New Site

Friends,

It's an amazing time in life where I have the esteemed privilege of moving my blog to my own domain name. I hope that both of you, my faithful readers, will join my celebration and come to the new website. In the spirit of hope and change, we will have a bit-warming party at the new place. So, come one, come both, to evylrobot.com. Many thanks,

Evyl Robot Michael

Gun Porn

Attention all things that go bump in the night! I bump back.

EBR Dissipation Range Report

Success!

Here's the rifle with my ladybug helper:



Here's the setting for the test:



And, here's the proof in the pudding:



Please pardon my goofy grin. I'm not sure what's up with that. Here's the close up of the target in question:



That's at 100-yards, prone. Given a little more time with the gun, and some high-quality ammunition, I'm confident that I can tighten up that group quite a bit. I really see no reason that this should be any less than a sub-minute rifle. It looks like she's pulling slightly to the right, but it got to the point that I didn't want to mess with the sight adjustment any more for the weekend. The gun shoots like a dream, and I should have done this modification a long time ago.

Yesterday, I mounted a single rail on the bottom of the handguard. I'm going to have to get some better handguards to get where I am trying to go with this thing. I still don't think I want to do a quad rail, as I like the low size and weight of the plastic. At any rate, I'm having fun, and that's really the point of the thing. I wish the antis could figure that one out...

EBR Dissipation

Since the wife got her EBR, I will be doing some customization to the old Doublestar - to really transform it into my own gun. There have been several modifications that I've wanted to do to this, but since we were sharing an EBR, I didn't want to personalize it too much and ostracize my dear wife. The first step has been to extend the sight radius to rifle-length like the Bushmaster Dissipator. This particular mod just seems like a no-brainer to me. You get the sight radius of the rifle, but retain the handiness of the carbine. That's a win-win situation as far as I'm concerned.

I found a low-profile gas block on ebay for cheap. It came in via USPS on Wednesday. The price was right, as the machining wasn't terribly tight on the thing, and there were some holes that I had to clean up/redrill prior to installation. I don't regret buying the thing, as it was about half the price of a higher-quality block, and it ultimately mounted to the gun as if it was made for this specific gun. If I do another such conversion, I will probably go for a better gas block, but I don't see how this one could possibly hurt at this point. I'm not completely convinced that I want to go with fancy, expensive handguards, so I got a cheap set of full-length, plastic handguards at the local military surplus, and on Wednesday evening went to town tearing down the upper so I could rebuild it to my own specifications.

The stock sight block got remounted closer to the muzzle, after replacement with the low profile block. I plugged the chamber with my pinky and blew down the muzzle to make certain that I had aligned the gas holes between the barrel and the block. No problem there! Once all was said and done, I went to install the full-length handguards, and that's when I made the discovery that there are different handguard caps. I haven't handled a whole lot of these things, so I hadn't noticed, and nobody told me that there are differences. The cap that came on my carbine is the standard carbine, round cap. The handguards that I bought fit the old-style, triangular cap. My impatience told me to modify parts to fit together, but my better sense told me to shop for the proper-fitting parts. Yesterday, I made a couple of phone calls and ran to the military surplus store again only to discover that nobody in town has either a set of round-cap handguards or a triangular handguard cap that they can sell me.

Last night, I revisited the 'modify' option. I spent a couple hours with a hand-rasp, filing away plastic until the handguards would fit into the round cap. (Talk about pounding a triangular peg into a round hole!) Ultimately, the rifle came out looking very nice. It now wears the full-length handguards, and has the rifle-length sight radius on the carbine upper. This extended the sight radius by about 33% - which should vastly improve my long-range accuracy as long as the ammo can keep up with the machine and me. I was so tired last night that I didn't feel like taking any pictures, but they will be forthcoming. Maybe I can have a little EBR photo session this evening or tomorrow morning.

