A Milestone

Akismet counted my 1,000th spam comment this morning.
The dubious honor of being the 1,000th spammer belongs to 200.63.42.136. Evidently times are tough in Panama, as every single one of the nine domains that were posted (and blocked by Akismet) in the spam were non-functional.
You’d think that the spammer would check to make sure their websites were operating before they sent out gazillions of spam comments.
The consolation prize goes out to 200.63.42.141, also from Panama. This individual has repeatedly bombarded my blog with spam for several days now (at least as far as I can tell — normally Akismet silently discards spam on posts >1 month old, but I disabled that feature so I could find out what, exactly, was the 1,000th spam), with a new attempt every hour or so. The fact that none of the posts actually make it to any live page is not any deterrent.
Out of the 1,000 spams I’ve had posted here, exactly two have made it through the filters. These were reported to Akismet within an hour or two, and didn’t make it through the filter again. Many thanks to Akismet — without them, the blog community would be infested with spam.

Why?

I can understand why people in positions of power might want to disarm those who they lord over, lest the less powerful people revolt.
I can understand why victims of violent crime might think it a good thing to disarm everyone except the police and military, so they (and others) don’t get victimized again.
I can understand people who genuinely believe that “guns = violence”, and think that by lessening the number of guns, they can lessen violence.
I certainly disagree with such positions, but I can understand why someone might hold them.
What I don’t understand are people like the Brady Campaign and the VPC.
It’s not the money, as most of it seems to go toward various lobbying efforts. It’s not the fame, as they’re rarely mentioned in publications, and most people don’t seem to really care as much about them as they do about some bimbo from Hollywood. Even if they succeed, they’re not personally going to be in a position of power over others. It’s not the pursuit of truth and justice, as they intentionally make misleading claims. (When’s the last time a .50 BMG rifle shot down a commercial airliner? How often do criminals use AR-15s to commit crimes, rather than cheap, disposable, often stolen handguns? How often do criminals buy their guns over-the-counter at gun shops or gun shows?)
Why do they do it? What’s in it for them? What motivates them to wake up every morning, go into work, and try to ban guns? Assuming they succeeded and all guns were banned, what then? What would they do?
Coming from my side, I’m working to defend a right that’s rooted deep in history, a safe, fun recreational activity, a means to defend myself and my family, and, if the need is dire, to defend against tyranny. I have a day job (two, in fact, in addition to being a full-time student), and don’t work to protect my rights full-time. If the pro-gun side succeeded in their goals (not that anyone can succeed in defending a right, but let’s just assume one could for the sake of the exercise), my life would change very little. I might have a celebratory range day and maybe buy a new gun, but otherwise nothing major would change.
At the risk of tooting my own horn, I don’t consider myself to be an unintelligent man, but I honestly can’t see why they do it.

Saturday’s shooty goodness, in photos

On Saturday, several friends of mine from the physics and astronomy departments decided to go out to the range for some shooty goodness — the last few weeks have been rather busy and ultimately rather trying of our collective sanity.
As seems to be normal for the group, we invited a friend (“T” — in the interest of privacy, I’ll refer to people by their initial) and his fianc?e (“S”), neither of whom had been shooting before. S is a rather jumpy person, and often gets moderately alarmed at new things. She was a little uncomfortable with the idea of going to the range, but several of our mutual friends (including “R”, a female who’s been shooting with our group for some time, and has been integral in getting other women shooters to come to the range) got her to agree to come. In the event that she didn’t enjoy shooting, she brought some work to do in the car as a “plan B”. T had wanted to come with for some time, and so needed no encouragement.
As is our custom, we arrived at the Tucson Rifle Club, paid our dues to the rangemaster (a man with…er…substantial eyebrows), and set up our targets. We had covered range etiquette safety earlier in the day. Even though it was a glorious day, the winds were whipping from left-to-right across the range, which resulted in the paper targets blowing off the wood-and-cardboard frames, and the frames themselves blowing over:

(Click on any of the photos to enlarge.)
Continue reading “Saturday’s shooty goodness, in photos”

Followup: Reduced-recoil ammo works

Just got back from the shooty goodness this afternoon (pics and a write-up to come later).
Remington’s marketing department isn’t lying: reduced recoil 12ga shotshells (both slugs and 00 buckshot) are much more pleasant to shoot.
Sure, full-power loads are great, but for recreational, closer-range shooting, the reduced-recoil rounds make it much more fun. Now, if only they were less expensive…

Midway Order

I’m going to be putting in an order for some AR magazines from Midway in the next week, and was wondering if anyone else local in Tucson wanted to get in on a group order.
As a C&R holder, I get dealer pricing from Midway, so you can save a goodly amount of money on high-margin things like optics. Ammo and other low-margin stuff doesn’t usually get much savings at all.
I don’t really charge a markup, but if you want to buy me a beer or throw in a box of ammo as a tip, I won’t object. 🙂
If you’re interested, send me an email.

