up with my favorite deer load.  Of course, I waited until the night before opening day to load them and when I tested them to see if they'd feed from the magazine exactly one of them would chamber.  One.  All the rest would stop just above the belt.  If I tried to force them, there would be a bright ring on the case where it was too fat to fit in the chamber.  Regular sizing dies don't size all the way down to the belt.

I hunted the next day with my one good bullet in the chamber and a different load in the rest of the magazine.  I don't remember whether I got anything but I do remember thinking a lot about how to size those cases down so they'd fit.  I decided that some kind of collet like you'd use in a lathe would work if you could work out how to make it stop squeezing at the right amount of sizing.

I had other brass so I never pursued the matter and a few years later I ran across an add for a sizing die by Innovative Technologies that was made to solve exactly the problem that my brass had.

Its a collet die and the call it their Belted Magnum Sizing Die.   It works.  I stole the photo from their website.   Innovative Technologies   My reloading room is not real photogenic right now.

I weighed the cost of replacing that brass against the cost of the die and figured it was worth buying.  I never did fix the Weatherby brass because an airhead on a cell phone rear-ended me at a traffic light and wrecked several discs in my neck and back.  Can't shoot anything with significant recoil anymore so the die just sat in a closet until last weekend.

While fiddling with the project Mauser, I noticed that one of my "at least once fired" 7mm Rem. Mag.  cases was doing in the Mauser exactly what the "once fired" Weatherby brass had done so I got the die out and decided to learn how to use it.

Its really thought out well.  You remove the lock ring and screw the die into a single stage press from the bottom.  Slip the lock ring over the top and lock it down nice and snug.  The expandable "fingers" of the collet slide down the case and bottom out against the top edge of the belt.  You lube the fingers with Imperial Sizing Die Wax, slip the case into the shell holder and then you use the press to stuff the whole thing into the die.  It takes some force but you are resizing the thick end of the case so that's to be expected.  Withdraw the case as you would any case from a regular sizing die, take the fingers off and you have a case that's as close to good as new as you can get.

How do you know the die really sized it enough to fit your rifle's chamber?  How do you know whether the stuff you just fired even needs this kind of sizing this time around?   That's one of the parts that I think is so well designed.   The top of the die is designed as a Go - No Go gauge.  If your case will slide in the top of the die all the way to the belt, it will fit the rifle.  If it won't, it won't.  Its no big deal to check cases before you load them.

I'm waiting on a box of bullets to load into some cases that my brother in law left with me and I thought I'd do all the case prep today so there would be less to do when they get here.  He had eighteen nickle plated cases and two in plain brass.  All were Winchester brand.  I noticed that the nickle cases were a lot harder to size than the brass ones (I think they were fired in a different rifle) so I got the Belted Magnum Sizing Die out again and checked all the cases in the Go - No Go end.  The plain brass ones were fine but none of the nickle plated ones fit even after I full length sized them in a regular die.  All of them got their bottom ends resized and all of them fit now.

In one operation, the die pretty much took them from this:

To this:

   

Nice.

Well, which one do you want in the tree stand with you on a cold morning?

Anyway, like I said, the die works. It costs almost $90 but at the price of brass these days, if you have more than fifty belted cases that need their bottom ends slimmed down, it makes sense to get one.

They also have a neat looking headspace measuring rig and a magnetic spirit level for making sure you mount your scopes right and they say the magnet is strong enough to leave it on the rifle and use it to keep the rifle level when shooting.   Haven't tried either so I can't say anything more than they look good.  The site is worth a look.

I guess I should add that ain't nobody paid me nuthin' to say none of this.

