reasonablenut

Picture of a target my brother shot his first time out at 15 yards. 

Above is a picture of my brother's target from an indoor range. He was shooting at 15 yards with a gun he'd never shot before, using white-box ammo. Not too shabby. The gun is a CZ-75BD. I guess the fucker is related to me because he had orders for custom grips and hi-caps in before he shot the gun. Of course, he is claiming that this is the only gun he will ever own. I said the same thing at one point and look at how that turned out.

Additionally, I got a referral from a site I have never heard of last week: Gunlawnews.org. Looks like the site is under construction, but whoever is behind is looks to be putting together a very useful resource. Check them out, because it looks like they will only get better.

It's been awhile since I posted on the Chai Vang incident, but that was a turning point for me as a blogger. I never realized the ire one could attract by having an opinion and God forbid if it is an opinion on race-relations or the media's view of it. Needless to say, I have held off on that sort of commentary, especially since I got so technically driven before Boomershoot.

Well it's been googled to death and I still get hate-mail regularly. Someone decided to elevate the discourse on Thursday and sent me this eloquent piece of writing that really brings home his point, in a philisophical manner, while still maintaining his robust roots:

ya crackers in sawyer county gotta quit hatin on chai vang, because look at
jeffery dahmer that fucken whiteboy killed how many people and you guys said he
was just insaned, get out of here with that shit, sure it's ok for a piece of
white shit to kill but now a colored person shit fuck that, not that i hate all
white people, but the ones who talk shit can suck these nuts bitch, and what the
fuck is with this fucken sticker saying "save a deer kill a hmong", it should be
more like "save some beef and pork and eat a person", hahahahahah damn jeffery
dahmer looking ass

To all 35 regular readers I have, please keep sending your feedback. I started to realize that comments are not something to thumb your nose at. There are a wide variety of pithy opinions out there that can change the way I view the world and my fellow man.

Peace.

I've noticed that, increasingly, it is impossible to get a decent trigger job out of a retail gunsmith. You need to "know someone" so that they are comfortable.

I don't blame them. This is a logical conclusion to the ever increasing legal blanket called "gun liability." I like to keep lawyers fed, as do the rest of you, I'm sure, but when it hits the point where a fucker is not willing to give you a 2# trigger you request, something is seriously awry. For the record, I don't have a wife, so I can't shoot her.

As I stated, I took the .270 Winchester 70 into the shop to cure it's horrendous trigger (worse than two stage military triggers.) I picked it up this morning (and scared the shit out employees) and checked out the trigger, dry.

It is maybe down to 5 pounds and me being the flinchy fucker I am, that won't do.

I'm taking it to a new gunsmith and plan on figuring out how to do it on my own in the future (and don't tell me I'll void the waranty, I don't care.)

Next year's Boomershoot rifle. 

Last Thursday was range day. My brother is buying a gun so I spent some time with him on fundamentals. It's amazing how much somebody improves when they are actually paying attention.

Outside of that, me and the Old Man sighted .22s and hip-fired his Thompson, which was a shitload of fun.

Upon returning, we had a message from our FFL that my Remington 700 BDL LH .308 was in. We returned from the range at 4:25, departed for the FFL at 4:35, and were back in time to crack a beer when the 5 o'clock whistle blew.

Now you may think that this rifle is not an ideal long range rifle and you would be right. But you are probably not left handed. This rifle is one of two that Remington produces in the .308 caliber for southpaws. I very much liked the classic wood stock, as it contradicts the current doctrine that wood stocks suck. I own several fibreglass stocks and am perfectly happy with them, except for the fact that they are ugly.

This is the best platform I found for a Remington action and I plan on re-barreling it and then fucking with it from there. There are Savage people out there:



But I decided to stick with the 700 platform. Or as a military friend of mine stated, "I hear the Savage shoots well, I just can't get over how ugly they are."

This rifle may change a bit over the next twelve months, but I would very much like to keep the stock intact. One can buy temporary cheek-rests and the like, and I have become a lot less flinchy with large calibers over the last six months.

The barrel I'm planning on is a 26" Krieger, or something as long, but less expensive. AnalogKid is recommending I go with a 30", which I will need to ponder.

