No Es De Vaquero

Pero esta cerca.

If my niece learned anything in her high school Spanish class that should mean its not a Vaquero but its close.

Ruger Blackhawk in 45 Colt.  Super Blackhawk hammer for the lower spur, Belt Mountain base pin, Bowen sights and a trigger job that's slicker than buzzard snot.   I'll have to get a belt and a holster and maybe some ebony grips but I am muy pleased with this trade.

.22 CCM Part One

A good friend of mine is a realtor.  I don't hold it against him.  He just cant help it.  Its his nature to buy and sell and haggle.  He's good at it and has a lot of fun doing it.

He has so much fun that he sometimes haggles and makes deals on my behalf and then lets me know about them later.  A case in point led to this post.

A mutual friend had a Cooper rifle in .22 Cooper Centerfire Magnum and had decided to sell it.  My realtor buddy told him that if anybody else in town would want the thing, it had to be me.   I looked at it and it was a beautiful little rifle.  The wood is so perfectly checkered and the lines so crisp you first think the stock is plastic.  It has three forward locking lugs and two extractors on the bolt.  Its little but it is really built.

The Cooper was a neat little gun but far to pricy for my budget.  I told my buddy that I really liked it but couldn't afford to spend the money.  Being the kind of guy that he is, he said he'd hold it as long as I wanted.  No handshake or down payment were necessary.  It was on hold come hell or high water until I told him different.

Fast forward two or three years (years!) and I have some disposable income.  The rifle was still there and my friend needed to pay property taxes and buy tags for three vehicles so I decided it was time to redeem the little gun and take it home.

Now I'm the proud owner of a fancy little rifle in .22 CCM, a few hundred empty cases, two sets of dies and I have no idea what to do with it.  You see, the .22 CCM  is sort of a center fire, reloadable 22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire.  The picture below shows a 22 WMR on the left and a 22 CCM on the right.  The CCM case is a tad longer.  Sort of like comparing a  458 Win Mag. to a 458 Lott. 

In reality, its performance puts it between the 22 WMR and the 22 Hornet.   Like the .50 Beowulf, it seems to be the answer to a question that hardly anyone has asked.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing.  In fact,  I kind of like it but what's it gonna be good for?

The .22 CCM will fire a 37 grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of about 2300 fps.  That will do  in anything from a marauding squirrel to a coyote so its not useless.  Ought to be hell on turkey necks too.  We do have coyotes in the neighborhood and the squirrels have gotten right brazen this year.

From the price I paid for it, I infer that the .22 CCM will kill squirrels five to ten times deader than a Marlin in .22 WMR kills them.  I suppose that extra horsepower might be comforting when charged by a Leprous armadillo as well.


The little Cooper came with Leupold bases but no scope rings so I made a trip to Gander Mountain for those.  I have a 1950's vintage Savage 99 that was wearing a late model Leupold scope and it just never looked right.  I already had an old Weaver scope for the Savage and now seemed like the perfect time to put it on and put the Leupold on something more appropriate.

The Leupold came off the Savage and the Weaver took its place.  Now the Savage looks like a rifle its age should look and the Weaver is bright and clear so it should do well in the woods.  The Leupold went on the Cooper.  I bore sighted it by sighting down the bore at the eagle emblem on the back of a 65 Chrysler Imperial and then adjusted the scope to match where the bore was pointed.

Having not loaded any ammo yet but still inspired, I scrounged up a Bushnell scope and a set of high rings and put that all on a Ruger M77 in 22 LR that also came to me through the realtor buddy.  The Ruger looked like hell when I got it but the bore cleaned up nice. I bore sighted it the same way as I had the Cooper.

So I have Tuesday off, the weather is supposed to be clear and I have three rifles that need to be sighted in.

Hence the title.

Facebook Censorship

Read the story at http://www.naturalnews.com/038484_Gandhi_quote_Facebook_censorship.html


Found at Sipsey Street Irregulars

Doomed

Just got done with High Plains Drifter and now Eldorado is on.

