Happy Domestic Disturbance Day!

Politics at the Thanksgiving dinner table should get you held face-down in the gravy boat until the bubbles stop. https://t.co/epPl5yaoBJ

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 22, 2018

At least when Crazy Uncle Trumpanzee does it, you can wait until he steps out for a smoke and lock him on the porch. With your super-Progressive cousin, you're stuck listening to the Meat is Murder lecture all the way through the main course.
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Head to Head to Head to Head...

A sampling of the current crop of polymer-framed DA/SA autos awaiting an extended workout. The PX4 needs to be Langdonized and I guess the newly acquired P07 should get the Cajun Gun Works treatment, since both the P30L and SP2022 have received lovin' from Grayguns.

I also need to convert the P07 and PX4 to decock-only.

One of these four will likely wind up becoming my carry gun come spring.
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"It feels good in my hand."

I cannot tell you how many times over the years I have seen someone finalize their selection at the gun counter by hefting a couple pistols and make their buying decision based on which one "felt good in their hand."

It turns out that there is near-zero correlation between a gun "feeling good in the hand" standing there unloaded at the gun counter and which gun one can shoot the best at speed on actual targets. That can only be measured on the range.

"The one that feels best in your hand at the gunshop might not feel so great after you shoot it. Your super-comfortable grip might have you interfering with controls or unable to reach things like the mag button or slide release. Obviously, the way it feels in your hand cannot tell you anything about its accuracy, reliability, or durability."

I guess it felt okay in my hand? Didn't really burn the range down with it, though.

Creature of Habit

I keep a can of Sabre Red hanging on a hook in the kitchen next to the hook that holds my keyring. In this way I am prompted to grab the can of OC and stuff it in my pocket whenever I leave the house, even if it's just to fetch soda from the garage or take the trash cans to the curb. (There's a separate, slightly larger, one by the front door, in case I leave that way.)

For pocket carry, you want the flip caps. The kind with the little twist tab will go off in your trousers and bathe your naughty bits in burning fire.

Having a level of force available "between a kind word and a gun", and yet which can still operate at standoff distances, is something I don't want to be without. Yeah, yeah, I used to be one of those "I'm not a pepper spray kind of girl. I have a Glock! Tee hee!"* types, too, but then I got edjumacated and realized how dumb I'd been.

So, anyway, when I went to New Hampshire earlier this year, Marko provided a loaner OC dispenser that I kept next to the car keys and consequently carried pretty religiously when I left the house.

You can carry OC in your checked bags, but you want to double ziploc that stuff just in case it leaks at FL350. You don't want to get to your destination only to discover you've contaminated all your clothing and the inside of your suitcase with ouchie-burnie stuff. This is why considerate friends have spares for loaners.

During my New Mexico trip last month to visit Lab Rat and Stingray, they thoughtfully provided an OC canister identical to the Sabre Red Mk.6 I usually carry, the one on the right in the above photo. However I frequently found myself out and about without it in my pocket, because I didn't need my keys while I was there. (Nerd ranch has high-speed keyless deadbolts, and I wasn't driving.)

This must be why pilots have preflight checklists.

*Ironically, looking at that two-decade-old photograph of Oleg's with the experience I've had since then? These days it'd be fifty-fifty that I'd take a good can of spray over that craptastic AMT DAO dumpster fire. It's more useful in a wider variety of situations and less likely to shit the bed when I need it most.

We are all Pauline Kael now.

"Surely if someone disagrees with me, they're an FSB-controlled bot!"
This is how you know that your bubble is not only airtight, but soundproof and impervious to most RF radiation. https://t.co/SgCRLzG7wL

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 19, 2018

'P' as in 'psilocybin'

"No, no, it's 'pet', not 'pep'.
PET.
P-E-T.
'P' as in 'pterodactyl', 'E' as in 'eureka', and 'T' as in 'tzaziki'!"

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 19, 2018

It was that, or "Armored Fish"...

Overheard at @IndianaMuseum: "Yeah, Spatchcocked Mastodon is the name of my next band." pic.twitter.com/K2tg22TPeq

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 19, 2018

Red Panda is Judging You

The red panda at the Indy zoo has been elusive for me thus far. This is the best shot I've gotten. It was an impromptu zoo trip, and I was fortunate to happen to have been walkabout with the new-to-me Canon 40D and the 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens when we decided to go. (For the indoor exhibits I generally fell back on my iPhone 7 plus, because the decade-old DSLR's sensor and the slow-ish zoom just weren't up to shooting moving targets in the "Oceans of the World" building.)

