TSB and Flintlock.org Back Online

I finally have The Shooters' Bar and Flintlock.org back online.  TSB remains the Internet's oldest freely available list of pro-Second Amendment attorneys, having its inception as a post on Fidonet back in 1997.

I had been using Flintlock.org for photo hosting and that remains my primary use for the domain, but unfortunately all the links I had to the old site are broken. I used Hostgator's automated tool to install Gallery for my image hosting.  When I was hosting it at home I was using Zenphoto.

The box on which they were hosted -- shoebox.davemarkowitz.net -- got zapped when lightning struck close to my house last week. I decided that instead of hosting them behind my cable modem as I'd previously done, I'd use a web hosting provider instead. After checking out a few I decided on Hostgator, which seems to offer a good balance of features vs. cost.

It was very handy at times to have a Linux box available via SSH and SFTP. I used it for testing remote access to various sites, an SSH proxy, and the occasional file transfer. I haven't decided if I'll gut the case and replace the innards, or maybe just leave my Windows 7 PC on and accessible via Logmein. Or maybe I'll just bag the idea of having an always-on, remotely accessible system.

The Shooters' Bar Temporarily Offline

The server on which I was hosting The Shooters' Bar appears to have gotten zapped by lightning. The site will be offline until I make alternative arrangements.

Hoppe's M-Pro 7 Gun Cleaner

After reading a recommendation for it as an effective, odorless carbon remover, I ordered an 8 oz. bottle of Hoppe's M-Pro-7 gun cleaner from Amazon last week. This past weekend I gave it a try, and based on the results, I am now a fan.

I gave M-Pro 7 a tough test. I went camping over the weekend and brought two guns with me. The first was my Euroarms Rogers & Spencer black powder percussion revolver. The second was my 1945-vintage M-1944 Mosin-Nagant carbine, shooting some early 1960s-vintage Soviet surplus 7.62x54R light ball ammo.

We shot the R&S with 30 grains of Swiss 3Fg black powder. Swiss powder burns cleaner than Goex, but it's still black powder and leaves behind plenty of fouling. We put about 36 to 40 shots through the gun. Afterwards, no more than 6 patches wet with M-Pro 7 got the bore clean. It was similarly effective on the rest of the gun.

The Soviet surplus ammo we fired through the Mosin-Nagant is some of the dirtiest "smokeless" ammo I've shot, and of course it has corrosive primers. I also put a 5 round clip of Hungarian light ball through the gun. Again, only a few patches wet with M-Pro 7 through the bore got it clean. I followed up with a patch wet with Ballistol to verify that M-Pro 7 hadn't left anything behind, and it too came out clean.

We did our shooting on Saturday, I cleaned the guns immediately thereafter, and then I checked them the following Monday. Neither gun showed any signs of corrosion. I ran a patch wet with Remoil through the Mosin's bore and it came out green, indicating that the residual M-Pro7 and Ballistol left in the bore had been attacking copper fouling.

I am impressed with M-Pro 7. It is odorless with no fumes, not flammable, doesn't require any special ventilation, and according to the MSDS doesn't contain anything especially nasty. After years of using smelly, carcinogenic gun cleaners I think I found my new favorite.

Evernote

A main use for my iPad is for note taking in meetings. I've looked at a few applications and have come to like Evernote.  The killer feature as I see it is that it automatically syncs notes via the cloud between my iPad, MacBook Pro, and iPhone.   Your notes can also be viewed online in a web browser.  This way I can access my notes pretty much wherever I am, since I always have at least my phone.  You can also have notes that are local-only, i.e., not synced across the Internet.

Among other things, I plan to start putting my technical reference notes into Evernote so I can easily find them, and so I can access them no matter where I am.

One caveat is that notes are not encrypted, so be careful about putting sensitive data on synced notes. Evernote does allow you to encrypt text within a note, but not the entire note.  Even so, I do not plan on putting online the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my accounts, usernames, and passwords. That will stay inside a TrueCrypt volume.

Another feature with which I'm experimenting is sharing notes.  This can be useful for groups.  So far, the one shared note I've created is Black Powder Revolver Notes, which I've shared with a friend who just picked up his first caplock revolver.

A basic Evernote account is free, while a Premium account is $5/month or $45/year.  Both allow you an unlimited number of notes in your account, but the free account is limited to 60 MB of uploads per month, and the max note size is 25 MB.  The figures for Premium accounts are 1 GB uploads per month and 50 MB per note.  The free version also has some limits on the types of files you can upload. You can see the full list of differences here.

Evernote is a handy program, especially for tech professionals. I recommend giving it a look.

How to Make a Lockable Ammo Can

I ran across this video on Youtube showing how to make a lockable ammo can, and thought it worthwhile to pass on.

Monster Hunter Alpha

On Monday I bought Larry Correia's novel Monster Hunter Alpha as a digital download from Baen Book's Webscriptions.net.  Last night, I stayed up late and finished it.  MHA may be the best book in the series yet.

