It's Not "July 4th"

It is Independence Day.


IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
   Button Gwinnett
   Lyman Hall
   George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
   William Hooper
   Joseph Hewes
   John Penn
South Carolina:
   Edward Rutledge
   Thomas Heyward, Jr.
   Thomas Lynch, Jr.
   Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
   Robert Morris
   Benjamin Rush
   Benjamin Franklin
   John Morton
   George Clymer
   James Smith
   George Taylor
   James Wilson
   George Ross
Delaware:
   Caesar Rodney
   George Read
   Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
   William Floyd
   Philip Livingston
   Francis Lewis
   Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
   Richard Stockton
   John Witherspoon
   Francis Hopkinson
   John Hart
   Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
   Josiah Bartlett
   William Whipple
Massachusetts:
   Samuel Adams
   John Adams
   Robert Treat Paine
   Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
   Stephen Hopkins
   William Ellery
Connecticut:
   Roger Sherman
   Samuel Huntington
   William Williams
   Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
   Matthew Thornton

Samsung Galaxy Tablet

Over the past couple of days I got the chance to play with a 7" Samsung Galaxy tablet with WiFi and 3G from T-Mobile at work. We haven't activated the 3G so I only got to use the WiFi.  This isn't a full review, just some first impressions.

The overall feel of the Galaxy is much like a large Droid phone.  The OS is Android 2.2 "Froyo."  I mainly used the Android browser, Firefox, Opera Mini, and Facebook.

Size of the Galaxy is almost the same as my Kindle, but it's heavier because of the glass touchscreen.  Workmanship is solid and the device feels well made.   The screen looks very good and the device feels pretty speedy in most applications.  With a 7" screen it's larger than the big Android phones like the HTC Thunderbolt but it can still fit into a back pocket of one's jeans.  However, this is small enough that you'll often want to zoom in on web pages to read what displays as fine print.

AIUI, the WiFi-only version of the Galaxy has a slower processor than the 3G/WiFi version.  Something to consider if you're in the market for a tablet and considering the Samsung.

I did a little bit of reading using the Kindle app.  Text displays nicely but for reading a Kindle device is still better due to the lack of a backlit screen.  The Kindle's e-ink technology provides a non-glare screen that doesn't cause eyestrain like an LCD display. I found that when using the Kindle app on the Galaxy I preferred it set to have a black background and white text, since this was easier on my eyes.

The Galaxy comes with a USB charger but uses a proprietary connector on the device itself. The connector looks much like an Apple Dock connector but they are not compatible. IMO it would have been better for Samsung to have used a regular Micro-USB connection.

Other ports on the Galaxy are a microSD card slot which supports up to a 32 GB card, and a SIM card slot.  The microSD card slot is the biggest advantage devices like the Galaxy has over an iPad, IMO.

The stock Android browser sucks. I didn't realize how badly it sucks until I changed my cell phone from an original Droid to an iPhone 4 back in April.  In my experience, the Android browser doesn't render pages as nicely as Safari on the iPhone, or Firefox or Opera Mini on Android. It's also slower than the other browsers and scrolling on a page is frequently choppy, especially on pages with many objects, e.g., AR15.com.

The included YouTube app works well.

The stock Gmail application works as well on the Galaxy as it does on a Droid phone.  Compared with the unified mail app on iPhones I like the Gmail app better.  For example, I like being able to delete a message with one tap vs. two or more on the iPhone.

One advantage that Android tablets, including the Galaxy, have over iPads is that you do not need a specific application on your computer to manage the device.  IPads need iTunes for device activation and management, although it's my understanding that this will change in iOS5.  In contrast, an Android device can be activated by itself and if you do connect it to a computer, it mounts just like a USB drive, allowing you to drag and drop files right onto it.

Overall, my initial impression is that the Samsung Galaxy is a good tablet computing device.  How it'll hold up over the long haul I can't say. Both my wife and I have experienced increasing device flakiness with our Droid phones after about a year of use. How much of that is due to hardware and how much due to software I don't know.  Also, were I purchasing a tablet I'd want a 10" screen.

Another Pietta 1858 Remington Range Report

Tonight I got my stainless Pietta 1858 Remington back out the range and was able to try a few different things.

Earlier today I took my supply of Wonder Wads and relubricated them with my homemade mixture of beeswax, mutton tallow, and canning paraffin wax.  I also added some more paraffin to the mix to make the lube harder for warm weather.  This worked out really well and seemed to keep powder fouling down better than my first try.

The second thing I tried was using toy caps instead of percussion caps. The kind I used were the plastic ring caps, bought at a local supermarket at $2 or $3 per a couple hundred. In comparison, Remington No.10 percussion caps sell for $6.95/100 at Cabela's.  To use the toy caps I had to first cut them apart with a set of dykes.

The toy caps worked well.  They are a snug fit on the Pietta's nipples.  Most of the caps stayed intact on firing though some split. None caused jams and it looks like it would be much more difficult for the plastic caps to cause jams anyway, compared with regular copper caps.

Out of about 30 shots I did have a couple of misfires on what I think were clogged nipples. The nipple pick I had with me -- a straightened out paper clip -- was too thick to poke all the way through the nipple flash channels.  However, I put a CCI cap on the misfired chambers and they went off immediately.

They aren't as hot as CCI or Remington percussion caps but they didn't have problems igniting black powder so long as the nipples were clear. How well they work with Pyrodex or Triple 7, both of which have higher ignition points, remains to be seen.  Likewise, I'll want to try them on a sidelock percussion rifle to see if they are strong enough to handle the longer flash channel.  At the very least, they are a viable alternative for target shooting with black powder in a percussion revolver.

I am assuming that the toy caps are corrosive. The caps I had as kid certainly were. This isn't a big deal since I'm cleaning with water based solutions that dissolve both black powder fouling and corrosive primer residue.

The final new thing I got to test was Swiss black powder. I bought a pound of it last month with the intention of trying it after I emptied my powder flask of Goex.  That happened as I was loading my last cylinder.  I fired off the three chambers loaded with Goex, then refilled my flask and reloaded.

The Swiss powder is impressive, packing more of a punch per volume than Goex. Shooting a 30 grain load of Swiss 3Fg in the Remington feels like shooting a 30 grain load of Triple 7 3Fg.  It's noticeably more powerful than Goex, judging by the recoil.

Even more impressive is how clean it burns. I fired only six shots with the Swiss, but when I went to clean the gun I was amazed at how clean the bore was, even though I hadn't cleaned it before switching powders. My cleaning patches came out almost entirely clean after only three patches. Based on past experience, if I'd just shot Goex it would have taken at least six or seven wet patches through the bore before they started coming out clean. It appears that the cylinder full of Swiss 3Fg blew out most of the nasty fouling left behind by the previous 39 shots loaded with Goex.  I'm looking forward to my next range trip to see how clean it is, without having to deal with Goex fouling.

As a side note, I went with my dad who brought along his Ruger SR-1911. As of tonight he has 500 rounds through it with only a couple malfunctions. It looks like it's a good choice for a well made, reliable production 1911.

Colt 1862 and Remington 1858 Range Report

Today I took a spin up to Cabela's in Hamburg, PA. I'd hoped to be able to buy a 1,000 round bulk pack of Remington No.10 percussion caps at Cabela's, but found that they don't carry them in that quantity in the store. They only sell the 100 cap tins in the store.  So, along with a few other items I picked up two tins.

On the way back I stopped at Dixon's and wound up buying an Uberti Colt 1862 Pocket Police percussion revolver.  My dad had a Second-generation Colt 1862 when I was a kid that I enjoyed shooting so I recently developed a hankering for one.

The Pocket Police is one of the less common 19th Century percussion Colt revolvers. Colt made made from 1861 through 1873 and I've read different production figures given, from 20,000 to about 47,700. It's a 5-shot .36 caliber revolver built on the small frame originally used for Colt's .31 caliber guns. The originals were made in several barrel lengths; my replica has a 6.5" barrel. It weighs about 26 oz. The overall size is similar to a Ruger Single Six.

The Uberti's external finish is very nice but the action is not as smooth as older Ubertis I've handled and shot. For example, my Uberti 1851 Navy came from the factory with a very slick action. I may do a complete tear down and carefully polish the internals.

I put 20 rounds through the 1862 tonight using 12 grains by volume of 3Fg Triple 7 powder, a Wonder Wad, a Hornady .375 ball, and Remington No.10 caps. It took me about 10 rounds to get on paper at 10 yards.  My target was a paper plate and it turns out that the gun shoots about a foot and a half high at that range, due to the tiny front sight.

