Month: January 2023

Rifle Conundrum

Boomershoot

So having taken care of my carry gun problem, I turn now to the Boomershoot 2023 ULD situation.  Unfortunately, this leads me to another fork in the road.

But first, let me take care of the easy stuff.

Rifle type (bench vs. hunting):  Almost everyone said they had the “hunting” thing taken care of.  What they wanted was a bench-type rifle.  Check.

Caliber:  a vast majority of ticket holders wanted the thing in .308 Win, and almost nobody wanted .30-06 or 6.5 Creedmoor.  Also check.

Readers who recall my experiences with the Howa HCR 1500 from last year may recall that I loved the rifle.  (Cliff Notes:  more accurate than anyone (let alone I) could shoot it, outstanding trigger — just about the perfect rifle at that price point, or indeed at almost any price point.)

So just for the hell of it, I looked at doing the Howa again, and found this situation:

And here’s where the problem comes in.  The two rifles pictures have the same silky bolt action, the same astounding trigger, and the same hammer-forged heavy barrel — in other words, mechanically they are identical.

Where they differ, of course, is in the stock setup — the Hogue is free-floated but not “chassis” based, whereas the Oryx is a true bench rifle.  (As pictured, the Hogue weighs in at about 8lbs, whereas the Oryx weighs just over 10lbs — the latter being irrelevant as it’s being fired from a bench, and heavier weight is actually a positive attribute.)

That $270 price difference, however, sticks in my craw.  (Oh, and the Hogue is available immediately, but the Oryx is on backorder at five different outlets, where I’ve put myself on a notification list, just in case.)

What say you, O My Readers?

Silly Question

Drive Time, Music

I absolutely ruled in the late 1970s… the first few years, not so much because I was still figuring out which end was up and what all these things were to be used for.  If you know what I mean.  But by 1975… hubba hubba.

My old VW panel van wasn’t pimped up like the above, but it worked just fine all the same.  (I had a bumper sticker on the back which read “Go ahead and laugh — your daughter may be inside”.)  It looked like this, but was more of a bamboo color:

And then there was the music… even the bad ones are better than the crap we hear today.

I carried a Colt Combat Commander, my .22 pistol was a Beretta Model 75, my .22 rifle was a Winchester 63, and my hunting rifle was the old Israeli Mauser in 7.62mm NATO:

   ……

Simpler times, easier life.  I miss the 70s, a lot.

Fixed

Guy Stuff, The Gun Thing

Several people wrote to me — close to a dozen, in fact — all offering help in replacing the broken extractor from my battered but much-loved Inland M1 Carbine, and to all those people, please accept my sincerest thanks.

However, Longtime Reader Hank T. not only offered to replace the busted part, but to show me in person how simple a job it is — ha! — provided that one has the proper little G.I. tool which acts as a third hand.  As he lives less than an hour from my apartment, that meant not having to send parts to different parts of the Lower 48.  So yesterday I went over to his place, handed over said broken carbine, and within a half-hour the whole thing had been stripped, cleaned lubed and oh yes had received a new extractor.  It works!

I’m bending the truth a little here in describing the above as a half-hour job, because while the operation itself only  took about half an hour, I spent close to three hours in his workshop because he has all sorts of wonderful bangsticks in his possession.  And you know what that means, right?  I had to hold, and caress, and work the actions of said guns one by one because I’m a gun molester lover and the easiest way to make me purr is to hand me a beautiful gun with an exhortation to “just try that trigger”.

Drooling, lots of drooling, followed.  But clearly my orgasmic cries had disturbed Hank’s darling wife, who came to the workshop to see what all the fuss was about, and that added an hour onto the whole thing because a) she’s a darling and b) she has traveled to many of the places I have, so much experience-swapping took place.

I love to spend time with my Readers on a one-to-one basis, because while you’ve heard many of my stories and adventures on this back porch, I haven’t heard your stories and adventures, and I drink that stuff like I would a fine single malt.

And when I get a renewed gun out of it, as I did here, it’s all the finer.  I am the world’s worst gunsmith because I’m not mechanically-minded (rather the opposite), and I have no patience with inanimate objects — not your best qualities for a gunsmith, I think we can all agree — so I far prefer to hand my problem over to someone who knows what he’s doing and (as in this case) has the proper tools for the job.

So many thanks, Hank, and yes I absolutely want to spend some time at the range with you.  Let me know when you’re free.

Busted

Funny Stuff

I have always wondered why old people are always falling over and breaking hips and such.  This is because for most of my life, I’ve been quite nimble on my feet, and well-balanced to boot.

No more.

I have occasional (and mild) episodes of vertigo whereby I’ll change direction suddenly and stagger a little (no more) in my original direction.  Worse, though, is I seem to have lost my balance and therefore my ability to keep on my feet when tripping, and — given my now-extensive tonnage — I fall to the floor like a sack of rocks.

Which is what happened to me the night before last.  Coming out of a bathroom, I tripped and fell — HARD — onto our uncarpeted floor, landing squarely on my left hip.

Ouch. Fucking ouch.

New Wife, bless her little motherly soul, was quit distraught despite my telling her that I’ve suffered worse sports injuries (true).  She packed me off to bed with Brother Tylenol ES for company, and that was that.

Nothing broken, I’m happy to report, and not even any bruising, perhaps because I immediately packed some ice onto the area.  But sitting is painful, prolonged sitting is worse, and walking after having been seated for a while is worse still.

I feel much better today than I did yesterday, though, in that I haven’t had to take any analgesics for the pain.  I had, I think, a narrow escape.

But lemme tell ya:  this getting old thing isn’t for young people.

Captain Obvious Comes To Town

Crime

From John Lott’s guys:

Murders occur overwhelmingly in dense urban areas, many with tough anti-gun restrictions, and far less in suburban and rural areas where firearm ownership is more common, according to a national study of killings.
“This research shows that murders in the U.S. are highly concentrated in tiny areas in the U.S. and that they are becoming even more concentrated in recent years,” said the report from John R. Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center.

You don’t say.  Next thing you’ll be hearing is that the socio-demographics of these concentrated areas are poor, overwhelmingly Black, and that the guns used to commit the murders have been stolen.

Nah, couldn’t be.  Ask any big-city mayor.

The key to all of this is climate change / racism / white supremacy / thuggish police / all the above.

Except that we all know the truth.