Still waiting for Ruger to get my No. 1 back to me (the cracked stock has been replaced and it’s awaiting test-firing now), so I’m picking up other bits-and-pieces in the meantime.
Today’s delivery: ammo and dies. I ordered one box of Hornady’s very expensive ammunition just to use as a reference in developing handloads. At $80/box, I doubt I’ll ever buy another. While the proof will be in the shooting, quality looks excellent. In a nice nod to tradition, Hornady leaves the brass unpolished after annealing; that’s why you see the color of the brass change just below the base of the shoulder. It’s sitting next to a 9mm so you get a sense of scale.
Big cartridges need big reloading dies, and these are almost comically huge. They’re also NOT easy to find; Hornady doesn’t even list this die set on their website. I finally them tracked down at Graf & Sons, who only have one more set in stock as of today. If you need ‘em, grab ‘em NOW. The only other alternative is RCBS at over four times the price.
I just snagged a flight to Phoenix for $184 + fees, total $226, so I’m now officially going to the Second Amendment Blog Bash at the NRA annual convention. I’ll be rooming with Alan at the luxurious Super 8, where all the cheap/poor cool kids are staying. I’ll be needing a roommate, apparently.
The Stooges did “Open Up & Bleed” at the tail end of the band’s career, after Raw Power flopped. They held onto their trademark heavy, ominous sound, but there’s an edge of despair and defeat that the albums never had; you can almost hear the band coming apart. Still, there’s a strange beauty to it.
There never was an official studio version of the song, just some rehearsal tapes and concert bootlegs. The “California Bleeding” CD has a bluesy 12-minute-long take recorded at the Whiskey a Go Go in 1973; it’s worth seeking out if you like this one.
…as long as you can let yourself back.” – Mick Jagger
I’ve been working lately on letting myself back. Amazingly enough, sitting in front of a PC all day is NOT the best way to stay in shape. Who knew?
I wasn’t getting fat, but I let myself get soft. Way too soft. So it’s exercise every other day, calisthenics and free weights, slowly ramping myself up. It’s working, a helluva lot faster than I expected. After just two weeks I’m noticeably tighter and stronger. And these things on my stomach? Whaddya call them? Abs? Cool, I didn’t know I had those!
Feeling better physically kinda offsets my increasingly dark mental state, which I blame on the ongoing economic idiocy of the government, the media, and the voters. I’m not going blog about it; others have done it more eloquently, more viciously, and more effectively than I could. I had a draft kicking around for 5 days, and it just kept getting angrier and uglier the longer I worked on it. So instead I’ll just say this: I think the best thing to do now is lay low and quietly prepare, as best you can, for when it all comes tumbling down.
Most of us are familiar with gauge designations for shotguns, the familiar 12, 16, 20, etc. Knowledgeable shooters know what the gauge number represents: the number of pure lead balls of a given diameter that weigh one pound. The bigger the bore, the fewer lead balls it takes to reach one pound, and the smaller the gauge number.
Some historically-minded shooters also know that gauge rifles were once quite common in England, where they use the term “bore” instead of “gauge”. In the black powder era, a 12-bore rifle was a fairly common big-game rig. Early dangerous-game hunters often used 8-bores or even 4-bores against buffalo and elephant. There’s an excellent article on the big 8s and 4s here.
I’d known about those beasts before. I did NOT know that there’s now a 2-bore, built by master gunsmith Giles Whittome. And yes, there’s video of very, very stupid brave men shooting this monster. Click here and be amazed. Mathematically-inclined readers no doubt realize we’re talking about a rifle that shoots HALF-POUND bullets. Oh, and the rounds they’re shooting in that video are reduced loads. Maximum loads burn 24 drams of black powder; that’s a full ounce-and-a-half or 656 grains!
I’ll stick to my friendly little .416 Rigby, thanks very much.
… the IT infrastructure at Unforgiving Central is once again fully operational. Actually, there was no wailing or gnashing of teeth; I just got sidetracked with movies and taxes, so the Mac rebuilding went on the back burner for a few days.
Mac OS X 10.5 is a mixed bag, and if you haven’t upgraded yet you might as well wait for 10.6 to come out. The one really nice new feature is “Spaces”, which is just a fancy name for virtual desktops. The new firewall’s a step backwards, and Spotlight remains annoying as hell.
My aging G5 tower is the last Mac I still use for OS X, and it’s likely not going to be replaced with another Mac when it’s retired. I still think OS X is hands-down the best operating system for the average user, but I’m now so used to using a lightweight window manager on a *NIX system that everything else feels too damned heavy and clunky. It’s funny how your thoughts can change from “I want a nice GUI to do everything” to “why bother with a GUI? It’s faster and easier to fire off a few commands on the command line.”