I'm enough of a traditionalist that I don't want to mount a bunch of excess crap all over my rifle like a lot of folks do. My rifle doesn't need a light, and a laser, and a holographic sight, and a scope, and a radar, and an anemometer, and a vertical fore-grip, and ammo storage, and battery storage, etc., etc., etc... Heck! My weapon of choice is a 12-gauge pump action, with a well-tuned, double-action revolver scoring a very close second. It's no small wonder that I even wanted an AR in the first place. Honestly, if it were not for the threat of a new AWB, I probably would have never bought one at all. But, I digress - I follow the KISS philosophy with my rifle. I don't think I want the bulk, pokey corners, and heft of a quad rail, but I would like a single rail on the bottom side of the handguard where I can easily mount a sling swivel and possibly a bipod in multiple locations. I would like to get a quick-disconnect scope that I can use as an alternative to the iron sights from time to time. Prior to that, I would like to get some nicer irons. The sights on the gun do the job, but they could be a whole lot better.

The gun is really sharp looking, even if I say so myself. Stay tuned for pics and a range report! I hope both of you enjoy them!

Update on Holster Making

To both of my readers,

This has been a long time coming - five months in the progression, actually. First, I posted about my original holster making success. Then, I posted better pics of the original.



Then, I posted an entry on the J-frame cross-draw that I built for my wife.



At that point, I decided that I needed to seek to build holsters for other people, that lead different life experiences, come up with some new innovations in my holsters, and that I needed to do some torture-testing to some basic designs to see how well they hold up under extreme stress. I liked my holster, and Jenni liked hers, but how would anybody else like my holsters? How would they perform for someone else that had completely different habits in their daily routine? The holsters I had built yet were nice, but what set them apart from any other holsters, really? I know that I'm hard on shoes, so I tend to buy really well-made shoes that can take a beating and keep on looking good. Could I build holsters that would perform the same? These are all questions that I felt needed to be answered.

Jenni's coworker, Len decided that he wanted a small-of-the-back holster for his Cobra in .38-Spl. He wanted it to include one two-shot reload. I was up to the challenge, since I had only ever really thought about revolver holsters before. This is what I came up with:



And my wife modeling it:



I have to admit that it was an accident that I cut out my pattern backwards on the leather. There's more to that story that I'll get to in a minute...

My friend, Will told me that he 'pined for' a left-hand holster for his airweight J-frame that had no cant, so he could access it with either hand from deep cover if the proverbial S**T hit the fan. I asked him what color it should be. He said that it should probably be a color. I asked him if I should make him a pink holster. He said that he would proudly wear a pink holster. I didn't think that I could do a pink holster, as it's far easier to dye to a darker color rather than a lighter one (but I will have to recant on that later), so I went with red. I had to call Will to tell him that I was looking at a holster that was somewhere between a fire engine and a tomato.



This sucker pulls the gun in TIGHT! Here's a shot of my lovely wife modeling for me once again in natural light:



He cracked up the first time he saw it! That holster is gorgeous, and the pictures don't do it justice. I would really like to do some more in such a shocking color. At this point, I had come to the realization that I don't do black holsters. I like colors. I alluded to turning the leather inside-out earlier in this post. I thought that maybe I should have a layer of leather facing towards the firearm, and another layer of leather facing the outside to pretty up the combination. My prototype was for one of my .586's. Here's what I came up with prior to dying and finishing the beast:



Note the lack of visible stitches. This holster is double-stitched like all of my previous holsters, but the stitching is hidden under a top layer of leather. This has proven to be a nearly bullet-proof (please pardon the phrase) holster that takes abuse and keeps on performing and looking good. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of either my left-hand holster or my 'concealed stitch' holster until after some serious torture-testing. On the up-side, the hidden-stitch prototype has held up extremely well! Here are those two holsters in question:



Note that the left-handed one is visibly beat up quite a bit more than the gun-blue, red-lined prototype (I told you I don't do black) on my right-hand side. I'm shocked at how nice both of these look after the punishment that I've put them through over the last six months! I've crawled under cars on the concrete, I've been in the dirt, I've worn them empty as much as I've carried guns in them, and they still hold their shape, retain the revolvers, remain comfortable, and still honestly look pretty darned good.

