Saturday, January 31, 2009

Gun Bloggers Log Hog Candy Dogless Clog

  A buxom woman in a swirling peasant skirt danced barefoot on the pistol-stewn tabletop as the enthusiastic crowd clapped rhythmically.  In the firelight a beetle-browed yet distinguished man plunked a banjo, the notes piercing the smoky air like hellfire missiles descending on two muslims digging a hole near Basra.

  "This must be the place," I mumbled to the Redhead as we shouldered through the door.

  Just back from meeting the analog versions of various gun bloggers who congregated at RanchoRita's dogless domicle.  How do the carbon-based 3-D versions compare to the denizens of Texas firearm cyberspace?  Well, nobody exuded noxious odors or wore pajamas and everyone seemed to have brought something to eat even if many snacks were not bacon-based.

  We had LawdogFarmgirl, The Keyboard part of the .45, Holly, Rita, Alan, Old NFO, 2Amusing, aepilot, Matt G, Expert Witness, and other assorted henchmen, minions, lackeys and freeholders .  No lists were made nor photos permitted though Alan did bridge time and space and get St. Breda and Mike on the baby computer from somewhere in storied frozen Ohio.  They couldn't hear the punch lines but nodded happily from time to time.  I think they groked the basics.   If they didn't, there was always another round of bacon.  

  Excuse me while I go update my blogroll with these excellent people.

Update:  Heck yeah, I saw the miracle of the disappearing lipstick! 


The Rangel Rule

  There has been some coverage of this but not as much as there ought to be.  The Rangle Rule, introduced by Republican Texas Congressman John Carter would eliminate penalties for late tax payments to the IRS- just like the penalties for the head of the tax-writing committee were dropped.  I'm for it and more.  Goose and gander laws ought to be adopted to equalize the treatment of American citizens before the law.  There are a LOT of these kinds of things going on.   Either we are all equal, or we aren't, and right now we aren't.  That's just wrong.  Equal protection under the law is THE basic American Idea.

  Update:  Yeah, Carter is an inspiring guy.  This is the kind of thing I wish all of them were doing until government comes to it's senses.  Actualy, it just needs to be scaled back like a fat guy who eats 100.00 wagyu steaks compulsively.  Uh....which it does.  Another reason why Coryn's vote for Obama's tax-cheating Treasury Secretary is so confusing.  What the hell are these people doing?

Friday, January 30, 2009

Recycling

  As a New Years resolution I decided to limit my already small carbon footprint.  It's not like I don't pursue green strategies already: I eat free-range, organic meat that I harvest myself, using vintage tools.  I recycle metal sporting components.  I use the web as a vector for information rather than paper.  I've nearly quit using photographic film and chemistry.  I've got ten year old shirts and 30 year old boots in my closet.  What's left?
  Well, those dang styrofoam cups are left.  The redhead and I go through about four a day at Taco Wacco and Brady's.  It was easy to cut the numbers by rinsing them out and reusing them.  My pledge was to cut my usage by half or more and walk lightly on our Gaia.
  I think I am getting there.  The Starbucks cup went to Brady's all week,  (they give you two anyway), though the first day the coffee tasted burnt.  The girls at Taco Wacco have got the word and after the big cups go bad I use them to haul brass back and forth from the lab.
  I'll go one on one with Al Gore anytime.

Udate:  Heck, yes I've firewalked.
   

Lance Armstrong, Facist.

  I know!  Let's use the power of government to do WONDERFUL THINGS!!!!

  Once we get started- by banning smoking, we should ban drugs.  That ought to work well!  Or let's make folks who live less than five miles from work ride bikes at least twice a week.  I know it sounds a little harsh at first, but wait until they notice the fitness and ecological benefits, plus the camraderie, et, et.  Just focus on how WONDERFUL the outcome would be!

  Payroll withholding, seatbelt laws, felony for not returning library books, trans-fats, heck, there is NO END to the wonderful things we could do to make the world a better place! 

  Lance Armstrong is a wonderful athlete and probably a great team leader, but in this instance he is a tool of evil.  

  We are going to have to fight evil, sooner or later.

  Obama and the Democratic party just maxed out the credit card.  States are tumbling into bankruptcy like dominos.  How is it that a rich, healthy, famous, well-traveled Texan could turn out to be closet facist?  

  I expect Americans, and especially Texans, to support freedom and liberty...I know, let's make a LAW!!!