Unfortunately, I ran into some trouble with the '62. After the 13th or 14th shot, the lug attached to the underside of the barrel, to which the loading lever is latched, fell off. It landed on the table I was shooting over and I was able to tap it back into place but after several more shots, it fell off again. I decided to call it quits with the Uberti then. I'll reattach it tomorrow after making a few divots inside the dovetail so that it stays in place.  Darn annoying.

The small frame Colts seem even more prone to cap jams than the larger framed models like the 1851 Navy or 1860 Army.  There's just less room for the cap fragments to fall out of the gun.  I had several spent caps fall off the nipple and lodge between the hammer and frame. It's a good idea to invert the gun every time you recock it, to let cap fragments fall free. The Remingtons and Rogers & Spencer handle cap fragments much better than the Colts.

However, the Colts are much less susceptible to binding from powder fouling than the Remingtons. I attribute this to the Remington cylinder base pin that has part of it cut away to clear the screw which retains it and the loading lever. The cutaway area lets powder fouling in. The Rogers & Spencer has a cylinder base pin similar in size to the Remington, but lacks the cutaway section, and handles powder fouling very well.  The Colt base pin is larger in diameter than either, doesn't have any cutaways to let fouling in, and has grooves in it to hold grease.

Because of problems with several new guns I've taken to always bringing more than one gun with me whenever I go shooting. So, after cleaning off the Uberti, I did some shooting with my .36 Pietta 1858 Remington "New Army Police" (Remington never marketed a gun with that name).

My load was the same with the Remington although I increased the powder charge to 20 grains. Unlike most percussion revolvers which shoot high from the factory, this one actually shoots a little low. One of these days I'll bring a file with me and take a little off the front sight to raise the point of impact.

To keep the powder fouling under control I pulled the cylinder base pin after every 6 - 12 shots, wiped it off, and relubed it with Ballistol. I think it might be less prone to fouling with better lubed wads. The Wonder Wads I used tonight are lubed with Bore Butter, which works fine but they could use more of it. For example, last week when I shot my Euroarms 1858 .44 I used my homemade wads with much more lube, and the gun didn't bind as much.

Overall, the Pietta Remington was a pleasure to shoot. Recoil is mild due to the light ball and the heavy gun (it's built on the same frame as their .44s.) Accuracy was good with my 10 yard, one-hand group being about the size of my palm. I was pleased to see that it shoots .375 balls well. I'd bought this box over ten years ago for use in my Uberti 1851 Navy. In the '51 .375s group like I'm shooting a smoothbore, but the gun is very accurate with .380s.

Overall a good day. I'll post a followup on the Uberti once I get the kinks worked out.

UNetbootin

Unetbootin is a nifty open source utility for creating bootable USB flash drives of various Linux and BSD distributions. Such drives are useful for installing an OS on a machine which doesn't have an optical drive.  I've also found that doing an OS install from a flash drive is usually faster than doing it off a CD or DVD since disk read/write is faster.

Up until recently UNetbootin ran on either Windows or Linux. I noticed this morning that there's now an  OS X version.  I grabbed it and I'm now creating a bootable flash drive with Ubuntu 10.04 Server LTS on it for an upcoming project.

Incidentally, this is a good use for small flash drives you get as promos. The 1 GB unit I'm currently using was used to distribute the course materials for the PBI Intellectual Property Law Institute I attended last month.

It's possible to create a bootable flash drive for installing Windows, but doing so requires different tools. I'll tackle that in another post.

Range Day

Today started out being a potentially very crappy day but wound up being quite good.

The past couple of days I was having problems starting the '07 Nissan Xterra that I bought back on April 23.  I was also hearing some sort of noise at low speed. Yesterday I called Peruzzi Nissan, the dealer from whom I bought the truck, and made an appointment for this morning.

The starting problem turned out to be a bad battery. They told me that they checked it and it had a bad cell.  The noise I was hearing was a loose heat shield that they tightened. I was at Peruzzi for about an hour and a half and got home around 10:00 AM.  It seems to be starting and running fine now but I guess the real test will be if either problem recurs. I really hope this is the last time I need to take the Xterra in for unscheduled service.

Since I'd already scheduled a flex day and we had a beautiful Spring day with the temp in the low 50s, I decided to go to the range.

I brought my "Cowboy Pimp Gun," a Ruger Single Six in .32 H&R Magnum. I named it that due to the faux ivory grips and color casehardened frame. I also brought my Euroarm 1858 Remington percussion revolver.

Today I shot at 25 yards and started with the CPG.  With PPU 98 grain LRN .32 S&W Longs it shoots about a foot low at 25 yards. The trigger has almost no takeup or creep, but is heavy, probably at least 8 pounds.  My groups were nothing to brag about.  I may look into getting a trigger job.

The Euroarms got more of a workout.  Last week I'd made up 20 combustible cartridges, something I haven't tried before.  They consisted of a .457 Hornady round ball and 30 grains of Goex FFFg black powder inside a cartridge case made from nitrated cigarette rolling paper.  Such cartridges made from nitrated paper or intestine were very common in the 19th Century, especially during the Civil War and for several years afterward.  Properly constructed they greatly aide in quickly loading a caplock revolver.

My paper cartridges, on the other hand, need some work. I need to use a mandrel with more of a taper to ease loading into the chambers and to cause the paper to rupture more when the round is rammed home.  I did have several ignition problems, probably due to an excessive amount of paper at the base of the cartridge. For my last 5 shots with the paper cartridges, I put a few grains of powder from my flintlock priming flask in the chambers before loading the cartridges. These all went off on the first cap.

Note that if you are shooting a percussion revolver and on a round the cap pops but the charge does not fire, if you then fire the next round in the cylinder there is a high likelihood that you'll get a chainfire. What happens is that when the cap from the failed round fragments it unseals the back of that chamber. When you fire the next round there is flashover and it's enough to get both chambers to fire. This happened to me a couple times today until I realized what was happening.  (I have actually been meaning to test this because with a properly fitting lead ball in a good condition revolver, I do not see any way it is possible to have a chainfire from the front end of the cylinder. As far as I'm concerned, the most likely source of a chainfire is from a missing or poorly fitting cap.)

One thing I noticed when shooting the paper cartridge is that they smell different from loose powder and ball. It took me awhile to figure out the aroma, but it bears a resemblance to the smell of a spent model rocket engine.

After my cartridges were used up I pulled the cylinder and found bits of paper in the chambers, which I cleaned out before continuing with loose powder, ball, and wad.

For the remainder of my shooting I used Hornady .454 balls and 30 grains of powder measured with a flask. Compared with the .457s I've used before the smaller balls load a lot easier and still give acceptable accuracy. I will probably use them from now on in the Euroarms and my Pietta 1858 Remington .44. I also plant to try them in my Rogers & Spencer to see if they are as accurate as .457s. I'll continued to use .457s in my Ruger Old Army as that is the specified size for it.

The wads I used today were from the first batch of homemade wads I made a couple weeks ago. To make them I ordered some 1/8" thick hard white 100% wool felt from Durofelt.com out of Little Rock, AR. I'd read about Durofelt on The High Road and their product came highly recommended. I also picked up a set of hollow punches from Harbor Freight. I used the 7/16" punch that I'd reamed out to about .45" using my Dremel.  After punching out the wads I lubed them by soaking them in a mix of mostly beeswax with some mutton tallow, melted in a double boiler. Once the lube solidified the wads looked like little lube cookies.

Note: Melting mutton tallow on the kitchen stovetop is almost guaranteed to piss off the wife.  It reeks.

I'm quite pleased with my homemade wads and don't see myself buying Wonder Wads anymore. While the Wonder Wads work fine, the homemade wads hold more lube, seem to keep the powder fouling softer, and the gun binds a bit less. I'll have to see how my lube mixture works in hot weather, as I might want to add a little paraffin canning wax to the mix to stiffen it a bit.  As-is the mix might work well for lubricating the cylinder base pin of caplock revolvers.

Overall, a pretty good day.

iPhone Battery Note

Last night I fully charged my iPhone before turning it at about 10:20. I left it on overnight with WiFi enabled to see how much of a charge would remain this morning. When I checked it at about 7:00 today I was pleased to see that it was still at 97%. My Droid would've been well below 90% even when it was new.

