Splendid Isolation

Clarification

November 23, 2022 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Some of you may have read the above article and gone “Huh?” at my choice of chambering (9.3x62mm) for the Mauser. A brief explanation follows.

As I’ve grown older, the thought of owning a whole bunch of different rifles (modern, not oldies) has palled somewhat, to the extent where I think I would prefer one astoundingly-good rifle in a do-it-all chambering. So why choose the 9.3mm Mauser?

It’s more powerful than the .30-06 Springfield and has less recoil than the .375H&H Magnum. Also, it’s old, having been developed back in 1905. So it could take pretty much anything I’d need to kill, certainly in the U.S., and just about anything I cared to shoot in Africa, were I ever to find myself back there. The premium hunting ammo (Federal Woodleigh 286gr) is horrendously expensive (over $4 per pull); but of course Prvi Partizan, bless their little Balkan socks, make it for about $1.25 each so practice is not as expensive as one might think.

Here’s a quick comparison:

…and then with the mighty .375 H&H:

Here’s the thing: the 9.3mm Mauser isn’t as powerful as the H&H. But that reduction in power comes with about 25% less owie to the shoulder — and lest we forget, the 9.3 was used to hunt all sorts of African game (including elephant) in the decade or so before the H&H came to the party.

I like the idea of it.

Speed Bump #8,403

November 23, 2022 Kim du Toit Grammar Nazism

I love headlines that make me want to throw the gin bottle across the room:

…took the “reigns”? Once again, editing by Spelchek. Fucking morons.

Still, it could have been worse; he could have taken the rains, and made the thing even wetter than it turned out to be.

Quite So

November 22, 2022 Kim du Toit Clothing

From Andrea Shulman at the Daily Mail:

“The crypto currency FTX collapsed last week, losing $32billion of value overnight. Sam Bankman-Fried, the youthful founder once hailed as a crypto legend and now facing possible extradition to the US from his Bahamas base, is always seen in a pair of shorts. So are we surprised by FTX’s downfall? Not at all. Why? It’s simple. Never trust a man who wears shorts outside of his holidays.”

What she said. I don’t know or care what or who FTX is/was, but her last sentence resonates with me, as you all knew it would.

This look is so over, and even more so when billions of dollars are being discussed.

On the other hand, “crypto-currency” isn’t real currency either, so maybe the small-boy look is appropriate.

Gun Smoke

November 22, 2022 Kim du Toit Military, The Gun Thing

…as in, blowing smoke up our ass. Here’s a breathless little piece which, after careful reading, sounds like the kind of scam you would expect from a Nigerian con man:

Has the next generation rifle already arrived?

My immediate take is: no. Not even close. Not when you see puffery like this:

The Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) efforts have resulted in multiple, unique 6.8 mm cartridge designs. Each of the companies involved has tried to develop a solution to the Army’s reported desire to penetrate modern, peer-level body armor far beyond close-combat ranges. The selections of SIG Sauer’s 6.8×51 mm hybrid-case ammunition, XM5 carbine and XM250 light machine gun as solutions have been met with both fanfare and skepticism. While the velocities that are reported for the 6.8×51 mm, and its .277 SIG Fury commercial counterpart, seem to generate the most excitement, this cartridge’s projectile energy is likely to be the main driver of the DOD’s interest.

According to SIG’s published numbers, its hybrid steel-and-brass cartridge case allows chamber pressures to reach a whopping 80,000 psi. Subsequently, its 150-grain projectile is reported to leave a 16-inch barrel at 2,830 fps with 2,667 ft.-lbs. of muzzle energy. Running those numbers through a ballistic program shows that SIG’s loads should fly flatter and hit much harder than anything used in current battle rifle and light machine gun designs, including 7.62 NATO/.308 Win. loads, out past 1,000 meters.

Long experience in examining the .dotmil’s record in tinkering around with this issue makes me think they’re still in the “oh what if” and “wouldn’t it be nice if” stages — wishful thinking, in other words — and even so there’s this little warning sign:

Pushing a bullet faster so that it will fly flatter and hit harder is one thing. Doing it without rapidly burning out barrels or prematurely wearing out other parts has proven difficult with several past attempts to achieve game-changing muzzle velocities.

Yeah, that bastard Newton enters the fray again. But all is well:

One bit of reassurance on barrel wear concerns comes from a reliable source within SIG, who told me the special material technology used in their 6.8 barrels can hold up to this high pressure cartridge.

Oh, well then we don’t have anything to worry about, do we? Manufacturers never lie about this kind of thing, especially when there’s a multi-billion dollar military contract dangling in the wind.

No doubt, their “special material techology” will be super-inexpensive too, cheaper than the current steel even.

Just think: if the US Army had adopted the superb .280 British (actually 7.2x43mm, or .284 in Murkin) cartridge back in the late 1940s, we’d still be fielding it — but no, we had to go to the 7.62×51 which was oops too powerful and then over-correcting with the .223 which was oops too underpowered. Ever since then, the Army has been fucking around trying to find ammo’s Holy Grail — and I have to say that based on what I can see, the 6.8x51mm isn’t going to The One. (FFS: .277 SIG “Fury”? Better ammo through marketing?)

It’s like watching a kid with learning issues trying to fit the multi-shaped sticks into the proper slots:

So, to answer the headline’s question, the answer is…

Idiots.

Nazzo Fast, Guida

November 22, 2022 Kim du Toit Feminazis, Marxists, Seen On Campus

Then we have this lunacy:

The goal is to “reimagine” the traditional family beyond fatherhood and motherhood with such roles being replaced, in a “more universal sense,” where children are not “property” of their parents, but “raised by society as a whole.”

“I suppose that I’m called to the challenge of thinking about these really difficult questions of how those intimate spheres are affected by capitalism and how they are political.

“The left needs to get a little bit braver also at challenging the rhetoric of motherhood. Because a lot of the people who do mothering, I call them mother-ers to just ram home the point, that we can mother one another after the abolition of the family, this is what will hopefully be lifted up.

“To abolish the family is not to destroy relationships of care and nurturance, but on the contrary, to expand and proliferate them. Reflecting on the conditions of possibility for such universally xenofamilial — that is to say, comradely — kin relations … argues for utopia(nism) in feminist kinship studies.”

Nurturance? Xenofamilial? Seriously?

The author of this Marxist lunacy is named Sophie Lewis:

Really?

Nah, I’m kidding — that’s another Sophie Lewis altogether. This is the expert on “feminist, trans and queer politics and philosophy”, who looks exactly as you’d suspect she would:

There’s never a ducking-stool at hand when you need one, is there?

I don’t know what Sophie #1’s opinion on child-rearing is, but I’ll take hers ahead of the Marxist’s, sight unseen.

Train Smash Women — 2022 Update

November 22, 2022 Kim du Toit Train Smash Women

It’s all bad news, I’m afraid. First, Lindsay Lohan:

Lindsay Lohan reacted to the news that her return to acting in her new film “Falling for Christmas” hit number one on Netflix, as she thanked fans for all their support over the years.

Wait… you mean no more Train Smash pics are coming?