Saturday, March 28, 2009

Hot Saturday Night!

This is all I have planned.

Happy Saturday, all.

We are inventorying the Team supplies. This means that Mrs. Tmj will finally see the ammo count.

Shucks. Forget the ammo. Ammo is something you can run out of. The Mosin number is what is going to take some 'splainin, I am thinking.

Women just don't understand the finer points of armory markings, stock variations, and proof stamps.

(via Instapundit)

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Wowsers

Shooting day, finally! Yes, friends, it is possible to get off work early enough on a Saturday to actually make it to the range. Plan A was for my chain man to join me but we were just too late for him to make the range and get in his bike ride. He's doing a triathlon later this spring and is in training mode.

A few weeks back I mentioned that I had once again added an item to the wall o' Mosin down in the reloading room. I got to shoot that one today.

Just damn.

There is a definite issue with the extractor. It doesn't like to engage over the rim of the cartridge unless you slap the bolt with authority. Being that we are talking a Mosin here, "slap" is or should already be understood to be SOP, but the sad truth is is that I face planted right through the door way of our connex box plan/ break office this morning. The first part of my anatomy to kiss the linoleum was my right hand, which hyper extended backwards as the rest of my body tried to push it through the floor. I got through the rest of the work day with my right hand shoved in my vest and my motivated assistant performing the bulk of the tasks.

So I arrived at Lee Kay and signed in. Check in with the RO and get the last open bench on the line. There are about fifty positions. Full house and then some, today. The timing works out so that I can get my first target out and begin shooting immediately. I post at fifty yards, walk back with the rest of the crowd, and then begin shooting left handed off the bench. Even shooting weak side, I admire the solid, if heavier than preferred by most Westerners, trigger pull. The bolt operates well except for the tendency for the extractor to resist engaging the rim unless I shout "URRRAHH STALINO!!" as I slam the damned thing home with my wounded hand... and my three different flavors of stripper clips function well, too. So I merrily bang away fifteen well aimed rounds and put things aside to cool while I wait for the break to go forward and check targets. My spotting scope was still in the truck and since my glasses prescription is frankly more good intentions, now, than therapeutic I had no idea where things were down on the paper. Old age is creeping up on me at a dead run.

Dad/daughter was shooting on my left, dad/son on my right. I love seeing preteens hitting their targets with an AR. It's just... right. Son on right peeked down range with his binos and asked where I was aiming. I told him six o'clock on the bullseye and he said "You missed, here, look".

Fifteen rounds (Soviet ammo head stamped 1947, light ball, steel case) shot out of a Tula 1944 production 91/30, at fifty yards, shot weak side because of a sprained wrist, from a bench sitting position, not off a bag.

They all landed inside a three inch circle including four rounds in the X ring (NRA small bore 100 yard target).

I fired a satisfying string from the right side, in agony, and then went ahead and tried another of my 91/30's. That was a wasted effort since by then my thumb and wrist were ballooned too tight in my glove to continue shooting. So I came home.

The '44 Tula is going to get a reproduction PU scope - right after the blue job and the stock bedding and refinishing project. I will finally buy a cheap and simple digital camera to document the process, and will post the results here.

Hope your Saturday is going well. I'm off to clean some shooting irons.

(Okay, not all in a three inch circle:



... but that will do for me! The first five shots are the "L" shaped group at five o'clock. Breathing with a wee bit of flinch, I think.)

Monday, March 02, 2009

The Archduke and a Horse Shoe Nail

There are going to be several wars, beginning this spring. Wars which probably would never have happened if America did not shirk the responsibility incumbent upon the most free nation on the planet.

We have not elected a president. We hired a baby sitter. He's got lot of ground rules that maybe, just maybe, all those folks looking for hope, change, and two for one hot wings on game day might should have paid a little more attention to...

Iran and Russia have no common interest in American interest beyond how far we'll retract from interfering in their goals - namely, reestablishment of Imperial Russia and Iran supplanting the Saudis as the leaders of the ummah.

It takes a lot of concentration to nationalize an economy. I can see Putin and Amadinejad going out of their way for eighteen months or even two or three years to say nice and play nice for Obama.

Not that that will do Georgia any good this spring, or stop Hamas from expanding their missile offensive into Israel, using Iranian weapons. Georgia and Lebanon again, only this time the Bear won't even pretend to leave. And Israel gets to choose whether it is better to fight and die on their terms, or to wait on the end of Obama's leash and wait for the blow to fall.

I'm done following politics or news for awhile. Work, sleep, chores.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Oops.

Small. Rifle. Primers.

Cabela's, Gunnies, Sportsman's. Nada. None to be had here, except for some Remington match primers, and only two boxes of a hundred each of those. I need ... more than that.

They are the only reloading component I don't have in spades. If I can't find Winchester or at least CCI primers in Salt Lake next week I will buy a couple more cases of ammo for my lone EBR. I had never planned on reloading for my Bushmaster but after finding a few each commercial and home brew loads that do work spectacularly well with it I've decided to pick up a single shot or bolt in 5.56 and hope that the same accuracy may be realized across the two different platforms.

Or I may just end up buying a Century Arms AR A2 rebuild. They have three on the shelf here and my research into them shows that purists hate them and hobbyists are perfectly satisfied. I don't need a rifle length AR. I just want a rifle length .223 (yes, yes, I'd LIKE a NATO chambered boltie but I don't think those fall off the tree too often....

It could go either way.

Other than that, just a lazy weekend. No garages were cleaned - but Mrs. Tmj is out and about in her Miata for the first time since Christmas, topless.

Top down. DOWN.

Have a fine one.