A Clinton appointee is now a right-wing extremist?

Judge Gould writes in Nordyke v King, quoted here:

. . . the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence.

Careful, Your Honor, you're now on Secretary Napolitano's radar.

My BAG Day Score

I'm ashamed to admit that I've missed every Buy-A-Gun (BAG) Day since its inception. I've never been one to wait around to buy something to commemorate a particular event. But that's not true this year! (Sorta'...) Even if it was an "semi-unintentional" BAG buy -- and I had to sell a gun to get it -- I will assume still earn a BAG point. (And besides, even if I did sell a gun to get this one, somebody else enjoyed his BAG Day, too!)

I present to you a Smith and Wesson Model 18, circa 1980.





The revolver came with horribly mismatched target grips and while they were aesthetically pleasing (when viewed from only one side by someone with a short visual memory), they didn't really fit the hand very well. So I bolted on the Hogue rubber grips to match my 625 and 325 and all is good.

The back-story is that I'd been looking for a Model 63 on Gunbroker for going on a year. A few NIBs had gotten past me when I was short on funds and that ratcheted up the frustration factor. Then for a good two months, no 63s of note appeared for sale. An apparent drought.

Then while logging my daily read over at Tam's site, I was informed of something I'd never heard of: a Model 18 Combat Masterpiece. Really? A K-frame 22? Really? How had this gone unnoticed by me all these years? I admit that part of my lusting for a Model 63 was because of its stainless steel construction................, but a K-frame 22?

Oh, I had to have one. Off to Gunbroker.

I lost out on a nicely priced 98% Model 18 when the seller ignored my inquiries and another more daring buyer hit the "Buy Now" button. (The seller had two pictures in the ad and one was obviously not of a Model 18.) I went to the LGS and inquired about the "Classic" reissue of the Model 18 that S&W has out. $900 and indeterminate back-order duration. Unacceptable.

So back to Gunbroker. There was quite a disparity in "going price" for the listed Model 18s. Some of the rode hard and put away wet models were going for ~$450 but I just didn't like what I was seeing.* A few models were advertised as NIB or 100% -- and built before I was born -- but they were in the $1000+ range. I know that vintage Smiths are currently overpriced being sold at what the market will bear and I didn't want to contribute (too much) to that trend. One Model 18 stood out as being in 98% condition and (relatively) reasonably priced. I agonized over it for about 12 hours and did the "Buy Now" thingy.

One week later, I had it in hand. I took it to the range the same day to test it out. Unfortunately, the tornado force winds we'd been having for the better part of a week didn't give me as many warm-fuzzies about the data as I'd have liked. All things considered, though, it did well at 25 yards and at first blush, appears nearly as accurate as my Mark II 22/45, which up to this point has been the standard bearer for 22 handgun accuracy in my meager collection thereof. But until I can get out there under "normal conditions", I won't know its true accuracy.

So my old Mini-14 has a new home and I'm the happy owner of yet another Smith, one that I didn't even know about three weeks ago.

Ciao!


* Gunbroker should have a mandatory photography tutorial for its sellers. If nothing else, people, Google "macro lens" fercrissakes and learn how to use one. Lighting, too. I'm by no means an expert photographer but I can get a useful and informative gun pic out of my measly 4M-pixel Canon. I'm jealous of folks like Tam that have decent-sized gun shows locally. They can see/fondle first hand the goodies that are up for sale and not have to rely on someone else's (sub-)amateur photography skills. Why Colorado gun shows are an insult to the genre, I'll never know...

quote for the day

"I tend to get angry, dealing with deadbeats, but you know, that’s where a lot of the money is. Why I love America a whole damn lot - tons of money is just tied up with morons."

Scott Chaffin

Add Florida

to the list of States where I've CCW'd.

As close as I've ever come to batshit unhinged in public

I once had a company car. I was given a list of eligible models and a max price, and told to pick one and get the office manager to order it for me. Had to be domestic, had to be 4-door with good interior trim and a sound system. It would be used to take my customers out for entertainment.

It was delivered about two weeks later, and it came with a fuel card. I didn't pay for the gas to put in it either.

