Compact oilers

One of the aggravations in shooting is trying to keep a bottle of oil in the range bag. Even my little bottle of Hoppe's Elite tends to fall over, leak a bit, etc.

Solution: M1 carbine oilers.

Six bucks at Amazon.

They'll fit nicely into the stock of several of my ARs, right next to a spare firing pin.

You (and yours) are on your own

Peter over at BRM linked to a several-year-old post of his regarding a neighborhood watch group pulled together after Hurricane Gustav.

We've distributed our telephone numbers to all nearby, and asked them to call us if there's any indication of trouble. We also patrol our area at night, taking it in shifts, keeping an eye on houses whose occupants have evacuated, or who are on duty with law enforcement, medical services, fire brigades and other essential services. Of course, we've informed our local cops about our activities, and they're very happy about it. It means they can deploy their limited resources to areas where they're most needed, and leave us to handle things here.

Read the whole thing, and ponder it a bit.

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 there were just shy of 800,000 police officers in the United States, or about one for every four hundred people. Without getting into operational or sensitive stuff, the ratio isn't that high in most locales, and that's counting in the admin staff who have a badge and gun, investigators that haven't worked a beat in years, etc.

Now, keep in mind that cops aren't supermen. They'll work some long hours (and make some serious OT) as needed, but in major-crisis times the standard procedure is 12-on-12-off and no weekends. So at any given time only half the officers in your area might be working - or maybe the admin will nudge around scheduling a bit to deal with peak crime hours, and two thirds will be on duty.

Where are they going to patrol? Where the crimes are happening. Initially it will be based on historical patterns, and then adjusting as new trends emerge. Even when they're patrolling the hot spots, crime will happen in other places.

It takes time to get from A to B, especially in a disaster. Roads may be blocked, narrowed, or washed out. Calls for service are stacked up. Just because crimes of opportunity have skyrocketed doesn't mean the "regular" workload goes away. People will still be having domestic incidents, drinking and driving, making noise complaints, and all the other daily stuff that happens.

I work in a county of *mumble* square miles. At any given time there are *mutter* officers on-duty. I have been on the phone with knock-down drag-out physical domestics for ten, fifteen, or even twenty minutes waiting for an officer to get there.

Change the call nature... your neighbor has evacuated for a storm, and a carload of opportunists has decided to redistribute his wealth.

"Hey, we called the cops, and they're on the way!"
-or-
"Excuse me. I've never seen you around here before. How about you set that TV down so we can chat about it while we wait for an officer to get here?" (Said with a smile and an 870.)

That particular image is from a Guardian article after Katrina.

I live on a small road. Five houses. I'm on a first-name basis with ALL of my neighbors. We're not real close, but we know what everyone drives. I know what lights are normally on when.

And ... every single house on the road owns guns. Right after we bought the house, MrsZ heard shooting from across the street. Instead of calling the police, she grabbed her ears and wandered over to see what they were using - and ended up staying for dinner.

Community isn't just a notion.

QOTD: American Mercenary

"One thing that I've learned to loathe in my career is a petty bureaucrat who has the power to totally fuck with mission accomplishment and delights in doing so."

(From his post, "Fobbits")

A-friggin-men. Not just in the military (which I have not directly experienced), but in ANY endeavor. There will always be SOME person who thinks his only job is to prevent others from doing theirs.

Pale Horse: Range Report

The forecast yesterday was tolerable for outdoor shooting - upper 30s and minimal wind. I flew out of work as Mr. Slate yanked the bird's tail, blasted through Phallus Sporting Goods for a .30 brush, and straight home to let the dog out.

While she did her thing I grabbed the Pale Horse, magazines, ammo, solvent, oil, rods, jags, and the like.

I zoomed down to the range - thankfully unoccupied, so there was no delay in setting targets - and dropped a target out at 50 yards.

I boresighted the scope to the rifle the old fashioned way, oiled the bolt and trigger pins, put one round in a magazine, and chambered it.

Lined up, pulled the trigger, and heard a disturbing "click".

I'll redact most of the cursing and gnashing of teeth here; suffice it to say the bolt was NOT keen on going into battery, and was now stuck. A bit of "yank the handle and butt-stroke the bench" popped the round out, I re-oiled things, and did get the round to fire.

 Four inches low and three right. I'll take that for the first shot from a virgin barrel that's only been boresighted.

Wally is a fan of Armalite's break-in procedure (pdf warning), so that's what I did. One shot, soaked patch, brushed, dry patch. Repeat nine times.

