A certain 777 has zoomed by Gander Center and is chit-chatting with air controllers at O'Hare. The most important man aboard -- just speaking personally here -- will have time to brush the remaining sand from his Florsheims before boarding the puddle jumper for the last leg home.
I like life better without having close kin in or near danger-pay regions featuring turbans and small children bearing AK47s.
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 14, 2013
Retro-reloading note
Just locked up the loading shack pondering the latest mystery. What the heck kind of brass is that?
About 25 of them from the "miscellaneous to-do" box were plainly head stamped as .257 Roberts from Remington and Winchester. They refused to chamber after sizing. Another dozen Winchesters, stamped "W-W Super" worked fine. I didn't feel like pulling the data sheets and getting out the mike, but I suspect I might have a couple dozen "improved" cases.
Minimal rechambering was a popular project for few decades just after World War 2. The usual goal was to increase case capacity by reducing taper and sharpening the shoulder of a standard caliber. The big attraction was the ease of making the improved cases. You just fired a factory round in the altered chamber and, presto, you had your "improved" brass. They called it "fire forming" or "blowing out."
P.O. Ackley was the Improvement Godfather, and he was candid in admitting that some of his (and other's) wildcats weren't worth the bother. How much trouble do you want to go to for for an extra couple hundred feet per second?
But it's fun to own a handful of "improved" cases for a caliber already steeped in nostalgia. Makes a guy feel all fuzzy and retro. I will not, repeat not, even think about acquiring an improved .257 to fit the odd cases. At most I'll give them some warm milk and a soft place to sleep.
---
All the .223 McNamara Stalemate is ready to prime. There were fewer than estimated, just over 300, enough to feed a mere ten magazines of the proper size. Maybe I can hustle some more at the local loophole.
About 25 of them from the "miscellaneous to-do" box were plainly head stamped as .257 Roberts from Remington and Winchester. They refused to chamber after sizing. Another dozen Winchesters, stamped "W-W Super" worked fine. I didn't feel like pulling the data sheets and getting out the mike, but I suspect I might have a couple dozen "improved" cases.
Minimal rechambering was a popular project for few decades just after World War 2. The usual goal was to increase case capacity by reducing taper and sharpening the shoulder of a standard caliber. The big attraction was the ease of making the improved cases. You just fired a factory round in the altered chamber and, presto, you had your "improved" brass. They called it "fire forming" or "blowing out."
P.O. Ackley was the Improvement Godfather, and he was candid in admitting that some of his (and other's) wildcats weren't worth the bother. How much trouble do you want to go to for for an extra couple hundred feet per second?
But it's fun to own a handful of "improved" cases for a caliber already steeped in nostalgia. Makes a guy feel all fuzzy and retro. I will not, repeat not, even think about acquiring an improved .257 to fit the odd cases. At most I'll give them some warm milk and a soft place to sleep.
---
All the .223 McNamara Stalemate is ready to prime. There were fewer than estimated, just over 300, enough to feed a mere ten magazines of the proper size. Maybe I can hustle some more at the local loophole.
Feinstein stamps her foot
Ted Cruz of Texas asked the author of the bill to ban esthetically displeasing rifles if she would also favor selective bans on the right to free speech, Amendment I.
"I'm not a sixth-grader," said a visibly upset (Sen. Diane) Feinstein. She described her decades in Congress involved in gun control debates and said, "I'm reasonably well-educated, and thank you for the lecture."
(1) -- Maybe Sen. Ted was just fooled by your imitation of a horrified elementary school kid when you yowled about "shoulder thingies."
(2) -- Your decades-on-the job defense has called up in millions of minds the hoary joke about highly experienced mules.
(3) -- I'll buy your "reasonably well educated" only if you advance the volume on and highly inflect the term "reasonably." Which brings us full circle -- back to your well-educated opposition to the mortal peril inherent in thingies.
---
The Judiciary Committee passed the ban. No surprise. It and Sen. Schumer's draconian national gun registration bill (posing as a universal background check) are in the full Senate's in box. Feinstein's bill is close to DOA. Schumer's is iffier. Each would also need to clear the House where gun control opposition is broader and deeper.
