Justin Buist

George Hill, aka Mad Ogre got his hands on a Wilson ADP the other week and wrote a review on it. Since his blog doesn’t have a good permalink system I’ve quoted it in full:

I didn’t feel like doing my normal lunch hour routine, so I took the time to run to a close by shooting spot and popping off rounds through this new little pistol. Freaking Awesome. The ADP is a sub-compact 9mm. Narrow, especially for a double stack, 10 rounds. Nightsights. The action is a gas-delay system similar to the HK P-7. This allows for a small gun that shoots like a bigger gun. Before I fired it, I expected a sharp snappy recoil. This didn’t happen. The recoil was negligible. Not that 9MM is all that sharp, but it was just very soft even for a 9. I mentioned before that the trigger system is odd. It feels strange.. the trigger is a long smooth pull all the way to where the sear just drops off… There is no crisp break… there is no break, it just “falls off”. If I could, I’d put this trigger pull on all my double action handguns. Now here is the best thing. These guns are accurate! I had some other ammo rolling around in my trunk… Federal, UMC, Remington, WWB, Blazer Brass, Blazer silver, SXT, Corbon, Hornady, Speer, Black Hills… pretty much a little of everything. The ADP fired it all and I didnt have a single malfunction. 115, 124, 147… the ADP ran flawlessly. At 15 paces I put all the rounds through a single ragged hole. Take a box of Blazer Brass… the B on the box… yeah, a whole mag full of rounds through the B. I’ll have a photo of it in the magazine article… I was surprised. I was tickled. I have already sent word to Wilson Combat that this pistol is not going to be returned to them and they will just have to accept a cashier’s check in its place. I’m keeping this one. Not only that, but it has just replaced my P-01 as my carry gun. Yeah, it’s that good. It impressed the shit out of me.

Emphasis is mine on the last bit. I’m a big fan of CZ pistols and I hold George’s evaluations of firearms in high regard, so I’m really interested in this pistol.

I’m not going to run out and buy one, but I’ll keep my eye out for them.

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I finally got around to trying to disassemble my Taurus Thunderbolt in .45LC this evening.

I whipped out the owner’s manual and to my dismay the cleaning instructions only included cleaning the barrel, opening the action, and spraying the thing out with an arsesol cleaner.

Not good enough.

So, I go online and find some other instruction. In these I find that step #1 is to remove the magazine tube. Remove one screw, lift it out, right? Nope. Danged thing won’t move. I’m not sure why you would need to do this, but I figured I’d just move to the next step.

Remove the buttstock.

That part was easy!

I fiddle around with it some more, can’t get the magazine tube out so I figure I’ll give up for the night and try again. I put the magazine retention screw back on after some fiddling and go to work on the buttstock.

Stubborn little fucker. Whack it with my hand a little bit to get it back onto the tang. Still not moving far enough up. I put a sock on it the end to protect the metal and tap it with a heavy object. It’s moving now. Weee!

Shit, I cracked the wood! How did that happen?

I recheck my work. I was trying to put it back on upside down. Figures. I’ve caught myself trying to do that before. It’s cosmetic, but I’m going to have to replace this sometime. I’m not big on caring much about cosmetic damage to guns, but this one hasn’t even been shot yet! A muck-up like this isn’t “character” — it’s a sign of a dumbass owner.

Sigh.

Live and learn.

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Abercrombie & Fitch used to sell guns?

Learn something new every day I guess.

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In light of Michael “Kramer” Richards meltdown on stage here’s Bill Hicks dealing with a heckler:

If you’ve never seen a comic run around stage yelling, “I’m a drunk cunt! I’m a drunk cunt!” then you’re missing out.

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I saw the movie Happy Feet Saturday evening and thought I’d write a review.

Just discovered that there’s no need to. Mel already wrote what I wanted to say.

In short:

The songs aren’t appropriate for children, though in all honesty seeing the movie once won’t make the overly sexual lyrics stick in a kid’s head it isn’t something you’d want them watching over and over again.

About 2/3rds the way through the movie we learn that humans are responsible for the penguins starving. We also learn that religion is stupid and all religious leaders are fakes.

Oh, and the only way to solve a problem is to have the United Nations fix it. No kid will actually pick that message up, but the UN logo is presented in the movie in such a way that it would sink in subliminally.

The long:

I’d say about 80% of the movie is “kid safe” but the other 20% isn’t. That pretty much ruins it as a kid’s movie. It’s a funny movie with plenty of laughs for the kids in there, but the message is too dismal and one sided. It would have only taken 2 minutes to actually create a debate and compromise solution in the movie explaining that human beings need to harvest responsibily. That would teach the children a decent lesson on conservation. Instead they run with a whole-hog ban mindset.

Another issue was the action. My girlfriend’s four year old niece and 6 year old nephew were with us and some of the action was a bit too intense for the four year old. She had to look away and hug my girlfriend. They could have been much shorter and much less dramatic. For instance, the orcas (killer whales) going after the penguins. Way too long, and didn’t do much for the plot. Instead it would have been much better, and more educational, if they had actually showed how orcas hunt with realistic outcomes. I caught something a month or so ago about them working as a team to knock seals off ice floats as a team. They’d get 3 abreast, swim real fast as the ice float, go under it, and create a wave that knocked the seal off the float to eat it. The interesting part about the article is that they didn’t eat the seal in question: they were just showing the younger ones how you do it.

