Tom Daschle has apparently either had an attack of conscience, or faced up to reality, or BO finally clued into the controversy and told him to do it. Whatever the reason, he has removed his name from Nomination to the post of Secretary of Health & Human Services. Obammy will have to find someone else to spearhead his efforts to ruin the best healthcare system in the world.
Good. Keep it up all you Loud People.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Range Report 02/01/2009
The shooting session at MV's property fell through. He was supposed to be part of a gang of fellows from his work helping one new guy move. Lots of guys, lots of trucks, 1, maybe 2 trips. MV was the only one who showed. I told him I hope the new guy never has to move any bodies. MV is the kind of People, he got the joke.
Anyway, the shooting session on Saturday fell apart. Sunday I was antsy to a degree rarely experienced since I left the high-stress semiconductor manufacturing industry and I felt like blowing off some steam. Saturday night I sent a few score BB's across the yard, but it only took the edge off. Sunday on the way home from church, my Darling Wife agreed to let me go out to the range after we got home. I got the children acceptably fed and tucked in or medicated as required and said I'd try to be back in less than an hour. Absolute max. was 1.5 hours before we had to get ready to go back to church.
At the very least, in this session I wanted to verify the function and check scope alignment on my two newest rifles, and verify proper function of the 1911 I borrowed from a co-worker. I had previously stripped and cleaned the 1911. The rifles have been sitting probably for several years without any cleaning to speak of by the previous owner. He seems to be of the "clean the bore and the action will be alright" school of rifle cleaning. I grew up when the M4 was the U.S. service rifle, so my idea of adequately is "you could eat off the action if you don't mind the taste of oil". Oh well, I gave a hunner't bucks for each rifle so even if there are some minor functional problems, the price is still right.
I was going, as I said, to verify function, not to enjoy myself. To truly get all my shooties out, I like to spend at least a couple of hours at the range, preferably with another Grey Man. At least I got to go out, and some is a fair piece better than no shooting, any day.
The man behind the counter recommended I go with a rifle range first because they are fewer and fill up faster at their shop. I did. First up was the Marlin Model 60 with a Redfield 4x scope. The rifle I got from a friend who is now dying of a defective heart. The scope is the only tangible thing, and one of the two things of any value Crazy New Daddy ever gave me. Maybe some other time I'll say what he gave me that you can't see. Anyhow, I loaded the Marlin with two rounds to check for doubling. I ran the target out to 25 yards, set the scope adjustments to zero, and let loose. It fired and did not double. So far so good. The second trigger pull got me bupkis.
I cycled the bolt, and an empty case came flying out covered in nasty dirty gun oil. The second round loaded and pulled the same act. The first spent casings wouldn't eject, and when the bolt was cycled they came out filthy dirty. After a few shots, it started ejecting about 2/3rds of the casings, but it wouldn't cycle the bolt far enough back to load the next round. I chalked the performance up to being run very dirty. I noticed that a few of the casings had crushed mouths, but I won't know what to think of that until I shoot it again now that it's been cleaned. The scope was off, but not by much, and I got it close enough for recreational use. The air conditioning in this range is so strong that it makes the targets move a couple of inches side-to-side, but I could tell that it was close, so I killed a couple of paper people and enjoyed the near-total lack of recoil from the puny little .22LR round. It was truly almost like shooting my pellet rifle the other day. Fun, even as a bolt-action. Besides, I got some high quality malfunction drills in 
.
Next up was the Enfield M1917 that my source had "sporterized" by installing a Monte Carlo style stock, a Lyman All American 4x scope, cutting off the rear sight and its wings, cutting off most of the front sight, reblueing the action, and cutting off the end of the firing pin. This thing, being a bolt action, was visibly filthy. I had to jam the bolt home with considerable force with every round. I can't see how anyone could hunt with this thing, but I guess if it's just one shot at a time it would be useable. I just wanted to see how the scope was lined up. It was much more obvious with this rifle that the target, even at 25 yards, was just not stable. I put one round 2" right and the next 2" left without any scope adjustments. I ran the target out to 100 yards (love the moving target system, hate the low-mass swinging paper target feature) and put a few more down range. It was minute-of-Goblin accurate from offhand, which is the whole idea. The Lyman scope has an interesting reticule. A fine cross-hair with a coarse needle from the bottom, tapering to a point just above the cross-hair. It's a bit like a German, but the cross-hair is fine and the upright is tapered along its length. Very fast target acquisition. I decided to shoot a few more magazines full just so I could have the spent brass.*
I collected my brass and target and put the rifles away, and switched to a pistol range. The 1911 was clean and 100% rattles-when-shaken G.I., so of course it ran perfectly with 230 grain ball ammunition. It also slung the brass hard enough to dent about 40% of the case mouths on the wall next to my shooting station. An unfamiliar gun, an unfamiliar round, and a drifting side-to-side target got me a head-sized grouping from two full magazines at 7 yards. Good enough. I just wanted to be sure it worked. It did. Time's up, and I'm off back to the house.
