Panic! panic! shortage of reloading componetz!

I'm down to just 3 8-lb jugs of WC846. 

And an 8-pounder of W231.  And 6 lbs of Unique-ski. 

12V rechargeable flashlight

Blegging for recommendations for a metal bodied flashlight:

• impressive, maybe even intimidating, light output
• replaceable bulb or LED assembly
• rechargeable
•  . . . by 12V via a cradle
• available replacement battery pack
• suitable for mounting in an automobile, constantly on charge by permanent wiring into the vehicle's electrical system
• body stout enough to use as a bludgeon, at least twice
• low enough price to put on an Amazon wish list without sheepish grin
• lanyard, or place to attach one

Please post in comments if you can suggest a make and model. 

if I had an Oscar Meyer weiner . . .

if I got my hands on a 3-D printer, the first thing I'd like to try is a replacement barrel bushing for a Star PD.  The 3-D printer would make a plastic version of it, but then I'd try using the plastic version as a mould for an investment casting.  Somebody around here can investment cast carbon steel, no?

But the real cool thing I'd like to try is a stretched double-stack 1911 frame.  Imagine slicing down through the frame along the magazine well, and making that magazine well about 2mm longer, front to rear. That ought to be just enough so a double-stack magazine of 7.62x25mm Tokarev would fit.  That cartridge is too long for a standard or doublewide 1911.

3-D print that frame, with gaps for hardened steel slide rails to be pressed into the plastic.  Finish with standard or double-wide 1911 parts as needed, and a .38 Super slide.  3-D print a barrel for the Tokarev, and have that buddy investment cast that for you too (update:  or use J&G Sales's Tok barrel).  A 3-D printed magazine will be needed too.  It would probably have capacity for 15 or 16 rounds. 

Update:  is there any way to mix graphite fiber flakes into the plastic line that feeds into the 3-D printer?  

what to do until ammunition returns to your dealer's shelves

 . . . well, since it may be 6 to 18 months for case lots of ammunition to come available again, what is a fellow to do with his dollar-cost-averaging in the meantime?

Let us suggest that you identify those parts that wear out the soonest on the blasters you own.  Anything semiauto can be rough on extractors and ejectors, and the springs that push them, if any.  If you don't know how to pull the ejector out of the bolt face of your AR, now is the time to figure that out.  MBRs with fixed ejectors (FAL) and pistols (1911) can still break theirs, replacing them might be a bit tougher. Have a set of all the springs on your platform, many parts houses will sell you every part in one bag. 

Unfortunately, I'm not the first to have this idea, and this is why even replacement parts for ARs are getting scarce.  And 1911s too.  

Don't neglect your non-patrol rifles either.  The Remington bolt rifle extractors are said to be weak and will leave you heartbroken when they break.  Brownell's will sell you a replacement, and the replacement includes instructions.  Broken cartridge case extractors for the rifle calibers would keep your MBR out of the junk pile. 

As you try these, or have a brother show you how to do them, you'll learn what tools you need.  So we next suggest the books and tools that make you self-sufficient in keeping your beloved blasters a-blasting.  Pin punches, including the roll-pin punches that you'll need to assemble an AR, and hollow-ground screwdriver bit sets.  FAL owners would do well to get gunplumbr's guide and skim it through.  Some blasters have parts that are meant to wear out, like the buffer on the Star PD. 

If you are willing to go hardcore, get a spare hammer, trigger, and sear for your platform.  Learn how to take them out and put them back without trashing the gun's finish, breaking tools, or seeing spring-loaded parts fly out a window. 

Next, if money is still burning a hole in the ammo bag and ammo is still not available, talk to your gunsmith about some improvements to be made to your existing blasters.  If you scored a spare HTS set and its connected springs, have the smith stone them together for a good trigger pull, then take them back out, mark them as a set, and wrap them for storage.  A muzzle brake on a rifle would enhance its position on Diane's List.  Remember, in the current unpleasantness, your gunsmiths might be worried about their livelihoods too, so support them now. Give them work. 

Okay, last and most unpleasant:  if this can happen to ammunition, it can happen to expendables like food too.  You didn't prepare when ammunition prices were slowly rising.  Will you be caught again, but worse this time? 

QFTD

What is it in the American psyche that we pay so handsomely to get hectored by these vermin?

TFG

you joined the NRA . . .

 . . . so now you want a medal, or something?

Sorry, I can't get very excited about you responding to the crisis only after it looks like it could really become a crisis.  Every time I hear someone say "Hey, everybody, I joined the NRA today,  and so should you!" I think one or more of the following:

• what took you so damned long?
• (update 2) are you the same guy who laughed in my face, or rolled your eyes, or called me a paranoid black-helicopter wacko when I suggested National Ammo Day a few years ago?   Why yes, yes you are. 
• Congratulations on waking up on the gun owners' side of the battle line.  
• Get just an annual membership, then spend the dough you saved on a Dillon press and . . .

