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Getting To Know You

The Gun Thing

So here I sit with my newly-acquired S&W Mod 65:

…and because I’ve not owned a .357 Mag revolver for lo these many years, of course I had to check out the ammo on hand.  (Yeah I know, I had ammo for a gun I didn’t have — like that’s never happened to any of you, don’t get me started.)

Actually not too bad, considering.  About 100 rounds of “self-defense” (i.e. hollowpoint 158gr killer-diller stuff) the shortage of which I shall address when time and wallet allow, but I can get by with that, certainly. As for practice .357 ammo?  About 500 rounds of the Winchester White Box 110gr.  Little light, there.

So off I went to look for said White Box practice ammo via Ammoseek… and holy shit!  Are you kidding me?  $2.40 per round??????  Two dollars and forty cents every time I pull the trigger????  Looks like the lightweight 110gr stuff may become my backup “self-defense” load — and yeah I know, the little 110gr pill doesn’t do well in ballistic gelatin etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda because even though it absolutely screams out of the barrel, there’s not enough mass to penetrate deeply enough to satisfy the Death Brigade Cognoscenti.

Anyway (after I’d got my heart working again), after browsing Ye Olde Internette a little further I found an old friend:

Still spendy, but in the current climate, not excessively so.  [20,000-word rant deleted]

“Okay, Kim:  why the lightweight stuff (125gr) instead of the proven (and cheaper) 158gr?”

Because if I know anything about the K-frame S&W revolvers like the 65, it’s that you can beat them up badly shooting lots of heavy .357 mag ammo through them.  And I plan to shoot lots because I’m out of practice shooting a meaty revolver cartridge.

Yeah, I know:  I can practice with .38 Special (no need to buy more of that, no sir), but I follow the old adage:  practice with what you’ll shoot.  And while the 125gr bullets aren’t the same as 158gr bullets in terms of recoil and such, they still have that little .357 snap!, more so than an ordinary .38 Spec, even the 158gr ones.

Comments in the usual place, please.  I welcome them all, because it’s been a long time since I shot the .357 Mag, out of any gun.

Oh, and for the many (!!) kind people who have written to me with offers of gifts of components, I really have no plans for getting into reloading, but thankee most kindly for the offers all the same.

Gummint Meddling

Business, Gummint

Just as they’ve been doing with the gun industry and other such activities they don’t approve of, banks (aided and abetted by the usual assholes e.g. John Fuckface Kerry) have turned their fevered gaze towards the eeeevil energy companies.

Climate envoy John Kerry is prodding major U.S. banks privately to announce commitments for climate-friendly finance as part of the administration’s climate change policy rollout at President Joe Biden’s Earth Day summit next month.

…and of course because banks are in business purely at the behest of government, they will no doubt hasten to do what he tells them.

This Green bullshit has to stop, and I’m glad to see that some states are fighting back.

Fifteen state treasurers told Climate Envoy John Kerry to stop pressuring banks and financial institutions to drop the states because if they do then the states will drop them.  The states include Texas, Oklahoma, and coal-heavy West Virginia.

Don’t mess with Texas, assholes.

All For Nothing

Health

Via Insty, I see that the whole mask-erade of covering our lower faces in cloth/paper condoms was an exercise in futility:

New findings reported Tuesday in a University of Louisville study challenge what has been the prevailing belief that mask mandates are necessary to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. The study notes that “80% of US states mandated masks during the COVID-19 pandemic” and while “mandates induced greater mask compliance, [they] did not predict lower growth rates when community spread was low (minima) or high (maxima).” Among other things, the study—conducted using data from the CDC covering multiple seasons—reports that “mask mandates and use are not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 spread among US states.”

So… just another load of feelgood bollocks, giving governments, nanny corporations and similar filth the chance to boss us around and, yes, punish us for not doing what they tell us.

Next:  the TSA.

FOREIGNERS?

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Ordinarily, I’d be apoplectic about a bunch of foreigners buying a storied American company, especially one such as Colt, makers of fine (and a couple not-so-fine) guns since the nineteenth century.  I mean:

 

 

 

 

 

…and I think you get my drift.  A bunch of foreigners taking over this heritage?

Well, I was nearly about to have an RCOB Moment, when I further learned that said foreign company was actually the equally-storied CZ (Česká zbrojovka), whereupon I felt much better.

Nothing wrong with CZ (a.k.a. Brno) guns, either:

 

…and let’s not forget their rifles;  ooooh, their rifles:

 

Quite frankly, Colt Industries has got up my nose on many occasions (“Screw the civilian market”, “We’re not going to make the Python anymore… oops, okay, we’ll make them again, just not as well”), whereas CZ has seldom if ever perpetrated the same kind of nonsense.

I am cautiously optimistic about this takeover, but long experience has taught me that the road ahead may often not be what I’d like it to be.

But if CZ decides to move Colt manufacturing out of gun-hating Connecticut to their new facility in Arkansas while promising to keep or improve the quality thereof, I for one will applaud them.

Catalogue of Catastrophe

Bad News

Okay, we moved back into our apartment last Thursday, to be greeted by the following:

  1.  Wrong refrigerator installed (the old one had been left un-emptied and unplugged for two months… draw your own picture).  This one was fine, except it had no icemaker — this is not a First World problem, by the way, as will be seen later.
  2. Washing machine not working.
  3. No wifi/Internet.
  4. No toilet roll holders.
  5. Most kitchen- and dining room lights not working.
  6. Closet shelves not reinstalled.

Then after one day’s residence:

  1. Water started coming up from under the kitchen floor.
  2. Dishwasher motor burned out.
  3. Washing machine was fixed, except that the outlet hose fell out (badly connected by the rehabbers) and the laundry was flooded.  As you can imagine, by now I was getting really sick of water on my floors.
  4. Still no wifi.  (By the way, I am getting heartily sick of “Support” which suggests kindly that you can address your problems through their website when the core problem is that YOU HAVE NO FUCKING INTERNET CONNECTION.)

So as of this writing:

  1. The water coming up from under the kitchen floor was traced to TADA! the unconnected hose that should have led to the fridge’s icemaker, but which had been left uncapped.  Now it’s capped, and awaiting the arrival of a) a replacement fridge or b) an icemaker.  The floor is now dry.
  2. Maintenance reconnected (and fixed firmly in place) the washing machine’s outlet hose.  (Why did I not do so simple a job myself?  Because in terms of our lease, I’m not allowed to touch anything to do with laundry connections because they’re trained and do a perfect job.)
  3. Wifi is fixed and running, and TV (Netflix etc.) also works.  The problem had a two-second fix:  when the apartment was rebuilt, AT&T installed a new wall gateway device which I duly plugged in, not noticing that there was a tiny On/Off switch UNDERNEATH THE FUCKING UNIT which, silly me, I failed to notice because it was UNDERNEATH THE FUCKING UNIT.  So I feel only  a little foolish.
  4. Dishwasher still not fixed / replaced.
  5. Still no toilet roll holders.
  6. Kitchen- and dining room lights still not working.
  7. Closet shelves still not reinstalled.  (These last four because they’re not technically “emergency” maintenance issues, and must Wait Their Turn.  I think I’ll call and report that the dishwasher has sprung a leak.)

Bring on the Apocalypse, Simon.  I’m ready for it.  (Oh yeah, speaking of which, the guns have been retrieved from their sanctuary and installed in their home in the safe.  Now to clean them all… shit never stops, does it?)

Oh, and say welcome to my new bedside gun, a S&W Mod 65 .357 Mag which I secured for only a little too much money at the Fort Worth ELGS (Evil Loophole Gun Show):

So it’s not all Sturm und Drang.