****
Post-mortem examinations of the cases, conducted after church that night:
The .45 was really flinging them hard. Dented mouths all over the place. Solid hits on all the primers and nasty scraped rims from the extraction. This extractor works good for one time use of brass, not so much for reloading. Oh well, it's not my pistol. I'd give it a trigger job and tune the extractor at least, but that's up to the owner to do or not as he pleases (I think, he doesn't care). This pistol is so worn it's almost in the white anyhow, so I guess the dinged-up brass just adds character. Or something.
The Enfield was also hard on the cases. They all show a nasty triple-score that tells me something is either sticking out from or stuck in the action, or the cartridges are not feeding quite as straight-in as they should be. The rims all got chewed as well. The extractor can be dealt with and that's not too hard. The burr or whatever, makes me think this is also not a weapon to shoot for reloadable brass (yet). I'll have to get that taken care of, pronto. Good, hard primer hits in every case.
The Marlin was hard on the mouths of a few rounds and I wish I knew why. The first few cases were nasty dirty but it started to clean up the more I shot it and baked off the oil.
****
Clean-up:
The 1911 gave me no difficulty, and cleaning was as expected. Light GSR where you would think to find it, none where you wouldn't. The final assembly went well until I got to the last step, which gave me fits as you can read here.
The Enfield was nasty. The bolt was grey when I started and black & white when I finished cleaning it. The rags looked like I had cleaned up the garage floor with them, and that was just the action. This guy cleaned his barrels but not his actions. He had cut off the end of the firing pin which means I couldn't use a nickel behind the cocking piece to disassemble the bolt. Using screwdrivers to pry, I got the bolt apart after all, and it was full of GSR and cosmoline (!) when I got in there. Oh, and I pinched myself a new blood blister putting the bolt back together, thanks for asking. I've bled on this rifle now, so that means it's officially mine. The reciever was filthy too and also changed colors during cleaning. The locking grooves had not only chunks of powder, but also little chunks of metal in them. Maybe that explains why the bolt was so stiff to close and lock eh? It's smooth and fast now though, and I'm really looking forward to shooting this piece next time.
The Marlin had sand-sized chunks of powder stuck on and in the greasy action. Almost like it had never been cleaned since 4 years after I was born, when it was manufactured. The barrel, again , was spotless.
****
Lessons:
*Shooting is fun
*Col. Cooper was right. Percieved recoil is mostly mental. Playing football will give you a harder hit than shooting a .30-06 as long as you hold it properly to your shoulder.
*Of course, when I was just shooting to empty the brass, I got sloppy and put the corner of the butt to my shoulder. Once. Ow.
*Don't try to sight in a rifle at that shooting range
*At my work station, I have various decorations held up by push pins. The push pins have spent shell casings on them. It looks like my flair is held up with cartridges jammed into the wall, and I like it. I wanted some .30-06 brass up there, so I fired it off.
Anyway, the shooting session on Saturday fell apart. Sunday I was antsy to a degree rarely experienced since I left the high-stress semiconductor manufacturing industry and I felt like blowing off some steam. Saturday night I sent a few score BB's across the yard, but it only took the edge off. Sunday on the way home from church, my Darling Wife agreed to let me go out to the range after we got home. I got the children acceptably fed and tucked in or medicated as required and said I'd try to be back in less than an hour. Absolute max. was 1.5 hours before we had to get ready to go back to church.
At the very least, in this session I wanted to verify the function and check scope alignment on my two newest rifles, and verify proper function of the 1911 I borrowed from a co-worker. I had previously stripped and cleaned the 1911. The rifles have been sitting probably for several years without any cleaning to speak of by the previous owner. He seems to be of the "clean the bore and the action will be alright" school of rifle cleaning. I grew up when the M4 was the U.S. service rifle, so my idea of adequately is "you could eat off the action if you don't mind the taste of oil". Oh well, I gave a hunner't bucks for each rifle so even if there are some minor functional problems, the price is still right.