 GOA, GONH in the East, RMGO for us Westerners, IJ, and numerous other organizations.  They have been fighting at State and regional levels, especially when the NRA didn't show up.  They complemented the NRA and made many of the NRA's gains possible---or prevented the NRA from caving when the NRA started feeling, y'know, centrist.   Send them some love and money too.

NRA didn't help Heller very much, in fact one can argue they interfered.  Thank Cato instead, their Bob Levy made the Heller win possible.  

Spend as much on these institutions and organizations as you would on your next scarcity-overpriced case of ammunition or your next batch of standard-capacity magazines---if you can find the ammunition or the mags.  You can't now, because they're gone. They're gone now because you didn't buy them before the sphincters closed.  The sphincters closed because you didn't support the organizations back when this stuff was cheap. 

In short, shame on you.  Stop congratulating yourself.  You have some catching up to do.

Update 1:  I forgot Firearms Coalition, founded by the architect of the Cincinnati Revolt and continued by his widow and sons. 

was waitin for it, it was only a matter of time

 . . . until someone with national reach made the observation. 

Chicago alone is giving us a big enough body count every month to match the Newtown shooting.  But Chicago's death toll is not as shocking to the MSM because---wait for it---

"Obama Only Cares When “Vanilla” Children Get Shot"

a whole boatload of racism is implicit in that view. When will that racism be challenged? 

The mess that has been left

It's bad enough that since the atrocity, retailers and manufacturers have tightened their sphincters of supply of blasters and their expendables. 

It's even worse that most people I know are only now, with the supply tightening and prices rising, placing hard orders for the blasters and expendables.  "Know where I could get an M4?"  Me:  "I used to.  Probably gone now, for twice the price you could have had two weeks ago." 

All I can say is "I've got mine."  Now I have to put up with primers going for $.04 apiece. 

Meanwhile, the NRA EVP holds a press conference, and some wank interrupts/heckles it.  Nice attempt at a "national conversation."  Instead, as Larry Correia explained so succinctly, it isn't a conversation, it's a lecture.  Many think LaPierre rocked the presser---after looking over the release I'm not so enthusiastic. What about Fast and Furious?  What about government attempts to increase violence, and cement its association with private firearms ownership and commerce, on our Southern border? 

Meanwhile, and in a spirit of sincere national dialog rather than dismissing anti-gun writers out of hand, have a look at Cahan's post:

Repealing drug laws would do more --  much, much, much more -- than banning assault rifles (a measure I would agree is quite appropriate); barring carrying of concealed handguns in public  (I'd vote for that in my state, if after hearing from people who felt differently from me, I could give an account of my position that fairly meets their points and doesn't trade on tacit hostility toward or mere incomprehension of  whatever contribution owning a gun makes to their experience of a meaningful free life); closing the "gun show" loophole; extending waiting periods etc.  . . .  we are entitled to make policy on the best understanding we can form of how the world works so long as we are open to new evidence and aren't otherwise interfering with liberties that we ought, in a liberal society, to respect.

 The "if after hearing from people who felt differently from me" part is what thoughtful people call dialog.  Or a conversation. 

'cuz they want your stuff, man

The belief that wealth consists not of ideas, attitudes, moral codes, and mental disciplines but of definable and static things that can be seized and redistributed is the materialist superstition.

Tom Bethell paraphrasing George Gilder

Many of us free-marketers have unconsciously understood this.  The left disparages the notion of physical property as crass materialism not because they disdain material goods, rather they want us to loosen our grip on them, so they can seize those goods for themselves.  They confuse material things with wealth, they confuse money with value and love with sex, and are eager to equate spending with revenue, just as they wouldn't understand the difference between blood and saline if they were colored the same. 

Roissy done it again

"big revolutions are seeded with the polite vengeances of individuals"

Another QFTD from Roissy. 

Something the NYTimes actually can do right

A package arrived from Numrich---er, Gun Parts Corp---today.  A pack of 1911 magazines. 

Instead of styrofoam dunnage, the box was packed with crumpled pages from the New York Times. 

¡Vachement!

another pithy explanation for last week

Dreams, visions and wild hopes are mighty weapons and realistic tools.  The practical-mindedness of a true leader consists in recognizing the practical value of these tools.  Yet this recognition usually stems from a contempt of the present which can be traced to a natural ineptitude in practical affairs.  The successful businessman is often a failure as a communal leader because his mind is attuned to the "things that are" and his heart set on that which can be accomplished in "our time."  Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs. And it is perhaps fortunate that some proud natures when suffering defeat in the practical world do not feel crushed but are suddenly fired with the apparently absurd conviction that they are eminently competent to direct the fortunes of the community and the nation. 

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer:  Thoughts on the nature of mass movements
\

Grow a pair . . . of labia?

