Ain't Dogging

 In yesterday's post, I talked about the Hornady LeverEvolution bullet, and I'm not dogging on that ammunition.  It is my opinion that these new bullets did several things very well.  They split the difference between the tadeonal 150 and 170 grain load with a 160-grain bullet.  They upgraded a 19th century cartridge and brought it into the 21st century.  The big thing these newfangled bullets did was to get grandpa's old rifle out of the safe and back into the range, where it could bark the other dogs.

I bought my first lever gun in 1973, where at the tender age of 19 I walked into Howard Brothers department store and put down $87.50 on a brand-new Marlin 336.  It was on sale the week before deer season, down from $94.99 and I thought it was a pretty good deal.  I still have that rifle, though it lives at my son's house.

Junior Doughty and I played with Handi-rifles for a time in 2008-10.  As such, I loaded a bunch of ammo for the .30-30 with pointy bullets, specifically the Sierra Game King.  These bullets would be dangerous in a tube fed levergun, because pointed tips and recoil are a thing.  Junior and I put them through their paces and they performed well in the Handi-rifle, which we all know is a single shot.

The Hornady ammo is a good thing, if only for the reasons stated above.  For my shooting, and I suspect for many of us, the old ammo still suits us fine. My preferred factory load in the .30-30 is the old Remington green box load with the 170 grain round nose soft point. For deer, hogs, black bear, it is entirely sufficient as long as the range is under 125 yards and you can put the bullet in the vitals.

The cartridge is a handloaders dream.  It has a long sleek neck that is perfect for cast bullets and a moderate charge of the old IMR 3031. It can be loaded with a hand press on the kitchen table.  Crimp the bullet so that it doesn't set back in the tube magazine under recoil and you will be fine.

First Gumbo

 I wanted a seafood gumbo for lunch, so decided to make a small one.   I started with a small dutch oven and added four cups of vegetable broth, then got out a skillet and sauteed some onions and bell peppers. Added that to the broth then made a roux.  Added that to the pot, then dropped in a pound of 90/130 Gulf shrimp and a pound of Louisiana crawfish tails.  I let it all simmer while I adjusted the seasoning and made a pot of rice.

Belle said that it was pretty tasty.  I normally do a chicken and sausage gumbo and this is the first seafood gumbo I have made in a while.  Now, I have to wash the pots.

30-30 Theory

 Many of you know, I really like the .30-30 Winchester.  It is an iconic cartridge, the very first factory cartridge to be laded with smokeless powder back in 1895. The .30-30 shines with the factory 170 grain round nose bullet.  The factory loads are all about the same.  A good 170 coming out of the muzzle at about 2200 fps. Very standard, very boring.

Lever guns and the .30-30 seem to have fallen out of favor at the deer camps around the country.  It's not a new cartridge, it's not a precision rifle, but it was never meant to be. It was designed as a hunting cartridge, smiting light and handy with enough power to put down medium game at 100 yards. Winchester has built over 7 million Model 94 rifles, many of them in .30-30d. Marlin added several million more in their 336 rifle. There are millions of these guns in safes, closets and racks all over the United States.

They are not precision rifles.  But each of them are capable of 3-minute accuracy which is sufficient to put meat on the table.  Recently, I upgraded my old Winchester to include a red dot sight..  That sight has a 3MOA dot and the rifle is a 3-minute rifle, so the question becomes the proper sight in distance?

That's where the internet helps.  I found an online ballistics calculator and started feeding in data. What I found was pretty interesting.

If I do a good zero at 25 yards, that big 170 will stay i that 3MOA dot all the way out to 150 yards and fall out of the dot at 175 yards. That is well within the yardage that the vast majority of deer are killed around here.  This is just math, and field data will tell the tale, but I believe I'll sight in at 25 yards and see what happens.

Somebody will want to talk about Hornady's LeverEvolution bullet.  It's great technology, but to my way of thinning, it tries to answer a question that no one ever asked.  If you want to shoot pointy bullets (and I love them) go get a .30-06.  I have one of each.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have the season's first gumbo on the stove and need to stir it.

Moderation

 It appears in this last week of September, that the weather is about to moderate from our usual heat and humidity.  We are expecting a cooler front on Wednesday/Thursday that will bring a bit of rain and cooler temps, with highs in the 80s, Squirrel season opens this weekend in our area, and the rain should help with the hunting.  The woods are dry right now and the leaves underfoot are like walking through corn flakes.

As I type this, I have two A/C units running.  They are currently both cycled off.  That is good news for my power bill.  Belle made a runup to the Dollar Store and came back with a sack of potatoes. She's hungry for Potato Stuff.

