Song of the South

There's a generation of reloaders who think the finest bullet -- serious target and hunting stuff --should cost a nickel or less.  They cringe at the Obama-era tab of two bits and up for one bullet, even when paid for in Bernanke's Federal Reserve Cartoons.

So this pleased me yesterday:

A fresh thousand of them (.224 and 55 grains)  grace the reloading shack. They set me back more than a nickel per, but way less than a piece of zinc with a hokey picture of George Washington carelessly stamped on it.

Veterans might recognize it, but it's been off the market for a long time, and youngsters might not identify it as a vintage Nosler, one of the first commercial solid base designs, meant to expand but hold together.

I included the picture to show the oddly wide machined cannulure. It was supposed to a lot of good -- reduce pressure slightly, grip the case mouth tightly, improve accuracy, reduce the national debt, and prevent the UN from admitting Red China.

Mr. Nosler called it his "Zipedo."  Love it. Zipedo doo dah, zipedo day...

Ho Ho Ho and maybe Bang Bang Bang

A good little boy around here is thinking hard about buying himself a Christmas present when Tom Eberle auctions off bunch of lethal weapons (pdf) later this morning.

Who wouldn't want chance to augment his fantasy command to a full squad, just in case the captain orders him to take the MG42 nest from the Nazis, somewhere in France, 1944.

His current in-place TOE arms and equips only a scant fire team -- webbing and weapons for a private, a senior corporal. And himself, of course, a young but grizzled staff who left his carbine back in the foxhole to permit greater mobility as  -- and we're talking Audie Murphy here -- he leads the charge with his 1911A.

Of course we'd wipe them out and earn two silver stars and The Medal, but a squad would be better, even if scant -- my vets plus a couple of peach fuzz draftees from the repple depple. I'd arm them myself with the Springfield Garand and Rockola  carbine which lead off the rifle section in the sale bill.

N.B. -- Yeah, it's possible that I could expand my team to seven or eight with captured German, Frog, and Norwegian stuff, but that is not part of the fantasy which compels me to blow them away with Made in America.

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We'll see what the disbursing officer thinks.

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I'll try to log and post the prices, at least for the more interesting stuff.  Beats working.

Winter havoc

Twelve below this night. And me with only one dog.

I know some of you guys don't believe us when we talk about bigass continental highs, huge, cold, sluggish ones. Almost Jack London cold;  Vilhjalmur Stefansson cold.

Take a look at the weather map, dammit. See the triangle with its point down in the Texas malarial zones? Even there around Houston shivering white guys are hiring mules named Pedro to sneak them across the border and on down to Coatzacoalcos.

Anyway, the cold high spreads up and out. By the time it hits my  sorry latitude it  spans Flyover from the Cascades to the Soo Locks and plops its butt down for a nice, long visit.

Oh sure, it goes up into Canada too, but screw those guys. Buncha foreigners.  Let 'em freeze from their heads right down to their long-gun registry. What's Canada ever done for us?

Huh?

Okay. I meant to say what's Canada done for us lately?

As if hi-cap magazines aren't evil enough...

... now we face the threat of hi-cap -- multiple warhead? --  cartridges.

Down in Des Moines a thugnut went out in his yard and started blazing away at this and that with something that looked to Des Moines Register reporters like an assault rifle.

No one got hurt until cops arrived and shot the perp down.

Later, a police spokesman and the six -- repeat six -- Register reporters combined to produce this explanation:


Police found a semi-automatic rifle similar to an AR-15 and a handgun with the suspect in the backyard. Several gun cartridges were found in the backyard, police said. (Police Sgt. and spokesman) Halifax said cartridges for the rifle used often contain 10 or 15 rounds.

It is simply mind-numbing that a mirvel like this was developed without any of us gun freeks having heard about it.