Unlike Monster Hunter International and Monster Hunter Vendetta, the main character in MHA is Earl Harbinger, head of the independent monster killing company, MHI.  The book delves into Harbinger's background and provides more depth to the character than in the first two novels.  Along the way, Harbinger encounters a nemesis from his past, a witch with a score to settle, has to deal with a competitor, and has to fight an uber bad ass werewolf.  As always, the Feds make an appearance in the form of agents from the US government's top-top-top secret Monster Control Bureau.

Correia's characterizations and wordsmithing are getting better. His sense of humor provides comic relief, and as with his previous novels it's nice to read a story not riddled with mistakes about guns.  It's also good to read a story in which the author is clearly in favor of the right to bear arms in defense of oneself and one's neighbors.

I give Monster Hunter Alpha an enthusiastic two thumbs up. It is 100% pure awesome, covered in awesomesauce.

Adding e-Books to Kindle in iPad

Since I got my iPad last week I've been using the Kindle app on it to read e-books, instead of carrying both it and my Kindle around. Yesterday, I bought Larry Correia's Monster Hunter Alpha from Baen's Webscriptions.net, whereupon I realized that there's no straightforward way to load e-books purchased from some place other than Amazon onto the device to read them.  (If you're not using an e-book reader, you can get Monster Hunter Alpha in the Dead Tree Edition here.)


After a minute on Google I found a solution, using Dropbox, which I access from my computers and my iPad.

1. On your computer put the .mobi e-book file in your Dropbox folder and wait for it to sync. 
2. Then go on your iPad, open Dropbox and then click on the e-book file. The Dropbox app cannot read the file and asks you what program you want to open it with. Select the Amazon Kindle app, and it'll download the book to the the Kindle apps local data store.

It would be nice if Amazon would let you leverage their Cloud Drive free online storage space for Kindle-format books purchased elsewhere, and then let you access it from the Kindle app on the iPad.

Edit 7/27/11:

Apparently, e-books from Webscriptions.net are available in a format supported by Apple's iBook app, and to which you can add them using iTunes. Clicky here.

iPad 2

At work my department will soon be receiving about 20 iPad 2s for development use. Since I'll be managing them, my boss felt I should have one for my own use. So, on Monday I came home with a shiny new white 64 GB iPad 2 with both WiFi and Verizon 3G capability. (If I want to use the 3G I'll have to pay for it myself.)

So far, I've been using the heck out of it. The screen is very nice and clear, displaying both text and graphics nicely. Speed seems good for the apps I've used. On my home network I'm getting about 12 to 14 megs down, about 10 mega slower than what I see with my MacBook Pro. The iPad has a slower processor, so that makes sense.

When typing I find that it's much easier if I put the iPad in landscape orientation, providing that the app I'm using supports it.  The onscreen keys are larger in this mode.

My use has primarily been for browsing, reading a couple forums using Tapatalk, and using the Amazon Kindle app. Compared with a Kindle, the iPad is more versatile since it allows you to do more than read books, but as an e-book reader, the hardware Kindle is superior. The grayscale Kindle screen, which isn't backlit, is superior for reading in bright light; there is more glare on the glossy color screen of the iPad. However, the iPad is superior for viewing PDF files, which don't display well on the Kindle.  The Kindle's e-ink display uses a lot less juice than the iPad's backlit LED. A Kindle can go weeks between being charged, while an iPad will go about 8 hours of active use.

Compared with the Samsung Galaxy tablet I got to play with a few weeks ago, the iPad is better. The iPad's larger screen versus the Galaxy's 7" display is more usable. (Obviously a 10" Galaxy would fare better in this regard.) The OS feels smoother, and Safari is overall a better browser than the stock Android 2.2 browser, with at least one caveat, see below.

So far I've bought a couple applications through iTunes: iSSH and GoodReader. I've also installed Noterize, Evernote, an RDP client, and Dropbox. ISSH allows me to access my servers at work over a WiFi bridge onto my lab network. GoodReader allows me to view many file types, including .doc, .xls, and PDFs, and manage files. It also integrates well with Dropbox.

I mostly typed this post in Evernote on the iPad with some final touches on my Mac.  Evenrote is an extremely neat notes and clipping program which can sync your files across multiple platforms and the cloud. (I used Evernote for this post because Safari on the iPad doesn't work with Blogger for some reason.)

Taking notes is something I see as becoming one of my main uses for the iPad, so I need to settle on a good solution for it.

Since this is a company owned device, I was able to get approval to have ActiveSync enabled on my Exchange account, which means I can now get my work email and calendar on it. I'm going to like not schlepping my laptop to meetings.

When I first handled an iPad last year I was a bit underwhelmed. I didn't like how it felt. The iPade 2 is noticeably slimmer and lighter and feels a lot better in the hand.  I can see why Apple has had a he'll of a time keeping up with demand.

For heavy content creation a laptop or desktop remains superior to the best tablet. But for note taking, email, checking my calendar, or light web surfing, the iPad works extremely well.

W000t!!!!

I just found out that I made it into the Contagion 2011 Zombie Shoot.

They've scaled it back this year, down to 125 shooters from 200 last year, so things should move a bit quicker this time around.

{Happy Dance}

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.