Quiet on the Home Front

KeeWee and I had a nice quiet Christmas, hanging around the house and taking it easy, mostly. Yes, I did manage to get in a goodly number of hours programming. Unfortunately I still have a huge amount to go before the new program is finished. After getting it written I still will have to write the documentation for it, and that's a fair sized project in itself. Although this does keep me out of the bars, ( I don't go to bars anyway), it also keeps me from getting to the range. The brand new Glock 34 and the nearly new Taurus .357 8 shooter haven't been given any exercise at all.

In previous posts I've mentioned the Nichol's Brother Boat Builders shutting down. It now looks like they will be starting back up with new ownership, and 75 of the original workforce have been hired back. I sure hope they can put it all back together, fix whatever needs fixing, and get everyone back to work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them.

There's still no progress in getting full ferry service back between Whidbey Island and Port Townsend. It seems the State of Washington has had the money budgeted for replacing the now beached ferries several years ago, but never ordered the replacement ferries. I think, as I have said in the past, beaching those ferry boats because they were leaking is a political move, not a marine safety one. All boats leak to start with, and steel boats collect a fair amount of water from condensation, too. Since tying up the ferries, none of them have sunk. True, they might leak a little bit more if they are being used, but not a lot more, I'll bet. I wouldn't be surprised if 3M doesn't make a rubbery spray on coating that could be used to seal these hulls to where they wouldn't leak at all. Perhaps sandblast the hull, spray on the rubberized coating, then re-paint and back to work. Does anyone know if they make such a product?

I forgot to mention that Lou G, blogger of Mad Gun, had an ice and steps related accident a week or so ago, and managed to shatter his left forearm and take a pretty good blow to the head. When they were checking him over the also discovered he had a carotid artery almost completely blocked too. Last week they cleaned out the artery and did an erector set job on his arm. He's going to be OK, and should be able to shoot with both hands roughly mid Spring. Last week he was out shooting a pistol bench rest match one handed, so at least he's still getting to the range once in a while. You might stop by his blog and leave him a comment if you get a chance, but his blogging may be impaired a bit for a while until he gets rid of the cast and all of the hardware. If all goes well, you might just get a chance to meet him in person next October in Reno at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous. That's the plan, anyhow........

That's it for now, so I'm going to get back to writing some code!

Merry Christmas!

KeeWee, Rocket, and I wish you all a

Very

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I'm Still Here, More or less.....

It seems like a common theme of some of my more recent posts has been an apology for not posting much lately. So far the on-going legal stuff trying to keep a land developer from forcing a road across my property has cost me heavily financially, and is continuing to do so. To make financial matters worse, a network service and maintenance contract I have had for years with a local county wide agency is not being renewed for next year. Their idea is that they will save money by not maintaining anything and wait until it breaks down completely, then hire someone to fix it. It looks like an impending train wreck to me, but time will tell. Regardless, the contract is not being done for next year. On top of that, ammo has gotten a lot more expensive, and I use a lot of ammo and bullets every year.

Needless to say, I need to get more bucks rolling in the door. Applying for a big grant, or begging for money are just not my style, so I may have to do it the old fashioned way, earn it!

A portion of my income has been coming from software sales of a software package I wrote (and continue to add to) several years ago for running a Washington State liquor store. The computer and financial reporting requirements for small liquor stores here in Washington are so strange that there is no generic point of sale and report writing software that will do the job. Not even close! The my program was written in Visual Basic for DOS, and used the VB DOS ISAM database engine for it's databases. To this day it works well, fast and accurate. It lacks the prettiness of newer Windows based software, but it's rock solid stable and will run well on the most modest of computers. The current cool aid is that DOS is somehow "Hard to use" and Windows is much easier, and that older versions of Windows that will run DOS programs are "No longer supported" by Microsoft. Have you ever called Microsoft for support on one of their operating systems? What a joke.....

None the less, the market is driven by perceptions, not realities. My current software works very nicely on any of the Windows 9x versions, but even with all the tweaking and fiddling, it just doesn't work as it should with any of the Windows NT flavored versions like 2000, XP, and Vista (spit). Sure, it can be run in a virtual machine, or even in a Windows emulator on Linux, but that makes the setup a lot more complicated, and a lot harder to fix if it gets messed up, particularly for the liquor store owner. They just want to run their store, not be a test pilot!

The bottom line of all this is that I'm pretty much working two shifts, seven days a week. During the "Normal" day I do my regular job, then grab a nap (mmmmmm, naps!) then work from after dinner until 3 or 4 am programming, writing a completely new version of the liquor store program from scratch, using Visual Basic 6 for the programming language. C++ would be a better final result, but the learning curve and development time pretty much rule out anything C based.