Bringing the Big Guy home.

 2008, 2000, 1999. 

  I've had my this year's deer up at the studio since his skull and horns came out of the pot.  Nice deer.  Brought him home to hand next to some of the others at the house.  He's one of the bigger ones.  The two oldest bucks measure a solid 11 inches from the base of their skull to the tip of the upper lip.  Their skulls look more solid and developed.  This years is 17 1/4 inside spread.  The previous big, a 1999 138 1/4 deer is 15 inches.

  Fortunate to get him, but there were three other bigger bucks on cam out there.

  No more 2 1/2 year old bucks like the 1999 deer.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Mt. Redoubt, Alaska.

  I'm down here with the deer butts on MY cam.  They have an actual volcano.  Sheesh.

Squirrels/Owl/Coon/Deer

  My inner 12-year old has a hard time resisting a good butt picture.


  Gentle woodland friends.

  The owl looked like he was catching some sunlight after a couple of cloudy cold days.  Tourists only worth one eye.


  Even town squirrels remember that there is something a little suspicious about humans when they start paying too much attention to you.

  I've seen six at a time eating buds in this tree.


  The usual suspects.  The squirrels are 60 feet up in an elm tree in the side yard eating buds.  Very acrobatic, hanging from their back feet and doing lots of twig work.  They remind you that they occupy the same ecological niche as monkeys do in the tropics.

  One of the raccoons in the photo couldn't resist the trap.  He's on the buzzard pile now.  (I guess you could say he got suppressed.)  Pileated Woodpecker in the woods, Horned owls.  Usually something to see.  The local rancher says there is a herd of about 8-9 does up on the north end of his pasture.

  

Nosler Integrity

  UPS brought replacement bullets for the jacket-shedding 69 Noslers that I had on hand.  (Two 250 count boxes out of a bulk order we put together from the Panola Club)  Nice.  I'm going to shoot the old ones as blasting ammo for new shooters.  I'll cut the powder charge and shoot them on one of the carbines.  That ought to do it.  No problems, no arguments, they just replaced the bullets.  

  Going to buy more Noslers in the future.  I've been strictly a Sierra customer up to now.

  New berm up at Panola.  Can't wait to shoot hell out of it.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ice day

  Feels like a January.  Ice on the metal spiral staircase but really not anywhere else.  Had the air conditioning guys come by today to check the central air unit.  Everything normal including the stack of dessicated dead roaches that accumulate in the bottom of the unit.  Too bad they don't have ivory tusks.
  Making ammo but trying to slow down.  I have plenty of brass already waiting and a thousand rounds of match ammo standing by.  Instead of going through whole buckets and trying to do it all I'm thinking about shooting the same 100 cases over and over for a bit, say all this spring for me and the Kid, then tossing them.  Probably six reloads on top of what there is now.  Might get a feel for how things are wearing.  LC 97, for instance, seems to crack necks more than any other.  The neck will break off and stay in the chamber.  Takes a rod and brush to get them out.  Strictly practice cases, even if they look fine.
  Doing the brass myself means it goes through multiple steps in my hands.  Quite the process.  Sort from the mixed brass in the big buckets, tumble clean at the studio, lube, size and deprime, clean primer pocket, clean or de-burr flash hole inside, champfer and bevel the case mouth, brush inside of neck, prime, sort by headstamp.  Ten steps....just for brass.  No wonder I liked RVO.
  It doesn't feel like work at all any more than reading does.   Just a process.
  You would think I would find every flaw.  I drop a sample in the case gauge every now and then, especially if they don't go into the Sinclair Priming Tool without any problem.
  Broke two flash hole deburring tools.  I had an plastic green RCBS, saw a wood-handled Lyman and liked it better and bought that.  The Lyman has a cutting tip swaged into the end of a rod.  It started spinning.  No remedy.  I switched to the older RCBS, which shows a lot of wear and broke the guide end off when I thought I could use it to tap out a stuck primer.
  And nobody has these.  Not Academy, not Gander, not the gunshows nor the gunshops.  I gave everyone a chance and finally ordered a Lyman from Midway last night.  Twelve bucks.
  Not the sort of thing you would ever thing you would break and I killed two in a week.  I've been limping along with the crippled RCBS.
  Stacking up the slightly-waxy ready-to-load brass. (Universal Sizing Wax)  Thinking about adding some more dies so I can load a few other calibers.  Nervous on that 30-06 Garand ammo.  Like to load some Swede 6.5.  Thinking about making my own M1 Carbine load.  Promised someone I would load some .308.