I can hear a Vaquero or maybe an Uberti whispering my name already.

The Firefighter Shooter

 What you probably won't hear on the news about the firefighter shooter

* The perp was convicted of killing his grandmother in 1980.
* he beat her to death with a hammer - something like 30 blows to the head.
* he pled to manslaughter and did 18 years. Released in 1998 and spent only 6 years on parole.
* He lived with his mother and had threatened to kill his sister when his mother died.
* the mother died 2 months ago.
*The sister (who according to coworkers carried concealed all the time out of fear of her brother) is missing, assumed dead in the fire.

Regardless of these facts, It will all be about the guns (press is already saying he used an AR)

God help the victims, including all of us.


From a post at the 24hourcampfire

Oops

Somebody had to post it!

Different Kinds of Christians

A while back I bought a couple of books that made me stop and rethink some of the stuff I've known for years.  One was Stonewalll Jackson the Black Man's Friend and the other was Patton, Blood, Guts and Prayer.

I hadn't really read much about Jackson's concern with the slaves' salvation and I was interested to read how Mr. Kean would reconcile Patton's having an affair with his own niece and his being a particularly devout believer.

In Jackson's case, most of what I had previously read went along the lines him being so fearless in battle because he believed in predestination and therefore believed that his time was appointed and God wouldn't let him be killed until that time so he didn't need to worry about it.  Mr. Williams' book covers a sideline story about how and why Jackson started and supported a Sunday School for the slaves even though such an undertaking was illegal at the time.    Williams casts doubt on whether Jackson ever really made peace with the whole predestination thing and that, in itself, sheds something of a new light on Jackson as a man of valor. 

The tale told of Jackson's Sunday School class shows his deep and sincere concern for the spiritual welfare of his black brethran.  One incident is particularly revealing.  Shortly after the First Battle of Manassas, there arrived in Springfield Va. a letter from Jackson.  The town turned out to hear the great man's words thinking the letter must be his account of the battle which he was so instrumental in winning.  The letter spoke nothing of the battle.  It simply asked about how the negro Sunday School was doing in his absence and included his tithe.  Sometimes lot can be learned about someone from what they don't say.

All in all, it opened a new dimension in my feeble little understanding of the great man and that was certainly worth the book's price.

The Patton book proved worthwhile as well.  I once had a Military History Professor who had held onto an intense dislike for Patton for over forty years.  My Professor had been to one of Patton's little speeches  and was disgusted by the language.  He told our class that there was simply no excuse for someone to talk that way.   When I did my term paper on Patton,  I pointed out that several sources confirmed that he wasn't raised with that kind of language but had adopted it intentionally because he had to turn nice, American farm boys into cold blooded Kraut killers, I got an A and a comment on the paper thanking me for pointing that out as it was something the Professor had not considered all those years.  Keane makes no excuses for Patton's language but does explain that it was something the man started doing intentionally to motivate his troops.  I expected that much but really thought I had a trump card in that there was no way to say the man was a great Christian when he had an affair with his own niece and it may have gone on for years.

Keane makes no excuses for the affair.  He simply tells us what Mrs. Patton told her daughter about it and leaves it at that.   It seems enough.

The famous prayer for clear weather gets good attention and the various stories about the prayer's origins are covered and weighed in detail.   According to the Pastors involved, Patton told them that prayer was a powerful force and that all of his men praying would bring an immense supernatural power to bear on the weather and the enemy. 

The book goes into much more detail about the prayer and about Patton's religion in general than I care to write about.  I don't intend to write a book review here.  I just want to explain what it left me thinking.

What it left me thinking was that Patton was not so unlike so many of the great, heroic men in the Bible.   David took another man's wife and then essentially had him murdered to cover up what he had done.  Abraham was so afraid when a king noticed his wife was smokin' hot that he told the king that she was his sister so the king wouldn't kill him to take her and he let the king take her away to marry her.   What a spineless worm! (And boy did that piss the king off when he found out about it).