Next, I traded some reloads for a holster to my friend Darin. He's a lefty, and decided he wanted a cross-draw for his N-Frame in .45 ACP. So, I went to work putting together a hidden-stitch holster for his Model 22. I finished this one in a dark chocolate brown. It turned out very nicely.



I say with much pride that Darin is quite fond of that holster. He's wound up wearing it more in front than on his side. Think Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad, and the ugly. I can hardly blame him. An N-frame is so large that it is a little awkward to wear.

My brother bought his first gun in October. He got himself a 5-inch Para 1911 in .45 ACP. He was talking about wanting a holster, and I was coming up with ideas. He said that he wanted one that logically wore where I wear mine for my 586's. He wanted it canted a little more dramatically to pull up the muzzle on that 5-inch barrel. My brother wears jeans nearly constantly, and most of his jeans stay a brilliant blue, by some strange and unnatural miracle. I thought that a leather, pancake holster that was dyed and textured to mimick denim was in order. For concealed carry, if the holster flashed, it would be camouflaged against his jeans. So, I went to work building him a holster (with hidden stitching as has become my calling card), with the stamped texture and vague coloration of a pair of jeans. I'm not ashamed of what I was able to turn out.

[So sorry. Pictures pending.]

Then, I met my most recent challenge. The original, purple, cross-draw holster that I made for my lovely wife outlived its usefulness. For whatever reason, the leather had become quite soft. This is the only one of my holsters that has done this. The ears on the sides became floppy, and the body became very soft as well, and the holster's retention went to pot. I couldn't quite figure it out. She had been complaining that the cross-draw format was not nearly as useful as she had originally imagined it would be. Women's jackets are quite a bit shorter than men's as well. Have you ever noticed that a ladies' jacket hems just below the top of the back pockets whereas a men's jacket will often extend below the bottom of the back pocket? This adds to the fact that a woman cannot carry the same holster that a man can. Jenni was constantly flashing the bottom of her purple holster when she bent over. She said that she would like something strong-side, high-rise, in the hidden-stitched format that my more recent holsters have been. I came up with something that looks like it should live on the bottom of the ocean, and performs its job quite well. Nearly the entire holster sits over the bottom-line of the belt, and it is not tempted to flop over from the gravitational pull of the stainless steel revolver. Remember how I said that I couldn't do pink? How about this pink and purple, marbled beauty with a shimmery pearl coat on top of it?



It almost seems to change color when the light source changes a little.



Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of this one. So far, Jen has been wearing it for a couple of days, and she loves it! I have to tell you that it kind of makes me wish for the next project.

Judgement: Zombie's Bane

Sometime over the Summer, Jenni and I decided to buy a shotgun. I don't know why we wanted a shotgun, but we did. We had heard and read from several sources that the pump-action shotgun is the definitive king of home defense. That inspired us some, I think. Jenni has had some back and neck problems, so we specifically wanted to get a 20-gauge for the reduced recoil, so it would not beat her up. We went to the corner pawn shop and fondled every shotgun they had in stock. The one that really grabbed us was a beat-up, well-used, 20-gauge, Winchester 1300 pump-action. We walked out of the store with this gun, after parting with $150.00. We stopped and purchased a couple boxes of $6-birdshot, and proceeded to the range. Well, we were hooked.

I showed the gun to my friend, Will, who works at the range. He thought it was interesting that this gun had an improved cylinder choke in the 28-inch barrel. He found it even more interesting that he was able to remove the choke by hand, rather than using the wrench. What was more interesting still, was the fact that the choke tube refused to thread back into the barrel at that point.

Long story short, we decided to lop off the barrel and call it a house gun. When my brother saw the section of barrel that had been cut off, and its choke tube, he nonchalantly screwed the choke tube back into the severed barrel tube. As it turned out, even though the threads in the barrel are damaged, if you hold your mouth right, it is a fairly simple task to thread the choke back in - but that's neither here nor there.