When I was briefed on how it was to be used, and how I was to report its value on my income tax returns, it was clear that corporate tax laws made the whole racket possible. I took customers out to lunch in it perhaps twice.

That racket came rushing back to me this morning, painfully and frighteningly. I seriously was screaming at the radio in my dash, slogging along Pershing Boulevard on my way to work.

This is why: NPR ran the story of GM's car perk program.

Some mewling would-be saint mewled, "we don't get fwee caws. We don't get fwee gas. Why should they get fwee cawws and fwee gas?"

I was shocked by how forcefully and spontaneously the rage leapt from me. Drivers in the lanes beside me turned and looked.

"Bawney Fwank gets a fwee caww. He gets a fucking dwivewww. He pwobabwy even gets a secuwwity detaiww. AND SPEAKEWWW PEWWOSI DEMANDS A FUCKING GUWWWFSTWEEAM!!! FWOM MY AIWWWW FOWWWCE!!!"

Congress made this. Congress made it possible. And I am more angry about it than I would have admitted 12 hours ago.

This snip from this post at Volokh Conspiracy reminds me:

There is no need to romanticize Clinton. Government growth was constrained on his watch in part because his worst instincts were checked by a Republican Congress, and he in turn checked theirs. As a general rule, divided government leads to limited government.

President Obama appears to me not so much an evil man who smooth-talked his way into "the most powerful office in the world", rather as a convenient patsy shoved into the job by the real evildoers elated to have him at their disposal. (Yes, I mean Congress.)

Mind you, if you look at Barack Obama the law professor, Barack Obama the community organizer, or Barack Obama the Illinois legislator, I concede he looked pretty evil. But today he is merely a conduit for someone else's evil. They pull the strings. He twitches.

I don't particularly miss Bill Clinton's presidency. But I adored the bowel-voiding hysteria of 1994 when the Democrat majority in Congress vanished overnight, and I got a few good chuckles from the divided government that followed.

Given that President Obama seems unable to tie his shoes without some wisp of approval or direction from his handlers in Congress, what sort of President would he be, and over what sort of America (and American economy) would he preside, if 2010 swept his present handlers out of power?

Congress has been the problem all along. If we want to solve the problem, it's not the Presidency we should seek to influence. We need to change the way things are done in Congress.

Evidence, if you demanded it . . .

. . . that the recipient of 12 years of government schooling, plus a 4-year baccalaureate degree qualifying one for law school, plus law school itself, can still be embarrassingly illiterate:

I’m am [sic] Mr. (x)’s lawyer. This case is currently on appeal. You are not the prosecutor, the judge or a forensic expert. You have noted contacting several people who are potential witnesses in the case and who will be called as witnesses later on in an evidentiary hearing. As a lawyer you should no [sic] that you have no business talking to witnesses when you are not a party to this case. Cease immediately or I will file an ethics complaint with your state bar.... You are a memeber [sic] of the general public you have no right to be demanding that this child’s autopsy or medical records be turned over to you. Again you are neither the DA or the JUdge [sic] in this case.

The [sic]'s are not mine. Found at Volokh Conspiracy.

This is the output of someone practicing law. Would you want this attorney representing you?

Sadly, this attorney is responsible for the defense of someone who was convicted with the help of 'evidence' generated by a charlatan regularly targeted by Radley Balko, whom I admire.

Meet Bettie Jean

Bettie Jean arrived. I've had the receiver, a Grade B Springfield from Civilian Marksmanship Program, for about 2 years. The barrel is a New Criterion from Midway. The rest of the parts came in a cosmoline-jammed bag from Sarco. Will tell you later how they all came together, but they did just yesterday and here's the first bearskin-rug photo of her.

TCM: I've proved myself wrong. Bobbie Jo the Grendel was supposed to be done first, my bad. Once Bettie Jean got into qualified hands, well, she just happened.

She's still not quite done, there will be some Eliza-Doolittle-style improvements to be made to her. But she's here.

Blade-Tech and Mojo: Help me to help you!!

I don't know how many of our four dedicated readers are involved in the day-to-day operations of a business, so here's a little tip: the sweetest money-maker any company can have is a product they already make that suddenly has a new application. Just crank up the marketing machine and start selling!!