So Patton was flawed but no more than the rest of us.  He was flawed but still  knew that the work he had to do, his success or failure, came from God and he was willing to turn to God and seek His provision for the troubles that were ahead.

A little bit deeper dimension on Patton as well.

Hampton's Red Shirts

Ok.  The deal with the book I posted about the other day is this:

Its about how honest, decent people in South Carolina rose up and threw out the corrupt, carpet bagger reconstruction government in the 1870s.

The Democrat Party was split and their ranks were divided on how to proceed but they had the sense to unite when Wade Hampton was nominated for Governor.

They faced rigged elections and politicians who bought votes and paid off their friends out of State funds.  They faced rabble rousers who instilled fear in the black population by telling them that if Hampton were elected they'd be put back into slavery.  They faced hostile press up North and even some at home.  They faced the threat of Federal Troops sent to keep them in line.  They faced threats of riots and murder.

They came up with a plan and they turned out in large numbers to work their plan. 

They succeeded.

CamoSpace Social Network

A couple of years back I stumbled across a social networking site called CamoSpace.  I was not the least bit interested in Facebook but I noticed that a few people that lived in areas where my family is from were on CS so I gave it some thought.  Eventually, with nagging  encouragement from The Lovely Bride, I decided to sign up.

First thing I did was conjure up a screen name.  Lantry wouldn't do because the number of people who recognize where that comes from is way too small.  No.  This had to be something that would give people a general idea of my age and that I have a sense of humor.  I came up with one that I thought would make people have to think for a second to get the pun that it made.  TLB thought it was great.   Once that was done, I started the signing up process.

Its simple.  You fill out a form and you are in.  Some blanks are mandatory but others aren't.    So I'm on CS and decide to start building my page and I put up pictures taken from my tree stand, pictures of a foggy lake taken at sunrise and stuff like that.  I thought it looked pretty nice until I noticed that it had a field called "Star Sign" on my profile page.  Your birth date is one of the mandatory fields and the site sticks your Zodiac sign on your page.

Well, crap.  I don't do Zodiac stuff.   Since I don't do Zodiac stuff, I didn't want something on my profile that suggested that I did.  I sent a message to whoever runs CS asking if there was a way to remove it.  They were polite enough but told me there wasn't.   I ruminated over it for a few days and I finally decided to take all my stuff down and not fool with the place.

While I was doing that, I noticed that I had several friend requests.  Some were predictable like places that advertized on CS but others were from people I didn't know and had no earthly idea why they thought they'd want to know me.   I never answered any of them.  I mean, why answer any of them when I'm shutting down my page and leaving?  It wasn't until about a month ago that I found out why those people may have wanted to friend me.

You see, when I dreamed up my screen name, I was thinking of old cartoons like Quickdraw McGraw, Wally Gator and Augie Doggie but  I couldn't think of one based on them.  Yogi Bear seemed promising but a pretty bland screen name. I mean, would people think I steal pick-a-nick baskets?  So I took the Yogi theme a step further and made my screen name a pun on Yogi.

Yogi Bear is "smarter than the average bear" so "The Average Bear" became my screen name.  Everyone was supposed to know how clever I was  because I made them think of Yogi Bear without mentioning his name.  Everybody would know how modest and unassuming I was because Yogi Bear was smarter than me and I admitted it.  It would have been great except for that star sign problem.

About a month ago, I was telling a co-worker about how CS still sends me emails now and then even though I haven't fooled with it for two or three years.  I told him about why I left and that I might go back if they ever let me take that "star sign" crap off my profile. I even told him about the unsolicited friend requests and then I told him about how clever my screen name was.

The laughing eventually subsided and he managed to catch his breath long enough to tell me that a "Bear" is now slang for a heavy-set, hairy homosexual. 

OK.  So I'm not up on the latest slang used by homosexuals.   It kind of worries me that my co-worker is but that's a whole-nuther discussion that he needs to have with somebody besides me.  The question in my mind now is whether that was why I got those friend requests? 