I've haven't had the time to follow all the blogs as I would like, and posting has been slowed way down, too. You do what you have to do to pay the bills!

In the meantime, if anyone knows of a piece of software that needs to be written that will pay me large amounts of money and which will take a fairly short amount of time to write, I'm open to suggestions!

On the other hand, KeeWee is planning to win the lottery..............

Rivrdog is Blogging Again

Rivrdog has resumed blogging, at least I THINK it's Rivrdog, but I'm not too sure. He's given me a hard time for years over me using red dot sights on many of my race pistols, calling them "Gizmo sights". Now, according to his blog, he's planning on putting Gizmo Sights on several of his rifles and shotguns!

Who are you REALLY, and what did you do with Rivrdog?

Anyhow, welcome back.......

Ring Ring...................

Why do these calls always happen when you are in the middle of something else where an interruption is most inconvenient?


Ring Ring:

ME: Answers phone.

Asian Female Voice, Barely Understandable: Herro? Can I speak to an adult male in your household?

ME: I'm sorry, we have no adults in this household. We are all only four years old, or less.

AFVBU: Oh. Thank you. Click.

.............. sigh

Oh Come All Ye Faithful - Twisted sister

Twisted Sister - Oh Come All Ye Faithful

Be sure to watch it clear to the end.

Yes, I like the traditional Christmas carols, but this totally rocks, yet the message is loud and clear.

Just in case you've kinda lost the meaning of Christmas in all the other distractions, re-listen to the words.........

My new favorite Christmas carol!!

No News - Is That GOOD News?

We still haven't heard a decision from the judge as to if my land developer neighbor will be given an easement across my property so he can sub-divide his property. Trial was a week ago Tuesday, and at the start of trial our prospects looked bleak, as it was obvious to me that the judge had already made up his mind as to how he would decide and it was going to be a dog and pony show to make it look like everything was being considered, even if that was not the case. Fortunately I have an outstanding attorney who truly knows what he's doing, and by the end of the day it looked like the judge had finally seen through all of my neighbor's smoke and mirrors and had figured out just what was going on. The judge also knew by the end of trial that if the law wasn't followed, an appeal was definitely going to be filed. Dick, my attorney, had done a thorough job of getting everything needed for the appeal into the record, and when opposition objected to particular evidence or testimony, Dick got it into the record for the appeal through a process called "Offer of Proof". Offer of Proof allows the testimony to continue over opposition's objection. It cannot be considered in the current proceeding, but it CAN be considered in the appeal. The judge wasn't too happy about that, but there wasn't much he could do to stop it.

Now all we can do is wait for the Judge's decision. In my opinion, at the start of trial the odds were stacked 1000 to 1 against us. By the end of the day I think it was about 50-50. That's not the odds I would like to have, but it's a whole lot better than it was.

Now we wait.........

Don's Guns

Don's Guns Christmas Ad
(click it to biggify so you can read it)

Dave Smock sent a pic of this ad to me, and I thought you'd like to see it, too. It's unusual to see ads promoting shooting sports businesses even run in a newspaper these days. Our local fish wrapper won't even allow you to run a want ad to buy or sell a firearm, even a shotgun.

It sounds like Don's Guns is a rather cool place. Unfortunately it's a bit far for me to travel. Have any of you been into his store?

Tell him Mr. Completely sends wishes for a Merry Christmas!

CWSA 2008 Match Schedule

CENTRAL WHIDBEY SPORTSMEN’S ASSOCIATION
Match and Class Schedule 2008

January
Tuesday 1st. - Rifle Match 100yds. 0900

February
Saturday 2nd - Bowling Pin Shooting Class 0900 (Clubhouse & Pin Range)
Saturday 9th - Speed Steel Shooting Class 0900 (Clubhouse & Range)
Saturday 16th - Rifle Match 200yds 0900

March
Saturday 1st - Bowling Pins 0900
Sunday 2nd - Trap 1130
Sunday 9th - Falling Plates 0900
Sunday 16th - Rifle Match 100 yds. 0900
Saturday 29th - Bowling Pins 0900

April
Saturday 5th - Falling Plates 0900
Saturday 12th - Blackpowder Shooting Class 0900 (Clubhouse & Range)
Sunday 13th - Hanging Plates 0900
Sunday 13th - Trap 1130
Saturday 19th - Rifle Match 200yds. 0900
Saturday 19th - Womens Firearms Safety Class 0900-1500 (*Clubhouse & Range)
Sunday 20th - Bowling Pins 0900
Saturday 26th - Youth Firearms Safety Class 0900-1500 (Clubhouse & Range)
Sunday 27th - Speed Steel