Nevertheless, the lack of easy access to the iPhone's battery led to me to purchase Duracell Instant USB Charger, yesterday from Amazon.  I'll keep it in my bag as an emergency backup should I need it.

So does this mean that ...

... we'll no longer have to take off our shoes and get molested by TSA flunkies before boarding an airplane?  No?

Thought so.

US Navy SEALs...

They be climbin' in yo window and snatchin' yo people up!

And in some cases puttin' a bullet in yo head!








(With apologies to Antoine Dodson.)

Recent Black Powder Shooting

Yesterday I did something I haven't done since the 1980s, shot in a black powder rifle match.  My club held our "Spring Fellowship" match.  We only got a half dozen shooters but it was a really fun day and I came in third.  Here's my last target of the day, with one shot fired at each bull.

By the time we got to this target we'd been at it for a few hours and I was pretty tired. I was having problems with my flint not sparking and managed to yank the shot on the bottom middle bull out of the black.  Can't complain about the bottom left bull, though.  ;-)

We shot at several targets offhand from about 30 yards.  Small targets.  IIRC, 4 of us shot flintlock rifles while there were a couple caplocks.  I shot my customized left hand Dixie Tennessee Mountain Rifle.  It's a .50 caliber flintlock which has been remade into a Pennsylvania-styled rifle.  My load was 65 grains of Goex FFg black powder, a Hornady .490" round ball, and pillow ticking patches.  This is a mild recoiling, accurate load.

Lately when shooting patched round balls, I like to cut my patches ahead of time.  I found a couple of years ago that a John F. Kennedy half dollar is the same size as a patch for a .50 caliber round ball, so I use one as a template and cut and lube a bunch beforehand.  Compared with cutting them on the muzzle it saves a lot of time at the range. The patches were lubed with Track of the Wolf's Mink Oil Tallow patch grease.  It has a very mild smell and works really well as a patch lube and to keep fouling soft.  Yesterday I mostly wiped the bore after every other shot, but a couple times went three shots between wiping.  I use Windex for cleaning the black powder fouling.  It's cheap and works as well as anything else I've tried.

Most of my range time in the past couple of months has been shooting black powder guns.  My father turned 70 back in March and along with my brother, we bought him a Euroarms Rogers & Spencer percussion revolver from Dixie Gun Works.  While I was ordering the revolver for him I added a second one to the cart for me.  This is mine:

This is the Euroarms "London Gray" finish, which as I understand it is some sort of nickel plating.  It's not stainless.

It's become one of my favorite pistols.  The R&S handles powder fouling and cap fragments as good or better than a Ruger Old Army, which is the penultimate development of the cap and ball revolver.  Unlike Remingtons, it doesn't bind from powder fouling, and unlike Colts, it's not susceptible to cap jams.  Plus, even with the poor 19th Century service sights, it's accurate.  I shot this target at 50 yards about a month ago, using a two-hand offhand hold:

Although I pulled a few shots to the right edge of the paper, most of the 25 shots were within the -1 zone of the IDPA target, with about half on the paper plate.  Load was a .457 Hornady ball, a Wonder Wad, 24 grains of Goex FFFg black powder, and a Remington No.10 percussion cap.

A Couple of Major Upgrades for Me

I haven't posted much on this blog recently but I've had a couple of significant (to me, anyway) upgrades.

First, I finally decided to replace my 1997 Ford Expedition, which I had since 2003. The brake problems back on April 4th were the final straw. This was the second big repair bill I had on the Ford since the Fall and with a 14 year old truck, I just saw more big bills coming. Even though it was in generally good shape car parts in general start failing due to age, and I figured it was only a matter of time before I got stuck somewhere.

So, I did some looking around online and on April 23, I bought a 2007 Nissan Xterra with about 29,000 miles on it from Peruzzi Nissan in Fairless Hills, PA.  I got what I think is a decent deal. I negotiated the price down to a bit over $18K, got $3K for the Ford in trade, put another $2K down, and I'm financing the rest. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have a car payment again but I should now have a reliable vehicle that gets better gas mileage than the Expedition.  My new ride:

I've wanted an Xterra since they first came out about ten years ago.  So far, I'm loving it.

The other upgrade was to my cell phone. I'd been using one of the original Motorola Droids since Black Friday 2009. For most of the time I owned it I was happy with it but the past couple of months it felt like it was degrading.  I.e., slowing down and crashing a lot more than previously.  After rooting it, I tried a couple ROMs (Bugless Beast and Cyanogenmod).  Cyanogenmod was generally good at first but after a short while, the phone started misbehaving again.  I considered another Android phone like a Droid X or an HTC Thunderbolt as a replacement, but last Friday I went to the Apple store on Walnut St. in Philadelphia on my lunch break to look at the iPhones.  I checked out an iPhone 4 on Verizon, liked what I saw, and decided to give the Apple phone a try.  I got the 16 GB VZW model, a bumper to go around the phone, and a car charger.

I've only had it a couple of days but compared with the Droid it's much faster, the UI seems smoother, and overall feels more polished.  I still don't like that you need tools to get at the battery or that storage is non-expandable.  OTH, I never filled the 16 GB microSD card in my Droid.  As for the battery, I'll pick up an emergency cell phone charger.

A couple specific items on the iPhone which are better than the Droid are the maps application and the camera, both of which load much more quickly. The iPhone camera takes better pictures, too.

Call quality seems equivalent to the Droid.  I use only a fraction of my 450 minutes each month but use the heck out of the data features, especially email.  I'll be able to get ActiveSync enabled on my Exchange account at work and then iOS's native Exchange support will allow me to get my mail and calendar, without installing any extra software.  A few coworkers use iPhones for their work email and calendar and reported they works well.

OTH, the Android OS's support for widgets is a point in its favor, as is the better customizability when it comes to notifications. For example, the Android phones make no differentiation between ringtones and test message notification tones.  On the iPhones, ringtones are different from text message notification sounds.  So, while I was able to make some customer ringtones in iTunes and copy them to the phone, I couldn't use one for text messages; I'm stuck with the sounds Apple loaded. LAME.

If you use a Mac the integration between the computer and phone is impressive. For example, when I did my initial setup iTunes read the configuration of the email accounts I had setup in Mail.app and transferred them to the phone. Likewise, you can sync Safari bookmarks on your computer and the iPhone.  (I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with Safari on the Mac. I will say that Safari on the iPhone is quite a bit better than the stock Android browser.)

I still have a great deal to learn about the iPhone and will try to post about new things I discover.

Gas Pump Activism

Not the usual "boycott the gas stations on such-and-such at date."

LINK.

Dammit

Yesterday I was driving on I-76 when I needed to hit the brakes because some idjit decided to pull into my lane ahead of me.  As I did something felt like it popped and the pedal went almost all the way to the floor.  At first I thought, “Dumb ABS” but then realized something was amiss.  Aside from having to push the brake pedal all the way in, the parking brake now won’t go off.

So after getting the kids off to school I took the truck up to the service station at the end of my street.  I wonder what this is going to cost to fix.

One very nice thing about having a 14 year old vehicle is that I have no car payments.  On the other hand, I had to have some suspension work done on it back in the Fall.  It may be time to start looking for a new set of wheels.

Crap.

ETA at 16:30:

Well, there goes another $1600. It needed a new brake booster, a seal, brake lines to the rear brakes (which required dropping the gas tank), and brake fluid flush.  While the gas tank was off I also had them swap out the fuel pump since it has about 120K on it.

Easytether

I’m spending today and tomorrow at the PBI Intellectual Property Institute.  The course materials were distributed as PDFs on a thumb 1 GB drive, which is a nice alternative from a pile of the normal yellow paperback books.  I brought Hobbit, my MSI Wind netbook with me but the PDFs PBI created have problems displaying in Foxit Reader.  So, I wanted to tether Hobbit to my Droid and download the Adobe Reader installer.

Unfortunately there’s no WiFi and yet again, PDAnet decided to not work.  Previously it’s been mostly usable under Windows but the Mac port was very flaky.  Today, I couldn’t get online in Windows 7.  I decided to give Easytether a try.  I installed it through the Android Market, then downloaded the desktop client on my Droid and transferred it to Hobbit via USB.

So far, so good. I’ll give it a try for awhile and if it continues to work well I’ll buy it.  For $9.99 if it continues to work it’ll be worth it.