This post is about two products I've found that work wonderfully outside their advertised "envelope" but I can't seem to get their manufacturers on-board with their newly-widened market, however narrow it might be. I have the greatest respect for these two companies and I've spent hundreds of dollars on their products. But my efforts to inform these folks of these newfound applications have fallen on deaf ears. So I'm going straight to the masses with this information, marketing departments be damned!!

Our first exhibit is a Blade-Tech Kydex inside-the-waistband (IWB) holster for my Taurus Tracker M44C. The M44C is a 5-shot revolver with a 2-1/2" barrel. The Tracker frames are mid-sized, kinda' like the S&W L-frames. Finding a holster for this revolver has been more than a bit frustrating; finding an IWB even more so. I have numerous Blade-Tech holsters and I thought maybe a quick call to their customer service would result in a score. They told me that the Taurus frame was incompatible with anything made by S&W and that I was pretty much out of luck. Hmmmm.....

I'm not gonna' say I didn't believe them but I was skeptical. Having more dollars than sense, I figured I'd roll the dice and order one anyway, despite what they told me. On the fitment pull-down, I selected a S&W 686 (L-frame) and set the barrel length to 2-1/2". I crossed my fingers, hit 'buy now', and proceeded to wait about four weeks.

(See how I just saved you four weeks of waiting?? You can thank me later...)

And it finally arrived. With barely controlled anticipation, I ripped open the package from Blade-Tech and, with all eleven fingers crossed, dropped the M44C into the IWB. Perfect fit. Perfect. Fit.







I quickly shot-off an e-mail to Blade-Tech to let them know that there's a revolver they can add to their IWB fitment pull-down.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No e-mail response. No added revolver. Nuthin'. What's a guy gotta' do??

Next up, Mojo. These folks make aftermarket ghost ring (peep) sights for a decently-wide selection of Euro mil-surp rifles. I have a Mojo on damned near every Mosin, Mauser, AK, and SKS I own. They're great and I love'em!!

Well, a few years back, I bought one of those Romanian ROMAK PSLs. (Don't dare call it a Dragunov in my presence. I was the proud owner of a real Dragunov for a few years and the PSL isn't even close.) I was one of those unfortunate souls to have bought a PSL with the caddywampus scope rail. With the scope in place, it hangs off to the left and points downward. Getting it zeroed at 100 yards meant cranking the elevation turret to the point where the reticle was very nearly at the top of its range of adjustment. And when the rounds were finally on paper, it wasn't terribly accurate. It was ugly, folks. Really ugly.

I'd made up my mind to sell it but had an idea. I'd never shot it with its iron sights and I wondered how it'd do. I had a Mojo Micro-Click that I'd ordered for an AK that I'd just sold and, on a whim, set myself to installing it on the PSL. It dropped in place just as easily as it would have installed on an AK.





I took the PSL to the range the next day and I'll be damned if it didn't shoot better than it had when the scope was installed!! In fact, it groups almost as well as my Mojo-equipped Finn-Mosin M39s. No way was I gonna' sell it now. I dumped the scope into the bottom of the gun-junk drawer and never looked back.

Mojo's fitment page mentioned nothing about the AK sight fitting the PSL. Again, I banged-out an e-mail and sent it off. At least Mojo responded with a 'thanx' and indicated that they'd research the matter, post haste.

Nuthin'. [sigh...]

Now don't get me wrong -- I'm not trying to bad-mouth these two companies. They make great kit and I'm sure I'll continue to fund their kids' college educations be buying more of their stuff. But they need to pay attention to what their customers tell them. Granted, I haven't done the equivalent of opening the Orient to their products but selling a few dozen (hundred?) more line items oughtta' be worth the effort it takes to add a couple lines of text to their web-sites. Sheesh.

So, there you have it. If you shoot a PSL with iron sights or you're looking for a Kydex IWB holster for your Tracker M44C, Mojo and Blade-Tech have you covered, respectively. Just don't look to them to tell you about it.

