Yum.

Next time I'm @BigLugCanteen, I'm just going to order a bowl of that superlative bacon jam and a spoon. pic.twitter.com/32PSWROtQH

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) September 4, 2016

If you like how they deliver the mail...

...you're gonna love how they manage your health care.

"Useless Eaters" scheduled for next round of cost cutting. https://t.co/Z00hDn78xG

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) September 3, 2016

Unbelievable...

"Clinton told the FBI she "could not recall any briefing or training by State related to the retention of federal records or handling classified information," according to the bureau's notes of their interview with Clinton. The documents indicate Clinton told investigators she either does not "recall" or "remember" at least 39 times — often in response to questions about process, potential training or the content of specific emails."

This is about as plausible as "the dog ate my homework". She claimed she didn't know that the "c" meant "confidential", that nobody told her that she should retain work emails as they are part of the public record. Further along in the article, she throws her staff under the bus, in effect claiming that her underlings and minions told the dog to eat her homework.

That's some Grade A leadership there, right? Makes you wanna sign right up for that outfit, no?

Further, I have an Ivy League lawyer, wife of a former governor and president, who lived in the White House for eight damned years, then went on to be a senator and Secretary of State telling me she didn't know about classified email and that work-related documents needed to be saved as part of the public record?

Look, I don't mind you bullshitting me a little bit, Hillary, but don't you ever lie to me like I'm Montel Williams.


The newsreader's report this morning had me wondering aloud how she read it with a straight face without blurting editorial commentary.

You cannot on the one hand spout this sort of "Oopsie! Hah-ha! What a faux pas!" claim of ignorance in one moment and then turn around and claim that you are the hard-nosed, experienced, understands-how-government-works alternative to Cheeto Jesus in the next.

Only you can, apparently, because we're voting for teams now, and it doesn't matter what the Turd Sandwich or Big Giant Douche say; people are going to vote for them based on the color of the box they come in.
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Having fun with the Prisma app...

The Zed Drei in Broad Ripple.

A photo posted by Tamara Keel (@tamarakeel) on Sep 2, 2016 at 9:21am PDT

Fifteen hundred plus

Wednesday morning was an indoor range session with another fifty rounds of Lucky Gunner's Remington 180gr FMJ and fifty of their Armscor 180gr FMJ. There were no malfunctions of any type to report.

You, too, can have a cool Spyderco Delica Emerson Opener!

Went out to Atlanta Conservation Club with Mike Grasso Thursday morning to do a bit of shooting in the glorious Chamber of Commerce weather we finally got after a hot, rainy August that felt more Houston than Hoosier.

I finally shot some of that 180gr Remington FMJ over the chronograph. Despite all the flash and noise at the muzzle, the velocities were pretty tame, outrunning only the Prvi Partisan and American Eagle loads.

LO: 1050
HI: 1070
AV: 1059
ES: 20.15
SD: 6.24

While there, I also tried some of Sig Sauer's house brand .357SIG ammo through the Glock 32. I figured that since their name was on the cartridge, they might put a little extra sauce on it. Instead, it was loaded fairly mild, but extremely consistent.

LO: 1284
HI: 1307
AV: 1295
ES: 23.02
SD: 8.83

The Glock 20 experienced one failure to feed, on the thirteenth round of the day (#1,593 of the test)...

Again it was the third round in magazine number three. There is a pattern emerging. Also, as the gun has gotten dirtier, the light primer strike thing has really reared its ugly head.

There were four out of a hundred rounds fired yesterday, two with Remington UMC (#1,595, #1,628) and two with Armscor (#1,633, #1,640). When I tear this thing down in a couple hundred more rounds, the inside of the striker channel will be of special interest.

This makes 1680 rounds since the Glock 20 was cleaned or lubricated, with six failures to feed (#401, #454, #1,213, #1,297, #1,413, #1,593) and eight failures to fire (#598, #1,016, #1,029, #1,376, #1,595, #1,628, #1,633, #1,640). 320 rounds to go.
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Stash Guns

A post by Massad Ayoob referenced something Rich Grassi wrote over at The Tactical Wire about having a little gun like a Ruger LCP for a "house gun".

This ties into a discussion we had some months back at pistol-forum.com, where a detective described a homicide he worked, one where the decedent had loaded guns stashed all over the house:

"One of my very first murder scenes as a uniformed officer was a guy toes up halfway in/halfway out of his door and in his boxer shorts. Someone had dumped a mag of .25 in him. Evidence indicated he was gut shot, fell down, and they they emptied it into his face. I spent over 3 hours clearing guns to transport to the property room for safe keeping until next of kin could be notified. Eleventy bajillion loaded guns in the house, dead on the door step in his boxers."