I was going, as I said, to verify function, not to enjoy myself. To truly get all my shooties out, I like to spend at least a couple of hours at the range, preferably with another Grey Man. At least I got to go out, and some is a fair piece better than no shooting, any day.
The man behind the counter recommended I go with a rifle range first because they are fewer and fill up faster at their shop. I did. First up was the Marlin Model 60 with a Redfield 4x scope. The rifle I got from a friend who is now dying of a defective heart. The scope is the only tangible thing, and one of the two things of any value Crazy New Daddy ever gave me. Maybe some other time I'll say what he gave me that you can't see. Anyhow, I loaded the Marlin with two rounds to check for doubling. I ran the target out to 25 yards, set the scope adjustments to zero, and let loose. It fired and did not double. So far so good. The second trigger pull got me bupkis.
I cycled the bolt, and an empty case came flying out covered in nasty dirty gun oil. The second round loaded and pulled the same act. The first spent casings wouldn't eject, and when the bolt was cycled they came out filthy dirty. After a few shots, it started ejecting about 2/3rds of the casings, but it wouldn't cycle the bolt far enough back to load the next round. I chalked the performance up to being run very dirty. I noticed that a few of the casings had crushed mouths, but I won't know what to think of that until I shoot it again now that it's been cleaned. The scope was off, but not by much, and I got it close enough for recreational use. The air conditioning in this range is so strong that it makes the targets move a couple of inches side-to-side, but I could tell that it was close, so I killed a couple of paper people and enjoyed the near-total lack of recoil from the puny little .22LR round. It was truly almost like shooting my pellet rifle the other day. Fun, even as a bolt-action. Besides, I got some high quality malfunction drills in .Next up was the Enfield M1917 that my source had "sporterized" by installing a Monte Carlo style stock, a Lyman All American 4x scope, cutting off the rear sight and its wings, cutting off most of the front sight, reblueing the action, and cutting off the end of the firing pin. This thing, being a bolt action, was visibly filthy. I had to jam the bolt home with considerable force with every round. I can't see how anyone could hunt with this thing, but I guess if it's just one shot at a time it would be useable. I just wanted to see how the scope was lined up. It was much more obvious with this rifle that the target, even at 25 yards, was just not stable. I put one round 2" right and the next 2" left without any scope adjustments. I ran the target out to 100 yards (love the moving target system, hate the low-mass swinging paper target feature) and put a few more down range. It was minute-of-Goblin accurate from offhand, which is the whole idea. The Lyman scope has an interesting reticule. A fine cross-hair with a coarse needle from the bottom, tapering to a point just above the cross-hair. It's a bit like a German, but the cross-hair is fine and the upright is tapered along its length. Very fast target acquisition. I decided to shoot a few more magazines full just so I could have the spent brass.*
I collected my brass and target and put the rifles away, and switched to a pistol range. The 1911 was clean and 100% rattles-when-shaken G.I., so of course it ran perfectly with 230 grain ball ammunition. It also slung the brass hard enough to dent about 40% of the case mouths on the wall next to my shooting station. An unfamiliar gun, an unfamiliar round, and a drifting side-to-side target got me a head-sized grouping from two full magazines at 7 yards. Good enough. I just wanted to be sure it worked. It did. Time's up, and I'm off back to the house.
****
Post-mortem examinations of the cases, conducted after church that night:
The .45 was really flinging them hard. Dented mouths all over the place. Solid hits on all the primers and nasty scraped rims from the extraction. This extractor works good for one time use of brass, not so much for reloading. Oh well, it's not my pistol. I'd give it a trigger job and tune the extractor at least, but that's up to the owner to do or not as he pleases (I think, he doesn't care). This pistol is so worn it's almost in the white anyhow, so I guess the dinged-up brass just adds character. Or something.
The Enfield was also hard on the cases. They all show a nasty triple-score that tells me something is either sticking out from or stuck in the action, or the cartridges are not feeding quite as straight-in as they should be. The rims all got chewed as well. The extractor can be dealt with and that's not too hard. The burr or whatever, makes me think this is also not a weapon to shoot for reloadable brass (yet). I'll have to get that taken care of, pronto. Good, hard primer hits in every case.
