The Blazing Orange

Shootings In NYC #12

2011-02-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

A woman was shot and killed at a Queens party when gunfire erupted outside.

I Am TJIC

2011-01-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

Exercising one's 1st Amendment Right should never negate one's 2nd Amendment Right (or any other Right, for that matter). Apparently, in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, that's what they're doing to people who happen to redress the government for their grievances.

You can read about it here and here.

Brigid's Fun On Vicodin - The Album Meme

2011-01-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

Band Name: Modular Airborne FireFighting System

Album Name: Deed For The Wrong Reason

Album Cover:

Tuning A Broadhead

2011-01-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

One of the things I do at the archery shop is tune broadheads to an arrow shaft. This video shows you how an arrow spins true when it is perfectly square to the shaft. If there is any sign of wobble to the arrow shaft, the arrow will plane in the direction the broadhead is pointing regardless if your bow is paper tuned.

The blades act as wings and truing up your broadhead to the shaft will virtually eliminate planing.

At the other end of the shaft, I fletch vanes with a 1 degree offset. This minimizes turbulence interference between the blades in the front and the vanes in the back when you align the blades with the vanes.

Idle Hands Are The Work Of The Devil

2010-12-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

The Devil doesn't know me, then. My hands are always fixing or building something.

At the archery shop, the workbench was getting cluttered with parts and tools, so I took the initiative and build a 3-tiered rotating carousel parts holder, with materiel that I procured from Lowe's and soup containers from the local Chinese fast food joint:

Now I just need another six container to fill in the holes that remain unfilled. It's amazing what one can do with a drill, a hole bit, a jigsaw, a pipe cutter and some ingenuity.

Shootings In NYC #11

2010-12-26T22:29:00.000-08:00

Teen in Harlem was gunned down.

Shootings In NYC #10

2010-12-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

A late-night laundromat attendant is shot and killed by criminals with guns. How many more people have to die at the hands of criminals before they get rid of "home rule" for NYC and start allowing Shall-Issue concealed-carry permits for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves?

A Public Service Announcement

2010-12-21T22:26:00.000-08:00

Oleg's "TheHighRoad.us" has moved.

You can find it here. Update your bookmarks, folks.

Not Without A Mean To Protect Myself

2010-12-18T07:37:00.000-08:00

Good luck to the man who came forward, despite the death threats. Sad to say, but I think I'm reading about a dead man right now. Great that he came forward, but how's he supposed to defend himself if he can't purchase a gun to himself and his family with, due to NJ's insane and draconian gun laws. Criminals don't obey these gun laws.

Shooting In NYC #9

2010-12-18T06:43:00.000-08:00

A man is dead and a woman is wounded in a shootout in Brooklyn.

Shootings In NYC #8

2010-12-12T20:33:00.000-08:00

Twelve-year-old shot in crossfire in Brooklyn, most likely by rival gangs trying to kill each other.

Ten-year-old boy shot while watching t.v. in his living room. Gang members trying to kill each other outside, most likely involved.

Braindeadery Around The World #2

2010-12-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

In New Jersey, they're encouraging people to turn in their neighbors, Nazi-style. Remember when they went door-to-door rounding up people whose neighbors had turned them in?

Braindeadery Around The World #1

2010-12-12T10:58:00.001-08:00

We've got people with the I.Q. of dead lettuce, in the U.N., trying to control people through this so-called "Climate Change" nonsense.

If they were so smart, why did most of them sign a petition to ban water?

Students from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow devised a plan to show just how stupid these people are.

"It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused."

"The petition went so far as to encourage the United Nations to impose tariffs and trade restrictions on the U.S. in a scheme to destabilize the nation’s economy. Specifically, the scheme seeks to lower the U.S. GDP by 6% over a ten year period, unless the U.S. signs a U.N. treaty on global warming."

Braindeadery Is Learned

2010-12-12T09:45:00.001-08:00

School principals are supposed to be smarter than the students, but this one principal must be brain dead to ban the use of the restrooms at Murray Bergtraum High School in downtown Manhanttan, because two students were fighting.

What did the principal think would happen when she illegally closed access to bathrooms to thousands of students? Why ban the restrooms to all students because of the actions of two of them? Closing access to restroom facilities is illegal and againt Building Codes. For X number of people, you require X number of toilets, urinals and sinks. For Y number of people over X, you need to provide Y number of fixtures to meet the demands. Telling students that they can only use the restroom in the school nurse's office in an emergency is utterly asinine.

The principal should be fired. The riot that broke out due to her stupidity could have gotten a lot of students hurt. Is it hard to see the correlation between stupid educators and students barely eking out an "education" (and I use that term loosely) and barely passing their classes, when you've got educators who are dumber than dirt?

Dead In The Water

2010-12-11T22:53:00.001-08:00

Dear House Democrats,

I hope you all burn in hell. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are out of work and you all conspire to block the Bush Tax Cuts extension and unemployment insurance benefits. Most of you have lost your jobs in the last election and you're only doing this to further hurt the American people and our economy. You're like children who toss a game of checkers, with pieces flying everywhere, because you're nothing but sore losers. The American people will remember this in the next election cycle and hopefully, we'll get real adults in office who know how to run things correctly.

Sincerely,

Joe Anybody

The Force Is Strong In This One

2010-12-11T06:33:00.000-08:00

Having come across this story on CNN, via Breda's blog, it brought tears to my eyes to read of such an outpouring of love and support for a little girl geek who was being bullied in school. For liking 'Star Wars'.

Part of those tears stemmed from my own memories of being bullied all those years ago, by classmates who were bigger than me; who had their own cliques. Even some thirty odd years later, the emotional scars from those days of being traumatized come to the surface and I find myself teary-eyed, sad, angry and isolated.

It's beautiful that all these people rallied around Katie. The Force truly is strong.

Idiots In Government

2010-12-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

New York City's draconian gun laws that only help to disarm the law-abiding citizen - how's that working out for you?

Childhood Memories #1

2010-12-04T06:19:00.001-08:00

Anybody remember the Japanese anime "RAIDEEN" from the 70s? This was possibly the first transforming robot that spawned everything that followed. They used to show it on Saturday night at 10 p.m. on UHF channel 47 (the Spanish channel in NYC). I watched it with my entire family, living in a 5-story walk-up tenement on the Lower East Side, on a black & white television that you had to get up to change the channels or move the aerial antennae around to get decent reception.

We watched t.v. together as a family. We all decided on what to watch, and the minority vote had to watch what the majority wanted to watch, or go do something else. We also didn't have remote controls either, so we sat through entire programs, without flipping channels once, because:
1) spinning the knob too often was liable to break it;
2) dad would smack us for doing so because television sets were extremely expensive back then;
3) we were too lazy to get up every 5 minutes to flip channels.

Attention spans back then were a lot longer than what it is today, what with all the distractions from handheld gadgets to televions with over 1,000 channels from which to choose. Is it any wonder people today have the attention span of Iceberg lettuce? Back then, there were only 7 network channels and a handful of UHF channels to watch and we weren't flipping channels every 10 seconds to see if there was anything better on another channel. We also planned our viewing schedule in advance, looking through the TV Guide and dog-earing pages and memorizing on what day and what time our show was going to come.

We also dined together at the dinner table. Dad was an excellent cook and I started watching him cook when I was two. I started cooking for the family when I was nine. I learned just by watching him.

I learned a lot of life's lessons from my parents, one of which was I would get the tar beat out of me if I did something bad, and I learned never to do it again. My mom was a very good role model, even if she did cut the apron strings a little too late. The one thing I regret was never defying her to go join the Marines when I graduated high school; she threatened to disown me, and back then, we had respect for our parents. I often wonder what my life would be like had I'd gone the 20 years in the Corps. Oh well. Life goes on.

To Protect And Serve...Ourselves

2010-12-03T13:06:00.001-08:00

Now, all Gov. Christie has to do is restore Second Amendment rights to the citizens of New Jersey.

If they're going to reduce the police force by 25%, how are people supposed to protect themselves? Not that residents of New Jersey had any right to keep and bear arms, anyway, what with Draconian gun laws that are designed to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising that right, but restoring that right would be a good step in the right direction.

My Worlds Are About To Collide

2010-12-02T21:57:00.000-08:00

You know, I post more links on my Facebook page than I do here. That's because I have a wider audience there than I do here. Right? I don't know, but I will try to start putting stuff that I facebook about on here more.

Quote Of The Day #1

2010-12-02T21:47:00.000-08:00

"If you want to restrict someone’s civil rights, give yours up first."

-FaitMaker-

Makes sense to me.

Goodness Gracious, Great Balls Of Fire...

2010-11-11T06:42:00.000-08:00

First, it was an unidentified projectile shooting skyward from San Diego, Ca. The news media are tying to placate people's fears by telling us that it was an airplane leaving a contrail. Excuse me, but when do airplanes take off into the sky at such a steep angle?

Now, it's an unidentified streak of fire across the NYC skyline. An astronomer says this, too, is an airplane's contrail. I don't know about this one either, because contrails I've seen stretched halfway across the open sky. This one looks too short to be a contrail.