TCM

Thank Senator Enzi, updated

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., joined fellow senators to accept nearly 70,000 petitions from Americans who are against spending nearly $1,200,000,000,000.00 in the trillion dollar spending bill the Senate is debating.
"The American people are telling me and my colleagues to stop spending money we don’t have for programs we don’t need. I hear them loud and clear. . . . "

So thank him right away and keep thanking him.

So now, Senator, how about real economic stimulus? Stop taxing corporate income, end corporate welfare, stop imposing tax compliance costs on corporations, get the Federal Government out of the medical market, and let every Tom, Dick and Harry know exactly what the FedGov is costing them today, with every candy bar, stalk of celery, and stick of lumber.

Time for the national retail sales tax. Trash the income tax for businesses and individuals. The Obama Administration should jump at the chance to turn the income tax liability spotlight away from their nominees.

Though, having read the book, I would make some adjustments:

• no FairTax levied against college tuition? Bullshit.
  
• Paying the prebate to a Social Security number? Bullshit. Apply in person, prove your citizenship or immigration status and your age, receive a randomly-assigned identifying number that has no relation to SS, and reapply every year, certifying the whole thing top to bottom every time. Or no prebates for you.
  
• Keep the prebates the same whether you live in Chicago or Cheyenne. This tax structure must not subsidize highly-taxed jurisdictions like the present one does.
  
• Borrow a page from Charles Murray and keep the prebates as flat as possible, whether the payee has only himself or herself to support, or x number of dependents.
  
• Borrow the whole book from Murray. As the Federal Government becomes more solvent, let us phase various targeted spending programs out and direct that money into the prebates instead. We can't go to The (Murray) Plan in full right away, but the FairTax can point us in that direction.
  

Update, Grendel

I touched up the serial numbers on my KTO lower for the Grendel. Acetone removed the adhesive holding the template on the receiver.


Then a short turn in the sandblaster, and a brief immersion in dilute sodium hydroxide to open up the aluminum's pores.

Then I rigged up an anodizing bath as described by tomh. Sulfuric acid was available at the auto parts store, and much cheaper than I expected. The voltage was provided by the pickup truck. Aluminum rod threaded into the pistol grip screw hole suspended the lower in the bath and away from the cathode. A piece of roll flashing served as cathode.



Now the part is being boiled in distilled water to close the pores up and finish hardening the anodized layer.

Tomorrow maybe the teflon-moly treatment, and then I can assemble the lower half of the Grendel on it. All the remaining parts are here and frankly they're kinda pissed I haven't put them all together yet.

next notebook killer, f'sher, improved

Still waiting for a notebook killer that merges a real computer with PDA. Ain't there yet but with the rise of sub-$200 netbooks, we're getting closer.

As some phones have gone touchscreen, other phones are adding unusable miniature QWERTY or pseudoQWERTY keyboards. I can't read the fine print on the keys.

I dislike them both, mostly because they both feature QWERTY keyboards, with or without the keys as moving parts. I can outrace either with Graffiti on a Palm, as long as I'm racing only myself.

So let's see, ummmmm, PalmOne roll out a computer-heavy smartphone with a screen that reads Graffiti. No flip-open with screen above and keyboard below: just screen.

Let Wacom help with the screen, stylus, and enhancements to the handwriting interface, say with ctrl, alt, right click, and other keys wrapped around the edges of the plate and accessible by the holding hand. The dominant hand is free to wield a stylus that supports click and delete functions like those of Wacom tablets. Keep fingerprints and cosmetics off the screen, please.

Rework a light but serious OS---a Linux flavor maybe---to accept Graffiti input from a stylus, and still sense a QWERTY keyboard if and when attached. Let OpenOffice or Sun port their office productivity suite aboard, with ducts for Graffiti input.

Package a phone module that can register on the majority of the cellular networks. Or ship multiple cellular flavors.

Forget the mic and speaker, just remote them to a Bluetooth headset, that's what everyone will be using anyway. I've resisted a smartphone this long in part because I need to read something off a PDA while talking on the phone.

Pack a webcam aboard, and Skype, and wifi, so you can work away from the cellular network when alternatives are available.

Home-Made Bandoleers (or Bandoliers, if you prefer...)

