Month: November 2022

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Google’s Blogger At It Again

November 30, 2022 by 2 Comments

Censorship must run strong at Google’s Blogger unit. This time they are censoring posts from longtime blogger Borepatch.

Here is the post about it.

 In the ongoing effort to protect the world from Borepatch, the following actions have been taken by The Blogger Team.

https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-smells-good.html has been removed.

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/america-do-your-part-to-when-harry-met.html has been put behind a warning wall.

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2010/06/ouch.html has been put behind a warning wall.

If this continues, I will make a sidebar widget to list the posts that The Blogger Team is protecting you from.

A post from 2008 on gun cleaning solvents of all things! Lawrence Person found the archive of it and you can read it here.

As you may remember, I have had my own problems with Blogger which led me to leave, set up my own domain, and have hosting done elsewhere. Censorship by the tech oligarchs is getting worse and worse. What makes it more objectionable is that it seems to only happens to those on the right side of the political spectrum.

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“The Dawns Here Are Quiet”

November 29, 2022 by 4 Comments

I finished watching the Russian film The Dawns Here Are Quiet last night. It is offered as a four-part series on Amazon Prime Video. It is a remake of the Soviet era film from 1972 which was an Academy Award nominee. It is based upon the book of the same name by Boris Vasilyev.

The setting of the film is an anti-aircraft battery set behind the lines in Russian Karelia during WWII aka the Great Patriotic War. The unit is commanded by Sergeant Fedot Vaskov who was wounded during the Winter War. His original platoon of men is replaced due to fights caused by drinking and womanizing. Vaskov asks for “teetotalers” who aren’t going to womanize. Neither he nor the women in the village are very happy with the replacements. That is because Vaskov gets two squads of women soldiers.

IMDB has this synopsis of the film.

Russia, May 1942. Well behind friendly lines a veteran sergeant commands a small outpost, consisting of two anti-aircraft guns. His men are a rowdy, undisciplined bunch and after one incident too many they are taken off his hands. To his surprise, the replacements are women. Soon after, the Germans send a team of crack saboteurs into the area to blow up a vital railway link. The only thing standing between them and completing their mission is the sergeant and his small inexperienced team.

The bulk of the film deals with how Vaskov and five selected women soldiers track and combat the Germans. Each of the women has her own backstory as shown with flashbacks. These range from being exiled to Siberia to being widowed by the war. The flashbacks, rather than being a distraction, just add to the whole story.

In addition to being available on Prime Video, I did find all four parts of the film on YouTube. Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

The film is in Russian with English subtitles. I usually pass on such movies. This time I’m glad I didn’t.

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Everything About MIM Parts *

November 27, 2022 by

* That you didn’t know enough to ask.

I just finished reading a three-part series on MIM or metal injected molding by Mike at the Revolverguy.com and why Smith & Wesson adopted it for some of their revolver parts. The series dealt with both the myth and realities of MIM parts, the details of the molding process, their strengths and weaknesses, and the engineering that must go into designing the molds as well as the metal mixture.

One common misconception is that it is just a cheap way to make parts. Given that each mold can cost upwards of $150,000 and that engineering a proper part can take from six months to a year, this is definitely a myth. Another myth is that MIM parts are weaker than those made using other methods. This is not true especially when compared to stamped parts.

Part One – The Basics

Part Two – The Pros and Cons

Part Three – The S&W Experience

If you have any interest in how firearms are made or in Smith & Wesson revolvers, I highly recommend this three-part series. You, like I, will learn a lot from it and you don’t have to have a degree in engineering or metallurgy to understand it.

H/T SPW-DUF

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Still Think They Don’t Want To Ban Hunting Firearms

November 26, 2022 by 3 Comments

There are those misguided individuals out there who think the gun prohibitionists won’t come for their hunting rifles or shotguns. They think that Biden, Bloomberg, and Shannon Watts only want to take “high capacity magazines” (sic), “weapons of war”, and “assault weapons” (sic).

