The only way I could feel like this...

...would be if I stayed up until 4AM sipping bourbon in a hot tub on a balcony in the mountains.
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The View From the Porch...

...is pretty sweet, here in Redneck Gstaad.

Still cracks me up...

Thin Yellow Line o' Heroes...

So, first were the "blue line" license plates and bumper stickers sported by the po-po. When I saw red ones, I knew that hose-draggers decided that they wanted a little signifier, too. Then came the green line, for deer cops and tree police.

When I saw the yellow line license plate, I was stumped, until the car it was on turned and I saw that the Crown Vic with the light bar and antenna farm was not, in fact, the IMPD, but rather was operated by a private security company.

So the yellow line represents the thin yellow line of heroes standing between civilization and higher retail prices caused by shoplifting and skateboarding on the sidewalk. We finally have a way to acknowledge the selfless service of the rent-a-cops, the mall ninjas, the brave men and women of loss prevention.

This is getting wack.
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Ugh.

My email inbox is a horror show. There's still stuff in there from the last week or so in New Mexico that I haven't dealt with.

No matter how much I pretend it's not there, it keeps not answering itself.
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A fun project...

Almost all the the photos I posted on this blog from its inception until the middle of 2011 were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 990 that was a hand-me-down from Oleg. He asked, just before SHOT Show this year, if I still had it. When I answered in the affirmative, he asked if I wouldn't mind letting him have it back so that he could see what kind of pictures he could make with it now, versus the ones he took more than fifteen years ago, when it was one of his first forays into digital.

That gave me an idea. The camera I had before Oleg gifted me that Nikon 990 was a Sony Mavica FD-88. I handed it on to Marko, and it's long gone, but it wasn't too hard to track one down...

Actually, for thirty bucks including shipping, it turns out you *can* go home again... #sonymavica #nostalgia

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Nov 7, 2017 at 9:55am PST

These were taken with the Mavica back in the day...

I wonder what I could do with it now?
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Using vs. Collecting

This post about de-cluttering one's photographic gear resonated, especially since I'm in the process of paring down a couple decades' accumulation of old military rifles for very similar reasons. I don't shoot them and, in fact, I don't really have them stored in the sort of accessible fashion that allows me to really get them out and appreciate them, so I reckon it's time to get them back out into the marketplace and let them find homes where they will be loved appropriately.

In general, however, I don't really have a problem drawing a distinction between "using" guns and "collecting" guns. The former tend to need to justify their keep and I have minimal attachment to them as objects, while the latter don't have to be objectively useful to be appreciated. I give you exhibit A:

They don't even load .32 Rimfire anymore, but that's okay. All this gun needs to do to justify its existence is sit there and look pretty. Further, since it's over a hundred and fifty years old, I reckon it's probably already done plenty of shooting. With a durable artifact like this, I'm just a temporary custodian, holding on to it for the next person.

I still haven't put a roll of film through the IIIb, either, although I fully intend to. I'd like to do at least some shooting with a Barnack Leica, if only to say I have.
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It kinda grew on me...

Ricoh’s weird modular GXR camera. #ricohgxr

A post shared by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Nov 6, 2017 at 10:48am PST

The system uses a sort of "chassis" that has the screen and the controls and the battery/memory card compartment, and then has interchangeable modules that slide in and out. I'd originally had my interest piqued by a piece at Leicaphilia, where it was pointed out that with the module installed that accepts M-mount Leica lenses, this thing was a sort of modern day Minolta/Leica CL.

In the process of trying to track down one of the (now years discontinued) bodies and a Leica-mount sensor module, I wound up with two bodies and not only the M-mount module but one with a small sensor and a superzoom lens that could take over from where my dear departed Nikon P7000 left off.

In the picture are two chassis units and, from left to right, four lens/sensor modules.

1. A module with an APS-C sensor and a 24-85mm f/3.5-5.5 zoom


2. The Leica M-mount module, which has a 12MP APS-C sensor and is here wearing a 40mm f/1.4 Voigtlander Nokton


3. The superzoom 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 module with a 1/2.3" 10MP CMOS sensor


4. A 24-72mm f/2.5-4.4 zoom lens on a 1/1.7" 10MP CCD sensor

Heckler & Koch P30L 2000-rd wrapup, part 1...

To wrap up the 2,000-round test with the Heckler & Koch P30L, I dropped in at the local indoor range on Thursday with a fifty-round box of Federal Premium 124gr +P HST, which is my preferred carry load in Federal Ammo, and is pretty much a coin flip with Speer's 124gr +P GDHP in terms of proven effectiveness.

In order to finish out the two thousand round test, I bought three fifty round boxes of 9mm FMJ ammo from the range: One box of Aguila 124gr ball, one of Winchester 124gr "NATO", and one of Armscor 147gr subsonic.

