37SBS: Initial Review, range report

Headed out to the SekritRange this weekend with an AR I just finished building, the 15-22SBR, the 37SBS, and a couple new plate targets.

The AR? Ran like a top. It's hands-down the softest-shooting AR I've used. 21.5" barrel, heavy components, and a good muzzle brake (Nordic Components Corvette) combined to make a wonderful gun. Light recoil, decent trigger (Velocity 3lb single-stage), just a pleasant gun. I didn't get it REALLY dialed in, but we were dinging the 8" steel plates at 100-some yards with boring regularity.

The SBR ran as beautifully as always, and at 25 yards it was easy to just ding the plates back and forth as fast as the sight lined up.

The plates are 8" AR500 that I ordered from Gong Target Systems via Amazon... and they were great. One tiny ding where a 5.56 round winged the edge in the heat-affected zone, otherwise they are still perfectly smooth after 100 rounds of 5.56, a hundred or so .22s, and a box of .380 ball. (Six inch version here.)

And finally, the Ithaca 37 SBS.

I pulled it out of the case, grabbed a round of 12ga birdshot, and started to load it. Tried to. The shell inserted into the mag tube about 80% and then stopped moving. Using a finger I confirmed the mag follower was moving freely, so I tried a different shell. Same problem.

I finagled a shell past the loading fingers and chambered it, pulled the trigger, and it went bang as expected. I pulled the fore-end back, and ... nothing. Shell was stuck tight. I worked the slide a few times with no luck, then tried removing the barrel and prying out the shell ... still no luck. I set the shotgun aside for the afternoon and went back to the AR.

When I got home I stuck a rod down the barrel and popped the shell right out; when I have a free couple hours I'll tear down the action again and make sure everything is put together right, as well as carefully oiling everything up.

To those who recommended a strap for the handguard - I stopped at the local Tandy Leather and picked up some 1-1/4" latigo strap and the hardware to attach it. Now I just need to grit my teeth and start cutting on the mint fore-end on that 37 ... OR find a donor piece to cut on.

The Stamp Collection grows...

Four months from submission to approval.

It started as an Ithaca 37, 1956 vintage. I picked it up for a very fair price with plenty of character.

It promptly went off to Wally at York Arms, where the barrel was shortened to 12.5" (originally planned for 14.5, but some technical issues required another couples inches to go away), all the metal was refinished with black oxide, NFA engraving was done, and a XS BigDot tritium bead was put on.

It came home today.

I'm still planning to sand down the wood and give it an oil and satin-poly finish, and I'm debating fabricating a strap for the pump. But that can wait. This weekend, I'm taking it to the range for testing.

Spiked Watermelon Sorbet

One medium watermelon, puréed and strained (food mill works great), about 8c.  of juice

Zest of one lime

Juice of one lime

Small handful mint leaves

One cup sugar

One cup water

2/3 cup citrus vodka

Simple sugar from the water and sugar plus mint and lime zest. Strain and cool.

Lime juice and vodka into melon juice. 

Add syrup to taste (about 1/2c is probably plenty) and chill 2-3 hours. 

Into the ice cream maker, let it freeze, and then portion into smaller cups and into the freezer to firm up completely. 

Makes about eight generous portions. 

Parts mash-up

As anyone who has put together more than one or two ARs knows, there is usually an assortment of cast-off parts floating around. I've got a couple cardboard boxes labeled "AR PARTS". I'm finally starting to piece together a few things and finish out another rifle.

I had a 24" bull-barrel upper that I didn't like. The barrel went off to Wally for shortening and re-profiling, the handguard found a new home, and the receiver sat in a box.

I whistled up a gas block and a gas tube, and found the block is just a hair too small - tolerance stacking defeats me! A brake hone from the parts store should fix that in short order, though.

I trolled classifieds and found a handguard I like, and still need to find a muzzle device and scope. As this is likely to be a long-ish distance AR (I'm hoping to use it on p'dogs this fall), I'm probably going to put a Bushnell 10x on top, and leaning towards a JP Recoil Eliminator brake.

When that's done ... I'm going to have fewer spare parts floating around. I think there's still a 10" .223 barrel in a box, and some miscellaneous other small parts. I'm sure I can turn it into something down the road...

Banging on silver again...

Life has been life, lots to keep me busy away from the keyboard lately.

Silver tanked over the last several months, spending the last week or so well under $15/oz spot price, and it was possible to find generic pieces in the $16/oz range. I don't know if it'll go lower. Hell, two years ago I'd have bet it wasn't going under $20. I keep buying a little bit where and when I can. Most of my recent purchases have been "junk" US coins, mostly in the form of half-dollars. For some reason 90% quarters just don't interest me. Dimes and halves, please.

As to spot price, though...
One of the sites I read had a comment about "and then it goes to $1000/oz next month!"

This would be a Very Bad Thing. Spot moves around every day. A few percentage points up or down is a normal day. Ten percent is a big day. For silver to go to $1000/oz would be about a 6000% increase. Six thousand percent. For that to happen, the US Dollar would have to be massively devalued, otherwise known as hyperinflation.

The stories of wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread, always from falling countries behind the Iron Curtain or third-world dictatorships? Yep. That's what we'd be talking about.

I picked up a Zimbabwean ten-trillion-dollar bill a while back for about US$3. In June of this year, they decided to end that currency, basically a hard-reset of the Zimbabwe currency system. The exchange rate?

Z$35,000,000,000,000,000 to Z'$1.

Thirty-five quadrilliion to one. My Z$10T note is worth about a thirthieth of a new Zimbabwe cent (10/35000ths of a dollar).

Fiat currency ... quite literally, not worth the paper it's printed on.