They need to think again. Based upon Biden’s statement to the press in Nantucket yesterday, your Remington 1100 that you use for ducks or trap, your Ruger 10/22 that you taught your son or daughter to shoot with, and your Browning Mark II BAR in .270 Winchester that you use for deer hunting are on the chopping block. Biden thinks that being able to purchase these fine firearms is “sick”.

Here is the link to his statement on the White House website.

What is sick is that everywhere Biden goes, he is guarded by Secret Service agents who are armed with both semi-automatic weapons as well as full-automatic weapons and yet he continues with this crap.

Unlike him, we are on our own to provide for self-defense for ourselves and our loved ones. Courts have repeatedly said that law enforcement officers have no duty to provide for our protection. They said it about the kids murdered in Parkland as well as in multiple Supreme Court cases.

The best tools to provide for that self-defense are not H&R Topper shotguns or Colt Single Action Army revolvers. They might work but a semi-auto handgun or carbine with standard capacity magazines would be a much better choice especially given the rise in multiple attacker home invasions.

Back to Biden’s statement. If you own a firearm for whatever purpose – hunting, sport, or self-defense – you better start realizing that there is a concentrated effort on the part of the White House, the gun prohibition industry, and the media to disarm you. The sooner you realize that, the better.

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A Couple Of Black Friday Deals

November 25, 2022 by

There are a lot of Black Friday deals out there on firearms, ammo, and accessories. Bearing in mind that I am an affiliate of both Luckygunner.com and Amazon which pay me a commission, here are a couple worth your attention.

First up is the Howard Leight Impact Sport electronic hearing muffs. I have a couple of pairs of them and like them. They allow the use to hear commands on the range while shutting off when the decibel level rises. I also find them very useful hunting as they can be used to amplify sound while sitting in the stand. Many people have also upgraded these muffs by replacing the foam pads with gel ones. Amazon has these gel pads that will fit the Impact Sport muffs for only $14.

My first pair cost me $49 plus at Amazon. For Black Friday, the identical pair is now only $31.14. By comparison, MSRP is $84, Walmart is $35ish, and Cabela’s is selling them for $69. In other words, this is a really good deal on an excellent product.

LuckyGunner is running a number of specials on both ammo and accessories. For example, they have Federal 9mm 124 grain HST for $42.50 for a box of 50. Compare that with the prices you’ve seen in the $70-80 range at the gun show. Use this link to get to the specials.

This is not a bad time to try Amazon Prime. They offer the first 30 days for free which gets you 2 day shipping and access to a lot of great Amazon produced videos including Jack Carr’s Terminal List.

If you are looking for a compendium of Black Friday deals, Eric at Pew Pew Tactical has a good round-up.

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Don’t Be A Bubba

November 20, 2022 by 6 Comments

When surplus firearms were really plentiful, it was not unusual for a “home gunsmith” to convert one into a more sporting configuration. Usually it involved cutting down and reshaping the stock along with maybe a little metal work. There were even books on how to do it along with articles on it in gun rags. Now I am not talking about custom rifles where a professional gunsmith might use a surplus action as the basis for the custom rifle. I have a couple of Eddystone 1917 Enfields that formed the basis for magnum rifles. I also have a period correct Eddystone 1917 rifle with the protective leaves on the rear sight.

Given that you can now get a Savage Axis or a Ruger American centerfire rifle for a fraction of the price of an original Mauser that will be more accurate, it just does not make sense to destroy a piece of history for a hunting rifle. I don’t have a problem taking something that have been “bubba’ed” and reworking it but using a period correct, matching numbers Mauser of German or Swedish origin is almost a sin.

Reddit has a sub-reddit called Gun Memes. I saw this today and it was spot on.

When SKS carbines sold for $100 or less, they were a cheap way to get a deer rifle with almost .30-30 ballistics. Now if you want a Chinese or Russian SKS carbine, expect to pay $450 or more. Even the formerly ubiquitous Yugoslav SKS carbines are selling for $300 plus.

