Monthly Archives: July 2012

Automotive

To Ride

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I read an article in Motorcyclist Magazine last month that I wanted to share.  It’s finally come up on their Web Site.  This captures the feeling that I have not been able to communicated.

The article is called “It can take you there.” by Joe Gresh.  The last few paragraphs are the juice.

It was a beautiful ride. No pack to synchronize my speed to, no pesky photo stops to interrupt my mojo, no need to think of things to say to people I want to impress. I could go in any direction I cared, alone. Between raindrops, the dense, moisture-laden air condensed into foggy mist. Man, I could smell everything: living things, rotting things.

The forest is a compost heap and I’m on a silver centipede pounding double-time through Deep Musty. Big Banger thuds softly—nothing can stop this engine, man, nothing! The rain falls harder and my hands numb from the cold, wet gloves. I can sense it, further on. More throttle, Big Banger lunges to 70 mph, 3000 rpm. Not enough—more! Seventy-five—it’s just ahead, it has to be! Faster still, Big Banger’s exhaust begins to drone. God, it feels good to shiver—I never want to die! Squirming black road iridescent with oil rising, cut dark green left, dull gray light blasts through a gap, asphalt yawning, stretching. Raining harder, Big Banger’s wheels are circular rivers, water streams from my visor, turn to clear and see trees blurring, and right now each curve is exactly where it should be, exactly!

I lived half a life in hundredths of a second. I wish you could have been there with me. I wish you could have seen me. I caught up with it, man! I caught the moment and it was perfect. And there was nothing in my way!

If that doesn’t make you jump on a Motorcycle and head out, nothing will.   When I read that, I thought, “Man, he nailed it.  That is it!”  That was poetry.

 

 

Uncategorized

Defense against the Dark Arts

47 Comments

So many people out there wringing their hands about gun control again.  These poor frightened, misguided idiots.  I’d like to slap the shit out of all of them… because it’s people like them that have lead us to where we are now as a nation now that has incidents like these.  I blame the Shooter for doing the evil deed, but I blame Liberals for creating the environments where these things can happen.

This Theater that the Colorado incident happened, was a Gun Free Zone.  Trolley Square, was at the time of the shooting spree there, a Gun Free Zone.  Columbine High School, a Gun Free Zone.  Every place these Shootings happen – they are in Gun Free Zones or in Cities where the Police actively harass Legal Gun Owners who are Legally Carrying their Guns.  Places where Guns are accepted – These things don’t happen.  You Create a Gun Free Zone, you INVITE this sort of thing to happen there.  Because these Psychos are not going to do this at a GUN SHOW – where I am sorry but the “No Loaded Gun Signs” are disregarded by damn near everyone with a CCW Permit.

Just one guy could have offered some resistance and could have stopped this event from going on like it did… One guy could have cut this spree short like the incident a few years ago at Trolley Square in SLC. The argument against an Armed Citizen Response is that the CCW Holder could have hit someone else.  Well, yeah, that’s true… by Accident.  Because the Evil Psycho Shooter sure as hell wasn’t hitting anyone by accident.   This becomes a War of Good vs Evil here… collateral damage does have it’s risks.  But evil isn’t stopped by running away from it.  Evil is stopped when Good Men (or women) stand up against it.

The incident in Florida where one 71 year old guy stopped two thugs who had evil purposes… He fought back and no innocent people were injured.  None.  This old guy is a Hero.  He was armed.  He was not afraid.  He took action.  Right or Wrong – Taking Action is the right thing to do.  Rolling over and taking one in the back of the head does no one any good but the Evil Doer.  It serves his purposes…. that’s why he was there.

The Cops responded as fast as they could.  We can not shake a finger at them.  They are always behind the 8-Ball in things like this because they have to respond to the call.  See, Bad Guys generally don’t do Bad Things right in front of Cops who could put a stop to them.  Sometimes they are stupid enough to do this… but generally they try to avoid cops.  So Police have to go to where the action is and then try to stop it.  Usually they get there after the fact…. after innocent people have been killed.  Also, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the police have no obligation to protect you.  This means you are responsible for your own safety and the safety of your loved ones.  You are the one that must make that stand in the face of Evil.  No one else is going to do that for you.