Bought an Amazon Kindle

Up until my mid-20s I could have been classed as a "compulsive reader." Even through college, I devoured fiction and non-fiction books (mostly sci fi, fantasy, and history) constantly.  As a kid, when bored I was known to pull out a random volume of the Worldbook Encyclopedia and get lost for a couple hours.  (Yes, I was a nerd.)  Then, I went to law school and had very little time for recreational reading.  Simultaneously, I got hooked on online fora -- first via FidoNet, then the Internet.  Thus, my book reading became very intermittent.

When I left my job as a field engineer for an office job back in 2004 I started commuting via train.  Rather than getting back to reading books I got myself an MP3 player (Creative Labs, IIRC), and then in 2005, a 60 GB iPod.  I've been rotting my brain with rock and roll ever since.

Last Friday my iPod locked up solid.  It wouldn't mount as a disk on my Mac and I had to let the charge run down.  In the interim, I loaded up the SD card on my Droid with a bunch of music so I have something to listen to.  I currently have the iPod connected to my Mac and hopefully it'll work OK after charging.

But I've been wanting to get back into reading more and took this as a motivator to do so.  This being the 21st Century, I decided on getting an e-reader, and currently the standard to judge them by is Amazon's Kindle.  On Saturday, I picked up a 3rd generation WiFi-only Kindle at BJ's Wholesale Club.  I went with a WiFi-only unit since I have WiFi at home and at work, and it also allows you to access AT&T WiFi hotspots for free.  So I didn't feel the need to get one with 3G.

The Kindle came with a quickstart guide and a charging cable. The charging cable can be plugged into a computer's USB port for either power or transferring files, and also includes an A/C-to-USB adapter. Unfortunately, it does not use a standard micro-USB cable.  See below. A spare charger is $20.

I also bought Amazon's leather case with a built-in LED reading light that gets its power from the Kindle. With the case on the device feels more like a book and seems well protected.

I. Am. In. Love.  While I'd briefly considered getting a tablet, the Kindle has some advantages.  First, at $139 it's a lot cheaper than an iPad or Xoom.  So far, the reviews of Android-based tablets have been mostly meh.  Second, with wireless turned off, a fully-charged Kindle should not need recharging for nearly a month.  Third, and to me most important, the Kindle's "e-ink" display is perfect for reading text.  I probably spent about 20 hours over the weekend reading books on the Kindle and I had no eyestrain.  There's no way that I could say that if I'd been using a tablet with a backlit screen.

One of my favorite publishers -- Baen Books -- has been especially good about embracing e-readers and providing content for free via http://www.webscriptions.net and http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/.  I downloaded several of John Ringo's novels via the latter over the weekend and so far have blown through Into the Looking Glass and Vorpal Blade, and I'm now about halfway thorugh Manxome Foe.  (Links are to the paperback versions since they aren't currently available through Amazon's Kindle store. Go to the Baen sites for e-book versions.) But don't worry, I'll be buying some e-books to support Baen's authors once I get through the free stuff.

You can buy Kindle books from Amazon right on the device but so far I've used my Mac to browse the Kindle bookstore.  If you have One-Click enabled for your Amazon account and you have the device connected to WiFi, you get your book within a minute or two.  This morning I purchased Finland's War of Choice: The Untidy Coalition of a Democracy and a Dictatorship in World War II.  (The Winter War and Contiuation War have been of interest to me for a long time.)

The Kindle's UI is simple and very good.  Reading a book on the device is much like reading a "real" book.  Instead of physically turning a page you just press the right or left arrow key.  If you turn the Kindle off it comes right back to where you left off, when you power it back on, no need for a bookmark. You can set book marks and make annotations.  There's also the ability to access a dictionary from within a book you're reading.

The Kindle also supports MP3 format files so you can listen to music while you read, or listen to audiobooks. It includes a WebKit-based browser, but having a grayscale-only screen, browsing pages with any kind of images is going to be a less than optimal experience.

E-book files tend to be small and Amazon claims that it'll hold up to 3500 of them.  The ability to carry around a library in a package which will fit into a large pocket is remarkable.

I can't recommend the Kindle highly enough.

Edit 3/29/11:

I am apparently a moron. Because the micro-USB port on the Kindle is rectangular instead of a trapezoid like normal micro-USB ports, I needed to rotate the plug but didn't notice that.  It will in fact use a regular micro-USB cable. {sigh}

Quote of the Century

"How come Jimmy Carter's always going off to watch ballot boxes in Nicaragua and Liberia when Chicago's so much closer to home?"

--Tamara K.

Rooted my Droid

On Sunday I took the jump and rooted my Droid phone.  "Rooting" a smartphone gets you administrative access to the device, which in turn allows you to do some neat things like

• Make a backup image of the ROM's filesystem to the SD card.
• Run applications that allow you to do things not enabled by default, such as turning your phone into a WiFi hotspot.
• Run alternative ROMs.

To root the Droid, I followed the instructions found here.   One of the first things I did after rooting was to install ROM Manager, and make a backup of my existing setup to my SD card.  I then installed the Astro File Manager and had it make a backup of all the apps I had installed.  With that done I went into ROM Manager and used it to download and install the Bugless Beast ROM.  Per the instructions I allowed it to wipe the data cache, which also has the effect of removing all the apps you've installed.  One feature of Bugless Beast that I like is that it will automatically restore your applications from some backup formats, including Astro File Manager's.

I've been running Bugless Beast now for a couple days and so far, so good.  By default it overclocks the Droid's CPU to 800 MHz.  This made the phone feel a bit warm so I set it back to the standard 600 MHz.  At some point I may try CyanogenMod or other ROMs.

According to Leftists ...

... this graphic from the Democratic Leadership Council is perfectly acceptable political discourse:

... but this is  unacceptable, inflammatory rhetoric:

I guess it's OK as long as Democrats are doing it.  Hypocrisy?  Naaaah.

More Lies From the Mainstream Media

The blood of the victims of yesterday's shootings in Arizona was hardly dry before lefty pundits started accusing Jared Loughner of being a right-wing nut, and blaming Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for a creating a climate where such an act was inevitable.  And viewing the comments on various news stories shows that these pundits do indeed have an audience willing to lap up their drivel.  But jumping to such conclusions only makes you look like an idiot.

It turns out that Loughner shows many of the signs of paranoid schizophrenia, and has been described by at least one former classmate as a "left-wing radical."  LEFT-WING.  Loughner's list of favorite books on his YouTube page reflect his schizophrenia, including works from Ayn Rand (an odd choice for him), George Orwell (a socialist), Hitler's Mein Kampf (National SOCIALIST), and The Communist Manifesto.  What Tea Partier would include that?

Oops.

Unfortunately, Loughner is only the latest in a long line of left-wing crazies to perpetrate violent acts.  For example:

* The riots in 1968 at the Chicago Democratic Convention
* The Symbionese Liberation Army
* The Weather Underground
* The Animal Liberation Front
* The Earth Liberation Front
* The Unabomber
* The guy who flew his plane into an IRS building last year
* The Black Panthers and the New Black Panthers

And that's only examples from the USA.  If you look beyond our borders it's clear that it's been the LEFT who has committed more murders to advance their agenda than any others in history.  Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were all left-wingers.  And so was Hitler ("NAZI" is an abbreviation for National SOCIALISM.) How many millions did they murder?

The mainstream media likes to gloss over these acts because in some degree, they view the perps as being on the same side.  After all, members of the MSM overwhelmingly identify themselves as left-wing Democrats.  Every time the MSM puts blame for left-wing violence on the right, they are not only covering for their buddies, they are committing libel.  It's disgusting.

Thank God we have the Internet today to challenge and expose the MSM's lies.

Microsoft Security Essentials v2

Without much fanfare, Microsoft has released version 2 of its Security Essentials antivirus and antispyware program.  This was not an automatic update.  I read about it in the Urban Commandos forum on AR15.com and downloaded the installer manually.

I’ve been running MSE on a number of machines now for over a year and it’s been both trouble free and better performing than my previous choice in free AV software, AVG.

If I notice anything weird I’ll make a note of it.

Strange VMware vSphere 4.1 Issue

I ran into a weird issue over the past couple of days while trying to deploy a couple of CentOS 5.5 virtual machines onto my vSphere 4.1 server.

I created a VM to serve as my template for future VMs, then exported it as an OVF template to my laptop.  (I do not yet have a vCenter management server, so I'm stuck running the vSphere Client inside an XP VM running in VirtualBox on my MacBook Pro).  Probably due to our network, the export took a couple of hours.