  Xavier having a sick day so he is blogging like mad.  You might check by and see what he's up to.  I'm having a lazy middle of the day but going to pop quiz and work my two classes tonight at the college.  Usual classroom dramas up there.  Kids texting & surfing in class.  I think one student is turning in a print tonight that she didn't shoot.  The usual stuff.  Constantly trying to find ways to motivate and inform.
  

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mary's Birthday

  More owl photos.



  Winter storm warning.  Flat sky and the air has an expectant feeling.  Townsfolks are hustling around stocking up and keeping an ear to the radio for sleet, freezing rain and school closures.
  The woods have every color of brown and grey in the planet's palate.  Nothing across the creek and nothing on the near cam.  Just coons, smart enough to stay out of my trap.  There was a HUGE deer track, solitary, in the center of the field.  You couldn't tell where he was going, but big.
  Corn sack is empty.
  One of the Screech Owls appeared in their nest hole around the corner.  We watched them all summer as the young ones grew up.  They were usually out one window or another at Mary's house.  Kept her sitters alert.
  Tomorrow is Mary Burtons 95th birthday.  She hoped she wouldn't make it, back when she is talking.  She'll hold your hand a bit now, kind of look at you and move her lips, then drift off.  Not much left to be said.
  Owls are the harbinger of death for many cultures.  Maybe he is just here for her birthday but either way, we are just about done. 

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Daily Deercam

  Just.....go in.

  Not always happy and gay in coonville.


  Out of catfood for bait I just plopped the trap down right on top of the corn scatter.  They didn't go in.  Seven different coons and one yearling buck fawn were by.

  Might try catfood in a can next.  That's a sure-fire catch for something.

Want Hope and Change?



  Can't let the Good Doctor off too easily..

Tyler Gun Show

  It's a pretty good one.  I've never had to park in the far end of the lot though, or stand in line with more than five people.  The line was about 40 long yesterday.  Same price to get in (six bucks) but you could hardly move.  Great guns for sale but no bargains.  Expensive ammo.  Fun to be in a big crowd.  Going back today for some specialty items since I sold a 1895 Chilean carbine.  Forgot to look for a flash hole reamer to replace my two broken ones.  Also a little M1 carbine reloading stuff.  Speaking of M1 carbines you could have your pick of about 10 CMP guns off one of the tables, but you were going to need 700-800 American Dollars.
  Hard to overemphasize the education effect of a gun show.  You get to see it all...priced.  Hard to find anything quite like it.  Like Gunbroker in real time.

  In the afternoon I took a father and son shooting at the range.  Included the Kid so he could shoot a little offhand out of his jacket with his TSRA AR.  They got to shoot several pistols, AR, Garand, suppressed 10/22.  The works.  I'd picked up two bricks of subsonic .22lr.  Very quiet.  Other folks around and we shared and swapped rifles.  Everyone needs to shoot suppressed .22.  Never turn down an offer to shoot an unfamiliar firearm.

  Greasy brass and guns to clean.  Thank God for reloading.

Loyd the Barbarian


  He holds a doctorate in biology and enjoys a fine Cabernet.  His kids are grown.  His wife went to Vassar.  He enjoys high performance cars and woodworking.  He's got a gun case full of precision rifles and a CCL.  He plays the cello for god's sake!
  But it took a single shot 177 rifle to release his inner hunter and gatherer, with a specialty in aquatic mammilians who cruise past his dock on the way to a burrow in the seawall.  I think he has sunk three with enough probables to fill the trunk of his Mustang GT convertable.
  I just have to caution him:  You won't be 12 forever!

Update:  Score four.  They are washing ashore on the beaches.  After fretting about the erosion and damage for decades it turns out the solution is really simple and satisfying.  Wait until they scull by, then just SHOOT the M-Fers in the head!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Serious Business


  The Great Blue herons were jousting in the pine treetops across the creek when I came down the trail this evening. They sounded like dinosaurs disagreeing.  There was another sound mixed in and I had a hard time figuring it until I got across the creek and away from the sound of the creek.  It was a puppy whimpering somewhere back in the brush.  I tried whistling them up and then walked the four tracker track on the powerline howling.  I got them to answer a few times but they seemed to be moving away from me.  Maybe I was hearing a coyote or a bobcat get one.  It just faded back into the hills.
  Finally there wasn't anything and I came out up the indian village.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Daily Deercam

  Coon Pack across the creek.  Now down two more members

  Mature doe.

