Annoyances

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A lousy week made worse by my long-suffering Galaxy4 deciding to go tango uniform on me. The annoying part, other than the expense, is that I lost a bunch of archived text messages I was saving for sentimental reasons. And some really good porn. And here’s something that really annoyed me – the new phone is X dollars. But they add it to your phone bill over 24 months. I asked how much if I just wanna pay for the stupid thing right now? Then its 1.25X. In other words, if you wanna pay cash right there and buy the phone it is more expensive that letting them break it up over 24 months. Seriously? So I let them do it over 24 months but after six months of payments I can pay the stupid thing off in total at the lower price. Im just lucky they didn’t send the phone cops.

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I ordered this up from an outfit called 0241Tactical. I’d been wanting a smock/anorak type of pullover in ATC-FG for a while and a review said that it seemed like a good piece of kit. Ordered it up on the 22nd of last month and am still patiently waiting.

Also ordered up a pair of simple, plainjane A2 AR stocks for a DMR project gun I’ve been tinkering with. Stag, whom I normally enjoy doing business with, has taken bloody near three weeks just to ship the damn things. Annoying.

All in all, a grumpy week.

On the other hand, our reporter-beating Republican candidate got elected, the weather is freaking gorgeous, and I started a new job this week. So..there’s that.

Still, I’m not ready to turn in my Cranky Old Man membership card just yet.

Still here

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Just wrapped up in a few things…regularly scheduled brain droppings will occur over the weekend.

And, yes, our political race locally got interesting when the Republican candidate roughed up a reporter who let himself into a private meeting, pushed people aside, and confronted the candidate who, given the circumstances, did the reasonable thing.

Yes, I have the inside track. Yes, I know people in the candidates campaign.

Article – Court strikes down rule forcing toy drone users to register with govt

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Five bundles of 10/22 mags left.
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A D.C.-based appeals court struck down a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule on Friday requiring recreational drone users to register their model aircraft with the federal government, in a major win for drone hobbyists.

Any time the .gov is told it can’t force you to register something with them…well…I do my happy dance.

Drones have an amazing potential for misuse. But I am more concerned about government overreach than I am about someone strapping a pound of tovex to a drone and flying into city hall.

I’ve never played with drones, but I think that they also have some amazingly useful potential. Regardless, I’m gratified that .gov was smalcked down in this case.

Subsonic stuff

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Still a few bundles left.
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Well, in typical Montana fashion it dropped 2″ of snow the other day, and then today it was dang near 75 degrees. No point even trying to make sense of it…it’s Montana. Just roll with it.

Off to the range.

20170519_165345So I’ve been keeping track of what the supressed .22 likes and doesnt like. So far the best thing I’ve found has been Remington Subsonics. I’ve tried CCI Quiet, CB Longs, and American Eagle Suppresor…and they are positively anemic. In fact, the CCI Quiet didnt even make it to the backstop. I genuinely believe a steel ball bearing out of a slignshot would  have had a better trajectory.  When the thing finally does make it to the backstop, I measure for five-shot group.

20170519_172357Interestingly, just regular CCI ‘Standard’ velocity stuff does pretty well. But, so far, the nod goes to the Rem SS. I need to grab a few boxes of Eley and other premium .22 ammo and see how it performs. But, thus far, it looks like at some point I’m going to want to lay in a few cases of the Rem.

TV bugout bags

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Every so often I watch “Parks and Recreation” simply because I really like the character of Ron Swanson. Another reason I like him: he has a bugout bag hidden in city hall so he can leave his office in a hurry if he has to.

While I admire the creativity, I’m not a huge fan of that sort of “hiding in plain sight”. But, sometimes there’s just no other way.

After 9/11 there were more than a few people in NYC who realized that once the bridges and tunnels are closed for security reasons you pretty much are on foot if you wanna get off that island. I know people who stashed mountain bikes (especially the folding variety) in the storage closet of their law firm’s office and that sort of thing. And more than a few office drones have a small daypack with comfortable shoes, water, and other necessities.

