Monday, December 25, 2017
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Overheard in the Office...
Someone in a discussion group has mentioned the sometimes regret that can come from lowered inhibitions mixing with the instant gratification of Amazon. Discussion ensued in the Roseholme Cottage office:
Me: "Tuesday is the day that sober weekday you gets to find out what presents you're getting from inebriated weekend you. Marko joked that Amazon One-Click should have an available USB-powered breathalyzer lockout device."*Roberta Ecks hardly partakes so's you'd notice. The fifth of Pimm's that is her occasional luxury lasts her a year or more.
RX*: "That's why I do not have One Click enabled. I do not have it enabled. I will not have it enabled."
Me: "But it wants to enable you!"
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Last blast before the pause.
Needless to say, I was glad I'd taken the time to load the first box of fifty Remington .357SIG from Lucky Gunner into magazines before I got to the range. When it gets crowded on an indoor range, I feel like the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
The XC1B is still working like a champ after 250 rounds and shows no sign of loosening.
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Friday, December 22, 2017
Shrinking...
So, for the XD-E launch event back in spring of this year, Springfield Armory's people sent a form asking for shirt and hat and belt sizes among other things.
When we got there, they had little backpacks with our names on them with logo-wear and belts and holsters and such to use on the range that day. This is pretty typical. They let you keep some of the tchotchkes, which is cool if you're into gun company logo t-shirts and ballcaps, I guess.
I was dumb and kinda fudged a bit and gave a vanity size for my belt.
Dumb.
In the backpack was a heavy leather Crossbreed gun belt and, after stuffing the holstered XD-E into my waistband, it was all I could do to suck my tummy in enough to get the belt to close on the last hole. Even at that, it was so tight that sitting down was physically painful and I only picked at lunch and probably risked dehydration to avoid 'sploding that belt.
Out of curiosity, I wore that belt today instead of my usual Galco Instructor's Belt, and I'm using the fourth hole on the belt. Even after a biggish lunch and a steak dinner, there's still enough room to get both hands between me and my waistband if I suck my tum in a little.
If I had known there was a legit booze and steaks diet like this, I'd have been doing it years ago.
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When we got there, they had little backpacks with our names on them with logo-wear and belts and holsters and such to use on the range that day. This is pretty typical. They let you keep some of the tchotchkes, which is cool if you're into gun company logo t-shirts and ballcaps, I guess.
I was dumb and kinda fudged a bit and gave a vanity size for my belt.
Dumb.
In the backpack was a heavy leather Crossbreed gun belt and, after stuffing the holstered XD-E into my waistband, it was all I could do to suck my tummy in enough to get the belt to close on the last hole. Even at that, it was so tight that sitting down was physically painful and I only picked at lunch and probably risked dehydration to avoid 'sploding that belt.
Out of curiosity, I wore that belt today instead of my usual Galco Instructor's Belt, and I'm using the fourth hole on the belt. Even after a biggish lunch and a steak dinner, there's still enough room to get both hands between me and my waistband if I suck my tum in a little.
If I had known there was a legit booze and steaks diet like this, I'd have been doing it years ago.
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Stress check...
In addition to having better switches and having 50% more lumens, the new XC1B is supposed to have corrected the fragility issues of the original. I could think of no better way to check it out than by clamping it to the accessory rail of my Glock 32 and shooting the snot out of the thing.
The .357SIG in the compact Glock 32 not only exposes the light to ferocious muzzle blast, but also to the battering of recoil in a gun with enough slide velocity that it took the starch out of a 20# CrSi recoil spring from ISMI in only 1,700 rounds. (I've seen lighter ISMI CrSi recoil springs in soft-shooting race guns go to five figure round counts without seriously affecting function.)
I'd already run a box of Gold Dot 125gr through the gun, and yesterday I grabbed the 32, the first hundred rounds of the Remington, and a QP-T target and headed to Indy Arms Co.
As I was getting ready to head out to the range, some women came in with a Groupon for a deal on range time and firearms rental. They were telling the clerk that they hadn't shot before, and so I rushed the range session so as to be mostly done by the time they got out there. .357SIG is pretty loud from this gun and I didn't want to make things any harder than they needed to be for the newbs.