At that point, we had a home defense shotgun. So, we did the only reasonable thing we could think of. We took a home defense shotgun class with Oklahoma Shooting Skills. We did well in our class, and were really having fun with this combat shotgun idea! I started to get the desire to have a 12-gauge of my own. I decided that I really liked the Winchester 1300 platform. The Remington 870, and the Mossberg 500 are both fine weapons, but the Speed Pump is really sweet! I liked wood furniture, so I would probably wind up getting a Defender, and putting a wood stock and for on it, or a 1300 Hunter, and cut down the barrel, and install a magazine extension.

When I got my Christmas bonus at work this year, I kind of knew that I was going to be shopping shotguns. I had seen a few Winchesters around town, but they were either VERY used, or priced higher than I wanted to pay. With the recent gouging increases in gun prices, I wanted to pay about $200.00 for the right gun. At the same pawn shop where we bought the first one, I found a Winchester Ranger Model 120 in very nice condition. I was not familiar with the Ranger, but it looked like a 1300 to me.











So, I googled it on my BlackBerry. It turned out that the Ranger was indeed the entry-level version of the 1300 Hunter. The biggest difference is that the Ranger had an integrated choke rather than changeable tubes. Apparently, that cut the cost down. Either way, it didn't make a difference to me since I would cut off that part of the gun anyway. This gun looked like a brand-new, 20-year-old gun that had a maximum of a hand-full of shells through it, and had spent its life at the back of Grandpa's closet. The biggest flaw was a little rust on the magazine nut, which would be replaced with an extension anyway, so it didn't really matter.





As I was eying it, one of the guys who works in the shop looked at the price tag, which read "$230.00." He remarked that he would sell it for $200.00 after tax. I told him that he had just sold it. After a little more research, I found that this is probably a 1987 gun, and a thorough break-down and deep cleaning revealed no evidence of prior shooting or cleaning. I had to clean the factory preservative goo out of the cracks and crevices, and I had to clean dust out of the bore! Not powder residue, but dust! The 20-gauge became Jenni's gun, and we now had a his and hers set.

So, I took it to the range and put its first fifty shots through it. Jenni's gun has the long fore grip on it, which I thought I liked. Mine came with the short, corn-cob fore. After shooting it, I decided that I really do like the short fore. The gun was exactly what I wanted. The action started loosening up after the deep-cleaning, and even more so after I popped its cherry with the first fifty rounds. I was beginning to get a vision of what I wanted the gun to be.

I decided that I wanted the barrel in the size range of 18.5 to 20.5 inches, to make it handle better, but to remain legally above reproach. I wanted to go with a small magazine extension, to extend the capacity by two or three shells, to not put a bunch of extra weight on the nose. I decided that I wanted some kind of reload saddles, but didn't know what type or format. And, I wanted to go with a tritium night bead, so it would be easier to sight in the zombies and gremlins at night - when they are more likely to strike anyway.

I decided to do my own work as well for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my preferred gunsmith is backed up by about 4-weeks, with the recent frenzy on firearms. I don't have that kind of patience. Secondly, I have access to some tools that make the job easier for a do it yourself gunsmith, and I've done some simple machining before. I even decided to make my own saddles since I couldn't find any that I really liked, and I work leather pretty well.

I ordered two ATI '7-shot' extensions from Impact Guns, as the mag tubes on the 1300 derivatives are identical between the 20-gauge and 12-gauge. I figured I could slap one on each of our guns. I picked up two Meprolight tritium beads - one for each gun. The thread pitch is a 6/48, and I was unable to find a tap in stock anywhere in town. I wound up ordering one from a supplier that I use at work. I was determined not to cut the barrel until I had the mag extensions in hand, to make sure to leave enough steel over the extension. I would then mount my bead, of course.

To pass the time, I stitched together a nice, leather, stock saddle that holds eight shotshells on each side. I put the center-line of the elastic low enough on the stock that the shells do not interfere with the proper cheek-weld. The shells hold securely, and pull out easily with minimal deliberation, and I call it a success. On subsequent trips to the range, I've received many compliments on the saddle.