Tucson Shooty Goodness

For any readers in the Tucson area, myself and several other folks from the physics and astronomy departments will be at the Tucson Rifle Club on Saturday probably from about 1pm-5pm. Afterwards, we’ll probably retire back to a pizzeria near the university for tasty foodage.
If you want to meet us at the range, feel free to stop by. You’ll likely recognize us due to our extreme paleness.
If you want more details, send me an email.
(To those not in the area, there will be pictures posted.)

Jesus likes gunpowder?

Today I discovered that Hodgdon Powder Company, manufacturer of Hodgdon, IMR, and Winchester powders, includes a blurb on their main page saying that their “purpose is to bring credit to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Evidently Jesus likes gunpowder. That’s sort of neat.
Personally, I’m a bit put-off by a major powder manufacturer openly proclaiming their religious beliefs on their main website. I’m a very private person, and I consider religious beliefs to be a very personal topic, sort of like one’s finances, sex life, etc. It’s something one might discuss in the company of good friends on certain occasions, but not with the world at large.
On a somewhat related note, I noticed that most (all?) IMR powders are made in Canada and packaged in the US. Hodgdon-brand powders are made in Australia and packaged in the US. I’m not sure about Winchester ones. Last time I checked, neither Australia nor Canada are terribly gun-friendly nations (compared to the US, at least). As such, I’m curious why major powder-manufacturing operations are being run from these countries…particularly Australia, as it’s a very long way away, and so shipping costs would be a not-insignificant factor.
One would think that the US, a major producer of arms and ammunition for the domestic and international market, would have more powder-manufacturing plants in the US.

Need bullets? Get them from River Valley Ordnance Works.

I’m not a fanboy, and so don’t usually give unsolicited endorsements of commercial vendors, but in this particular case I’m going to make an exception: for plinking-at-the-range bullets, it’s hard to beat the folks at River Valley Ordnance Works.
I was recently looking for some .223 Rem. bullets for plinking. Price, not high accuracy, was the main concern. All I could find with my regular sources (Midway, some local shops, etc.) was new-production bullets, which are reasonably priced, but still more expensive than I’d like.
A year or two ago, I stumbled across the RVOW site, was seriously tempted by their USGI surplus bullets and cases, but was short on money as so didn’t place an order. However, I bookmarked their site, and made a note to come back later when I wanted to order.
A month ago, I placed an order for 2,000 “light marks” machine-pulled M855 5.56mm bullets. It just arrived today, and a friend and I loaded 420 rounds* in a few hours on my single-stage press**.
Normally, I’d be peeved about it taking a month for an order to arrive, and I called once or twice to politely inquire as to the status of my order. They explained that they were quite busy shipping orders, mostly due to the upcoming election (that’s the reason most customers gave them for ordering), and apologized profusely for the delay. When my box arrived, there was a handwritten note inside apologizing for the delay, and explaining that they’re a bit short-handed due to the proprietor’s husband recently passing away from cancer — my frustration evaporated at once.
In normal situations, a month delay would be greatly annoying…but I can absolutely forgive a delay due to such tragic circumstances. My sincerest condolences go out to the friends and family of the proprietress’ husband.
If you do end up ordering from RVOW, there’s just a couple things to be aware of:

  • Call them instead of emailing them. I made a few inquiries by email, but they were never answered. I’m not sure if Tom, the person listed as the point of contact, is the recently-deceased husband, but it would make explain why emails weren’t being answered.
  • When you do call, you’ll likely get their voicemail. Leave your name, number, and a message briefly explaining what you wish to order, and they’ll get back to you in a day or so.
  • Their prices are different than what are listed on their website, as the site hasn’t been updated for a while. Call for the most up to date prices. For example, their site lists “small marks” M855 bullets as $35.00/1,000, but they’re selling now for $45/1,000.

I quite like supporting small businesses, particularly those involved with the shooting sports, and RVOW will definitely be getting some more orders for M855 and M2 Ball ammo from me in the future. I’m going to give them a quick call tomorrow to offer my condolences, and to offer my services (at no cost, of course) to help revamp their website to be a bit easier to navigate and have updated prices.
I have no connection with RVOW other than being a satisfied customer. I highly recommend them, as they’re good folks selling good products at good prices. What more could one ask for?
* That fills all of my AR-15 magazines. Clearly, I need more mags.
** Note to self: a primer pocket swager would be a fine investment, as my thumbs are killing me from using a deburring tool to try to remove military crimps on most of my once-fired brass.

Money Management

This really makes me wish I wasn’t set on remaining debt free*. It’s only twice the price of my girlfriend’s condo.
Only.
* Other than my scooter loan, on which I’m making double payments and should have paid off shortly. After that, the only debt I foresee in the future would be an ordinary mortgage.