  Notice the long face on this grown animal.

  She is 2 or 4 years old and about 115-125 lbs.


  Crow flying into the cam area.

  Yesterday driving out of the lakehouse property I saw four pups someone had dumped in the usual place.  They were sitting in the middle of a pasture looking lost.  Today I was at my deercam and could hear them whimpering on another property in deep brush across the creek.  Not much fun.  I don't know why folks think dogs will do better dumped out here than taken to the pound.  Or dumped in town where there are more people and fewer coyotes.
  One coon in the trap, a big sow.  They had been wary for a few days, even digging the dry catfood out from under the sides of the trap.  Three down total.
  Doe and a yearling fawn in the pasture at dusk.  Nice to see them out and about.  They had a hard time figuring me in the dusk until I unslung the rifle for a second look.  I have an old Thompson Machine Gun sweb sling on my 10/22 and the rear clamp tinkles and chimes when you shrug it off.  That did it.  I saw them again on the other side of the pasture below the crown of the field when I worked my way around. 
  Shooting the suppressed Ruger coming and going.  Fun to plink away with little noise.

10/22 Mags and Maint.


  My dad bought me a 10/22 back in the mid 60's.  There are some original parts left, but not many.  The trigger, sear, hammer, mag release, bolt stop, buffer, barrel, sights and stock are all aftermarket.  I put a Yankee Hill Machine Works adapter on it so the .22 suppressor would fit.  That makes it officially a fun gun.  The only draw back was the mags.  These are old mags- one of them is the original.  They were balking by not bringing up the next round.  I broke them down with an allen wrench and did a basic clean and re-assemble.  It was a Q-tip and paper towel kind of job.   I didn't think a solvent was safe for the bakelite.  Not a complicated process- the usual inside gunk was keeping them from functioning.  Now they all feed fine.  The suppressor makes it sound like a stapler with Wolf Match.  Eats ammo though.
  Yesterday I was checking the cam across the creek and heard a little sound up the hill.  It was s coyote loping through the heavy brush.  No shot, no shot on the next one or the NEXT one.  They really can cover ground.  Nice to see them in the bottom since the local pack took a huge hit a few months back, losing 11 to one of the neighbors who killed them with suspended treble hooks and chicken wings.

Update:  Uncleaunched!  Video upcoming if I can get my cameraKid scheduled.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Insulted.

  Is anyone out there insulted by the non-stop media coverage of the inauguration?  It's not just the hypocrisy about the cost- (4X the cost of a Bush inauguration that got heavily criticized for it's expense), and it's not the teen-level fawning and obsession with his Obamaness.  It's the blatant belief that it's some kind of MIRACLE that a racist nation like the United States of America would elect someone with a little melanin in his skin as president.
  I never held the belief that a person of color- any color, could win the presidency.  Heck, I've known several folks of various races who I thought would be wonderful chief executives.  Women too, while we are at it.  I liked Colin Powell.  I liked Ann Richards.  I don't see what skin melanin has to do with it.  
  Since I don't consider the present US a racist nation, (try Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, India, China, Korea or Russia), I don't consider this some great leap forward into a new racial consciousness.  If you do then I hope you get over your prejudices and start looking at the content of a persons character and not the color of their skin.
  Congratulations to the President on Inauguration Day.  May he serve with dignity, honor, fairness and a sense of Constitutional order.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sunday deercam


  This is a cheap Moultrie that overexposes and gives bad color though it is running and not giving me whiteout files.

 Crows, coons and a doe and her buck fawn across the creek.  I reset the coon trap with catfood.  No mice mime-ing in the traps.  Love to know where everyone is.  There is deer sign around.  Fresh enough, just not many on the cams.  Wonder what some buck spray would bring up?
  Coons digging holes in the corn broadcast area and sifting the sand.  Dog tracks in the creek clay at the crossing.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Chasing La Salle's cannons.

  Rear sight or a fuse measure on the breech of the CSS Alabama cannon.  Marked; "5 Seconds.  10 Seconds" down the lower brass rod.

  Cannon from the CSS Alabama.  About eight feet long.

  Dugout canoe coming out of a nearly 10 year conservation soak.
 
  Cannon from the LaBelle being treated with wax.

