Observation Point

Folks who handload their own ammunition tend to obsess about some things. We handload for a number of reasons, but my particular reason is that I can tailor my ammo to my individual rifles. I like experimentation, within safe limits, and taking the time to tailor a load to a particular rifle can be very frustrating. It can also be very satisfying when the work pays off and the load falls into your lap.

When you handload, you learn that changing one thing changes the whole load. Tiny changes make a difference.

Regular readers might recall my post from Thursday, where I talked about trying to find a load for my re-built Savage 11. I decided to start at 49.6 grains of IMR 4895 and go up in 2/10ths increments to 50.4 grains, hoping to find a load that would shoot into MOA.

So, with five rounds of each load, I posted targets at 100 yards and snuggled into the bench. Three shots later I looked in the spotting scope, and saw this.



I was considerable pleased. I let the rifle cool and waited for everyone else on the line to finish firing. As soon as I was able I changed targets and loaded the next set of cartridges. Three shots later I looked in the spotting scope again.



Those are two-ich target dots. Both targets are nice, well within my criteria for a hunting rifle. I'd be pleased with either one. But, this shows the difference that two-tenths of a grain of powder makes. Those six cartidges were exactly alike, except for the powder weight. It makes a big difference.

Hoplophobia

Hoplophobia is the condition wherein a normally rational person has an unreasonable fear of firearms. It's a term in common use among the gun community, and I understand, the American Psychiatric Society.

Dave Kopel, in The New Ledger, describes the phobia and talks about the practical application of it in light of a recent law that will allow people to carry weapons in state national parks.

One tongue-in-cheek highlight:

If you want to fly to D.C., take a plane to the Baltimore airport, and then rent a car or take a bus. Do not fly to either of the D.C. airports. They are both located in Virginia, and the danger that you could be shot by a gun-crazy Virginian while traveling through Virginia into D.C. is nearly as high as the odds that you will get shot by a gun nut while in a National Park. Stay away from Arlington National Cemetery; it is in Virginia, and the people buried there were gun users.

Go read the article.

As an aside, I may have carried a concealed weapon in a state park this past weekend. On our stroll through the French Quarter, I may have ventured on to the grounds of the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. I'm not sure. I was certainly in the 400 block of Decatur street, and I noticed a guy wearing a Park Service uniform.

I was certainly armed. I'm always armed.

At any rate, I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't threaten anyone, and I continued on my way unmolested. Which was the whole point.

That said, it's Friday afternoon and I'm on my way to the range.

**Update** Edited for clarity. Thanks, Michael.

Thursday Shooting

This morning after beginning the foundation to the deck, I took an hour off and went to the range to try the mil-spec bullets. I was using IMR 4895 powder and Winchester primers. I started the loads at 48 grains and went up one grain to the max load at 51 grains.

It has been my experience that the maximum load is seldom the most accurate. This morning was no different. I set up a target on the 100 yard line and settled in at the bench.

The first target, using 48 grains of powder was disheartening. Five shots fell into about five inches. Likewise the 49 grain load, although it was a bit smaller, at four inches.

The 50 grain load shows promise. It fell into a little over 2.5 inches with three shots nearly touching.



The last load, at 51 grains, went back to the 4" group.

This shows the benefits of working up your loads. There's something right with that 50 grain load, but I'm not sure if I'm there yet. I'll have to do some more work, by backing down to 49.6 grains, and going up in 2/10ths increments, to 49.8, 50.0, 50.2, 50.4, and see how each of those shoot. I'm hoping that one of those loads will show me something wonderful.

Hope springs eternal in the shooter's heart.

Summertime

I spent the morning on the bush-hog at Momma's house, mowing the rear of the property. It hasn't been mowed in a year or so and was getting tall. Daddy had planted a bunch of pine trees back there and it's hard to get a line started. Trying to mow back there is one big obstacle, but if you keep the tractor moving, eventually it all goes under the bush-hog. I didn't quite finish, but the tractor got hot about the same time I did. There's a couple of hours mowing left, and I'll finish it up one day next week.

