Overheard in bed this morning

misbeHaven rolled over and said, "I'm Life, The Universe and Everything."

She's 42 today.

I Love this woman! She get's me.

Big Range Day Win

Yesterday Chimera came out to casa de Geek for Christmas dinner and a little shooty goodness. He got a new Magpul stock and CMMG .22LR conversion that needed to be tried out. I also changed out the charging handle catch for an extended version to make things easier with his optics.
I took out misbeHavens AR, my 10/22 and my STI with a Ceiner .22 conversion on it.

Starting at 25 yds to make sure things were on target. We don't have a shooting bench on our range so we used a a rolled up blanket on the hood of the truck as a rest. We then rolled back to 100yds to see how the rifles were doing. The reason I took the AR out was way back when I took it out and shot a variety of ammo through it over a chrono at 100yd targets to check which ammo worked best in her gun. I tested 2 factory loads, 4 mil surp loads and four different powder loads under 55Gr JSP handloads. The best of all the ammo groups was a 1.013" group with 25.6Gr of VV N-135 under the 55Gr JSP. What I didn't try was the 69Gr Moly coated Sierra Match Kings I hand load for my varmint rifle. I wanted to correct that. For my last tests I had a range with a bench and multiple sandbags to take me out of the equation and only look at ammo performance.
Well, I shot four, five shot groups at 100yds using the blanket rest. The groups were 1.98", 0.980", 0.956" and the smallest at 0.703". This was off a blanket on the hood. Not sandbags on a bench. I am rather impressed by the performance of these hand loads.
Just for fun, I took aim an IPSC target with my .22LR Conversion. I managed to put the rounds on the target. Not pretty but at least they were on the cardboard. Back up at 25yds resting on the blanket shot a 3" or so group with the pistol and free hand standing I was able to hold everything in the 6" head of the IPSC target. Actually the first string of 15 was in nominally half of the head. The next string of 15 filled the other half of the head so the gun will hold pretty tight for a conversion.

Overall has to be the best range day for me in a long time.

Gun Training ad FTW!

Merry Christmas from TIGER Valley from TIGER Valley on Vimeo.

This just REALLY tips over my giggle box. Thanks Tiger Valley and Merry Christmas.

Police Department Quits

So, the town of Calvert TX is without a police force. Yesterday, the chief and both officers quit. The early speculation was that there was a dispute over holiday/overtime pay. However, I find it interesting that there is mention in one article of the town council having an executive session to discuss police department performance.
Most amusing is the last line in this newspaper article that says they expect to have a new chief by the first of the year. They had a bunch of applicants for a patrol officers position that was recently opened and they can go back through those.

SERIOUSLY?

They are expecting to hire a new police chief between now and the first of the year? With the holidays coming? Out of applications for an officers position?

It is no wonder to me that they have problems if this is how they go about staffing thier police department.

Sub Caliber Practice

I am a big proponent of sub caliber practice. For a variety of reasons this is a good thing. I can buy an entire case of .22lr for what it costs to reload a few hundred rounds of .40S&W. We can carry this even further with airsoft. There is plenty of debate among gunnies about the practicality of airsoft guns for training. Either as a tool for force on force training or as a tool for shooting practice. So, have a look at the picture and see if you can identify the .40, the .22 or the airsoft. Shouldn't be too hard to do. However, what makes it all work is the fact that they all handle the same. They all have Dawson Awesome fiber front sights and Bomar rears. They all have SV extended triggers (yes the airsoft takes the same trigger parts as the real thing). They all shoot about the same. The .40 has more recoil but that is one of the reasons for doing sub caliber practice. By using the .22 and the airsoft, you can get trigger time with less noise and recoil. This is like dryfire without having to rack the slide. WITH instant feedback on the shooters performance as to accuracy in your trigger control and sight alignment. It is all good. The additional upside is the ability to practice indoors, at the house, without hearing protection.
A handy way, U-Haul wardrobe box with the front folded down and a silhouette taped across the front of the box. Set at the end of the hallway it allows for practice not only group shooting but clearing out of the bedroom and or working corners around the house. Since the heavy cardboard of the wardrobe box captures the airsoft pellets, you can scoop up all the pellets out of the box after wards and recycle them. Makes the practice even less expensive.