Happy Holidays from Our Betters

Found at   American National Militia                        

(Thanks to a friend's Facebook  post)

Posted Verbatim:

Obama’s Gun Ban List Is Out

Posted on 11/20/2012

Obama’s Gun Ban List Is Out

Alan Korwin – Author Gun Laws Of America GunLaws.com Here it is, folks, and it is bad news. The framework for legislation is always laid, and the Democrats have the votes to pass anything they want to impose upon us. They really do not believe you need anything more than a brick to defend your home and family. Look at the list and see how many you own. Remember, it is registration, then confiscation. It has happened in the UK, in Australia, in Europe, in China, and what they have found is that for some reason the criminals do not turn in their weapons, but will know that you did.
Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens.
Gun-ban list proposed. Slipping below the radar (or under the short-term memory cap), the Democrats have already leaked a gun-ban list, even under the Bush administration when they knew full well it had no chance of passage (HR 1022, 110th Congress). It serves as a framework for the new list the Brady’s plan to introduce shortly. I have an outline of the Brady’s current plans and targets of opportunity. It’s horrific. They’re going after the courts, regulatory agencies, firearms dealers and statutes in an all out effort to restrict we the people. They’ve made little mention of criminals. Now more than ever, attention to the entire Bill of Rights is critical. Gun bans will impact our freedoms under search and seizure, due process, confiscated property, states’ rights, free speech, right to assemble and more, in addition to the Second Amendment. The Democrats current gun-ban-list proposal (final list will be worse):
Rifles (or copies or duplicates):
M1 Carbine,
Sturm Ruger Mini-14,
AR-15,
Bushmaster XM15,
Armalite M15,
AR-10,
Thompson 1927,
Thompson M1;
AK,
AKM,
AKS,
AK-47,
AK-74,
ARM,
MAK90,
NHM 90,
NHM 91,
SA 85,
SA 93,
VEPR;
Olympic Arms PCR;
AR70,
Calico Liberty ,
Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle or Dragunov SVU, Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, or FNC, Hi-Point20Carbine, HK-91, HK-93, HK-94, HK-PSG-1, Thompson 1927 Commando, Kel-Tec Sub Rifle; Saiga, SAR-8, SAR-4800, SKS with detachable magazine, SLG 95, SLR 95 or 96, Steyr AU, Tavor, Uzi, Galil and Uzi Sporter, Galil Sporter, or Galil Sniper Rifle ( Galatz ).
Pistols (or copies or duplicates):
Calico M-110,
MAC-10,
MAC-11, or MPA3,
Olympic Arms OA,
TEC-9,
TEC-DC9,
TEC-22 Scorpion, or AB-10,
Uzi.
Shotguns (or copies or duplicates):
Armscor 30 BG,
SPAS 12 or LAW 12,
Striker 12,
Streetsweeper. Catch-all category (for anything missed or new designs):
A semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and has:
(i) a folding or telescoping stock,
(ii) a threaded barrel,
(iii) a pistol grip (which includes ANYTHING that can serve as a grip, see below),
(iv) a forward grip; or a barrel shroud.
Any semiautomatic rifle with a fixed magazine that can accept more than
10 rounds (except tubular magazine .22 rim fire rifles).
A semiautomatic pistol that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine, and has:
(i) a second pistol grip,
(ii) a threaded barrel,
(iii) a barrel shroud or
(iv) can accept a detachable magazine outside of the pistol grip, and
(v) a semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.
A semiautomatic shotgun with:
(i) a folding or telescoping stock,
(ii) a pistol grip (see definition below),
(iii) the ability to accept a detachable magazine or a fixed magazine capacity of more than 5 rounds, and
(iv) a shotgun with a revolving cylinder.
Frames or receivers for the above are included, along with conversion kits.
Attorney General gets carte blanche to ban guns at will: Under the proposal, the U.S. Attorney General can add any “semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General.”
Note that Obama’s pick for this office, Eric Holder, wrote a brief in the Heller case supporting the position that you have no right to have a working firearm in your own home. In making this determination, the bill says, “there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.” In plain English this means that ANY firearm ever obtained by federal officers or the military is not suitable for the public.
The last part is particularly clever, stating that a firearm doesn’t have a sporting purpose just because it can be used for sporting purpose — is that devious or what? And of course, “sporting purpose” is a rights infringement with no constitutional or historical support whatsoever, invented by domestic enemies of the right to keep and bear arms to further their cause of disarming the innocent.
Respectfully submitted, Alan Korwin, Author Gun Laws of America http://www.gunlaws.com/gloa.htm
Forward or send to every gun owner you know…
Watch This, If You Want More Proof:
YouTube – CNN- Obama To BAN Guns SPREAD THIS FOLKS, PLZ!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv3p2lLmjGk
A partial list of gun rights groups:
Gun Owners of America
http://gunowners.org/
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership http://www.jpfo.org/
FREEDOM=GUNS
http://www.tcsn.net/doncicci/freedom.htm
National Rifle Association
http://www.nra.org/
Second Amendment Committee
http://www.libertygunrights.com/
Second Amendment Foundation
http://www.saf.org/
Second Amendment Sisters
http://www.2asisters.org/
Women Against Gun Control
http://www.wagc.com/