The Marlin was hard on the mouths of a few rounds and I wish I knew why. The first few cases were nasty dirty but it started to clean up the more I shot it and baked off the oil.
****
Clean-up:
The 1911 gave me no difficulty, and cleaning was as expected. Light GSR where you would think to find it, none where you wouldn't. The final assembly went well until I got to the last step, which gave me fits as you can read here.
The Enfield was nasty. The bolt was grey when I started and black & white when I finished cleaning it. The rags looked like I had cleaned up the garage floor with them, and that was just the action. This guy cleaned his barrels but not his actions. He had cut off the end of the firing pin which means I couldn't use a nickel behind the cocking piece to disassemble the bolt. Using screwdrivers to pry, I got the bolt apart after all, and it was full of GSR and cosmoline (!) when I got in there. Oh, and I pinched myself a new blood blister putting the bolt back together, thanks for asking. I've bled on this rifle now, so that means it's officially mine. The reciever was filthy too and also changed colors during cleaning. The locking grooves had not only chunks of powder, but also little chunks of metal in them. Maybe that explains why the bolt was so stiff to close and lock eh? It's smooth and fast now though, and I'm really looking forward to shooting this piece next time.
The Marlin had sand-sized chunks of powder stuck on and in the greasy action. Almost like it had never been cleaned since 4 years after I was born, when it was manufactured. The barrel, again , was spotless.
****
Lessons:
*Shooting is fun
*Col. Cooper was right. Percieved recoil is mostly mental. Playing football will give you a harder hit than shooting a .30-06 as long as you hold it properly to your shoulder.
*Of course, when I was just shooting to empty the brass, I got sloppy and put the corner of the butt to my shoulder. Once. Ow.
*Don't try to sight in a rifle at that shooting range
*At my work station, I have various decorations held up by push pins. The push pins have spent shell casings on them. It looks like my flair is held up with cartridges jammed into the wall, and I like it. I wanted some .30-06 brass up there, so I fired it off.
Love Your .223 But Hate Your Varmint Hunting Rifle's Ergonomics?
The Firearm Blog mentioned a logical extension of a concept which I am, in retrospect, surprised not to have seen before. A bolt-action AR. You have a straight-pull bolt gun with the ergonomics you know and love. High capacity magazines, adjustable butt stock, all sorts of rails, and about a jillion aftermarket accessories available?
WIN!
Nevermind that it's still a poodle-shooter. You can get anything from .22LR to .50BMG AR upper receiver conversions, and this concept should would work with any of them. Sure it's a technological step backwards, or a least sideways, but it fills a niche that I'm pretty sure a lot of hunters out there didn't even know they wanted to fill. Great success.
WIN!
Nevermind that it's still a poodle-shooter. You can get anything from .22LR to .50BMG AR upper receiver conversions, and this concept should would work with any of them. Sure it's a technological step backwards, or a least sideways, but it fills a niche that I'm pretty sure a lot of hunters out there didn't even know they wanted to fill. Great success.
Schustenfest: It's ON!
There will be more details to follow, but it looks like I have a location for the Schustenfest and now I can start getting the rest of it arranged! WOOHOO!
My Son Is Back!
#3 has been teething for what seems like a LONG time. He maintained his cheerful disposition still (he has never been a screaming mad baby) but he was grumpy a lot of the time and whined more than he used to do. The amount of drugs we gave him was sufficient to keep him from crying constantly but the dosing tables are pretty conservative. My guess is, the front of his face was a dull throb when he was medicated and seriously hurting when he was not.
Yesterday the fourth front tooth finally broke through and the swelling started to go down. His mouth probably went from straight painful to a dull ache, if that, and he was able to eat as much as he wanted. He ate about what he normally would in at least two meals over the last few weeks. Then he ate some more. Then he had a full tummy, for the first time in a long time.
You would have thought he was on happy pills last night. The amount of smiling and playing he did was several days' worth, all in a couple of hours. That is the way he was most of the time, before he started teething.
It's good to have him back.