Shh!

I'm off to learn about suppressors for a couple hours.
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Back to the Future...

Currently underway is a 2,000-round test on a Ruger P89. The P-series Rugers had a reputation on the internet (Usenet rec.guns and later gun forums on the web) for being reliable, but those were the days when "flawless reliability" was a pretty nebulous thing.

It will be interesting to see how it runs and compare it to shooting newer test guns. Personally, I vastly preferred the 5906 I ran earlier this year to the P89.

It's worth noting, however, that the MSRP in the 1993 Gun Buyer's Annual for the Ruger was $410, which is a good bit less than the $672 Smith & Wesson wanted for a 5906 with fixed sights. (The blued steel and alloy 5904, perhaps a more direct comparison to the P89 test gun, was $610.)

Both the P89 and 5906 are no more, of course. The P89 was discontinued in 2009, ten years after the 5906 left the Smith catalog as a standard item (although department sales continued for a while longer.)

What killed them was the other gun in the second picture, a Gen2 Glock 19. In that same 1993 catalog, the MSRP for the Glock was $579.95. (It's only $20 more for a Gen3 right now.)

The upper is fifty rounds at seven yards and the lower is fifty at ten. Both were trying to push as much speed as I could. It was obviously very difficult. I'll discuss reasons in a published article in the near future, and there's also some ongoing discussion at my Patreon page.

The story thus far: I cleaned the gun on arrival and lubed it with a generous amount of FP10 and started shooting the other day. It has thus far fired 200 rounds of ammunition since it was cleaned and lubed with no stoppages of any type to report. 1,800 rounds to go.
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Writings by friends...

• David Yamane continues his series of posts on what he learned in Alliance the other weekend.


• John Johnston has a thoughtful piece up at Shooting Illustrated Online on "wOrKs fOr mE!"

Ice, Ice Baby

Well, it didn't snow last night after all...

 Instead, we got an inch or so of ice and freezing rain.

All in all, I'd rather have the snow. It would have made the kids sad, though, because 2" of snow wouldn't have gotten them out of school the way an inch of ice did.

Bobbi's "rain rope" looks cool when it gets iced up. But you know what doesn't look cool when it gets iced up? I mean, other than the streets?

I went out and de-iced her car. Fortunately, I'd remembered to run out and put the wiper arms up on it last night. Also fortunately, I'd remembered to liberally salt the sidewalk between the house and the garage before going to bed last night.
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Caveat Emptor, Baby

Colt's New Line single action solid-frame pocket revolvers are an affordable relic from the days of the Old West, especially considering what Colt's larger revolvers go for.

Most I've run across aren't working, and it's rarely worth the effort to try and get one running, but they're neat little paperweights all the same.

Colt made them for a few years in several different calibers: .22, .30, .32, .38, and .41, all rimfire. The reason they stopped making them was so many companies blatantly ripped them off, selling them cheaper than the quality guns from Colt.

The lower revolver is a Colt New Line in .38 rimfire. The gun above it is a .32 that was sitting on a gun show table with a $25 price tag. I grabbed it up because I'm a completionist...and it wasn't until I looked at it at home that I realizes that the rust bucket I'd snatched was a "Red Jacket No.3".

One of several companies that basically ripped off Colt's design, Lee Arms of Wilkes-Barre sold them under several names via mail order, "Red Jacket" being the most common.

Oh, give it a rest.

So, I have an unusual habit when I'm on the road for gun school.

In the hotel room I leave the TV turned on to one of the cable news channels with the volume down at a level where it's audible but non-intrusive. I leave it on while I'm writing or working in Photoshop or reading, and I'll leave it on while I'm sleeping.

Originally I used CNN or CNN Headline News, and it was ostensibly because I wanted to keep tabs on current events while I was on the road.

At some point a few years ago, I started alternating channels on alternating nights: MSNBC Friday night, Fox News on Saturday night, then back to MSNBC, lather, rinse, repeat.

Both networks, of course, shed all pretense of objectivity years ago and now deliver the news with a naked partisan slant: infotainment, or perhaps current events presented as professional wrestling spectacle.

