Bring the gun up, not your head down.

So, NJT was making some comment recently about keeping his head up while he was shooting, like it was something odd. Well, if it took neck surgery to get him to hold his head in the right place...

Look, NJT, here's K.C. Eusebio...

"Yeah, but he's some gamer with one of those newfangled dot sights!"

Okay, here's Dave Sevigny...

"Sure, sure, those are proper iron sights, but he's still a gamer!"

What about Ernest Langdon?

"Well, okay, he was in the Marines for a good bit, but he's done an awful lot of gaming!"

Sure, okay, so Tim Kennedy then? I don't think he does any gaming that doesn't involve choking people out and getting punched in the face.

Here's Scott Jedlinski, making a Glock sound like a buzzgun. This is about as hunched up as I've ever seen him shoot and you'll notice his head is still erect and he's looking straight forward.

Your eyes work best when they're pointed straight forward and not rolled halfway up into your skull. Bring the gun up to your face, don't try and stuff your face down on the gun. (I know turtling is a hard habit to break, believe me; it's a constant struggle for me.)

EDIT: Further discussion has me wanting to point out the several other benefits of this!

For example, it's more efficient and therefore faster. Leaving your head still and bringing the gun to your face is just faster and more repeatable than having your eyeline and the pistol both in motion at the same time and hoping to run across each other at some undefined point in space.

Because of this, it's also vastly superior for using optical sights. Hold your face still while looking at the target, and just stick the pistol between your face and the target. 

Proprioception! It's a real thing!

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Then and Now

An early postwar (1948) advertisement for short-barreled Smith & Wessons offered for "personal protection, undercover, and combat" use.

Interesting that you could buy three Terriers or two M&P snubbies for the price of a single 3.5" .357 Magnum back then. Looking at most inflation calculators, that Magnum went for a little over a grand in 2021 dollars, which put the Terrier and M&P at around tree-fitty and five bills, respectively. As the saying goes, "In 1873, you could buy a shiny new Single Action Army for a $20 gold piece. In 2021, you still can."

The bluing on those old Magnums, before Bangor Punta went cost-cutting, was incredible, like a "wet-look" wax job on a car.

Also of interest is the notice across the bottom of the advertisement that the Safety Hammerless models had been discontinued. The last of the top-breaks never came back after the war.

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The what, again?

"Libertarian/Communist/Antifa Koch Brothers"? My, that's... um... well, that's certainly a lot of syllables you've strung together there, Mr. Rei.

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Aces High!

While I was laid up in the hospital after my big motorcycle wreck back in the summer of 2000 a friend brought me a book to read. It was about fighter aces through history and sometime during the move from Georgia to Tennessee, it got submerged in with my other books in a storage box. When I started looking for it again after the move to Indianapolis, it had vanished.

Over the past few months I've been desultorily packing up boxes full of books in the attic to take to Half Price Books or Goodwill. Basically, anything I'm unlikely to read again for entertainment or use for reference is a likely candidate for passing on. While sorting through stacks, look what I found!

The Complete Fighter Ace is just a really cool book. It's organized chronologically, with sections covering World War One, the interwar conflicts, World War Two, the air war over Korea, and post-Korea jet combat. Each section has lists of the aces from each participant nation, with a short bio of a few of each country's aces, including lots of lesser-known ones. There are descriptions of tactics and techniques as they evolved, with plenty of diagrams and illustrations. Highly recommend. I'm shelving my copy where I can find it more easily in the future.

Automotif CCI...

File this one under "Cars I will definitely circle back around the block to park and photograph." It's an Edsel Ranger!

After the disastrously low sales of the 1958 model, the styling of the 1959 Edsels was dramatically toned down. This '59 Ranger almost looks normal, with the giant chrome toilet seat that dominated the prow of the '58 model shrunk down to a styling highlight in the center of an otherwise normal horizontal chrome grille.

"In a series of money-saving measures, the Teletouch Drive transmission that was originally planned as an option on the 1959 Edsel, was eliminated. Unique design elements were cut, and the Edsel began to lose some of the features that made it distinct. Taillights from the 1958 Continental were used, the chassis was the same as the Fairlane, and the dashboard became almost identical to the Ford. Also, as a result of the public's changing need for a more economical car, the available engine size for 1959 Edsels were significantly smaller than in the 1958 models. The powerful E-475 motor was eliminated, and the E-400 that was once standard was now a high-performance option. ...