He is obviously going to push another 20+ teeth soon, but none of them is at the very front of his mouth. The nerves for your jaws, as I understand it, are four. One for each side, upper and lower. That's why a sore tooth makes the whole jaw hurt. A sore upper tooth makes the side of your face hurt. An emerging tooth at the top/front of the mouth causes inflammation on both sides of the jaw, meaning probably both sides of the jaw are quite painful, and they make the entire face hurt as well. You won't want to eat because it hurts, so you will always be hungry. When the pain from an empty stomach overwhelms the pain from a sore face, you eat. Lather, rinse, repeat, until your teeth finally pop out. When the rest of the teeth come in, they won't all make both sides of the face hurt. It is to be hoped, that means the boy will have a less-painful time of it. We'll see.
Yesterday the fourth front tooth finally broke through and the swelling started to go down. His mouth probably went from straight painful to a dull ache, if that, and he was able to eat as much as he wanted. He ate about what he normally would in at least two meals over the last few weeks. Then he ate some more. Then he had a full tummy, for the first time in a long time.
You would have thought he was on happy pills last night. The amount of smiling and playing he did was several days' worth, all in a couple of hours. That is the way he was most of the time, before he started teething.
It's good to have him back.
He is obviously going to push another 20+ teeth soon, but none of them is at the very front of his mouth. The nerves for your jaws, as I understand it, are four. One for each side, upper and lower. That's why a sore tooth makes the whole jaw hurt. A sore upper tooth makes the side of your face hurt. An emerging tooth at the top/front of the mouth causes inflammation on both sides of the jaw, meaning probably both sides of the jaw are quite painful, and they make the entire face hurt as well. You won't want to eat because it hurts, so you will always be hungry. When the pain from an empty stomach overwhelms the pain from a sore face, you eat. Lather, rinse, repeat, until your teeth finally pop out. When the rest of the teeth come in, they won't all make both sides of the face hurt. It is to be hoped, that means the boy will have a less-painful time of it. We'll see.
Monday, February 2, 2009
My First Impressions of the 1911 Platform
One of my co-workers lent me an M1911 A1 pistol to take shooting. He caught a whiff of a general desire on my part to get a .45 and, although he doesn't want to part with this one, he did offer an exchange: I can shoot a box of his ammunition through his gun if I give it a cleaning. Deal!
Background: I have never had anything to do with a 1911 before. Never so much as handled one outside a gun show. Never shot, disassembled, or cleaned one. Ever.
A couple of nights ago I found a series of disassembly and reassembly videos on youtube and #2 was keeping me company while I gave it a detail strip and cleaning. He hung out until my Darling Wife got home at well-past-bedtime o'clock and he had to miss the reassembly, but he'll probably see it the next time I have the weapon apart for cleaning (we're supposed to go shooting next weekend). After he went to bed, I ran a few presentation drills for comparison with my Glock Model 22 and considered the two weapons in relationship to each other. Here are my initial impressions:
The 1911 is classy in a way that the Glock is merely functional. It was made when every weapon produced warranted individual care and fitting. There are a hundred things you can tweak to make one better, and then you have a classy pistol that is uniquely your own, runs perfectly, and shoots a devastatingly powerful round. The Glock is mass-produced and so well done that you can mix and match and still end up with a gun that is reliable to the point of being boring. The 1911 is a case of form and function coinciding. The Glock is strictly an expression of function, although there is a certain beauty to that, also. Looks are a matter of taste so it's a wash. Both have their own flavor of mechanical excellence so that's a wash, too.
I have full size man hands. I do not have any difficulty getting a grip on a Glock, and so the slightly-smaller 1911 has no great appeal from that angle. In fact, to me, right now, the 1911 platform is (sit down 1911 lovers) just another pistol as far as the grip goes. I decided long ago that the Glock vs. 1911 debate comes down to personal preference. That they have differently-shaped grips throws some people off completely and they can't cope. Me? I have got my hands used to grabbing the Glock so it naturally points straight for me. When I first clicked off the thumb safety and pointed, the 1911 pointed low for me. End of the world? Hardly. I just shifted my grip. Then the 1911 pointed fine. The Glock has a larger protrusion where the 1911's mainspring housing is, and if you align the bore with your forearm, it will point about 15 degrees high. If you align the 1911 on a line that goes from your elbow to your wrist, it will point straight. A Glock will point high. If you rotate the swell on the Glock's grip just a little farther away from the palm of your hand, the muzzle comes down where it should, and the recoil force is no longer in a straight line with your bones, so you have to use your grip and muscles to control muzzle flip. If you hold it properly, no big deal. If you are going to carry a pistol, you should train with it to the point that you don't even have to think about your grip, and this becomes a non-issue.
