Back to EDC

A ridge from the Pacific moved in and pushed down over NorCal, and helped blow the smoke out while dropping temperatures a whole bunch. We went from a month of hundreds to a balmy high of 90 today, with a low of 60 at night! At least the Air Quality has moved from “Moderate” to “Good” in the mornings, although a layer of brown on the far horizon is still noticeable, and often the Valley (where we never more roam) is dark and occluded.
I’ve been weeding the mostly-dead pasture with a pick-axe, since trying to use a 12-inch screwdriver in the hard-pack at 90-degrees by 9:00AM was painful on my hands and I blew-up a few blisters.
There’s weird and nasty stuff that only grows at this time of year, and it all drops thorns or prickers, or nasty “cherries” that are like spiked Japanese underwater mines – except they break apart into smaller spiney units. The weeds have surprisingly deep roots despite the rock-hard ground, and interlock with each other to drop off seeds of more pain and destruction, so it’s easier to swing a pick that try to weed nicely – plus I can chuck the rocks I find along the fence-line. It’s good exercise and my weight is hovering at the 177lb mark.
House projects include cleaning out excess good-junk and donating it to Snowline Hospice, while the rest – junk like old paint goes to the dump. I’m gonna unload the old lawnmower and weedeater at a low price on someone who needs yard equipment.
And finally the woefully understaffed Sheriff’s Office texted to say my renewal was complete and to come by for pickup. Nice to be back in tow. The renewal began in April, and some staff left to take jobs with better hours. The needs of this flyover redneck County are mostly overlooked by the tourists who pass through on the way to vacation destinations, but for the Sheriff it’s good to have a self-reliant contingent, since windy roads and distant locations mean that response times are slow. You gotta be prepared to help yourself, before help comes for you.

Year-End Maintenance

Out with the Old and make-way for the New. A new year is dawning and after fourteen years of haphazard writing it’s time for a bit of clean-up to the Sidebar, and since “Blogging is Dead,” as Nietzsche might say (the Gunblogger Rendezvous is anyhow), all the bloggy-type stuff needs to go.
Don’t feel slighted, it’s just based on interactions. For the few who occasionally read and comment/counter-comment some blogs remain on the blogroll. Some remain for perhaps no reason at all, but it’s not a growth industry. More could and may be added upon request, but I got rid of all the quaint categories.
Happy 2018!

Small Parts Deconstruction

The International Harvester came with a variety of bits and pieces as befits anything and everything that spent any time in an arsenal whatsoever. In the mix are parts from Springfield Armory (SA), Harrington & Richardson (HRA), and Winchester (WRA). The 4-mik600k serial number places it in the latter part off the first serial-number block that was assigned, maybe somewhere in 1955 – I think if you add-up production numbers, but don’t trust my math.
UPDATE: According to the OldGuns.Net calculator, “The year of manufacture for serial number 46579XX is 1953.”
It’s a fun gun to field-strip, and beyond. The legs of the receiver are thoroughly IHC stamped (International Harvester Corp.), with some interesting pencil marks. 44 over 4-61 – probably arsenal re-build markings. Additionally the stock has been glass-bedded – a long time ago using early materials, so for replacement/competition purposes I might as well go National Match, since this would fall into that designated shooting-class now (match-rifle).

The barrel is of the well known and high-quality Line Machine (LMR) company dating from July 1953.

The Springfield Armory op-rod mics an excellent .526, plus there’s the trigger-housing and hammer, with a late IHC “U” marked safety.
UPDATE: “U” for United Auto, used by late SA and early IHC rifles.




HRA = bolt and gas-plug.

WRA was the donor of a lovely trigger-guard.

The peep-sight was drilled and tapped for a Marbles or Western type sight disc. And it’s not perfectly centered. It’s also much finer than even a National Match hood, and frankly too-fine for my eyes as sighting through it exhibits for me the “spider-web effect.” That’s OK, I have another rear aperture that has been un-f*cked.

Not sure what the stampings on the windage and elevation knobs amount to: BME and WCE…but are late-period items and not IHC.
UPDATE: Thanks to Calvin we now know that, “BME = Bruce Machine & Engineering and WCE = Wico Electric. USGI contractors.”


Also not sure what the “11” is on the bullet-guide thing is.

Apex trigger – Toaster Parts.

UPDATE: For a wrinkle in time, all praises and thanks to Tam’s blog and her gunsmith friend for the notation, “toaster-parts.” After the events of the day I thought it was time to take the gun apart as far as possible, lube that which needed lubing, and install the metal trigger. I set the recoil assembly aside to marinate in a bath of slippery juice, and watched the Apex video closely. Hmm – not too hard.
With my Craftsman magnetic parts-holder as a catch-basin and a piece of thin birch-wood as a block, I got out my punches and little brass hammer and proceeded to get to the fiddly bits. Tap-tappty-tap! TAP-TAP-TAP! The main body pin was a bit tough, but the others were easier.

The way the trigger spring goes on and off was important (hook up on the small coil) and how the take-down lever fits in at 10-degrees off horizontal. Then the reassembly with the locking block and a bit of fiddling until it came back together.

The metal trigger movement is free and un-encumbered, and less spongy and more linear than the polymer trigger – no filing or use of an emery cloth was required. Image shown with take-down lever still to be inserted.
There was a lot less effort required than I imagined or feared.

