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Gratuitous Gun Pic: Benelli R1 (.30-06 Springfield)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Once again, amidst my occasional ponderings about The Gun Thing, several factors have occurred to me, to whit:

  • There are an awful lot of people who think that the venerable (and venerated) .30-06 cartridge is God’s answer to the question “Are there too many deer in the world?” and/or “How best should I kill that Bad Person?”
  • Most rifles thus chambered are bolt-action, and found everywhere in these United States
  • The non-bolt-action .30-06 rifles are pretty much confined to the venerable (and venerated) WWII-era M1 Garand, and the modern Browning BAR.

Not one of these things is Bad.  The .30-06 is a monster when it comes to dealing death, at pretty much any range, as several thousand WWII-era Kraut- and Jap soldiers would attest (if they were still with us);  there are a jillion-odd bolt-action rifles thus chambered, and therefore cartridge availability passes the “Bubba’s Bait & Ammo Store” criterion;  most semi-auto .30-06 rifles owned are likely to be of the Garand genus — and considering that Gen. George S. Patton once called the M1 Garand “the greatest battle implement ever devised by Man” (or something like that), there are very few knocks you can make against the Garand, either.  Ditto the BAR.

Except for cost.  M1 Garands can be costly, simply because of their pedigree (and therefore collectability), so the cost of entry, so to speak, can be pretty daunting.  Here’s a typical example from Collectors:

…which runs at just under $1,700.  (And if you think that’s expensive, the “National Match” version costs nearly three times as much.)

So what else is out there, for someone who wants a semi-auto rifle chambered in .30-06?  Here’s the Benelli R1, for example, also at Collectors, for just under $1,300 (about the cost of a new unscoped BAR Mk3, incidentally):

and the R1 has a 10-round detachable magazine, to boot.  From the Benelli website:

(Note its current non-availability, but I suspect that this is a temporary situation.)  The price, of course, is nosebleed because Benelli (as anyone who’s ever contemplated buying one of their shotguns can attest);  but you could buy four extra mags for the R1, and still come out around the same cost of a single M1 Garand.

And yes of course, the R1 is a modern rifle, ergo saddled with a poxy (epoxy?) stock, which sets my teeth on edge;  but if you told me I’d have no choice but the R1 to take out into the field — for any purpose — I would not feel myself short-changed at all.   (“Gimme!”  comes to mind.)

Note too that this particular R1 comes with a very toothsome Leupold VX-3i 4.5-14x50mm scope — which alone sells for $700-$750 nowadays.

Other than my distaste for Technik durch Plastik  stocks, if I were in the market for a .30-06 rifle, I can’t think of a single reason not to consider this one.

New Kid In Town

The Gun Thing

Loyal Readers will have noted my increasing irritation about not having a Mauser (or at least a Mauser-type bolt action) in my niggardly collection (following the Great Canoeing Disaster On The Brazos or maybe it was the Colorado).  It was exacerbated by my inability to bring back the Mauser I had bought in Britishland without having to pay a boatload [sic]  of money to H.M Government.

So here I sat, Mauser-less — the first time in ages I’d been in that sad condition — and just snarled at people (such as Mr. Free Market and Doc Russia) who seem to have been trying to get rifle manufacturers to go to 24-hour shifts, so much have they been augmenting their own collections.  Were I a paranoid man (I’m not), I might have thought it was a conspiracy.

Anyway, all my human sacrifices to Vulcan (don’t ask) must finally have caught the old man’s attention, because in talking to a distributor’s sales rep at one of our local gun pushers’ establishments, I managed to snag a slightly-used demo CZ 550 American at a price which would make people start sticking pins into my effigy, were I ever to publish it.   It was severely discounted because… it’s chambered in 6.5x55mm Swedish, “And everybody wants to shoot 6.5 Creed nowadays, and not that old bullet.”

Well, not everybody.  And not everybody happens to love CZ 550 rifles as much as I do, either.  (Cliff Notes:  excellent out-of-the-box accuracy,  fabled quality and reliability, controlled-feed action and set trigger.)

So I paid the man, waited for it to arrive, took it home and ordered a scope (which will be the topic of another post once it arrives and I’ve mounted and zeroed it).

But in the meantime… Your Humble Narrator is no longer Mauser-less, and a huge gaping hole in his shooting capability and nearly-empty gun cabinet  has been filled.

The Wrong Guys

Anarchist thugs, Elections, Gummint, Marxists

There’s only one post today, because it’s really, really important.