Taking away guns from Good People only serves the purposes of Evil People.  Even if the Evil People had no Guns… they would have used other means.  IED’s are very popular in many places in this world now.  Knives.  Hammers.  Clubs.  If an Evil Person wants to kill – he will.  He could have just got a big heavy truck and rammed into the line of people waiting to get into the movie.  But because he used firearms – Liberal Idiots are making this to be a Gun issue.  It’s not a Gun Issue – it’s an EVIL issue.  We already have laws against Evil Acts… fat lot of good they are doing, eh?  Killing innocent people is already against the law, is it not?

The fact of the matter is that Guns Save Lives.  Dr. John Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime” should be required reading in every school as soon as the children are old enough to read.

Crusader, Uncategorized

Cheapskate

16 Comments

There is a shooting competition called Cheapskate.  .22 LR’s.  I think I’m going to get into this.  But I don’t have a rifle for it and there isn’t a .22 rifle that I’m really digging as is.

Looks like I’ll have to CRUSADERIZE a Ruger 10/22.

Tactical Solutions Barrel, Slipstream ST-1 treatment on the bolt and inside the receiver… Oh yeah.  I can see it now.

Uncategorized

Humans are a Violent Species

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Admit it… Human Nature is a violent one.  Everything we do is about one of two things… sometimes both.  Sex and Violence.  Those two things rule our world.  The scriptures say someplace that the “Natural Man is an Enemy of God.”  Well, that’s unfortunate because Violence is in our Core Programming.

Our Entertainment… The top money making movies are the ones with gratuitous violence.  The more unique the violence, the better.  Top movie in the last few months.  “The Avengers”.  What’s it about?  Kicking Ass.  Best scene in the whole film – The Hulk grabbing a guy and slamming him around like a rag doll.  People cheered.  That was some delicious violence wasn’t it?  Spiced with humor… oh yeah… we all loved that bit.

You roll past a car crash and you have to look.  What do you want to see? What are you looking for?  Blood.  Gore.  The more the better.  You are disappointed when you see the driver of a wreck sitting on the side of the rode… Ah man… he’s okay.  Dang it… you wanted blood.  Admit it.  That Morbid Curiosity is in you…  You wanted that violence.

We watched confrontations on TV… Jerry Springer is famous for it.  Get people together that act like Sodium and Water when mixed.  Why do people watch that train wreck?  Is it for the story?  Or is it for watching the people jump up off the couch and go all Gladiator on the other guy?  NASCAR… you don’t like racing all that much.  Especially not Round Track stuff.  But you watch it for one thing.  Those hideously violent wrecks.

Even small children are violent.  I watched a small child of some British tourists come through… This kid has never held a firearm, let alone fired one.  Highly unlikely being from Essex.  Yet the little child, 4 years old?  Bragged with pride that he knew how to shoot one of those pistols.  One of my own boys… my oldest.  When he was born we hid all our guns and didn’t watch any violent TV around him.  He had no influences on him for violence.  He chewed a Gramcracker into the shape of a pistol, held it like a gun and made Pew Pew Pew noises.  How did he know how to do that?  He was totally insulated from it?  How?  I’ll tell you how.  It’s in his blood.  Not just my Ogreish blood – but our collective human blood. Just like the little Oliver Twist kid…  It was in his nature, in his DNA, in his blood.  We are violent at the cellular level.

We have Canine Teeth.  What are those for?  Eating meat.  And the best way to get it – to Hunt it.  Find the tasty looking animal you want and your Predatory Nature kicks into overdrive and you visit violence upon the Prey.

And we wonder about the Roman Gladiators and how they could fight to the death… and how people could watch that.  Blood Sports…  Come on.  We still watch that stuff.   Not only that but those Athletes are paid like they were Royalty.  We reward our Gladiators very well.  All of our Sports are all metaphors for Conflict.  Men run at each other, knocking them down, smashing them while all the time chasing the ball.  Forget the ball.  That’s not why we do sports or watch sports.  Football… it’s for the Crashes, just like NASCAR.  Even the NFL puts out a Greatest Hits highlight reel.  We celebrate those most violent moments because above all… We thirst for Violence.

We are a violent species.  We are, as a whole, brilliant when it comes to Violence.  Even the Pacifist type people, deep down inside, want to do violence.  They openly call for a new Civil War and mass executions of Conservatives.  But there is one thing those guys don’t understand… How to do great violence.  Conservatives… We do.  We are the ones in general that get out there and Hunt, Shoot, and we train ourselves doing it.  We excel at violence. It’s in our nature.