  Musket stocks from a case of muskets left behind on the wreck of the LaBelle.


  We couldn't hunt so I headed down to College Station to talk to the TAMU Firearms Museum about photographing the next TSRA calendar out of their collection.  The museum curator was very helpful and accommodating.  The Good Doctor and I also talked our way into the TAMU Nautical Conservation lab for a tour.  I've followed the La Belle and the Mardi Gras Wreck while those projects were being worked so it was exciting to see some of the actual artifacts being conserved, but what I was really after was some of the LaSalle cannons dug up at the site of Ft St. Louis a few years back.
  The lab also had a cannon from the CSS Alabama and a Amerind dugout canoe that was just out of the conservation tank.  I didn't get any photos for the calendar but it was a fascinating tour.  La Salle's cannons from were long gone.
  Looks like we are a go for the TSRA shoot at the firearms museum.  

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Deer and Raccoons


  This is a flash photo by the Moultrie gamecam.  The duration is about 1000 of a second.  In the actual deer/coon experience they are in the dark guided by smell, hearing and a very little bit of visual information.  I'm sure they wonder exactly where each other are.  See the ears focusing on both sides?  
  Raccoons are tough, well-armed, formidable opponents.  Both species are interested in the corn.  The cams show deer using their front hooves to chop at the coons and bared teeth on the other side.  They rarely seem to be co-existing with much good will.

US Army says Mexico close to collapse.

  Why?  The bad music?  The lousy plumbing?  Nope.  Our old friend, the DRUG WAR.
  That's all we need: Drugostan, right across the river.  Of course, that's what we have now, for all practical purposes...but whatever.  Let's don't change strategy or learn anything!  Just keep doing what we are doing now, only HARDER!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Mouse Muerto-ing

  Couple of cheap traps and catfood, then velveeta and now the real killer- pinches of old leftover pizza.  The works.  The Good Doctor and I brought a pizza back from the only Italian restaurant in Clarkville (on the square)  It lives in the lakehouse refrigerator and it's killed more mice than....well, poison.  Pizza is so lethal that I found one unmarked mouse dead BESIDE the sprung trap.  Must be fright.  Pizza fright.
  Close to the lake drive a Redtail crossed the windshield the other day, dropped into waist-deep briar and came pumping out with a mouse.  Very impressive targeting and a nice piece of aviation.  He glared at me from a pine limb while I watched with 10X binocs, then decided to dine in private.  Good looking adult bird.  Probably a male.  Smallish.  Hens are bigger.
  According to my calculations I have enough pizza left to kill 12 nautical tons of mice.
  Racking them up.  If I had been skinning them out I would have enough for a jacket.  I must report that dead mice have very odd expressions on their faces.  Reminds one of dead mimes.  Giving them quick Christian funeral services, then cremation.  Hope they are all Mouse Methodists or something close.

Daily Deercam

  Big mature, smart doe.  Made it through the season with her fawn.  Sometimes the big does have a nick in an ear that you can ID them by, but she is very clean.

  Here she is again thinking about kicking some coonass.  I mean COON ass.

  The size comparison.  Seen alone he could be mistaken for an adult, but isn't.

  Looking over the coons.

  One more for size and color comparisons.  You can see the sockets for next years little horns.


  Not killing any coons since I shut the trap down due to a missing day or two on the schedule.  Got lots of coons on cam.  
  Bucks are off in a thicket somewhere, not moving.  Been a weird year for bucks on cam.  They didn't make many appearances.  Plenty of sign and tracks, though I am not jumping many deer going through the great grey woods.  You can see farther in the bottom than at any other time of the year now.  When I walked in this evening, I could see Great Horned Owls that I spooked flying to new perches at the limit of my vision.
  Friday at a Tyler Museum of Art opening of work by William Montgomery (snakes under a pane) I got to talk to Bill Lamar, a real biologist who love snakes and reptiles.  We got to talking snake numbers and he said the census for copperheads in prime East Texas landscape was 125 per acre.   I asked him twice for confirmation and he confirmed.  I'm walking on snakes evidently, all the time.

Gran Torino

  Good enough movie with a few plot gaps.  Nice Garand handling by Clint.  The Redhead and I went to see it after lunch with a loose audience of old white people.  Worth seeing.  Plot gaps are the distances between Walt and his sons and family.  His wife would have never permitted that, no matter what Walt was like.  And of course you have to have a couple of deaths to move any plot along, which seems a little tiresome.  The death toll in movies is about 10X what it is in normal life.
  Redhead gives it two thumbs up.  She said she was crying at the end.  I must have been watching the credits and the crowd.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Can We Quit Now?