It seems that many of our fellow Americans have indeed voted as if their lady parts depended on it. 

Unfortunately, I would have sworn that many of those fellow Americans didn't have lady parts on whose behalf they voted. 

I guess I was mistaken. 

post-election wrap-up

It is Mlle. Sklodovska's first night of the new junior smallbore season.  As I was driving her to the range, she asked, "Who won the election?"

"Mr. Obama has been re-elected."

Hmmmm.  "Is that a good thing?"

I thought for a second.  "Not optimal." 

Hunh

I might have failed to tell you that on neighboring Farflung Silos AFB, the base exchange has installed a firearms counter and does land-office business in blasters.  Not just yer plain-jane duck-hunting NEF break-open shotguns and bolt .22's either.  They seem to lean hard on pocket blasters and Black rifles.  Quite good prices on everything Springer.  And I never knew how pretty a Ruger 77/44 was until I saw one there. 

I walked past that counter the other day with FrankenBoy in tow, and noticed a family crowded up to the counter.  Dad talking to the dealer, one or two offspring units in a stroller, and Momma in faux-stretch-leather pants handling a S&W M&P. 

Double-take:  she was slowly, deliberately turning the pistol and looking straight down the barrel. 

words that I wish were more common

I heard a guest on a radio talk show last week use a word that I wish I heard more often:  'whence.'

Which is proper usage:  "let it go back from whence it came" or "let it go back whence it came"? 

Other words that should stage a comeback: 

• disabuse

Commenters, by all means chime in. 

Invisible War and PPACA

Today we watched the film Invisible War, which detailed the problem of sexual assault in Uncle Sugar's services, and how assaults persist in spite of the sexual assault prevention programs Uncle has launched against it.  This film is not for weak stomachs.

My takeaways:

• the typical sexual predator claims 300 victims in a career.  I'm torn on the idea of trying to treat this as if it were a public health problem, using motivational posters and briefings.  In fact, this film brutally rips the current SAPR/BIT/SHARP programs as ineffective at best, or PR distractions at worst. 

• the film's showcase assault survivors bear the scars of the assault, but even worse scars from the coverups and declined or bungled investigations after the fact.  It's worth asking whether these survivors would have recovered and continued purposeful lives and successful military careers if the commanders had investigated and prosecuted the assaults more vigorously.  What do we know about  survivors whose perpetrators have been prosecuted fully?  The film shows that most perps get weak punishment, assuming that the perps were guilty.  I will not support abandonment of presumed innocence. 

• the survivors had peers, both male and female, who supported them and encouraged them to report the assaults and seek justice, as well as peers who tried to persuade them to stay silent.  The latter will always bend in the direction of the wind.  Commanders and enforcers make the coverup possible, thus making future assaults inevitable. 

• something is genuinely dicked up with the Feres doctrine.  There's a reason I'm not a lawyer and the preceding sentence shows it. 

I don't want to rob this film of its power, but much of the film shows one of the assault survivors battling the Veteran's Administration for coverage of injuries from the assault.  Watch just these passages if you want to see what your life will be like when Obamacare is fully implemented.  That's what they want for all of us. 

Why do feminists assert nonsense that intimacy is terrifying to men?

When all you have is a lack of options, the world looks like a mandate.

Roissy

teledildonics

when I send a text to the wife telling her to check the batteries in the butterfly, I mean check the batteries in the remote, too. 

Has anyone fielded a Bluetooth-enabled toy that can be controlled through a smartphone?  I wonder. 

Self-reassurance, or affirmation statement?

About a year ago, a new family moved in across the street.  A divorced head of household, her son with a girlfriend, and a daughter with two sons of her own, the elder of whom is bright, energetic, and over here with our two sons every day.  Others appear, or stop appearing, randomly. 

The said head of household has been revamping the landscaping and cleaning up trees and so forth.  She visited the other day, asking to borrow tools for the effort.  Sainted wife offered our stepladder and a telescoping pruner. 

At one point during a lull in the conversation, she said, "I don't need a man."  That struck me as rather queer.  Did she mean she didn't need a man to handle the landscaping that has utterly dominated her spare time for the entire summer?  She said it at a moment that I thought my sainted wife might not have heard it, almost that it was calculated so.  In retrospect, I found it somewhat offensive. 

I said, "well, you don't need a man until you need a man," meaning that it's easy for a woman to say she doesn't need a man, when she can borrow the things that tend to be available through a man from someone else's man. 

Since then I 've been thinking of about better  comebacks I should have offered, so she didn't think I was trying to hit on her, for example.  "None was offered," for example.  Please suggest your own comebacks in the comments. 

"Not until you need a ladder from one." 

"Is that an affirmation statement, or a self-reassurance?"

"Is that why you don't keep one around?" 

"'How's that working for you?" 

"Of course not, the world's your oyster, Toots."