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Comparison

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Following my post about the Brno ZKM-611, Reader JohnF asks in an email:  “The 611 is a non-starter because it’s so expensive.  If you like CZ’s semi-auto rimfire rifles so much, why not just go for the newer 512 model?”  (I should add, for those who don’t know, that CZ eliminated the “Brno” brand, but the CZ/Brno labels are essentially the same gun, e.g. Brno 602 = CZ 550 Safari.)

Good question.  Here’s a look back at the 611, followed by the 512 (both in .22 WinMag):

 

Fact is, if I were looking to buy a semi-auto .22 WinMag rifle, I’d give the CZ 512 a long, hard look simply because it’s a CZ.  But if I wanted to add a beautiful  rifle to my meager collection, gimme the Brno any day of the week.  Is the 611 hundreds of dollars better  than its successor?  Nope, but that’s not the question.

And the 611 is a takedown rifle, whereas the 512 isn’t.  That feature also points to the ZKM-611 as the better choice.

Digression:

I should also point out that new  semi-auto .22 WinMag rifles other than the CZ 512 are like hen’s teeth, simply because Ruger stopped making their 10/22M line, the idiots.  Apparently they claimed unsolvable feeding issues for the decision, but I never had that problem, not once.  I wish I’d never sold mine.

As far as I can see, the only other manufacturer currently making a .22 WinMag semi-auto rifle is Savage, with their A22 Magnum.  Predictably, being Savage, it’s pig-ugly:

But on the other hand, the A22 features Savage’s excellent Accu-Trigger, so it should be a worthy alternative to the CZ 512.  (I’ve never fired the A22 before, so I can’t say.)  Savage also claims to have fixed the .22 WinMag’s alleged feeding problem by making it a delayed blowback action.  Typically, the A22 sells for just over $400 as I write this, compared to the CZ 512’s $500+ (although it’s discounted by $100 at Cabela’s).

And here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two.  The CZ 512 wins, hands down, in just about every department.  Clearly, the $100 premium is worth it.

Now where did I put that piggy bank?

Social Dictionary

Good Stuff, Snowflakes

Ambrose Bierce would heartily approve of this iteration of his own Devil’s Dictionary.  A sample:

* “OK, Boomer” – popular, reflexive and mentally-flabby retort of retarded children who cannot formulate a proper or logical response to an argument, question or premise. A sign of belonging to a group known collectively as “Millennials” whose main attributes include oversized thumbs, limited intelligence, hysteria, extensive knowledge of modern technology but inability to use a rotary phone, can opener or rake, hair-trigger cry reflex, navel gazing, overly-high self-value acquired through a program of low expectations, and a belief that everyone gives a flying fuck about what they’re eating at any given moment.

Much more goodness at the first link above.  (Oh, and if you don’t have a copy of Bierce’s Dictionary, hie thee to the second  link and remedy that unpardonable omission immediately.  For only 99c on Kindle… please.)

About Hacks

Bad News

One of the real pleasures I had while living at Free Market Towers a couple of years back was going out to the mailbox very early in the morning, retrieving the fresh edition of the Daily Telegraph, then reading the thing cover to cover while drinking my morning coffee, trying to finish it before the Free Markets woke up for breakfast.

If we had a decent daily newspaper Over Here, I’d subscribe to its print version in a heartbeat, but of course we don’t:  they’re all total shit, and of course infested with socialist hacks.

This isn’t, by the way, the modern-day meaning of the word, where “hacking” means breaking into someone else’s computer coding program, and “hacks” mean “shortcuts” or “gimmicks”.

In The Oldie days (explanation to follow), the word “hack” usually meant “journalist” — more specifically, a bad  journalist.  And in perusing the pages of a magazine I’d never heard of before (thankee, BritReader Jeff W), I found a lovely article about journalism, and journalists.

Of course, nowadays journalists are despised, and mostly deservedly so, for being hacks:  opinionated assholes who reveal their ignorance with every sentence they write (e.g. when talking about guns), and moreover, who write badly, unsupervised by editors who used to be a moderating influence, but who are now best described as “last week’s journalists” — i.e. no better than the journalists they’re supposed to be supervising.

