Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
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Dreamer Jessica
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Inflation and luxuries.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
“Budget the luxuries first” (R.A. Heinlein)
Fifteen years ago, I remember spending $50 on a nice romantic dinner at a high-end restaurant and thinking: “That’s a lot of money, but the food was great and the girlfriend got good wine with the dinner.” Today, $50 might buy a budget-grade dinner without wine.
Five years ago, Academy Sport was using CCI Blazer 9mm ball as a loss leader at $4 per 50 rounds. How much is 9mm today — when you can find any for sale?
With inflation comes a slightly relaxed reaction to prices. I remember passing up on a nice, inexpensive .380 Webley revolver a decade ago because 38S&W ammunition was at $25 per box of 50. In view of the prices on the more common cartridges, $28 per box today seem like a positive bargain. The same is true for the .300 Whisper and 10mm Auto ammunition that’s readily available at Academy Sports. The Crufflers, people who collect odd and milsurp guns, are at an advantage today.
This box of PPU is why I love globalization. Ten years ago, we had the choice of Winchester white box and ancient corrosive British surplus 38/200 loads. Now Serbs load all kinds of historic calibers (such as 9×33 Kurtz and 6.5mm Carcano) and sell them to the US at reasonable prices. Ironic, considering that US Air Force bombed that same factory back in 1993.
Heirloom guns are a sunk cost. Only a small additional expense is necessary to turn them into useful defensive tool — 38SW is between 380ACP and 38Spl in effectiveness and Colt Police Positive is an accurate revolver with low recoil.
Fire off a cylinder or two to verify functionality and point of impact and you are set.
A box of knives just arrived from Nikolay. Since more things need to be cut than shot — whittling wood, cutting rope and cleaning apples come to mind — a good quality blade is always a welcome gift to friends or even to self.
Again, this one is a relative bargain at $55 — less than the price of two boxes of ammunition. If you are stocked up on lead and powder, perhaps more steel is in order.
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When inflation isn’t.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
In my previous post, I cited the rise of ammunition and restaurant meal prices as examples of inflation. That wasn’t the whole story. Inflation is what happens when the amount of money in circulation increases faster than the supply of goods and services. The price increases we are seeing are only partially explained by inflation.
The cost of ammunition is also affected by government efforts to artificially reduce availability. The same government efforts raised prices of guns, magazine and other defensive tools. At the same time, the popularity of those items increase because federal and state governments are increasing looking and acting as sociopathic predators and individuals reasonably try to secure defenses against them.
The cost of restaurant meals is affected by government efforts to mandate employee compensation, rules and regulations of every minute details of business, increasing the direct and indirect costs to restaurants and their suppliers. The situation is so bad that certain friends actually closed their US businesses and plan to move to countries with better business climate (which according to them includes Singapore and Taiwan).
So the rise in prices isn’t just inflation — though that’s bad enough in itself — but also the costs imposed by social engineering.
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A rifle for a lady
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Should a rifle designed for women be more than the same action in a plastic pink stock? Savage obviously thinks so. Quality hardwood stock, Accu-trigger and sporter profile barrel added up to a very handy and well balanced rifle. In the dry fire practice picture below, you can see that the raised comb provides a much better cheek weld for the diminutive shooter than the conventional straight stock would have.
The first Lady Hunter I had was chambered in .243Win and provided a useful punch with very light recoil. This rifle is chambered in .223Rem and ought to kick even less. The 15 year old girl in this photo normally shoots left-handed, so her right-handed form isn’t perfect…but she still hits small targets are ridiculously long ranges, so I shouldn’t complain about the technique.
The only down side I would to this rifle is that the magazine is a single feed design, so has to be removed for re-loading. On the plus side, it is easily removable and another magazine can be swapped into place very quickly. Given that it is a hunting rifle and not a line infantry gun, I shouldn’t consider that a disadvantage, but old habits die hard.
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Serbu 50BMG rifle
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
For an upcoming magazine article.
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Getting around .223 shortages.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
So our foes succeeded in making rifle ammunition too rare to use for recreational shooting. Most people are now shooting only to zero their new guns, to function test and to get familiar with the manual of arms. The rest of the ammo is reserved for our favorite varmints. But regular practice is important, so consider two workarounds.
The first is a rimfire conversion kit. Fairly cheap, doesn’t require a new rifle. These have been around since the 1960s but the more recent designs are rather more reliable.
The magazine supplied is interchangeable with the standard Black Dog Machine mag supplied with SU22 and Sig522. The kit comes with a bolt hold-open kit. Swapping the parts takes less than a minute.
This is how it looks installed.
Now for the down side: limited accuracy. 22LR projectiles are just a tiny bit undersized for .223 bore size. The kit also has over an inch of freebore, and once the bullet finally contacts rifling it gets over-stabilized. Ideal rifling for 40gr bullet is about 1:16 and slower than that for 30gr. AR15 barrels range from 1:12 to 1:7, with most towards the fast end of that range. 60gr Aguila SSS actually shoot more accurately, but might not cycle the action. Short case also causes some high pressure gas escape from the ejection port.