What's interesting is how far they've diverged; it's to the point where it's like I'm getting news reports from parallel universes.

Which is what made this headline funny:

'It disturbs me to my core': Fox News staffers express outrage over Hannity's rally appearance

Oh give me a break! Half your news programs border on GOP electioneering already; Hannity's just honest enough to dispense with the facade.

The only thing funnier is the fact that this tongue-clucking article is at the CNN of Jim Acosta, the dude who apparently skipped J-school the day they covered "Reporting the news, not making the news."
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#butthurt

From what I can tell, for the great mass of people, social media is made of assmad, envy, and an aggrieved sense of entitlement.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 12, 2018

Tab Clearing...

• Caleb wrote a piece on "Expanding your lane".


• David Merrill set a SureFire WML ablaze while restomodding a W. German Sig P226.


• It's true. All of it.

"Tactical Fantasy Band Camp"?

It was interesting to be in a class with David Yamane of the Gun Culture 2.0 blog last weekend. Going from never having fired an AR-15 to moving through a shoothouse with Daniel Shaw in the space of a week's time gives him an interesting viewpoint on the class.

QotD: Fundamental Right Edition...

From a great post at Antifragile Training:

"At the core there is my belief that the weak, the disenfranchised, the outnumbered and unpopular should be able to defend themselves against the strong, the bold, the legion."

Go RTWT...
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Part of the Problem...

Bobbi on the media response to the dead jackass in California:

"I'm not sure there's any conscious individual intent past the cynical awareness that "If it bleeds, it leads." And this unacknowledged, unrecognized hunger may be a far worse problem than deliberate malice could ever be."

It's a bunch of factors. There's an element of crusading ("We're going to shame the nation into action this time!") that heterodynes with the unconscious "This is ratings gold!", which all combines with an underlying current of "Well, if we don't cover it, those guys at $COMPETING_NETWORK will, so if we're gonna cover it, we might as well do it first and best!"

I mean, watching a grieving parent bawl his eyes out over his dead son in front of the camera? That's GREAT TELEVISION.

And we're all...to a greater or lesser degree...a little vulture-y. The meta-conversation here is still paying attention.
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Attention Neptune Spear cosplayers...

Brownells is going to be putting HK416 parts kits out for sale this weekend, if you really want to flex on the poors.
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Overheard in the Office...

I come moping into the office, shoulders slumped, head drooping, coffee in hand...

T: *sigh* "Has a sad..." 

RX: "What's wrong?" 

T: "I'm depressed." 

RX: "But you were just laughing and making fun of stupid people!" 

T: "I can do that while I'm unconscious."

"Why didn't anybody just shoot him?"

OOCQOTD: "I didn't see much about the Florida yoga studio shooter because I was too busy practicing shooting f**kknuckles like him in the face at the time."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 8, 2018

Very Tacticool...

View this post on Instagram

Also had the @fnh_usa #fn509tactical with the @surefire_llc #xh35 there this morning. Look for a review in an upcoming issue of @shooting_illustrated #indyarmsco #pewprofessional #igmilitia

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Nov 7, 2018 at 12:21pm PST

The gun comes with one seventeen-round magazine and two 24-round ones. You can stuff a box of ammo into the mags in the box and still have room left over.

Automotif CXLX...

Parked up out front of the salon where the old Ford Falcon sometimes is parked, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this F100 belongs to the same person.

Looks to be a '73 or '74. I want to believe that there's a 390cid V-8 under that hood.


Photos snapped from across the street with the Samsung TL500. It's an absolutely brilliant little enthusiast's point-and-shoot. Fast glass, a 10MP 1/1.7" sensor, full PASM controls and RAW shooting... It's too bad Samsung decided to bail on the camera game.
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My weakness...

Be me.

Get email sale flier from KEH.

See that they have Canon EOS 40D's in BGN condition with battery and charger for $89.

Have fond memories of all the shooting you did with your old EOS 20D.

Very nearly do something dumb before sternly reminding yourself that you need a crop sensor Canon body like you need a hole in your head.

...

...

Still, though, that's a screaming deal on a solid prosumer body if someone wanted to dabble with a DSLR...
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That Time of Year

This morning is the morning that the cotton socks come out of the drawer and the wool socks go in. With this next load of laundry, the short-sleeve tees will come out of the dryer and go on hangers in the basement, to have their space in the drawer filled by long-sleeve ones. The long johns came out of hibernation for the New Mexico trip already, as did the warm and water-resistant Asolo boots, replacing the trail shoes of summer.