"I'm not a sixth-grader," said a visibly upset (Sen. Diane) Feinstein. She described her decades in Congress involved in gun control debates and said, "I'm reasonably well-educated, and thank you for the lecture."
(1) -- Maybe Sen. Ted was just fooled by your imitation of a horrified elementary school kid when you yowled about "shoulder thingies."
(2) -- Your decades-on-the job defense has called up in millions of minds the hoary joke about highly experienced mules.
(3) -- I'll buy your "reasonably well educated" only if you advance the volume on and highly inflect the term "reasonably." Which brings us full circle -- back to your well-educated opposition to the mortal peril inherent in thingies.
---
The Judiciary Committee passed the ban. No surprise. It and Sen. Schumer's draconian national gun registration bill (posing as a universal background check) are in the full Senate's in box. Feinstein's bill is close to DOA. Schumer's is iffier. Each would also need to clear the House where gun control opposition is broader and deeper.
Does the pope chop onions?
I rather like what I read about Pope Francis. He was not afraid to butt heads with Argentine politicians. He lived rather humbly for a Prince, sometimes cooking his own meals, riding a bus to work, strolling the slums for a personal look at the real world.
I suppose his new responsibilities will temper that sort of thing. It's hard to imagine the staff will let him rummage in the fridge for a half-pound of nice pampas beef, light off the charcoal, and grill it himself.
But I really don't know, of course. My ignorance of how a pope lives is comprehensive. Because any ignorance a personal failing, I set out to rectify it by exhaustive research*, namely a look at Wiki.
There I discover that when he uttered "Accepto" he was instantly blessed wiith a huge "family." Or beset. Butlers and cooks and cleaners and chaplains and secretaries and body guards -- all those and more constituting what his church calls the papal "family. "
For a life-long celibate, that has to be a little unsettling. Most fathers, using the term in its biological sense, get to work into the role gradually, learning as they go how to deal with a family, how to either supervise or ignore a forced grouping of fractious, bickering, grasping, malcontented egos.
Even the best of them will from time to time lose it -- or persuasively pretend to. He rises to full height. Steely eyes sweep over the kids and cousins and in-laws:
"Sit down and shut up!"
May Pope Francis never reach that point, but if he does we'll know for certain that he and we share a defining human trait.
---
*Exhaustive research is somewhat more amicable when the weather offers no invitation to leave the cheery hearth. So there's been a lot of exhaustive research around here lately, and frankly we're sick of it. So, Your Holiness, if at an early point in your new papacy you could file a petition for a bit of sunshine and more March-like temperatures in the general vicinity of 43N by 95W, we'd all take it kindly.
I suppose his new responsibilities will temper that sort of thing. It's hard to imagine the staff will let him rummage in the fridge for a half-pound of nice pampas beef, light off the charcoal, and grill it himself.
But I really don't know, of course. My ignorance of how a pope lives is comprehensive. Because any ignorance a personal failing, I set out to rectify it by exhaustive research*, namely a look at Wiki.
There I discover that when he uttered "Accepto" he was instantly blessed wiith a huge "family." Or beset. Butlers and cooks and cleaners and chaplains and secretaries and body guards -- all those and more constituting what his church calls the papal "family. "
For a life-long celibate, that has to be a little unsettling. Most fathers, using the term in its biological sense, get to work into the role gradually, learning as they go how to deal with a family, how to either supervise or ignore a forced grouping of fractious, bickering, grasping, malcontented egos.
Even the best of them will from time to time lose it -- or persuasively pretend to. He rises to full height. Steely eyes sweep over the kids and cousins and in-laws:
"Sit down and shut up!"
May Pope Francis never reach that point, but if he does we'll know for certain that he and we share a defining human trait.
---
*Exhaustive research is somewhat more amicable when the weather offers no invitation to leave the cheery hearth. So there's been a lot of exhaustive research around here lately, and frankly we're sick of it. So, Your Holiness, if at an early point in your new papacy you could file a petition for a bit of sunshine and more March-like temperatures in the general vicinity of 43N by 95W, we'd all take it kindly.
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