The gun ran fine, the light functioned properly during and after shooting, and didn't loosen on the rail at all. If you have grownup-sized hands and shoot with a thumbs-forward grip, you may inadvertently activate the light while shooting, BTW.
So that's a hundred and fifty rounds on this light. More to come, thanks to Lucky Gunner.
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Thursday, December 21, 2017
All Linky, No Thinky...
- An absolute n00b's guide to "What's the first lens I should buy to complement the kit zoom that came with my camera?"
- Das Bootless: The Jerry navy is stuck with its entire sub fleet high and dry.
- Progressives really don't dig Murray Rothbard.
I'm Still Not A People Person, Apparently
Tuesday night was shorter than usual and Wednesday began early for Bobbi's Big Sinus Adventures. I got to enjoy the seething mass of aberrant humanity that is the crowd in Big City Hospital's waiting room, which confirmed that yup, I'm still a raging classist.
There was a woman who flopped down on the loveseat next to the table where I was sitting who looked like Flip Wilson's Geraldine had aged badly after picking up a horrible meth habit and joining the Hep C Generation, to boot. Or perhaps someone had boosted ol' Amenhotep II from the Cairo Museum and done him up in bad drag before reviving him.
She had a full-volume conversation on her cell phone until the battery died, whereupon she got up, leaned over me without so much as a "sorry 'bout your personal space" and plugged it into the wall next to my chair. She smelled like a Bob Marley concert during a Cheech & Chong film festival in a bad perfume factory.
Across the table was Bubba, Bubbette, and Bubba Jr. having the sort of conversation that was so mind-numbingly banal I was considering eating the gun I wasn't supposed to have with me just to make it stop, but Bobbi doesn't have Uber and wouldn't have been able to drive herself home, so I persevered.
While not as bad as the crowd at the courthouse downtown, most of these folks would have had to dress up to make it onto the People of Walmart page. If this was the outpatient surgery waiting room, the ER waiting room must have been like the cantina from Star Wars.
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There was a woman who flopped down on the loveseat next to the table where I was sitting who looked like Flip Wilson's Geraldine had aged badly after picking up a horrible meth habit and joining the Hep C Generation, to boot. Or perhaps someone had boosted ol' Amenhotep II from the Cairo Museum and done him up in bad drag before reviving him.
She had a full-volume conversation on her cell phone until the battery died, whereupon she got up, leaned over me without so much as a "sorry 'bout your personal space" and plugged it into the wall next to my chair. She smelled like a Bob Marley concert during a Cheech & Chong film festival in a bad perfume factory.
Across the table was Bubba, Bubbette, and Bubba Jr. having the sort of conversation that was so mind-numbingly banal I was considering eating the gun I wasn't supposed to have with me just to make it stop, but Bobbi doesn't have Uber and wouldn't have been able to drive herself home, so I persevered.
While not as bad as the crowd at the courthouse downtown, most of these folks would have had to dress up to make it onto the People of Walmart page. If this was the outpatient surgery waiting room, the ER waiting room must have been like the cantina from Star Wars.
.
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Designated Driver, Designated Shooter
In a comment thread at Oleg's to a post containing a picture of a pistol and a bottle of liquor, someone felt compelled to remark:
Which, I mean...Ell Oh Ell.
My thinking (which coincides with the law in Indiana) is that public intoxication is illegal. There's no special law in Indiana about public intoxication while strapped. I think getting drunk in public isn't a good idea anyway, but if your plans involve going out and getting turnt up, leave the gat at home. Let your Designated Driver be the Designated Shooter, too.
I personally have no issue with the idea of a beer or two or a glass of wine with dinner, or an after-dinner drink while toting, but too buzzed to drive is too buzzed to tote.
Other states have different laws, of course, and most seem to frown upon alcohol consumption (no matter how little) while strapped. Know yourself and your state and local laws and ordinances...
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Which, I mean...Ell Oh Ell.
My thinking (which coincides with the law in Indiana) is that public intoxication is illegal. There's no special law in Indiana about public intoxication while strapped. I think getting drunk in public isn't a good idea anyway, but if your plans involve going out and getting turnt up, leave the gat at home. Let your Designated Driver be the Designated Shooter, too.