I then deployed two VMs from the OVF file.  Import went much more quickly than the export, thankfully.  When I ran the "system-config-network" tool to configure the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, hostname, and DNS settings, I noticed there was a duplicate of eth0.  The dupe wasn't present in my original VM.  If the dupe was not removed, running /sbin/ifconfig displayed that eth0 had all the correct info, but the machine could not reach the network.

Through trial and error, I discovered a workaround.  Upon running system-config-network, if a duplicate eth0 is present, select it.  Then blank out all values, save and quit.  Next, reboot the VM and once again run system-config-network, and configure eth0.  After doing all this networking worked properly and I was able to SSH into the VM from my laptop.

Once we get a vCenter Server I shouldn't have jump through these hoops.  vCenter includes the ability to clone a VM without doing an export and import, so setting up new VMs should be much simpler and faster.

Wet Day at the Range

Today the weather was rainy and in the 50s but I didn’t let that stop me from getting out to the range.  The firing lines at my club are covered and surrounded by walls on three sides, so they are great for shooting in inclement weather.

I took the Century Arms C93 HK-93 clone along with my Century VZ-2008, a VZ-58 clone.

I put 240 rounds through the C93, 80 being Prvi Partizan M-193 5.56mm Ball with the remainder being Wolf .223 55 grain JHPs.  The best thing I can say about the Wolf is that it was cheap.  Compared with Prvi Partizan, Winchester, or Federal ammunition it’s rather dirty, downloaded, and inaccurate.  Plus, it smells bad when you shoot it.  However, my Colt AR-15s, Ruger Mini-14, 5.56mm AKs, and the C93 all seem to function fine with it.

After my first outing last weekend with the C93 I’d cleaned the bore and the inside of the receiver, but not field stripped the bolt carrier group.  I just saturated it in RemOil, wiped off most of the goop, relubed with automatic transmission fluid*, and reassembled the gun.  So, when I took it down for a full cleaning today, after having put 400 +/- rounds through the gun, it was filthy.  It may have been dirty but it ran just fine and showed no signs of sluggishness.  I suspect it could have gone many hundred more rounds without a cleaning as long as it was lubed.

So far, the C93 has 400 to 420 rounds through it with no malfunctions.  I measured the bolt gap before my first range trip at 0.010”.  After a good cleaning tonight, I measured it again and it hasn’t shrunk.

My first Century C93 was a lemon but this one is a keeper.  Unfortunately for my wallet, I’m liking the taste of HK Kool Aid and have been eyeballing the PTR91, Inc. “GI” model, which is a G3 clone.  The first time I ever shot an HK was an HK-91 in .308 over 20 years ago, and I was wowed by the mild recoil.  Several years ago I owned a Century C91 G3 clone but wound up trading it off, even though it seemed to run fine with the 100 or so rounds I fired through it.  Probably should’ve kept that one.

Anyway, a couple of months ago I installed a muzzle brake on my VZ-2008.  The brake was from CNC Warrior and is a replica of the Czech military issue brake.  It’s very effective at reducing muzzle flip and recoil, at the expense of significantly increased muzzle blast (which is typical of muzzle brakes).  The blast is even more noticeable when you shoot the rifle from under overhead cover.  Good ear protection is mandatory.

Because the brake reduces muzzle flip, which starts while the bullet is still in the barrel, I found that the point of impact was lowered by about a foot at 100 yards after I installed it.  So, today my goal was to get a 25 yard zero, then fine tune it at 100 yards.  I wound up only shooting on the 25 yard range.  With the rain I didn’t feel like loading and unloading my truck to move over to the 100 yard line.

I shot 80 rounds of Brown Bear 7.62x39 123 grain FMJ through the VZ-2008 today.  The rifle required a break-in period of about 200 rounds, along with some manual polishing of contact points inside the action after my first range trip with the rifle.  The phosphate finish was so thick inside the action that it caused failures to extract and eject due to short stroking.  This may be uncommon, as I’ve read other VZ-2008 reviews online and I’m the only person who seems to have reported it.

Including today, my past two or three trips to the range with the VZ-2008 have been malfunction-free.  The VZ-2008 and I got off on the wrong foot but we’ve made up.   I now consider it a tested, reliable rifle after about 400 trouble free rounds.

There are two things I’m not thrilled with on the VZ-2008, however.  First is the folding stock.  It’s an original Czech stock and while it’s very sturdy and allows for storage in compact areas, it isn’t real comfortable.  I’m toying with the idea of installing a fixed stock.  Another option would be to install an Ace folder like I have on my Arsenal SLR-101SG.  The Ace stocks are as comfortable as a fixed unit but still allow storage in small areas.

Second is the design that Century chose for the selector.  It rotates backwards from what would be ergonomic.  I.e., rotate it down to put the rifle on safe, rotate it up to fire.  AIUI, Czech-made semiauto VZ-58s like those from Czechpoint USA have selectors which work the opposite way.  I may be able to fit a Czechpoint selector to my rifle (a member of Arfcom reported doing so with his VZ-2008), which would be a big improvement.

A VZ-58 clone a good choice for someone who wants a semiauto rifle generally similar to an AK but wants something a little different.  It’s also a good choice for folks stuck in jurisdictions which prohibit AKs.  I understand that VZ-58s are popular up in Canada (with the magazines blocked to 5 or 10 rounds).  Also, Connecticut bans Kalashnikovs in 7.62x39 (but not 5.45 or 5.56), but does not ban VZ-58s or clones.

Incidentally, I’ve found that Bulgarian surplus 4 cell pouches for 30 round AK magazines work perfectly for VZ-58 mags.  They also work for HK-93/HK-33/C93 40 round mags, but you have to cut a new hole in the tab which secures the top flap.

 

* I’ve been using ATF as a gun oil for about 16 years.  It’s cheap, a quart last forever, and works really well.  ATF is a decent cleaner for carbon fouling, too.  Just don’t get it on your clothes because it stains.

Obamessiah Has Left the Building

In an administration chock full of "WTF?" moments, this takes the cake:

Here we have a sitting president in the midst of dealing with a tremendously important piece of legislation, the passage of which will have a significant impact on an economy circling the drain, and he can't even finish a press conference because he's kept FLOTUS waiting on a Christmas party.  And he hands things over to a previous president?

Holy. Fucking. Shit.  This is by far the least presidential thing I have ever seen.

In his prior jobs as a state and US senator, Obama had the bad habit of voting "present."  Now he's not even doing that.  Hell, Stevie Wonder can see that this ship doesn't have a captain now.

And don't think for  a moment that our foes around the world haven't noticed.

Grandma Got Molested At The Airport

Good Day at the Range

Today I took my Century C93 (HK-93 clone) and my SAR-1 AK to the range for function testing and zeroing.

The C93 is a replacement for one I bought about a month ago which would not cycle when I shot it. I got the replacement rifle this past Wednesday. Today I ran around 160 - 180 rounds of Prvi Partizan M-193 Ball through it with no malfunctions, and zeroing it at 25 yards required only minor sight adjustments (elevation only, windage was spot on). This was quite a refreshing difference from the rifle I first bought. I'm very happy with this one.

After I received the rifle on Wednesday I measured the bolt gap with a feeler gauge.  It came in at 0.010”, which is within spec but on the low side.  After shooting it today I measured it again and so far it’s unchanged.  I already have a set of +4 rollers on order from Robert RTG, along with an HK sling and a couple of other small spare parts.

While I was annoyed at Century for them having shipped a non-functional rifle, they did make it right, and fairly painlessly.  Someday down the road I wouldn’t mind getting a Vector Arms V93, which is an HK-93 clone with a reputation for quality.  However, for now the C93 looks like it’ll be a good shooter, and at about half the cost of the Vector.

I've had the SAR-1 for a few years but recently installed an Ultimak with a Bushnell TRS-25 red dot sight on it. Since the Ultimak replaces the gas tube I wanted to verify that it still functioned OK, and make any necessary adjustments to the iron sight zero. As expected, the rifle functioned flawlessly through 90 rounds of Wolf Military Classic fed from 3 Finnish surplus Valmet mags. It turned out to still shoot to POA at 25 yards with irons. I was doubly pleased to find that I didn't need to make any adjustments on the Bushnell, either.

I'll verify zero at 100 yards with both rifles but they should be GTG.

An extra bonus was that with the temps in the mid-30s, I had the 25 yard range to myself.