  A good guy.  A decent neighbor.  A family man.  A husband and dad.  A professional at his job.  Smart.  Passionate.  Hard-working.   Dead, and for what?  If the Drug war was going to be won, it would have been won by now.  Remember prohibition?  Chicago BECAME a the snakepit it remains today because of Prohibition making the criminals and unions rich and influential.  The Blago mess is going to topple Obama.  Mark it.  You don't think Blago and Obama can't be linked to criminal influence during prohibition in less degrees than Kevin Bacon?
  We have destroyed the Bill of Rights.  We have built a police state.  (Don't argue- I can't get on a plane with my shoes on, drive down the road without six different pieces of paper, or talk to a LEO without risk.)  We have destroyed every civil government to the south of us.  We have a nation worth of folks in prison.  We have enriched a world of criminals beyond belief.
  And every few weeks at least on guy like Senior Cpl Norman Smith is killed mucking around with idiots on the other side of a cheap door trying to get the undo-able done.  
  And I note: he's lost.  His wife lost him.  His kids lost him.  His job lost him.  The city lost him.  The guys that killed him have to be eaten by the system.  For what?  Drugs are cheaper, more potent and as popular as ever.
  Legalize this stuff, write prescriptions, open treatment centers for anyone who wants it and be done.  I'm personally disgusted by this.  I'm disgusted by politicians who won't stand up.  I'm disgusted by police and civil leaders who won't call it off.  This could be ended this year and the criminals bankrupted.
  No more good guys like Norman Smith killed for nothing.

  Update:  For anyone not convinced yet: a roving plainclothes narcotics unit kills a visitor in New Orleans.  Via Xavier, Tam and Uncle.

Gifts of the Eternally Stupid.

  This guy should be fired.  His staff should be fired.  Anyone who appeared within 100 feet of him during this announcement ought to be fired.  Whoever hired him (Bloomberg) ought to be fired.  Their offices ought to be razed and the ground salted.    Guys like Ray Kelly who inexplicably find themselves in positions of power ought to be sacked.  Now.  Period.

  Remember Flight 93?  Flight 93 happened because folks on cellphones spread the news of what was happening on 9/11 and saved the White House.  We actually don't NEED Homeland Security, (which does nothing but burn amendments to the Constitution and money) as long as citizens have cellphones.

  In an emergency, especially a terror attack, ( Even at Columbine and the Virginia Tech shootings.), citizens need to be about to communicate, since the police and state will be as useless and hidebound as ever.

  Dumber than the drug war, this is.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The Biggest Losers


  All the news yesterday, (and I prefer this to them biting and spitting at each other) but....sheesh.  The guys who wrecked the country, all together for lunch with the guy who is determined to seal the deal for good.  
  Bush the elder: Betrayer of the Reagan Legacy, act I.  (Read my lips.  I'll have the veal with asparagas spears and dill sauce.)  Clinton: warrior-king and savior of LGBTs everywhere, Carter, the guy who gave away Panama and fanned the flames of all present mideast wars while managing the Whitehouse tennis court schedule.  W: Destructor of the Republican Party.
  Big Government guys all.  Freedom bashing, BOR bending, budget-busting guys who COULD have made a difference to humanity but instead held the door for disaster after disaster.  
  The modern presidents, swapping jokes and patting each other on the back.  
  Nice job, you......patriots.
  I notice Obama is the only one protecting his crotch.  I guess the other guys have been de-balled by the experience.

Update:  Any person with common sense could sort the whole mess out in about six months with the hard stuff being done in the first week.  Want some hope and change?  Here's a rough sketch:

Day One:  Cancel the bailout.  Privatize SS.   Cancel Medicare.  End the Drug War.  Abolish the departments of Education, Housing, Homeland Security and anyone else standing around.  Announce the vetoing of any spending bill without a 10% cut-(not in the increase, but in actual baseline budget).  That's day one.