Then, I found out that there was a problem with both the tap and the magazine extensions. It looked like the tap was delayed by several days, and the folks at Impact Guns couldn't tell me when I would get my extensions. So, I lost my patience, chucked the barrel in the band saw at work, and cut 8-inches off the barrel. I used the belt sander to even my cut and deburr the outside of the cut, and used a 1-inch drill bit to chamfer it. When I got home, I did a little more work with a piece of emery cloth, and touched up the white metal with a cold bluing compound. If you have never used that stuff before, you have got to try it! It is so cool! I applied the fluid with a Q-tip, and watched it go from white to blue-black in seconds!

Fortunately, my tap came in the next day and I was able to drill and tap the barrel for the new sight. The Meprolight sight is a glowing, green dot on both sides, front and back. I suppose that they do this so that you have 180-degrees to align it. I used Locktite to secure the sight in its newly cut threads. I didn't really want the gremlins to have a green dot to shoot at, so I touched the front of the bead with some black fingernail polish to allow its luminescence to come from the back only. A couple days later, I mounted the other sight to Jenni's gun.

Here's my gun, with the barrel length corrected, and the night-sight installed:



Here are both guns together (12-gauge, "Judgement" on top, 20-gauge, "Deliverance" on bottom):



And, here's a low-light shot of both sights (They are a lot brighter in real life. This was just the best pic I could take with the equipment on hand):



Impact Guns keeps telling me that they will ship my magazine extensions any minute. In reality, I have no idea when or if I'll actually get them. We shall see. I'm also thinking of putting an additional side-saddle on the receiver, but I haven't decided yet. Jenni's gun will also get leather saddles, but she wants a new holster for her 640 before that. I may have to post an update at that point.

2/11/09 - UPDATE

Revolvers of the Evyl Robot Empyre

These are the revolvers that my wife and I have accumulated since we started shooting on January 1, 2008:



From left to right, they are as follows:

1) Jenni's S&W 640-2, "Greed."





Nothing spells out serious quite like a J-frame with five shots of .357 Magnum. The looks grow on you when you spend some time with a Centennial. The stainless frame is heavy enough to tame the full-house Magnums to manageable levels, and the format of the gun makes it easy to hide - even under a petite woman's most feminine of clothing. This gun is fun to shoot, very accurate, and demands that you become a better marksman (or markswoman, for that matter).

2) Our Pre-M10, WWII-era, S&W M&P in .38 Special, "Pride."







This old girl has seen some action, as is shown by the asphalt-themed engraving on the muzzle and cylinder. This is by far the oldest gun in the stable. The blue is mostly gone, but the spirit remains. Even with fixed sights and an obnoxiously high hammer spur, she's proud to put those six shots in the same hole in the center of your target. This one is a piece of history, and a great shooter for beginners and accomplished shooters alike.

3) My S&W M29-10, .44 Magnum with factory engraving, "Lust."





This one is my favorite. She's also my first ever gun. This gun is beautiful and deadly. Shooting full-house Magnums out of a model 29 is a demanding practice, but master it and you will find that it is a tack-driver. Even with lighter loads, the drop in trajectory is negligible at 150-yards! The gun is way more accurate than I am, and one day I hope to truly master it. It deserves that much from me.

4 & 5) My S&W 586L-Comps, "Wrath" (background) and "Gluttony" (foreground).



I bought the first one, "Wrath," as my daily carry. I found that I could shoot it well with either hand, and I liked it so much that I bought the second as a Detroit reload. These babies were built by Smith & Wesson's Performance Center. They have tuned actions, both are cut for moonclips, they are fitted with Trijicon night sights, and they have ported barrels. I haven't been carrying additional reloads yet, as I feel that if 14-shots of .357 Magnum won't get the job done, I need to find a better way out of the fight. I've found that Gluttony's action is a little more smooth, crisp, and consistent than Wrath's. I find that I shoot it a lot more, and it is my right-hand carry. Although I am virtually ambidextrous, I do find that I'm usually a slightly better shot with my right hand. I've been working on my left-handed shooting, and have gotten good with it, but my left lacks the stamina that I've got in my right.