I think there's a government cover-up as to what these two unidentified flying objects were. Call me nuts, but if we are being visited by extraterrestrials, I'd like to know. If we're being attacked by terrorists, I'd like to know that, too.

*Edit: One of the bloggers I read, who lives near Luke AFB, which is east of the San Diego contrail, took pictures of it and blogged about it. She said the unidentified object came from the west and then went straight up in the air after heading east for a bit, and it kept going straight up. So, no frickin' way that thing was a jet airliner.

**Edit: News story has it that it was a Chinese missile launched from a Chinese submarine.

Life Is Change; Change Is Life

2010-11-08T19:38:00.001-08:00

Ever since the election, which had been a referendum on Obama's failed economic policies, my spirits have been slightly uplifted and there is real hope on the horizon. It's going to take a lot of time to fix everything that the Obama administration broke, which they thought was a fix to what they thought was broke in the first place, but really wasn't.

It's going to take time for the economy to recover from Obama's disastrous policies. Jobs are few and far between and nobody's looking to hire anyone in the architecture industry with real-world experience. It's coming up on 2 years now and I'm still trying to find a job in what I went to school for.

However, I had received and invite from my very good friend, to go on down to Virginia for a few days and look for work down there. If I find a job, I'll be moving out of the Empire State - an empire of idiotic politicians that do nothing but tax and spend, and then wonder why the state is bankrupt, especially when the people they want to tax the most are business owners who can't afford these policies.

I'll be leaving most of my family behind, although I do have an older brother who lives in Maryland. I don't talk to him at all, and I probably won't bother to visit him either. You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. However, you can choose to ignore the ones that made your life a living hell growing up, and he did just that. I've long since forgiven him, and I would be there in a heartbeat if he was in trouble, but other than that, I'd rather not have to deal with him. He tends to go off on his high-horse and look down on everyone. It also doesn't help him that he's extremely arrogant and can't admit when he's wrong. So you can imagine trying to have a conversation with him, when his mind's already made up about this, that or the other thing. Yeah, not going to go visit him.

So, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, moving down to Virginia. Isn't it sad that in order for me to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights, I have to move out of one state in the Union into another? Before I make my move, I'm going to have to a tonneau cover installed on my truck so I can pack up all my guns and ammo and bows and arrows and get them all down to Virginia in one trip, and then come back, rent a U-Haul truck with a vehicle trailer and move the rest of my stuff down. Or, if mileage is free, I'll just rent the U-Haul down there and use that instead. It's gonna be a lot of work, but it'll be well worth it in the end. Wish me luck.

Shooting In NYC #7

2010-10-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

It was a bad weekend of shootings.

Shooting in the West Village.

Twelve-year-old boy shot in Brooklyn.

Man shot and killed in a Queens deli.

And then there are the armed robberies here and here.

State Of Mind

2010-10-15T17:09:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've been mildly depressed lately. It's coming up on almost 2 years now being unemployed. Sure, I spend my days at the archery shop, learning how to fix and tune compound bows, but I don't get paid for it.; I'm an apprentice. My real career was in architecture - drafting and designing, basically. We have a lot of "the boys" come into the shop who are in the construction industry and they tell me that they're hurting as well. Construction and Architecture go hand-in-hand, and if they don't have work, we don't have work, and vice versa. At the shop, I'm actually actively looking for a job or a lead for a job. If anyone can help me, it's the contractors who know people. They tell me that there's just no work out there.

There are Interiors jobs in New York City, but all they are looking to hire are people fresh out of school who'll work for the experience alone - meaning "no pay" internships, or people with far less experience than I have, and pay them peanuts. I can't afford to live on peanuts, especially if it means a one-and-a-half hour commute each way, at the cost of $400 a month in transit fees. That's $400 a month that I don't need to hand over, especially if my taxes are going to skyrocket to 39%, on top of a huge pay cut. I also don't want to be putting in 60 hours a week for shitty pay. Twelve years ago, I suffered a nervous breakdown, which led to heart problems later on in my life. The nervous breakdown came after 5 years of working 70-hour weeks for an employer who didn't appreciate the time and effort I put into getting construction documents issued on time. The heart problems came about 7 years later in the form of Supraventricular Tachycardia, or SVTs for short. The high stress environment that I was immersed in caused a pathway in my heart to go nuts. After the ablation, I had to take it easy, even though I was still doing the occasional all-nighter at my previous job, but it was okay, because my then boss would compensate me by giving me off the next day, paid.

So, back to my depression. My unemployment insurance benefits are slated to run out by mid-November and I don't know if it's going to be extended. The country's in real bad shape and I don't know how it will ever recover from this administration's free-for-all massive spending on a galactic scale, especially when most of our industry has gone overseas. On top of that, this administration seems hell-bent on destroying the fabric of our hard-working society, in order to bring everyone down to the "slacker" level. It seems to me that mediocrity is the standard by which this generation, and future generations, will be measured.

Sometimes, the air about this country feels like a perfect storm is brewing and it's bringing with it an ill wind. But the tides may change after November 2nd and everything will be put right again. I may be depressed, but I still have hope.

In the meantime, I'm still looking for a job in either architecture or archery. If anyone has any leads, please send them my way. I'm willing to relocate. I've got to get of of this godforsaken state anyway.

Shooting in NYC #6

2010-10-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Sad.

The World Has Gone Mad

2010-09-08T06:27:00.000-07:00

When you've got a mob on your property threatening to kill you and your family, should you be the one to get arrested for trying to defend yourself and your family with your legally owned firearm? Apparently, in NY, you will be. Who's going to defend your family from the gang when you're in jail? Who's going to defend you from the MS-13 gang members who share the jail with you? It's a sad day when a law-abiding citizen is the one being jailed, rather than those and threatened him and his family with death.

Shooting in NYC #5

2010-09-07T02:14:00.000-07:00

Another man dies at the hands of a criminal with an illegally owned gun in NYC.

New Toy

2010-08-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so a new bow miraculously came to me this past week. I shoot bows. Lots and lots of bows in the course of a week after I work on them. As I have been "promoted" to the pro shop's pro-shooter, Bowtech sent me a Destroyer 350. Hopefully, I'll get sponsored by some archery equipment manufacturers in the future.

On my bows, I particularly like the HHA Optimizer Lite sight, which I tinkered with and accurized.See the extra pin coming off the factory brass pin? I made and installed that. It helps increase accuracy to the sight by putting the pin closer to the sighting tape and gives me 3 points of alignment, rather than two - the brass pin, my pin and then the mark I put on the sighting tape. From stock, I wondered how I would be able to align a brass pin to the yardage mark,with only 2 points of reference, when the pin sits a good 3/32" away from the yardage mark, and any deviation of adjustment would change the point of impact at further distances. With this improvement, I'm able to dial in the yardage to the inch, which is how I can consistently group 3" at 60 yards in the bullseye.

I also shoot a Quality Archery Design Ultra-Rest LD, which provides total arrow clearance upon pulling the trigger. This affects accuracy because the arrow rest drops away at the moment of the shot so there is absolutely no contact with the arrow as it comes off the string. I don't like rests that capture the arrow from the start of the shot cycle to the end, because any kind of arrow contact at the shot detracts from accuracy. The one great thing the Ultra-Rest has above all other drop-away rests is that if you elect to not shoot, and you let down on the draw, the rest comes back to its resting position, keeping the arrow fully captured until you decide to shoot later. All the other drop-away rests fall away even if you let down slowly, causing the arrow to drop willy-nilly off the bow shelf. This would make a lot of noise and scare off any prey you are hunting.

So, back to the bow - I had a hell of a time paper-tuning it. After a few hours of shooting it, and then adjusting it, and then shooting it some more, and adjusting it some more, and so on and so forth, it turns out it needed a couple of turns on certain cables to bring the cams into time. I then shot an arrow that blew a perfect hole in the paper.

The only thing left for me to do is to take it to the range and sight it in from 20 yards to 70 yards. That should take me about half an hour. Guess I'll have to wait till the sun is out.

Duracell Brand Batteries Suck

2010-08-15T18:34:00.001-07:00

Since 1998, I started experiencing Duracell brand batteries exploding inside my electronic devices. The first incident destroyed an Excalibur 3D-cell flashlight that was a predated the MagLite flashlights. It was the first of its kind in high intensity halogen flashlights and it was special to me because I bought it was my birthday money when I was 16 or 17, back in the late 80s.

Soon afterwards, other devices started suffering these catastrophic failures. No less than 3 mini-MagLites were destroyed by these batteries, because there was no way to get the exploded batteries out of the battery compartments of the flashlights. Other devices started to fail only to find that the batteries exploded and left their gritty white residue all over the battery compartment and battery terminals upon opening the cover. Once the offenders were removed and the residue scrubbed off with a toothbrush, they were good to go again. The latest device to suffer this failure is my favorite portable CD/MP3/FM/AM player. With a bit of elbow grease and a toothbrush, I was able to clean it up and get it working again, but I'm done with Duracell brand batteries. No longer will I buy them again.