May
7th,8th, - Hunter Education 1800-2100 (Registration required)
9th,10th - Hunter Education 0900-1200 (cont.)
Sunday 11th - Falling Plates 0900
Saturday 17th - Trap 1130
Sunday 18th - Hanging Plates 0900
Sunday 18th - Rifle Match 100yds. 0900
Saturday 24th - Speed Steel 0900
Sunday 25th - Trap 1130
Saturday 31st - Bowling Pins 0900

June
Thursday 5th - Trap 1800
Saturday 7th - Hanging Plates 0900
Sunday 8th - Speed Steel 0900
Saturday 14th - Rifle Match 200yds. 0900
Sunday 22nd - Bowling Pins 0900
Thursday 26th - Trap 1800
Saturday 28th - Hanging Plates 0900

July
Saturday 5th - Bowling Pins 0900
Sunday 6th - Speed Steel 0900
Thursday 10th - Trap 1800
Sunday 13th - Rifle Match 100yds 0900
Sunday 20th - Falling Plates 0900
Thursday 24th - Trap 1800
Saturday 26th - Speed Steel 0900
Sunday 27th - Hanging Plates 0900
30th,31st - Hunter Education 1800-2100 (Registration required)

August
2nd - Hunter Education 0900-1200 (cont.)
Saturday 2nd - Bowling Pins 0900
Sunday 3rd - Falling Plates 0900
Thursday 7th - Trap 1800
Saturday 9th - Rifle Match 200yds. 0900
Sunday 10th - Speed Steel 0900
14th, 15th, BLACK POWDER RENDEZVOUS All Day
16th, 17th BLACK POWDER RENDEZVOUS All Day
20th thru 22nd - Hunter Education 1800-2100 (Registration required)
23rd - Hunter Education 0900-1200 (cont.)
Sunday 24th - Bowling Pins 0900
Thursday 28th - Trap 1800
Saturday 30th - Falling Plates 0900

September
Thursday 4th - Trap 1800
Saturday 6th - Speed Steel 0900
9th thru 12th - Hunter Education 1800-2100 (Registration required)
13th - Hunter Education 0900-1200 (cont.)
Saturday 13th - Bowling Pins 0900
Sunday 14th - Rifle Match 100yds. 0900
Thursday 18th - Trap 1800
Sunday 21st - Falling Plates 0900
24th thru 26th - Hunter Education 1800-2100 (Registration required)
27th - Hunter Education 0900-1200 (cont.)
Saturday 27th - Island Clubs Challenge Match @ North Whidbey Range 0900
Sunday 28th - Hanging Plates 0900

October
Saturday 4th - Speed Steel 0900
Sunday 5th - Trap 1130
Saturday 11th - Falling Plates 0900
Saturday 18th - Rifle Match 200yds 0900
Sunday 19th - Bowling Pins 0900
Saturday 25th - Trap 1130
Sunday 26th - Falling Plates 0900

November
Saturday 1st - Bowling Pins 0900
Saturday 8th - Falling Plates 0900
Sunday 9th - Bowling Pins 0900
Sunday 16th - Falling Plates 0900
Saturday 22 - Presidents Turkey Shoot 0900-1300

December
NO SCHEDULED EVENTS

Taurus 608 .357 Magnum Revolver

A while back I mentioned that I had picked up a Taurus Model 608 revolver in .357 Magnum. I have been so busy I haven't even had a chance to shoot it yet. I figured I better at least get some pictures posted for you though, so you all could have a look.

Taurus Model 608 in .357 Magnum with a 6" Barrel

I really like the basic look and feel of the 608, and being stainless is a nice plus. The full under lug and the 6" barrel makes it a little "Nose heavy" but for my type of shooting that's a good thing. The less the muzzle rises, the more quickly you can get it back down for the next shot.

Eight round capacity - makes it a little closer when shooting against "Bottom Feeders"

Double action trigger pull is way too heavy the way it comes out of the box. I've got a Wolff spring set on the way from Brownells. That plus a bit of polishing should get it down closer to where it ought to be. Single action isn't bad at all, but it needs a little work, too.

The compensator ports should help to keep it down, too.

The 608 with the stock grips feels good in your hand as the grips seem to be very similar to the Hogue grips I have on my Taurus Model 66 revolver. The rear adjustable target sight seems to be a good one, but I'll have more to say on that after I've had a chance to get in some range time with the Taurus.

Does anyone know if there's a 8 shot speed loader available for this? I haven't seen one, but it sure would come in handy. I really don't want to spend the time machining my own from scratch if I can help it.