A lot of people apparently spend more time nekkid around the house than I do. I'm usually dressed within about thirty minutes of waking up and stay dressed until bedtime. And my holster is already on my jeans before I pull them on in the morning.


For me, I guess, it's reached a point where it's just not that big a deal. To quote my very smart friend Kathy Jackson:

"Sooner or later, every person new to concealed carry asks this question, sheepishly, of other people they know who carry. “Would you carry a gun to _______?” they ask. The blank can be filled by any number of things.  Would you carry a gun when you go camping? Would you carry to your mom’s house? to work? to church? to the movies? to your kids’ Little League games?

The question, earnest as it is, always bemuses me somewhat. You see, I don’t usually carry a gun to anywhere in particular, but I do go places and do things. And I simply carry, wherever I might be.

What I’m getting at is that years ago I made a decision that my default setting would be to carry my gun wherever I went and whatever I was doing. As a result, if I’m ever not carrying, it is because I made a deliberate decision not to do so right then, based upon some specific reason not to do so. So I don’t have to look for reasons why I might want a gun wherever I’m going. I’m taking my gun with me unless I have a good reason not to."

...and that includes around the house.

It's a safety thing, too. If you just put the gun on in the morning and leave it there all day, it eliminates a lot of unnecessary administrative gun-handling, and as anybody who's ever looked around the walls of the sally ports, locker rooms, and restrooms of the local cop shop can tell you, unnecessary administrative gun handling is when most of the unnecessary loud noises happen.
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From Elsewhere...

Photographic Tab Clearing...

• This is just some hilarious stuff right here:"The international hipster community is in shock this week after the purchase of a vintage Polaroid camera by a young hipster failed to bring him instant acclaim as a gritty, original, yet quirky photographer. Meanwhile, the non-profit Hipster Photographer Rescue has revealed that “this kind of tragic occurrence is happening so often now that it’s almost become mainstream”."


• From the Dumb Crook Files: Cameras make high-value targets for thieves...unless you break into a struggling vintage film camera store and clean out the showcases of the pedestrian stuff they'd been unable to sell and were planning to take to Goodwill.

That'll buff right out...

When you have your Bible on the Kindle app... https://t.co/Y5OxHLNcxL

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 31, 2016

Annoyance...

Tuesday morning marked another trip to the indoor range at Indy Arms Co. for respite from the heat and (especially) the humidity at MCF&G. I had with me another hundred rounds of Lucky Gunner's 180gr Remington UMC FMJ 10mm ammo.

On round number thirty-three of the day (#1,413 of the test) there was a failure-to-feed malfunction absolutely identical to the ones on the last two range outings with this ammo: Round was nose-up with the cartridge rim just barely not under the extractor claw. A slap of the floorplate and the slide went into battery normally.

Like both previous times, it happened in one of the first few rounds in the magazine and this time I took note of the mag number (#3). I wish I'd done that before, because it nags at me that these malfunctions have three things in common:

1. All with the Remington UMC ammo.
2. All with a relatively full magazine.
3. All since I purchased magazines #3 and #4.

Really do wish I'd bothered to take notice of which mag it was the previous two times.

Anyhow...

I fired the first box at the five yard line and then moved the target back to ten. It was hot, I was cranky, my glasses were fogging, I'd already fired fifty rounds of 10mm, and all those other excuses...

This makes 1480 rounds since the Glock 20 was cleaned or lubricated, with five failures to feed (#401, #454, #1,213, #1,297, #1,413) and four failures to fire (#598, #1,016, #1,029, #1,376). 520 rounds to go.
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Consistency.

Went to MCF&G yesterday morning to do some chrono work. I had a pistol along for a forthcoming Shooting Illustrated article, as well as the Glock 20. I was meaning to chrono some of the 180gr Remington FMJ I got from Lucky Gunner as well as some Federal American Eagle 180gr FMJ I'd purchased at Indy Arms Company. Unfortunately, I forgot the Remington at home, so the only ten mike-mike that got measured yesterday was the American Eagle.

I'll do the Remington on Thursday, because today and tomorrow are supposed to be much like Monday was: 90°F/90% humidity, and that's indoor shooting weather as far as I'm concerned. The humidity down there on the banks of Eagle Creek will take the starch right out of you.

The American Eagle 10mm has a reputation for being ".40 S&W power level", which isn't entirely true, as it's 50-100fps hotter than pretty much any 180gr .40 I've chrono'ed, but it is definitely the mildest 10mm load I've yet clocked.