I still think CamoSpace is probably a good site but I don't reckon I'll go back even if they do make the Zodiac stuff optional.

Encouragement

Much to be found here.

Its available through the Confederate Reprint Company 


Forgot to add the obvious:  Nobody paid me to suggest you buy the book.

This One's for Buckshot

Found at:  Ninety Miles

You Decide

Reading what I can stand to read in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook killings leaves me pondering whether "Progressivism" is a mental problem or is just pure evil.

The school Principal charged the gunman in a futile attempt to stop his horrible plan.  A teacher hid her kids.  When the killer demanded to know where they were, she lied.  Told him they were someplace else.  He killed her but her kids survived.  Heroes, both of them.

Would the Principal have used a gun to stop the killer?  It sounds like she would have used anything she could.  Would the teacher have preferred to have answered the killer's demand with a hail of lead?  I can't imagine that she wouldn't.  No matter whether they were liberal or conservative,  pro gun or anti.  I think that in those few, horrible seconds, looking at evil incarnate, with so much hanging in the balance, they would have taken up arms had they not been prohibited from doing so.


Hint:

 (Sign stolen from Free North Carolina )

Yet, the "Progressives" focus now is how much gun control do we need because of what that diseased psychopath did last week.  Its most definitely not on what can we possibly do to keep it from happening again.  They don't even want to talk about what would be effective.  All they see is an opportunity to pass new laws.

That's why I can't tell if "Progressivism" is a sickness or is just plain evil.  If they wanted to protect the children, they would be open to any suggestion no matter where it came from.  They'd look at the statistics and evaluate the evidence.  They'd look at what works.  Only, they won't do that.

They don't care how many kids die in the future.  Think about that.  If they cared, they would be looking for solutions.  They don't care.  What they care about is new laws that will not protect the kids.   New laws that will still leave them defenseless the next time someone runs amok.  They would rather facilitate future killing by saying guns are the problem and by leaving the schools defenseless as long as they can get gun control laws passed.  Are they sick or evil?  You Decide.

Europe & USA Have the Same Rate of Mass Killings

From Front Page Magazine

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/europe-has-same-rate-of-multiple-victim-shootings-as-the-united-states/


Of course,  facts, reason or anything that would actually stop the killings will have no bearing on the legislation that's in  the pipeline. 

I Want One

"Cuzzin" Massad Nails It

Excellent piece at Massad Ayoob's blog.

AGAINST MONSTERS

Like so many things that end up posted here, I found it linked at one of the great blogs that I ferquent:

Robert's Gun Shop


Uhh.  Why ain't you clicked on it yet?

Coonties

This one sure is early this year.  Friggin Mayans got everything screwed up.

Sandy Hook

My heart goes out to the dead and the survivors.  From our little homestead our prayers are with you.

They call this a tragedy.  No.  Its an atrocity.

Already the internet is filling up with lamentations over America's "Gun Culture."   This wasn't part of any Gun Culture.  This  was a twisted, pathetic loser.  I don't know any gun people like that.

The world is full of evil.  It always has been.  Why do we allow our elected representatives to deny people the right to protect themselves from it? 

Zeke!

The Best Dog

The best dog I ever had died 4 years ago today.

Some day I will write about him.

Not today.  He deserves better than I can do today.

 

 O.J.  12/07/1997 - 12/11/2008.  With his sister, Nicole, 12/07/1997-09/11/2011, a damned good dog in her own right:

Rest in Peace ol' Buddies.  I hope that story about the bridge is true.

Lots of Good Stuff Here

Whether you just have a casual interest in history or are a serious student, there's a lot of stuff here that you just won't find at your local college bookstore.

http://confederatereprint.com/index.php


H/T to Free North Carolina


What the heck are you doing here.  Go.  Click on it for heaven's sake.

