Slam fire

Blessings on thee, Mr. Browning. This morning I'm grateful for your most elegant shotgun, the Ithaca 37, particularly the one which took up residence in the Camp J arms vault yesterday afternoon.  The 37 is alleged to have the fewest moving parts of any pump shotgun.

The old girl suffers from a mild case of patina, and her walnut benefited from severe scrubbing and a couple of coats of brown MinWax. While her debutante glow is irretrievable history, she still pleases me in the wake of her cleanup -- something like a dowager who never missed her day at the gym, beginning about the time of the Tet offensive.

I've owned a couple-three of these things but never  tried the slam-fire function which made her desirable to certain police forces. It will be a way of getting rid of a  handful of loose 12-gauge orphans  in a delightfully  noisy manner.


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The adoption fee was quite reasonable. The lady who brought her around "just wanted the thing out of my closet."  The perfectly functional  Stevens 84D came mostly as lagniappe.  (Bonus knowledge, new to me: Remington .22 rifle magazines  from the middle of the 20th Century work fine in  at least some of the same-era Stevens.)

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The same source will be bringing around a SW 27, about unfired, in the factory wooden box. Pant. Drool.

My 9/11 offering

Aloft in a fighter without ammo, Lt. Penney was quite prepared  to  launch a kamakazi strike against UAL 93.

(A wide departure from the traditional  Women With Clothes On offerings, but (a) she is attractive and (b) I think the photo suggests a nobility lacking in the shot just posted of  our Narcissist-in-Chief.


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(Credit National Airway Race Shows via http://news.yahoo.com/fighter-pilot-recalls-mission-stop-9-11-plane-230127999.html)

Who's the fairest?

Even more fun than golf.

(Credit the Weekly Standard)

Absent With Command-Approved Leave

The TMR G-2 (Intelligence) section has credible but non-specific information that this position will be abandoned for short period. This interregnum will permit the principle  G-3 (Operations) section to undertake attacks on other high-value targets. Unconfirmed reports suggest this will include rectification of recent lamentable housekeeping lapses, anemia in the ready firewood stocks, and, directly quoting confidential informants, "weather too damn nice to spend banging on a keyboard."