6) Jenni's first gun, a S&W 627PC, "Envy."







And, what gun wouldn't be envious of an eight-shot, .357 Magnum N-Frame tuned by Smith & Wesson's Performance Center, cut for spidery, eight-legged moonclips; fitted with a front gold-bead sight, a ball-detent lock up, and Kim Ahrend's grips? The 5-inch, slab-sided barrel will happily launch all eight bullets through the same hole at any visible distance. The action is so light and crisp that it will spoil a shooter against lesser guns. I don't like to shoot this one in single-action, as the trigger pull is so light and crisp that it is more of a brush than a pull. Truth be told, I don't shoot this one much at all, as it kind of takes some of the challenge out of the sport of target practice. This gun very nearly shoots itself.


As a bonus pic, here are Lust and Envy all snuggled up together:



Now, isn't that cute? As each of you has no doubt already detected, being the astute sleuth that would read my blog, we have picked the theme of The Seven Deadly Sins as names for our revolvers. We've decided to limit this theme to our revolvers, and as we have picked up long guns, we've had to come up with something different yet fitting. We don't have any slide-guns yet, but will have to come up with yet another, similar theme. Since we started with religious concepts with worldly applications, we decided to go with more vague religious concepts for our long guns. Hence, Jenni's 20-gauge is known as "Deliverance," our AR-15 is called "Rapture," and I call my 12-gauge "Judgment." Keep checking back, as I'll get back to that soon. I'm looking forward to posting the transformation of my shotgun from entry-level hunting gun to Judgment: Zombie's Bane!

Jen's Fitness Challenge

Aw, F! I'm not exactly sure how I got roped into this. But, needless to say, I have committed to getting myself into better shape. I kind of like my current shape. Well, ok. I admit that there are some improvements that I would like to impose on my body. Besides that, life is more fun with an improved body. I'm certainly not going for Hulk or Mr. Universe stats, but there are some things that I am looking forward to doing.

Of course, her crazy New Year Stunt caused me to do some work beyond push-ups and crunches. Jenni was talking about how she wanted to buy a scale so she could post a weekly update on her measurements and weight. I told her that we didn't need to buy a scale since we have a perfectly good one in the garage.



This, my friends is the scale in question. This is after I disassembled it to clean out the spider nest that had been constructed between the viewing lens and the zero. I don't recall whether this one came from Grandma's house, or if I picked it up at a garage sale, but I thought it was beautiful and wanted it, even though we had no use for a scale at the time. It's a vintage Health-O-Meter, a relic of a forgotten era when things were made of a legendary material known as 'metal.' Everything was built with beautiful lines, and everything had an 'O' in the middle of the name - much in the same way that everything has a lower case 'i' at the beginning of it now. Take this Juice-O-Mat for example:



Yes, this was the Golden Age in which a computer was a device as large as a high-school gymnasium, and had the awesome processing power of a modern greeting card today. This device was known as a Calc-O-Tron, I believe. They cost as much as a Banana Republic and could play chess, or do grade-school arithmetic. If these devices were built today, they would be boxy looking, made of plastic, and would be called iHealthmeter, iJuicemat, and iCalctron.

But, I digress. Please allow me to get back to my tangent. Fortunately, I've been feeling very industrious recently. I've been taking pics of my new shotgun, which I'll write a post on soon. I'm trying to get a nice little collection of images together so I can post a graduation from 21-year-old, hunting pump to elegant, zombie bane.

