Hope and Change!

Drug warriors gonna drug war. #PumpMoreSwampIn

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 5, 2018

I have to say that...

...the highlight of this latest Trump-Bannon scuffle is the fact that there are people running around in the comments section at Breitbart saying "Guys! Guys! Stop fighting! They're still secretly BFF's and this is just some 6D chess move to something something deep state drain the swamp!"

I am going to have to break into the strategic popcorn reserves before this plays itself out.
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Cold again, but...

...at least we're a whole degree on the right side of zero now, so yay?
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L versus X

So, in the circles in which I run, a fairly common Glock modification is to take a 17 and chop the grip to take 19 magazines. It's even got an informal nickname: the Glock 19L, playing off of Glock's own name for their longslide 17L.

The reasoning behind this is that, when you're carrying inside-the-waistband, barrel length is largely irrelevant to concealment, while grip length is very relevant. So theoretically the "19L" has all the velocity and sight radius and other benefits of the full-size gun, with the shorter more concealable grip of the 19. This copies the old "Concealed Carry Officer's" pistols from Gunsite, which married a Commander-length slide to an Officer's model frame for the same reasons.

Now Glock is selling what is basically a commercialized version of their MHS entry as the "Glock 19X", with the 19's compact slide atop the 17's full-length grip. For the MHS entry, this was because the contract specified both a 17-round magazine capacity as well as a maximum overall length.

A lot of the shooters I know are having a field day with this, with parodies like this one popping up all over social media:

The general shooting public vastly outnumbers the tiny demographic slice who even know what a "19L" is.

The general shooting public likes 1911 Commanders, 2.5" K-frame snubs, and putting Pearce grip adaptors on the G22 mag in their OWB-carried Glock 27. They buy truck holsters and Remoras.

Given how many people carry their SR40 and XD40 subcompacts with the (included) full-size magazine and (included) adaptor sleeve, Glock shows it knows more about the general shooting public than any of us 19L-loving snobs. They'll buy this.
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Warning...

I would like to take this moment to remind my fellow Hoosier motorists that 0°F is not an arbitrary number, like comedians have told you all your life, but is actually the freezing point of brine.

Drive accordingly.
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Reminder...

Every time I see someone addressing their "haters", I feel compelled to hand out this handy Primate Body Language Protip for the Internet: When someone is pointing at you and laughing in great big helpless girly shrieks, the emotion that is being expressed is not "hate".

And if you think this song is about you? Well, then it is.
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Oh, about that Kel-Tec ad...

The line was "For those who'd drink their own urine", while the hardcore survivalist dude in the photo had a beard and eyelashes covered in ice, so presumably he is surrounded by snow.

Anybody who'd drink their own pee for "survival" reasons when they're hip-deep in, you know, frozen water is either dumber than a stump and maybe doesn't need to be buying guns or they...well, we won't do any kink-shaming here today. Whatever floats your boat, Dollar General Bear Grylls.

(nb: Should you find yourself in this position, remember to thaw the snow and drink the water. Don't just eat the snow. That's bad.)

Argle Bargle

You're typing away, thinking you're communicating, and then suddenly you find out you aren't.

It's a funny ol' world.
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Overheard in the Office

RX: "Do you have a flashlight?"

Me: "HAHAHA!"

RX: "No, I mean, do you have a flashlight ready to hand?"

Me: (looking at a literal pile of flashlights behind monitor on desk) "How many lumens do you need?"

Holiday weekend, 7°F outside...

I'd say that the odds of me changing out of pyjamas today have officially dropped to zero.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 30, 2017

Breaking 1911 Nerd News...

From my inbox...

Wilson Combat® Acquires Chip McCormick Custom/Shooting Star Industries.
Berryville, AR & Spicewood, TX

Wilson Combat is pleased to announce the acquisition of Chip McCormick Custom/Shooting Star Industries, a leading manufacturer of quality 1911 magazines and related products. This purchase solidifies Wilson Combat as the quality brand leader in 1911 handgun magazines and related product development. The new company will be known as CMC/Shooting Star Industries during the transition.

“The CMC/Shooting Star line is a very important group of products within the 1911 industry and has a great history of innovation and success. Wilson Combat is committed to ensuring the broad availability and future development of more quality and innovative products under the Shooting Star banner for years to come.” - Bill Wilson, President and CEO Wilson Combat.

“Bill Wilson and I have been good friends, shooting competition competitors and friendly business competitors since the early 1980s. When I made the decision that I wanted to simplify my life and retire there was no one that I felt more comfortable selling the company to than Bill Wilson and Wilson Combat. With Ryan Wilson now running the daily operations of Wilson Combat and his son’s Josh and Hunter being interested in firearms, I’m confident Chip McCormick Custom will be in good hands well into the future.” - Chip McCormick, President and CEO Chip McCormick Custom, LLC

CMC/Shooting Star will remain headquartered at its current location in Spicewood, TX while a new Shooting Star facility is built in Northeast, TX. There will be no interruption of service from CMC/Shooting Star during the transition of business ownership. All orders for magazines and customer service will be handled at the current CMC/Shooting Star location listed below.