Capacity: Sure, the Glock holds more rounds. If you need them all, you are either a) a terrible marksman or b) in a steaming pile of poo (pack of dogs/zombie invasion).
Trigger feel/action: a wash. My Glock has a factory 3.5lbs trigger and a '1000-round trigger job'. It breaks as cleanly as a Glock trigger can, right at 3.5lbs. It is about as good as a Glock trigger gets. This 1911 has a heavier trigger. It's not a problem and can be dealt with by a competent gunsmith. I have felt triggers on pistols that seemed as if the hand of God himself must have put a whetstone to the sear. It is a beautiful thing, truly, like driving a sports car you will never be able to afford, or eating a steak prepared by someone who knows what they are doing. In my opinion, however, paying 2 to 10 times as much for a pistol because of the trigger alone is NOT a worthy trade-off at this point in my life.
Power: obviously the 1911 wins over the G22, which is why I care to go bigger than .40S&W in the first place. A 230-grain JHP loaded to +P levels will give a Goblin something to think about. I wouldn't mind getting a 10mm Glock, or a .45ACP or .45GAP for that matter. Between the weapons in my hand that night, the 1911 was obviously the winner.
Maintenance: a wash. The 1911 is its own toolbox, which is very cool and absolutely wonderful in the field where you might have to piss in the action to clean it. If you have access to a simple set of tools, even improvised tools, the Glock is not too bad to take all the way down.
Sights: Glock wins, hands down. Mine has factory night sights, and the 1911 is as-issued with a set of GI sights. The GI sights are unimpressive in the first place, but against the BIG WHITE DOTS or GLOWING GREEN DOTS, they are decidedly slower and harder to use. Not hard to use, but harder.
Weight: It's a few ounces, deal with it. I call it a wash.
Ergonomics: a wash. The Glock is fatter in the slide, which is a little harder to conceal. Big whoopty. The Glock has a trigger "safety" and the 1911 has a grip and a thumb safety. Big whoopty. The real safety lies not between the hands but between the ears. The shape of the weapon is something you train to deal with, whether it be designed by the sainted John Moses Browning (pbuh) or someone named Gaston something. The grips I already mentioned.
One clear win for the Glock: the rail. I have a Glock light for my Glock and it's like the sun at social distances and a pretty decent flashlight across the yard. 1911: No rail. That light alone makes the Glock a better house gun IMO but I'm sure there will be a few of you who disagree. :D
The 1911 is an interesting pistol and I took it out shooting this weekend and hope to do again next weekend. Range reports soon to follow.
Background: I have never had anything to do with a 1911 before. Never so much as handled one outside a gun show. Never shot, disassembled, or cleaned one. Ever.
A couple of nights ago I found a series of disassembly and reassembly videos on youtube and #2 was keeping me company while I gave it a detail strip and cleaning. He hung out until my Darling Wife got home at well-past-bedtime o'clock and he had to miss the reassembly, but he'll probably see it the next time I have the weapon apart for cleaning (we're supposed to go shooting next weekend). After he went to bed, I ran a few presentation drills for comparison with my Glock Model 22 and considered the two weapons in relationship to each other. Here are my initial impressions:
The 1911 is classy in a way that the Glock is merely functional. It was made when every weapon produced warranted individual care and fitting. There are a hundred things you can tweak to make one better, and then you have a classy pistol that is uniquely your own, runs perfectly, and shoots a devastatingly powerful round. The Glock is mass-produced and so well done that you can mix and match and still end up with a gun that is reliable to the point of being boring. The 1911 is a case of form and function coinciding. The Glock is strictly an expression of function, although there is a certain beauty to that, also. Looks are a matter of taste so it's a wash. Both have their own flavor of mechanical excellence so that's a wash, too.
