Author: Kim du Toit

Pretty Much Forever

The Gun Thing

I’m going to add my two cents to this opinion (found via Insty, thankee) about keeping your magazines loaded:

Even when kept fully compressed, a magazine spring will retain its energy long past the operational life of the ammunition.

Here’s my take.  I own dozens of magazines, of all types and calibers, fitting all sorts of guns, and I’ve owned most of my Chip McCormick (CMC) 1911 PowerMags for close to twenty years.  I keep all of them loaded, all the time.  When I was cleaning out my house, I found a box of what I first thought was junk (but wasn’t).  At the very bottom, underneath all sorts of stuff like photos and old papers were two 10-round CMC Powermags, loaded.  Judging from the other stuff in the box, I packed it when we lived in suburban Chicago back in the late 1990s, and had never fired the two mags — for twenty years.

With some trepidation, I unloaded them, expecting to find that the last couple of rounds were loose in the magazines — i.e. that the springs had “taken a set” when loaded to capacity and lost their tension.  In both mags, the bottom cartridges were held as tightly against the mag lips as the first round.  So I reloaded them.

The next time I went to the range, I fired off both mags through the Springfield 1911.  Both mags and ammo functioned flawlessly.   I put another ten loads of “new” .45 ACP through each (200 rounds in total) and the mags again worked as though I’d just unwrapped them.

The same has been true of every single magazine I’ve ever owned.  The only time I’ve ever had an issue with a magazine was a cheap one that came with a Taurus .380 pistol — the “second” mag, not the one actually in the gun — and I think it was broken from the start.  Magazine, say hello to Mr. Hammer.

As I said earlier:  all my magazines are loaded, all the time.  An unloaded magazine is just a box with a spring inside, just as an unloaded gun is just a heavy (and expensive) cosh.  Whether they’re .22 LR mags for my Marlin 880SQ rifle, the Mec-Gars for the Browning Hi-Power or the many CMC PowerMags, if I pick one up or take it out of the bag, it’s ready to go.  Even the several AK-47 mags that were tragically lost along with the gun in that canoeing accident were kept loaded.  (As an aside, the mags that absolutely MUST be kept loaded are those that would be needed for your carry- or SHTF guns.)

That has been my experience, and that is my advice.  YMMV.

More Places I Have Seen

Beauty, Travels

In alphabetical order:

Ahrweil, Germany

Heidelberg, Germany

Ludgate, London

Pie Town, NM (near the Continental Divide, temperature: -2F)

Silverton, CO

Trastevere, Rome

Zwettl, Austria

As with all these pics, right-click to enlarge, and feel free to use as wallpaper etc.

 

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Mauser Sporter (7x57mm)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Looking over the posts for the past week or so, it occurs to me that there are far too few entries which conform to the original premise of the GGP series, namely, providing pics of guns that we gun-lovers can drool over, for whatever reason.  Allow me to remedy the situation forthwith.

Here’s one being offered by Collectors Firearms:  a pre-WWII Mauser 98K Sporter in one of my favorite calibers, the venerable 7x57mm.

Good grief… this gun rings just about every single one of my rifleman bells:  Mannlicher-style full stock, “butterknife” bolt lever, and  a double set trigger?

The only way this rifle could be more beautiful is if it had breasts.

I know that modern-day shooters look askance at the old-style scope front claw mount (which grips the bell rather than the barrel), but there’s nothing wrong with the concept — having two barrel grips just simplifies the production process and therefore the cost thereof.

Okay, it’s expensive,  because a) rare and b) Collectors.  But like I said about the Colt 1903 pistol, this is not a “first gun”, at least if you wanted to go hunting:  other more modern guns might be a tad better.  But in a pinch, this gun could  be your go-to hunting rifle, and I very much doubt that it would let you down, whether in its operation, accuracy, reliability or chambering.  And for a hunting rifle, that’s pretty much all you can ask for, isn’t it?  The fact that it is more beautiful  than 90% of modern hunting rifles is just a bonus.

Speaking for myself:  if I won the lottery, I’d buy this gun in a heartbeat.

Naïveté On Display

Marxists

At some highbrow website or other, the question is asked:

Why Isn’t AOC Taking Blame For Violent Attacks On ICE?

Seriously?

FFS:  the Communists haven’t yet taken the blame for the policies which killed millions of Ukranians in the famine of the 1930s — what makes you think they’re going to accept blame for their inflammatory speech now?

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

This from Jazz Shaw, talking about the recent spate of attacks on ICE offices:

The thing is, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to blame Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration for shootings targeting minorities, you can’t simply turn around and ignore this. We have Democratic presidential candidates, “squad” activists, cable news anchors and editorials from major newspapers constantly demonizing ICE, calling for it to be abolished and blaming all manner of human misery on immigration enforcement offices who are simply upholding the law.
How can you observe all of this in context and not blame their rhetoric for the fact that people are shooting up or trying to bomb ICE offices and last night came within inches of murdering someone? The answer is that you can’t, at least if you want to label yourself as an unbiased observer of events.

He’s quite right, of course, albeit woefully naïve.  As Glenn Reynolds so often notes, if the media didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.

Nobody Cares

Two-Minute Hate

If ever there’s a case of wealthy people playing by their own set of rules, it’s this one:

As supercars flood the streets of Kensington, Chelsea and Belgravia, the people who live in London’s most affluent corners are battling infuriating levels of noise and the ever-present threat of a deadly accident.
Driven by young, rich and largely Middle-Eastern men, the high-performance vehicles can be heard tearing around late into the night.
And last week, an Audi Q7 4×4 caused £1million of damage when it wiped out a £200,000 McLaren, £40,000 Porsche, £200,000 Bentley along with eight other cars when the driver ploughed into the vehicles in a shocking crash caught on CCTV.
It left the well-heeled occupants of Moore Street and the surrounding areas fearing that muscles cars will one day kill one of their neighbours after the Audi’s driver was taken to hospital with a serious head injury.

Ooooh the humanity!

Here’s the problem with all this.  If the local councils wanted to eliminate street racing completely, there’s a two-word solution:  speed bumps.

 

Let’s see how Abdul El-Speedah reacts when his Lambo hits one of these puppies at 50mph:

 

Now before the Anti-Speed Bump Brigade comes at me with pitchforks etc., please remember that what we’re talking about here is city  streets, not exurban ones (which local town councils seem to install just for spite, sometimes).

There is no excuse — none — for speeding in London’s narrow streets, and as I said, if the borough councils were willing, they could end it in a couple weeks.

Said councils would probably not follow my other suggestion (ambushes featuring local volunteers armed with AK-47s), so they might as well follow the Wussy Highway and pop in the bumps.

Problem is that the Ryche Pharts who live in Chelsea, Pimlico and Belgravia also  face damage to their own low-slung road rockets like Ferraris and Lambos  (although most seem to own Chelsea Tractors — Range Rovers — so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad on the locals).

Fact remains that there is a solution to Arab boy racers, and it’s effective, cheap and easy, so why don’t the councils just do it?  Oh wait… “effective, cheap and easy” and “government”:  I just answered my own question.