Hanukkah 2010

I took today off so as to not lose an unused vacation day by the end of the year.  I just finished peeling and cutting up a bag of potatoes that my wife will turn into latkes tonight, since it’ll be the first night of Hanukkah.

In brief, Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Jewish rebellion lead by Judah Maccabee over the Seleucids who had officially repressed the Jewish faith and desecrated the Second Temple in Jerusalem. 

Back in 2004 I put up a Hanukkah post bemoaning the choice of many of my co-religionists to support gun control.  The Shoah (Holocaust) was a mere 65 years ago, within living memory of many, and still, many, perhaps most Jewish Americans still fear and loathe guns and would see civilian controlled or banned.  For a people who values learning so much, we can be damn stubborn.

Thankfully, the past couple of years have seen two major victories for Americans who value their right to keep and bear arms, as a safeguard against criminals and rogue governments.

In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does indeed protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, independent of membership in the militia.  In 2010, SCOTUS extended the RKBA by applying it to the states with its ruling in McDonald v. Chicago.  As with earlier decisions which extended the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states, the full extent of the protection the RKBA will be afforded will only be seen after more protracted litigation.  But Heller and McDonald were major steps in preserving our liberty.

As Jews, we should be especially thankful for the right to keep and bear arms.  Since the Romans sacked Jerusalem and forced the Diaspora, Jews’ ability to defend themselves against violence has been curtailed as a matter of official policy.  In contrast, Jews in most of the United States can take up arms to defend themselves and their faith.

While the likelihood of official repression of Jews in the United States is remote, we cannot be complacent and adopt the “it can’t happen here” mentality.  Not in the age of resurgent Islamic fundamentalism, lax border controls, and jet air travel.

Since 1972, over 300 Americans have been killed by Muslim terrorists, not including the over 2700 who died on 9/11.  Many of them were targeted because they were Jews.

Unfortunately, the leaders of both major parties have been skittish of calling a spade a spade, with President Bush’s description of Islam as a “Religion of Peace” being the most notorious example.

Perhaps even worse is the current administration’s pro-Islam stance.  Beginning with Obama’s duplicitous 2009 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo and continuing with a policy toward Israel which can be described at best as ambivalent, but more accurately as pro-Palestinian, Jews should be wary of Washington’s stance towards them.  We should not be fooled by his close association with kapos like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, or the worst of all, George Soros.

Overseas, we’ve seen a resurgence in anti-semitism in Europe, while Arab children continue to be fed a diet of anti-semitic propaganda in the form of entertainment.  See this for example.  And need I mention the Iranian quest for nuclear arms, promoted by Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against which the West seems ready to do nothing?

Instead of taking serious steps, the current administration engages in security theater, the most obvious example lately being the TSA’s “porno scanners” at airports.

Worldwide, the situation for Jews is probably more perilous now than any time since 1945.

So what should we as Jewish Americans do?

First, stop supporting politicians who support gun control.  Not only is gun control counter-productive in reducing violent crime, supporting it foments anti-semitism when you have people with names like Bloomberg and Schumer backing it.  Being armed may not save you from a nut who’s turned a 747 into a human-guided cruise missile, but a pistol can give you a fighting chance against terrorists in a Mumbai-style attack.

Second, stop supporting politicians who refuse to call Islamic extremism and terrorism by their proper names.  Stop supporting politicians who think American vets returning from Iraq are more of a terrorist threat than Muslim radicals.

Third, stop fearing the “religious right,” in which the mainstream media has included pretty much anybody who regularly attends church.  Guess what?  Observant Christians are some of the best allies that Jews have today in the US.  While we may disagree on theology, many of them accept Jews as G-d’s Chosen People and are staunch supporters of the State of Israel.  Indeed, many Christians are more supportive of Israel than a lot of JINOs (Jews In Name Only).

Fourth, take the coverage by the mainstream media of the Tea Party movement with several helpings of salt.  You may hear some Tea Partiers talk about social issues, but the bedrock of the movement is about getting the government out of your life.  Historically, governments have been the Jewish People’s worst enemies, whether the government in question was lead by a Pharoah, Seleucid king, Roman Caesar, a Caliph, a Pope, a Tsar, a Furhrer, or Politburo.

Finally, exercise your right to keep and bear arms.  In Biblical times, the Jews were an ass-kicking people.  More recently, Israel has repeatedly stunned the world with its feats of arms.  In contrast, most Jewish Americans have adopted a pro-government victim mentality.  It is past time that this passive attitude be discarded.  “Turn the other cheek” is not a concept consistent with Jewish theology.  In the Talmud, we are instructed that, "if someone comes to kill you, get up early in the morning to kill him first." (Berakhot 58a; Yoma 85b; Sanhedrin 72a).  Judaism does not require you to submit to an assailant.  Indeed, precisely the opposite is true.

Happy Hanukkah and may you dreidel always land on gimel.

QOTD

"If all Americans want is security, they can go to prison.  They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower , Dec.9, 1949

What to do ...

... upon bringing home a new (or new to you) gun.

Several Updates at The Shooters' Bar

This morning I made several updates to The Shooters' Bar, my list of pro gun rights attorneys.  If you need an attorney practicing in any area of the law take a look, it's not just a list of "firearms lawyers."

Saturday Night Range Report

Dad and I went to the range tonight.  I brought my 3" Ruger SP-101 (model KSP-331X) and my Browning Hi Power Practical.  Dad brought along new Rock Island Armory M1911 made by Armscor in the Phillipines.

I put about 60 rounds through the Ruger.  It shoots nicely.  Easier to pack than a K-Frame but a whole lot more pleasant to shoot than a J-Frame, especially with .38 +Ps.  (The indoor range at Dad's club prohibits magnums, and I can't see myself shooting many .357s in a 27 oz. gun anyway.)

The .38s I shot in the Ruger consisted of 50 rounds of Winchester 148 grain wadcutters, 5 Winchester 158 grain LSWCHP +Ps, and 5 Double Tap 158 grain hard cast LSWC +Ps.  Compared with my S&W Model 640, the Ruger is much easier to control with full power .38s, due to the weight and the excellent Ruger rubber grip.

Before tonight I hadn't tried Brown Bear ammo in my BHP.  Unlike most American made ammo, Brown Bear has a steel case with a lacquer coating to prevent rust.  Some guns have functioning problems with steel cased ammunition, so I recommend testing any semiauto firearm with at least 100 rounds of steel cased ammo before purchasing a large quantity.

My Springfield XD9 has gone through several hundred rounds without any issues.  Since it's relatively cheap I was hoping the BHP would also function well with it.  I was not disappointed.  I put 100 rounds of the Brown Bear through the gun using 3 different Mec Gar mags, and 3 KRD (Argentine) mags.  I also shot 50 rounds of Blazer Brass.  As expected, I had zero malfunctions.

I picked up the KRD magazines several years ago, before the ban on new "high capacity" magazines sunset in 2004.  At the time they were about the only >10 round BHP mags available for less than an arm and a leg.  Compared with Mec Gars they are a bit rough, and one in particular seems vulnerable to follower tilt.  I plan on seeing if I can smooth them up a bit but until then, they are range mags only.  Note that Mec Gar is the OEM for Browning Hi Power magazines.  However, Mec Gar branded mags are available for slightly less than half the cost of Browning branded magazines.  I'll be getting some more Mec Gar 15 rounders.

Compared with the Blazer Brass ammo, the Brown Bear was dirty and smelled bad.  However, it cleaned up easily with some Hoppe's No.9 and I can tolerate the stink.  AIM Surplus currently has it in stock at $8.25 per box of 50 when ordered 10 or more boxes.  I regard it as a good deal if you don't reload 9mm.

Dad put 71 rounds through the RIA M1911.  He had 3 malfs, all of which could be cleared with a "tap, rack, bang."  The owner's manual notes that the gun has a 500 round break-in period.  He thinks that 2 of the malfs were probably due to the magazine which came with the gun.  He also used a couple 7 round Wolff mags which have run perfectly in his Colt M1911A1.  (The Wolff magazines are really good, and even have a dimpled follower.  Highly recommended.)

I didn't put any rounds through the M1911 but I did dry fire it a few times.  I'd guestimate the trigger pull at around 5 or 6 pounds and pretty crisp.  Quite suitable for a self defense pistol, IMO.