Happy Thanksgiving

This brings back memories

Gettin' Closer

The six contradictions of socialism in the USA

From The Peoples Cube


The six contradictions of socialism in the United States of America

• America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
• Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
• They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
• Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
• The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
• They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

Macular Degeneration

My Mother is almost eighty-three years old and, for the past five years or so has been fighting a delaying action against macular degeneration.    The other day at lunch, she showed me a little card that she carries in her wallet.  It has all kinds of grids and lines on it and she's supposed to look at it every day and call her doctor if the lines look like they are moving.  I remarked that I had just watched an episode of I Dream Of Jeannie where Barbara Eden was wearing a sweater with black and white stripes and they looked like they were moving.  She diagnosed me with macular degeneration right there in the restaurant.

I had an eye-doctor appointment in a few days anyway so I promised that I'd have the Doc. check for macular degeneration along with whatever else he checks.

So the appointment was today and after he had checked my vision and shined the bright light into my eyes I remembered to ask him.  He remarked that I had just turned fifty-two and wanted to know why I thought I might have it.  I told him that I didn't think I had it but my Mother did and I had promised her that I'd ask him to check for it.  So he wanted to know why she thought I had it and I explained about the card in her wallet and the lines on Barbara Eden's sweater.

He looked at the macula, said they looked  fine and then he projected a bunch of little grids and spider webby-looking designs on the wall and asked if any were moving or if any had dark spots or areas that were missing lines.   I told him no and that all of the designs looked fine.

He turned the lights back on and said that my macula were fine and that if I ever saw Barbara Eden in a striped  sweater and the lines weren't moving, that's when I need to call him.

 Its nice to have a doctor with common sense.

End of the World

From my brother's Facebook page.  He works for a power company

Old Fashioned Thanksgiving

Seriously.   That picture has to be 50 or 60 years old.

Mauser Therapy

Been reading some good books lately and have a post about two of them smoldering in the back of my head.  Have not had the time or focus to address that post so here's how the weekend went.

Met one of my brother's in law at 5:15 Saturday Morning for an airboat ride  out to a hunting place on one of the islands in the lake.  He's a latter day "Daniel Boone" type that lives to hunt and generally knows where the deer are going to be walking.  He lives on the shore of a lake about 20 minutes from where I live and he hunts the islands in the lake.  Its a big, marshy lake with lots of islands and the deer walk across the lake from island to island.  Its that shallow in lots of places.

He dropped me off at a climbing stand and I settled in with my Thermacell and bug tamer suit just about the time the pre-dawn chill set in.  Just before sunup, I started hearing gunfire.  I say "started hearing" because it went on all morning all around me.  Not only was it the first day of "doe week, " but there was also some kind of special hog hunt on the adjacent management area so the woods were crawling with dogs.  Everybody in three counties was around the lake or on the islands.   Naturally, I saw nothing.  Not so much as a squirrel.

Brother-in-law saw more.  Someone wearing an orange hunting vest was walking around the woods making noise.  We suspect it was some kind of local Bambiista out there to keep the deer from showing themselves to hunters.  He also saw two guys who sat down about sixty yards in front of his stand and proceeded to shoot a doe that would have been his had they not been there.  Both of us were surrounded by shooting on all sides.