It's a recipe that I found on Bruce Mitchell's site.  Bruce and I cook similarly, with more emphasis on flavor and using what is at hand rather than strict adherence to a recipe.  This reminds me of an old recipe that a college girlfriend cooked occasionally.  The recipe didn't have a name, so we started calling it Brenda potatoes.  Basically, potatoes and onions with a little bacon for flavor. She layered hers in a heavily buttered Dutch oven and ran it in the oven for an hour or so, until the potatoes were fork tender.

I don't mind posting recipes, but it is so much easier to put up a link, so here is the link to Potato Stuff.

Getting Fall

 Belle was mentioning today that she was ready for the weather to cool off so we could make gumbos and stews and corn maque chou. (mock chew)

Corn maque chou is a regional thing, with lots of different recipes. The only real constants are corn and cream.  Everything else is the chef's choice.  I like onion and bell pepper, while Belle might add some petit diced tomatoes.

Below is Bruce Mitchell's recipe.  You can tell that the weather is cool, because Bruce is wearing a shirt.

Bon apetit, y'all.

Jewelry

 I lost my wedding band last week.  I've been losing weight and noticed that the band was getting a bit loose, but didn't think much about it.  Until it was gone.  Doing yard work, I noticed that I was not wearing a wedding band.  Well, hell.

It was a plain gold band, 10-carat, size 9.  I think, when I got married, I paid about $50 for it.  

This morning, I went to my jeweler and ordered a new wedding band.  Yellow cold, 10-carat.  The guy didn't blush went he told me the price, but he did apologize. $500.  Yeah, really.  I'll pick it up on Tuesday. The gold spot price today s $4284.25.

I'm one of those guys who feels naked without a wedding band.

Dry Week

 I just finished a dry week, which is something I do occasionally.  For one entire calendar week, no  alcohol of any kind.  No beer, no wine, no whiskey.  It helps reset the palate, gives the liver a break, and makes sure that there are no psychological problems.  It's a good idea.

Surprisingly, I don't miss it at all when I take a dry week, which is exactly the point.

We did get a passing thunderstorm late this afternoon.  We need the rain.

Diesel Strike?

 Over Sunday lunch, I heard a rumor that truck drivers and others are planning a diesel strike  for October 1st.  What??  That don't make sense.

Yeah, I know.  Fuel prices are high. But the idea that truckers are going to turn off the engine to protest high prices sounds a bit odd.  Doing a little Google-fu tells me that the idea seems to have gotten the best legs on the Book of Face. That particular social media page has a world-wide reputation for accurate information (/sarc).  So there you have that.

More pressing concerns is what's for lunch?  I have a good tomato, a loaf of fresh bread and a pound of bacon.  I believe it's time for a good ol' bacon and 'mater sammich..  I'm going to preheat the oven and slide that bacon in there for 30 minutes or so.

Saturday Thoughts

 Climate change - This is the first summer that I can remember when we have ot had a hurricane in the Atlantic basin. I've lived here through 72 summers and can't remember a summer like this one.  NOAA bacs me up on this, and I am not complaining.

The hummingbirds are passing through and my feeders are totally engaged.  I'm going through sugar water at an enhanced rate.

Human migration - After watching Nick's video yesterday and thinking abut the lessons we can glean from it, I am wondering what the Atakapa people might think about it.  Or the Huron or Chippewa or Arisaka? The worst part is that the folks who defend illegal migration is that they probably don't know who the Chippewa or Atakapa people are.  We can learn from history.  How did hat work out for the Cherokee?

The AI Kerfuffle - Has anyone but me noticed that the AI democrats are making the same arguments that they used when trying to quell covid?  Trust the science... Flatten the curve... It's going to kill us all... My strongest argument is that Bernie Sanders hasn't been right about anything yet.  If Bernie says that it is an existential threat, we should probably ignore him. He ain't been right about anything yet.

This is Saturday and I have things to accomplish, so if you will excuse me.

Nick Freidas

 Nick Freidas is a conservative voice in the United States.  A proud veteran, he served with the US 1st Special Forces in overseas deployments.  Post military, he served in the Virginia legislature.  Now he is speaking out on a range of issues.

Nick put out a documentary on the problems of unrestricted immigration. It is a cautionary tale for US politics and social policy.

I'm simply trying to boost the signal.

Cycling

 I have three big AC units in the shop, and since June I have left one of them running even when we aren't in the shop  I have the thermostat set and it seems to help keep the place cooler, with a shorter cool-down time.

This mooring we awoke to milder temps, drier air, and the coffee on the patio was very pleasant.  When the dog and I walked out to the shop, I was pleased to see that the AC unit was cycled off.  It's cooler in here than it has been sine last May.

We still have a lot of summer left in subtropical Louisiana and we are in a drought with no relief in sight for the next week or so.  But, this morning gives me reassurance that milder temps are on the way. In another month, I might be able to make a gumbo.

Very soon, I'll be hauling propane bottles to the feed store to heat the place.