I have full size man hands. I do not have any difficulty getting a grip on a Glock, and so the slightly-smaller 1911 has no great appeal from that angle. In fact, to me, right now, the 1911 platform is (sit down 1911 lovers) just another pistol as far as the grip goes. I decided long ago that the Glock vs. 1911 debate comes down to personal preference. That they have differently-shaped grips throws some people off completely and they can't cope. Me? I have got my hands used to grabbing the Glock so it naturally points straight for me. When I first clicked off the thumb safety and pointed, the 1911 pointed low for me. End of the world? Hardly. I just shifted my grip. Then the 1911 pointed fine. The Glock has a larger protrusion where the 1911's mainspring housing is, and if you align the bore with your forearm, it will point about 15 degrees high. If you align the 1911 on a line that goes from your elbow to your wrist, it will point straight. A Glock will point high. If you rotate the swell on the Glock's grip just a little farther away from the palm of your hand, the muzzle comes down where it should, and the recoil force is no longer in a straight line with your bones, so you have to use your grip and muscles to control muzzle flip. If you hold it properly, no big deal. If you are going to carry a pistol, you should train with it to the point that you don't even have to think about your grip, and this becomes a non-issue.
Capacity: Sure, the Glock holds more rounds. If you need them all, you are either a) a terrible marksman or b) in a steaming pile of poo (pack of dogs/zombie invasion).
Trigger feel/action: a wash. My Glock has a factory 3.5lbs trigger and a '1000-round trigger job'. It breaks as cleanly as a Glock trigger can, right at 3.5lbs. It is about as good as a Glock trigger gets. This 1911 has a heavier trigger. It's not a problem and can be dealt with by a competent gunsmith. I have felt triggers on pistols that seemed as if the hand of God himself must have put a whetstone to the sear. It is a beautiful thing, truly, like driving a sports car you will never be able to afford, or eating a steak prepared by someone who knows what they are doing. In my opinion, however, paying 2 to 10 times as much for a pistol because of the trigger alone is NOT a worthy trade-off at this point in my life.
Power: obviously the 1911 wins over the G22, which is why I care to go bigger than .40S&W in the first place. A 230-grain JHP loaded to +P levels will give a Goblin something to think about. I wouldn't mind getting a 10mm Glock, or a .45ACP or .45GAP for that matter. Between the weapons in my hand that night, the 1911 was obviously the winner.
Maintenance: a wash. The 1911 is its own toolbox, which is very cool and absolutely wonderful in the field where you might have to piss in the action to clean it. If you have access to a simple set of tools, even improvised tools, the Glock is not too bad to take all the way down.
Sights: Glock wins, hands down. Mine has factory night sights, and the 1911 is as-issued with a set of GI sights. The GI sights are unimpressive in the first place, but against the BIG WHITE DOTS or GLOWING GREEN DOTS, they are decidedly slower and harder to use. Not hard to use, but harder.
Weight: It's a few ounces, deal with it. I call it a wash.
Ergonomics: a wash. The Glock is fatter in the slide, which is a little harder to conceal. Big whoopty. The Glock has a trigger "safety" and the 1911 has a grip and a thumb safety. Big whoopty. The real safety lies not between the hands but between the ears. The shape of the weapon is something you train to deal with, whether it be designed by the sainted John Moses Browning (pbuh) or someone named Gaston something. The grips I already mentioned.
One clear win for the Glock: the rail. I have a Glock light for my Glock and it's like the sun at social distances and a pretty decent flashlight across the yard. 1911: No rail. That light alone makes the Glock a better house gun IMO but I'm sure there will be a few of you who disagree. :D
The 1911 is an interesting pistol and I took it out shooting this weekend and hope to do again next weekend. Range reports soon to follow.
There's Something Bad Wrong With (some) Japanese People.
If you're not reading News of the Weird, you are missing stories like this:
The Rental Society: Among the services available by the clock in Japan (according to a January BBC dispatch) are (1) quality time with a pet (about $10 an hour at the Ja La La Cafe in Toyko, usually with dogs or cats but with rabbits, ferrets and beetles available); (2) no-sex quality time with a college coed (flattering conversation by the hour at the Campus Cafe, less expensive than the geisha-type houses); (3) and actors from the I Want To Cheer Up agency in Tokyo, to portray "relatives" for weddings and funerals when actual family members cannot attend, or to portray fathers to help single women with their parenting duties, or to portray husbands to help women practice for the routine of married life (except for sex). [BBC News, 1-12-09]
I know not every Japanese person out there is a loony-toon, but these people are making your country look pretty crazy.