There were more than a few rounds that did NOT want to chamber. I'm not blaming anything beyond a new rifle that needs to be worked in. Extra oil on the bolt lugs, bolt body, etc, seemed to help although being a bit messy.

After the first ten shots, a group of four got shot. These are York Arm's loads that Wally very graciously rolled for me. Again, fifty yards from a front rest:

According to OnTarget, that's a 1.08MOA group. Not too shabby at all.

I re-cleaned, moved the target out to 100yd, and tried five rounds of the VMax loads from York. I was aiming at the top left target, and they all went high off the page. I cleaned again, and loaded up five rounds of my precious Barnes Vor-TX blacktips:

Not quite as pretty - OnTarget says 2.25MOA - but I'll own that one. I was running out of light and the temperature was dropping; I rushed my shots and didn't make 'em count.

I still need to figure out the ballistics for these loads and probably bring my zero a bit lower. Two inches high at 50yd is coming in five inches high at 100, which is not optimal. I'm thinking dialing it down to about 1.5" low at 50 will be about right; that'll be 1.5" high at 100 and I can check out to 250 at my range...

I should mention that the last two magazines of five fed with zero trouble as the bolt and barrel marry up, confirming my earlier opinion that the issues I had were brand-new-rifle issues.

More crap I want to sell

As the packing/decluttering process continues, I'm finding a lot of stuff I want or need to get rid of. It's all good stuff, just ... stuff. The latest list:

- pinned/nonadjustable carbine stock kit. Buffer, spring, tube, plate, nut - the works. $50 shipped. Pic here.
- BSA 2x20 pistol scope. NIB, never mounted. $50 shipped.
- CRKT MUK knife. Four of 'em. $10/ea +s/h or $40 shipped for all four.
- CRKT Point Guard small/serrated. $25+.
- CRKT Point Guard large/straight. $30+.
- CRKT Lake Bandera straight. $25+.
- Kershaw Drone straight. $20+.

Pics of all the knives are here.


Junk and bullion silver are very welcome.

country life chapter $NUMBER

I got woken up in the middle of the night by the songdogs somewhere down the valley.

It's not uncommon to hear them out here, and the moon was big and bright last night so I'm sure they were out hunting... but they don't usually wake me up in the winter, with the closed windows and such. Must've been very close.

There's something about those yips and howls that really makes the hair on my neck stand up, too.



Dixie perked right up while I dug around trying to find this...

Sigh...

The PH sits in the safe, taunting me. I have to break in the barrel. (Wally specifically told me to use Armalite's (spit) break-in procedure. I believe him.)

It is disgustingly cold outside, not to mention windy and damp. Not conducive to something as time-consuming as break-in, or as precision-oriented as zeroing.

I WANT TO SHOOT MY GUN, DAMMIT.

WTS: Complete AR lower

Yep. A complete lower. Finishing other things in the safe, filling holes, etc.

Anvil Arms AA-15 lower, Gadsden Flag laser-etched on the right side magwell, A2 grip, A2 stock, DPMS parts kit. Trigger breaks clean but a little heavy, haven't done anything to adjust it.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4
Picture 5

I'm looking for $600.00 shipped FFL-FFL. I will consider partial trades, in particular:
- Larue Bipod + mount
- a 4-12x scope of known quality
- a Mosin 91/30 in decent condition AND a can or two or light ball (I have a C&R for a few more weeks). (Just found that my C&R expired three weeks ago. Nix that option!)
- a quantity of lightweight .308 bullets (110-125gr)

Any of those plus cash will get my attention.

Comment or email; comments are moderated and won't be published.

The Pale Horse Rides....

I asked Jay to put this up as Friday Gun Porn. Let's face it, he gets about eleventy-bazillion more hits than I do, and I'm a touch proud of this one.

So... there it is.

Range report when I actually get to the range...

On the radio this morning...

DJ skimming through news headlines, and had this to say:
"Missouri Democrats have proposed a bill requiring all residents to surrender assault weapons and high capacity clips within ninety days... Only one problem with this: they haven't figured out who is going to go get them."

*blink*

I did NOT expect to hear that on a local radio station around here.

The Pale Horse...

Just a teaser shot for now. The upper arrived today, the stock was pinned the other night, and assembly was completed this afternoon.

There will be more in a few days.

Olympic Goes Barrett/Larue...

... we'll have to come up with a new word for it.

From the Olympic Arms facebook page:

Press Release: Olympic Arms, Inc. Announces New York State Sales Policy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
 Olympic Arms is a staunch believer in and defender of the Constitution of the United States, and with special attention paid to the Bill of Rights that succinctly enumerates the security of our Divinely given Rights. One of those Rights is that to Keep and Bear Arms.