While I mowed, my son Barrett used my pressure washer on the trailer. Momma lives in an apartment in the barn, about eight hundred square feet, a bedroom, kitchen, living room and bath. They moved a double-wide trailer on the land to use as a guest house. The trailer siding was starting to mildew, so Barrett squirted it with mildew remover and washed the trailer.

As I mowed, I noticed that Momma and the boys were in the blueberries. When we came in for lunch, Momma presented me with the morning's crop of blueberries. Seven pounds.



Those berries are washed and on my counter. The ones that aren't quite ripe will become ripe in the next day or so, and I'll freeze them in quart bags.

While we were eating lunch, I looked at the thermometer in Momma's kitchen window. It indicated 100 degrees. We decided to call a halt to the outside work. Barrett will go back this afternoon and finish washing the trailer. As for myself, I'm going to Lowes to buy the piers for the deck.

Seven pounds of blueberries. Dude!

PTFOA

I haven't been paying attention to the automotive news lately, it all being bad. Tonight, through Instapundit, I learn of something called the Presidential Task Force on Automobiles, or PTFOA. Evidently, they've been garnering some attention in Congress and industries that watch the auto business. They're a bunch of bean counters and the advise they're giving is bad. All bad.

For example, Chrysler and GM are closing some dealerships. Like 30% of their dealers. That's a bone-headed move. You see, guys like me don't buy cars from Chrysler or GM. We buy our cars from dealerships. If the dealerships close, we can't buy any cars from them. They can't buy cars from GM, and sales lag.

Hell, if I was the president of GM, I'd want a dealership on every corner. Surely you can see that I jest, but the idea is to have enough dealers to cover the market. If you've ever been in the vehicle business, you know about floor-planning, which is a finance plan for dealerships. Basically, if a dealer doesn't sell a vehicle in some reasonable time, they have to make payments on it. Say, if a vehicle doesn't sell in 30 days, then the payments come due. That provides an incentive for the dealer to move the cars that have been sitting on the lot the longest. And, a good dealer with a strong floor plan is making regular payments to the parent company. That's a good thing with good cash flows. If you close the dealer, that cash flow dries up.

This article explains it.

In 1998 when Daimler merged with Chrysler, not a word was said about the excess dealership millstone around Chrysler’s neck. In the eleven years since then the problems with Chrysler have boiled down to a series of botched new products. Dealers didn’t create that problem and nuking dealers will do nothing to solve it.

The problem isn't with the dealers. The problem is that the industry doesn't listen to the customer. The problem is that the industry is now beholden to government. The problem is that government is lousy at business and just bought GM and Chrysler.

Books and articles will be written about how even with greatly reduced dealer numbers, GM and Chrysler will continue to loose sales at an accelerating rate as the remaining dealers do not in fact pick up the slack from their slain comrades. The real reason the dealer slaughter is going on is to offer blood sacrifice to the gods of Washington and Wall Street. God help us.

No, God help GM and Chrysler. I've owned GM and I seriously thought about a Dodge truck, but no more. When it's time to get another vehicle, I'll either buy a Ford or one of the Japanese vehicles.

I won't buy a vehicle from the government.

Weighing bullets

While it was raining this afternoon I weighed bullets. For those of you who might wonder why, Junior put together a good tutorial over at Castbullet.

I buy bulk bullets when I can. These bullets may come from one of a variety of sources, but this last time I bought a bunch of bullets that were listed as Mil-Spec Match bullets, from Widener's. These are sold as 168 grain, .308 match bullets. There is no manufacturer listed, so they might have been manufactured by one of several bullet makers, either domestically or from overseas.

More particularly, they may not weigh exactly 168 grains. While this doesn't make much difference to the military (hence the mil-spec designation) it matters to me. I want to know the weight of my bullets, within a set of standard parameters. So, I sort them into like-weight groups and store them in those groups.

Reloading, or handloading for the purists, is about reducing variables. Sometimes we get very particular about variables. While I'm not loading my ammo for the benchrest game, it helps my confidence in each individual round of ammunition if I know it's as closely alike to the round next to it as I can make it.