Don't forget to get a matching airsoft for your tactical life partner/spouse. That way the two of you can practice moving through the house and engage targets along the way. misbeHaven has her Kimber Custom Stainless Target and a matching airsoft Caspian single stack with matching sights and super short triggers so she has the same feel on her guns as well.

It's all good. Your thoughts?

Saw Slayer Cat

Lat night, misbeHaven went to check on a loud noise out in the garage. Knowing the barn cat usually stays in there when it is cold outside but not so cold that he will submit to being indoors with humans. She didn't really pay much attention to the floor as the cat was right outside the door and came through as soon as she opened it.
This morning, I went out for a look and found this. The circular saw normally lives on the third shelf of a set of shelves that is to the right of the picture by about 4 feet. The dark matter on the carpet strip and all over the floor of the garage would be feathers from the cats midnight snack. This is so much better than when he catches a mole or rat and brings them to the garage for evisceration. Just one more thing to clean up when we get home this afternoon.

Dreidel song

In honor of Trainwreck posting the swing version of the Dreidel song, Here I would like to present my absolute favorite version of it. By DaVinci's Notebook of course.



Then of course there is always SouthPark and their own unique version.



However, back to DaVinci's notebook. While I really dig their version of the Dreidel song, it is not my favorite of theirs.

Whenever life gets you down,
and you're wearin a frown,
and the gravy train has left you behiiiiinnnnd.
And when you're all out of hope,
at the end of your rope,
and nobody's there to throw you a liiiiiinnnneeee.
If you ever get so low,
that you don't know which way to go,
come on and take a walk in my shows.
Don't worry bout a thing,
got the world on a string,
cause I've got the cure for all of my bluuuueeessss,
I...................................................................

Credit Card Fraud SUX

Going through the months CC Bill, misbeHaven found a charge out of Hong Kong and another one that is an order for designer coffee. Neither of those are us. So, rang up the credit card fraud line, canceled the card and disputed the charges. Now we are without that card, which is NBD but, just having to go through this is a pain. Now trying to figure out where the fraud could have originated. Is it a passed on/ stolen card info or is it just random hit?

A bird in the hand

is not worth two Bush's.

You'll get it.

Later.

Last night, misbeHaven and I went to "An Irish Christmas with Ronin Tynan" at MSC OPAS.

What a set of pipes this guy has. He sang wonderfully and is very much the entertainer. Unfortunately, I slipped on the stairs on the way in and spent the evening in pain as my ankle was swelling. We debated about whether we could get my boot off or were going to have to cut it off. Hurts enough this morning that I couldn't hardly walk on it to go to the bathroom much less go to work. Besides, it is much larger than it should be and I am trying to keep it on ice and me on drugs.

Anyway, as we were waiting for the evening to start, right at 7:30 rather than the show starting, two rather large gentlemen wearing dark suits, light shirts, red ties and American flag lapel pins come in and looked around. Followed by another similarly attired young man then President George H.W and Barbara Bush and a few more agents. The entire place stood and applauded. It was good to see them out and about but I must say, H.W is looking rather frail.

Anyway, the evening went on and we eventually made it home to two very pissed off cats who were going to starve if they weren't fed in the next 15 minutes. Just ask them.

I will say I was a little disappointed in the evening. Not just because of my foot/ankle/knee. The sound guy needed to turn down the gain on Ronin's mike. He has more than enough lung capacity and control that he could have performed without the amps and sounded much better. Add to that, there there were only a few Christmas songs. I kinda expected more Christmas being called An Irish Christmas. If this is what Christmas in Ireland is like, Remind me never to go there in December. Still it was a nice evening out with the Mrs and I'm still glad we went.