Anyway, I always enjoy it when certain preparedness standbys make an appearance on shows I enjoy. Case in point:

Movie – The Survivalist

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Mags, mags, mags………
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Someone brought this to my attention in email. Apparently yet another movie with the name “The Survivalist”. It seemes to harken more to a Cormac McCarthy sort of apocalypse rather than a jerry Ahern type. I am always amused by UK end-of-the-world films…mostly because their version of the apocalypse has the double-barreled shotgun as the pinnacle of firepower. American end-of-the-world dramas usually carry a tad more firepower.

These sorts of movies come and go pretty quickly…fortunately, Wikipedia, as it turns out, has a category “List of apocalyptic films“. hows that for convenience? As I was reading the synopsis for many of them I noticed a couple interesting trends – in a large percentage of these sorts of thing, the savvy survivalist type invariably gets killed and the unprepared noob winds up living happily ever after, the women often are rescued at the expense of the men’s lives, and no one *ever* gives credit to the survivalist dude for planning ahead. instead, the survivalist is always portrayed as ‘out there’ or ‘crazy’.

But, if you’re bored some evening this week, and Netflix or Amazon Prime isn’t down because of a ransomware attack, you’ve now got some viewing to look forward to.

Range day

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Nineteen bundles of 10/22 mags left. All the cool kids are doing it.
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Well, a fairly abbreviated range day anyway. There was a competition going on so all the ranges I normally like to use were full up. But, I dumped a couple magazines of ball through the new-to-me P95DC.

20170514_102305Good enough for the girls I go with. I’ll drift the sight a tad to center things a bit, but all in all I can live with that. I was packing for the range and discovered that while I have plenty of end-of-the-world 9mm ammo stashed away, my supply of go-to-the-range 9mm ammo is pretty thin. I need to crank up the RL 1050 and spit out a couple thousand rounds of ammo.

The P96DC shot well with one failure to extract as a result of a decidedly weak reload. Otherwise, it chugged along happily. Good little gun. These things were dirt cheap for Ruger to produce…it’s one of the very, very few polymer pistols that doesn’t use metal inserts for the rails to ride on. This is one of the reasons the manufacturing costs were low. The rest of the parts are Rugers usual castings, which also are cheap to make, and the whole gun only has about three dozen parts.

Has it always been a love story? No…I had a first generation P85 way back that was wildly inaccurate. Couldn’t hit the side of a barn if you were standing in it. But, as I understand it, the early guns had two-piece barrels of questionable quality. Ruger polished the P85 up in a hurry and re-ran it as the P89, which did better but was still a brick with a trigger. The guns were extremely overbuilt for a 9mm. Thats all well and good for end-of-the-world durability, but they felt like the handle on a gas pump.

Further refinement begat the P9x series of guns. And, to me, the P95DC with the textured grip and light rail were the pinacle of the the P series. The P95 was still a ’90’s design with it’s double/single-action, ring hammer, and styling. Glock ran the table and hammered autos went the way of tail fins and leisure suits. But…there’s a key for every lock, and for every gun there is a following. Some folks still like the DA/SA hammered autos. I certainly love me some HiPower, and a buddy of mine is practically a walking shrine to the CZ75. No doubt the Ruger P-series has it’s fan base as well, although it is certainly a quiet group.

One of the things I like about the Glock is that it is a gun that I can get wet, dirty, and drop without feeling the remorse I would feel if a similar event befell my 1911 or HiPower. The Ruger is an even hardier animal. I suspect that it’s ‘Isoplast’ frame is a little less forgiving of impact than Glock’s polymer blend, but I have no problem thinking that it would withstand the kind of trauma that would destroy the person holding it.

Anyway, its always nice to get out to the range and make some noise. This P95DC will get cleaned, lubed up, thrown back in it’s case with a couple loaded mags, and go off to the Deep Sleep.

10/22 mag page

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Here.

If you look at the horizontal menu bar across the screen you’ll see “10/22 Mags” listed there. That’s the page for details on getting yourself the bundle of a dozen Butler Creek 10/22 nags for $110 while I still have some. Twenty bundles left.

Tomorrow promises to be a Rugerific day…Im going to test shoot the ‘new’ P95DC (function test, really), play with some 10/22’s, and possible, maybe, perhaps toy around with the pseudo-DM AR I’ve been cobbling together.