The Aguila ran fine, and I used it to shoot the 1" and 2" targets in the top right corner, first shot double-action from the low ready on the 2" circle and then transition to a single shot on the 1" square. Lather, rinse, repeat 24 more times until the box of ammo is gone...

Next was the Winchester 124gr "NATO" and the Armscor 147gr FMJ shot at the lower 8" circle at about a half-second pace. It was with the Armscor subsonic that some problems cropped up...

Out of the fifty round box, I was greeted by this sight six times, with only the angle of the spent case varying. It didn't matter how firmly I clamped the gun (and as softly as these rounds were recoiling, it wasn't hard to grip hard enough to nearly eliminate muzzle flip.)

Spent Armscor brass litters the tray in lane six, from where it had dribbled out of the ejection port, instead of flying over my right shoulder as is proper for spent brass from this pistol. So, I don't know whether it's just this lot specifically or if all Armscor 147gr is complete weaksauce, but I wouldn't run it in this pistol.

The 1-inch square and 2-inch circle at top right were shot at a leisurely pace from the 3-yard line by presenting from the low ready and firing double-action at the 2" circle and then transitioning to a single-action shot on the 1" square. The upper 3x5 box was the HST at five yards, and the 8" circle is a hundred rounds fired at a .5 or so pace at seven.

The HK P30L has now fired 2000 rounds since it was last cleaned or lubricated with ten failures to eject (#1,568, #1,578, #1,606, #1,750, #1,965, #1,972, #1,980, #1,985, #1,988, #1,998) and one failure to feed (#1,664). This concludes the 2,000 round test. Stay tuned for dirty gun pics and a summary post.
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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #166...

The next 2k round test gun: CZ75B Omega.

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Hey, look!

My review of the FN 509 is up at Shooting Illustrated.
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Not A Contradiction...

People have a hard time processing the fact that these two statements are not mutually exclusive:

1. The average LEO isn't that great of a shooter.


2. The average LEO is a much better shooter than the average private citizen gun owner.

You and your buddies in your squad waiting for the stage to be reset at a Saturday morning USPSA or IDPA match (or standing around waiting on the safety briefing at a Langdon Tactical or Sentinel Concepts class) are not a representative cross-section of the average private citizen gun owner.

Yes, the one cop on your squad might be catching a ribbing for not doing so good this morning, but drop him into the line at the public indoor range across town and he will be a veritable shooting demigod by comparison.

And those people at the public range represent the...oh, I'd guess ~30% of private citizen gun owners who can even be arsed to get out and shoot their guns more than once per year.

Fortunately, the majority of private citizen defensive gun usages aren't real complicated from a shooting standpoint.
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In the city...

Three Percent of Full Potato

"I am a member of the three percent of armed Americans who will shoot back at our tyrannical government if they try to take our guns. I support our troops. That I will shoot at because they're jack-booted thugs. That I support. Or something. I'm confused. Here's a Punisher skull."

I'm reminded of this guy...

Not a lot of following things to their logical conclusion going on here.
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Closing in on the finish line...

I didn't do a lot of shooting in October. A couple hundred rounds at Blogorado and 275 rounds at ECQC and yesterday was my first range trip since I got home. The P30L had been languishing in a lockbox locked in the trunk of the Zed Drei, and the only bulk 9mm FMJ I had on hand was that TulAmmo...

I picked up a couple boxes of the range's 9mm ball ammo, which was currently a Remington 115gr load in brown cardboard boxes claiming to be a military/LE practice load.

Like I've come to expect from Remchester, velocity was wildly variable, at least judging by ejection patterns. Some rounds sent spent brass caroming off the lane divider and halfway across the floor, while others barely dribbled out of the ejection port and landed on the tray in front of me.

Round #50 failed to eject in a classic stovepipe.

The HK P30L has now fired 1800 rounds since it was last cleaned or lubricated with four failures to eject (#1,568, #1,578, #1,606, #1,750) and one failure to feed (#1,664). 200 rounds left to go.
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Ow.

Between forgetting to put my sunscreen-enhanced Chapstick on until it was too late at ECQC and the epic windburn I got, my lips are a peeling, bloody mess. Owie.
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On that touchscreen keyboard, no less...

"Oh, tell the Lacedaemonians to damn the torpedoes!"

Sony a7 days...

Full Frame Thought 1: Been shooting crop sensors so long I forgot that 50mm wasn’t a short telephoto/portrait lens.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 1, 2017

Downside, Upside

Downside: I have to work on my 50th birthday...
Upside: ...at SHOT Show in Vegas.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 1, 2017

Sluggish.

I got to bed about midnight last night and awakened with the alarm clock at 0600...and again at 0615. I stayed awake long enough for an egg and a slice of bacon, but burrowed back under the covers and dozed until 10AM, which apparently my body still thinks is 8AM.

Which means I missed the snow flurries.
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