Gloom and Doom

 It's a popular meme in science fiction, dramatized by Arnold Schwartzenegger about the day that Skynet became self-aware.  Great movie and scary gloom and doom about computers are going to kill us all.

Now in an Orwellian twist, I see that the tech giants on the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are asking government to regulate them. That is the most bizarre thig I have ever heard.  Huge companies asking government to get involved in their business.

The huge fallacy here is that government is capable of intelligently regulating technology that so few of us understand.  My congressman, for example, is incapable of regulating himself.  He's an idiot. Come November, he will be out of work, but I don't hold out much hope for his replacement, at least in any technical field.  Congress is the last body I want to see regulating AI.

As for these tech giants, are they incapable of regulating themselves?  They need Big Brother to keep the genie locked in the bottle?

Lets note the timing.  We are less than two months away from the mid-term elections.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but both the subject matter and timing are suspicious.  This whole idea is so bizarre as to beg for conspiracy theories.  What is the real play?

Something is afoot and all we are seeing is the smokescreen.

New Frontier

 Talking with a friend last week, he told me that our local gun shop, Bulletproof Outfitters, had some old Colt revolvers on consignment.  I was intrigued.

I dropped in this morning and asked about Colt revolvers.  I found nothing that was suitable fr Cowboy Fast Draw, but they did have some interesting Colt New Frontier revolvers.  The New Frontier was introduced in 1961 to compete with the Ruger Blackhawk.  Basically, the New Frontier is the old SAA with adjustable sights.

The tag says .44 Mag, but the barrel is plainly marked 44 Spc.  It's a nice revolver, but I have mine.  Mine is a Lipsey's Blackhawk in .44 Special.  We call it the Poor Man's #5, in tribute to Elmer Keiths revolver.

They also had an over priced Ruger #1 in the rack, but I wasn't interested in .308 and didn't feel like dickering.

Trail Cam

 Brother in Law came over yesterday to eat lunch.  He shard a photo from his trail camera.  He has a small deer lease near Trout, LA and like many of us, has trail cameras set out to watch wildlife.  Trail cam resolution is what it is and he had a photo on it that needs opinions.

Some sort of cat.  Larger than your garden variety tabby, but bigger than the bobcats we normally see in the area.  Maybe a small panther.  I took the photo and ran it through the computer.  Came up with this image.

I'm voting bobcat, based on the stripes we see on the cats leg. I don't think it is a panther.  But I could be wrong.  However, based on what I know about local bobcat, that is a big-ass bobcat.

Wha say ye?

Trigger-monetry

 Someone asked recently about Cowboy Fast Draw shooting, what is the degree of angle that the muzzle has to fall in to hit the target.   We know several things and the rest of it is just basic trigonometry.

Width of the base (target) is 17.1875 inches

Distance to target is 180 inches (15 feet).

So, it's a matter of doing the trig, or using a suitable calculator.  By plugging in values, we learn that the apex angle of such a triangle is 5.47 degrees.

And now we know, mathematically.  The muzzle of the revolver has to be within an arc of 5.47 degrees to hit the target.

Contrails

 It was a mental game I'd play at the turn of the century.  My porch in Natchitoches Parish had a good view of the sky and I'd look at the contrails crossing the sky.  Southwest to est northeast?  Probably the Houston - Atlanta route.  Southeast to Northwest, probably New Orleans to Dallas.   It was just a mental game, wondering where all those people were going.

On the afternoon of 9/11 I went back to work, doing a night shift before a couple of days off.   Getting off work on Wednesday morning, I stopped by Wal Mart to buy an American flag, but they were sold out.   I headed home, ready for a nap, and when I got out of the truck, I looked up at the sky.  Nothing.  No contrails at all. The FAA had closed all the airspace on the United States.

Growing up in central Louisiana, there was always something in the sky.  Commercial air, military traffic, general aviation.  Even little crop dusters buzzing around. For the first time in my life I was looking at a sky without aviation.  It was decidedly odd, and quiet. 

Anniversary

 Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11,  The most successful terrorist attack on the US mainland.  Many living Americans don't remember it, simply because they had not been born yet.

Today is a good day to reflect and to remember the chaos.

Lest we forget.

Lovebug

 The lovebug is a pest that came up from Central  America.  From the wiki:

The lovebug (Plecia nearctica) is a species of march fly found in parts of Central America and the southeastern United States, especially along the Gulf Coast.[2] It is also known as the honeymoon fly or double-headed bug. During and after mating, mature pairs remain together, even in flight, for up to several days.[3]

They neither sting nor bite, they simply aggravate other creatures. We are in an infestation right now, with probably a thousand mated pairs between the house and the shop.  When killed, their innards are acidic to the point that the acid from their innards will eat the paint off your car.  If you are driving down the highway and encounter a swarm, your windshield turns green and the wipers smear the slime.  Oh, they are nasty

I know that all of God's creatures have a purpose, but I can't figure out the lovebug.  We hates them, we does.