In the mean time, I need to get it re-barreled and then scoped. I am unsure of whether to mount the Leupold M4 I used at BS 2005 or to take the dive and score a Nightforce.

Any suggestions as to glass or barrel-length would be appreciated.

Screw the Newsweek meme that has obscured everything in the entire country including the Idaho abductions and the judiciary argument in the Senate. As long as bloggers have somebody to bash, they will ignore the more important issues at hand.

That being said, the new Star Wars film is out. I'm waiting for DVD, as Podhoretz and the Puppy-Blender have both shat on it. I have great respect for both of their opinions on this matter, as I have been reading them long enough to understand that they are unreformed geeks. This is one of the few areas where getting de-pantsed in middle school gives you a unique qualification in pontificating on Lucas' latest piece of shit.

I was thinking the other night about the white-uniformed, wrinkly red guy who commanded the Rebellion in Return of the Jedi, Admiral Akbar. Whenever I see a loony-toon terrorist chanting "Alluah-Akbar", or whatever shit they spout when they are beating women or chopping off heads or undergoing any of the other moderate leisurely activities the Religion of Peace affords them, I often wonder why that pimply-headed commander was actually given the name "Akbar" by Lucas?

I'm no linguist, but from what I understand, "Alluah Akbar" means "God is Bitchin'." I assume the Alluah is the God reference and may include the operable verb in the phrase, so one would assume that "Akbar" is the "great" part.

Does this mean something or should I pick up another hobby that gets a better hit-count than a gun-blog?

While I'm nowhere in the league of the aforementioned geeks, when I was 9 I did save up proofs of purchases until I mailed off for my Admiral Akbar figure, who was, then, only available through this offer.

Although a minor character in a series that has landed it's X-wing right in the shitter, the admiral has had me thinking for the past couple of years.

Save your money. Tomorrow is Friday, and that's a good thing.

It has come to my attention, since I returned from Idaho, that the state regulatory body that governs the industry I operate in has become interested in putting me and mine out of business.

This isn't a result of some gross negligence on the part of me or my company. We've run into a minimum wage beareaucrat who has decided that her demands are above law and regulation, and that revamping either of the latter two would just be kow-towing to a lowly private sector firm.

As such, unreasonable demands have been made, some of which require our securing copies of records over 2 years old. We have also been advised (though not in writing) that if we fail to comply with arbitrary demands from this agency we will be subjected to an audit, i.e. scrutiny that is usually used in the case of some suspected intransigence.

While we have quoted statute and regulation to the letter in our defense, it seems that as a private enterprise, gummint can just fuck with us in anyway an $8.50 an hour employee sees fit. Needless to say, this beareaucrat is unqualified in the position she is in, in this state, if you fucked the right people in high school, you are guaranteed a job for life and a comfy government pension when you retire at 55.

Now, you may suspect where this is leading. At every juncture of my life, from being a 15-year old liberal who was against the Gulf war to being a 30-year old business owner who just got back from MY FIRST VACATION IN FIVE YEARS, the gummint seems to want to fuck me at every intersection.

They tell me what kind of toilet I can have, what kind of car I can drive, and what kind of gun I can own. For this service, I get taxed at an exhorbitant rate.

I've tried to stay calm, lately, but it isn't fucking working.

They're not content to rob me and dictate my behavior, they now want to put me out of business.

Fuck being moderate.

I've gotten a lawyer for our firm and have tried to play footsie.

You can't do it with government. They don't give a shit that we've created 2 jobs in under two years. They don't give a shit that we pay a phenomenal amount of money to the state corporately (i.e. before they take me behind the barn and fuck me personally.)

They sit in their offices and tell you what the fuck you can and can't do and to what degree you can commit or omit. You can't smoke marijuana in your house but you better put on a fucking seat belt.

I have hit my breaking point. I will continue to vote and probably vote Republican. I obey laws, etc. I've just finally come to the conclusion that the experiment the founders engaged in has fallens so far foul after 230 years that the ship of state will never turn around.

And while we become a Euro-nanny state, they will make damn sure you as an individual, corporation, or any other entity will fail, because they will punish you severely if you try to succeed.

This is not what I had in mind.

It's Sunday night, and the previous week, my first full one after Boomershoot, sucked.