Pest Control

Along about lunch time this afternoon, The Lovely Bride announces that there's a bee on the ceiling in the living room.  I looked at it and it weren't no bee.  It was some kind of wasp or hornet.  Striped like a yellow jacket but considerably bigger.  It looked like it was chewing on the ceiling so I didn't want to wait for it to leave of its own volition.

I balled up a big wool boot sock and proceeded to miss it about a dozen times before a memory gave me the solution.

A few decades back, the Lovely Bride and I had rented an old farmhouse that turned out to be  infested with wolf spiders.  Now that I have checked on line they looked more like Huntsman Spiders but we call them wolf spiders around here so I'll stick with that.  Whatever they are, they are generally harmless but TLB has a psychotic fear of spiders and it just didn't make for a happy home to have herds of spiders as big as your hand roaming the house at night.

Wolf (Huntsman?) spiders are generally too fast to hit with spray and they are quick enough that they are hard to hit with a magazine or to stomp with a shoe so I came up with an effective solution in the reloading room.

The Lovely Bride had a revolver in .32 H&R Magnum and I primed a few cases, put a pinch of AA#2 in each (I measured the charges, I just don't remember the data) and then filled the cases with uncooked grits.  Topped them off with  over shot wads cut from notebook paper secured with nail polish and had nice little shot shells to use indoors.

One of the fun things about those spiders is that their eyes shine when you hit them with a spotlight.  I'd walk around the house at night with a flashlight until I saw a pair of beady little eyes looking at me and then I'd blast it to kingdom come with the .32 shotshells.  The grits didn't penetrate the drywall but would blow a spider to bits at close range.  When you swept up the spider bits you also cleaned up the grits. 

Not wanting to hit the bee/wasp/hornet with a broom and have it come after me in the house, I charged a .357 Mag. case with a pinch of WW231 and topped it off with cornmeal.  Didn't need an overshot wad because I would be pointing the gun at the ceiling.  I took aim, asked the obligatory question ("Do you feel lucky?") and let him have it.

That's where expansion ratios intervened.  You can make a .32 work well enough but when you move up to a larger bore, the powder just isn't fast enough to burn well because the grits or corn meal don't weigh much.  There was a soft little "pop" and it didn't blow the beast to smithereens.  All it did was make it fly to the nearest window where TLB beat it to a pulp with a shoe.

All things considered, it was a successful hunt.  We wanted the thing off the ceiling and we didn't want to get stung in the process.  We accomplished both without damaging the ceiling or anything else besides the bug.  Then we ate our hamburgers and went back to our normal lives.

Makes as Much Sense as Anything Else

Mauser Therapy II

Spent most of the day at the office trying to get caught up on  work.  I'll go for weeks wondering where everybody went and then I'll get a month's worth of work dumped on me in the course of just a couple of days.   Got home, caught up on my email other mindless tasks and thought it might be a good time to pick up where I left off on the Mauser Project.

The headspace was close but still needed just a tad more room.  I had already picked up a chamber reamer, headspace gauges and an extension handle that lets you make a small cut without taking the barrel off the action so it was just a matter of getting started.   

With the bolt stripped, it looked like it would work but I couldn't figure out how to get the collar that holds the extractor in place to come off the bolt.  I didn't want to bend the crap out of it so I left it there.  The bolt would go into the action just fine but it wouldn't come out.  Without the extractor on it, the collar expanded just enough to hang up on the way out.   I wound up compressing it with a small set of needle nose vise grips and then wiring it in the compressed position with part of a paperclip. The scary thing is that it actually worked.

I was able to put the reamer into the chamber through the action, give it a few twists, take the reamer out and check the headspace with the stripped bolt and gauges.  It didn't take much before I had it closing on the go gauge and not closing on the no-go.  Then I reassembled the bolt and slid a resized shell casing up under the extractor, closed the bolt and then opened it again.  When I drew the bolt back, the ejector kicked the shell out just like its supposed to.

Next I'll have to open up the feed rails so it won't be a single shot.  That ain't happenin' this weekend