My Weekend

What did your weekend look like?

40.419452,-106.74566

Where the Votes Don't Matter & Everything's Made Up

I'm a registered Republican.  I don't always vote GOP, but I like to have my primary vote and have it count for something.  The GOP chair however would rather my vote didn't count for anything.  I voted for Maes.

Yesterday, Tom Tancredo and GOP Chair Dick Wadhams decided that my vote shouldn't count.

They want to force the guy who won the primary to drop out of the race so they can choose someone "more suitable".

ISN'T THAT WHAT A PRIMARY ELECTION IS FOR?

Apparently, a primary is so that registered Republicans can bless those chosen by the party leadership.  I will likely be changing my party affiliation.  Now I've just got to decide between Libertarian and independent.  News flash to GOP leadership, this shit is why you lose elections and no one trusts you rat bastards.

Sanding Rubber

My wife was recently given her grandfather's hunting rifle.  The Remington Model 721 in .270 was purchased new in 1952.  It has been on many a hunting trip.  Her father used it to take his first deer.  When we got it, it was in need of a little TLC.

There was a small crack at the front of the stock and the recoil pad was the original from '52.  We removed the old recoil pad, watching it disintegrate as it came off.  We then plugged the old holes with dowels and glued the crack in the stock.

We applied linseed oil to the stock and got to work on the recoil pad.  I picked up a Limbsaver grind to fit as I had heard that they were fairly easy to install and worked great.  We mounted the pad and traced out the contour of the rifle.  We then removed the pad and got to sanding.  My wife went first and after a half hour came in covered in tiny black rubber particles and oil.  Apparently finishing the recoil pad would be my job.

I started with dry 60 grit paper on a rotary sander and soon applied oil.  I got the general shape roughed out and switched to the fine stuff.  I got it shaped well, but I had gotten too aggressive and melted the rubber in a few spots.  I brought it back in and started to mount it up, but it was still too big.  Somehow we hadn't scribed the shape quite right.  I tried tried again and got it right.

Then my wife took it to the range and got it right, right from the start.  She was shooting 1-1/2", 5 shot groups at 100 yards with little effort and 20 year old ammo.

A flat shooting 58 year old rifle, full of hunting juju, I'm looking forward to November.

Circle Of Life

I haven't been blogging much lately.  There are more than several reasons, but the chief one is this.

We have had a pond in the backyard since we moved in.  It wasn't very big or very deep.  The water didn't circulate well and there was no filter.  In short it was a PITA.  This summer I've been busting hump in order to expand, deepen, and generally improve the pond.  I'll have a post up later with some pond lessons learned.

I was out last night taking some pictures of the pond in order to show off my hard work when this guy showed up.

He stayed atop my fence for a long time.  I thought maybe he was thinking about doing a little fishing in my pond.  After about five minutes of watching him look around my backyard intently, he jumped down to a lower fence, flushed out the mouse, and before I could blink or snap a picture he flew off with his dinner.  The circle of life is everywhere.  It's even in the backyard of a nondescript house in the suburbs.

Cleaning Less Is Fine, Until It Isn't

Caleb has some advice on gun cleaning.  The condensed version is don't do it until it gets real nasty, just lube it up and go.  That advice is fine and dandy, most of the time.  Allow me however to relate a tale of my buddy's 1911 I recently looked over.

My buddy is a relatively new gun owner.  He just bought his first rifle last week.  He has owned a Para 1911 in 9mm for around 8 months or so.  It has had FTE problems since he purchased it, but in the last month it had gotten really bad.  He was convinced that he needed to replace the extractor.  Since this gun is equipped with their Power Extractor, he was all set to send it to a gun smith to have it sleeved and a standard extractor put in, MSRP $100.

I asked if I could take a look, mostly out of curiosity.  I stripped it and the thing was coated in lubricant.  My initial cleaning involved wiping off lubricant with a clean cloth.  I checked the extractor and it appeared to be operating just fine.  Next I got out the trusty flashlight and looked down the barrel.  The chamber was copper colored and filled with schmutz.

A little bit of this magical concoction from Hoppes, some break cleaner on the action and reapplication of a SMALL bit of lubricant, and the gun is off to the races.

The moral of the story is this.  It is fine to minimize cleaning of your guns (as long as you are shooting non-corrosive ammo).  If you practice this however, it may end up biting you in the ass one day.  I like to keep them clean, lube them a little, and inspect them a lot.

It Stinks...Bad

I just got done holding my nose and voting in the Republican primary.  Chances are good that I won't vote for half those guys in the general election.  The local GOP party is just as good here as anywhere else at putting folks in front of voters who have views that don't mesh with the majority of conservative voters in the area.

This year should be a slam dunk for the Republicans, but one just has to look at the state of the primary race for Colorado Governor for proof otherwise.