I personally have no issue with the idea of a beer or two or a glass of wine with dinner, or an after-dinner drink while toting, but too buzzed to drive is too buzzed to tote.
Other states have different laws, of course, and most seem to frown upon alcohol consumption (no matter how little) while strapped. Know yourself and your state and local laws and ordinances...
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PEWPEWPEW!
I wish I could say that the shot in the 1" square was intentional, but alas, it was the result of prepping the trigger in recoil too aggressively. My sights were nowhere near settled when that shot broke.
There were no malfunctions of any type to report.
This makes 1459 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubed with no malfunctions of any type. 541 rounds to go.
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Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Realism In Training...
"You probably already know the person you're most likely to have to pepper spray, and other self-defense facts we don't want to talk about."— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 19, 2017
None of which is as fun as shooting cardboard terr'ists with an AR-15 from twenty-five feet.And the sequel, "Holistic Defense: Shooting Fifty Cals is Fun, Losing Fifty Pounds Isn't."— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 19, 2017
Self-defense stuff overwhelmingly focuses on "stranger danger", partly by necessity and partly because that's how people imagine crime happens, but that's really the minority part of violence.
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This Lens Exhibits Heavy Vignetting, Part I...
So, here at the tail end of 2017 and going into 2018, my road back into photography has wandered from crop-sensor Canon DSLRs through crop-sensor Nikon DSLRs and now to mirrorless.
My lens situation is a little bit of a mess though, because I have Sony E-mount cameras in both APS-C and full-frame sizes, as well as some Olympus Micro Four Thirds bodies.
While the Sony lenses will physically interchange between the full-frame ɑ7 and the APS-C bodies, the situation there is analogous to the Nikon DX/FX situation. If you put one of the crop-sensor lenses on the full-frame body, it will only use the chunk of sensor in the middle to avoid giving you the big black circle around your picture.
So, in Sony E-mount full-frame lenses, I have a decent fast 50mm prime lens and a Zeiss 24-70mm f/4 zoom. This camera is mainly intended for work stuff.
In the APS-C crop sensor E-mount category, I have most of my lens bases covered. I have a sweet Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for a prime lens, as well as a Sigma 60mm f/2.8 ART for portraits. There’s a Sony 18-105mm f/4 G-lens for a vacation lens and a 55-210mm kit zoom for a zoo lens. I really only need a good wide-angle and a macro.
So what about Micro Four Thirds? I own MFT cameras for a couple of reasons…
The most important reason is this: While my Sony NEX-5T, with its 16MP BIONZ sensor, is technically superior in most benchmarks to half the Micro Four Thirds cameras I own, it feels like its interface was designed by a guy Sony transferred to cameras from the alarm clock or DVR divisions three weeks prior.
By contrast, my Pen E-P5 or OM-D M5 is oozing photographic charisma. You want to grab those little condensed cameras and go out and start making pictures as soon as you pick them up.
Maybe because the lenses are physically smaller, Micro Four Thirds glass is cheaper than APS-C or full-frame. Maybe because both Panasonic and Sony are working at it, the lens library is much larger than that for the Sony E-mount.
It didn’t take long before I’d built up a pretty decent lens selection for MFT. Panasonic’s 20mm f/1.7 and the Olympus 45mm f/1.7 were no brainers for fast primes. A deal on an Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO set me up with a good fast zoom. I bought an extra Pen E-P1 body that came with a Panasonic 40-200mm that would make a good zoo lens. Now I needed a vacation lens.
In my book a vacation lens is the one I keep on the camera that is slung around my neck more or less constantly. I’m never on vacation by myself, so when I want to pause to take a picture, I don’t want to inconvenience the people I’m with by juggling lenses and setting up the shot. I need to keep a lens on the camera that will handle everything from wide-angle landscapes to middlin’-long telephoto.
For a few years I used a Canon 18-135mm on my EOS 20D, which was supplanted by the Nikon 18-140mm on the D200. I had a good vacation zoom now for the Sony E-mount, but what about Micro Four Thirds? I started digging around online, prowling KEH and the used sections at Roberts, Adorama, and B&H.