Late autumn, the time of falling leaves and cold rains and air that smells of woodsmoke, is my favorite season, but it's also the one most ate up with nostalgia and melancholy.
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The Only One Qualified Enough...

What's weird is that the police use cars and radios a lot more than they use guns, but the general public doesn't expect them to be automotive experts or broadcast engineers.

And yet "My Cousin, the Cop" is the most oft-quoted authority on any firearm-related topic.
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This sling is so fast it makes you blink faster!

OMG, these retardate paracord slings. JFC. FML. WTF. BBQ.

If you're sitting there thinking "I can use my paracord weaving skills to make revolutionary new rifle slings!", you should instead think about using them to make David Carradine cosplay kits, and then thoroughly test your merchandise.
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Plenty of learning occurred...

View this post on Instagram

I used the light-bearing variant of the @ravenconcealment Perun holster in the class. It worked well. Holstering while wearing a plate carrier is much better with a @taudevgroup #strikercontroldevice #alliancepolicetraining #surefirex300u #edcl2t #glock19x #taudevgroup

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Nov 5, 2018 at 4:27am PST

Thank you to my Patreon patrons. Y'all's contributions paid for the Gen5 Gadgets from Tau Development Group, one of which went on the 19X that I used in class this weekend.

Holstering in a belt holster (as opposed to a drop holster on a war belt) while wearing a plate carrier is holstering blind, and having that Striker Control Device under the thumb is really reassuring. If you're blasé about holstering up a striker-fired gat in circumstances like that, you probably shouldn't be.

It was a long day yesterday.

Arrived on the range at 8:30AM, class started at 9AM, and we knocked off at 1:30AM, having gotten in two nighttime runs through the shoot house.

Even with the DST fairy giving back my missing hour, I am still caffeinating heavily this morning.
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One End to the Other

From one end of gun school to the other, I hear creative excuses from people why that particular thing doesn't apply to them and they shouldn't attend.

 "Entangled gunfights never happen!"

Do people ever get held up at arm's length, or do armed robbers generally square up at 21 feet and yell "Toss your wallet over here!"?

"I'm never going to need tactical fantasy band camp!"

Ignore the safety apparel; the plates and helmet in the shoot house are as necessary as eyes and ears on the square range. Do you think that moving in a structure and problem-solving with a gun in your hand is a skill that might someday be necessary?

Oh, well...

My new zig-zag clavicle...

This will be important in my writeup of some rifle plates here this weekend.
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Learn something new, every time...

Joe Weyer is a talented diagnostician. Also, I learned some new stuff about recoil mitigation...via a metaphor I hadn't heard before...that I'm looking forward to trying to implement.
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It's that time again...

Time to take all the lumens into the shoot house in Alliance, OH.
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Track Record...

Watching Brian Williams' late night news shown MSNBC last night, he interviewed a GOP dude who was explaining how Trump was screwing everything up for the midterms.

The GOP dude's credentials were that he was a former advisor to Romney, Jeb, and McCain. Hell of an electoral resume, bro. You ever advise anybody who won?
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I said I was never going to be That Gunwriter...

...and yet here we are.

The watch matches the pistol, if you know what time it is.

"Fool-shootin' guns are srs bzns. I'm never going to be one of those gunwriters that CCWs a different test gun every week. I'll test the test guns, but I'm only carrying my carry gun."

And then last weekend I needed to lend my own Glock 19 carry gun to a friend to use for the shooting portions of ECQC. In order to not be socially naked, I wound up carrying the 92 Elite LTT, because it and the P30 were the only guns I had brought holsters for, and the HK's holster was incompatible with the sole belt I'd brought on the trip.

I hate Illinois Nazis...

Bobbi does, too, apparently.
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Pressure Testing...

"Why is the Shivworks curriculum so heavy on BJJ and wrestling and other grappling stuff but no dim mak five finger death punch pocket sand stuff?"

After all, those are competitive sport martial arts and notably devoid of special killing punches and devastating blows.

A related question is "Why don't I just draw my gun and choot im?"