Sorry to be late getting this post up. I've been indescribably swamped at work since mid-December and it's only now easing up enough for me to do things like sleep and post.

Those who know Fûze fairly well know that he's the crowned king of DIY (Do It Yourself). I'm not sure there are many "sweat equity" production projects he's not willing to attempt: AK building, brewing, reloading, tanning, butchering, etc. He's not afraid of tools nor reckless experimentation. Fûze doesn't undertake these efforts to save money so much as to acquire the skills/knowledge they require. And if my fawning over his aptitude in this regard doesn't make it obvious, I'm horribly jealous. Being the perfectionist that I am, I'm less willing to tolerate failure and, thus, less likely to experiment. But I have my moments.

There has been some discussion of late on various rifleman websites concerning the dearth of mil-surp bandoleers, specifically those for 5-round 7.62 NATO stripper clips. I have a few of the Aussie bandoleers for this application and they are indeed nice. But I like my SKSs and AKs, too, and I wanted something to hold 10-round 7.62x39 stripper clips. Having solved this for myself a few years back, I thought I'd discuss my DIY solution with you folks -- our four dedicated readers.

I started out with a mess of these:



That's a Home Depot two-pocket nail pouch. They're heavy cotton and have two narrow tie straps at each end. The cost was a whopping 77¢ each. I ripped-out the middle (double) stitching -- which took no small amount of time -- and turned each one inside-out to hide the violently orange HD logo. Then I had three vertical stitches run, making four pockets. Like this:



Not wanting the end result to be white, I picked up some fabric dye in "earth tone" colors. In this case, green, brown, and black. The original project involved 36 pouches so I dyed 12 in each of the three colors. Using a stainless steel kitchen sink, I submersed each batch of 12 pouches in the (very hot!) water-and-dye mix and let them marinate for about a 1/2-hour, stirring occasionally. I then rinsed each batch several times and ran them thru the washer-n-dryer to remove what dye was remaining and to shrink them to their final size. (I washed each batch separately to prevent color bleeding.) I ended up with this:


The lighting made the colors a little weird; they're darker than what's in the pic. Trust me, they're green, brown, and black! (OK, maybe not black, but definitely charcoal...)

Each of the four pouch pockets will easily hold three 10-round 7.62x39 stripper clips, for a total of 120 rounds:



Doing the (simple) math, that's enough to fully recharge four 30-round AK mags or prep your SKS barrel for heat treating!

Just as an experiment, I took one of the pouches and applied some sew-on hook-n-loop (aka, Velcro) tabs to the top of each pocket. I thought this might offer some additional "retention security". It did, marginally, but I didn't think the ROI justified the effort and I didn't bother to "upgrade" any of the other pouches.

So, since this post was initially prompted by blogs addressing 7.62 NATO pouches, I wanted to see how mine worked with those 5-round stripper clips. The result was this:



I can get six charged stripper clips into each pocket. They seem to be retained well enough, but only a "march thru the boonies" experiment would tell. I can say that due to the depth of the pocket, the bottom three clips are kinda' tricky to retrieve. Not impossible, but I'd hate to be fussing with it while dodging incoming fire. (YMMV...) If someone wanted to apply these bandoleers specifically to 7.62 NATO stripper clips, they could simply cut each pouch in half horizontally and restitch the bottom.

And just to see what else we can stick in these pockets I tried these 30-round mags:



As far as I'm concerned, the AK mags are a "no-go". Too top heavy and they'd likely rattle. The AR mags would work in a pinch. They're not held very securely, though the pouches would probably work well with 20-round'ers. Then again, showing up at a firefight with 20-round AR mags is akin to showing up at a firefight with an AR. (Did I say that??...) The pockets will not hold M14, FAL, or HK-91 mags, though I suspect sewing the pouches for three pockets would do that nicely. Obviously, there's plenty of room in each pocket for M1 Garand en blocs, though they don't occupy the space optimally.

So, there's a weekend DIY project for ya'. Not a lot of moving parts and it can be done while catching your favorite "athletic entertainment programming" on the talkin' picture box.

Ciao!!

TCM

Schooling

Never did overlays before.