I'll get you a range report after I've had a chance to shoot it some.........

Formula Hill Climbing in Iceland

There are a few shorter clips of Icelandic hill climbing floating around the intarwebz, but here's a fairly long one showing lots of amazing hill climbing, and some spectacular examples of things not going exactly as planned! It almost gives you a second reason to want to go to Iceland.




If this doesn't play well for you, here's the direct link to the video.

Thanks to C00L STUFF blog for coming across this video. COOL STUFF is sometimes slightly NSFW, but not by much. It's a well done site and very classy, check out his blogroll (heh.....)

Norm's .357 Pin Shooting Loads

In my previous post "I Need A Vacation........" I mentioned that I had just purchased a Taurus 8 shot .357 Magnum revolver. Norm is apparently a rabid bowling pin shooter like me, and he has done some good work in developing loads for the .357 for bowling pin shooting. He left me a detailed post on some of what he's come up with, including the contact info for R&R Bullet company, where he obtains the 230 Grain wadcutters he's been using.

Remember that all disclaimers apply, as this is just what Norm has been doing in HIS revolver, and if it is safe for you to use in yours, that's your decision. If you aren't sure, PLEASE find out first. You've been warned........

Here's Norm's comment:

R&R Bullet
233 Goffena Rd
Chadron NE 69337
800-865-1312

I like the 230 WC over 5.6 gr. of VV N 350. Gets 900 fps (207PF) .38 Spl brass seated to the crimp groove.

Some folks use Blue dot

Excerpt from an exchange I was having with the folks at VV while I was doing the load development: "Just got back from the range a few minutes ago. It started raining, else I'd still be there. Here are some preliminary results. Actually I may have enough data that I don't need to dig much further, but I probably will if time is not a problem.

I used my wife's new S&W 686 plus (7-shot), 6 inch barrel. It was sent to mag-na-port for dual traps (4 holes of braking) and installation of a patridge front sight with the McGivern gold bead. This required machining. When it returned I did an action tuning job. Then I loaded up some rounds and headed out.

I used Federal (no. 100) Small Pistol Primers in every instance.

Winchester .38 Spl Brass

R&R 230 grain Lead Wadcutter seated to the crimp groove. COL 1.458 inches Bullet is about .8925"

4.2 grains V V N350, Moly-Kote on bullets, V average = 719fps Sd= 10 fps

4.2 grains V V N350, regular lube on bullets, V average = 726 fps Sd= 8 fps

5.3 grains V V N350, regular lube on bullets, V average = 853.8 fps Sd= 10 fps

6.4 grains Blue Dot, regular lube on bullets, V average = 8 74 fps Sd= 8 fps (this was reference)

Accuracy is superb. I had loaded some with 5.0 gr. of VV N350 but left them behind in my race to beat the rain. So have no data. I wanted to check linearity of velocity versus charge weight response. I find this is useful in avoiding high pressure situations.

I plan to load 5.4 or 5.5 grains for competition as a power factor of l95 is considered minimum for bowling pin shooting and we need to allow for some tolerance in the reloading equipment.

I'll let you know how it works if you are interested. This pinbuster bullet has really made the .357 Mag a viable competitor in this game.


Cheers,

Norm

I think maybe I better contact R&R and get some of those bullets on the way! I wonder if they make a 500 grain WC for the .480 Ruger? THAT would be fun!

---

Norm: drop me an email at

b l o g (at) w h i d b e y (dot) c o m

so I can email you directly. I'd like to find out more about where you hold your pin shoots and what rules you use. Thanks!

December 7th., 1941

My Next Band.....

The next time I put a band together, this is the drummer I want. Not only a great drummer, I think he'd be handy to have around in some of the tougher joints.

Check out his work. Awesome!

Note: Turn up speakers first.

I Need A Vacation........

Once again it's been a really busy week. Spent Monday working and getting ready to go to trial to stop the developer from pushing a road across my property to a sub-division he wants to put in. Tuesday we spent the whole day in court. Pretty exhausting, and the judge didn't rule at the end of the day. He said he will rule in a few days. We'll just have to wait to see what he says.

Wednesday I was out in the field doing a few service calls. They just happened to be close to Admiralty Arsenal, Joe Lippo's place, and I had to stop by and see what was new. He had mentioned last week that he had an almost brand new Taurus Model 608 revolver in stainless I should take a look at. 6" factory ported barrel, 8 shot .357 Magnum with adjustable target sights. I looked it over, and it looked like new. Yep, no willpower at all, it followed me home. After a little "Tuning" and a Wolff spring kit we'll see how it works as a race gun.