See, the thing is, if you're much inside about six feet from Sumdood and try and draw your gun, he's not going to just stand there and let you do it. He's gonna stuff your draw with one hand and start whaling on your noggin with the other, and now you have a real problem. To wit, it's no longer your gun, it's y'all's gun.

In a weapons-based environment, limb control and positional advantage mean a lot. You can't just let Sumdood have a limb flailing around, because that limb is likely to wind up with a knife or a gun in it and then you're boned. So you're working toward a position where you can tie the guy up and either exit the clinch safely, or deploy your own weapon without interference.

In the photo above, the guy on the left has used an arm tie to control both her arms long enough to get his sims gun out and start giving her the skittles.

Here, she's made a successful duck-under to take his back while maintaining a wrist tie on his right hand. Out comes the sims Glock...

...and *pop*pop*pop*!

This also illustrates the reason for the "thumb-pectoral index" or "shooting from 2" in an entangled situation. You know where the bullets are going because you have a good tactile index, and the downward angle helps keep you from scoring any own goals if the projectiles over-penetrate.

(Incidentally, the second and third photos are broadly similar to how I messed up my intercostals last year. I was probably smiling as they tore, too, because of the "Holy cow, this really works!" factor.)

Don't come any closer!

So, if a dude was going for a gun, would you consider that enough of a threat to warrant shooting him?

What if he's closing in on you, even knowing you have a gun and have told him to not come any closer? Is that also "going for a gun", albeit the one in your holster?

Could you articulate why dude warranted shooting? Would you wait until after he'd rung your bell pretty good with a big overhand right?

Nobody wants to wind up on the bottom of a FUT (f**ked-up tangle) wrestling over their own gun.

These are always interesting. Especially when they go down in such a way that, despite being observed by a dozen of the most pro-self-defense people you can imagine, about half of the observers wind up shaking their heads after an incident.

You'll usually wind up seeing a couple that would have been the next Zimmerman case.
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It was a busy weekend.

Monday was mostly recovery day.
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Back at it...

Another day on the range.

Sad to be sitting out this year, but I'm getting some great photos.

Stupid collarbone.
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It begins...

Last night was the start of ECQC. Eleven hour day at the range today...

Relevant...

This was initially posted on FB a year ago by Phil Wong. It's still applicable, and I'm reprinting it here with his permission:

"I'd personally say that the SJW-equivalent in 2A advocacy would be an overweening, all-encompassing inclusiveness of anything and everything involving the ownership and carrying of guns, to include even the most egregious derp;

That any substantive criticism of someone's choice of gun/gear/caliber/ammo(as opposed to intentionally-facetious troll-play like 9mm vs. 45, 1911 vs. Glock, AR vs. AK, etc.) is tantamount to bullying, and a crypto-infringement on their 2A rights;

That anyone who advocates too strongly for training to a level of knowledge/skill/proficiency higher than the lowest-common-denominator, is a tool of the Government-CCW-Instructor Complex who is un-Constitutionally creating backdoor-restrictions on the polite, armed Utopian society envisioned by the Founding Fathers, where real American men all taught their families how to shoot better than the Redcoats and Redskins, so that they could stand their ground in their castles according to doctrine without having to worry about pesky matters like being judged by twelve;

That any purchase of guns/gear/accessories is a necessary and justifiable expense, but training classes and competition shooting are frivolous luxuries that only rich playboy trust-fund shooters without families to care for can afford;

That physical limitations, medical restrictions, age, and the perceived inability to afford high-end training, place a gun owner into a "protected class" whose choices cannot be questioned with respect to guns, gear, carry mode, or tactics;

That "talisman thinking" and as much plinking as one can afford, is just as good "on the streets/in the real world" as spending thousands of dollars on training and/or competition, which can never be like a real fight;

That the shortcomings of certain individual instructors/organizations/programs can be used as a blanket strawman argument to justify avoiding any and all formal training over and above what one has already experienced from the military or an adult mentor;

That any discussion of self-defense or "gunfighting" can be reduced to one or more of their favorite clichés (happy, Tamara?), such as "Situational Awareness!" "Don't Bring A Knife To A Gunfight!" "Judged By 12, Not Carried By 6!" etc.;

That gut feelings, hearsay, secondhand anecdotal evidence and personal preference are equal or superior to scientific testing and informed opinions and evaluation when it comes to anything having to do with guns/gear/ammunition;