Over the past couple of months, cities all over the U.S. have been under siege from anarchist and neo-Communist front organizations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, wherein said gangs of thugs have been rioting, looting, burning buildings, attacking police with Molotov cocktails and rocks, and assaulting (and even killing) people suspected of being Trump supporters or otherwise conservatives.

I don’t have to give proof of said unrest;  there are plenty of news reports documenting it on a nightly basis — except, of course, if your main source of news is the mainstream media, in which case you’ve been fed a pack of lies about the riots being “mostly peaceful” protests instead of the violent anarchy that it actually is.  Still, the truth is the truth:  the country is under attack by the Left, who proudly proclaim their hatred of America and the capitalist system which has made the nation the wealthiest on Earth, and whose citizens rank so far ahead of other nations’ peoples in terms of prosperity and freedom that it barely seems worth arguing the point.

And it’s not “spontaneous protesting” — it is organized violence.

     The first one I attended was on the University of Michigan campus. The protest was rather large, about 1,500 people. What I found interesting was that the first speaker pointed out that “allies from RevCom/ANTIFA” were present, just to provide “logistical support” including medical and security teams. The local RevCom leader got up and explained how to find the medics (Large red or green crosses) and explained that security was “circulating among the crowd” for safety. That was an ominous statement, as I’ll point out later.
I began moving through the crowd and quickly spotted several security team members, obviously watching the crowd for anyone who wasn’t clapping or cheering along. It’s important to note that these protests require 100% ideological agreement or they will approach you and become confrontational, so I made sure I was chanting along. I noticed almost immediately that despite the man who said he was the RevCom leader, a young man named Ethan, that I would later have many interactions with, was actually in charge. He is a security team leader within the ANTIFA organization.
The biggest observation from the first protest was that despite the claims that they aren’t organized, they are highly organized by a central organization. Ethan and his security/medical team have been at every protest I’ve attended in Michigan, including one at the Capitol an hour away. They use the ubiquitous BaoFeng Handi-talkie radios to communicate.

So the goon squads of Lefties — notably, the White middle-class kids of wealthy parents along with actual criminals and a mass of disaffected, impoverished Blacks, all of whom profess hatred of the police and the system — rampage through cities like New York, Chicago, Portland, Seattle and the like, causing untold damage to life and property of those unfortunates caught in their path.

It doesn’t end there.  The anarcho-Communist rabble is vowing to get still more violent should Donald Trump be reelected this November, and their sympathizers are also attempting to subvert the voting process by insisting on a dangerously-flawed mail-in ballot system, which time and time again has been shown to be corrupt, crooked and open to all kinds of abuse.  Even worse, should the mumbling geriatric Democrat Joe Biden get elected, the rioting will not stop — and may get even worse, as Biden and his Democratic cabal of people like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and other Democratic figures of power such as state governors and city mayors, Democrats all, inflame the unrest either by overt support or else by mandating police inaction in the face of the riots.

One might think, therefore, that our Law Enforcement Establishment would consider these groups to be dangerous.  Silly rabbit;  the real danger, according to the Department of Homeland Security, is… rightwing militia groups?

White supremacists will remain the most “persistent and lethal threat” in the United States through 2021, according to Department of Homeland Security draft documents.
The most recent draft report predicts an “elevated threat environment at least through” early next year, concluding that some U.S.-based violent extremists have capitalized on increased social and political tensions in 2020.
Although foreign terrorist organizations will continue to call for attacks on the U.S., the report says, they “probably will remain constrained in their ability to direct such plots over the next year.”

Ah yes:  all those Sons Of Conservatives, White Brethren Under Christ and the worst of them all, Confederate Rebel Yellers are just waiting to inflict murder and mayhem upon this land.

Once again I am reminded of the scene from Heller’s Catch-22, where Aarfy has just thrown a prostitute to her death out of his hotel room window, but when the military police arrive, they don’t arrest Aarfy for murder, but they do arrest Yossarian for being AWOL.

Seriously?  White supremacists are the real danger?  Who are these guys?

Needless to say, as Insty puts it:  “Of course, there’s no action so vile that you can’t find an academic to defend it.”  Or give it credence and respectability, like this collection of Useful Idiots:

What might a new administration do to more effectively target white supremacist violence?

And then read the revolting details in the link.