So, I weighed a batch of 30 to get some numbers. My batch of 30, randomly selected bullets varied in weight from 168.5 grains to 170.0 grains. That's an extreme spread of 1.5 grains. I ran the bullet weights through Microsoft Excel and found that they average 169.4 grains, with a standard deviation of 0.3 grains.

Knowing those numbers, it's time to start weighing bullets. I have an inexpensive digital scale, so I'll use that. On my bench I have an egg carton. In the little egg holders I've marked weights with a sharpie marker. I start at -0-, then mark up in tenth-grain increments. The photo below shows me sorting some .243 bulk bullets I bought a year or so ago.



So, having sorted the bullets, I put them in zipper storage bags and now I can load like weights when I'm loading ammo. It's just one trick I've learned over the years and lets me get premium performance out of bullets that might not be as uniform as I'd like. An average handful of bullets pulled from the box might vary by more than a grain, but the bullets in each zipper bag are alike within a tenth of a grain.

Home

We spent a rainy day in New Orleans, touring around with brother Bill. One of the highlights of any trip to the Big Easy is a stop at the Cafe Du Monde, where they serve coffee and beignets. Beignets (ben-yay!) are a square pastry fried in cottonseed oil and sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar. If, when you come out of the cafe, you don't have powdered sugar on your shirt, you ain't doing it right.

This restaurant has a very simple menu. Coffee. Beignets. Milk. That's about it. Yet, they're always packed. There's no concierge, no head-waiter. You walk inside, find a table and soon a waiter will find you. Chaos in the New Orleans tradition.



This shot was taken on Monday Morning. It was raining outside and the staff had lowered the rain fly. The lady in the center of the shot is holding a beignet. You can click on the photo for a larger image.

Then we wandered down the river, umbrellas in hand. The Mississippi River is a backbone of industry. For moving bulky items, river transportation is the key to getting goods out of the center of the nation, to the oceans and to the world. New Orleans is a major port, and commerce continues on the river, even on a major holiday, in the rain.



Here, a tug pushes a string of barges up the river, against a backdrop of barges tied up at the far shore. When I took this shot, I was less than a hundred steps from the Cafe du Monde. And about ten feet higher than the Cafe. Yeah, along this stretch of river, the river is actually higher than the city. The levees keep the water out.

We left New Orleans as the sun was going down. Got home last night about 9:30. The dog was glad to see us.

The Big Easy

We got into town about noon. Ate lunch at the casino, then checked into the hotel.



This picture is looking north on Canal Street from the casino. Every body wants to hit the casino right now. Maybe later we'll wander around the French Quarter. I'd really like to go to Pat's and have a drink.

Southbound

In about an hour, Milady and I are leaving on a short jaunt to New Orleans.

Milady's brother lives on the east coast of Florida, and every year on Memorial Day, he takes his vacation. Brother claims that he can't get good oysters in southern Florida, so he stops in New Orleans for a couple of days and eats oysters.

It's as good an excuse as any. Felix's and Acme are the targeted locations.

Actually, I haven't been to New Orleans since Katrina, four years ago. It's time to go back and wander the French Quarter. We'll be back late Monday. Milady has to be at work on Tuesday morning.

School's out

Yesterday was the last day of regular school for students and today is the last day of school for regular teachers. PawPaw was released about a half-hour ago.

PawPaw works in the schools, so I'm out too. Our Sheriff allows a Resource Officer to choose how he or she wants to do the summer break. If the officer opts to accumulate compensatory time for all the ball games, school plays, debate tournaments, for all the extra hours spent at the school, those hours are taken off during the summer months. If the officer wants to work during the summer, then that's okay too, but the number of compensatory hours is limited. It's an individual choice and a fair number of deputies choose to work during the summer. PawPaw ain't one of them.

I've got a week of training from June 15th - June 19th, but other than that I'm off work until the first week of August, when I report back to the schoolhouse. I've got about 400 hours of K-time in the bank and that comes to 10 weeks of vacation.

With the pool in the backyard and lots of grandkids about, PawPaw won't have much time for napping. This is what I found on the back deck yesterday.