The Rental Society: Among the services available by the clock in Japan (according to a January BBC dispatch) are (1) quality time with a pet (about $10 an hour at the Ja La La Cafe in Toyko, usually with dogs or cats but with rabbits, ferrets and beetles available); (2) no-sex quality time with a college coed (flattering conversation by the hour at the Campus Cafe, less expensive than the geisha-type houses); (3) and actors from the I Want To Cheer Up agency in Tokyo, to portray "relatives" for weddings and funerals when actual family members cannot attend, or to portray fathers to help single women with their parenting duties, or to portray husbands to help women practice for the routine of married life (except for sex). [BBC News, 1-12-09]
I know not every Japanese person out there is a loony-toon, but these people are making your country look pretty crazy.
The Gladiator Claw
(sounds wicked, don't it?)
I made a rail system on the cieling of my garage that allows me to tuck the family bicycles out of the way, up on the cieling all the way by the wall. It's not really a big deal for a family's bicycles to be hanging in the corner of the garage cieling, usually. In this case however, there is a pile of junk, and a toolbox and filing cabinet under where the bikes are supposed to hang. Then it's a hassle. So I made up this rail system. Hook up a bike, pull the steel cable to raise it, clip the cable to something on the bike, and push the bike to the wall. Works great, less filling.
If you have bikes you want to hang, and the floor is actually free of clutter, this right here is THE ticket. Jam the bike up into it and it grabs. No more trying to hold the wheel straight while you try to wrestle it onto a hook. The, when you want the bike back down, jam it up again and it lets go.
The Gladiator Claw.
Brilliant. Hat tip to the Toolmonger.
I made a rail system on the cieling of my garage that allows me to tuck the family bicycles out of the way, up on the cieling all the way by the wall. It's not really a big deal for a family's bicycles to be hanging in the corner of the garage cieling, usually. In this case however, there is a pile of junk, and a toolbox and filing cabinet under where the bikes are supposed to hang. Then it's a hassle. So I made up this rail system. Hook up a bike, pull the steel cable to raise it, clip the cable to something on the bike, and push the bike to the wall. Works great, less filling.
If you have bikes you want to hang, and the floor is actually free of clutter, this right here is THE ticket. Jam the bike up into it and it grabs. No more trying to hold the wheel straight while you try to wrestle it onto a hook. The, when you want the bike back down, jam it up again and it lets go.
The Gladiator Claw.
Brilliant. Hat tip to the Toolmonger.
1911 Barrel Bushing: MUST Install Before The Recoil Spring Cap!
At 02:00 I gave up after 10 minutes of trying to reassemble an M1911 A1 and went and dug up the video I had found earlier on youtube. I just couldn't get how the thing had almost reassembled itself 2 nights ago, and now it was fighting me.
Turns out, you have to install the bushing into the slide before you install the recoil spring cap. Have to. It won't work the other way around. Who knew? Well, I guess everyone else did that ever put a 1911 together twice, but it was my second go at it.
Oh, and a full length guide rod that required the use of a bushing wrench would be a stupid thing to install on a gun that, otherwise, is its own toolbox. Yet another subject on which I find myself in agreement with Tam.
Turns out, you have to install the bushing into the slide before you install the recoil spring cap. Have to. It won't work the other way around. Who knew? Well, I guess everyone else did that ever put a 1911 together twice, but it was my second go at it.
Oh, and a full length guide rod that required the use of a bushing wrench would be a stupid thing to install on a gun that, otherwise, is its own toolbox. Yet another subject on which I find myself in agreement with Tam.
Another Tax Cheat Honest Mistake Maker In Obama's Cabinet
Senator Daschle is apparently going to see just how jaded the Republicans in the Senate truly are. It is likely that, even though he was the one who introduced the rule requiring 60 votes for controversial Presidential cabinet appointments (and then came out visciously against highly-qualified Bush nominees), he will be back into your government. Sure, he is likely to try to ruin the best health care payment system in the world, taking the best health care system in the world down with it. Nevermind that.
No, the point of this post is to point out the following. The same Tom Daschle who said “Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." has just made an honest mistake. Why should one of your Elected Heroes have any idea of what is in the tax laws he produced? It's taxable income to have someone drive you around in a limo free of charge? Who knew? Gosh, it's just another Honest Mistake!
No, the point of this post is to point out the following. The same Tom Daschle who said “Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." has just made an honest mistake. Why should one of your Elected Heroes have any idea of what is in the tax laws he produced? It's taxable income to have someone drive you around in a limo free of charge? Who knew? Gosh, it's just another Honest Mistake!
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