My impression of the RIA 1911 is that it's a pretty good gun for the money.  He paid $400 OTD for it.  Fit and finish are suitable for a service grade gun.  The metal is parkerized.  The grips are plain, uncheckered wood but the finish is well done.  Overall, it looks almost identical to a USGI 1911A1 except that it has a lowered and flared ejection port, and the magazine well is slightly beveled.

If the RIA was my gun, I'd replace the sights with ones easier to see, install an ambidextrous safety, use either Chip McCormick, Wolff, or Wilson mags, and maybe replace the grips with some nicer looking wood. Other than that the RIA M1911 seems like a very good self defense pistol right out of the box.

Veteran's Day

To all veterans who have served to defend our freedom:

Thank you.

In Honor of CA's Choice for Governor Last Night

Today my coffee is sweetened...

... with Nancy Pelosi's tears.

This Year’s Jack O’Lanterns

Yesterday the girls and I made Jack O’Lanterns.  I had them draw out on a sheet of paper how they wanted theirs to look.  Alexandra wanted “funny” while Amanda wanted “scary.”

They came out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Alexandra’s is on the left, Amanda’s is on the right.

VMware Training and a New PC

Last week I attended a five day course on installing, configuring, and maintaining VMware vSphere 4.1.  My employer purchased an "all you can eat" license earlier this year, and I've been asked to implement it on one of our networks.  Since I have no prior experience with vSphere I asked my boss for training.  It turns out that we had some training credits which expire at the end of 2010, so I was able to register for this couse at no cost to my department.

I am very impressed with vSphere, as well as VMware's vSphere Client management program.  I find it well designed with a very good user interface.  It runs on Windows only, unfortunately.  I wish they had an OS X client.  At work I have a Windows 7 VM inside Paralles Desktop on my MacBook Pro which I can use.  I also recently setup a four year old Dell Precision Workstation 470n which I scrounged.  It's running Windows 7 x64 with 4 GBs of RAM so it runs much more smoothly than the VM on my laptop.

As a side note, the VMs I have running inside of Parallels Desktop have gotten a lot slower recently, especially the Windows 7 VM.  I am thinking of dumping PD and installing VirtualBox.

Because vSphere is basically a means to run other OSes as applications on a host I decided I wanted to have a way to refamiliarize myself with any number of OSes on a system at home.  To that end, yesterday I did something I haven't done in 12 years: I bought a new desktop PC running Windows.

For the past 10 years or so I've built my own machines.  I have two tower cases which are well designed and which have been used in several incarnations of motherboards, CPUs, and operating systems.  However, I just didn't feel like putting together a new PC, especially since I can now buy a very powerful system for under a grand.

So, yesterday I did some searching on Microcenter's website and purchased a PowerSpec B707 mini-tower system for $699 plus tax.  The basic specs are:

1. Intel Core i5 - 655K 3.2 GHz dual core CPU
2. Intel DH55TC motherboard with integrated video (VGA and DVI), sound, Gigabit LAN.
3. Samsung 1 TB hard disk
4. 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi (which I have disabled since I have an Ethernet connection)
5. DVD+/-RW drive
6. Media card reader
7. 300W power supply
8. Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
9. 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (expandalbe to 16 GB)

Because I bought the system with the idea of running other OSes inside VMs I wanted to increase the RAM.  I found an OCZ 4 GB kit (2 x 2 GB DIMMs) at Microcenter for $69.99 less a $20 mail-in rebate, so added that to the cart.

Microcenter allows you to place an order on their website and arrange for in-store pickup in 18 minutes, if they have the items in stock at your local store.  I did that and was in and out in about 10 minutes.

The PC came with a cheap Inland USB keyboard which I'm using currently but will probably replace due to the mushy feel.  It also came with an Inland mouse which I left in the packaging, in favor of the Logitech mouse I already had.  The machine didn't come with a monitor which was fine, I'm using an Acer AL2016W 20" widescreen LCD display that I bought last year.  I'm using the DVI port and it looks good.

The PowerSpec box came with no crapware installed which was a pleasant surpise.  It did include a trial version of ESET NOD32 antivirus which I removed in favor of MS Security Essentials, and also an installer for MS Office 2010 Starter Edition (lobotomized versions of Word and Excel supported by ads).

The machine is quite zippy for my uses: web browsing, light office use, as an SSH client, and to run VMs inside VirtualBox.  I haven't really pounded on the box yet but so far the CPU usage is minimal most of the time and I'm only using about half the 8 GB RAM that's installed in the system.

So far I've created VMs running Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows XP Pro SP3.  I unfortunately need the XP VM to run a VPN client which doesn't work in Windows 7; I hope to lose that particular need in the next few months.  My next VM will probably be Windows 2008 Server R2.

Another use of this box will be for me to evaluate various remote control applications.  I have GoToMyPC, LogMein, and TeamViewer in mind.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011

Sunday night my work email account got migrated from an Exchange 2003 server to a bright, shiny, new Exchange 2010 box.  One downside to this is that WebDAVS access is no longer supported, so Monday morning I had to upgrade Entourage 2008 to Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition.  This went pretty smoothly.

In general I've been pretty pleased with Office 2008.  I'm a light user of Word and Excel, and a very light user of PowerPoint (i.e., I only open up PPT when I can't avoid it).  My primary app in Office was Entourage for my email and calendar.  With WebDAVS enabled I was able to securely check my email without having to use our VPN.  Compared with Outlook on Windows, Entourage's support for shared calendaring is somewhat lacking.  Also, I was unable to search our Global Address Book without either being on the corporate network or being VPNed in.

Monday afternoon in the day I got access to Office 2011 and installed it on my MacBook Pro.  The biggest change between 2008 and 2011 is that Entourage has been replaced by Outlook, an application missing from the Mac since Office 2001, IIRC.

Back before I moved to a Mac for my primary platform, I loathed Outlook on Windows.   In prior positions I've supported Outlook 97, 98, and 2000.  I've used those versions as well as 2002 (AKA Outlook XP).  For me it was always a slow, buggy app with an interface I didn't particularly like.

But so far Outlook 2011 is mostly working well.  We've noticed one bug when trying to schedule meetings when a participant is still on the Exchange 2003 server.  Specifically, the times shown on that person's calendar will be off by an hour.  Until everyone is migrated I'll just use Outlook Web Mail for scheduling meetings.

One thing I thought was interesting was that Office 2011 installed alongside 2008.  This is a very good feature, allowing easy rollback.  The Office for Mac team also did a good job with the migration features for Entourage to Outlook.  Outlook imported my Entourage profile seamlessly, including the server configuration and account info.  It took about 10 minutes to import my profile and setup connectivity to the server.

Outlook allows me to search our Global Address List remotely even if I'm not VPNed in.  This will be nice.

Another feature greatly anticipated by many people wanting to switch from Windows but stuck because they rely on Outlook was the lack of an easy way to migrate emails from Outlook .PST files.  Well, Outlook 2011 can read .PSTs, though it stores messages, contacts, etc. in a different format.  This will be useful for a few of my coworkers.

As for the interface, either the Outlook Mac interface is greatly improved cf. the last version I used on Windows, or my reaction to it has mellowed.  It's actually pretty decent.  Likewise, the rest of the Office apps share the "ribbon" interface introduced with Office 2007.  A lot of folks hated the ribbon but I actually like it.  So far I haven't used either Excel or Word very much so I don't know how they'll compare with the 2008 versions.

I'll post follow ups if I run into any weirdness.

Firefox 4 Beta 6

Today I installed Firefox 4 Beta 6 on my MacBook Pro and a Dell Precision Workstation running Windows 7 Enterprise.

My initial impressions are favorable.  The user interface has been revised and is now somewhat Google Chromeish.  The default toolbars are minimalist and tabs are displayed on top the address bar, rather than below it.  I prefer having the tabs below the address bar so I'm happy to see that it remains an option.

Compared with Firefox 3.6, FF4B6 seems to load pages faster on both OS 10.6 and Win7.  This may in part be due to some of my extensions not being supported in FF4 yet.  However, FF4 is supposed to offer speed improvements.

I used FF4B6 for most of the day and didn't run into any noticeable issues.  We'll see how it goes with more use but so far I'm pleased with it.

I Have Now Seen Everything

Dropbox on Android Phones

A few months ago I mentioned that I started using Dropbox for backing up some of my critical files, and syncronizing them between my MacBook Pro and my MSI Wind netbook.  I recently installed the Dropbox application on my Droid and was impressed with it this morning.