That those who have spent significantly more money on high-dollar, high-round-count training and/or competition than on purchases of guns and accessories are a privileged elite, who are oppressing the downtrodden gun-owning proletariat with little or no formal training or experience with their arrogantly-informed opinions, and who need to check their privilege and allow their preferred flavor of derp to be expressed freely and given equal or greater weight of authority, in order that their favorite biases may be more firmly reinforced;

That anyone speaking from a position of privilege as being a better shooter or more highly-trained/-experienced than they, can and should be silenced, shunned and ignored if the "Church Ladies" can find even the slightest momentary deviation from the canonical commandments and Party line of gun safety, tactics or the Constitution/Federalist Papers - because it's so much easier to find and point out minor details and insignificant flaws to denounce great shooters and instructors, than it is to actually train, practice and work hard enough to reach a comparable level of skill and expertise..."

People will argue passionately for their own mediocrity. And god forbid any crab tries to climb out of the bucket. Why, who do they think they are, anyway?

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She works on a starship...

Bobbi has fresh short fiction up on her other blog! Hooray!
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Sad But True

If they designed a pistol that would crumble to dust on the fifty-first shot, the statistical majority of firearms purchasers would never know. (And the people who did discover it would be decried on fan forums as "haters".)
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Weirdness...

Safari on the MacBook Air will not let me stay logged in to Blogger. I mean, it logs me in automatically every time I click the logo in the top left, but I never see the "Create New Post" option in the top right.

It works fine on Safari on the iPad. I hadn't even checked that for a while because when I first got the iPad 2, several iterations of iOS ago, trying to use Blogger in the mobile browser was a mess. Works fine these days, though.

Notes from a conversation elsewhere...

People google “is the blastomatic 9000 a good gun” not to decide if they should buy one, but to confirm that the Blastomatic 9000 they just brought home is a cool gun.

The funniest manifestation of this is when dude has just bought his new Sheepdog Tactical Mk.IV carbine, and he runs home, without having even shot the thing and googles “does the sheepdog tactical mark four suck?”

The third post he runs across is a thread on a gun forum for another state, say westdakotagunownersforum-dot-com and our boy lives in Oklatucky. But here’s this thread on a forum that is running down the gun he *just bought*, calling it garbage and saying that the company that makes is is a bunch of no-customer-service-having scam artists...

Nine times out of ten, Marlon Rando will register an account at that forum so he can jump in and defend the gun he *just bought and hasn’t even fired*.

#triggered

Ambulance Driver has some comments on the Langdon Beretta and Grayguns P30L he got to try out at Blogorado. There is a level three beverage alert attached to the post, so get a drop cloth on that keyboard.

Stubborn...

Even this late in the season, this tomato plant refuses to pack it in for 2018...

Olympus OM-D E-M5 & 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro

"I'm helping!" /Ralph Wiggums

I mean, I don't even hate the idea of "Everybody dress nice, leave the goofy slogan t-shirts at home, strap on our pistols and let's go fishing. Be polite if anyone asks questions. Here are fliers to hand out" fishing events to try and reform Florida's messed-up restrictions against open carry. That can be an effective tool for the political process.

But that's not what happens. Instead you get autists LARPing with rifles and their army man gear.

Totally normal and not at all attention-seeking cosplay. *nods*

"i'M nOrmaLiziNg gUns!"
"No, you're making gun owners look abnormal."

I LOL'ed...

From I Rate Your Gun Page's review of Kait's Unsafe Space:

"If there was a video game where you fight attention-seeking gun bunnies then she would be the final boss."

I almost pulled something, I laughed so hard.
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Realism

I had a weakness for the pulpy adventure tales of The Survivalist, The Executioner, and others back in the day.

Jerry Ahern, legit gun writer and author of The Survivalist series, sent a letter to the editors at Gold Eagle (a Harlequin imprint!), publishers of The Executioner series and its spinoffs, regarding weapons choices for Mack Bolan and his proteges. It's reprinted here. If you like guns and fondly remember Jerry Ahern's writing and the glory days of Eighties shoot-'em-up pulp series, it's worth a read.

It did give me something of a legit LOL, on reading it, however...

Jerry Ahern: "The AMT AutoMag is a ridiculous weapon for Mack Bolan. It's notoriously unreliable!"  