A chill wind had blown through and he had gotten cold.

It's summertime.

**UPDATE** I just looked out by the front door and found an order I was expecting. Five hundred .308, 168 grain match bullets. This really is a good day.

Rainbows

We were in the back yard yesterday afternoon and came upon a wonderfully vivid rainbow.



Of course, the grandkids were in the pool and as we watched the rainbow, that prompted a discussion of the phenomena that have to come together to view a rainbow, and also the biblical promise that the rainbow is supposed to signify. If you look just to the left of the main bow, you can see a second one. Who knew there was such science in a rainbow.

Buy American

The Mayor of Warren, MI, wants the city to buy American. He's beholden to the large US Automakers, with plants from GM and Chrysler in his town.

Calling it "economic and consumer patriotism," the mayor of Warren, Michigan wants to make it compulsory for city officials to buy American cars. Jim Fouts says that 15% of his fiscal budget depends on the auto industry, and the city's two most lucrative tax payers are General Motors and Chrysler. Therefore, in order to support the folks who support the town -- and in turn, take care of the taxpayer -- he's trying to expand the order he gave last year that required his appointees to Buy American.

So, we wonder what he means by Buy American?

My Honda Goldwing was built in Marysville, OH. Ohio is certainly American.

My buddy's Mercedes-Benz was built in Alabama. Last time I looked, Alabama was in the USA.

Glock Pistols are made in Smyrna, GA. Georgia is still American.

Toyota makes vehicles in Mississippi, Texas, Indiana, Alabama, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Sounds like those are American states too.

Subaru has a plant in Indiana. They make Toyota Camrys there. Last time I looked, Indiana was American.

What the mayor means is that he wants his folks to buy Chrysler or GM vehicles. As for the rest of them, those are Americans building those things in America for Americans. Buy American meant something 40 years ago. Nowadays, it's code speak for Support the Unions.

The Mayor is full of crap. That's American, too.

Levelling Dirt

I've got some dirt work to do so that I can install a deck near the pool. It's going to be about 16' X 22', about a foot higher than the level of the concrete deck that surrounds the pool.

I've got the deck designed in my head, and I'm finishing the paper plans. I like to have a plan down on paper before I start work on anything. It's easier to explain it to folks if I can show them a drawing.

The main problem is that the ground at that end of the pool isn't level. Louisiana is basically flat, and I don't have nearly the problems that my brother in Vermont has with finding level, but my eyeball isn't calibrated.

Then, I remembered that Daddy had one of these little darlings. That's a Craftsman Laser Trac 360 degree level. It's a sweet thing when you're trying to find a reference point. We live in the future, I swear we do. Yeah, I could level it the old-fashioned way with a string and bubble-level, but technology will let me put a virtual string just about anywhere.



So, I hied myself over to Momma's house and borrowed it. We found it in his tool chest, with spare batteries. It's a laser level and it rotates 360 degrees. With that little tool and a photography tripod, it was easy work to learn that one end of my dirt is 14" higher than the other end.

I'll get started on the deck on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. That little level should take most of the aggravation out of leveling the framework.

Tea Party

The voters of California handed state government a stunning defeat. Sounds like the whole state is ready for a tea party.

Of the day's six fiscal propositions -- the rainy day fund, education funding, lottery modernization, children's services funding and temporary reallocation of mental health funding -- all went down -- and hard. The results were roughly 60-40 against.

The only proposition to sail through was one preventing pay increases to top elected state officials during years of budget deficits. That one was being approved about 76-23. Take that! (That doesn't affect Arnold, of course, because he's never taken a state salary.)

The Governator says that he's going to begin slashing state government. The budget is facing a 21 b-b-billion dollar deficit.

However, if as often seems to happen in American political trends, California is again coming first in this resistance to more taxes, threats and budget deficit games, then next year's midterm national elections, historically bad news for the party controlling the White House anyway, might mean some hard slogging for congressional Democrats who're so quickly and overwhelmingly approving the current deficit spending.

Heh!

How did that happen?