I have since switched over to Energizer brand batteries. I have never experienced such epic failures from Energizer before and I am surprised that I even stayed with Duracell brand batteries for this long. I guess I bought into their hype too much.

Disarmed And Defenseless

2010-08-13T07:01:00.000-07:00

What do women do when attacked by 3 men who are stronger and larger than themselves, when NYC's draconian gun laws don't make it easy for the law-abiding citizen to get a gun with which to defend themselves? This time, they escaped the ordeal uninjured, but it could have been far worse.

Shooting in NYC #4

2010-08-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

Shooting at the South Street Seaport leaves 3 wounded.

Stop Blaming The Gun

2010-08-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

I really wish people would stop blaming the inanimate object for shootings committed by people who shouldn't have them.

A six-year-old boy shoots and kills his 10-year-old brother with a gun owned illegally by his criminal stepfather. Sadder still is what the 6-year-old said when the police arrived: “I’m 6 years old. You can’t touch me.” Why would the child say something like this, and from whom did he learn it?

While it is sad that this tragedy happened, it's sadder still that this child felt no remorse for what he did. Personally, I would lock up the stepfather and the 6-year-old and throw away the key, because what this society needs is one less sociopath causing trouble for everyone else. You can't blame the gun for creating a remorseless sociopathic killer, but you can probably blame the mother and the stepfather.

In another story, a Connecticut man goes "postal" (or would that be "brewtal?") when he goes on a shooting spree at his job at a beer warehouse. It was this person who decided to commit this crime and it so happened that he managed to get a gun, but being that he was a truck driver for the company, he could very easily have plowed his truck into his supervisors. Do you then blame the truck for the actions of this person? What's more, the criminal, who has since removed himself from society, was stealing beer long before this incident happened, which was why he was being discipline right before he started shooting. Do you then blame the beer? No, you blame the deranged person for this crime.

Being Led By Imbeciles

2010-07-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

From an email I got:

"This folks, is why this country is in deep, deep S#%T!

Poster-child for what is wrong in Washington , DC

You will simply not believe this. Our 8th District US Congressional representative, the Hon. Gabrielle Giffords, in a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, asked General David Petraeus the following question:

"General Petraeus, what are you doing to reduce carbon emissions in the war on terror?"

Wow. I had to read, and re-read this several times to believe it. Folks, there are American sons and daughters dying every week on the foreign battlefields of southwest Asia . The nation is completely bankrupt and ... quite literally, borrowing 43 cents for every dollar in federal spending. We have the largest environmental disaster in the nation's history in the Gulf of Mexico , and we have Mexican drug armies invading our nation. And yet ....A member of Congress from Arizona 's 8th congressional district took the time to ask our battlefield commander what he is doing to curb carbon emissions in the war. Gabrielle Giffords is the poster-child for what is wrong with the US Congress. We are being led by imbeciles. To the rest of America reading this blog, and to Gen. Petraeus if this e-mail makes it to your inbox ... my sincerest apologies for the stupid question asked of you by my US congressional representative. General ... I am sure you have better things to worry about than carbon emissions on the battlefield. I assure you, as a registered voter in Arizona 's 8th congressional district, I will do everything I can to ensure Rep. Giffords is voted out of office in November, and I pray you'll get back to business of fighting the war on terror without worrying about such petty and nonsensical matters as your carbon footprint in the war.

Mark Beres, Maj. USAF (ret.)
Tucson, Arizona

FYI: The 8th District surrounds Tucson to the north, south and east ( Tucson is in the 7th District) and covers the south-east corner of AZ.

What Google says about Rep. Giffords:

Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Az) took Afghan Commander, General David Petraeus, to task for what she characterized as â€œwillful disregard of the environmental impact of our war effort.â€� â€œThere is no policy, no plan to minimize carbon emissions in our military activities, Giffords charged. Bombs are dropped and bullets are fired without considering the environmental impact. Giffords insisted that she was not demanding an immediate halt to current military operations in the Middle East, "I'm just saying battle plans should include an environmental impact assessment as a regular part of the process before attacks are launched."

She also suggested that the Army put more emphasis on less environmentally damaging methods, like stabbing or clubbing enemy forces in order to minimize the carbon output.

New Rules of Engagement:

I think we ought to put her on the front lines so she can stab or club the enemy. God help us if this is the type of idiots that are elected to office. Walk softly and carry a big knife or big stick to save the environment.

Our asses come first, then comes the environment! Who's going to control environmental damage if we're dead?"

Shooting in NYC #3

2010-07-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Gas station attendant killed in Flushing, Queens.

Bowtech General Bow

2010-07-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Bowtech bows, but they do have a few bow lines that just aren't up to snuff. One bow in particular is the General, produced in 2008.

The General simply has too many negatives against it to make it even a good bow. The first and second things they did wrong was placing the string stop at the end of the arm that houses the cable rollers. This creates an obstructed view through the string peep to the front sight. The other thing wrong with this string stop is the rubber insert that cushions the string when the bow is shot. This rubber piece is molded in a way that causes the string to kick to either the left or the right, throwing off the nock end of the arrow as it leaves the bow. Due to this, the General is a hard bow to paper tune. If it were up to me, I'd remove this string stop and install an aftermarket one in the rear threaded bushing.

Third, the cables rollers don't come with a fence that ensures the cables don't jump off the rollers. I've seen many longer-draw Generals come in where the cables derailed from the rollers. I've had to fabricate cable fences from aluminum stock to install on the General.

Fourth, the cable rollers don't pull the cables far enough away from the arrow shelf, so that an arrow fletched with a Blazer or Predator vane is most likely to hit a cable, deflecting the shot.

In my opinion, Bowtech should have recalled the bow and rectified these problems, because it would have been a great bow if they did.

If that General I tuned today belonged to me, I would have made it right.

Nothing Better To Do

2010-07-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

The Only Ones, working hard to take down hardened criminals. Yeah, right.

Shootings in NYC #2

2010-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

Nun gets murdered.

Shootings In NYC #1

2010-07-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start keeping a log of shootings by criminals that occur in New York City, where the most draconian of gun bans are in effect.

This is my first one.

What Kind Of Conservative Are You?

2010-07-20T14:54:00.000-07:00

Me:

My Conservative Identity:

You are a Flag-Waving Everyman, also known as a patriot. You believe in championing liberty over tyranny, apple pie over sushi, and that God gave us a two-day weekend so we could enjoy football and NASCAR.

Take the quiz at
About.com Political Humor

It's The Principle

2010-07-20T14:25:00.001-07:00

Wal-Mart has decided to spend millions fighting a $7,000 fine levied against it by OSHA.

"OSHA wants to hold Walmart accountable for a standard that was neither proposed nor issued at the time of the incident," Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter said in a written statement. "The citation has far-reaching implications for the retail industry that could subject retailers to unfairly harsh penalties and restrictions on future sales promotions."

Kudos to Wal-Mart for fighting this fight because it can only help other retailers when they're caught in OSHA's crosshairs.

For far too long, there has been too much government interference and draconian regulations with the free-enterprise system. More government = less freedom.

Gone...With The Wind

2010-07-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

I write like
Margaret Mitchell

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

All That Glitters...Might Be Brass

2010-07-18T20:48:00.001-07:00

The Firearm Blog is running a contest with a grand prize of a thousand rounds of .380 ACP ammo, provided by Lucky Gunner.

I'd like to win that ammo, even though I don't currently own any pistols chambered for that round. I'd probably keep the ammo if I won, because ammo will be more valuable than gold in the near future and I'd be able to trade it for foodstuffs or some other such necessity. Or maybe I'll go get a pistol for it. Who knows? It's a longshot to win, but I'm in.

I'm For Carl Paladino for NY Governor

2010-07-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

"Dear Friend,

I just had one of the most incredible experiences of my life- and I want to share it with you.

For weeks I had been promised that I would be allowed to speak as a candidate for Governor at the New York State Republican Convention in New York City.

When I arrived at the convention I learned that the Republican leadership had slipped in a convention rule that said candidates for Governor would be allowed to speak after the voting to select the Republican candidate and only those candidates who received 25% would be allowed to speak!

Have you ever heard of anything so backwards and undemocratic?

This so typical of the New York political situation where both parties have contributed to the dysfunction in Albany.

After a motion to move candidate speeches before the voting failed, and some quick thinking by Erie County Republican Chairman Nick Langworthy who was my convention floor manager, I was given a proxy so I could address the convention- by nominating myself! I had ten minutes to lay out our agenda for radical reform in Albany.

I never expected to be the choice of the Republican party bosses who have so much invested in the current system in Albany. I have always vowed to take my fight to the voters in the Republican Party primary. I know I will win the Republican Primary against former liberal Republican Congressman Rick Lazio whose days in Washington were marked by his strong support for the big-government style, sub-prime mortgage program push by Andrew Cuomo when he was the Secretary of Housing. Together Lazio and Cuomo cost US taxpayers $2.4 Billion in failed mortgages.