If you are tempted to laugh at this, don’t be.  What’s happening here is very simple:  the DHS is pre-positioning law enforcement to act against anyone who dares to start resisting Leftist violence, by labeling them all as “white supremacists” ahead of time.  So if a community group stands around with AR-15s trying to prevent a mob from burning their neighborhood down, and when attacked by the mob, start shooting to defend themselves, they (and not the mob) will be plastered with the “white supremacist” label and be subject to all the weight of the law as a fulfillment of the DHS report.  Federal law enforcement, in other words, will do nothing against the Pantifa/BLM Brigades, but they will come down on… us.

And yeah, I say “us” because a huge number of people like me (such as among my Loyal Readers) strongly oppose the thug tactics of the Left — but just be aware that by physically opposing the Left, by simply voicing opposition, or even saying nothing (“silence is violence”, remember?), we will be stamped as racists, both by the Left and, it appears, by our government.

How nice.  And then there’s this:

Our training up to know has been CCW as related to violent crime inflicted upon us or our loved ones.  We never trained for organized mobs with legal  (upfront or tacit) government support.

His advice:  “have a long gun as minimum and a bunch of loaded magazines or easy to reach buck and slugs. Use cover and engage from a distance.”

And don’t try to be a Lone Ranger.  Kyle Rittenhouse’s experience has shown that’s just not gonna work.  Go ahead and check these guys out — just remember that Big Tech (and therefore Big Gummint) may be looking over your shoulder.  Best do it with your friends and neighbors offline, I think.

I think I’ll go and clean my AK-47 and sniper hunting rifles, and then call up a friend or two in the area.

We Have A Winner !!!!!

The Gun Thing

Just to remind you all what we’re talking about, here:

And the lucky winner is… [drumroll]

Reader RonC of 230  Rd [rest redacted for security reasons]

Ron, email me your town / state/ ZIP details (so I know the right man is going to get it).

And also, your local FFL details (get the official data from them;  “Bubba’s Guns & Bait Shop” won’t cut it).  The sooner I get all the above, the sooner it speeds off to you, and the sooner you can start breaking your shoulder having fun with your new toy.

Congratulations !!!!!!

And for the rest of you losers unlucky people, there’s always next year.

Like the last time, I was terrified that someone I know very well would win.  Happily, I’ve never met the man in person, so it’s all good.

And here’s the attestation:

News Roundup

Bad News

Here we go:   pithy, like the Emmy Award For Best Golden Shower In A TV Comedy (no link, are you kidding? ):


…seems a little excessive, but not as much as the next one:


…but we can file both under “Excitable Foreigners Do Strange Shit”.


…Dev, dude:  for most of us, that countdown started thirty years ago, but you Republicans did fuck-all about it.


…if they tried that shit Over Here for Thanksgiving, there’d be murders.  But he’s on the right track with:


…because “human rights laws” in the EU are basically just welcome mats for refugees.


…what’s wrong with 10,000?


…I see the answer to her problem right there.


…yet another reason not to visit the Third World.  And speaking of which:


…to be filed next to “Man Who Lives With Grizzlies Gets Eaten.”


…hell, in Floriduh, she’d only call the cops after having sex with it.


…my only question being:  what fuckhead suggested that it is?


…or perhaps Mother Earth is just saying that you Commie bastards shouldn’t be allowed to govern a state, or anywhere else.


…and to use bullets instead;  oh wait, he’s an Antifa-supporting Democrat [some redundancy].  So they’ll be using… what?  tissue paper spitballs?

And finally:


…and purely for the edification of my Murkin Readers, here’s Alesha’s black ass:

No need to thank me;  it’s all part of the service.

Headache

Good Stuff, Numbers & Statistics

Just when I thought I’d figured it all out, comes shit like this:

‘They are the sort of equations that arise when you try to study something that evolves in time but also depends on space.
‘For example, like the wind in a wind tunnel you want to model the flow of air then that of course depends on time because it changes over time but it also depends on space – the velocity of the air is different at different points in the wind tunnel.
‘So if you have a system like this which furthermore evolves under the influence of randomness.
‘So if you have randomness that enters the game then that’s described by stochastic partial differential equation.’

I used to work with people like this when designing predictive algorithms, and I would place bets with myself as to how long (measured in seconds) it would take before I lost track of the conversation completely and the speech became unintelligible.  Usually, it was about twenty seconds.

It gets worse.  The reason I used “20 seconds” in the above sentence is because I actually kept count, over the year’s worth of discussions and meetings, of the times.  Then I created a distribution chart — bell-shaped, of course, with the most common incidence around 20.

Yeah, I was a fucking geek, too.  Just a much more limited one.

By the way, if you read the article — and you should — there’s a glaring (but non-mathematical) error.  Call it the Obama Fallacy, and see if you can spot it.