I finally spotted a good used Olympus 14-150mm lens for sale at Roberts cheap enough to be affordable. Since they’re local, I could buy the lens online at midnight and check “Pick Up At Store” instead of having it shipped, which appealed to my instant gratification needs.
The next morning, I hopped in the Zed Drei and drove downtown to one of the last camera stores in Indiana.
To be continued…
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My lens situation is a little bit of a mess though, because I have Sony E-mount cameras in both APS-C and full-frame sizes, as well as some Olympus Micro Four Thirds bodies.
While the Sony lenses will physically interchange between the full-frame ɑ7 and the APS-C bodies, the situation there is analogous to the Nikon DX/FX situation. If you put one of the crop-sensor lenses on the full-frame body, it will only use the chunk of sensor in the middle to avoid giving you the big black circle around your picture.
So, in Sony E-mount full-frame lenses, I have a decent fast 50mm prime lens and a Zeiss 24-70mm f/4 zoom. This camera is mainly intended for work stuff.
In the APS-C crop sensor E-mount category, I have most of my lens bases covered. I have a sweet Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for a prime lens, as well as a Sigma 60mm f/2.8 ART for portraits. There’s a Sony 18-105mm f/4 G-lens for a vacation lens and a 55-210mm kit zoom for a zoo lens. I really only need a good wide-angle and a macro.
So what about Micro Four Thirds? I own MFT cameras for a couple of reasons…
The most important reason is this: While my Sony NEX-5T, with its 16MP BIONZ sensor, is technically superior in most benchmarks to half the Micro Four Thirds cameras I own, it feels like its interface was designed by a guy Sony transferred to cameras from the alarm clock or DVR divisions three weeks prior.
By contrast, my Pen E-P5 or OM-D M5 is oozing photographic charisma. You want to grab those little condensed cameras and go out and start making pictures as soon as you pick them up.
Maybe because the lenses are physically smaller, Micro Four Thirds glass is cheaper than APS-C or full-frame. Maybe because both Panasonic and Sony are working at it, the lens library is much larger than that for the Sony E-mount.
It didn’t take long before I’d built up a pretty decent lens selection for MFT. Panasonic’s 20mm f/1.7 and the Olympus 45mm f/1.7 were no brainers for fast primes. A deal on an Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO set me up with a good fast zoom. I bought an extra Pen E-P1 body that came with a Panasonic 40-200mm that would make a good zoo lens. Now I needed a vacation lens.
In my book a vacation lens is the one I keep on the camera that is slung around my neck more or less constantly. I’m never on vacation by myself, so when I want to pause to take a picture, I don’t want to inconvenience the people I’m with by juggling lenses and setting up the shot. I need to keep a lens on the camera that will handle everything from wide-angle landscapes to middlin’-long telephoto.
For a few years I used a Canon 18-135mm on my EOS 20D, which was supplanted by the Nikon 18-140mm on the D200. I had a good vacation zoom now for the Sony E-mount, but what about Micro Four Thirds? I started digging around online, prowling KEH and the used sections at Roberts, Adorama, and B&H.
I finally spotted a good used Olympus 14-150mm lens for sale at Roberts cheap enough to be affordable. Since they’re local, I could buy the lens online at midnight and check “Pick Up At Store” instead of having it shipped, which appealed to my instant gratification needs.
The next morning, I hopped in the Zed Drei and drove downtown to one of the last camera stores in Indiana.
To be continued…
.
Monday, December 18, 2017
Wee Dram
I'm not sure there's actually such a thing as a basic white girl single malt Scotch whiskey, but if there were, Glenfiddich 12 would be in the running. It's a solid mainstay in the cabinet, though, so there's that.
Sunday Shooty Sunday
I really dislike the sights on this thing once they get dirty. They're an indistinct gray-black blur against the indistinct gray-black blur of the target. Combine that with fogging eye pro and I was basically having to use a Cirillo-esque "silhouette point", which is no way to be landing good hits at forty-five feet. If I decide to keep this thing to get my gamerfag on with, it's getting some Dawsons.
There were no malfunctions of any type to report.
This makes 1359 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubed with no malfunctions of any type. 641 rounds to go.