None of the changes could turn the marque around, and sales dropped well below the 1958 model year totals. The future of the Edsel was in serious jeopardy."

The Ranger was intended to serve as a step up from Ford, price-wise, without costing Mercury money.

Like the one of the Rambler American in the same parking lot, I felt like the picture of the Edsel needed a little tweaking to make the photo look right...

1959 Edsel Ranger, shot with Sony RX100

Lee Press On Ammo

I must be getting bored, because this is starting to look like an enjoyable project: A Lee Hand Press and a set of 9mm dies. I've got thousands of small pistol primers, freezer bags full of once-fired brass, and I have no idea how many projectiles of various types. Powder's probably my weak link, but I'm pretty sure I've got a few pounds that'll work with nine loads.

I can't really use homemade 9mm stuff for work, and really wouldn't want to load in those kind of volumes anyway. For that I'd need to yank the cover off the turret press and set it up somewhere and I just can't be arsed. But fifty or a hundred rounds a week in my spare time? Sure, that's doable. And it's the sort of attention-focusing touch labor that's relaxing; like putting jigsaw puzzles together, but with a better payoff.

The hand press isn't super efficient, but I've used it to assemble small amounts of rifle ammo before. It's not hard to use.

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Overstocked.

From the satellite view, it looks like Brookings, South Dakota has something like twenty or twenty-two softball fields. It's tricky keeping track of them all and I kept losing count. Just at a rough guess, that's enough to let something like ten percent of the town's population play softball all at once.

Three baseball diamonds, too. (In general, you can tell them apart because baseball diamonds tend to have grass in the infield.) Bob Shelden Field, home field for Brookings High, is pretty grand. Nicer than the college diamond across town and nicer than some some smaller minor league fields I've seen.

They obviously take their ball games seriously there.

Baseball diamonds and softball fields, like golf courses, are immediately identifiable from the air. Football fields and soccer/rugby pitches less so, in that you have to zoom in to a resolution that shows goalposts and lines to tell a large rectangular field from one used for sport. They're most easily spotted if they're part of a school's athletic complex and surrounded by the distinctive oval of a track. I'm at a loss to tell a cricket field from a random lawn with a rectangular patch in it.

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QotD: How It Started, How It's Going Edition...

Pandemic Day 25: I made bread :)

Day 95: I sure do miss my friends

....

Day 310: The White House appears to be under the control of a shirtless man in a Viking helmet

Day 330: Reddit’s coordinated attack on Wall Street is going as planned

— Bird Facts (@SupramanTrax) January 27, 2021

Has anyone checked tulip bulb prices?

CD’s and cartridges are poised for a huge comeback. The market wouldn’t lie. https://t.co/2w8S7xp08c

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 29, 2021

Automotif CC...

I spotted this 1959 or 1960 Rambler American, looking a little down at the heels, parked out in front of a local mechanic's shop.

After the merger of Nash and Hudson created the American Motors Corporation, the "Rambler" name went from a model to a brand. (The president of AMC at the time, George Romney, later went on to run for governor of Michigan.)

The American was the cheap and cheerful compact of the Rambler line, riding on a 100 inch wheelbase, which was tiny in the era of tail-finned Wurlitzer behemoths. By way of comparison, the contemporary Chevy Bel Air stretched 119" between the axles, and a 2018 Honda Accord has a 111" wheelbase. The base motor in the first generation Rambler American was a 196cid flathead six putting out 90 horsepower, SAE gross.

The car, advertised as the cheapest car made in America, came in two trim levels. Plunking down $1,789 got you into the Deluxe, which was the base model, and $1,874 bumped you up to the Super.

"Super models offered a lot more for the modest $85 price premium including a comfy foam-cushioned front seat, front and rear armrests, two sun visors (in place of the Deluxe's driver's-side-only visor), cigarette lighter, map and glove-box lights, color-coordinated rubber floor covering, a trunk mat, two-tone interior door-panel trim, and an automatic dome light. 

Supers also sported stainless-steel windshield and belt moldings and rear-quarter windows that could be rolled down a few inches, all of which Deluxes lacked. Some folks who bought the Deluxe opted to pay a little more for a factory-installed package that included the armrests, right-side sun visor, and cigarette lighter. Those items could also be installed singly by the dealer."

For some reason, the photo, snapped with my pocket RX100 in the flat, watery light of a cold winter day, just didn't look right in color, so I noodled around with it a bit in Photoshop...

There. That feels more atmospherically correct.

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Automotif CXCIX...

Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door Coupé. This is the 63 4MATIC+, but the ass end had been aggressively de-badged, so the specific variant was beyond my ken. Basically, it's at least 577bhp of twin-turbo V8, maybe more.

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I'm just here for the popcorn.

If there's one thing social media has taught me, it's that the vast majority of people are actually polymaths with deep expertise in many unrelated wide-ranging fields, from constitutional law to epidemiology to high finance and market analysis. 

Meanwhile, I'm just over here like...

Pretty much, yeah. https://t.co/5aQdHB3F7H

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 27, 2021

It's funny 'cause it's true!

I was noodling around on Ammoseek the other day and even searches for .32 S&W Long and .38 S&W were coming up empty. That is cray-cray.

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Satellite View

Noodling around the satellite view in Google Maps for interesting driving routes to and from the general Philadelphia area, I detoured the camera south for an aerial look at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds just across the state line.

There on the grounds of the proving grounds is Phillips Army Airfield, which has an interesting little boneyard in its southwest corner.

There are a bunch of A-7's, C-12's, U-8's, all manner of helicopters, a lonely C-123, various other stuff, and...hello...what's this?

Pretty sure that's a Mi-24, Mi-2(?), a few MiG-21's, and something pointy-nosed and single engined and about the length of an Mi-24, so maybe a MiG-23?

Pretty cool!

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"It's my pleasure."

If they'd put Chick-fil-A in charge of Operation Warp Speed, everyone would have already been vaccinated, gotten a sweet tea refill, and been told to have a nice day. https://t.co/49Qofz6Juk

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 26, 2021

Street, Photography

54th Street Red Line station, Canon EOS M, EF-M 22mm f/2

Walking home from a late lunch/early dinner at Twenty Tap last night, the lighting of the Red Line station caught my eye. Between the wet pavement and the gathering dusk, it was a little island of light. There was one lonely dude waiting for a bus but, even before the Time of the 'Rona, more people would be getting off than on at 54th Street at this hour of the day.

I keep the EOS M in monochrome mode, but it's easier for me to see in B&W under some circumstances than others. Last night it was very easy to see in B&W. Because I want a monochrome JPEG as well as the original sensor capture, I have the camera set to shoot in RAW + JPEG mode. Here's what the sensor actually saw...

Sort of Want...

I need one of those "civilian af" patches.

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Overheard on the Radio...

I was driving downtown to shoot some photos and drop off some film last week. Terry Gross was interviewing filmmaker Sam Pollard on Fresh Air for MLK Day...

Pollard: "But to now know that the minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Raphael Warnock, is going to be our - the first Black senator from the South is a phenomenal experience."

I nearly swerved up onto the sidewalk on Meridian Street at hearing that. While Warnock is the first Black senator from Georgia, Tim Scott would be surprised to learn that South Carolina isn't in the South.

We'll give Pollard a pass on Senators Revels and Bruce, since most Americans are woefully undereducated on the original civil rights era* of the Reconstruction period and how it was quashed by regressive segregationist peckerwoods following the Compromise of 1877.

*Robert Fox was eighty-four years before Rosa Parks.

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Cartridge History

"D.B. Wesson designed a new centerfire cartridge to go with the new gun. Utilizing a .36 caliber (well, .359) bullet that fit snugly enough in the case to minimize the need for crimping by the reloader, the new cartridge was referred to as the .38 S&W, referencing the outside diameter of the case. 

Although introduced in 1876 as a black powder round, the .38 S&W is still loaded and sold as a smokeless round in the modern era, although S&W hasn't made a revolver chambered for it since the last Model 32 Terriers and Model 33 Regulation Police revolvers came off the line in 1974. 

Domestically the .38 S&W probably hung on as long as it did because it could fit in the cylinders of small-frame revolvers originally designed around the .32 S&W Long cartridge, unlike the longer .38 Special. Additionally, the maximum chamber pressure of 14,000psi made it friendlier to inexpensive revolvers than the newer cartridge, which topped out over 3,000psi more."

L to R: .32 S&W Long, .38 S&W, .38 S&W Special

Special thanks to History of Smith & Wesson, The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, and Cartridges of the World*

*aka "The Big Book of Bullets", one of the best bathroom companions for gun nerds.

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*golf clap*

if you try to correct my grammar, i will think fewer of you

— Sammy (@thesammyhannah) January 24, 2021

Well, that's the internet for today, folks. Submissions are closed. Thank you for playing.

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