Also Jerry Ahern: "My boy John Rourke carries a brace of Seattle Detonics because COOL!"

MY GRUDGE IS REAL

Excuse.

Today is absolutely terrible and only looks to get worse. Sorry for the no-show on posting.
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Cloud Laboratory

Straw Instructors

I've read a few internet posts (as well as a couple books) lately that are pimped as "giving you the information most firearms instructors won't!" or, in other cases, claiming to offer you new stuff that boldly contradicts what all those other people in the industry are teaching.

In the former case, the information was pretty conventional legal-oriented stuff that I've heard referred to, to a greater or lesser degree, in pretty much every CCW-oriented class I've attended. In fact, I've even had it brought up tangentially in pure shooting classes. (Yes, there is a difference between a "self-defense" or "tactical" class and a pure mechanical shooting class. Although the latter can be very useful in the former.)

Todd's AFHF class was a shooting mechanics class that tangentially touched on a lot of practical self-defense matters.

In the latter case, the stuff the writer is trying to debunk is stuff that hasn't been mainstream for twenty years or so. It's like a new band coming out and marketing themselves as an alternative to that "grunge music" everyone's listening to. Er, okay.

You know, if you're gonna bitch about "the industry", it might behoove you to hop out of your echo chamber and take a tour around the industry to make sure your protests are related to reality. How can you realistically complain about the drinks selection here if all you ever swill is your own bathwater?
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Amateur Sports...

I love amateur sports. The very root of "amateur", whether in sports or photography or writing or whatever, is "someone who does a thing for the love of it."

This doesn't necessarily signal competence, but it does signal enthusiasm, as well as a certain level of love of the game.

Nineteens

View this post on Instagram

Eenie meenie minie moe... #glock #glock19 #glock19gen4 #glock19x #pewpewlife #igmilitia

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Oct 18, 2018 at 9:10pm PDT

Pictures...

This first image was taken on my first visit to the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, back in 2013.

This is the .jpg I have saved from then. At the time, I didn't have Photoshop or Lightroom. I used a Canon Rebel XTi and an 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom lens. Clicking the "get info" on the image says it was 1/60th of a second at f/5, with the lens zoomed to 60mm.

The XTi has a 10.1 megapixel APS-C sensor. It was Canon's entry-level DSLR in 2006, while the 18-135mm IS zoom was the kit lens that was bundled with the more upmarket two-digit "prosumer" Canons.

Yesterday I cropped the image and used the "auto" button in Photoshop for exposure and color correction. The result is below...

The image below was taken on this year's visit, five years later. I was using a Micro Four Thirds camera, an Olympus OM-D E-M5. The lens was the fantastic M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro.

Unlike five years ago, I do have editing software now and shoot RAW instead of JPG. The image below is converted from the raw camera output into JPG by Lightroom, with no corrections applied.

That's 1/80th of a second at f/2.8 with the lens zoomed all the way to 40mm.

Again, I cropped it and just poked the "auto" button in Photoshop for exposure and color correction.

The E-M5 has a 16MP Four Thirds size sensor, and was introduced six years after the XTi, in 2012, as a "prosumer" grade camera. The 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens is an extremely well-regarded piece of glass; it retails for $999, generally, although if you want to gamble with non-warrantee gray market imports, it's cheaper. If I'd bought both brand new...well, let's say there's a reason I shop the used racks.

This was with the E-M5 and 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro, too...

ZZZzzzZzzzz...

TAM: "I'm going to fix myself a Manhattan and stay up late and watch this movie after getting four hours of sleep last night!" 

NARRATOR VOICE: "She did not, in fact, stay up late."

On the other hand, I'm nice and caught up on sleep now.
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Cloud Laboratory

From elsewhere...

Because I hate wasting good stuff at an away game...

Someone had referenced being on "team gun rights" vs. "team anti", to which I wrote:

"Most aren't "on" teams. The person with all the New England Patriots swag and the Tom Brady jersey doesn't actually *play* for the Patriots, they're just "his" team and therefore he hates on the rival teams.  

Similarly, most people don't volunteer for their sociopolitical team's organizations, volunteer to be poll watchers, man phone banks, run for local office, or generally do anything other than vote desultorily and write the occasional dues check. They're no more "on" Team [GOP/Dem/NRA/ACLU] than the couch potato in the Pats jersey is a f***ing quarterback."