The little green spud was supplied as a place-holder for the spring and trigger pin.
The trigger is still relatively heavy as I did not (yet) get the Duty/Carry Action Enhancement kit that requires removal of the rear sight, which is a royal bitch from everyone I’ve been told (including my buddy) as the base is Loc-tited and needs a bit of torch on it, and a BIG hammer.
We’ll shoot it and see.

Well Regulated

Got out to the range in between storms and had a chance to check-out Grandpa’s old ’03 Remington iron-sighted .30-06 sporter that has taken countless deer – and a black bear up in Alaska (by my Uncle). We were at 50-yards and the very fine front blade was a bit difficult to see. I stopped after this shot. Then I diddled around with the new-build AR. Not quite the same sensation. “Ain’t many things a man can’t fix…”
UPDATE: The original .30-06 as a sporter:

Birghid was Right

When she’s right, she’s right: The eight ball says… buy!   It’s not a Colt but a Model 19-3 Smith. My copy of the Standard Catalog of Smith and Wesson indicates the SN# dates to/from 1970, when the first owner entered the Police Academy. It’s got a 6″ barrel with some holster-wear (from a clam-shell holster, look it up) and it’s a recoil soak with the right loads. I like N-frames for that reason. .357 Mag in a K-frame is like playing first-base bare-handed. No thanks.
Interesting article in a recent Gunzmag about heavy-for-caliber but slow bullets doing the job on bear-skulls better than out-and-out high-velocity. Proposed theory being that the speed robs the bullet of its strength, so it tends to shatter on impact instead of driving through. So we’ll try some heavy and slow bullets in this for home-defense use. Now I need a holster and some speed-loaders.

Ghost Ring

Got the Factory sight-kit the other evening, and after fiddling around managed to get the rear installed. The front requires silver-soldering and I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna be able to get that done with a soldering pencil. Anyhow it’s looking pretty decent; klicken zum Vergrößerung.


While other photo weenies have returned to the Glories of the Past, I guess I had enough of that. And at the time and having been forcibly moved-on there’s not much un-spent baggage left strewn about the lawn. I am enjoying the abilities of this modest little (albeit obsolete already) camera – but/and as in the not-so-glorious past, I really seriously hate the whole, “it needs batteries” thing. That didn’t fly in the 3rd World where electricity was scarce and weird, and batteries became unglued and weep nasty poop on everything. My old ’67 Nikon-F didn’t even have the (ugly and bulky) Photomic metering-viewfinder, it was all mechanical – like a 12-guage.

South Paw Sinister Dreamer

I dreamed I got the Magpul SGA shotgun-stock and set-up the Mossberg to run Lefty. I think because I’m still harboring uncertain thoughts about the right-handed (or wrong-handed) GG&G rear-QD mount. Also it came up (in Dreamstate) that I’m visually cross-dominant. True enough, my left eye drives my cerebral cortex – or something.
Anyhow, so I was dreaming away in Fantasyland that the sling fit better and I could manipulate it easily (some fantasy that!) and roll it to the side to stuff-shells into the bottom, and do the Shell-Shucking Dance of the 3-inch chamber. And when I awoke I actually remembered my dream.
Which is a 50/50 % kinda thing, I often remember dreams but the specifics get fuzzy (and fade after an hour) especially if I’m writing something in my dream. Like the Dream about Democrats I had with the theme: Divisiveness. I remember part of it but there’s about three paragraphs/points of argument that I couldn’t reconstruct so it remains incomplete:

Democrats are by definition Divisive.
They NEED #Feminism to incite anger and keep 51% of the population off-kilter and angry at Men, and for Men to be on the defensive.
They NEED and use #Race to incite People-of-Color to anger, and maintain an edgy and UN-equal stance against ALL people of Non-Color.
They use impressionable #Youth with all their naivety and inexperience to fight against the #Elderly – over property and their decades long accumulated materials because they hate Equity, earned and derived over time – and also hate Compounded Interest.
They use … and there I lost the thread.

So there I was in the clear light of the morning and remembering that which I did, I attempted to manipulate and handle the Mossberg 590 as a Lefty. There ARE certain things I can do as a Lefty that are far superior to my right-handedness, like throw a Frisbee – but I am not a natural lefty. Except for the cross-dominance. Which I might have actually taught myself a long time ago when I was a spindly Yout’ in order to stare-down a certain someone. The idea was along the lines of “Fierce Eyeball Terror-Gaze” and that didn’t work either, except once with one girl and it lead to something entirely different…
So long story short, it didn’t take. I can’t do it, but it seems like good a practice-item/agenda-issue though. Doesn’t work for me with the AR either, I tried.

After-Action STFU

In response to a post by Drang at ClueMeter, I was prompted to think about events and conversations in CCW class last weekend.  The instructor, a fairly young early-40’s disability-retired cop who walks with a cane and limp, said that in his experience during the high stress factors of shoot/about-to-shoot/done-shootin’ – your hands go numb and your vision tunneled, so he recommends training for clearance/charging drills  with the whole-hand grab on the slide, not the finger/thumb slingshot.

Also he mentioned, that afterwards don’t even bother to try and talk or converse because the ringing in your ears just flattens all the words and makes phone-calls just unrecognizable gibberish. AND remember to just STFU *afterwards* and DO NOT give up your right to shut-up.   It’s a hard right to remember, especially in that moment, because silence is a negative thing not a positive expression – and we are accustomed to the 1st Amendment of Free Speech (and not taking the 5th).   But “Afterwards”  is not the time or place for an outpouring of expression – especially to Cops, but despite that fact people just open-up and blab and blab when the adrenaline tapers off…