You'll find, as you go deeper down this particular rabbit hole, that guns cause friends...not crime. - Me

12/28/2012

Write, Call, Pester.

From Facebook to Blogger...again.
So, I've spent the last couple hours composing a letter to my US Senators and Rep calling attention to this bit of fluff from Dianne Feinstein and urging them to vote NO on any such bill that comes before them. Not like McCaskill will listen since she's buddy buddy with Feinstein. But, I urge each of you out there to compose letters of your own so that we may keep the pressure on our supposed leaders so that garbage like this never sees the light of day. The last time this crap happened it did nothing, it will do nothing this time since it specifically targets law-abiding citizens and does nothing to stop criminals. Just like every other gun control law that has ever been written. Their rational being - "When you can't disarm them legally, make them felons and disarm them by "due process".

Like I stated in my letter, any bill such as this isn't intended to stop criminals, only remove rights from law-abiding citizens.

12/24/2012

Supreme Court Precedent and how we can apply it.


Posted this at my FB, thought I'd share it here too. Edited for emphasis and errors, and to clean up the text to make it easier to read.
 
So, I've been hearing more and more from people that know nothing of the law saying that we need to ban high capacity magazines, semi-auto rifles and anything else they think is scary looking. Typically saying that neither DC v Heller or McDonald v Chicago enumerated the right for semi-auto rifles in self-defense. Well if you truly wish to apply the law and precedent from SCOTUS rulings, lets look at that shall we. One case cited in DC v Heller was:

US v Miller.
Supreme Court ruled that the 1934 NFA did not violate Miller's 2nd Amendment rights as a short barreled shotgun (a shotgun with a barrel length less than 18 inches) was not a weapon in common usage by the milita, ie: The standing army at the time. Lets dig a little deeper into this precedent. If we apply the ruling today a ban on a semi-auto rifle and the magazines to feed ammo to it, would be a violation of the Second Amendment.

... Standard issue arms for an individual soldier now would include among the following: M-16/M4 SELECT FIRE battle rifle with multiple 30rd magazines, M249SAW or M240B belt fed light-machine gun - fed from a 200rd belt, 40mm grenade launcher - commonly using a high explosive fragmentation round, AT4 anti-tank rocket - uses a high explosive shaped charge warhead in the rocket, M67 fragmentation grenades - nuff said.

So yes please, lets apply Supreme Court precedent in this case, please please please, can we apply the Supreme Court precedent?

Handy little bit of information.

  Thought this might help put a few things into perspective for the gun ban crowd if any of them actually wanted to learn something rather than keep spouting off nonsense about "high-powered assault weapons". Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive list, just the rounds I currently have a use for in the single projectile department. I didn't want to include shotguns cause that is a whole different area of lethality when you start delving into multiple projectiles.

   Scale runs left to right from least powerful to most powerful. Included notes are for each individual round and the particular round pictured. I divided the rounds pictured into groups from Plated Lead hollow point to Jacketed Soft Point. Also, summary of typical use and/or lineage for common rounds of that caliber, though not necessarily the specific one pictured. All this is simply to show what some people think is so, really isn't. Anyone that has spent as much time around firearms as I have will know most of this on an almost instinctual level. This is more for debunking the ones that keep crying for regulations on that which they have absolutely no clue about beyond what CNN told them to believe. Once again, from left to right, are least to most powerful, and this is just a few of the rounds used by my collection.

Click to view full size.

  Data below here will reflect the max effective range of different rounds. All this is from my own knowledge and having been around and using firearms nearly my entire life. If you want exacting data you can look it up. This is to show the maximum range that a typical shooter could hit before round becomes unpredictable due to external influences. And, aiming for "center of mass" meaning high probability of hit in vital area (upper torso/vital organs) rather than a certain Minute Of Angle point of aim to point of impact measurement. Using common weapon types in common usage by civilians not military. Using that particular type of firearm under ideal circumstances, (under no stress and bench rest firing rather than prone/standing). None of this is to show what truly exceptional marksmen are capable of (unless noted), so I don't want to hear about how your Uncle once killed a 20 point buck with a .22 short at ZOMG!!! yds. Hopefully we can do away with the common myth that so called "high-powered assault weapons" are neither particularly high powered nor particularly more lethal by comparison to other common rounds. These should be fairly accurate as most are commonly used and known in the firearms community (if any actual experts wish to comment on inaccuracies then please by all means do so because I love learning). The majority of the rounds are used heavily across a broad range of instances. With the probable exception of the 7.65mm ARG. That data is based off what I've learned over the last 15 odd years studying the history of, and using that particular rifle with modern ammunition. (Rifle noted in picture above). Either way max range is still a good indicator of exactly how much power is behind a given projectile without getting into the archaic formula of bullet weights/shapes/tissue reaction to projectiles at different speeds/whether or not your personal goblin is hopped up on PCP, so on and so forth. This is just a rough guideline for showing the base power of one typical cartridge to another. I may expand on this later when I have more time though.

Maximum ranges: estimates for simplicity's sake.

.22LR 
      Handgun: 35-50yds (depends on barrel length)
      Rifle: 150yds (the .22 LR looses power dramatically after this point unless using high end high-velocity rounds which can extend the range to 200 or even 250 yds on a good day.)

