Month: June 2022

And Now, The ULD Rifles

Boomershoot

Looks as though I’m going to have to learn how to shoot the 6.5 Creedmoor, based on the majority of comments… [grumble, grumble]

Okay, time to look at the rifles.  All cost in the region of $850 – $1,700 except where noted, and the prices are approximate street (ATOW), not MSRP.  There are two categories:  those with 20″ barrels, and those with 24-26″ barrels.  The pics are not to scale, obviously.  Let’s start with the longer-barreled rifles:

Howa 1500 Bravo ($1,000)

My affection for this rifle is based on its performance at BoomerShoot 2022.  The 24″ barrel isn’t heavy, but the extra inches will add, I think, a lot more accuracy at distance.  And the trigger is excellent, as good as any I’ve ever fired on a rifle.

Savage 110 Elite Precision ($1,600)

I like the Savage 110 line, and this one comes with a 26″ barrel and the excellent Accu-Trigger.  I have to say that Savage’s legacy in long-distance shooting does count.

Browning X-Bolt Max Long Range ($1,300)

I’d have no problems at all shooting this Browning (which also has a 26″ barrel), and it has a track record of being wonderfully accurate at pretty much any distance.  All X-Bolt rifles, both the ones I’ve shot and those belonging to friends, have good triggers.

Sako S20 Precision ($1,700)

Yeah, it’s a Sako.  Finnish precision in a gorgeous-looking rifle, and a 24″ barrel.

Now for the heavy-barreled 20″ rifles.

Bergara B14 HMR ($950)

I’ve never fired a Bergara before, but it comes highly recommended by several people known to me, whose opinions I respect.  I hate the vomit-colored stock, of course, but then again it’s not my rifle.

Ruger American Hunter ($850)

I like this rifle a lot, and the muzzle brake — while somewhat antisocial on the line — attenuates the recoil considerably.  The trigger is adjustable down to 2oz (!) but I’ll probably stop at 4-5oz, if I adjust it at all.

Tikka T3X Compact Tactical ($1,100)

I haven’t fired this particular rifle at all, but I’ve fired several Tikkas before, and been impressed with all of them.  I’m expecting this one’s trigger to be at least as good, or better than those, so it’s not that much of a leap into the unknown.

The above are the rifles on the shortlist, so far.

“But Kim,”  I hear the cry, “what about your favorite, the CZ?”

Well, CZ have stopped making the excellent 557 Varmint line, and replaced it with the new 600.  Except that all the 600s are under a factory recall, which puts a wrinkle in my thingy.

CZ 600 Range ($1,000)

I don’t mind the looks of this rifle, and at least it has a wooden (albeit laminate) stock.  This will make it heavier than the others, but weight in a bench rifle is a Good Thing.  A negative for me is that it’s not being offered with a set trigger, which was always a strong point of the CZ rifles.  If CZ can straighten out its recall issue(s) in time, I will certainly add this one to the list, though.

Regardless of the rifle chosen, I intend to mount the excellent Meopta Optika6 3-18×50 4C FFP ($800) because after having fired several other brands, I always seem to come back to this company’s offerings.

All comments on the rifle list are, of course, welcome;  but any one of them would be a good choice.

Now, because of the in-stock supply issues, I’m probably going to open the entries some time in the early fall so that I can guarantee having the rifle in hand for sighting-in by December 2023 at the latest (so that if I get a dud, I can return it and get something else). As always, the amount of money from ticket sales will determine the rifle/scope combination, with the balance going towards subsidizing my trip to BoomerShoot.  The ticket price will remain at $25 unless circumstances (Bidenflation coff coff ) change dramatically.

So watch this space…

Elitism

Education

Combat Controller sends me this little snippet:

Graduates from the world’s top universities will be able to apply to come to the UK under a new visa scheme.

The government says the “high-potential individual” route will attract the “brightest and best” early in their careers. The scheme will be available to alumni of the top non-UK universities who have graduated in the past five years. Graduates will be eligible regardless of where they were born, and will not need a job offer in order to apply.

Successful applicants will be given a work visa lasting two years if they hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree, and three years if they hold a PhD. They will then be able to switch to other long-term employment visas if they meet certain requirements. There will be no cap on the number of eligible graduates.

A quick perusal of the list shows that Hillsdale College is not included, which gives you an idea of which ones are.

Regardless, I think it’s a good idea (as does CC) to target people who have worked hard and achieved something, as opposed to simply taking in the dregs of the world willy-nilly, as the Brits (and we) do.