I have no illusions- just getting my name on the ballot will take a super-human effort to collect more than the 15,000 valid Republican voter signatures- which could cost our campaign more than $500,000. I have no choice.

If you want to volunteer to collect valid Republican voter signatures in your community please contact me by clicking here. Unless we press our people's campaign to clean up Albany- I am convinced that nothing will change under political insiders Rick Lazio or Andrew Cuomo. When I see the lobbyists and other special interests shoveling money into Cuomo and covering their bet with token contributions to Lazio you can see they are both members of the political elite that are destroying this state.

The political establishment will stop at nothing to stop real reform that erodes their power and riches.

That's why I need your help.

New York is literally choking on high taxes. Special interests protect outrageous wasteful spending, the state is $60 billion in debt, our schools are failing and the state is hemorrhaging jobs. Corrupt politicians are stealing us blind. Only you and I can change this.

That's why I am running for Governor, to drive the political hacks running our state from office and bring real reform to Albany. Won't you join us by making a contribution to this vital effort today?

This campaign isn't about me. I am merely a spokesman for the people- and the people are mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore. I am just a businessman who never aspired to public office. I even supported candidates of both parties in the hope that some politician would actually do what they said they would do in the campaign.

You see, I refuse to believe this is the way it has to be.

I looked for a candidate for Governor with the independence, judgment and courage to take on the entrenched special interests and Albany's political insiders to change all of this. Last year I became active in the Tea Party movement to demand a return to fiscal common sense by government.

When I reached the conclusion that none of the candidates for Governor would bring any real significant change, I decided to run myself.

As a businessman I have the management skills to turn New York around. As a lawyer, I know all the tricks the lawyers in Albany use to maintain the status quo. As a Tea Party Activist I know the answer to our economic crisis is cutting taxes, cutting regulation and slashing spending - all to create jobs.

I built a $150 million dollar real estate development and management business from scratch. I'm a businessman not a politician. I know how to operate on budget. I know how to meet a payroll. I have created hundreds of good paying jobs. I put a high premium on telling the truth.

That is why I need your help today.

I have pledged $10 Million dollars of my own money to a reform campaign for Governor which will challenge the liberal political establishment that has given us the highest income and property taxes in the country, $60 Billion worth of debt and wasteful spending almost beyond imagination.

Won't you join our crusade to save New York? Won't you help me take on the liberal special interests that are destroying our state by sending a contribution today?

Public employee union bosses have more control over the state spending than the people do. Rich compensation and pension deals agreed to by career politicians in return for campaign contributions are bankrupting our state.

This has to stop and only you and I can stop it!

I plan to serve one 4-year term as governor without regard to politics, popularity or re-election. I will make government smaller, more effective and more efficient. I will return control of government to the people. I will carefully review every department, agency and authority of government and every government program for effectiveness, efficiency, productivity and need.

I have a very specific and comprehensive plan to revive New York's economy to:

cut taxes 10%.
cut spending by 20% by eliminating waste, fraud and government programs that aren't working.
cancel pension benefits and free health care for state legislators.
impose 8 year term limits for all state elected offices including the legislature.
institute a one-year residency requirement before anyone can receive welfare payments.
re-negotiate the fat public employee pension deals that have literally driven us to the brink of bankruptcy.
appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute corruption in the State Legislature and give him the subpoena power to get at the facts.

I have no illusions about how difficult it will be to force this package of reforms through the famously dysfunctional and corrupt New York State legislature. The people of New York must demand these reforms so that our legislators understand that there will be consequences for their inaction.

I can't do it alone. Democrat Andrew Cuomo has $20 Million dollars in special interest campaign contributions filling his war chest. Observers expect him to raise another $30 Million from the lobbyist, bankers, investment houses, Wall Street insiders, law firms, insurance companies and all those interested in maintaining the status quo in Albany.

While I have pledged to spend up to $10 Million of my own money, it will take far more if we are going to defeat the entrenched liberal special interests who have a stranglehold on our government.

That's why I am asking you to make a contribution to Paladino For the People today. I wish I could do it alone and while I have been blessed by my success in business, I cannot compete with the multi-Billion dollar special interests and public employees unions who like dysfunctional New York government just the way it is.

Together you and I can rally those New Yorkers who are fed-up and ready for radical reform. My campaign must raise an additional $200,000 in the next two weeks to keep our campaign plan on schedule.

Won't you send a contribution today?

I did not expect to be a candidate of the Republican Party bosses when they meet at their convention the first week of June. As I said, I intend to take my case directly to the Republican primary voters by collecting the 30,000 signatures that would ensure that my name appears on the September Republican Primary ballot. This effort alone could cost my campaign as much as $500,000.

If you want to help my campaign gather valid voter signatures as a volunteer please e-mail me by clicking here.

Because the New York State Conservative Party has also been co-opted by deal making, patronage hungry career politicians, I will also petition my way onto the November ballot on a Tea Party-oriented line. I believe this will create a vehicle to attract the votes of conservative Democrats and Independents who agree with us on the issues but are not comfortable voting Republican.

I'm doing my part, will you do yours? Will you help me save New York State?

You can use your Visa or Mastercard to make a contribution now. Won't you send $200, $100, $75 or $50? Even a contribution of $25 would be a big help.

Together we can defeat the bosses of the Republican establishment in their attempt to saddle our party with a weak nominee and defeat Andrew Cuomo and the liberal special interests who hope to make him Governor.

I would not be running and spending my own money if I didn't think I could win- but I cannot do it alone. Please help our campaign with a contribution today.

I will be checking for your response online. Thank you. Please let me hear from you today.

Carl P. Paladino
Candidate for Governor

PS - Don't let the attacks on me by the liberal media and political insiders distract you. The real obscenity is Albany and what they are doing with our money, not to mention the succession of corrupt politicians representing us. It seems like a new one is arrested every day. We can turn Albany upside down and take out the trash. Please go to https://www.paladinoforthepeople.com/donate.php and rush me your answer today.

PSS- If you want to volunteer to circulate petitions in your neighborhood to get my name on the ballot go to http://paladinoforthepeople.com/petition. Our campaign is a people's campaign and we need your help. If you want a Paladino for the people yard sign go to http://paladinoforthepeople.com/volunteer"

Seriously...

2010-07-14T19:10:00.001-07:00

I really need to get my ass to the gun range. I'm having serious recoil-therapy withdrawals.

Voter Fraud Elected Al Franken

2010-07-12T16:13:00.001-07:00

He should be immediately removed from his seat. Seriously, do it now!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/felons-voting-illegally-franken-minnesota-study-finds/

Letter To Carl Paladino

2010-07-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Carl Paladino claims he's not a politician, but he wants to get on the ballot to run for Governor of New York State. On his website, there are issues he hasn't addressed sufficiently and there are issues that he hasn't addressed at all. So I wrote him a letter:

"...I'd like to know where you stand on gun rights for law-abiding New York gun owners. Seems to me that there's a patchwork of different gun laws in different cities and counties that are aimed at hurting us and does nothing to stop the criminals.

We also need Castle Doctrine laws so we know we can protect ourselves in our own homes with no requirement to retreat. After all, if we retreat from our home with our guns, that instantly makes us criminals. If we stay in the home and use deadly force, now we're breaking the law again by not retreating.

We also need CCW provisions so we can protect ourselves no matter where we go. States that trust their citizens to conceal-carry have significantly lower crime rates than states that don't. We also need statewide preemption to make gun laws uniform across the state, along with reciprocity with other gun-friendly states.

The Second Amendment isn't just for hunting, as most hoplophobes would have you believe.

Also, where do you stand on illegal aliens? I don't want to hear that you're going to give them benefits after they've lived here for a year. A parasite is still a parasite no matter how long its lived in one place. I want you to follow Arizona's example and get rid of these drains on taxpaying New Yorkers. This would save billions of dollars a year for New York and also free up jobs for her resident citizens."

I await a reply.

So, before I sign your petition to run for governor, I'd like to know where you stand. Will you fight for New Yorkers' rights or will it be the same old politics as usual once you get into office?

*Edit: After a thorough perusing of Carl Paladino's website, I found this: "I support an individual's right to bear arms as recognized by the Second Amendment and I believe it is now time to enshrine this vision of our Founding Fathers in the New York State Constitution. It is disgraceful that New York is one of the few states that leaves state gun owners' rights up to the whim of state legislators.

And not only will I defend against further assaults by Sheldon Silver and the gang against existing gun owner rights, but I will look for opportunities to roll back any existing state law that infringes upon the right to bear arms."

Looks like I'm on board for Carl Paladino.

At The Range

2010-07-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

Brigid has a spectacularly jocular post detailing the .38 things she learned from shooting.

I can relate to #14: "The most skilled shooter at the range is usually not the talkative person with the fancy gear, $200 range bag and tactical clothing. It's that quiet guy or gal in the T-shirt with the ammo cans. Watch them and learn."