9mm/.45ACP
      Handgun: 45-50yds (depends on barrel length)

.223 Remington/5.56mm NATO
      Semi-Auto rifle: 500yds
      Bolt-Action rifle: 700yds

.30-30 Winchester/7.62x51mm Rimmed
      Lever action rifle: 500yds

7.65mm Argentine
      Bolt-Action rifle: 1000yds

.30-06 Springfield
      Semi-Auto rifle: 800yds (M1 Garand, with a well trained rifleman can be up to 1000yds.)
      Bolt-Action rifle: 1000yds (Remington 700 and other common hunting rifles. With a typical hunting load, 1000yds is stretching the ability of the rifle itself without getting into exotic and truly varied specialty loads. However, the younger brother of this cartridge and rifle platform, the .308WIN/7.62x51mm NATO and a well practiced shooter, range can go as high as 1500yds.)

  That covers about all that I can at this point without delving truly deep into the internet in search of the finer parts. Just trying to get a small point across, not give a lecture of why, when, where, and/or how long a certain bullet will do what. The internet is your friend if you want to know the particulars of: wound ballistics, the effects of different bullet shapes on aerodynamics, bullet types, powders, primers, case wall thickness, the ream that sized the chamber of the rifle...yada, yada, yada. There are thousands of different variables to this stuff. I've spent years accumulating what I've spread before you over the four or so hours it's taken me to write this and I'm a rank amateur compared to many others. Like I said, if you want to learn the internet is your friend, spend enough time doing research and bouncing back and forth from one data set to another and you'll learn it just takes time. Refusal to do anything and just spouting off the latest talking points because it is so much easier, well, that just makes you an asshat. But, then again, if everyone bothered to get educated on the matter we'd all be gunnies and I wouldn't have needed to spend my time writing this, when I should have been sleeping so I can get up and go do my job tonight.

12/18/2012

Well that was simple.

   Took another go with the two Tapco mags I bought awhile back. Given my penchant for tinkering with things it was really only a matter of time till I found the problem and the solution. I started sanding the outer surface of the mag thinking that it was just too tight in the mag-well of the rifle. After a few cycles in and out with the mag body and not being able to get it to lock just right even with the bolt open. I started looking real close for where it was binding and noticed that the hole in the front of the mag wasn't lining up with the pin, except just enough to lock the mag in place. Thus causing the body at the point above the pin to bow inward. It is also the exact point, where with such close tolerances, the tip of the ammo was contacting the mag body and causing it to wedge itself in. Keeping said ammo from feeding upward enough to get picked up by the bolt. Five minutes with a drill and a file and I now have two flawlessly functioning mags. The crappy part is that now that I know what I need to do I can't get more without doing the backorder thing. Everyone I've checked is SOLD OUT. Guess I'll have to keep looking.

   However, after watching events unfold this weekend I kinda expected that. Buying frenzy anyone? Of course. Given that freedom hating, anti-American, douchenozzles from left field indoctrinated in "never let a tragedy go to waste" spouting off with "more 'gun control' we must punish innocent people for something they had no part of as it is the only proper path to salvation." And, they are being listened to... again.  All to be expected, I've seen this movie before. But. I guess we'll always have the moronic masses of asses that keep spouting about more "gun control" like it was such a success the last hundred thousand times it was tried. (Germany circa 1930's anyone?) These people wouldn't garner a second thought if it weren't for their ability to get mindless morons with delusions of adequacy to jump into jack-booted lockstep with them using tried (and found stupid) and tested rhetoric that the dumbasses that can't think for themselves keep believing. It keeps coming around, when it has been tried and failed, "try again only harder we might get a different result." We have a term for this, it's called insanity.

   You mono-synaptic wastes of flesh and oxygen. Ya'll couldn't get a damn clue if it danced up and smacked you between the eyes with a clue-hammer, forged in the fires of Mount Clue, from ore mined in the bottomless Pit of Clues that was hauled by a donkey called Clue and enchanted with +5 Clue-ing by the Dread Wizard of Clue. Worthless f*in' morons.

12/10/2012

Well, here it is.

I think I said I'd post some pix of the Franken1911, anyway here ya go.

Click to embiggenate.

Well like I said it won't win any beauty contests but it runs like a top. Not to mention being as simple as a '42 Jeep to repair. (Pretty sure a few of the parts are interchangeable too.


EDIT : 9:33 PM

Thought I'd list parts and tools to show estimated cost for the build.

RIA 1911A1 (bare bones GI) new - $512.00
Checkered Walnut grips - $20.00
Wilson Combat Competition Match Trigger - $17.00 (on sale)
LED Flashlight - $20.00
Dustcover mounted rail - $15.00
Wilson Combat Semi-drop in beaver-tail grip safety - $20.00
Novak GI cut rear combat sight - $22.00
Swenson Commander style hammer - $22.00
Colt Ambi safety - $20.00
Various tools - (honestly who doesn't have a few files and stuff)
Welding rod - $0.45 (front sight firmly attached as the low profile served as the starting point, hence the files mentioned above)

Total cost: about $647.00. At the time I started with the basic GI pistol a well set up 1911 was running about $800.00.
  
 

12/09/2012

Christmas time 'n all...

Just sayin:

Incase anyone was wondering, I'm an XL.