It seems that there's been a shooting on the grounds of Harvard Yard. A college student from another institution was shot. Regrettably, he died today.

But, we all know that's impossible. Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and Harvard University strictly forbids guns on its campus.

What do you want to bet that the guy who did the shooting 1) didn't care about the laws already in effect, 2) didn't get the gun at a gun show, 3)didn't legally purchase the firearm from a dealer?

Criminals don't obey gun laws.

Ammo Shortage

If you're a shooter or a guy who buys ammo for a police agency, you know that there's been a shortage of loaded ammunition and reloading components. That's no secret. However, the ammo market is a market like any other and it responds to market incentives. It helps if we do the research and try to make some rational assumptions.

Lots of folks are trying to assign conspiracy theories to the shortage, but it seems to be simply supply and demand. Over at Mr. Completely, we see one of the theories.

In short, the manufacturers are building lots of ammo, but the retailers aren't getting it. It appears to be disappearing BEFORE it gets to the stores. It's getting pushed into the pipeline at one end, but it's not coming out the other. ... It looks like somebody, somewhere, is sitting in the middle and soaking up most of the production. The military? Why would they be stocking up on calibers that they don't use? Law enforcement? Not likely.

Somebody in the middle is buying it before it gets to the retailers. Not likely.

If we go over to Michael Bane, who asked the same question at the NRA Convention, we learn that:

RE: Ammo companies, I asked the same question you guys did...can you increase capacity? Basically, they looked at me as if I'd beamed in from Uranus. "You know manufacturing, Michael!" one friend said. For those of you who don't, here's the Cliff Notes version — a minimum of five years to get an ammo factory up and running, assuming the permitting issues can be worked out. ... we're all working under the assumption that this is a bubble, and that regardless of the pricing of future ammo, the demand will eventually fall to a level consistent with what we've seen in the past plus the increase due to in new shooters. The wars will end; the bubble will burst and current capacity (with modest increases) will accommodate the demand.

That sounds more likely.

I remember reading just before our President was elected that the government had made a huge order for ammunition in military calibers. A huge order of things like .223, 9mm, .308, .50 cal, etc. I also heard that the major manufacturers were ramping up to fill that order. At the same time, we elected Obama and a lot of folks became concerned that he would ban guns or ammunition, so we started buying everything on the shelves. In short, demand increased over the short term, to the point where the supply chain was overwhelmed. Lots of folks started buying guns and ammunition. Demand increased. Not just quantity demanded, but demand itself. The whole curve shifted, to the point where increased prices couldn't fill the demand.

Then, we go to Tam's place and learn:

Production Capacity: The manufacturers are running full tilt. The only way they could make more ammunition is to build more plant, and they are not going to do that for several reasons. The first is that this bubble will contract sooner or later. Joe and Jane Sofaspud are going to realize that they really don't need 10,000 rounds of Winchester .45 in the basement, and that minivan payment isn't getting any smaller. They'll sell it to Annie Appleseed and Ivan Ipsc and demand will cool down.

Again, it's a bubble, folks. We've just got to ride it out. Go over to her place and read the whole thing, then come back here.

Look at it from the perspective of a manufacturer. He's selling all he can make and running his factory to capacity. That's a good thing. He's making money and keeping his people employed, but he doesn't want to open a new factory because of the financing and the permitting and lots of other good business reasons. Demand has increased and he'll probably be adding another line, but right now, he's trying to fill the supply chain and fill orders that are outstanding. As soon as this rush is over he can take time to rationally assess the market and do whatever is prudent.

The lesson here is that demand has increased and part of it is a bubble, and part of it is increased demand. All those new shooters who bought guns just after the election want to shoot them. The market is out of equilibrium and market forces will bring it into equilibrium. Supply will meet demand and the market will stabilize. It may not stabilize at prices we remember, but it will stabilize. The shelves will fill and you'll be able to go to the store and buy a brick of .22 or a box of .38s. It's just going to take a little time.

It's a market, folks, and it responds to market incentives. Things will calm down in several more months and we can start buying ammo and primers off the shelf without going into panic mode.