Accuracy is perfectly acceptable for 25 yard rapid fire practice — around 3″. Point of impact is lower than .223 — and that is the other inconvenience with conversion kits is the need to adjust sights when switching calibers. So this works great for getting used to your rifle manual of arms, less well for precision marksmanship. For accuracy, a dedicated rimfire upper would do better.
This shoots 2″ or better groups at 100 yards, and can be fitted with its own sights.
Correct twist rate and bore diameter coupled with minimal freebore add up to a more accurate upper. The only down side is the higher cost than the conversion kit, but that would be quickly compensated by the difference in ammunition cost.
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“Captain Alatriste”
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
I watched the movie last year. Over the last week, I read the first five books. Between the quality writing and the apparently well done translations, I really enjoyed them. The plot-wrangling takes a second place to the texture and the flavor of the settings.
The movie put faces on the characters. The book clarified the actual events for me. Put together, they added up to a very enjoyable experience.
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Somebody doesn’t like my posters.
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Fast-forward this video to about 14:05 mark to hear an anti complain about this image of Lori.
They aren’t fond of Chelsie, either.
The young woman in the photo was 16 at the time.
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Multi-caliber
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
For the upcoming article in Concealed Carry magazine about .22 adapters and rimfire clones of centerfire guns. This Iver Johnson set has .22 for practice, 9mm for competitions and 45ACP for carry.
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After a hard day’s work
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
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Knife and net
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
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Insulting the intelligence of women
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Just how stupid does he think women are? And have you ever wondered why Joe is so concerned about the safety of rapists? False positive on forcible rape almost never happen, while getting raped (and often murdered in the bargain for lack of shooting back) does happen. Does Joe “follow people around” and thinks that someone might shoot him for stalking?
(PS: The model would like me to point out that she makes no political statement of her own, that being counter to her employer’s policy.)
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Ava and Flashbang
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Kathy “Cornered Cat” Jackson introduced me to Looper holsters at SHOT show and I got several of them in the mail recently. In use photos will follow soon.
Unisex Ava with Glock 23
Feminine bra-mounted Flashbang with Keltec PF9.
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Smith & Wesson M&P15-22
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
In response to my recent post about .22 conversion kits and upper, someone mentioned this carbine. It’s a dedicated .22 that cannot accept centerfire upper, but that also means it’s optimized for the rimfire cartridge. I don’t own one yet but have shot 15-22s owned by friends and was very impressed with balance, reliability and accuracy.
Late this week, I will post about various magazines and accessories for it. In the meantime, just a picture for eye candy.
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A Webley story
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Linoge put up an overview of a .38 Webley revolver which actually improved on the official Webley book in terms of useful info.
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Colorful Keltecs
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Tired of carrying a Tin Lizzie Black P32 or P3AT? You can get grip frames in other colors for both.
You would need punches to effect the replacement.
The grip frame comes with a replacement hammer, but the rest of the parts come from your original gun.
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.22 conversion kit for Ruger LC9
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Twisted Industries now makes an LC9 conversion kit.
Same milled magazines as the PF9 and P11 kits.
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White hat
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
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Various magazines for M&P15-22
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
The standard M&P 15-22 comes with very reliable 25rd magazines. They have only one down side, the open construction to facilitate loading. They are also out currently of stock with most vendors. Two alternatives both raise capacity and improve sealing.
Plinker Tactical makes a 35rd magazine in several colors to match the M&P15-22 finish options.
It’s very well sealed. Too long for easy shooting from the bench, it’s designed primarily for 3-gun training and other high-speed exercises.
Internally, it’s a double-stack design with a strong spring. To make loading more comfortable, a special device is available from P.T. that fits in the back of the magazine over the hold-open latch.
The other option is Black Dog Machine50rd drum. It’s fairly well sealed and easy to load. The long feed tower ensures precise positioning of the feed lips.
The scallops on the back are finger-grooves for de-tensioning the spring during loading. I found this drum design to be very reliable and dirt-resistant. These don’t fit standard AR15 mag pouches, but BDM offers Molle drum pouches that work well.
Promag also makes a 32rd magazine similar to the M&P design but I do not have one on hand for the comparison.
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Getting a handle on the situation
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
Erin Palette’s tricked out Sub2000 as of November 2012. It had everything that a 9mm carbine needs to be useful except one thing. It lacked an extended charging handle.
Sub2000 has a fairly stiff recoil spring. It’s location and the short charging handle make racking the bolt a bit awkward for me. Enter the solution.
The replacement handle from Twisted industries (scroll down to see it) allows a much better grip on the bolt handle. It still locks into the bolt lock notch, and reduces the pressure on the fingers to make loading and unloading a Sub2000 much easier. I highly recommend this item! Erin does too.
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