Opening Day

 Hereabouts it is opening day for the rifle season for whitetail deer.  Most deer clubs have one iron-clad rule.  If you see a hog, you put it down.  Feral hogs are an invasive species that we have to control.  Grandson Lucas was on the stand this morning and had a hog walk out on him.  Bang, flop.

Hid Dad tells me that it is 135 pounds.  It will be used, mainly as filler for ground venison unless the hog has been eating pinecones.  Hogs that eat pinecones taste like turpentine.  If the meat is edible, they will use it.

For the record, the rifle is a commercial Mauser 98 that I picked up in 2024.  This is his third season with it, and it has accounted for several whitetail deer.  Today, it accounted for pork.  The caliber?  6.5 Swede, of course.

Vehicles

 Grandson Lucas has been asking me about military vehicles I was familiar with, so I thought it would be a good time to put together some links that he could review when he had questions. My military service spanned from 1973-1998, post-Vietnam and Cold War with one very exhilarating time during Desert Storm.  So, lets talk about some of the vehicles we used.  My list will be those that I am intimately familiar with.

Transport.

M151, Truck, Utility, 1/4 Ton. - This was the "Jeep" of my era. Ubiquitous to the Army, this little vehicle went everywhere. Fun to drive, rugged, dangerous.  The driver sat on the gasoline tank and the vehicle was known for rolling over in a turn.  Produced until 1988, it was supplanted by the HMMWV.

M998, HMMWV.  The Hummer.  Both beloved and despised by my generation, it serves the Army today. I was issued one in 1996 and kept it until I retired in 98.  Mine would run down the road at 55 mph and was as nimble as a mountain goat.   We never stuck it, although we took it into some sketchy places.  Mine was the soft-top with no armor.  Canvas doors and a radio. It got me where I needed to go, and always brought me home.

M39 series, 5 ton, 6x6 truck.  Also known as the M54, this beast was the prime mover for the Army the entire time I was in service. This thing hauled troops, food, medicine, ammo, and fuel. It was the primary hauler between the logistics base and the troops in the field.

Armored Vehicles

M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. If you were in the Army during Vietnam or the Cold War, you knew what these were. It carried a squad of infantry. They were everywhere. I spent many a miserable hour in these damned things. The suspension was terrible. The seats were uncomfortable and the back ramp would fall on you and kill you. 'Nuff said.  It beat walking.

M60 series tank.  My first tank was an M60A1.  I got it in 1975 when I was assigned to Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 37th Armor at Fort Knox, KY. According to the log boo, that tank was built by the Chrysler Corporation in 1963. It had a 105mm rifled tube, no stabilization and a coincidence range finder. Everything on it was purely mechanical.  The night-vision was the old style infare that required a light source. I kept that tank for fourteen months when I moved from platoon leader to an XO slot in the 4th Brigade.

The last tank I took downrange was an M60A3.  This was a much-improved version, with better suspension, a laser range finder, GPS system, improved optics and true thermal night sights. The M60A3 was a great tank, one that I truly favored.

M577 Command Post Carrier.  This thing was a variant of the M113, designed to accommodate a tactical command post. Generally, you would find four of these in a battalion, one or each of the staff functions.  (Personnel, Intelligence, Operations and Logistics).  They would park together and form a command post.

M551 Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle.  The "Sheridan".  This thing was not a tank, but OhMyGod, it was a lot of fun. Nimble, fast, lightweight, it was just a joy to drive and command. It was designed around the Shillelagh missile system, which frankly never worked and was a bad idea from start to finish, but the vehicle was just a lot of fun to operate. The missiles never worked, but the gun would fire a HEP charge that was effective against bunkers and vehicles.  Of course, it had two machine guns, the 7.62 coax and the big 50 atop the turret. The vehicle was supposed to be "air-droppable" and sure enough, it was.  But only once. After it hit the ground, it became a machine gun emplacement.

We won't talk about the M1 Abrams, simply because I know little about it.  My last unit, 1/156 was an M1 unit, but I was a staff-rat and never took one downrange.  It's a great tank, but not one that I have any experience with.

Thursday Thoughts

 I have not been ignoring y'all, I just haven't found anything that piques my interest enough to write about.  This morning, though, I found an email from Jacob at Wideners.  They have done a deep dive on the .300 Blackout.  For those of you unaware, the .300 Blackout is a niche cartridge designed to run through a standard AR platform.  Some folks really like it.

For those interested, the link is here. It looks fairly interesting, and there is a lot of information there.

In other shooting mews, I'm having trouble with the Winchester 94 I mounted the red dot sight on.  Mainly, having trouble scheduling range time.  Life keeps getting in the way of range time.

Fr those of you, who like me, are not particularly interested in watching the clock, I am reminded that once again this weekend, we are going to do the whole "Fall Back" thing on Sunday morning. I don't recall when this foolishness started, but I would not be averse to seeing it end.  Pick one and stick with it, but don't make me change my clock twice a year.