Distracted

 I've been distracted the last several days with piddling chores that kept me away from the blog. Noting major, just piddling distractions that crop up from time to time.

I'm sure by now you have heard of the 21 Air crash in Miami, when this freight company ran a Boeing 767 off the end or the runway after a botched landing.  Quite a mess, it looks like they put it in a parking lot, killed a bunch of folks and injured others.  Very tacky.

From what I'm seeing online, 21 Air needs to rethink their whole flying program. Matt Walsh, a guy not known for aviation safety content, giving the ism the what-for.  It's interesting to see him take them apart.

I don't blame Amazon.  They contract freight companies, and I'm sure that the contracts specify standard safety concerns. And, to be totally honest, I had never considered how my Amazon package gets to me.  Nor my UPS or FedEx package.  I don't know much about air safety, but I will hazard a guess that running a big Boeing into a car park and killing people is considered a disqualifier.

Juries

 Have y'all been paying attention to the trial going on?  The one where the woman murdered her three children and the jury is hung up?

I'm reminded of Mark Twain's observation in his work, Roughing It.

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. It is a shame that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand years ago. In this age, when a gentleman of high social standing, intelligence and probity, swears that testimony given under solemn oath will outweigh, with him, street talk and newspaper reports based upon mere hearsay, he is worth a hundred jurymen who will swear to their own ignorance and stupidity, and justice would be far safer in his hands than in theirs. Why could not the jury law be so altered as to give men of brains and honesty and equal chance with fools and miscreants? Is it right to show the present favoritism to one class of men and inflict a disability on another, in a land whose boast is that all its citizens are free and equal? I am a candidate for the legislature. I desire to tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as to put a premium on intelligence and character, and close the jury box against idiots, blacklegs, and people who do not read newspapers. But no doubt I shall be defeated-- every effort I make to save the country "misses fire." 

Not much has changed.

Stranded

 Reminiscing about 9/11.

My Dad was 67 years old, recently retired, and wanted to see the great American Southwest.  The Painted Desert, Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon.   He and Mom planned a trip and decided that Los Vegas would serve nicely as a hub for this adventure.  They booked the trip and in early September 2001 got on a plane.

Early afternoon of 9/11 the phone rang.  It was my sister.  "Dad and Mom are stranded in Los Vegas."

I considered that information briefly, weighed options, said "Okey", and hung up the phone.

She called back immediately.  "Did you hear me? Dad and Mom are stranded in Los Vegas!  They got on the plane this mourning, but it didn't take off.  They are back at the hotel. Stranded in Vegas."

I softened my tone. "Sweetheart, do you hearer what you are saying? If I had to make a list of places to be stranded in, Vegas would be at the top. I'm sure that the Old Man has a clean, comfortable room with a TV and a cafe on the first floor."  I continued. "If they were stranded in Jasper, Texas I would get in the car and head west.   They are not, they are stranded in Los Vegas. They'll be fine."

Mom and Dad got home four or five days later. The only thing Dad was upset about was that they would not let him board the flight with his pocket knife. They took his little 3-blade stockman knife that he carried everywhere and he was mightily offended.

Thursday, Again

 Its Thursday morning and not much happening on PawPaw's acre.  What's left of Edouard is dumping rain on east Texas.  We're getting a bit here in central Louisiana and we needed it.

Belle is running errands.  The dawg and I are out in the shop.  Belle has been hungry for chicken pot pie and that is her recipe.  She told me to take out some chicken thighs and she would make a pot pie when she finished her errands.

I'm thinking about the anniversary of 9/11.  It's been 25 years.

Belle and I had been dating for eight months.  I had worked a night shift at the Natchitoches Parish Detention Center, got off work at 5;00 am, went home and fell into bed. Shortly after 8:00 CDT the phone rang.  it was a friend telling me to get up and turn on the TV.

I saw the North tower burning and thought "what the helll?", then watched the second plane hit the other tower.  "That was no accident."  I stumbled into the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee and  spent the  rest of the day curled up on the couch watching television. I had calls from friends and family and got no sleep that day.  At 5:00 pm I reported back to work for another night shift, tired, grumpy and in no mood for standard inmate bullshit. The others on shift felt the same way. It was a quiet night.

Where were you when the world stopped turning?

TS Edouard

 It looks like Tropical Storm Edouard (ain't that cute) has finally been named.

As storms go, Ed is pretty piddling, but he will bring wind and rain to Texas.  It looks like he is heading toward Dallas, which is in the throes of a drought, having had no rain in August. The Houston/Galveston/Beaumont area is no stranger to tropical weather and I wish them no ill will, but if you are going to be hit by a storm, this one is the one you want.  If this thing goes as forecast, DFW will get a little rain, which they need.