Politics: Beelzebub on a bobsled...

Zendo Deb reports on a sign of the End Times: The NYT talking almost-nice about firearms.

Boomsticks: An unusual coincidence...

You know what got traded in today? A nice International Harvester Garand. It's now sitting on the rack right below the Harrington & Richardson Garand.

I can't remember the last time I saw an International Harvester and an H&R in the same gun shop at the same time.

Pretty cool... :)

Politics: Everybody's gotta right to be an expert.

The latest attempt at scandal-mongering has some unfamiliar words popping out of unlikely mouths. It's unusual, to say the least, to hear the Birkenstock-and-patchouli crowd attempting to discuss white phosphorous rounds and thermobaric warheads. What's raising it to the level of high comedy is, however, their earnestly-held notion that what they are saying makes any sense whatsoever.

What makes someone believe that they can become an overnight authority on anything? Does Cliff's-Noting your way through college give one the ability to cheat sheet through any other topic? I have a book in my library that suggests that there must be a certain demographic out there that thinks so.

Let me first say that history, military history, and military science are three loves of mine. I have, quite literally, thousands of volumes on the topic, ranging from personal memoirs to treatises on tactics; from glossy "weapons worship" coffee-table books to yellowing Field Manuals, so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that all this reading was unnecessary. You see, browsing through the stacks at the used book store, I stumbled across a slim pamphlet from Penguin Books called The Disarmer's Handbook, by one Andrew Wilson. In breathless tones, the back cover blurb informed me that, simply by reading this little 300-page booklet, I would be (and I quote) "as expertly informed as any professional" who supports the nefarious military-industrial complex. I was flabbergasted! All those years, all that time, all that skull-sweat, all for naught. All I needed was this one book.

I bought it as a novelty, but actually decided to read it yesterday. I knew what I was in for when I got to Chapter 2, which promised to give our young Grateful Dead fan a thorough grounding in Military History and Strategic Thought: It listed, with a paragraph for each entry, the great military thinkers who shaped the history of warfare: Napoleon, Clausewitz, Jomini, Mahan, Douhet, Mitchell, Liddell Hart, and (I'm not making this up,) Marx, Engels, Trotsky, and Lenin. Needless to say, on technical matters and recent history, the book was factually accurate, but all information was presented through a lens so distorted as to give PostModernism an even worse name than it already has.

One almost feels pity for someone who reads this book and believes its promises. Mistakenly thinking they're some kind of expert, heaven knows what kind of gaffes they'll set off to commit. Why, with their head bursting with newfound knowledge, they might try to talk about Willie Pete shells on the Errornet.

From the Vault: The proto-FAL.

In the 1930's, the day of the bolt-action military service rifle was about to draw to a close. In the Soviet Union, designers were turning out limited-issue weapons like the SVT, while in the US, the American Army was about to adopt the first general-issue military self-loading rifle, the "Rifle, .30 Caliber, M1" (now more widely known by its designers' name: Garand.)

Meanwhile, in little Belgium, Dieudonne Saive and the engineers at Fabrique Nationale were hard at work on their own self-loading design, but were still in the prototype phase when WWII halted work. Skipping town ahead of the advancing Jerries, the FN crew attempted to interest the British in their new weapon, but the Brits preferred to stick with the Enfield rather than change horses in midstream.

After the war, development work resumed, resulting in the weapon being adopted by the Belgian Army as the SAFN-49. It's a well-made rifle, with an intricately-machined steel receiver, a tipping bolt operated by a gas piston over the barrel, and a ten-round magazine that does not detach for reloading, but is topped off through the top of the receiver with stripper clips. Belgian rifles were in .30-'06 to take advantage of NATO largesse, but export rifles were done in other calibers as well, including 8x57mm and 7x57mm.

SAFN-49, Egyptian contract. Photo by Oleg Volk.

The sights consist of a receiver-mounted aperture on tangent adustable for elevation, and a front blade adjustable for windage, protected by beefy wings. The safety is a simple pivoting lever next to the trigger. The gun was remarkably successful on the export market, especially in light of the fact that it was not very simple to manufacture, and the additional fact that the US and USSR were giving rifles away pretty much for the asking. It saw service in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and all over South America. Mine was made at FN Herstal for the Egyptians. It's chambered in 8mm Mauser, and has its sight labeled in Arabic numbers.

Detail of receiver. Photo by Oleg Volk.

In the end, what put paid to the rifle was the move of the world's armies to select-fire weapons using intermediate-length cartridges. While the SAFN itself didn't survive this change, its genes did, as anyone who looks at one of these side-by-side with a certain more famous FN rifle can see.

As a footnote, this is probably the most modern military surplus rifle a US collector can own without NFA paperwork. Most subsequent designs were select-fire, and while parts-kit guns like FALs, CETMEs, and G3s can be fun to own, there's always something different about holding a true milsurp; a gun that was once actually a service arm, and is now honorably retired without having suffered the indignity of being chopped up with a cutting torch.

Blog Stuff: Thankful.

A day off work? Check.
Closest family 250 miles away? Check.
Well-meaning friends with dinner invitations successfully fobbed off? Check.
Cell phone "accidentally" left turned off? Check.
Beer and a frozen pizza in the fridge? Check.

I'm heading up the hill to hop in the hot tub, then, and later I'll wander back down here and revel in the thing I'm most Thankful for: A day when I'm left the hell alone. ;)

Books: Survival 101.

What do you get when you take neurophysiology, Zen Buddhism, physics, Clausewitz, chaos theory, the Gospels, the woodscraft of indigeneous peoples, Marcus Aurelius, astronaut training, WWII anecdotes, the Tao Te Ching, complexity theory, Jack London, survival school, Plato, and dozens of compelling stories and put them under one cover?