Water Heater

 I built this shop during the winter of 16-17 and installed the kitchen during the spring f 2017.  I installed a small 4-gallon water heater under the sink so that we could wash dishes. I came in from the range yesterday and found that it was leaking.  Well, hell.

Went online to Lowe's and Stine's and didn't see anything there I liked.  Belle searched Amazon and found a small on-demand heater for less than $100.  Overnight shipping, it came in this morning. I snatched the old one out from under the sink, made a trip to the hardware store, came back and installed the new one. It's different, but it works.  Plug and play. The temperature of the water is dependent on how fast the flow.  Wide open, it's just over body temp, but if you throttle the flow down to a trickle, it gets hot enough that you don't want your hand under it.

We'll try this out and see how it works. There may be a learning curve, but if we don't like it, it is easy enough to snatch out of there.

About That Core-Lokt

 A commenter notes:

Ah, another person who finds that the tried and true Core-Lokt is still a very good round, and quite capable of taking care of any problem that the more modern, computer designed bullets can take care of.

I came to the Core-Lokt in 1974 when I bought my first centerfire rile. Up until then, I had been a shotgunner, hutting squirrels, rabbits, ducks and geese.  I came to deer hunting in college and decided that I needed a rifle, rather than shooting them with buckshot.  So, I saved my pennies and bought a Marlin Model 336 in .35 Remington.  Quite a purchase, it cost me ~$100, which represented a week's pay for a pore, starvin' college student who was living in his first apartment.

For ammo, I picked up a box o Remington's 200 grain ammo and never looked back.  I hand been reading all the literature and knew that deer run away when shot.  When I got my chance a month later at a middling buck, I was a bit surprised when he dropped straight down. He was Dead Right There, in the middle f the trail where I spotted him. I hunted with that rifle for the next 15 years and never had to track a deer.  They all flopped.

In 1991 I decided that I needed a new rifle.  While brewing the used gun racks, I found a Remington Model 7 in 7mm-08.  It had a Leupold scope and the tag said $400.  I bought it and the counter guy threw in a box of Remington's 140 grain load. (As I think about it, that rifle also represented a week's pay.) That rile shot that ammo like a laser beam, throwing those Core-Lokt bullets into the same hole with boring regularity. I made some great shots with that rifle.  I lost it during a financial crisis stemming from the Great Divorce. Truth be told, I mourned the loss of the rifle more than the loss of the woman.  Funny how that worked out.  I never bought another 7mm-08.  Too many old memories, I guess.

Don't get me wrong, I have used other bullets.  I'm a big fam of Sierra's whole line, and I like the Nosler Ballistic Tip.  I've used the Barned Triple-Shock  And, I have a load in .243 Winchester that uses the Hornady VLD.  Bullet technology is amazing these days.  But for sub-3000 fps and under 200 yards, it is hard to beat the Core-Lokt.  It just works.

Tuesday Tidbit

 Watching the news while sipping coffee, I notice that the French are continuing their ancient tradition of being overrun by foreign powers. One would think that they had learned their lesson during the first half of the 20th century, but from what I'm seeing, they learned nothing.

I, for one, am not interested in another French intervention.  Belle's father was in the Army during the first French invasion, and I had uncles who served during the second French occupation. They need to save themselves this time.

On a related note, I reckon that anyone who advocates for open borders should at least be morally consistent and leave their hones unlocked which they leave for the day. Consistency, like charity, starts at home.

Now, though, on a more local note, I need to spend some time studying ballistics charts. I need to review the ballistics of the .30 cal, 170 grain round nose Core-Lokt.  Fpr the record, the ballistic calculator I use is here..  You need to know the muzzle velocity, the ballistic coefficient of the bullet, and the sight height.

Sunday Reflections

 We buried Bill yesterday. It was a pretty good crowd.  Bill was a man o many parts, all o them good, steadfast parts.  He was an Eagle Scout, a basketball coach, a competitive shooter, a retired educator. His widow asked the shooting club to wear our regalia and serve as "honorary pallbearers".  Of course, we were honored to do so.

I am a decrepit old man.  A lifelong smoker with a body wrecked by years of service on armored vehicles, along with the attendant bad habits that characterizes cavalry service. Yet, when it came time to bear the pall, there were not six o his healthy friends who could lift a casket. I was pressed into service as a pall bearer.

Later that afternoon, stirring a roux, I was struck by the irony that I have recently carried three healthy men to their grave. I'm not complaining, you understand, simply stuck by the irony that "healthy" friends are dyeing off. The last two did it right.  They had a good day, enjoyed a pleasant evening, kissed their wives good night, then rolled over and went to sleep. No lingering, no drama, just went to sleep. That is the way to do it.

I hope, when my time comes, that is the way I'll go.  I also hope that I have enough chain-smoking, semi-alcoholic friends to carry me to the hearse.  Those "healthy" folks can't seem to carry the burden.