Some guys strive to bury that instinct.  But it’s there.  Suppressed and locked away under layers of Reason and Understanding.  But that isn’t who we are and eventually those people erupt.

Sex is a powerful motivator… but they are mere shadows compared to Violence.  With sex… come on, we’ve all seen the girl’s goodies and it’s pretty much all the same… like flowers… different colors sizes and shapes, but they are all pretty.  Sex however is only just the reward for Violence done well.  Sometimes sex has violence in it as well, because we just can’t get enough of it.

As a Nation, America is the best when it comes to violence.  Victors of World Wars.  We even had or own Civil War.  Other countries can be violent, sure.  Murderous and Genocidal… but they don’t compare to the level of Violence that America is capable of.  As a Nation we have a great deal of tension built up… muscles taunt and ready to throw a swing.  We are just waiting for that bell to ring.  We’ve been at “Peace” for too long and these police actions in Afghanistan just isn’t doing it.  We need a real enemy that we can duke it out with.  We need the Germans to rise up again and get us going.  We need an adversary.   Someone to really fight.

God help whoever stands up to challenge us.  We are ready to throw down.

Crusader

You need a good AR.

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Crusader Weaponry can build you the best AR you’ll ever own – for not much more than the cost of a production AR with the features you want.

Go to CrusaderWeaponry.com.  Hit the Contact Page.  Send Joe a message and tell him you want the best damn rifle ever made… Pick your Caliber.  Pick your Configuration – you tell us how you want your AR.  Pick your Finish.  And Joe will give you the quote.  It’s easy.  To make it easier, we have an Installment Plan.  Tell Joe you want to set up your Crusader Account.  You pay what you can when you can… We’ll help you get the gun you want.  Even if it takes you a year to pay for it – We’ll work with you.

We also do custom Glocks and Shotguns.  This OD Green 870 is Available.  749.99 gets it shipped to your Dealer or if you are in Utah, you can pick it up.   This is one seriously badass Shotgun.  A local fellow got one of these guns, in Coyote Tan.  He brought it out to the Range.  Firing it – holy crap – it’s so smooth and can cycle so fast it was like I was running a Semi.  Amazing.

Time to get Serious.  Time to get a Crusader.

If you already have an AR that isn’t a Crusader.  You can still get SLIPSTREAM.  You will be amazed at the difference.   At the last Crusader Tactical Carbine course, some guns were running Slipstream and some were not.  The Slipstreamed guns had no problems.  The others… Hell, even an AK jammed out here in our dusty dirty gritty hot as hell training location.  Slipstream made all the difference.

Uncategorized

Revzilla.com

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I’ve ordered a few things from Revzilla.com. Great service.  Great people that answered all my questions… Even talking helmets and headshapes. I bounced the same questions off other sites, and they didn’t know or didn’t respond.  The Revzilla Crew knew their stuff.  Also, Anthony does great videos, reviewing things in detail that makes ordering sight unseen a lot easier.  They put out solid information, and they know their stuff… I respect that.  This is why Revzilla is my goto site for Gear. I’m fine with paying a bit more to make sure I’m ordering what I need.  But these guys are pretty price competitive anyways.  So if they have it, I’ll just get it there. Shipping is fast too.
Last things I orderd there, Joe Rocket Gloves, Speed & Strength jacket, Joe Rocket Mesh jacket, Bell Vortex helmet… All arrived before I expected.
Can’t say enough good things about these guys.
Normally you only hear about an outlet when they screw something up… Well, Revzilla gets it right.

Weapons

The German 88

9 Comments

In the BMW S1000RR comments, the German 88 was brought up.  Great weapon system that.  88mm, or 3.4 Inch, it was a big bore gun for Anti-Aircraft work, but it also served very well in both Field Artillery and Anti-Tank roles.  Especially since our tanks were not burdened with an overabundance of Armor.

They used the 88 for everything… mounting it on everything they had that needed a big gun.   The concept of the 88 was used by us, in the form of our 105mm guns.  But still, the 105 as good as it is, especially in Smooth Bore versions, just never had that same Jack of All Trades utility of the 88.

Just take a look at this.  Too many good pics to post up, even cherry picking the best ones.