Now, I am not the most skilled shooter at the range, but I can hold my own. I usually like to go to the range alone. It is my quiet time, if you can call it that, what with all the bullets going off around me. But seriously, when I'm at the range, I'm zoned out. Nothing stands between me and the bullseye. Nothing except the voice of the range officer. Somehow, my ears are trained to listen for her voice, even with earplugs and over-the-ear muffs. I generally keep to myself and concentrate on my shooting form, unless someone approaches me for help. Otherwise, I find a secluded shooting bench and set up my gear. Then I go to work.

My serious shooters are my Browning A-Bolt .243 Win. and 7mm Rem. Mag. rifles. These are my hunting rifles and are sub-M.O.A. guns. At 100 yards, they make one ragged hole. Breath control is extremely important and I learned that from shooting my air rifles at home. The rifle is only as accurate as the steadiness of the person behind the trigger. Having good equipment to start with doesn't hurt either. Either gun was under $800 and I think I got the better end of the deal.

But, getting back to #14; the guy at the gun range in a t-shirt with the ammo cans and doesn't talk to anyone is usually me. Except that one time when I met up with Newbius and OldNFO in Virginia and we went to the NRA range together, I usually go to the range alone.

Newbius Papers...

2010-07-03T12:13:00.001-07:00

... has a great post on why the oil spill is still not capped.

Read the whole thing.

A Sign Of The Times

2010-06-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Personally, I'm ready for some hassenpfeffer.

SCOTUS Affirms The RKBA

2010-06-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

Time to bring the fight to NYC next.

For too long now, New York City residents and those of us who live in its shadow, have suffered from being denied the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for self-defense. This is tragically, why there are so many shootings in NYC, esp. in Brooklyn.

The old adage: "When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" is never truer in cases where people have been denied this basic human right, using the best tool in existence to do just that.

Crosman Airgunning

2010-06-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

I finally had a chance to shoot my Crosman NPSS air rifle at the range yesterday. It's a .22 cal. break barrel air rifle with a Nitro Piston, instead of a spring, and a carbon-fiber-look synthetic thumbhole stock.

There's a bit of history with this particular air rifle that led me to learn how to tune and upgrade air rifles. The first thing about this air rifle was that there were spacers missing from the barrel's breach, where it pivots on the receiver. This led me to search high and low for correctly sized replacement spacers. I had called Crosman telling them about this problem, but they said that because I took apart the rifle, I voided the warranty. That's when I got angry, so I wrote a letter to the President of Crosman, who passed my letter along the head of their product development department. This gentleman was extremely understanding and accommodating and sent me new breach spacers, but by the time I received them in the mail, I had already found and installed brass washers (from Lowe's of all places) and installed them on my rifle. These brass washers were a perfect fit and had no free play whatsoever in the barrel. This led to the accuracy of the rifle printing 1.5" groups at 65 yards with Crosman Premier Hollow Point pellets. Prior to that, it was all over the place due to the missing breach spacers.

One thing led to another and pretty soon, I found myself frequenting the airgun forums and from there, I learned to build a spring compressor that I used to completely disassemble my NPSS. When I got the rifle apart, I found that the piston seal was seriously gouged from the burrs on the punch-outs on the receiver tube. So I got myself a deburring tool and proceeded to cut away the burrs so that new piston seal I put on the piston sleeve would not become gouged when I put the gun back together. The replacement piston seal came, courtesy of Crosman. I also ordered a replacement NCT trigger by Steve Woodward. This new trigger really made a huge difference in accuracy. It comes back nicely to a second stage stop and breaks crisply as you pull through the trigger. One other thing I did was take a small conical Dremel sanding bit and flare out the pellet loading port so that the pellet's skirts would sit flush with the back of the loading port (breach).

After I put the rifle back together, I proceeded to put 2 tins of pellets through it. In the meantime, I went and ordered a chronograph and a pellet trap. When they arrived, I proceeded to put some 14.3 grain pellets through it. I was disappointed when the numbers came back averaging only 650 fps on a rifle that's supposed to get 1,000 fps with 9.9 grain, lead-free pellets. Even though there's a 4.4 grain difference betwen what I shoot and what it was rated at, there shouldn't be a 350 fps difference. Then I found out what was wrong - the nitro piston was losing power. Cocking effort became way too easy and pellets were being shot at around 300 fps.

So, I called up Crosman and spoke to my guy there and he said it was okay for me to send him just the nitro piston and he'll send me a new one. Because of all the work I had already put into this rifle, I was not going to take a chance that someone there was going to simply replace the entire rifle. So, two weeks later, the replacement nitro piston came and I quickly installed it and promptly put some pellets through the chronograph. I liked what I saw - 800 fps with 14.3 grain pellets.

Okay, so I finally got it out to the range yesterday. Now, I knew that the gun was accurate to start with, after I worked on its improvements, but the gun was putting Crosman Premier Hollow Point pellets in a 1" hole (with a couple of fliers) at 100 yards yesterday. Holdover from zero at 20 yards was about 12", but once you figure out which mil-dot to put on the target, you'll be hitting whatever you're aiming at, minus the few fliers you're bound to get from a tin of pellets. Oh, I did clean the barrel with Goo Gone in between shooting 65-yard 1.5" groups and 100-yard 1" groups. That might have made a difference in accuracy too.

I am extremely impressed with this rifle and the excellent customer service I received from Crosman. Of all the airgun companies I have dealt with this past year, Crosman has, bar none, the best customer service ever!

Personally, I'd love to own a Benjamin Sheridan Trail NP XL, but the stock is a bit big for me. I could get the smaller version - the Trail NP, but I already have an 800 fps, .22 cal. nitro piston rifle. However, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I would go for this one because I like the stock.

Paper Tuning A Bow 101

2010-06-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

This is a perfect tear through paper from an arrow shot off a bow that is perfectly tuned. It is one hole. The back of the arrow goes through the same hole that the point created. The 3 scraggly lines coming off the hole are created by the vanes.

This is an example of a bad tear from a bow that is not properly tuned. The point went in on the left and tore an elongated hole to the right where the back of the arrow completed the hole.

These two holes were created by the same bow. The problem with the bow were many - the cams were out of time; the drop-away rest was not correctly positioned at centerflight; the string suppressor was off-center and was shifting the bowstring to the right (and in turn, the nock end of the arrow) causing the back end of the arrow to kick to the right at the end of the shot cycle; the strings and cables were reaching the end of their life and will need to be replaced next year - the list goes on.

When a bow is paper tuned, windage will be consistent from 10 yards to 60 yards and beyond. If not, the arrow will shoot to the right or the left at further distances. In the example above, the bow before tuning will have shot the arrow to the right due to the string kicking the arrow to the right, at further distances, even though the shooter may have the bow sighted in at 20 yards.

Splitting Arrows And Other Things

2010-06-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

For the past 7 years, I have immersed myself in my archery. I shoot with a compound bow with accessories only hunters use. I'm not into target shooting using scoped or magnified sights and I don't have use a 3-foot-long stabilizer, even though I own one. When I was first starting out, I knew almost nothing about bows. I bought the "best" bow that I could afford, which was a Reflex Grizzly. Reflex is the lesser quality brand by Hoyt. Mind you, this bow shot great for me, but not knowing anything initially about hand-shock, bow movement, bow noise, etc., I thought I had a really good bow for the money. (The Grizzly is on the right. My friend's Reflex Highlander is on the left)

I used to compete with guys at the range, one of whom was a real target shooter with all the aforementioned high-tech accoutrements on his bow. He was a real good shooter and would consistently score 300x on his league shoots every week. However, these shoots were no more than 20 yards. So he approached one night and bet me a dollar that I couldn't hit an M&M from that distance.

On my first attempt, I came pretty close, but I was just a hair away from it. And yes, the make it "interesting," the M&M was inserted into the foam targets, sideways. Well, for whatever reason, he didn't hit it either.

So, for the next half hour, we kept shooting at more and more M&Ms stuck into the target wall, until I finally hit it. Is it coincidence that it happened to be an "orange" M&M that I hit?

So I won a few dollars that night, but I was completely hooked on improving my game, so the speak. In the weeks, months and years to follow, I would continue to improve my shooting and increase my knowledge of archery. I eventually moved on to a better bow - the Bowtech Guardian. This was a radical new bow with a center-pivot design that eliminated 99% of the noise and shock when it was shot. This bow didn't move in my hand when I shot it.