Every post I've done since returning seems to be pissed-off to some extent. My review of the Boomershoot news coverage was exactly the type of thing I generally detest. Yes I am an absolutist, not I don't think it's going to happen tommorrow. So in the meantime, if you can get favorable coverage of any kind, don't bitch about it.

There were a couple of high points to the week. While I was away, the AC went out in a couple of zones on the building. While my upstairs apartment was cool, the unit that supplies the office that failed is on the roof. Therefore, in order to access it, I had AC guys camped out in my place for three days.

We needed a crane and all that (which costs a shitload.) All during which work sucked. Therefore, I did not converse with the AC guys at all, as I was in a shit mood.

On the final day of installation, shit got so bad I decided to take the Winchester 70 .270 in for a trigger job, as it shipped with a 75# trigger pull or something. I went up to my place (for those of you who don't get this, I rent the floor above my office) to bag up the .270 and take it to the gun shop. The minute I hit the second floor one of the AC guys, who'd been there for two days sporting a Remington cap (Duh) expressed interest in the pellet gun range and all the other shit I have lying around.

About an hour later we stopped talking. He is a die-hard Coyote killer. His preferred cartridge is 22-250 and is building a custom .280. This prompted a discussion on the 6.8 round, which is close to a .280. The guy was a Leupold addict as well but had never been able to even look down a Tactical M4 (he's got a wife and kids.) He'd also heard about a range opening up in his neck of the woods and I pulled all of the membership crap off of the web for him. I'll probably be shooting with the guy in the next several months.

From there, I went to the gun shop. This is where the story takes a turn for the worse.

I walk in and slap the rifle on the counter with the bolt open. It's a Wednesday afternoon, so there aren't that many customers and not that many employees. I wait for over half an hour.

This may usually be attributed to normal gun-shop etiquette. After all, I wasn't buying a gun, I need a $50 trigger job. But there is a catch and any of you who live in urban areas know what it is.

Next to me are 2 gang-bangers, dressed head to toe in Raiders gear. The whole time I'm standing there, they are checking out 1911's. It's impossible to ignore the moronic blather that is pouring forth.

"What's this?"

"Well, that's a beavertail grip safety."

"Why?" Etcetera, etc., etc....

When I finally look over, they are looking at some kind of match Kimber that runs about $1,800. Then they get into layaway plans. Then the idiot admits he's making a straw purchase for a "friend" (read underage guy who they jumped into their gang the night before.)

And then they leave. WITHOUT SPENDING A SINGLE FUCKING DOLLAR.

And then my transaction takes a minute and a half.

I hope this week is better, but I'm glad I met the AC guy in the middle of a shitty, self-absorbed week.

Jason was good enough to record and post the video. That being said, I still think the characterization is somewhat disengenuous. While they try to paint the participant as normal, they seem to link it to carpal tunnal disease and office-weariness.

I didn't go because my wrist started hurting. I didn't go to blow up an old computer. I went to hone skills.

The media will never undersand the desire to hit a 1" target at 100 yards, or why you would want to kill Bambi. When you are talking about targets at 400+ yards, the disparity in thought is inevitable.

The Seattle outfit did a good job of observing that we are normal people; the shit that pissed me off is the pre-supposition that we are working off our angst from a malfunctioning Xerox machine.

I won't speak for anybody else, but I'm not exorcising the ghost of Xerox past. I was there to hit shit at the longest possible distance my skill and equipment afforded me.

In case nobody noticed, I added American Drumslinger to the roll a month ago. In addition to cutting analysis like his dissertation on disarming Americans, and just nuggets of truth, I started to notice he occasionally posts some nice pictures as well.

I had a moderately crappy to horrendously shitty day at work today, depending on what your used to. The Old Man decided to capitalize on this shining moment of victory to send me a link to one of the most disgusting sites I've ever seen. Forsake The Troops.

For several hours, rage prevented me from speaking on this topic. Then I went into the analytical mode, which lasted several minutes until I was totally ripshit again.

Soldiers are something to be admired and their sacrafices recompensed as well as can be in a physical world.

The line between dissent and sedition seems to be thinner and thinner everytime one of the jerk-offs decides he's got something brilliant to say that shits on this country. Nobody's really burned flags in the US since the 80's. They've found more disgusting ways to trash this country.

