Roll over, Amanda. And other stuff.

The big news in the Markowitz household is that Amanda is now able to roll over onto her back from her stomach. She'll be five months old on December 6th (Alexandra's second birthday).

It's interesting to see how each kid is developing differently. Alexandra had to be delivered 3 weeks early, and it shows. Developmentally, she's a bit behind most other kids her age. In contrast, I won't be surprised if Amanda is walking by the time she's one year old.

Otherwise, not much else is exciting. Alexandra, Amanda, and I all had colds over the weekend but they seem to be going away now. And my back was acting up again on Saturday, which prevented me from doing much.

I did finally find something to make a brass deflector for my AR-180B, though. I was at Lowe's yesterday picking up a few things and noticed an end plug for PVC pipes in the plumbing aisle. It's basically a threaded cylinder with a square nub on the end. There's sufficient material in it to allow me to machine a hump like on an M16-A2 receiver out of it. I'll then epoxy it to the AR-180B's receiver behind the ejection port. After it's on and tested I'll paint it black or grey to match the metal. This should keep hot brass out of my face.

Oh, I think I forgot to mention about ordering and receiving a scope mount for the AR-180B. One of my friends has an AR-180B and has a red dot sight mounted on it using a B-Square mount. It's a slick setup and something I've been thinking about for some time. MSRP on the B-Square mount is ~$150, which has been the major reason I hadn't bought one. Well, I found it on sale at MidwayUSA for $99 after I saw my friend's rifle, so I ordered one.

As with previous Midway orders, it came fast. I got a set of 30mm medium height scope rings, which place the centerline of the optics a little bit higher than the iron sights. I put my PK-01V, previously resident on my AK, on the ArmaLite. It is a nice setup which hopefully I'll get to try out soon.

Aside from the B-Square mount, I also picked up two sets of high rings for 1" scope, to be used to mount optics on my two Savage rimfire rifles. (Also made by B-Square, and also on sale.) With low mounts, the objective bell of a scope is fouled by the rear sight on these rifles, and the scope winds up being mounted too far forward. The high mounts should allow me to set them up with correct eye relief.