CMC/Shooting Star Industries
105 Sky King Drive
Spicewood, TX 78669
Sales@CMCmags.com
http://www.cmcmags.com/
830-798-2863

Stop buying hot garbage.

Maybe if we all work together, we can make 2018 become the year where leather holsters with non-reinforced mouths cease to be a thing.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) December 29, 2017

Internet-Know and Know-Know

It's a weird period in history where you can "know" someone, even collaborate closely in real time for years, and never see their face.

There are few people now who wouldn't understand what you meant if you said "Joe Jablonski? Yeah, I know him...well, I don't know-know him, like, face to face. I internet-know him."

And there are whole nuanced tiers to internet-knowing someone...

1. You recognize their name because they run in the same circles you do online. Further, people you know and trust have mentioned them, and never with negative connotations. This is like the baseline level.


2. You recognize their name because they run in the same circles you do online. Also, you read their stuff every now and again, and maybe even been in the same conversations or message threads, but never directly interacted.


3. You find yourself in the same discussions and directly interact on a reasonably regular basis.


4. You find yourself in the same discussions and directly interact on a reasonably regular basis. Further, you have exchanged the occasional PM/DM/emails regarding the topics of those conversations.


5. You find yourself in the same discussions and directly interact on a reasonably regular basis. Further, you have exchanged the occasional PM/DM/emails for purely off-topic, social reasons.


6. You talk on the phone or Skype/Google Hangout/FaceTime at least semi regularly.


7. You've hung out in person, at which point they have earned the "IRL" designator and are no longer an imaginary person who lives in your cell phone and computer

Proof I don't understand Kel-Tec's target demo

I mean, I've had a few customers I've thought were piss-drinkers over the years, but I don't know as I'd have called them that to their faces. Maybe I was doing it wrong. Bold strategy, Kel-Tec.

Hey, look!

My review of the XD-E is up at Shooting Illustrated.

Brr..

-1° fondly Fahrenheit. Wind chill is -12F°.

We won't be going anywhere until noon, probably, by which time the sun will have warmed things to a toasty 10°F or so.
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Overheard in the Office...

Me: "Did you say 'This sounds like a bad chemical breakfast'?"

RX: "'Practice'. I said 'This sounds like a bad chemical practice'. Although Bad Chemical Breakfast would be a great name for a punk rock group."

Me: "Actually that's the title of my band's next album."

Nostalgia doesn't belong in your CCW gun.

Super Vel Ammo: I have to vent.

What kills me is how they're hyping 90gr +P .38 Spl & 9mm and 185gr +P .45ACP bullets as if the last thirty years of accumulated terminal ballistics knowledge hadn't even happened.

Flying dimes with no sectional density moving at Warp Factor Six are how we got Miami and then wound up spending twenty years wandering in the .40 caliber wilderness, and the shit is being pimped by people who should goddam well know better because, I dunno, Cameron Hopkins is a nice guy or something and the boxes make older gunwriters feel nostalgic.

Ugh.

It's eleven bleeping degrees and blustery out there and I absolutely have to get to the store.

My joy knows no bounds.
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Cars of the future from the past...

From conversation elsewhere:

Man I remember back in 1982, we all thought we'd be driving nothing but 3-cylinder diesels by the turn of the millennium. If you went back and told some gearhead in my high school class that in 2017 Dodge would be selling a "street legal" 10-second Hemi Challenger, he'd think you were talking about the 0-60 time of a 4-cyl car.

The computer changed everything. Not only in engine tuning and performance, but in design and modeling.
I had an example of a classic late Dark Ages car, an '84 Trans Am with the LG4 305c.i. Rochester Quadrabog motor. A hunnert and fifty horsepower and nearly every engine function powered by enough dry-rotting vacuum tubing to reach to the moon and back...
Only a few years later and exotic computer-designed and controlled long-runner port fuel injection systems were common on domestic performance cars and HP numbers were on the right side of 200 for the first time in a decade.
It was coming out of an awful time. Like a friend wrote: When he went into seminary you could buy a Mustang with a nearly 400bhp engine option. When he left seminary, the Mustang was a Pinto.

Being a car enthusiast in America in the latter half of the 70s/first half of the '80s was like being a dirt farmer in Fifth Century Britain, marveling at the weed-grown roads and disused aqueducts left by a race of giants and building your pig shed with stones looted from a burned library.