Cougars

 Cougars  (catamount, panthers, whatever) are in lots of places where the Wildlife Weenies don't seem to want to admit that they have cougars.  Like in Michigan for example. Good for Michigan for admitting what landowners and hunters have known for years.

When I lived in Natchitoches Parish in the early 80s, I had panthers on my property.  i would hear then occasionally and saw them twice.  Ours were dark brown, almost chocolate and would appear black in certain light conditions.  The neighbors would talk about sightings, but the wildlife weenies would not admit that we had then in the area.  okay, fine. In 2002 I wrote about it on Castbullet.

If you want to stir up some crap around a campfire, tell then that there is no such thing as a black panther.  In certain low-light conditions a brown panther will look black. That is what people see and that is what they report.  If you go back to the little video linked above, one of the photos looks black.

I'm just glad that they are out there.

Dog Days

 On this 19th day of August we are officially in the dog days of summer.  The local weather weenies tell us that our afternoon temps will flirt with triple digits, if not surpass it. As we approach the typical peak of the hurricane season, the tropics are unusually quiet. Thus far we have had only three named storms, and I had to verify that  It is quiet.

The national weather weenies tell us that fall teps are just around the corner.  That is well and good for the rest of you, but I am aware that I live in Deep South Louisiana and.  We are two months away from taking out the flannel shirts.

This is the first day in a while that Belle and I have nothing scheduled.  No appointments, no obligations. the only problem with doing nothing is that you are never sure when you have finished. As such, I pulled some fish from the freezer, and it is thawing in the sink.  I'll make a run up to the Dollar Store in a bit to pick up some french fries.

Mechanics and Medicine

 I took my Honda to the dealer today to get it serviced. It's a 2020 Odyssey with ~60K miles.  It needed an oil change and a tire rotation.  when the dealer finished and we were settling up, she told me that my vehicle has two safety recalls.  One for the rearview camera and one for an air bag. The only problem is that they don't have the parts for the recall.

For one of the recalls (I forget which) they will order the part and it will be in by next Tuesday, when we'll do the recall work.  Thor the other, the dealer can only order one (1) per day, and they have thousands of customers on that list.

I recently realized that I had lost the appointment for my primary care doc.  I called the office, but that was a no-go, so while I was in town today, I went to the doc's office to check. It's next month.  While I was there, I registered a complaint on behalf of Belle's brother who is in the hospital.  It seems that the coms lines between the hospital and the primary care doc are inop.  No message traffic.  One hand has no clue what the other is doing.  That is the nature of medical practice today.

Friday Editorial

 Back in the day when I got a daily newspaper, I enjoyed reading the editorial page..  I would get a cup of coffee and sit before the fireplace. Sometimes I would agree, sometimes I would disagree and other times I would throw the paper into the fireplace in disgust.

These days, my editorial is on the intertubes and one of the folks I like listening to is victor Davis Hanson. He has a podcast that I enjoy with wide-ranging topics.  Sometimes history, other times current events.  In the one embedded below, one of the topis is the rise of the Democratic Socialists in American politics. The whole podcast is over an hour, but if you skip forward to 25:30 you can get his take on them.  Agree or disagree but he has studied the movement and I have not.

While listening to VDH, I got out the Winchester and started futzing with the new reflex sight. Playing with reticles and brightness.  Learning the sight. I now own precisely two red dot sights. A Vortex tube sight that sits on an AR and this new one on that sits atop the Winchester. At some point I will compare and contrast.

This new sight uses a CR1632 battery, so I'll have to pick up a spare. The Vortex uses a Triple A battery and those are always on hand.

Purists

 Back in the day of The Frugal Outdoorsman, Junior and I were playing with the old .30 WCF cartridge and I bought a Winchester 94 simply because I didn't have one and I  saw one sitting forlornly in a used gun rack.  Mine is nothing special.  It was built in 1965, right after Winchester changed everything, and they called it the Antique Model.  Purists said that this was Winchester's attempt at putting lipstick on a pig.  I thought the price was right and bought it.

I immediately tapped out that execrable buckhorn sight and added a Williams peep. I added a saddle-ring to the left side of the receiver. I shot that rifle for several years as a test bed for castbullet.com, playing with cast bullet loads.  I never made venison with it.

After Junior died, and my eyesight went to hell, that little rifle became a safe queen. I had changed shooting pursuits and didn't do much rifle work for about fifteen years.  Last week, I was digging through the safe and found this little rifle and though how nice it would be to put an optic on it. The purists would howl, but it sure would make this a nice little rifle again.

If you know anything about gun restoration, you have heard of Turnbull Restoration.  Turns out, they make an optics mount for the Winchester 94.  If Turnbull is okay with it, the purists can kick rocks.   This little mount uses the barrel dovetail to mount an optic.  I ordered the mount pronto,  then went over about bought a Burris FastFire4 optic. It has the Docter footprint that the Turnbull mount requires.

The sight has four reticles and I'll have to figure out which is more useful.

Installation was straight forward. Tiny screws and follow the directions.

I think it looks good.  The purists may scoff, but that is their right.

Physics Wins

 Physics wins, every time.

A FRT (Forced Reset Trigger) seems like a lot of fun, and I'm sure that they are.  An FRT simulates full-auto fire in a weapon that is perfectly legal to own and use. And it is dangerous,  simply because automatic weapons require a different mind-set than semiauto weapons.  Because physics wins, every time.

Colion breaks it down for you.  The whole video is worth watching because physics does not often lend itself to simplistic explanations.

I have been blessed in my life to shoot plenty of full auto weapons.  From the M3 to the M2 and everything between. And I know what happens when a bullet gets out of the range fan. You are responsible for every bullet you fire, from the time the bullet starts moving until it stops moving.

Have fun with these things, but please be careful. Because physics always wins.

CMP

 There was some talk at the club this weekend about the M14s the CMP is going to release.  Talk is that the price is going to be sub-$2000 range, and no fun switch.  I carried an M14 in training and it was an okay rifle. I don't hate it, but I'm not a fan, either. It is what it is.

I also heard today that CMP is going to get a supply of M1897 trench shotguns.  That might be interesting.