You get Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales, that's what you get. This may be the single most amazing book I've read in the last several years, and it's well worth tracking down a copy. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Blog Stuff: Auntie Tam says...

..."Aawwww! He's so cute!"

(It was a tossup on which bib he got. First Runner-Up had a picture of a frightened-looking Bambi with the caption "Petting Zoo Stalker". Bib is from Gut Pile Style.)

Blog Stuff: Black Friday approacheth...

Those of you in retail know what that means.

I've got my work cut out for me today: Probably twenty guns waiting to be booked in when I get to the shop today, and a like number showing up Friday morning.

I wonder how many will be left on the shelves come Saturday night?

Boomsticks: You know you're a gun geek when...

So, like any 1911 nut with a few project guns under her belt, I've managed to accumulate an impressive array of various bits and pieces removed from guns I've customized over the years. I finally managed to come up with a little plastic box (sorta like a tackle box, with little compartments and all) in which to store the excess bits, as well as having a larger space for spare grip panels, my bushing wrench, and my handy-dandy Wilson multi-tool gizmo.

Poking through the parts, it occured to me that, what with all the thumb safeties, triggers, sears, disconnectors and other impedimentia, I have everything I need to make a dedicated frame for my Ciener .22 slide, except the actual frame itself. Now the only decision I need to make is whether to buy one of the steel frames we have at work, or go ahead and order an alloy frame on which to park the alloy upper.

Decisions, decisions...

Blog Stuff: Go leaf through The Liberty Papers.

Eric, of Grumbles Before The Grave fame, would like to introduce us to The Liberty Papers. Anyone who can write stuff like this is worth paying attention to.

Blog Stuff: From the inside, looking out...

Go read a great post from The Munchkin Wrangler:

"I've often joked that I've always been an American that just happened to be born in a German's skin, but there's a core of truth to that joke. I've always felt more comfortable with American attitudes than German ones, especially when it comes to personal liberty, obedience to (or defiance of) authority, and individualism in general.

In truth, that's what sets Americans apart from all other countries. Being an American is not so much a nationality as a state of mind. Now if we could only get rid of the "there ought to be a law" kind of crowd, and invite more of the "you're not the boss of me" crowd..."

Home is where your head's at. :)

Boomsticks: Jeff at Alphecca would like you to know...

...that the vast majority of fluff-heads making their living off of their liberal arts degrees by toiling in the fields of the propaganda industry still know absolutely nothing about firearms, like them even less, and wouldn't know the Second Amendment if it walked up and bit them on the ass.

Clicky.

Boomsticks: No Ammo Love.

So, my clever promo for Ammo Day was a flop. Not one person took advantage of the 10% off coupon. There goes my Marketer of the Year award...

More disturbing was the fact that on a busy Saturday that was also National Go Buy Some Ammo Day, only one customer came in and specifically stated that's what he was doing.

National Ammo Day.

Hyped all over the Blogosphere.

Busiest gun store in town.

One person who was even aware of it.

Not good.

Politics: Takedown.

Quick, identify the following photo:


Is this a picture of:

A) Dangerous tango al-Zarqawi being taken down by a team from SFOD-Delta in Mosul, or

B) A suspected loiterer being taken into custody by Rochester, NY Officer Greg Carnes and his squad during a random street sweep in "Operation Law and Order".


Answer found here.

(Hat tip to SayUncle.)

A jog around the blog.

Mauser*Girl goes a-romping with her well-behaved dog,
PistolPackingMama starts her very own blog,
GrampaPinhead can tell you all about hockey,
Phil Fulmer's future is looking quite rocky.

Boomsticks: A New Level of Hunting Snobbery.

Did you know that hunting with an atlatl-propelled spear will be legal in PA soon? Aside from providing grist for some truly hilarious comedic material, it also adds a whole new apex predator in the constant petty nattering about whose hunting style is the "most sporting" and "true to the ways of our ancestors".

The atlatl guys will get to look down their noses at the guys who are using yew self-bows and hand-chipped arrowheads as uncommitted slobs who are only interested in bagging a deer easily. The yew self-bow guys think that people using compound bows with graphite-shafted broadheads are wussies. The compound bow users can in turn snub the guys using sidehammer frontstuffers as parvenues, which parvenues will get to mock the guys using inline muzzle loaders, who get to make fun of the folks using single-shot Ruger No.1's and Thompson/Center Encores, who can deride the guys using bolt- and lever-action repeaters, who can in turn...

Remember, kids: Someone is always more "authentic" than you.

Me? I'm gonna run down a deer on foot this year and rip out its jugular with my teeth. Everybody else is a technology-dependent pansy.

Bikes: Gotta love that Southern climate...

Think I'll ride to work today, since it's supposed to be a balmy 61 degrees this afternoon...

...and snowing by Thursday. Go figure.

All is Vanity...

Less than two months ago, I got all excited over my thousandth hit. Yesterday morning I had my ten thousandth.

I haven't had this much fun since I stood on a street corner and feigned Tourette's syndrome while screaming random entries from Roget's Thesaurus at passing traffic.

Thanks, y'all. :)

Blog Stuff: It must be contagious...

Joining Alston, Dr. Strangegun, the Official Store Blogger, and myself, is the newest blogger from Coal Creek Armory: Meet the Pistol Packing Mama, Tiffani.

*Sigh*

Now whenever I try to make myself out to be the heroine of the day's story, there'll be a second opinion to keep me honest.

Blog Stuff: Hilarious.

Via Michael Silence: Make Your Own Church Sign.