I've been doing quite a bit of organizing, cleaning, and creating, so the restoration of the Health-O-Meter is a logical progression from what I've been doing anyway. As Jen posts pics of her progress, so shall you see the progress on the old scale. I'm thinking of having the case blasted and powder-coated some wacky color. I'm a sucker for red, but a period mint green might be really nice. The lens is pretty scratched up, and I'll probably see if the scratches can be buffed out. It's glass, so I'm not afraid of scorching it on a buffing wheel. I'll probably wind up scraping and painting the guts of the thing. It appears that about half of them were zinc-plated, and the other half were white steel. They have all gone mostly to rust. Thankfully, the steel parts are thick, and should clean and paint easily. The step pad on the surface of this scale is some kind of linoleum or something. It is very brittle, and has been coming apart as we've been handling it for this project. I'll probably replace it with a piece of leather or vinyl or something. Brightly colored urethane might be nice if we decided to go black on the case. I don't know yet. The little chrome bezel has seen better days, but I'm not exactly sure what to do about it yet. I could have it stripped and re-plated, or I might just clean it up and see how it looks after everything else. I suppose I could take it down past the chrome, prime and paint it to match the case. If I did that, I would probably go back over the raised lettering in a different color to bring that out. Well, it shouldn't take me all year to do something about the scale, so I'm sure that you will all get the opportunity to see its transformation.

Oh, yeah - I guess this is where I can get back to the main point, huh? I've made it my goal to gain some weight, trim a couple of inches off my waist and put them on my chest and biceps. I don't think this will be hard to do. I'll try not to change shape too radically, because I don't really want to have to replace my nice clothing all at once. We shall see what we shall see.

Wedding Anniversary Plinking

Friday, December 5, 2008 marked the ten-year anniversary of the day that Jenni and I became legally married in the eyes of The State and our friends and family. Friday was not terribly note-worthy as we had things that we had to take care of during the day. Saturday, we had a brief and heartfelt restatement of vows. We promised to do even better for each other than we have in the previous decade. We confessed that the last ten have been largely blissful (but even the rough spots have only drawn us closer together), and we are each looking forward to whatever adventures we wander into together in the future.

The weather was idyllically gorgeous, and we held our restatement at the family property in Luther, OK, where we frequently camp. After our ~10-minute 'ceremony', we changed into our grubbies, and did some very romantic target shooting. We decided to try some 150-yard plinking with our M4 carbine, across its iron sights. This is the first rifle that either of us has spent any time shooting, and this was the first time that we had attempted any such reach with a firearm. This was also the first time that I've adjusted sights on a gun, so please bear with my left-pull. Here is the last 5-shot group that I put downrange:



That would be a 5-shot group that measures 3-inches across and 7-inches high. At 150-yards. Across iron sights. On a carbine. Oh, yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can duplicate or improve upon these results on the next try.

Jenni also shot well, but did not embarrass me, much to my complete surprise. It seems like we usually trade off who will do better at the range from session to session, but she usually beats me to the punch-line on whatever new experience of its type. I fully expected her final group to be half of what mine was in this endeavor. It's not that she was not shooting well, it's that this was outstanding - that is to say that I far exceeded my expectations in this shooting attempt.

The pattern suggests that we always do our best shooting outdoors. I believe that the indoor gun-range is a head-game. I think that when the target is rolled all the way out to the maximum 30-yards, and there's that much paper to hit, something in my psyche won't completely take it seriously. When I'm aiming at a 6- to 18-inch target at some serious yardage, out in the open, that part of my brain gets nervous and I perform better. If I could figure out how to consciously alter that perception, I believe I could perform a lot better while burning far less ammo.

I'm happy with how things went on Saturday. Like I told my wife then, I'm more in love with her now than I was in the beginning, and I was crazy about her then. I did what I consider to be some damned fine shooting. The weather was great, and it was a feel-good weekend in general. Sometimes, it's just hard to complain.

Science as a Religion?

Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

Who could not love the work of Michael Chriton? This one is worth a read in its entirety.

Linkarooni

Crocs - WTF?

My wife, Jenni has been scratching her head (and banging it against the wall) over new developments from Crocs, the friendly, ugly shoe company. I was so fascinated from these new offerings that I had to go check it out for myself. Alas, the offerings that they have for men's footwear are as ugly as ever. If I caught myself wearing these or these, I'd have to kick my own ass. And, with the squishy croslite(tm) that they are made of, it would be a solely unsatisfying experience (pun very much intended).