Legislation recently passed in the State of New York outlaws the AR15 and many other firearms, and will make it illegal for the good and free citizens of New York to own a large selection of legal and safe firearms and magazines. We feel as though the passage of this legislation exceeds the authority granted to the government of New York by its citizens, and violates the Constitution of the United States, ignoring such SCOTUS rulings as District of Columbia v. Heller - 554, U.S. 570 of 2008, McDonald v. Chicago - 561 U.S. 3025 of 2010, and specifically the case of United States v. Miller – 307 U.S. 174 of 1939.

Due the passing of this legislation, Olympic Arms would like to announce that the State of New York, any Law Enforcement Departments, Law Enforcement Officers, First Responders within the State of New York, or any New York State government entity or employee of such an entity - will no longer be served as customers. 

In short, Olympic Arms will no longer be doing business with the State of New York or any governmental entity or employee of such governmental entity within the State of New York - henceforth and until such legislation is repealed, and an apology made to the good people of the State of New York and the American people. 

If the leaders of the State of New York are willing to limit the right of the free and law abiding citizens of New York to arm themselves as they see fit under the Rights enumerate to all citizens of the United State through the Second Amendment, we feel as though the legislators and government entities within the State of New York should have to abide by the same restrictions. 

This action has caused a division of the people into classes: Those the government deems valuable enough to protect with modern firearms, and those whose lives have been deemed as having less value, and whom the government has decided do not deserve the right to protect themselves with the same firearms. Olympic Arms will not support such behavior or policy against any citizen of this great nation. 

Olympic Arms invites all firearms manufacturers, distributors and firearms dealers to join us in this action to refuse to do business with the State of New York. We must stand together, or we shall surely fall divided.
Sincerely,

Brian Schuetz
 President
 Olympic Arms, Inc.

 (Emphasis mine.)

I am well aware that Oly is generally considered a lower-level AR manufacturer. I'm willing to bet there aren't a lot of .gov purchasers of their products in NY. Most agencies are using Bushmaster, DPMS, or Colt. But that doesn't matter; this is another pebble in the avalanche - and it's another company I'll try to buy from in the future.

I bought a shirt from Barrett a few years ago; I'll be buying a bipod and mount from Larue soon, and now I need to see what Oly has that tickles me...

ETA: Nothing on their site indicates a web store. I asked on facebook, and they said this a few minutes later:
"T-shirts can be ordered by calling the toll free number - 800-228-3471."

Hardcore gun porn

Holland & Holland matched pair

Full-coverage engraving, gold filigree, exhibition-grade wood, with original fitted case ... and in near-mint condition.

Priceless, on so many levels.

Little dusty...

I asked you fellers if you would be on the lookout for my Dad's M1 Garand, Serial Number 1380819. In that post, Clifford and Tester19 made a post and asked if I had checked with The CMP and had them do a search for it.
I did, and they had it.
They had my Dad's Springfield Armory M1 Garand and I purchased it through the CMP Rifle Sales Program.
[...]
I have never know Dad to see an M1, where he didn't look at the Serial Number, just HOPING for that day.

Full story here.

(ETA: Trying to avoid some confusion; this is not *my* father; the above is a quote from the forum where the story came from. Click through for the whole story - and the guy's original qual sheets!)

That's it?

When I left work last night, it was just starting to snow. Over the umpty-odd-mile drive home, it went from flurry to "fat heavy flakes". By dinner time we had four inches... and it had tapered off significantly.

Now there's a solid eight or ten inches out there, and the forecast for today is north winds at 20 gusting 30+.

The snowfall isn't going to be the issue with this one, at least for us.

Pale Horse: Update

After months of not much going on (and I don't blame Wally for that; he's limited by time and supply as much as anyone), I got the lower in my hands about a week ago. The parts kit was promptly installed.

I jumped on a stock that I found on a classified; it still needs to be pinned before installation but I have it in hand.

I finagled some trades for a scope and a set of rings; the scope is here and the rings are on the way.

I've got three boxes of factory ammo and a line on some more 300BLK brass - speaking of, I may have some extra if someone wants to buy a few hundred. Don't have it in hand yet but it's converted and cleaned once-fired 5.56, reportedly mostly LC headstamps, washed, tumbled, sized/trimmed, deprimed, and swaged pockets.

The handguard has been sitting on top of my safe for quite some time.

And last night, around dinnertime, Wally sent me a picture of the assembled upper - with threats to my sanity if it was released. So it won't be posted here.

 It should ship in the next day or two, weather permitting.

By this time next week, I should have some gun porn for you.