Compared to the Guardian, shooting the Grizzly was like hitting an aluminum bat against a steel column. I quickly sold my Grizzly and stayed with the Guardian. It is one of the quietest and most shock-free bows I have ever shot. With this bow, I was consistently getting groups as tight as, or better, than this:

This is a paint chip of a cartoon character whose name rhymes with "Hickey House" from a big-box home improvement store whose name rhymes with "Dome Repo." It is about 1.5" in diameter with 6 of my arrows stuck in it from 20 yards. It was a real tack-driver, and before long, I was doing this:

This was my first "robin-hood" from 30 yards. There came others at different yardages with the most recent one from 80 yards:

This was shot from my Bowtech 82nd Airborne bow that you see me shooting in a previous post. I had just gotten a new set of arrows and these happened to be the first 2 shots I took with them from 80 yards. I was in the process of sighting in the bow at that distance, with my aimpoint being the bullseye on both shots. The 82nd Airborne is a really nice bow also, but it has something the Guardian doesn't have: speed. It is rated at 342 fps with a 300 grain arrow at 60# with a 30" drawlength. At my drawlength of 26.5", I can send a 300 grain arrow downrange at 303 fps. My Guardian only rated around 318 fps with a 300 grain arrow at 60# and 30" drawlength. A 300 grain arrow from my Guardian only gets me about 260 fps.

However, being the innovative schmuck that I am, I "improved" my Guardian with an aftermarket roller cable guard that helped increase my Guardian's peak weight from 62#* to 67#.

My saving grace that I didn't blow up the bow's limbs is that I am a short draw, so the limbs aren't as stressed at 26.5" as they would be with someone with a 28" or greater drawlength. Of course, in doing this modification, I voided the warranty on my bow, but I'm not concerned about that. If the limbs crack, I'll just get new ones that are 70# and change the roller guard back to the stock cable guide rod and slide.

Both of my bows are tack-drivers, but they woudn't be if I didn't have a professional bow tuner take me under his wing as an apprentice. Having been unemployed for over 18 months, I spend a lot of my time at the shop learning to tune bows and arrows between looking for a job (yes, arrows have to be tuned when you put broadheads on, but that's a topic for another day).

I also shoot a recurve bow with arrows fletched with feathers. Though they are not as accurate as a compound bow, a recurve's accuracy is mostly up to the archer. And I do have one "robin-hood" with my recurve at 20 yards, though I didn't take a picture of it.

* Bowtech's bows never come in at or below their 60# ratings, and are always 2 or 3 pounds over. At 67# and 26.5" drawlength, my Guardian shoots 385 grain arrows at 260 fps. The peak weight of my 82nd Airborne was 62# as well, when I first bought it.

Comments To Top Shot Episode 3

2010-06-22T20:17:00.001-07:00

I have been getting questions regarding the archery episode, being that I am a quasi-archery pro.

Here is what I observed:
1) The arrows they used were fletched with plastic vanes instead of feathers. Shooting arrows with vanes from a longbow will throw off the arrow's flight due to the vanes unforgiving nature when it comes in contact with the bow's riser and shelf. Feathers are traditionally used with traditional bows because they yield to the contact with the riser and shelf and not cause much arrow deflection from its target downrange. This was the main reason that the contestants could shoot consistently.

2) Having addressed the issue of vanes vs. feathers above, shooting arrows fletched with feathers should have the "cock feather" oriented perpendicular to the riser, i.e.: cock feather out. The cock feather is usually a feather of a different color than the other two "hen feathers." The contestants were shooting their arrows with the cock vane either up or down, which means that the arrow's nocks were not oriented correctly to the bow. This incorrectly oriented vane would have had the lover right hen vane deflecting against the riser and shelf. Right-handed shooters will have the arrows hit high left; left-handed shooter will have arrows hit high right.

3) Some of the contestants also weren't nocking the arrows correctly on the bowstring - some were nocking them too low. If you notice on the bowstring, there is a piece of brass wrapped around the string. This is called the "string nock" and sets the location to where the arrow's nock clips onto the bowstring. Nocking an arrow too low from the string nock will cause the arrow to come off the bow at an upward angle and hit somewhere beyond the target.

4) Plucking the bowstring: a lot of the contestants were plucking the bowstring, which means that they were physically using muscles to open up their fingers when they fired their bow. This plucks the string and will cause inconsistent shooting. What should have been taught by their archery "expert" was to simple relax the fingers of the string hand when it reaches the face, while continuing the rearward motion of the string hand. Relaxing the fingers would have allowed the bowstring to naturally leave the fingers straight and without eccentric movement (plucking) of the string. Kelly and JJ demostrated the best shooting form in this episode.

If the contestant were given the proper equipment during the archery part of the competition, the shots would have probably been a lot closer than what happened in this episode. Whether this was intentional or not, that's something only the producer and/or equipment purchaser would know.

Converting A B.S. Super Streak With A Nitro Piston

2010-06-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken over the course of 2 weeks and during different phases of fabrication and assemblage, using two different Super Streak air rifles, both of which were in .22 caliber. Once I had the guns apart, I deburred the receiver tube and thoroughly cleaned it out. Then it was to the shop to get the internal parts modified and a new one made. I ordered J. Maccari seals before I did anything and once they arrived, the fun began. At the shop,

the spring guide rod needed to come out from inside of the Piston Assembly, all the way flush to the backside of the top hat, so that the inner spring guide sleeve could be reused.

Here is the piston assembly minus the internal spring guide rod and before a new seal went on.

Then the back spring guide was cut where the flat part ends and the round part begins. There are two variations of this back spring guide - one has two flat surfaces on opposite sides with one flat surface closer to the stock link pin threaded hole than the other. This flat surface closest to the threaded hole is where you want to cut. When you cut this part, it will expose a hole where the ram rod will go through and where you will seat the new rear ram rod guide. Since there was no longer a spring, this part merely served to attach the stock link pin. A new rear ram rod guide was needed, so I made one:

Using a 1/2" diameter x 2-1/2" long hex bolt, I put it into a heavy duty drill press and turned down the hex head with a file until it fit into the receiver tube end cap,

and then a recess was drilled out the center about 1/16" deep to receive the gas ram's ram rod end.

Here, the modified back spring guide, which I will now call the "stock link pin block" has the rear ram rod guide inserted into it. Notice that I cut the hex bolt to the exact length where it wouldn't interfere with the stock link pin when it is screwed in to hold down the trigger assembly.

Here is the assembled nitro piston with masking tape shimming around the body to fit snugly inside the inner guide sleeve (that used to keep the spring straight when it was compressed). A 3/4" dia. brass washer was also turned down to 47/64" and was installed between the nitro piston body's end and the inner guide sleeve for uniform pressure to the top hat.

Here is the rear ram rod guide sitting perfectly inside the receiver tube's screw-on end cap,

The assembled powerplant with a new Tesla seal, a nitro piston inside the inner sleeve inside the piston assembly, with the ram rod through the stock link pin block and the rear ram rod guide sitting inside the receiver tube rear end cap. Assembly was straightforward: carefully insert the piston assembly without damaging the piston seal; push entire assembly into the receiver tube completely; insert stock link pin block (with the cut side towards the inside) and install the trigger & stock link pin using some blue loctite; then install the rear ram rod guide and receiver tube end cap carefully and tighten it down. Make sure the bear trap lever is properly reinstalled and then reinstall the stock, using blue loctite on the 3 stock screws.

Oh, and if you hadn't already done so, get yourself a GTX trigger from Airguns of Arizona (http://www.airgunsofarizona.com/GTX.htm) and replace the crappy stock trigger before you reinstall the stock.

After all was said and done, the gun was shot through the chronograph. With 14.3 grain pellets, it was averaging 905 fps, and accuracy to 35 yards was much improved with pellets dancing all around a nickel-sized bullseye. All the movements associated with a spring were gone and all you felt and heard was the solid thump of the nitro piston. And as the guns were being shot, points of impact were going up, as I suspect the pellets were shooting faster due to the parts meshing together better.

Needless to say, both of my friends were ecstatic with their much-improved Super Streak rifles, which they used to call The Beast, because of the way it used to shoot. The beasts have now been tamed. Let's see now if they can pick off starlings at 40 yards with their Nitro Piston Super Streaks, like I was doing with my Theoben-upgraded .22 cal. Gamo CFX.

So, there you have it. A complete conversion of a Benjamin Sheridan Super Streak to a Nitro Piston air rifle. I have to give a lot of credit to David Slade of Airgunwerks.com, Tom Gore of VortekProducts.com, James Maccari of AirRifleHeadquarters.com and Steve Woodward, inventor of the GTX trigger, without whom, none of this conversion would have been possible. Thanks, guys.

**Edit**
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any injury or death, to anyone who attempts to do what I have done in this conversion or any future conversion that I may post. Anyone following my instructions do so at his/her own risk. Modifying your air gun most likely will void the warranty and the user assumes the risks inherent in any modifications to his/her air gun.

2010-06-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

It continues to amaze what the Zero's administration is getting away with. They've "...banned all citizen journalists, photographers, bloggers, and other observers from the region. The few 'authorized journalists' of the mainstream media that are being allowed in have been instructed not to photograph or write about anything that could cast the Obama Administration in a negative light."

This goes against the very fabric of the First Amendment. It also shows you how fragile an ego the Zero and his administration has and is also a very good example of fearmongering to get people to capitulate more to the government than what the Constitution allows.

DELL Inc...

2010-06-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

...sucks.

The ordeal I had with their "departments" was a nightmare, in trying to get warranty replacement service for a RAM module that went bad. This was their memory module, with their logo and sticker on it, with their brochure that came with it that said, "Lifetime Warranty."