Educational, entertaining, somewhat suspsensful, and it lets the kids know that orcas aren’t evil killing beasts all the time. That’s got some value to it no matter what your political leanings. I normally wouldn’t harp on a movie for failing to provide education when they can, but kids will be coming away from this movie thinking that the killer whales Sea-World are nothing but killers that’ll eat them in a second.

That and eating fish is starving the penguins.

Nice movie, but you probably won’t want to buy it on DVD and you would do best to sit your kids down and actually talk about the issues presented.

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The 20th Century’s Top Cartidges

I found this while looking for more background on .243 Win. Also covered are .375 H&H, .30-06, .270 Win., .220 Swift, .300 Weatherby Mag, .222 Rem., .308 Win., .458 Win., .338 Win. Mag., 7mm Rem. Mag., and 6mm PPC.

Good stuff. It’d be nice if info like this was posted in gun shops right next to the ammo.

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I’m pretty amped about this buying a house thing. If you’re a reader of this blog you’ve also got a couple of reasons to be amped.

The primary reason I was looking for houses in the area I picked was because of their relative location to the shooting range that I’ve found best suites my needs. Yes, I’m that big of a gun nut. From said range I’m only 15 minutes for all of my immediate family members, plenty of my old friends, and still within 15 minutes of work. It’s not an entirely impractical place to live.

That’s vastly better than my apartment which was 45 minutes from the family, 30 minutes from the range, and 15 minutes from work.

Bonus: The girlfriend also likes the place.

Now, there are some impractical things about the house: It’s way too big for my current needs. On the other hand I do plan on actually having a family some day, and while I don’t plan on having enough kids to actually fill the place (5 bedrooms) I can at least take comfort in knowing that I won’t ever have to move from there unless the job market in Grand Rapids, Michigan goes to utter shit.

Are you starting to see why this might get interseting for blog readers?

I will finally have room to fully enjoy my hobby — and I’m in a perfect location for playing with my toys. You want a range report on the latest toy that I picked up? I’m only 2 minutes away from the range. I timed it.

Finally I’ll have room to set up a reloading bench. That means I can start playing with some of my more odd calibers out there, like 7.7 Jap and 8×56mm. I won’t have to worry about the cost of .44 Magnum, .45 Long Colt, .357 Magnum, .45 ACP and a bunch of other stuff that I should be reloading but can’t because I’m in a tiny apartment.

Finally I’ll have room to set up the simple tools required to start building my own kit guns. I’ll most likely start with AKs because of the simplicity and low cost, but I might do an AR here or there. These projects should be very interesting for readers.

Finally I’ll be able to invite random folks out to shoot trap and it’ll be easy on them. Just show up at my house at the designated time. We’ll find a shotgun that fits you and make the grand voyage of a whole 2 minutes to the shooting range to give it a go. No fuss, no muss.

I’m hoping this works out well.

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Put in a bid on a house last night. I should know today how it was received.

UPDATE: Looks like we’ve reached an agreement. I’ll put my Herbie Hancock on the paperwork Friday morning.

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The United States Marine Corps were founded today in 1775

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior

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Besides the fact that I don’t look good on TV

Here’s an idea that floated to my head some months ago with regards to state’s rights.

You know where you find a lot of the pork spending in our nation? In the transportation budget. This is the bullshit pork spending that leads to bridges to islands with 50 people in them in Alaska and bridges named after Robert Byrd. This is also used by the federal government to dictate highway regulations back to the states.

You see, the federal government doesn’t have the power to set such rules. They cannot mandate our speed limits. They cannot pass a law that says we must wear seat belts. They cannot set the legal blood alcohol content level for drivers. Hell it’s the very reason that every state in the union sets the drinking age at 21 years of age.

What they can do is tax us. I’m talking here about the federal gas tax: 18.4 cents per gallon. Failure to comply with the federal guidelines means you jeopardize getting that money back. Play nice and you get your money, right?

Wrong.

Michigan, along with plenty of other states are donor states. Michigan gets back 92 cents on the dollar for every $1.00 we pump into the system. Washington DC gets back around $5.00 for every $1.00 they put into the system. I wonder why that area gets special treatment.

If I had my way the solution to this would be rather simple: Michigan tax payers should just quit paying into the system. Just increase the state gas tax to take in the same amount of money and stop sending it to DC. What are they going to do? Send the Army in after us?

Now, I understand perfectly well that there’s a reason that some states get more in tax dollars than others. For instance it makes sense to give Illinois an amount out of proportion with the amount that they donate. They need that money to keep up the interstates around Chicago because a metric crapload of vehicles that don’t ever bother buying gas in Illinois pass through there. Any state with a disproportionate amount of through-way traffic needs extra funding.

That would be understandable.

My beef is that Michigan’s roads suck and we’re getting shafted by the federal gas tax program. Less than fifty people in Alaska are getting a new bridge while I drive to work on roads so full of potholes that I’m glad I drive an SUV so I don’t bottom out on them.

I like to drive. A lot. If I want to get somewhere I prefer to do it by automobile. I’ve trucked my ass from Michigan to Maine to Montana to Missouri to New York City to Kentucky and God knows where else I’ve forgotten. Hands down Michigan’s roads are the worst. I’ve checked. When you see a sign in Michigan that indicates a “Dip” in the road you put both hands on the steering wheel and grit your teeth. When you see one in Illinois you simply remember not to take a drink of your coffee until after you hit it.

It isn’t that we get less money back that pisses me off.

It isn’t that a bunch of yahoos in Washington demand I put my seat belt on that pisses me off.

It isn’t that our roads suck that pisses me off.

It’s when you put them all together that things start to irritate me.

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