Tis the season

Apparently everybody got a Wii for Christmas this year except the homeless and those who got their Wiis last Christmas.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

My daughter has beaten me out of putting a glottal stop between the i and the i. "Daa-aaaa--aad, it's not We-ee, it's just Wee."

So a number of Miis piped in from other peoples' Wiis is a Miiting? I'm putting a claim on that term, muthas.

best damn kim chi made by a Polack in Wyoming

ingredients:
1 large head of napa cabbage
1 nub of ginger root, about 3 tbsp when peeled and minced
garlic, about the same amount as ginger root
1/4 cup kosher salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup Sri Racha sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce

Rinse and quarter the cabbage. Discard yellowish or gnarly outer leaves. Cut out the stalk. Slice through each quarter to leave the cabbage in strips about 2cm wide.

Place the cabbage in a large container, scatter with the kosher salt and mix it well. Cover with sterile water.

Place a clean gallon Ziploc freezer bag in the container, atop the cabbage. Fill the bag with tap water so its weight rests on the cabbage, pressing it under the brine. Cover and let rest in cold, dark place overnight.

Tomorrow, remove the bag weighing the cabbage down and set it aside on a clean surface. The bag should have squashed the cabbage to less than half its original volume and there will be much more liquid resting on top of it.

Drain the cabbage in a strainer and catch all the brine. Put the cabbage back in the container. Mince the garlic and ginger root. Mix with the brown sugar. Add a dash of chili powder or hot pepper flakes. Add these to the cabbage. Add the Sri Racha sauce and fish sauce. Toss the cabbage around to mix (use a gloved hand or tongs).

Put the heavy bag back atop the cabbage. Add just enough of the brine back in to cover the cabbage again. Pitch the rest.

Cover and put in cold, dark place. It's ready to eat in another 24 hours or so. Keep it cold but not freezing until it's gone.

With all the trimmings

Blogroller James Rummel points to very old advertisements for the Thanksgiving dinner of pre-NFA Lugers. James admits to a fascination for a pistol with all of the trimmings---optics, stock, muzzle devices, extended barrels and such.

This reminds me of one of only two great unrequited loves and unfulfilled material yearnings of my life.

Reprint permission for the photo comes courtesy of www.automagpistol.com


The AutoMag. A rotating-bolt pistol, all stainless, with shoulder stock if you wanted it, and changes of top-end for your taste of barrel length, compensator, and optics.

It fired cartridges based on the 7.62 NATO case cut short, straightwalled, and turned inside to take a .44 bullet. Or necked down to .41 (ideal Thumper cartridge) or .357.

My Latest Obsession

(from the top, clockwise) S&W Jerry Miculek 625, 45 ACP; Taurus Tracker M44C, 44 Mag; Ruger Redhawk, 44 Mag; S&W Thunder Ranch 325, 45 ACP; Ruger SP-101, 357 Mag.


I came to double-action revolvers late in life -- too late, if you ask me. My first handguns were a 6-1/2" Ruger Single Six and a 7-1/2" Ruger Super Blackhawk, both purchased NIB in my late-teens. Single-action: I knew what I was getting into and I could deal with that. I conceded to their "slowness" since my reason for owning them was to hunt the wiley wabbit and whatever big-game animal was stupid enough to blunder into Darwin range. (Which, given my skill level in those days, was probably under five yards...)

As my handgun tastes became "refined" in my 30s, I lusted after the 1911. These were the days before the internet -- remember those?? -- and I researched as much as I could given the resources I had. I plopped down $500 for a "standard-grade" Springfield Armory with no amenities and an awful trigger. But I loved it and I never looked back. Over time, the handgun quiver filled with Glocks and CZs and more 1911s. I had the original S/A worked on by a competent gunsmith and now it's a wonderfully reliable defense and IDPA piece. I even went to Gunsite and learned how to shoot the damned thing. I do OK.

But I'd never acquired a taste for the D/A wheelgun. Sure, somewhere along the way, I picked up a 3" SP-101 in 357 Mag, mostly because I was horribly over-paid at the time and prolly didn't know what else to do with all that extra $$$ I was bringing home. I fired a box of 125-grain 357 Mag HPs thru it, put it back in the safe, and spent two weeks regrowing the skin on the web of my hand. Not really a good noob experience.

