Thursday, September 20, 2007
Thoughts About Survival Knives
I have a new post, "Thoughts About Survival Knives," over on the Survival and Emergency Preparedness Blog. Check it out.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Fire Starting Practice
Over on my Survival and Emergency Preparedness Blog I have a couple of recent posts about starting fires. You can check them out here and here.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Six Years
I feel the need to memorialize September 11, 2001. It was the Pearl Harbor of my generation.
Last year I wrote of our failure to address the real cause of 9/11 -- the Islamic atittude that it is acceptable to murder non-believers in the name of spreading the faith. Not much has changed on that front. In some ways, we're worse off. For example, November 2006 saw the Democrats take power in the House and Senate, based largely on an anti-war platform. While Bush et al. haven't fully taken the war to the enemy, the Democrats want to fall back on diplomacy, a tactic which time and again has been seen as a sign of weakness by the Islamics.
The biggest American political issue in the past year was illegal immigration. Unfortunately, the flow of illegals across the US-Mexican border is not limited to people looking for better economic prospects. Thousands of "Other Than Mexicans" or "OTMs" also sneak across. And many of them are from the Middle East, sneaking into the country with no doubt nefarious purposes. (Lest anyone accuse me of xenophobia, I am in favor of legal immigration of people who will make a positive contribution to America. But illegal immigrants are by definition, criminals. While many of them are seeking better lives through work, many are here to take advantage of the American welfare state. Witness the collapsing hospital systems in California.)
Meanwhile, the US government continues to treat its own citizens as more serious potential threats. E.g., in the form of the degrading harassment by TSA agents at airports. Jerry Pournelle calls this "anarcho-tyranny." It's as good a term as any, I suppose.
Before you know it we'll be memorializing the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01. I expect that not much will have changed, unless some Islamics carry off another successful attack on American soil. In that case, things will get worse.
Last year I wrote of our failure to address the real cause of 9/11 -- the Islamic atittude that it is acceptable to murder non-believers in the name of spreading the faith. Not much has changed on that front. In some ways, we're worse off. For example, November 2006 saw the Democrats take power in the House and Senate, based largely on an anti-war platform. While Bush et al. haven't fully taken the war to the enemy, the Democrats want to fall back on diplomacy, a tactic which time and again has been seen as a sign of weakness by the Islamics.
The biggest American political issue in the past year was illegal immigration. Unfortunately, the flow of illegals across the US-Mexican border is not limited to people looking for better economic prospects. Thousands of "Other Than Mexicans" or "OTMs" also sneak across. And many of them are from the Middle East, sneaking into the country with no doubt nefarious purposes. (Lest anyone accuse me of xenophobia, I am in favor of legal immigration of people who will make a positive contribution to America. But illegal immigrants are by definition, criminals. While many of them are seeking better lives through work, many are here to take advantage of the American welfare state. Witness the collapsing hospital systems in California.)
Meanwhile, the US government continues to treat its own citizens as more serious potential threats. E.g., in the form of the degrading harassment by TSA agents at airports. Jerry Pournelle calls this "anarcho-tyranny." It's as good a term as any, I suppose.
Before you know it we'll be memorializing the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01. I expect that not much will have changed, unless some Islamics carry off another successful attack on American soil. In that case, things will get worse.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Certificate Warning
I received the following note this morning from a reader:
It's due to the link down there on the right for donating to Fred Thompson's campaign. If you don't accept the certificate, the only thing you'll be blocked from accessing is a way to donate to his campaign.
Unable to verify the identity of wwww.Fred08.com as a trusted site.
Possible reasons for this error:
-Your browser does not recognize the Certificate Authority that
issued the site's certificate.
-The site's certificate is incomplete due to a server
misconfiguration.
-Your are connedted to a site pretending to be www.Fred08.com,
possibly to obtain your confidential information.
Please notify the site's webmaster about this problem.
Before accepting this certificate, you should examine this site's
certificate carefully. Are you willing to accept this certificate
for the purpose of identifying the Web site www.Fred08.com?
It's due to the link down there on the right for donating to Fred Thompson's campaign. If you don't accept the certificate, the only thing you'll be blocked from accessing is a way to donate to his campaign.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Savage Rimfires Revisited
After a couple of years worth of procrastinating, I finally installed the two Rifle Basix sears I bought for my Savage 93GL .22 Magnum and Mark IIGL .22LR. Both rifles are quite accurate, but came from the factory hampered with heavy trigger pulls. (They were made before Savage put the AccuTriggers on their rimfire rifles.)
I did the 93GL yesterday, and managed to lose an e-clip which retains one of the pins in the fire control group. {grumble, grumble} As a replacement, I took a paper-covered wire twisty tie, burned the paper off, and wrapped it around the pin, making sure the wire was seated in the groove for the e-clip. I then snipped the ends of the tie, and put a drop of Ballistol on it to prevent corrosion. It should work fine, since once the action is in the stock there's no room for the pin to back out.
This morning I did the Mark IIGL. The process was easier the second time around and this time I didn't lose any parts.
Both rifles now have markedly lighter trigger pulls. However, there is still some creep. I'm a bit dissappointed in that. However, they should be much easier to shoot now.
Having recently moved the scope that was on the .22 Magnum over to my RWS 34 air rifle, I needed new optics for the 93GL. So, on Friday I ordered another Nikon 4x32mm ProStaff rimfire scope for it from Natchez Shooters Supply. 4x is plenty, IMO. I have one of these Nikons on my Ruger 10/22 and it's the scope I recommend for any .22 rifle. It's a nice piece of glass, very clear, with excellent light transmission.
I will post a range report after I shoot the rifles.
I did the 93GL yesterday, and managed to lose an e-clip which retains one of the pins in the fire control group. {grumble, grumble} As a replacement, I took a paper-covered wire twisty tie, burned the paper off, and wrapped it around the pin, making sure the wire was seated in the groove for the e-clip. I then snipped the ends of the tie, and put a drop of Ballistol on it to prevent corrosion. It should work fine, since once the action is in the stock there's no room for the pin to back out.
This morning I did the Mark IIGL. The process was easier the second time around and this time I didn't lose any parts.
Both rifles now have markedly lighter trigger pulls. However, there is still some creep. I'm a bit dissappointed in that. However, they should be much easier to shoot now.
Having recently moved the scope that was on the .22 Magnum over to my RWS 34 air rifle, I needed new optics for the 93GL. So, on Friday I ordered another Nikon 4x32mm ProStaff rimfire scope for it from Natchez Shooters Supply. 4x is plenty, IMO. I have one of these Nikons on my Ruger 10/22 and it's the scope I recommend for any .22 rifle. It's a nice piece of glass, very clear, with excellent light transmission.
I will post a range report after I shoot the rifles.
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