Speaking of dregs, there are of course complaints from the Usual Suspects, who want to know why no Asian or African universities were included on the list.

Because they’re all shit universities, is why.

What He Said

Culture, Old Fartism

…on the topic of manners.

What do bad manners have to do with the end of imperialism, you might well ask: in a nutshell, nothing and everything. Moral authority disappeared with the empire, just as its successor, socialism, undermined the authority of the family and the pursuit of excellence. The media suddenly presented itself as a tribune of the people, sympathetic to the sensitivities of the masses, with the rich always ruthless and the poor always perfect, the children always innocent and trusting, unless they were white, then they were crazed and feral.

All good stuff, and more besides.

Three Oldies

3 Inexplicable Things, Gratuitous Chick Pics

…that I inexplicably still find sexy.  I know I know, they are long past their “Use By” date, but still…

Cyndi Lauper (75)

I just think she’d be great fun.

Marsha Blackburn (70)

Like so many beautiful women in this country, she’s a native of Laurel, MS.

Blythe Danner (79)

Always loved her, and would love to meet her in person, as long as she didn’t bring her dreadful daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) along.

Never Again

Gummint, Mocking Furriners, Third World, Travels

It is only when one leaves America does the shattering truth emerge that as much as we hate U.S. bureaucracy and deplore its inefficiency and tortoise-like attitude, just one encounter with the Third World has us weeping with relief when all we have to do, say, is renew a driver’s license down at the local DMV.

So New Wife and I decided to deplete our savings and try to repeat our earlier, abortive attempt to visit her #1 Son and family (grandchildren!!!) in Sydney, Australia.  (The first trip, of course, was nuked by Covid and the OzGov’s pathetic overreaction thereto.  That only cost us $1,500 for NW’s air ticket.)

Of course, even without Covid, Straya throws all sorts of shit at anyone who might want to spend some tourist dollars to visit their poxy country (pop. 25,000) — you have to apply for a visitor’s visa (from a list of about 50 different categories) before you can even get onto an airliner.  Cost of said application:  ~$340 per person.  However, the Dept. of Home Affairs boasts, it only takes as little as 36 hours for it to be approved (except where otherwise indicated by ).  Of course, using Covid as an excuse, the time was not 36 hours, oh no:  New Wife applied in February of this year, and it arrived promptly on May 15;  I applied for mine on April 1, and ATOW it still hadn’t arrived.

So I wasn’t able to get on the plane with her last Friday evening, but I was told that if I changed my flight to Sunday evening, they would help me take care of my little visa problem.

Which is where the (further) problems began.  I wasn’t able to change my flight because Expedia can’t do anything if the departure time is less than 10 hours away (on Friday evening, it was about two hours away by the time I’d got home).  No problem, thinks I, I’ll just go to Qantas’s website and change it there.  Except that Qantas must have used the same guy to build their website as homeaffairs.gov.au — there is no way to “manage” your booking — nowhere to enter your ticket number or reservation number, nada.

Last night I discovered the following:  because I hadn’t been able to change my flight, Qantas was going to take the whole fare and give me a “coupon” for $500 to use for my next flight;  additional expense to fly out on Sunday night: $800.

Even worse was my visa experience.  I could actually get an ETA visa (don’t ask) approved in about 20 minutes, except for a couple of teeny-weeny little problems:  the Qantas mobile app downloaded onto my phone, but couldn’t open;  and the visa application cost was going to be another $340, because this was a new visa application fee, you see, and no they couldn’t (okay wouldn’t) credit me for the failed visa application because they are two different visas.

Oh, and did I mention that the Sunday flight was overbooked anyway?

The hell with that.  I would rather take that $1,100-odd and pay for the grandkids to come and visit me.

Hence the title of this post.  Ain’t gonna happen, never, no way, uh-uh am I going to try to visit Australia ever in the future.  It’s just too much frigging hassle, and expensive, to visit a place that was never high on my Wannagothere List in the first place.

It’s not like I don’t have other options;  here’s one just arrived in my Inbox last night:

Cheap Flights: Dallas to London $566-$589 r/t

Don’t need a visa, either.  Buy a ticket, arrive at the airport, fly eight (not seventeen!) hours, and it’s tea and sausage rolls at Greggs for brekkie the next morning.

Other destinations ditto, with local cuisine variations.

Too bad, for everyone.

I think I’ll go to the range later today and get some AK-47 practice.  That’s one thing I can do that I’d never be able to do Down Under.