It's also the most consistent. Freakily consistent...

The first string of ten had velocities so close together that I shot a second one just to see how much of a fluke it was. The second string had one round that was, at 1,011fps, about a dozen fps slower than the next slowest round in the string, and that opened up the standard deviation to a hair over 7 feet per second, which is still astounding.

Here's the better of the two strings:

LO: 1020
HI: 1033
AV: 1028
ES: 13.42
SD: 3.87

I spent the remaining thirty rounds shooting the steel plates from the 20 yard line. Even with the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned factory sights and the factory Glock trigger, it was stupid easy.

There was one failure to fire on round number forty-six of the day (#1,376 of the test). The round went off on the second try. It looks a little like the gun may have been slightly out of battery, but I could not make it replicate the situation in dry fire? Besides...

...even the good primer hits are well off-center in the G-lock.

This makes 1380 rounds since the Glock 20 was cleaned or lubricated, with four failures to feed (#401, #454, #1,213, #1,297) and four failures to fire (#598, #1,016, #1,029, #1,376). 620 rounds to go.
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Commercial Art

This is just an amazingly great little sixty second bit of cinema. Bravo, Dove Chocolate, for paying for the most entertaining thing I'll likely see on my TV this morning, unless Matt Lauer catches fire or something.
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I can see my house from up here!

So I was looking for something local on Google street view, and was just amazed at the detail you can see...

I mean, check out that 2008-model Trek 7100 in the nickel/mocha color scheme with the quick-detach Bontrager baskets fore and aft, there.
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Grinding on...

Another hundred rounds of Lucky Gunner's Remington UMC 180gr FMJ got sent downrange at Indy Arms Co yesterday.

Apparently the flash and noise from the stuff is pretty noticeable on the range's CCTV cameras.

There was a failure to feed on round number sixty-seven of the day (#1,297 of the test) that was identical to the one photographed in the previous post. The slide went into battery when I slapped the mag floorplate. By this time, my hands were sweaty, my glasses were fogged, and I was focused on the sights and trigger, trying to keep rounds in the upper A at ten, and so my grip might not have been all it could be. I dunno.

Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful range session. I fired off a hundred rounds through the gun and got off the range pretty quickly; when a range's filtration system is pulling that much outdoor air through, even herculean efforts by the HVAC have a hard time staying very far ahead of 90+°F/90+% humidity weather. Shooting outdoors yesterday afternoon would have been truly miserable.

This makes 1330 rounds since the Glock 20 was cleaned or lubricated, with four failures to feed (#401, #454, #1,213, #1,297) and three failures to fire (#598, #1,016, #1,029). 670 rounds to go.
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Where has the time gone?

Apparently my blog turned eleven today while I was out screwing around at the gun show.

Eleven years ago, Louisiana had been freshly wracked by disaster, I was working in the gun biz, had no dough, and spent a bunch of my weekends browsing the aisles at fun shows to help maintain my dough-less status.

Not a lot has changed, as you can see.

It's weird to think that first-graders who had my first blog posts read to them are now perusing college catalogs.
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Fun Show Time!

Let's all sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

I'm broker'n dammit, so I'll probably just be putting nose prints on display cases. I've got to save my dough for hotels & airfare over the next couple months.
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Seriously.

The first person who comes up with a USB-powered throat-punching peripheral will retire a gazillionaire.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) August 27, 2016

Guys! Guys! You'll never guess what it's doing out there!

That's right, the weatherman has broken into regular programming again today to tell me about lightning and winds and flash floods.

Yet again it is piss-pouring down rain in the back yard and the thunder is making the windows rattle in their panes.

Good thing I changed my mind and skipped the bowling pin match at the club this morning. The storm's track is southwest-to-northeast, exactly the direction of travel I'd have been taking home from the match.
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Yow!

Another hellacious thunderstorm just tracked right over Indianapolis. Lost power for about five minutes, there.

Rain is coming down outside in biblical quantities and it hasn't stopped thundering for near thirty minutes. Supposedly there's plenty more where this came from, too...
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Festive.

Power's out from Keystone Avenue east and from 54th Street north. Which means that Indy Arms Co. was out as a shooting destination this morning.

Back to the house I went. Thankfully, Roseholme Cottage still has juice. Two and a half hours after the storm had rumbled through, there were still the sounds of sirens everywhere. TV was saying that there were ~60mph straight-line winds and we've got a lot of old trees on the north side of the city, rooted in soil that's been soaked by a very rainy August...
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