Pasture blasting

It rained again last night, so there is still water standing in the area where I normally shoot. But, to steal a line from Hank Williams, Jr., a country boy can survive.

I went down along the creek where the pasture slopes toward a high bank. Then I taped some targets to the electric fence, fashioned some weights with masking tape and pebbles, and attached them to the targets so they wouldn't flutter as much in 15 mph north wind. I also took the S&W Model 66 and two boxes of .38 Special +P hand loads.

I'm still trying to figure out these new eyeballs. Without glasses, I can't focus on the front sight with either eye. My arms or the handgun barrel--neither are long enough! I'm 20-20 now when it comes to seeing targets. I'm probably going to need a pair of 1.0 or 1.5 diopter-strength reading glasses for pistol work.

So I did as best as I could to keep the red blob (the Smith's red-sight insert) centered on the four-inch bull while shooting double-action from seven and 15 yards.

Two, six-round groups fired double action at 15 yards with .38 Special +P hand loads using 6.3 grains of Alliant Power Pistol and 125 grain, Remington SJHP bullets. The top six rounds were fired after I moved the rear sight up two clicks.

I'm almost out of .357 ammunition and haven't taken the time to load any. That's something I'm going to take care of next week. For now I'm going to work with Power Pistol, Blue Dot and Winchester Auto Comp (if I can find any) paired with 125 or 140-grain Remington SJHPs. Hopefully they'll offer a bit more power, better groups, and no fireball visible to the crew of the International Space Station when touched off in low light.

Maybe the swamp in front of my bench rest will dry before Memorial Day.

Anyone for Yuans?

Bet your bottom yuan ...

Yuan for yuan ...

Sound as a yuan ...

Yuan signs in their eyes ...

A day late and a yuan short ...

Will this become the world's C-note?


That is the sixty-four-yuan question ...

A tax on the ...

very air that you breathe is undoubtedly on the conference table. However, income taxes on the wealthy, no matter if they're engaged in other risky behaviors besides working and investing or not, and consumption taxes on sugary soft drinks, tobacco, and alcoholic beverages are being advanced by the Senate Finance Committee.

Other ideas: punish those who have saved in expectation of bad health and Americans who aren't average because they work for companies with tax-free health care benefits.

My wife, a teacher, just came home from a field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. She told me the Feds no longer burn money because of the toxic fumes. It's now shredded. I have a plastic bag stuffed with approximately $165 of shredded, "unfit currency" to prove it.

I'll have to stop using analogies such as "up in smoke" or "money to burn" to explain excessive debt monetization and inflation--the tax we all pay despite what we're told--to my kids.

Emerson's essay, "Compensation"

Some of the best teachers I've had weren't popular among the other students. One such teacher introduced me to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays. After years of reading them, the words still provoke thought and shape action.

An Emerson quote under Brigid's eyes pulled me into reading his essay, Compensation. Here are some ideas from it that are as true today as they were in 1841.

Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess.

For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

Material good has its tax, and if it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it away.

But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.

None of us, individually or collectively, can override the dualist, reaction-born-of-action, "law of Compensation" that Emerson witnessed in nature and our human condition. It's a comfort in these days when words such as change and hope have been misappropriated and rendered meaningless.

A new-to-me Smith & Wesson

I picked up this S&W Model 66, circa 1986, with a 3-inch barrel and round butt from my local FFL this afternoon. It was purchased through GunBroker.com, a first for me.

Unlike Model 66s with 2 1/2 and 4-inch barrels, the 3-inch version is difficult to find in any condition. This one was advertised as being 99 percent, which I'd say was an accurate description. It locks up perfectly and boasts a decent double-action trigger. Those are two characteristics many S&Ws from the same era, particularly the stainless ones, weren't blessed with before leaving the factory.

I once owned an identical Model 66, part of a Coast Guard contract overrun, in the late 80s. I carried it off duty in a Milt Sparks Summer Special, which is no longer available for revolvers. This one will ride in a Don Hume J.I.T. SLIDE belt holster for now. The J.I.T. is a tunnel-loop belt slide with a slight FBI rake. Unlike most tunnel-loop rigs, the loop is stitched on the rear of the body more toward the front. One threads their belt through the tunnel first and then under the loop. At any rate, it pulls the revolver butt in so it doesn't print against a cover garment.

I have never cared for pancake holsters for revolvers. The cylinder bulge often seems to press right against the point of my right hip.

One never knows what may be hiding amongst clematis.

Tomorrow I'll wade through the swamp between the house and the range and then conduct a field trial. Alligators don't usually range this far north, but if I happen to find one ...

Flint knapping anyone?

A note from one of the distributors I use for reloading components:

At this time we are not taking any new backorders for primers that are not listed here. We currently have over 50 million primers on backorder. If you currently have a backorder in place your order will be processed as primers become available. Once we begin receiving more primers from the manufacturers and are able to begin filling current backorders we will update the website.

English-type musket flint found in Lyon Co., Kansas

There seems to be a fair supply of #10 and #11 percussion caps. Maybe it's time to pick up a new brace of cap and ball revolvers. Then there's always flintlocks--no flint shortages in Kansas. Oddly enough, I don't have a .22 LR revolver. I've spotted a Colt Official Police so chambered with a 6-inch barrel and some pearl Jay-Scott-Ajax-looking grips.

Yes, I'll remove the pearlies if that Colt finds its way home with me.

Three of Quantrill's men--no pearl handles on their fighting irons.

Happy May Day!

There's all sorts of reasons--green and red--to party hearty today. Decorate and distribute May Day baskets, wash and wax the T-55s and Scud missiles, boycott or strike, and do a little maypole dancing.

Lay down your burdens, procreate and join the parade.