Respect that piece of military history and don’t be a “bubba”.

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Everytown Fundraising Off Trump Announcement

November 17, 2022 by

Unless you were living under a rock, you know the former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. It is was not unexpected nor were the fundraising appeals based upon his announcement.

However, one fundraising appeal that appeared in my in-box today was somewhat unexpected. It was from Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety (sic).

Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that he is running for president in 2024.

Time and again President Trump has shown himself to be unfit for office. The NRA has long been one of Donald Trump’s top supporters, spending tens of millions to support his presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. As president, he was the NRA’s number one ally, fomenting the gun lobby’s dangerous agenda and emboldening far right extremists.

Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and a threat to gun safety.

No matter who the gun lobby decides to support in 2024, Everytown and Moms Demand Action will always be the counterweight to their far-right extremism. We are a grassroots movement of parents, students, survivors, educators, gun owners, community leaders, and concerned citizens working together to fight for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence—and we rely on your support to power our work.

In my opinion, this appeal was targeted to the low-information voter and donor. While President Trump had a great relationship with Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, other than his appointments to the Federal judiciary including the Supreme Court, he did not do a lot for gun rights. We never got national carry reciprocity and we never got the hearing protection act. Instead we got President Trump pressuring the DOJ and BATFE to concoct a ban on bump stocks by reclassifying them as machine guns. This was despite the clear intent of Congress and the clear wording of the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968. Thus to say Donald Trump is a threat to “gun safety” (sic) aka gun control is farcical.

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Florala Pharmacy: Drugs, Guns, & Gifts

November 14, 2022 by 3 Comments

I have written in the past about McCaysville Drug and Guns in McCaysville, Georgia. Well, I found a place that goes one better – Florala Pharmacy.

Florala Pharmacy is located in Florala, Alabama which as the name suggests just across the border from Florida. Located in downtown Florala along US Hwy 331, the pharmacy was established in 1904 and is locally owned.

As this next photo makes clear, it is more than just a pharmacy.

In addition to being a full service pharmacy with a home health aids department, it has a gun counter and a quite extensive gift and clothing section. The gun counter had a selection of new rifles, shotguns, and a few pistols along with ammo and other accessories. The gift and clothing sections had a lot of nice items that were more than just “trinkets”. In a sense, this was a health-oriented, small town (pop. 1,906) general store that had some things for tourists and lot of what was needed locally.

The gift section had everything from a Christmas tree to greeting cards to clothing and more.

I did ask the lady whose back is in the picture if it would be OK if I took pictures. She said, “Honey, people take pictures of our store all the time.”

And yes, I got the T-shirt.

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Thank You To All Veterans

November 11, 2022 by 1 Comment

I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to all veterans of the United States armed services on this Veterans Day. Your service to our nation in good times and in bad is appreciated by all who have a sense of honor and decency.

In my own family, my dad and almost all my uncles on both sides of the family served in either the Army or the Navy. The Complementary Spouse’s father, brother, and sister-in-law all served as Air Force officers. I was about to say we didn’t have any Marines but then I remembered my cousin Jackie served as a Marine Corps mortarman in the 1950s.

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More Money Down The Drain At NRA

November 10, 2022 by 1 Comment

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the NRA’s request for an en banc hearing in their lawsuit against Maria Vullo of the NY Department of Financial Services. They had originally sued her on First Amendment grounds saying she had violated their right to free speech and to equal protection of the law with regard to an investigation involving the NRA and three insurance companies.

This was an appeal from the court’s decision on September 22nd which reversed and remanded the District Court’s decision not to dismiss the NRA’s free speech claims against Maria Vullo. The court found that she was covered by qualified immunity.

So we see, yet again, that the vaunted legal prowess of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, is more a myth than a reality. When one sees how much the NRA has spent on legal bills with the majority going to Brewer, one has to wonder just what value that they got for that money.

To help put things in perspective, the legal budget of the Second Amendment Foundation was $1.8 million according to their new Executive Director Adam Kraut.