When we got back to the house and started putting two and two together, we began to suspect that people who had seen his stands decided to set up nearby because his are in good spots.  Why spend time scouting and learning the woods  when you can just set up close to a stand put up by somebody else that has done the work for you?  We may have identified a whole new species of woodland parasite.  Don't know whether this is related to the recent election or not.

Got home and decided to work on a project that has been sitting around for a while.  Another  friend had been given an old Mauser that had been bubbad really bad and he gave it to me.  The stock was broken and had been glued back together by someone who had never heard the words "epoxy" or "surgical tubing."  It was glued with plain old white glue and didn't look like it was clamped in any way.  Someone had decided to taper the steps out of the military barrel too.  It looked like they used a file instead of one of those big old lathe machine things.  Then, I guess to prove that they were not completely without a soul, they decided to mount a scout scope on the barrel rather than drill the receiver.  "Set punch" is another couple of words they evidently never heard because they drilled lots of holes trying to get whatever their was rig lined up.  So it had a bunch of little holes right over the chamber and a bunch more a few inches down the barrel.  Maybe it will make a good jack handle for the Jeep.

The action itself was in good shape.  Its a Peruvian action made in Belgium by that Fabrique place that everybody thinks so much of.

I had bought a take off barrel in 7mm Remington Magnum not too long after my buddy gave me the wrecked Mauser and its blueing was a close match to that of the action.    A few weeks ago I stumbled across a stripped bolt that had been opened up for a magnum case so I bought that too.  I've never fooled with opening up a bolt face before so it seemed like a good idea.  I have no rifle chambered for the 7mm Rem Mag but I have dies and brass and it began to dawn on me that I had the makings of a decent hunting rifle.

With that pile of parts and nothing pressing to do the rest of the day, I opened up the original extractor and put it on the new bolt.  I lapped the locking lugs and the cocking piece, cleaned it up and screwed the barrel on hand tight.  Using an "at least once-fired" and resized case just for fun I decided to see if the headspace was close.  Its maybe a couple of thousandths too tight.   I mean it is so close I can force the bolt closed.  Not bad luck for using a barrel, bolt and receiver that came off of three different rifles.  I still want to true the receiver up but I have the mandrel for that.   I'll have to get a reamer to get the last little bit of the chamber right but the less I have to ream, the less chance I'll have to screw something up.  Once that's done I'll still have to open the feed rails up but there's no hurry for that.  I have next to no idea what I am doing and will be taking it slow.  Its not like I need this rifle for hunting.  I just want to learn how to do all this.  So far I have less than $200 in the project and I don't want to learn by making mistakes that will ruin the receiver.

It kept my mind off work and the parasites in the woods and whole rifles take up less space than piles of parts so it was good all around.

Is it Really Just A Week Away?

I swear that could be my Grandmother in that picture.  I mean the one on the left.

Basic Training

Buy Ammo

I rarely buy ammo already assembled but National Ammo Day is November 19 so I plan on doing so.

http://www.ammoday.com/

I Thought They Gave it Away

Here I thought the Lame Stream Media reported only State-Approved "News" out of ideological purity.   Now it seems they are prostitutes in every sense of the word.

This is the link for the "Read more..." :

http://mariomurilloministries.wordpress.com/

Can't Remember Her Name

She's a Saluki.     She might be one of the most visually impressive dogs I've ever met.   Tall and lean like a Greyhound but with long hair on her ears and tail.  Imagine a small deer with a long tail and floppy ears and you won't be too far off.  Impeccably mannered and friendly to a fault, the most impressive thing about her was her gait.  When she was running, she ran like a deer.  The video below is my lame attempt to capture it for posterity.  In the video she is done running and is just trotting around enjoying her time out of the pen.  My camera was too slow to catch her when she was really stretching her legs.  I would not have made a good turret gunner on a B 17.  I gave up on getting a still picture until she settled down.

 And finally, a couple after she's had some water and a chance to cool down.

It was something kind of semi elegant like Sophia or something like that.