Then over the years I stumbled across the writings of three folks whom I came to respect and admire: Tam, Marko, and Clint. All are serious wheelgun aficionados. And neither seemed handicapped by their choice of weapon. If they can do it, so can I. Time for TCM to reevaluate the D/A wheelgun.

I worked my way thru a series of 41 Magnums -- Taurus Tracker, Ruger Redhawk, and S&W Model 58 -- before I realized the limitations imposed by such a small pool of apologists and the resultantly small 41 Mag market. I (sadly) divested myself of the oddly chambered revolvers, but not until I'd garnered some measure of proficiency with the D/A wheelgun.

The first replacement was the new 4" Ruger Redhawk in 44 Mag. Nice gun. Built like a Merkava tank. But also heavy and sorta' bulky. The stock grip sucked so I put a Hogue on it. It gets fed one of three reloads I developed, handling each one with aplomb. The first is essentially a 44 Special "+P" load using a 240-grain SWC for 875 fps / 400 ft*lbs. It's an easy load to shoot all day long and very accurate. The second load is what I call my "working load", or "44 Mag Light". Again, using the 240-grain SWC but now doing 1100/650. Very nice! I figger' it's good for just about anything up to 400 pounds. The third load is my answer to bear spray: a gas-checked 310-grain flatnose at 1200/1000. Hurts like a muther to shoot but I imagine it'll work on everything I'd run into in the CONUS.

By this point, I'd seen revolvers at several IDPA matches and thought that'd be neato. I'd also been on the lookout for a good nightstand revolver; something that I didn't need to worry about rotating mags for or having grease dry up inside it, gumming-up the works. (In hindsight, the latter's not much of a concern since my "main shooters" aren't afforded long vacations from the range...) Then I stumbled upon the S&W 325 Thunder Ranch, which had the bonus of a detachable light rail. I already had an Insight laser/light that had been collecting dust so that seemed to be the way to go.

I managed to secure a copy for myself -- dayum, those things are spendy!! -- and proceeded to the range. O-M-G!! Where had this thing been all my life? What a nice piece: a wonderfully smooth trigger pull, great grips, and sights that live up to their advertising. I quickly went to work at the reloader and came up with three loads, all using a 255-grain SWCs: 800/350, 900/455, and 1000/560. The first load is my practice/IDPA load, the second is my "wave of zombies" load, and the last load for the off-chance I'm carrying the 325 in critter country. At one point I was drawing the 325 from the holster and doing D/A "double-taps", keeping 90% of 100+ rounds inside a 6" circle at 10 yards. And those moonclips recharge the revolver quickly!!

One of my favorite sayings is, "two is one and one is none". Not satisfied with just one 45 ACP revolver, I hunted down another one. That one was a S&W 625 Jerry Miculek model. Again, the stock grip sucked so I put on a Hogue that is identical to what the 325 wears. The JM has the same gold-dot front sight and the same to-die-for trigger action. The trigger itself is grooved -- which I don't care for -- so I filled it in with some silicon sealant. It too shoots great but, being all stainless, it is heavier than the 325. I can conceal it easy enough, though, and I even have a Blade Tech IWB that's quite tolerable.

[Side note: This seems like a decent place to mention a problem I found with my 45 ACP SWC reloads. Not an insurmountable one, but certainly a time-consuming one. Of the aforementioned wheelgun loads, I loaded 800 of the 800/350s and 600 of the 900/455. (Thank God for the Dillon 650XL...) I loaded all these before I got the 625; they were "tested for fit" in the 325. They worked great in the 325 but the first moonclip loaded into the 625 bound-up the cylinder at the recoil plate. Hmmmm...... I could get them to work if I mashed down on each cartridge with my thumb. Not really what you wanna' do in a gunfight!! So, on a whim, I grabbed a dozen or so rounds and re-seated the bullets down another 0.01". That did the trick. Somehow, the cutting band of the SWC was butting against the "headspace rim" (or whatever it's called) inside the 625's cylinders. I'd read somewhere that the 325 and 625 headspaced differently and that the 325 often wouldn't fire cartridges without the moonclips. Well, I had my proof. In order for all of my 45 ACP reloads to work in both revolvers, I needed to re-seat all of the bullets. All 1400 of them. I've finished the 800/350 loads -- a process which also involves removing a small ring of shaved lead from the crimp groove (a major PITA) -- but I still have the 900/455 loads to re-do. Meh...]

