Monthly Archives: August 2008

Doing my Civic Dooty

Posted by TD on August 5, 2008 No comments

Today is primary day here in Michigan, so after work I trotted off to my local polling place to cast my ballot.

Now, I live in Wayne County (wherein lies the city of Detroit), which makes the process a truly empty ritual; the county is so heavily dominated by Detroit Democrats that Republicans barely make even a token effort.

There were only a handful of Republicans on the ballot, none of them facing primary challengers, so I voted the Democrat side (ticket splitting isn’t allowed), skipping over all uncontested races and voting against all incumbents.

Then, to paraphrase George Carlin, I came home and jerked off, so that I could claim to have done ONE productive thing with my afternoon.

Meh.

Posted by TD on August 4, 2008 4 comments

Grant Cunningham reports some unfortunate but not-unexpected details on the new Smith & Wesson 642s:

These are new production guns made with “leftover” non-lock frames, according to S&W. In addition, these guns have the traditional screwed-in barrels, as opposed to the sleeved liner type that the company is now using.

They were able to put together approximately 4,000 of them, and there will be no more.

Disappointing that S&W remains so pigheaded about the lock issue; looks like my first new Smith will also be my last.

Ah well, as the great James Brown said:

The way i like it is the way it is,
I got mine ‘n’ don’t worry ’bout his

It’s been a quiet weekend down on the farm…

Posted by TD on August 3, 2008 No comments

An unusual late-season allergy flare-up has had me basically sidelined since Thursday. I STILL haven’t made it out to the range to test-fire my new Smith 642 and my freshly-revamped CZ 85. I also missed my chance to see Dark Knight at the IMAX on Friday. In point of fact, I haven’t done much of anything aside from sampling various OTC antihistamines, dozing fitfully in the La-Z-Boy, and watching movies.

Zyrtec finally gave me enough relief to let me get out of the house and do a few things. Managed to scrounge up some food for the coming week and 100 rounds of Remington .38 Special for the Smith.

Oh yeah, I’ve also been dry-firing the 642 to get used to the pull. It’s breaking in nicely and I’m now confident that at least 75% of my shots will end up downrange :-)

Seriously though, I’m starting to get a feel for the rhythm of DA revolver shooting and the front sight is slowly but surely steadying. The gun has a little hitch in the trigger right as the bolt locks in place, and learning to pull smoothly through that point is taking some work. I’ll get there.

Hope y’all have had a better weekend than mine.