  Day Two:  March with the press to the steps of the capital and demand Congress institute term limits.  Three sessions for the house and two for senate.  Effective immediately.  Everything will be vetoed until that passes.  Period.  Photo-op: Toss Ted Kennedy and Ralph Hall off the Capitol steps by the scruff of the neck.  That afternoon you announce that the southern border will be sealed by airmobile infantry with National Guard beefing up the checkpoints.  You also announce that the immigration service will streamline and simplify their procedures and policies so that workers will be able to come and work.  Then you fly to Laredo and have a photo op tossing two illegal border crossers back into Mexico by the scruff of the neck.  Any out of work bureaucrats from DC are invited to apply at the Border within 48 hours.

  Day Three:  Announce the end of corporate welfare including agricultural money.  Photo-op: You pound ears of corn into the gas tank of a Prius, then set the whole thing on fire.

  Day Four:  Play golf.  In the afternoon you announce US withdrawal from UN.  Announce closing of UN in New York and invite them to set up in Kenya or Iceland.  For a photo-op that evening you catch two drunk Coraguyayan ambassadors coming out of a dance club and toss them into their double-parked limos by the scruff of the neck.

  Day Five:  Live press conference where you shoot at the press with a paintgun while answering any question with "Tough shit."

  Day Six:  Start the issuing of 1,000,000 pardons for all gun law violators, drug violators, tax law violators, et.  For a photo-op you toss a tax cheat and a medical marijuana inmate out of the front gate of a Virginia Federal Prison by the scruff of the neck.

  Day Seven:  Abolish the IRS and institute the Fair Tax.  Announce the end of 70% of foreign aid.  For a photo-op you toss a complete copy of the tax code from the top of the Washington Monument.  That night a Marine helicopter carrier off Zimbawe sends a team to kill Mugabe's presidential guard and turn he and his cabinet over to the crowd outside. 

  Second Week:  You pound a handmade sign in the yard outside the Whitehouse that reads:  "Want Something?  Apply inside."  You abolish the BATFE and auction all contents of federal evidence rooms on Gunbroker.  Photo-op:  You nail a copy of the Bill of Rights on the doors of the Supreme Court.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The 500 Manliest Firearms.

  Here we go again.  Oh it's a nice enough list, just not long enough and doesn't have the Garand or Metapistol on it.  Nicely argued though with plenty of Viking references.  Always a plus.

  Here's my list of the 10 Manliest Firearms:

Ruger 10/22
AR15
Swiss K31.
Garand
Browning Highpower
Sig 220
Colt 1911
M1 Carbine
Colt Python
Swede M38
Springfield 1903

  Why are THESE the most manliest Viking-ed firearms?  Because I can see them from where I am sitting.

  Next, maybe Tam will list the ten most womanly firearms.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Nosler .223 69 Grain Bullets.

  I bought a couple of 250 round boxes through a big group buy that some of the Texas shooters put together.  The Kid was shooting them and they were shedding their jackets on the way to the target at 200 yards.  20 inch barrel on a DPMS AR.  26 grains of Varget behind them with a CCI450 primer.  
  I called Nosler on their number listed on the website.  Got Mike.  He was ahead of the curve and already knew about the problem.  They are replacing the bullets.  Seems the jackets were too thin.  Nice. 
  Thanks Mike and good job, Nosler.  Things like this help make a company's rep.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Late Trap Trip

 Raining and cold all day.  The creek was up and crossing problematical.  When the rain quit I put on some boots and headed into the bottom.

  The big owls were calling and the light falling.  Water was up and talking but I got across.  

 In the trap a big block-headed male possum was hissing and gaping.  I consider marsupials non-combatants so I leaned the rifle on a wet tree and opened the trap on both ends.  I also consider marsupials back-of-the-classroom idiots so he clung to his position on top of the trigger plate regardless of threats.  I pulled the cam card and gave him a minute to....THINK.

  But he didn't.  

  Finally shook him out.  I tried to back him out of the trap area with corn bucket-fu.  He responded by biting the bucket a few times.  It was like backing up a turtle.

  I hope he didn't go right back in the reset trap though they have done that move before.  On  the cam, a solitary coon watched the off-cam trap.  I deleted all the idiocy, picked up my wet rifle and headed off into a steady rain.

Joe Huffman Shoots them up.

 Detailed discussion and illustration of bullet ballistics.  Nice job.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Headstamps.


  When I started shooting competitive rifle I found a pile of 70 pieces of brass at the range.  I made some ammo and shot them up.  I couldn't practice again until I had reloaded.  Usually I shot them twice a week and must have reused these same cases 15 times.  I got tired of waiting for them to split and finally tossed them.  They had three letters on the case head.  C, J, B.  Or J, B, C.  Or B, C, J.  No Nato stamp.  I don't know who made them.   Just found one case from that maker in my brass bucket.  
  No help here, though they do have a lot of codes.