To wit, the genius behind this revelation is one Michael Crook. The pantywaist doesn't post an email address, so think of him the next time you're throwing flowers in the air or stepping in shit.

The Old Man has insidiously sent me a link that he knew would send me into unbridled rage.

Some asshole (who is a professor at Cambridge, just so you know he's smarter than you) published an editorial in the Guardian saying that the US set the stage for systemic rape during war time. He piles on with a lot of other horseshit, but comes back around to the FACT that our soldiers carried out over 10,000 rapes during WWII.

You may ask where Fucknut gets his data. Well you should, but I can't tell you where a bag of shit like this is pulling numbers from. He might have had a dream/revelation about it last night. Regardless, BELIEVE HIM because he's a Marxist douche-bag who probably couldn't make a living being a fry-cook.

I'm only posting one quote as you will either read the whole thing or do what's smart, and avoid it to lengthen you life span. Here goes:

War has a brutalising momentum. This is the moral of Taken By Force, which
showshow American soldiers became increasingly indiscriminate in their
sexualviolence and military authorities increasingly lax in its prosecution.
Even aswe remember the evils of nazism, and the courage of those who defeated
it, weshould begin to remember the second world war with less self-
satisfaction. Wemight, in particular, learn to distrust those who use it to
justify contemporarywarmongering

I think this prick has a brutalising momentum that brings me close to nausea. If anybody can send me any data about rape stats for WWII I'd be interested in looking at them.

In the mean time, I have to find this enlightened man's email.

I am a member of the NRA and I give them money. I agree with the argument that, legislatively, they paint gunowners as strictly sportsmen and if they safeguard hunting, that will pacify the entire pro-2A crowd. They are mistaken in that.

Other than that, no one can argue that they were not against the AWB. AR's and AK's aren't hunting rifles, unless you are a kill-crazy Hmong in the woods in Minnesota.

Weirdly enough, my copy of American Rifleman showed up today. Last night I read an issue of "Guns & Ammo", which has to be the crappiest gun rag out there. For those of you who are AR fans, you might remember the "AR issue" where the editorial staff recommended doing shit that would blow up your gun, and maybe you.

Regardless of issues with the NRA, they put out a good periodical. There were articles on the 6.8mm cartridge (which I am mildly obsessed with), the XM-8, and the first article I've ever seen on NightForce scopes. They also reviewed common CQB scopes, including ACOGs, EOTechs, and a Leupold I've never seen before. I'm kind of saving for an ACOG and a Rock River lower receiver. With an A2 upper, I think that would be a blast.

If you subscribe, I recommend reading it cover to cover. If you don't, bum a copy from a friend. If your friends don't subscribe, join the fucking NRA already.

Boomershoot was brilliant. It was the best vacation I've ever taken. I met tons of interesting people and did some weird shit (even outside of shooting explosives.) It took me two days to drive back and the whole time I thought I would have some epic post on the experience.

I've been back for over four days and really haven't gotten into it. I stated that it was brilliant and that I was happy with myself and my rifle, but outside of that I haven't commented.

The reason is that, much like any intense experience, I did some shit and talked some shit that I'm not willing to repeat. 90% of the vacation is crap I'm not willing to share for a variety of reasons (I got drunk a few times, there are coversations that took place between people, and some things I need to handle in private.)

So, in all honesty, it was the best trip I've had, but I'm not willing to discuss at any length.

Kirk, AnalogKid, Fishorman, Kim, and Joe have plenty of info.

Other than that, something should piss me off soon. If nothing else, I'm a patient man.

Boomershoot was awesome.

There were minor blips and errors, but on the whole, if you have any interest in honing your high range capabilities, this is the event for you.

As previously posted, I got into town a couple of days before anybody else. I checked out the bars and restaraunts and found what was acceptable.

Once Kirk got in, we started to try to synchronize schedules. That didn't work.

I like to drink with cool fuckers until the wee hours of the morning and he had more sense than that. I'm thankful that he kicked my ass out of bed every morning.

We had two weapons: The Barney-Killer and The Bambi-Killer.

As faggy as many of you may designate it, it was a great shooter. The 30-.06 performed well, but was insufficient to warrant a detonation.

To be continued....

It was awesome.

A full AAR will follow.

I just got back into town this evening.

In the mean time, AnalogKid has some good pics up as well as Joe.