Using my Droid, I took a picture of a screen to record a firmware revision.  I figured that I would then email it to myself.  Instead, when I went into the Droid's picture gallery and selected the "Share" menu, not only was I given the opportunity to send it via email, MMS, Facebook, Twitter or Picasa, but to add it to my Dropbox.  I chose Dropbox and by the time I was back at my desk, the photo was in my Mac's Dropbox folder.  Compared with email or MMS, this eliminates the steps of addressing and sending an email.  And it's certainly more convenient than digging out a USB cable to connect the phone to my computer.

A basic 2 GB account is free but if you refer someone you'll get an extra 250 MB of space, up to 8 GB total.  You can also get a free 250 MB by 5 of the 6 tasks listed in the "Getting Started" tab viewable when you login to your Dropbox account on the web.

{Blantant self promotion.}If you're interested in this sort of product and want to try Dropbox, please click on my referral link, here.  I could use a little more space.{/Blatant self promotion.}

Monster Hunter Vendetta

The mailman just brought my copy of Larry Correia's latest release, Monster Hunter Vendetta, the follow up to his debut novel Monster Hunter International.  I'm expecting MHV to kick as much ass as MHI.

Now, off to the back porch with some port, a cigar and MHV.  Any productivity for the rest of this afternoon is highly unlikely.

Update 10/13/10:

Monster Hunter Vendetta rocks.  I liked it even better than MHI.  Great villain, some extremely funny comic relief, and it sets up future books in the series.  If you like guns and monsters, buy it now.

Range Day

We had a beautiful Fall day here in SE Pennsylvania today, and I got to spend it at the range.

I brought three rifles with me: an Arsenal SA M5 AK, Century Arms VZ-2008 Sporter (VZ-58 clone), and a Century Arms C93 Sporter (HK-93 clone).

I've had the SA M5 for several years.  It is an AK with a milled receiver, made in Bulgaria, and chambered for 5.56x45mm.  I needed to zero the rifle, since I had recently reinstalled the original rear sight in place of a Mojo peep rear sight.  I also wanted to test out two new 30 round magazines and a CNC Warrior flash hider.

As expected the rifle shot well although I did have one misfeed with an older 20 round mag.  The new 30 rounders worked fine, as did the flash hider.  The rifle originally came with a muzzle brake, which I'd replaced for awhile with a Bulgarian 24mm flash hider mounted via a 14mm to 24mm adapter.  That added too much weight to the muzzle, so I replaced it with the CNC Warrior Norinco Type 84-style flash hider.

The ammo I shot in the Arsenal was Prvi Partizan (PPU) 55 grain M193 Ball.  In my experience, PPU makes quality ammo.  I was able to keep my 100 yard groups about the size of the bull on an SR-1 target.  The rifle should be able to do better but for me the open sights with a short sight radius is the limiting factor.  However, one of these days I'll have to try some ammo with heavier bullets, since the rifle has a 1:7" twist, which should shoot well with bullets up to 77 grains.

I bought the VZ-2008 a couple years ago.  It's based on the Czech VZ-58 assault rifle but of course semiauto-only.  My initial experience with the VZ-2008 was problematic.  The receiver is parkerized and the finish was bit thick, so much that the first time I had it out to the range I had to "mortar" the rifle open after about half the shots.  Since then, I've smoothed out the rifle's innards by polishing them with Flitz and putting a few hundred rounds through the gun.  When I last shot it a couple months ago it ran fine.

Today I put 60 rounds -- two full magazines -- through the VZ-2008 and had no malfs.  The last time I shot the VZ, the stock was really whacking my cheek, so I decided to see if installing a muzzle brake would help.  CNC Warrior makes a copy of the Czech military brake, so I ordered one last month.

The new brake definitely lessens recoil and muzzle flip.  As expected, it greatly increases muzzle blast.  Overall though, I find the rifle more pleasant to shoot with the brake so it's staying on the gun.  It did affect the rifle's zero, dropping the 100 yard point of impact by about a foot.  I didn't really have time left at the range to futz with the sights, so rezeroing will wait until my next range trip with the rifle.

As with the Arsenal AK, my usable accuracy with the VZ-2008 is limited by the open rear sight and short sight radius.  I got about 6" groups at 100 yards.

The VZ-58 is a neat rifle, often mistaken for a Kalashnikov.  They look similar but the only thing the VZ shares with an AK-47 or AKM is the chambering, 7.62x39.  Nothing else is interchangeable, including the magazines, unfortunately.

The VZ has a milled receiver but weighs about as much as most stamped receiver AKs.

The AK uses a long stroke gas piston operation, while the VZ-58 has a short stroke design.  If anything, mechanically, the VZ-58 is closer to the WW2 German STG-44.

Most 7.62x39 AK magazines are made from steel, while the VZ-58 mags are aluminum.  The VZ-58 has a last round bolt hold open and a charger guide on the bolt carrier.  With the bolt locked back and a magazine in the rifle, you can load the mag using SKS stripper clips.  The AK has no last round bolt hold open.

Things did not go as well with the C93, my new HK-93 clone.

Before buying the C93 I'd read up on them on several online forums.  Reports were generally good.  However, I am finding that my rifle is short stroking with every shot.  This turns it into a heavy and awkward straight pull bolt action rifle.

After buying the C93 last week I field stripped and lubricated it, and measured the bolt gap, which was in spec.  I used the same PPU M193 Ball in the C93 as in my Arsenal AK.  I figured if the rifle's mechanism required a break in period it would do better with full 5.56 NATO spec ammo than .223 Remington spec loads, or worse, Wolf steel cased ammo, which is noticeably underloaded.

But even with the PPU M193, the C93 fails to eject empties.  When I manually extract and eject the cases, they looked OK -- no swelling, just the typical sooty striations typical of HK roller locked rifles.  All of the empties, except one, extracted easily.  One empty required a bit more force to extract.

I haven't had the chance to field strip the C93 since returning from the range.  When I do I plan to check for any spots where it appears internal parts might be binding.  I'll also make sure the chamber is clean and will try to see if there are any burs.

Hopefully I'll get to try the C93 again soon.  Next time, I will probably try some Lake City XM-193 Ball, just in case the rifle works better with it.

Functional issues aside, the C93 is extremely pleasant to shoot and seems to be accurate.  Compared with my Colt AR-15A2 Gov't. Carbine or even the Arsenal SA M5, the C93 is heavy.  Also, in my experience the HK roller locking system soaks up a lot of recoil.  To me, the C93 has even less felt recoil than an M1 Carbine.  If the C93 doesn't start functioning OK the next time I try it, I'll have to send it back to Century to get fixed.

Some Mac Consulting Today

This morning I went over to a client's home to do some work on his Macs.

He has an older Intel iMac which was still running OS 10.4 Tiger.  He was without a backup system for it, so the last time I was there I recommended he upgrade it to OS 10.6 Snow Leopard and getting a USB hard disk to setup as a Time Machine drive.

The first thing I did after arriving was to connect the Western Digital Elements 640 GB USB drive, copy over the Documents, Desktop, Pictures, and iTunes folders.  (It's a bad idea to upgrade an OS without first backing up all of your data.  Upgrades often go awry.)  Once everything copied over, which took about 40 minutes, I popped in the Snow Leopard disk and rebooted into the OS X installer.

After about 45 minutes the iMac was upgraded to OS 10.6.3, so I then ran Software Update and grabbed the 10.6.4 update, along with several other updates.  This took another 20 minutes or so.

With that squared away I reconnected the WD hard disk and configured Time Machine to use it as a backup disk.

While the iMac was getting backed up before the upgrade I took a look at his Mac Mini.

The Mini had been setup to do Time Machine backups to a Western Digital My Book external drive via FireWire 800.  It looks like the drive is toast, since when I was there a couple weeks ago I'd reformatted it.  Time Machine worked OK for about 4 days then started failing.  Today, it kept crashing the Finder when I connected it.  I even connected it to my MacBook Pro and reformatted it, but it still gave errors.  He's going to try to return it and get another USB or FireWire disk.

Finally, while there I also installed a hand-me-up 8 GB iPod Touch from his daughter to the Mini, and upgraded the firmware from 3.x to 4.1.

Not a bad way to spend a few hours and make some extra money.

The Restoring Honor Rally: A First Hand Account

Over at Noisyroom.net.

I've known the author, Ken O'Donnell, online for a few years, as well as met him in person a couple of times.  He's good people.