Trigger Squeeze

Morning dawned rainy and dark in Pineville, the temps hovering around 60F. For Louisiana in May, that's like a new ice age. After church and a nap, I decided to take the Ruger Mark II to the range and do a little rimfire pistol work.

A proper rimfire pistol is an indispensable part of any battery. Any good .22LR pistol will suffice, because what the marksman is looking for is a pistol that's cheap to shoot and reasonably accurate. Any of the Smith and Wesson, Colt, High Standard, Browning, Baretta, or Ruger pistols will suffice. Sight alignment and trigger squeeze were the drills for this afternoon. Standing upright, off the bench.

So, I took my pistol, a bulk pack of .22 ammo, and my earmuffs and headed to the range. My pistol is a Ruger Mark II, a standard pistol. Ruger's been making these things since I was a pup and they've made a bunch of them in a variety of barrel weights, grip configurations, and lengths. It's a great little training pistol and I was training today.

Proper stance, grip, breathing, sight alignment, trigger squeeze. Feel the recoil, set up again with the proper stance, grip, breathing, sight alignment, trigger squeese. Then do it all over again, again, again.



The little pistol seems to shoot a little low. It's always shot a little low. I talked to the range officer, who when he's not at the range is a localgunsmith of some repute and wide experience. He tells me that most of the standard pistols Ruger made tend to shoot a little bit low. He believes that they're built with a tall front sight so the individual can file them to suit.

I may file that sight, I may not. I may wait until I've waited too late and let one of the heirs file it.

The Tractor Runs

I've got a tractor, a little Yanmar YM1600. It's an 18 horse tractor, sometimes considered a grey-market tractor. I've got a four foot shredder mounted and I bought it originally to mow the 10 acres I lived on.



What's a grey-market tractor? Well, that's one that originally sold overseas and was imported to the United States as a used tractor. It doesn't have some of the safety features, like ROPS, that are required for sale in the US. I like buying US products when I can and I started the search for a tractor at the John Deere dealership. I was talking to the salesman and we released the bonnet over the engine. I looked at the data tag and on that green John Deere, the tag said "built by Yanmar". I thanked the guy, lowered the bonnet and went down to a used tractor dealer who sold me the 1600.

It's got a two cylinder diesel engine and it's fairly bullet-proof. The problem started this past winter when I realized that the little tractor hadn't been started in almost two years. I got the key and it wouldn't fire off. Since then, I've been piddling with it, replaced all the filters, fixed some wiring problems and cleaned it up. This morning I took off the fuel tank, emptied the old diesel, purged the fuel system and installed a new battery. It fired right off.

I don't know that I really need a tractor in suburbia, but I'm loathe to get rid of it. There's so much you can do if you have your own tractor, and mine is paid for. If I buy a small box blade I'd be able to move dirt around. What I really ought to do is find someone willing to put a small front-end loader on it.

Everybody needs to have their own tractor.

San Fran Nan

From the CNN Political Wire, I see that Speaker Pelosi is blaming the Bush Administration for her current problems.

"We all share great respect for the dedicated men and women of the intelligence community who are deeply committed to the safety and security of the American people," she said in a statement issued by her office. "My criticism of the manner in which the Bush Administration did not appropriately inform Congress is separate from my respect for those in the intelligence community who work to keep our country safe.

Damn, Nancy, that's about the lamest statement I've ever read. And you're supposed to be the Speaker of the House? More like laughing-stock of the Congress.

Here's Nancy in a stand-up routine with an un-named straight man. Courtesy of HopeNChangeCartoons.com



Pelosi is so lame, if she were a horse, they'd shoot her.

Dealerships

So, I see that Chrysler is closing some dealerships. According to our local rag, four dealerships here in central Louisiana are slated to close, including both in Alexandria, the closest town to Pineville, where I live. We've got a combined population of about 130,000 and we won't have a Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealership. The closest will be in Natchitoches, about 50 miles up the road.

So, the question becomes how does Chrysler intend to sell cars around here? And service the cars that have already been sold?

I understand that GM is going to cull some dealers. If they cull the dealers in Central Louisiana, the only game left will be Ford.