But it wasn’t always like that.  Here’s an excerpt from the article I linked above:

It’s easy to maintain a simplistic stance if you never leave your desk. Google will reaffirm what you already know – or think you know. However if you take the time and trouble to go out and meet the people who are living through the things you’re reporting, and ask them what they think, you’ll soon find your opinions are tempered by reality. Real life is complex and contradictory. Successful columnists are often dogmatists, but good reporters are pragmatists. Regular contact with the folk they write about has taught them that life, and news, is rarely black and white.

It’s also easy to forget that journalists once had to follow an apprenticeship path before they could land a job with a prestigious — or at least popular — newspaper or magazine, that path being:  learning how to write proper journalese and prose in a small-town newspaper, and simple things such as interviewing subjects, collecting background material and in short, learning about the topics before committing them to print — all before graduating to a larger, or national publication.

It’s also worth remembering that this path seldom if ever required a university degree which, I think, stopped journalists back then from becoming part of the story:  as perpetual outsiders to the system they were reporting about, their job was to be skeptical about the topic — indeed, learning about the topic meant looking at it from all sides so that they could see through the spin being put on it by the interviewees.

Contrast that with today’s J-school poseurs, who graduate thinking that they’re qualified to write about everything, whereas in fact they’re unqualified to write about anything.  Nowadays, of course, they just parrot the spin because they literally don’t know any better.

Read the entire article:  like all good pieces of writing, it will educate you about the topic.  It will also increase your loathing for today’s so-called journalists, if that’s indeed possible.

And en passant, read a few more articles in The Oldie.  It’ll be worth your time.

Resurrections

Drive Time

The writers at Road & Track  magazine talk about cars they’d like to see reincarnated.

Most of them get a shrug of the shoulders and a “meh” from me, except for two;  firstly, the Jag XJ220:

Probably the most outrageous Jag ever built, it was designed as a race car, and was the fastest production car when it was launched (217 mph — not even shabby by today’s standards).  But from all accounts, it was an atrocious road car:  as wide as most British streets, a turning circle like a battleship, and driver visibility that made the Lambo Countach look like a convertible by comparison.  Seriously, though… I saw one last time I was over in Britishland, and it’s even more dramatic than its picture.

Of course, I’ve never actually driven an XJ220;  but I have driven another car on R&T ‘s wish list:  the Alfa Romeo GTV/6.

Just looking  at it makes my senses tingle.  I would take a new one of these now, even as unsophisticated as it would be compared to modern cars.  (I don’t need about 90% of the modern geegaws that infest today’s cars anyway.)

And that said, the only car on the list I would never  want to see again is the foul Pontiac Fiero — to this day, the only car I’ve ever taken for a test drive, and handed back to the salesman halfway through, saying, “I’ve had enough.”  What a POS — especially after having driven the GTV/6 but a short time earlier.  Great concept, horrible execution.

As I said, the rest don’t thrill me much — but feel free to disagree with me in Comments.

Too Late For That

Politics

From a Democrat:

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) is leaving the party and becoming a Republican over the issue of impeachment, which he has long been opposed to.
Van Drew told CNN earlier this month that Democrats should “be careful what [they] wish for” because impeachment “is tearing the nation apart.”

Hate to tell you this, Jeff old cock, but your ex-buddies started the tearing a long time before impeachment was even mentioned.  Think back to labeling amiable people such as G.W. Bush and even Mitt Romney as “Hitler” and “fascist” — and not once being rebuked by party leadership for doing so — and I think you’ll see who started all this, and when.

Just don’t be surprised if in November, your newly-adopted party’s leader wins 45 states and you lose your seat.  (Think:  Stalin’s opinion of Trotsky, and you’ll get an idea of your party’s reaction.  Remember:  Marxists always reserve their greatest hatred for people whom they call “counter-revolutionaries”, i.e. party members who dare to go against the Party.)