Pigs


  Across the street neighbor caught a baby feral pig with her bare hands.  Very impressive.  I took some photos of it in the studio but didn't get anything special.  Should have been tossing it to make a flying pig photo.  Big litters, all year.  She kept it nice and calm between shots by holding and petting it.   Pigs sure talk a lot.  It was very vocal with a wide range of grunts and squeals.  The intra-herd conversations must be extensive.

Update:  The only time I watched a herd from inside was when one was at a feeder under the tree I was in.  They grunted and talked back and forth constantly and used body language.  They could smell me...or something and kept freezing...the whole herd of 20 at once.  They stood absolutely still and silent.   Then one pig would flick and ear and the whole group would relax and go back to eating corn.  Then they would alert again and freeze.
  I finally got tired of the drama and started shooting them, but it was interesting for a while.

Suspicious Minds

  Smart coons looking at the trap.  They learned quick, or they are survivors of earlier trapping.

  Doe and buck fawn.  Two buck fawns at the other cam yesterday.  Sign around, but not many deer on cams.

  Wet butt.  Sleeping?  Just got up?  The 9:47pm time stamp is correct.

  Untouched trap still full of catfood.  Smart coons.  The dead one was 40 yards away, cut open but not eaten.    Some of the guts pulled out but not eaten as I would have expected.  Vultures in the air up the powerline.  In all the frames coons were looking at the trap.

  Close cam has a doe and a buck fawn.  Wet ones.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Daily Deercam



 Two little bucks hanging around but alarmed by coon in the trap off to the left.  One coon down, a sow.  Used the 10/22 and some 60 grain "sniper" ammo.
  Very warm out.  I paused at the creek and worked my nose all around without a trace of snake stench.  Always something.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Coon War: Cease Fire ended.

  Six coons fluffing the duff over at the far cam.  Trap now set and waiting.

  Little buck butts on the close cam.

  Five coons on the close cam.  War resumes.

  Moved the Hav-a-Hart over the creek and baited it with dry catfood.  I've had a quorum of coons over there for a while sucking up every last kernel of corn.  Today's check showed the ground fluffed by little coon paws with an overlay of fresh small deer prints.  Nice, but it's over.
  No mice in the traps for the first check.  Maybe I picked up all the extras.
  These mammals are pretty successful.
  On the reptile front I smelled a big snake at the creek crossing.  He had to have been there sunning a little bit before, or was there and I couldn't see him.  76 and sunny- nice break from hibernating to crawl out and solar collect like the Redhead on my shooting mat back at the house.  Very distinct smell and I gave it a good look.  Leaves down so the visibility is as good as it gets.  Nothing.  There though, and close.
  Close cam had a couple little bucks and too many coons.  After I reduce the numbers across the creek I'll trap there.
  Shot the suppressed rifle a bit.  Need to go bench it and really find a load.  3.5 Titegroup under a 77 Sierra isn't enough yet.  No stuck bullets, but they are hitting low.  Going to try 3.7 titegroup and see if that produces a sonic crack.
  I bet I get dogs attacking the coons in the trap.  Several circulating.  Going to carry the suppressed AR.  Big shootout in the morning.
  Perfect Texas winter weather.  76 feels hot.  40s at night.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

New Deer Regs via Catfish

  And the guys at the Texian Tattler.  Via the Beaumont paper.  Lots of info about proposed new deer regs. 

  There are so many, of course, they could scrap the whole program and list them as vermin....but the state never backs up.  Especially from cash cows...er...deer.

  Not seeing many shootable does during legal shooting hours up at Clarksville.  Trying to figure out the reasons why.  We are stuck at 8 deer and have tags for about 40.  Doe shooting goes through February.

2009

  Sitting and surveying a new and unwrinkled 2009 stretched out in front of me.  So far I haven't fired a shot, found an arrowhead, raked a leaf, burned a stick, swapped a cam card or spent a nickle. 
  I have hugged the Redhead and had brunch.  List making and record pulling to commence.  New check registers all around.
  The New Year is an imaginary artifact: yesterday and today remarkably the same, but its like your birthday.  It may SEEM the same......but you can't go back.
  So, forward we go.