You would think that getting an RMA number to get a replacement module would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong.

I was on the phone with them for TWO days, getting bounced around from no less than FOUR different departments and TEN different people. They never even had the courtesy to call me back when we got disconnected. One of their tech managers was even yelling at me over the phone.

So, the straw that broke this camel's back was when I got bounced to the last department and I get a recording saying, "Sorry, this department is now closed. Please call back during normal business hours." After having been on the phone for 2 hours trying to get someone to help, that was it. I snapped.

I packed up the RAM in the actual box in which they shipped to me, when I bought it in 2004, wrote DELL's CEO, Mr. Michael S. Dell a letter laced with profanity of which you have never seen, wrapped it all up and shipped it off. I hope he gets my message loud and clear that I will never buy another thing from DELL ever again. Hell, I told him I was even going to blog about this experience so the world will know what a shit company it has become. OH, get this! DELL's corporate headquarters information isn't even on their website. I had to find it using Google to search it. Do they have something to hide, or do you suppose they'd rather not hear from their customers at all?

DELL rhymes with HELL and that's where they should go. I'm done with DELL.

NYS Microstamping Bill...

2010-06-05T11:43:00.000-07:00

...passsed out of the Assembly not too long ago. Now it's headed to the Senate. SB6005 is a nefarious bill that will do NOTHING to stop criminals from getting guns and using them illegally. What it will do is destroy our Second Amendment rights (what's left of them, anyway) in New York State. It will further destroy New York State's economy when Kimber is forced to lay off its workforce and move out of state.

Every years, this bill keeps popping up, and every year, it gets defeated. Let's do it once again, people. Those who know the value of freedom knows that it took men who did unspeakable things to win this freedom for us and for future generations. Bills like this, if they become law, will just be another nail in the coffin where our freedom is laying.

Wal-Mart Want To Be A Healthcare Provider...

2010-06-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

...yet they don't even provide healthcare to their own employees.

Sigh...

2010-06-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

In yet another attempt to suck up to dictators, tyrants, emporers and queens, people who are supposed to represent the American people just keep making asses of themselves.

The Tapestry Unravels

2010-06-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

WHO is a joke, much like the idiots involved with this Global Warming/Climate Change garbage.

Just as the GW/CC idiots were in cahoots with our government to force people to comply with their scheme to control what we drive, what we eat, how to live our lives, etc., so too is the WHO in cahoots with big pharma/FDA to control the people. It is fearmongering on a global scale.

But,that's just what I think.

England - A Giant Victim Zone

2010-06-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

So much for the gun bans in England, where hard-working, law-abiding citizens are disarmed and forced to become victims to those criminals who don't turn in their guns.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/02/report-feared-dead-shooting-northern-england/

#2 Pencil On Paper

2010-06-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

I don't consider myself an artist, even though I went to an art high school. I'm a Virgo, and by nature, am very detail-oriented, so my brain doesn't work the way the "artistic" brain works. I like to build things with my own hands. I've build sheds for friends and family. I've repaired broken walls and ceilings to the degree that you wouldn't know that they were ever broken. I visualize in 3-D and how things come together to work the way they do. I'm pretty sure that if given the time and resources, I could build a better mouse trap, as the saying goes.
Even though I am neither tall, dark nor handsome, I do appreciate beauty in a human form, especially the face, specifically the area around the eyes. On the occasions that I deign to pick up a pencil or a pen and put it to pad, this is usually what results.

They say the eyes are the windows into the soul. This first drawing was one that I sketched from memory shortly after we met in 1995. I drew hurriedly to get what was in my brain onto paper to be preserved forever. She was one of my first loves and had the most soulful eyes when she was sad, but when she was happy, her eyes lit up the room and all the sadness would disappear. My sketch does not do her justice, but for me, whenever I look at this sketch, it stirs a longing deep within - a longing to hold her and stare into those eyes and a yearning to taste her lips once more.

The next one is of Vivian Chow, a famous Chinese actress/singer (because in Chinese pop culture, you really can't be one without being the other). I copied this from an album cover one day when I felt like sketching. Again, I don't think my sketch does her justice - she's much prettier on her album cover. She has beautiful eyes.

This last one is of another Chinese actor/singer - Chris Wong, and again, copied from an album cover.

Maybe one day soon, I'll sit down, pick up a #2 pencil, my art pad and start sketching again. It's been a long time since I've done any sketching of this type and I think I'm long overdue. My question is: "who shall it be?"

Prelude To Disaster

2010-06-01T21:56:00.001-07:00

They approved of building a Mosque at Ground Zero, NYC.

Iran has 2 tons of enriched Uranium, capable of making two nuclear warheads.

No good can come from either of these events.

Remember

2010-05-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all you brave men and women who risk your lives keeping us safe. Thank you and God bless you!

Original video found here.

How About Starting With Yourself, HIllary?

2010-05-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton states "the wealthy are not paying their fair share." Well, how about starting with yourself and the other 230 millionaire congress-critters? It's easy for people like you to take away other people's money and give it away to people who don't deserve it, but never your own money, right?

I can see November 2010 from my house.

Pelosi Now Blaming Pres. Bush

2010-05-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

Idiot.

Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout, Willis??

2010-05-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

R.I.P., Gary Coleman

Retirement News

2010-05-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

Got this in an email and just had to share it.

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the economy, Congress has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early retirement, thus creating jobs and reducing unemployment.

This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPEd can apply to Congress to be considered for the SHAFT program (Special Help After Forced Termination).

Persons who have been RAPEd and SHAFTed will be reviewed under the SCREW program (System Covering Retired-Early Workers).

A person may be RAPEd once, SHAFTed twice and SCREWed as many times as
Congress deems appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPEd could get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependents & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).

Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTed or SCREWed any
further by Congress.

Persons who are not RAPEd and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Congress has always prided themselves on the amount of SHIT they give our citizens.

Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the attention of your Congressman, who has been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.

Sincerely,
The Committee for Economic Value of Individual Lives (E.V.I.L.)

PS: Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas and oil, as well as current market conditions, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

The Definition Of Insanity

2010-05-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

Is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Is NY too far gone, politically, to be able to see that instituting a millionaire's tax is only going to force companies to move out of the state, and causing more unemployment?

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/ny-assembly-looks-at-millionaires-tax-20100526

I never went to school for accounting, but even I can see what this tax will further do to an already crippled economy.

You Knew This Was Coming

2010-05-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

Blame Bush

Let's Play With Numbers

2010-05-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Jobs creation? More like fiction:
Here

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Laughs

2010-05-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

Shooting My Bow

2010-05-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

This is my Bowtech 82nd Airborne I tuned a few days ago. I shot 2" groups at 50 yards.

Does my wallet make my ass look fat??

MArooned: Friday Funnies

2010-05-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Must read Friday...

MArooned: Friday Funnies

US Census Claims A Life

2010-05-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/family-95100-city-woman.html

A Sixteenth Of An Inch

2010-05-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

My Bowtech 82nd Airborne compound bow wasn't shooting the way it should when I first got it and set it up. I don't know what happened to it, but it would not paper tune.

Paper tuning is when you shoot an arrow, be it bare-shafted or fletched, through a sheet of paper, from 8 feet away, to see which way the paper tears. A perfect tear is when you get a single clean hole from a bare shafted arrow, or a single hole with three lines equidistant apart coming off the single hole with a fletched arrow. That's when a bow is tuned. If the hole is not "clean," then the accessories on the bow, or the bow itself, would have to be adjusted. Today, I did just that for four hours.

I checked the timing of the cams and one cam was off by a sixteenth of an inch, so I corrected that. Then I put arrows through the paper tuner again. No good. It was still tearing 1" to the left, meaning that the point of the arrow going through the paper was not the same at the fletched end of the arrow going through it. I kept adjusting the arrow rest, but it was too much. It shouldn't be out so far, so I moved it back to the original position. I tore the whole bow apart from top to bottom. I mean, I took the whole bow apart, checked everything, re-timed the cams and the arrow rest. I did things to the bow that I am not at liberty to say due to this information being proprietary. It was also entrusted to me to be kept secret. Then I shot it through the paper tuner again. Much better. The rest was just off a bit so I moved it a sixteenth of an inch to the right. Bingo! A perfect hole.

Next step: sighting in the bow. I took it back to twenty yards and let the first arrow fly. Off to the left about two inches and an inch low. Adjust the sight over to the left a sixteenth of an inch and down a sixteenth of an inch. Let another arrow fly. Okay, arrow is to the left by about an inch but elevation is good. Adjusted the sight over to the left another sixteenth of an inch and let another arrow fly. Bullseye! Sent two more arrows downrange and two more bullseyes. I locked everything down and tightened everything up on the bow. She's tuned. I'll have to get her sighted in at 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 yards on Saturday so we'll be ready to compete at my archery club's fundraiser on Sunday to benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospital. There'll be no losers at this competition; everybody wins!