Last week I got a call from Joe that my new Glock 34 had arrived, the one I won in the drawing late last Summer at the regional Glock Only match at Kitsap Rifle & Revolver club. I picked it up lasat week and it looks pretty good, too. That L - O - N- G Glock trigger pull is going to take some getting used to, I can see. Just gotta practice more, I guess........

Got a bit more work to catch up on today, then tomorrow night is the Fishin' Club's Christmas potluck dinner. YUMMMM!

It seems like everything is happening all at once these days. Didn't we invent time to keep that from happening?

e-Postal Match Results

US Citizen, proprietor over at Traction Control, has now posted the results from our last e-Postal match of the year.

I want to thank all of the folks who designed and hosted the e-Postal matches this year as they have all been a lot of fun to shoot. Thanks also to all of the shooters who sent in entries. I think I can also say that the one thing all of the matches had in common was that they all were a lot harder than they looked!

We'll be starting up the e-Postal match series in the early Spring, so stay tuned for more fun and frustration some time around February or March!

Washington Winter Storm 12/03/2007

The weather over the last day and a half has been interesting, to say the least! It's been raining off and on for several days, which is pretty normal for around here this time of the year, but yesterday afternoon it started RAINING BIG TIME! It was starting to remind me of the rain you get in the more tropical regions. The main difference is that in the tropics it often rains heavily, then it quickly clears, and then it's back to the sunshine. Not here. We had moderate to heavy rain all afternoon, all night, and well into today. It was gusty, but not really windy until today, when it started blowing much harder, starting to shake the house.

The "Perfect Storm" for around here would have three parts. First, a good hard freeze for several days to get frost well into the ground, followed by a rapid thaw. This aerates the soil and loosens it up. Second, a day or so of heavy rain to totally saturate the already loose soil. Third, high winds. All of the tree's roots will easily pull out since the soil is loose and somewhere between soup and jello for consistency. The wind knocks over trees everywhere, putting everyone several days away from electrical service being restored. If you really want to add to the scenario, it should snow heavily, then drop to sub-zero temperatures for a week or so. To finish it off, a fast thaw and more rain to flood everything.

We've had two or three of these happen in sequence in the past, but fortunately not all of it at any one time, thank goodness!

By Noon it was getting obvious that we were going to lose power as the lights were starting to flicker. Shortly thereafter the lights went out completely. Being highly trained in the proper response to such outages, I consulted with Rocket, our cat, to see if he agreed, and since he did, I took a nap. Shortly thereafter KeeWee conked out too, along with Rocket.

Several hours later the lights came back on, signifying time to get up. I got up, checked the power to see if it was up to full voltage with my trusty Fluke meter, and since it was, fired up the computer to put up a post and let everyone know we rode it out (slept it out?) just fine......

Everyone Wants To Be Mr. Completely

Last night I got an email from Jerry the Geek (Cogito Ergo Geek) tipping me off that there was a person leaving anti-RKBA comments at the Seattle P-I newspaper using "Mr. Completely" as his commenter name. I highly doubt that this is just a coincidence.

I sent an email to Glenn Drosendahl, reader representative at the Seattle P-I newspaper regarding this situation.

Here's the email:

Hi Glenn,

In the comments to the article about the gun control meeting in Seattle, a commenter seems to have taken my pen name, "Mr. Completely" and has posted comments under that name. Since those comments have been the opposite of my position on the right to keep and bear arms, I find this disturbing.

I have been contacted by email asking if the comments were from me.

I registered on your site as the "REAL Mr. Completely" and left a comment that it was not me leaving those comments.

While I respect the commenter's right to post comments expressing his opinions, I would prefer he not impersonate me by using my blog name.

My blog of the same name "Mr. Completely" at

http://mrcompletely.blogspot.com or http://mrcompletely.com

has been active on the Internet since May of 2005 and currently has a readership of approximately 24,000 readers a month. In 2006 it was voted as the best Internet shooting sports blog of the year, winning five of seven categories.

I had considered submitting my blog to the P-I as a local Western Washington blog (I'm on S. Whidbey Island) but I decided not to do so as my pro shooting sports philosophy would probably be contrary to your current editorial policies, even though Mr. Completely is family orientated with no nudity or profanity.

I am looking forward to your response, and with your permission, posting your response on the Mr. Completely blog.

Thank you.

AKA Mr. Completely
##

BTW: "Mr. Completely" has been my nickname since 1966........

I suspect that Mr. Drosendahl may not work on the weekends, so I don't expect a response until Monday.

We'll see what he has to say, and I'll let you know the result when I hear from him........

..... The REAL Mr. Completely