Attempts at amateur gunsmithing, citizenship, and other skilled trades
I recently bought a 12′ boat and trailer.
The boat’s a 1976 model: I plan to refurbish it when the weather cools down a little. The trailer, however, is from 2002 and appeared to be in good shape when I brought it home.
However, since my total experience with trailers up to that point had been living in a single-wide with my parents and brothers as a kid, my opinion of its condition really wasn’t worth much.
In the days and weeks to follow, I would learn more…much more…
Continue readingI found this old Dake Model X arbor press online.
I hoped to use it as a pistol sight pusher in addition to the press/stamp/rivet operations it was actually designed for.
Some quick research revealed that these Dake presses last forever and are easy to refurbish, so I took the plunge.
Continue reading*First appeared in Air Force Times, fall 2000
This week* we celebrate the 46th anniversary of the Cessna T-37, which first flew on 12 October, 1954. Nearly 1300 “Tweets” were manufactured before the production line closed in 1977: this number includes the trainer, attack (A-37) and Forward Air Control, or FAC (OA-37) versions.
Shooting over distance requires you to adjust for bullet drop and windage. Calculating these corrections, or “dope,” ahead of time improves your chances for success.
My Opa learned over a lifetime of hunting to instinctively aim where he needed to cleanly hit his target. If he could see it, he could knock it down, quickly and humanely.
Unlike Opa I didn’t hunt to feed my family, so I lacked his motivation–and, sadly, his talent–to make every shot count by just looking.
Continue reading“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point being a damn fool about it.”
– W.C. Fields
Hard work and practice are necessary to perfect any skill. But sometimes an utter lack of aptitude rears its ugly head, and no amount of hard work and practice can overcome it.
I’m reminded of this whenever I pick up a shotgun.
Continue readingAs I mentioned in an earlier entry, you won’t necessarily save money by handloading your own ammunition. What you can do is tailor your loads to shoot better than factory ammunition (at least in your guns).
Here’s how I do it.
As I mentioned in part 1, one can’t always be up and doing. Sometimes more sedentary pursuits are called for.
Having already discussed book favorites at some length, I’ll move on to other media:
When the siren song of the workbench falls on deaf ears, the mysteries of ballistics fail to fascinate, or the howl of power tools late on a school night upsets the neighbors, it’s important to have more sedentary pursuits to fall back on.
These are some of my favorites.
In an earlier journal entry I mentioned neck turning brass as a possible way to improve accuracy.
“Neck turning” consists of shaving the outer diameter of brass case necks to minimize variations in thickness. By uniforming the brass you’re supposed to get consistent neck tension, therefore consistent velocity and better accuracy.
A lot of smart people swear by it, but I couldn’t find much in the way of hard evidence for or against.
Seeing this car brought back a vivid memory of my grandmother driving a bunch of kids through the Texas Hill Country for an afternoon swim in the creek.
Those ranch roads could be rough, but “the Plymouth” was up to the task.
You had to pump the brakes to make them work, and sometimes they didn’t work then.
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