Month: January 2020

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Okay, it’s Monday ergo  time to get back to work and solve all those problems you postponed last week:

So to distract you from help you with your calculations, a few chuckles:

And seeing as the schools will all have started this week:

Followed by some wisdom from our elders:

And for those winter coughs and sniffles:

And speaking of being mentally fucked up:

So let’s wrap this up with something to erase that last picture from your brains, i.e. a little bit of Marina Sirtis:

Now get out of that chair and get to work.

Torture Test

Gun/Ammo Tests, The Gun Thing

This post is appearing early in the morning so that if any of you are off to the range later, you can make the necessary preparations.

A while back I was reading about the practice method known as “spot shooting”, something I’ve been doing forever, but didn’t know it had acquired a name.  Put simply, it’s a routine whereby you fill a blank target sheet with small circles, then shoot one (and only one) shot per circle in the shortest possible time.  Here’s how to do it.

The next time you go to the range for some .22 practice, get one of the cheap full-sized silhouette paper targets (or, if you’re one of the people who buys the things in bulk, then takes a few to each range visit, keep one aside after your regular practice session).  Then affix a hundred small circle targets onto the paper, spaced about two inches (2″) apart — rows are best so you can see where you are — then load up the necessary numbers of mags, and get going.  Here are two examples of the target spots, the Birchwood Casey orange dot and the Shoot-N-C type:

These are the two more expensive ways to practice this drill, by the way;  real  Cheap Bastards (e.g. Kim) will go to a discount store or online and buy rolls of the little price tags such as made by ChromaLabel, which have the advantage of being multicolored, available in 1″, 3/4″, 1/2″ or even smaller sizes, and they typically cost less than a penny per spot.

The advantage of this is that it’s a really cheap method of practice, and it is cruelly unforgiving:  there’s no “9-ring” or similar types of escape routes — just a small circle which either has a bullet-hole in it, or not.  It is also unbelievably tiring, mentally.  People often boast of how they blast off many hundreds of rounds at a single practice session, but a hundred in a single practice routine?  Be my guest:  if you’ve never done it before, it’s a whole lot tougher than it looks.

At the end of the routine, you score yourself out of 100, and anything less than 100% represents failure (there is no participation trophy in precision shooting).  When / if you do manage to get 100% consistently (good luck with that), then start timing yourself (or have a range buddy time you) and try to get that same 100% in less and less time.  (It doesn’t need to be stopwatch-perfect, especially the first few times you do it.)

And by the way:  if you’ve never done this before, start with larger dots (1″), and then gradually work your way down to the smaller ones when / if you master that size (uh huh).  For my .22 rifles, I shoot 1″ spots at 25 yards unscoped, and 3/4″ spots scoped;  for a handgun, it’s 1″ or 3/4″ spots at ten yards.

Here’s what this wonderful practice routine teaches you:

  • Patience.  If you lose patience, you will start missing the target.  It’s that simple.
  • Target re-acquisition.  How to move on and aim at the next dot, make sure your aim is true, then fire and move on… one hundred times.
  • Making sure your sight picture is perfect.  No matter how well you think you know your gun, after about the tenth shot, you will know exactly — exactly — what sight picture will score a hit.  Now do it again, ninety times in a row.

About six months ago I got my first-ever 100, with a Browning Buck Mark borrowed from Daughter, shooting the 3/4″ dots at 10 yards.  I felt like doing a victory lap around the range, or at least a Happy Dance, but apparently jumping around like a lunatic while firing bullets into the ceiling is not Acceptable Range Behavior, for some reason.

By the way, this is also a great drill when practicing with your carry piece — only it gets a little expensive even if you’re reloading.  I normally end my session with just one or two mags’ worth of dots (say fifteen rounds of .45 ACP or twenty-five rounds of 9mm), also at ten yards.  I don’t take too much time either:  I shoot what I call “rapid deliberate”, which is about 1.5 seconds per shot.  And if you think this is too easy, toughen up your scoring criteria:  half a bullet circumference or more in the dot counts as a hit, less than half is a miss.  I’ve never yet hit every dot with my carry pieces, but I’ve come damn close.

All this shooting talk is making my finger itch.  If you’ll excuse me… I think I need to go load up my range bag.

Friday Night Movies

Friday Feature, Movies

I seldom watch movies these days — “these days” being the last quarter-century — that for me to compile a list of “Best Movies Of Recent Times” would be a hopeless proposition.

However, Breitbart’s John Nolte is a movie buff, and as I generally agree with his opinions about those few movies I have  seen, it’s worth pointing to his “Best 53 Movies” lists:

I don’t agree with his choice for #1 — fine movie though it was — but it’s a good list nevertheless.

The only glaring omission I could see (inexplicably, it didn’t even make Nolte’s list of finalists) was 2009’s wonderful Taking Chance, in which Kevin Bacon (finally) gave a really good performance.

Have at it — and if (like me) you haven’t seen many of Nolte’s 53 movies, it should give you a decent reference list to look up on the various streaming channels.

News Roundup

Africa, Entertainment, Funny Stuff, Legal Stuff, Marxists

All the news that’s fit only for a one-liner response.

1) Iran puts $80-million bounty on Donald Trump;  George Lopez offers to have it done for $40 million — and for $20 million, I can get someone to take out George Lopez.  (See how that works?)

2) Ilhan Omar claims Trump will start war to protect his hotels’ income — and for another $10 million, I can include this traitorous African bitch in the deal.  (Okay, I’ll stop this thread now or we’ll be here all day.)

3) Showbiz phonies upset at being mocked by a chubby Brit — and a nation yawns.  And speaking of phonies:

4) Prince Ginger and Duchess Slutwife quit the Royalty junket — and the world (outside Britishland) yawns.

5) (South) Africa sinks — sic semper Africani.  (Africa Wins Again, expressed in classical terms.)

6) CNN gets its pee-pee whacked for ruining an innocent kid’s life — I hope the (confidential) settlement amount is a jillion bucks, not so much for spite but to make all the other media asshole organizations a little more circumspect in the future.

7) Girl wonder* AOC claims that everybody hates her — nah;  she’s the most despised / mocked / ignored… maybe — but hated?  Not worth the effort.  Now, as for Hillary Bitch Clinton…

8) Economy continues to grow — Paul Krugman hardest hit.  And now, a word from my doctor:

*”wonder” as in, “I wonder how anyone could be that ignorant and stupid?”