Which leads us to the Taurus Tracker M44C. This was an impulse buy and I got lucky. Like my old 41 Mag Tracker, it's a 5-shot. It will accept any speedloader designed for the Charter Arms 44 Bulldog, which is a nice feature. It has a 2-1/2" barrel, even though Taurus says it's a 2". It's been "crowned" nearly down to the ports so maybe that's why they're cheating their advertisers out of a 1/2-inch. Supposedly, Taurus only made a handful of these. (Maybe 250? I don't know...) The trigger isn't quite as nice as any of the other revolvers and the sights are fixed. The red "fiber-optic" front sight thingy works great in sunlight, though. POI is good horizontally but about 2" high at 10 yards. It digests very nicely both the low- and mid-range 44 Mag handloads I created for the Redhawk. With well-placed shots, I suspect either one would be pure poison against two-legged goblins. The stock grips are very comfy and I can't think of any reason to replace them. The M44C had some infant mortality issues which Taurus fixed at no cost to me. I'm awaiting holsters for it and I'll try my hand at CCWing with it.

And yet, there's something lacking in all this. What, you ask??

Simple: a 3", medium-frame, 5-shot 45 ACP revolver. Stainless steel cylinder and frame, maybe the latter in scandium. Fixed sights. (Driftable rear?) Moon clips, too, and good ones. Compact grip, but not too small.

All you revolver manufacturers pay attention. This could be done on a S&W L-frame or possibly Ruger's GP100 frame. I don't think an N-frame is necessary, given the low pressure of the 45 ACP and the fact that I'm thinking a 5-shot. The 5-shot cylinder is only a bit smaller in diameter than a 6-shot cylinder but the extra frame needed to hold it means more bulk and more weight. We're talking small and concealable. Why not take the S&W 396, stretch the barrel an inch and chamber it for 45 ACP?? Why not??

So, come on S&W, Ruger, and/or Taurus. Build it and they will come buy. Or at least I will.

TCM

uncorrected

I no longer have a use for any of these. There's a box somewhere for me to drop these off so perhaps they can be fitted to somebody else.

I'm another satsified customer of the USAF Warfighter Refractive Surgery program.

Now, the two pair of combat spectacles (upper left and lower right) are available to my readers, there's a third pair not shown. If you are OK with having lenses cut for them to your own prescription, email or comment to me. If I don't hear from anybody about them in about a month they're going on eBay. The frames are size 50-22.

The frameless ones, shown lower-middle, are for Army M-40. Tell me if you want 'em. There's a second pair not shown. The hoops to mount them in the M-40 are trashed.

A challenge to Radley Balko and John Lott

If dynamic entries are like cockroaches, there are hundreds more that Radley Balko is not aware of, for each one he has reported on. Even he suspects the same.

But that ratio of unknown to known is troubling. Just how many are there? Do they rise to the point that the average Joe is more likely to suffer a dynamic entry than, say, be struck by lightning or die in a plane crash?

What really are the odds that you will have your doors burst open by the cops?

This has a real-world practical aspect to it. Are you more likely to have your home invaded by real home-invading criminals, or by police executing a warrant, legit or not?

What increases the odds? Gun owner, CCW holder, income bracket, dog owner? Assuming that one is already leading a lawful life, what reasonable and lawful means can one take to decrease the odds?

Unfortunately, this is the sort of information our servants in government would rather we not know nor find out. So it will take some teasing and some statistical skill, neither of which I possess. But between Rad and Lott, a one-order-of-magnitude first pass should be possible.

Meanwhile there should be a Federal civil-rights nexus, and a police funding nexus, that Constitutionally empower the Feds to require all States to collect the statistics so we no longer must guess.