Survive!

A certain amount of thought has been invested in the welfare of our warriors in those new-fangled aeroplanes. What if the the dynamic defailorator  fails?  What if they get shot down? Even if they walk away from the warbird they still gotta eat,  right? They have a 1911A1 in their pilot's rompers, right?

But, also right, they can't hit crap with it.

Anyway, that's what the official survival thinkers thought, so enter the service auto as shotgun:

Approach No. 1, left, is a straightforward loading of tiny shot in a cardboard capsule, heavily crimped with two grooves aft of the case mouth. The point is to preserve the sharp mouth on which the round head spaces. This example is head- stamped Peters .45 A.C. (no "P")

Concept No. 2, center, employs a redesigned case, longer and necked to provide space for the shot. The seal appears to be a waxed or plasticized cardboard disc. The shoulder is abrupt, but still a long way from a precise, tight  fit to the chamber stop, and I have a feeling that the engineers were in a bit of a hurry and decided, what the Hell, the extractor will hold it well enough; heresy but most probably workable. This one in head stamped "R A 4." 

We'll get to survival round No. 3, right, in a moment, but first an editorial comment on the others: I suppose that if I'd dumped my Corsair in a Samar jungle I'd rather have had a handful of official government shot shells than not have them. On the other hand, I wouldn't have put a lot of faith in their (and my) ability to get me fat on the succulent Basilan flying squirrel. Or much of anything else. Anyone else who has wasted too much time playing with shot loads adapted (maladapted, to be correct) to rifled pistol barrels understands. About the best you can say for the entire line of thought is that if your stalking skills challenge Natty Bumpo's, you might kill something small to eat once in a while. 

And now to No. 3. It IS TOO a survival load. It helps you survive the dreaded feeling, "What on God's green earth am I supposed to do with this junk I found while tidying up a shop cabinet last opened before Monica stained her dress?"  

Why, I confirm that they'll actually go bang in an old .22 bolt gun and then I'm all like, hmmm. I know, I can glue a .22 Crossman pellet to the front of it and have my own wildcat! The .22 TMR Power Load Special.

I was crushed to discover that I had no .22 pellets but, unstoppable, I subbed a Daisy BB. Even though the prototype you see is the  only one in existence, it will soon be tested with full confidence that the .177 projectile will exit the barrel. 

Further than that deponent sayeth not.  

    

Planely speaking

I don't care if all the cool kids are using Instagram. Not me. After careful ratiocination, I conclude it is strictly for squares.
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Ruger? Seriously??

It's nice that a gun maker made the market headlines yesterday by bucking the big Dow loss. But to call Southport a maker of "durable goods" is questionable.  LCR. LCP. SR9.

Your Friday morning issues briefing

1. Fool that  am, I keep thinking about Attorney General Holder in terms of his criminal violations of the nation's firearms laws. It took Joel to remind me that contempt of congress is a state of mind every thinking citizen embraces. Why should Holder be singled out for the honor?..

2. Try a I might, I simply can not tangle my shorts over the plight of a new-hatched intellectual facing an increase in student loan rates.  My teevee tells me the average student debt  is $26,000. The added 3.4 per cent would thus cost Ms. and Mr. Average Expert in Liberal Arts some $885 per year or $2.42 per day.  This could easily be covered by (a) walking one flight up, to Mom's kitchen, and having your coffee there rather than Starbucks or (b) working an extra 22 minutes at the job for which your degree qualifies you. (Translated to piece work that probably amounts to a dozen double burgers with cheese.)