Archery is one of my zens. When I'm out there shooting, everything gets tuned out. I focus on nothing else but the bullseye. It is the difference between breaking the line in the ten ring or missing it altogether and all it takes is a sixteenth of an inch.

They Say...

2010-05-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

...it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes the government to bring up the idiots.

Booger Hook On The Brain

2010-05-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

It was Jay who complimented me on my finger discipline in my gun-handling at the NRA Convention when we were all fondling the Hollywood guns. It didn't register then, but it hit me just now as to why I automatically keep my trigger finger off the trigger when I hold a gun - archery.

You see, when I shoot my compound bows, I use a mechanical shooting aid - a release. The triggers on these releases are literally hair triggers. Touch them while drawing your bow and a disaster will most likely occur. There is no first stage pull and definitely no second stage. It just goes off with the slightest bump from your trigger finger. Trigger weight is about half a pound, and usually, your arrow is aimed at something other than your target while you're drawing back your bow. I've seen arrows stuck to ceilings; in walls; in the dirt; in a tree; in a forearm; in a hand; in people; etc.

The four rules of gun handling safety applies to archery equally. Getting skewered by an arrow is not the same as being hit by a bullet, but neither one of these things should ever happen by accident. This is why my trigger finger is always away from the trigger when I handle a gun.

Thanks, Jay, for the compliment.

Check Your Engine

2010-05-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my truck tripped the "Check Engine" light while I was down in Virginia over the weekend. I didn't have my OBD II scan tool with me, so I had to wait till I got home to find out what tripped it. I was not about to hand out $90 to a mechanic just to plug in the scan tool, plus the cost for labor and parts. It would have ended up costing me about $400 to replace something I could do myself. In fact, my scan tool cost me $145 when I first got it. After two uses, it's already paid for itself.

Well, I drove home and plugged in my scanner. The code pinged back with P1135 - faulty air/fuel ratio sensor. This is the one that comes before the catalytic converter. So I did some research at all the auto parts stores - Auto Zone and Advanced Auto Parts. I even went into Toyota to find out how much they wanted for it. Can you believe they want $215 dollars?? Advanced Auto Parts wanted $205 for the Bosch one. Auto Zone was the lowest with $115.95 for the same one by Bosch. Guess where I'll be getting my A/F sensor from.

So far, after I reset the truck's computer with the scan tool, the "Check Engine" light has not come back on. In the interim, I replaced the air filter, while I wait for the new sensor and gasket to get here. This should allow more air into the intake manifold and increase O2 to the air/fuel mixture.

Looks like I'll be crawling under my truck some time next week. I hope nothing else comes up for a long while.

The Breda Fallacy: it's not about the guns

2010-05-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

The Breda Fallacy: it's not about the guns

Should Have Checked My Spelling

2010-05-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

Bleh.

Sometimes, Stupid Is As Stupid Does

2010-05-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

Something funny happened at the archery shop today. We had a Bowtech Old Glory bow on which I had to change the strings and cables, which I did no problem. Thing was, when I went and put it on the drawboard to check the timing of the cams, I couldn't get the bow to come to full draw. Where it would stop was about a half inch shy. I couldn't figure out why.

My mentor couldn't figure out why either until, he turned his head away from looking at the cams to where the cable fed through the guide loop to the crank and discovered that the knot that ties to the hook that pulls the bow open was getting impeded right there. So, for hours, we sat there and scratched our heads. We got Vapor Trail on the phone; we called Bowtech to see if they did something special for this guy's bow, because it was a 31" drawlength, and that is really rare.

So, having discovered and corrected the problem, the bow is now complete in its maintenance, but my mentor busted my balls like nobody's business, for the next few hours. Then he suddenly stops and says to me, "It's almost as bad as the time I was fixing a bow and something was making noise. I spent 4 hours taking it apart, putting it back together, and I could not, for the life of me, figure out where that sound was coming from. Then my business partner comes into the shop and he says, 'Why don't you try shooting the bow without your watch on?'"

The next few days at the shop are going to be interesting and full of mirth and merriment. He'll bust my balls; I'll bust his. Good times...good times.

GAMO

2010-05-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I went down to Charlotte, N.C. this weekend to the NRA Convention. I found the GAMO booth and I voiced my concerns to one of their V.P. of Sales, regarding the direction GAMO had taken with their rifles.

He explained to me that the reason GAMO went with an integral trigger was because (the typical) customers were complaining how the old-style triggers would get loose, etc. and have a failure to cock, so they changed their triggers to the new style so they won't get loose. I told him how the new plastic triggers were horrible and how they were no longer able to be upgraded to the GTX aftermarket triggers, and how it's nearly impossible to upgrade their rifles with a gas ram. I also pointed out that the cheaper steel they use for their barrels with a polymer outer cover were susceptible to bending when cocking.

I told him that there's a whole community of airgun tuners and serious shooters out here that are extremely disappointed with the direction they took. I also pointed out how poor their customer service department is in returning calls and emails.

He handed me his card and told me that if anyone has any concerns, that he could be contacted. I told him I would write about my interview with him on the forums and on my gun-blog. He was okay with that.

I left him that afternoon having a good feeling that a change might be in the works for them regarding their customer-relations practices, and possibly their air rifles in order to remain a leading force in the airgun industry. They used to make fine airguns, until these changes came along and people were no longer satisfied with their quality. I know I'm not.

NRA Convention 2010

2010-05-18T18:01:00.001-07:00

Well, this is the first time since the weekend, that I have had time to sit down and write about the NRA Convention and "THE BREDA BLOGMEET."

The weekend started with me driving down to Virginia to meet up with Newbius at his house. From there, we headed down to Charlotte in his car. Newbius is like me when it comes to driving - we don't want to stop for anything; we just want to get there. So for the next 5 hours in the car, we talked a lot about politics, listened to music. He gave me plenty of food for thought, because I'd like to become more politically active where I live. But I digress.

We finally get down to Charlotte, check into our hotel room and then head out to the convention center, where we would eventually meet up with a bunch of the other gunbloggers.

We're here at the convention hall, outside the Press Room, where we all met up. We spend the rest of the afternoon and evening together, which eventually led to THE BREDA BLOGMEET. At dinner, we were pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Alan Gura, Alan Gottlieb and his wife and Michael Bane. Somewhere along the way, I gave Breda a pack of squid jerky, back at Jay's hotel room, where they were recording Vicious Circle. Everyone partook of it, except Alan, who's allergic, and they all liked it.

Here's (from left to right) SayUncle, Alan Gura and Michael Bane.

The Three Alans - Gottlieb, Andrews and Gura.

Alan Gura and me.

Me, Michael Bane an Alan Gottlieb.

A great time was had by all at dinner. Afterwards, our party moved outside onto the plaza, where Breda was practicing her maternal instincts on the Dixielette:

There truly is something amazingly beautiful about a woman holding a baby.

We hung around outside chatting the night away and before we knew it, it was midnight. So, Newbius and I departed, while Ahab and Ahabette were getting their caricatures drawn on an iPad. It was amazing to watch the artist work the iPad like that. We got back to the hotel room and crashed.

The next day, I milled about the convention center by myself and sat in on Ted Nugent's "show." He was awesome. At one point, he even brought tears to my eyes when he paid homage to the paralyzed Marine sniper by getting him out to his ranch and presenting him with a rifle fitted to him, that he could zero in and fire with an air tube to his mouth. It still chokes me up now when I think about it. Despite his "Motor City Mad Man" persona, I can see that Ted Nugent is a deeply caring and giving person. He's tops in my book.

Afterwards, I made my way back down to the convention hall and went to say "Hi" to Cam Edwards. He was chit-chatting with many other people during a commercial break in his show, but he did pick his head up, saw me and said "Hi" back.

So I wandered around a bit more before meeting back up with my fellow bloggers to go back down to the convention hall, after it closed its doors to the public, so we could all go and appreciate the Hollywood Guns that were being put away to be sent back to the NRA Museum, but not before we got a chance to hold them:

Tom Selleck's Sharps rifle from Quigley: Down Under and John Wayne's rifle from Stagecoach and Rio Lobo.

Me, holding a piece of John Wayne history. Can you tell I'm absolutely giddy??

The Sharps rifle. That gun was heavy!

A fellow blogger had his hand at it too.

Alan with the tricked out .500 S&W from Samuel L. Jackson's The Spirit movie.

Breda with the suppressed shotgun from No Country For Old Men.

Jay with Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum. And to round things up, here's a shot of the gang:

Then we all got kicked out (not really) and went to get some beers and tried to finish Vicious Circle, but the traffic noise was drowning us out. So we moved into the empty lobby of the Wachovia Bank building and we finished the last hour-and-a-half of the show. Then we all packed it in and sadly parted ways.

And that's all, folks. Next year: Pittsburgh! Can't wait.

The Orange Has Landed

2010-05-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

After much coercion from my blogger friends, I have finally created a blog for myself. Opinions, views and comments here are just that. Serious, and not-so-serious posts to follow, as this is merely an introductory one. Having said that, let's let the fun begin.