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Sunday, December 17, 2017
Overheard from Down the Hall...
I don't know what Bobbi is doing in her room, but I just heard her loudly and frustratedly exclaim "This is a topological nightmare!" which made me think of something in a Lovecraft novel that, when looked upon with mortal eyes, would blast a person's sanity to tatters.
Friday Range Day
There were no malfunctions of any type to report.
This makes 1259 rounds since the weapon was last cleaned or lubed with no malfunctions of any type. 741 rounds to go.
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Saturday, December 16, 2017
#ableism
What about people who, for reasons of disability, are incapable of wang chunging tonight? Have you given any thought to them, you insensitive bastards? #checkyourprivilege— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 16, 2017
Subsidized light rail.
So, there was this time I was house-sitting up at Marko's place, and it was a fairly long trip.
I had brought a long gun along that I was working up some review stuff with. I figured, what with it being February in New Hampshire and there being rather a lot of nighttime, I should probably throw a light on the thing. So we stopped by Shooter's Outpost in Hooksett on the drive from the airport to Castle Frostbite. (Shooter's Outpost, by the way, might be the most squared-away gun store in which I've ever set foot. It's a real treat.)
They were having an extremely good sale on Inforce WML lights, and so I grabbed one that had IR and strobe and such to throw on the gun. I got it out of the box, and the build quality felt...well, chintzy. Cheesier than the other Inforce I had, for sure.
When I got home, the Inforce was quickly relegated to my backup carbine, and I moved my ancient Mini Scout onto the new gun. I'd rather have 110 lumens that can take a beating than 500 lumens with a reputation for spontaneously disassembling under recoil.
Since I bought my Mini Scout, it had been superseded in Surefire's catalog by a 300 lumen version and now, as of a couple weeks ago, that 300 lumen version had been replaced by a new 500 lumen light. A review copy of the new 500 lumen M300 Mini Scout arrived from Surefire the other day, and it immediately supplanted the Inforce on my backup carbine.
Well, not immediately, because I had to figure out how to get it on the gun with some offset so I could thumb the tailcap switch properly.
Surefire makes a 45-degree offset mount, but I don't have one of those handy. However, I remembered something down on my workbench that might finally get some use...
In the media goodie bags at the second Crimson Trace Midnight 3 Gun Invitational was a 45-degree Warne mount intended for mounting offset sights. It had been gathering dust in the basement for four years now, so I decided to see if it would work with the light. It did, and should function fine until I finally get around to getting the Surefire mount.
Sure, it looks silly in red and will no doubt get me killed on the streets. I mean, if I ever take this gun on the streets for some unexplainable reason.
(The M&P15/22 is in the picture because I had it out looking for sling stuff. And that's not a blunderbuss or recoil enhancer, it's a TLR-1 HP.)
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I had brought a long gun along that I was working up some review stuff with. I figured, what with it being February in New Hampshire and there being rather a lot of nighttime, I should probably throw a light on the thing. So we stopped by Shooter's Outpost in Hooksett on the drive from the airport to Castle Frostbite. (Shooter's Outpost, by the way, might be the most squared-away gun store in which I've ever set foot. It's a real treat.)
Well, not immediately, because I had to figure out how to get it on the gun with some offset so I could thumb the tailcap switch properly.
Surefire makes a 45-degree offset mount, but I don't have one of those handy. However, I remembered something down on my workbench that might finally get some use...
(The M&P15/22 is in the picture because I had it out looking for sling stuff. And that's not a blunderbuss or recoil enhancer, it's a TLR-1 HP.)
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Friday, December 15, 2017
Ugh.
I need to go to bed earlier and get back in the habit of my morning walks.
The darkest month always brings the SADs, plus all the year-end stuff, the ramp-up for SHOT, and the holiday season things to do have stuff stacked on my plate so high things are falling off. I need something to give me a feeling of control and a schedule, and getting up on time and walking around the block is a pretty easy thing to do.
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The darkest month always brings the SADs, plus all the year-end stuff, the ramp-up for SHOT, and the holiday season things to do have stuff stacked on my plate so high things are falling off. I need something to give me a feeling of control and a schedule, and getting up on time and walking around the block is a pretty easy thing to do.
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