On trains, on tracks, direct fire, AA, Arty, on wheels… And the fact that they could all fire the same shells made Logistics a breeze.  Simple and Multi-Role effective.  And at the time, allied forces didn’t really have anything quite like it.

Training

“Only Cops are trained enough to have guns.”

11 Comments

We hear this comment a lot in the gun industry.



Yeah, pretty much Law Enforcement Training isn’t as great as the ANTI-GUNNERS think, yet continue to say that only Cops should have guns because they have the training. When it is suggested that Civilians get better training, they say that Civilians don’t need it. That’s their argument? That doesn’t work as it’s a complete failure of logic.
You know what I think?
We all need more training.

This is in no way a Cop Bash Post.   Don’t take it that way.  Many friends in Law Enforcement and a Blood Brother… Much Respect there.  But if the question is Training, then the answer is more.  Not only that, but Departments need to set aside a good portion of budget for Training, and this isn’t something I’m seeing.  I know one Department that doesn’t even have any training budget… or budget for ammo so the Officers can even do a little practice on their own.  They got the suggestion to use their individual Uniform budget.  WTF?  That’s not right.  Especially when you are talking about a department that is always buying new vehicles.  Citizens have better training in that area because they like to shoot and the Officers just are not paid enough to practice.  They get 60 Rounds for Qual a year, and that’s it.  And since Departments don’t like to hire Shooters anymore, they’ve created a department wide culture that Firearms are less important than a shiny snappy uniform and shiny car.  Sad.

 

Automotive

Monday’s Motorcycle: BMW S1000RR

10 Comments

In the last few times I’ve watched motorcycle racing at M’s place, one bike was the consistent performer… This BMW.  See, BMW is mostly known for their Adventure Touring bikes.  Well, if you are into Sport Bikes, when you think of BMW, this is the machine that springs to mind.  During the races is likes to takes a position up near the front… usually second place, right behind the Leader… right in his 6, like an Focke-Wulf FW-190 waiting for the right moment to shoot them down and take the lead and win the race.  We’ve watched BMW do this to Honda and Aprilia.  While the other bikes are visibly fighting, the BMW Rider looks like he’s just out for a cruise… totally relaxed… and then “Okay, you’ve had enough… Your done.”   And the race is over.  It’s able to do this because it’s hugely powerful and composed… and the BMW pilot is one scary motherfucker.

If I could have one bike, given to me for free… and it was the last motorcycle I could ever have and ride… I’d happily pick the S1000RR.  Or even, this is the last vehicle you could ever own… Oh yeah… it would be this bike.  Pure Teutonic Brutality.  Engineered from the ground up Blitzkrieg everything.

Ounce for ounce, the Germans have never invented anything else so sinister or powerful.  Or as beautiful.  This is Heidi Klum and the Luftwaffe rolled into one.  Look at the shark gill style vents.  That’s a warning.  It’s also serving a purpose… keeps that Sturmgewehr it uses as an engine cool, by pulling in air and blowing it out and away from the rider.  Then there is the thing with the asymetrical headlights.  That’s a one raised eyebrow saying that it isn’t going to put up with anyone’s shit.

Not from anyone.

 

2012 BMW S1000RR – American Specifications/Technical Details
US MSRP Price: $15,050 USD

Continue reading Monday’s Motorcycle: BMW S1000RR →

Optics

Scopes Fail

5 Comments

I’ve seen scope failures from every scope maker.  Zeiss, Swarovski, Leupold, Trijicon, Huskama, Nikon… Everyone.
A Rifle Scope is a precision instrument mounted on something that recoils and gets knocked around.  Every scope, no matter what, will eventually fail.
That’s just a fact.  Death and Taxes. 
So just because someone on the internet bitches and moans about their brand x scope failing, doesn’t mean you should turn up your nose at a brand x scope.  These things happen.  What you don’t know though, is if the scope was abused, improperly mounted, or an inappropriate selection for the rifle. 
Recoil, Temperature, Age, Impact… all of these things will destroy a scope. It’s just a matter of time. No one makes the perfect scope.
The mark of a good scope maker is how they back up their scopes.  Also, the shope you got it from, how helpful are they when you bring it in.  
At where I work, we do everything.  Customer doesn’t have to worry about it. 
Nikon, Bushnell, Swarovski, Trijicon, Burris, Vortex… These guys are the best in dealing with repairs, and repair or replace without question.  So if you are Leary on optics, these guys are the best bets.