Life is simply too short to wear ugly shoes. That's why most of my footwear will come from Nocona, Dan Post, and Moreschi. Granted, I don't think that anyone should have to pay a million bucks to look like it. I haven't paid retail prices for shoes since I was in junior high and didn't know any better. (Ebay is your friend in this area.) Men's shoes should be uniquely masculine, but they ought to look good as well. I like a pair of shoes that I can wear with a pair of jeans and a t-shirt all day, brush them off at home and put on my suit to go to a formal occasion.

Some people will say "But Crocs are so coooooooomfortable!" I like my shoes to wear and wear and wear. You get a well-made pair of shoes, take care of them, and they will be incredibly comfortable, and last for a long time. ...And, they don't look like a Nerf football. Who looks good with Nerf footballs on their feet? Nobody. I'll tell you what, you put on your Nerf-looking garden clogs, and I'll wear something more like these. We'll wear them with jeans all day at work, or the mall, or the gun range or whatever. At the end of the day, we'll brush them off and wear them with suits to a formal occasion in the evening. We'll see how that goes over visually as a comparison. Once you finally kick them off in the evening, will your fee hurt? I don't know. I've never worn Crocs (because I don't want somebody's dog to try to retrieve my foot to it's owner). What I do know is that my fee will be fine.

I know that pretty much all of my shoes are artisan-made in the United States, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico. According to Crocs FAQ's, they are made:

Crocs shoes are manufactured in many countries around the world including Italy, Mexico, China, Brazil, Vietnam, Bosnia, and Romania.

That's actually a far better resume than I expected. I prefer to think that a little kid in a third-world country is not working in a factory for 12-hours a day to put my shoes together. It makes me feel bad. I really don't mind paying a little extra to make sure that doesn't happen. That's one of the biggest reasons that I've pretty well switched completely over to the types of shoes that I wear now.

Could Crocs be the way of the future in the shoe industry? I don't know. It kind of looks like they have a pretty good foothold (why yes, that one too). Whatever the future holds for Crocs in the shoe industry, I hope that as they continue to grow and prosper, they will act responsibly towards their consumers, employees, and community. Well, that's my hope for any business in any industry one it comes down to it. At any rate, I don't see myself buying any of these hideous monstrosities in their current format.

I Am Joe

It's about time someone represented us in politics. I don't envy him for having his life trifled with by the political, leftist, media machine. But, like other bloggers, some of whom I know, some I do not, it's time for me to take a stand. How about you? Will you join the revolution? I am Joe. Are you?

UPDATE:

Merchandise

Sarah Palin

For anyone who saw her speech at the RNC last night, all I have to say is this: YEAH!

For those of you who missed this, here's the transcript, courtesy of NPR.

Some highlights include gems like these:

While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for.

That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.

I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks," for that Bridge to Nowhere.

If our state wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged — directly to the people of Alaska.

But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it.

In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers.

And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.

If character is the measure in this election ... and hope the theme ... and change the goal we share, then I ask you to join our cause. Join our cause and help America elect a great man as the next president of the United States.

I'm not going to claim to be the first or only blogger covering this subject, but I am proud of the way this is going. Before McCain's choice of bringing Palin aboard, I was not looking forward to casting my vote. I don't like John McCain much. I dislike him far less than Obama, but it felt like the choice of the lesser danger. Mrs. Palin has changed my mind on this. I don't think I'm alone, either. Did you hear that? That was the sound of Senator Obama sweating. So, I submit for your approval:

Holster Success!!!

To both my readers,

Here's my second attempt at a holster. I think it turned out pretty well. I'll try to get some better pics up soon, but please let me know what you think.



It fits the gun very nicely, and wears wonderfully! I have to admit that I far exceeded my expectations for fit and finish. My original intent was to do it straight black, but in the heat of the moment I decided to go with black cherry. I'm not disappointed with that decision.



I am looking forward to the next project. Fortunately, I have a couple lined up already. I need a left-hand holster to match this one, and Jenni still needs a cross-draw. Beyond that, I've been working on some moonclip holders as well.



I have a feeling that I may get some requests as well. If I ever got to the point of doing these semi-full-time, I'd need to get an industrial sewing machine like the shoe-shop guy has...