Posted on 09/23/2009 6:19:16 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
With "The Hobbit" stretched to three movies, maybe Peter Jackson will release the last one on their birthday. Let the rest of the world wonder why he picked that particular date.
I’m loving the trailers. I especially like the song the Dwarves sing in the first trailer! It’s very haunting!
But you got the Precious!
Afternoon win-mag - the old ar-7, quite the blast from the past. While not match accuracy, the old ar-7 did have an avid following among the river floaters in the Ozarks. Bought one decades ago. Still works and sure doesn’t go out of style.
Been renting a few different handguns at the range, so far shot the Glock 30, the Springfield .45 compact, the Glock 26 and the Ruger LC-9. Of those three the Glock and Ruger handled and felt great. The LC-9 isn’t as small as I thought it would be handles fine. The Glock 30 is a super midsize, about the same size as the Glock 19. Sure like the Glock 26. The Springfield doesn’t feel good to me but sure does shoot. Chances of renting a SW Shield are about nil since they are so slow in shipping. Plan on renting the Ruger SR-22 on my next trip. It’s a well spent five bucks per rental.
Time to crank up the reloader. Got brass in the vibrator cleaner as I type this.
Two weeks to the big BP shoot at the club, got roped into assistant range officer this time around.
Blast from the part? So many companies have bought the design rights,I'm not sure how many, but I think the current manufacturer is Henry Repeating Arms.
What I really miss is the Springfield/CZ semi-clone of the old USAF M6 survival rifle/shotgun. I missed the stainless steel version, but at least got one of the standard ones.
The feds made the 18" barrel and trigger guard mandatory, while the factory chambered the rifle in .22lr, rather then the GI .22 Hornet. A genuine safety improvement, which did not change any esthetics, was the addition of a third, "null" position on the hammer selector which made both barrels safe.
I wonder how much begging it would take to get CZ to do a bit of redesign, and chamber the rifle barrel for 5.7mm P90 ammo? between that, and hot .410s, you'd have a tiny weapon that could do an acceptable job on most targets in the 200 .lb weight class even at 100 yards. Not ideal, but a lot better than being totally under-armed.
Heh, I remember those, sans trigger guard, still a good idea but I think a two piece instead of simple breakover would work better. The 5.7 cartridge would be awesome in a combo if the bottom barrel was 20 gauge.
I did see that Savage is now marketing the .22/.410 again. I had a .22/20 for a while but it went away as many have done.
I realized that I had done as much, and as little, as any ordinary person was to prepare for the big emergencies went, so I worked on my zombie uprising preparations, which were woefully incomplete.
They're still incomplete, but not quite as woeful, now that I've completed my go-to vest.
Eight loaded magazines for any 5.56mm rifle that uses that type (just about everything except the FS2000), S&W .45 with four mags of ammo, and a sheath knife make for a basic set of tools. A fairly comprehensive tear-off first aid kit, vey basic survival supplies, and a 100 oz. Camelbak carrier complete most of the important items.
This is a setup designed to get someone through the first three hours of a zombie uprising, and the three (or four?) days before one can be certain that the government will save us, and eliminate all hazards, as promised. But those first few hours are "definitely on your own", something not emphasized in government literature. Sure, I have a three-day bail-out bag, but I have to survive the first few hours before I'll be needing what's in that bag.
So with six pounds of water, and all the other supplies already loaded, this is about 25 pounds of battle-rattle. The heavy duty blue hanger is rated for 40 pounds, but the closet rods in the house aren't, so this is hanging from an eye-bolt in the basement ceiling joist, next to a couple of near-ready EBRs.
Now that I'm getting used to putting together MOLLE-based kit, I'm starting on another vest to support the PS90 or AR57 (very different magazines to carry), and one more dedicated to an AR10. The Blackhawk SERPA quick-change system makes for an instantaneous swap of handgun and holster between anything that has the adapter plate on it.
It's really a slick system, and I'm making the conversion to all the Blackhawk holsters I have, even if it's just for convenience in open carry.
After I get more holster parts in, I'll do a future issue on it. Good holsters are never cheap, but the composite SERPA is strong, secure, fast, and with the QD system, you can hang the holstered handgun almost instantly anywhere using a variety of clever adapters or a bit of imagination.
The theater was half-full for the 7PM showing, but no kids present, thankfully. The audience was about half newbies, and half veterans of the LOTR trilogy. Plus at least one geek, me.
I qualified for that (and saved $2 by not having to rent 3D goggles) by using my genuine dwarf-style glasses. One of 5000 worldwide with the custom packaging and carry pouch.
The gals at the ticket counter thought the generic glasses with the special Hobbit plastic bag were custom. Nobody in the ticket booth even heard of these, and were almost in a swoon. That's what you get when you hire today's inexperienced yutes. :)
I won't offer any criticism of the movie right now (most of it minor), but I should mention that the 48fps image speed was a real eye-opener, no pun intended. It was most noticeable in quiet, well-lit scenes, where there's not a lot of action to distract you. I was able to let my eyes scan things, and realized it looked like the razor-edged HD video of live TV, and not the slightly softer look that always used to say "movie". I didn't notice it as much during break-neck action sequences, but it was undoubtedly there, too.
I can see where this will take three movies to tell the story. In a scene where Tolkien explains a big chunk of story in two paragraphs, PJ interpolates the scene into 15 minutes of action. And yet he keeps the storyline plausible, and finishes up where Tolkien finished.
Not that there aren't MAJOR digressions from the book, but we'll have to see how PJ handles them. Obviously some of it will be saved for the super-extended editions.
Bottom line: this is probably the best use of "real D" technology so far, so you might as well spend a few more bucks and see how the master did it.
Real firearms-related material tomorrow, some good, some maybe not so good. I'll see how hard they flog their dead horse tomorrow on the Beltway lovefests.
Good Afternoon Winmag - cool drawf glasses...hmmm 3-D, think I’ll pass the first time around and save a couple bucks.
Our multi-plex has two screens showing the Hobbit Part I, one with and one without according to movie blurb.
Thanks for the mini-review, I’ll let you know when I see it this week coming up.
I figure this is the last chance to own one that's as pristine as the day it came off the assembly bench. I've never handled one this tightly-built, with genuine laminated choombwood furniture.
I still have to apply my "tuning" methods to this rifle, and then I'll see how it stacks up against my AR15. All I can say so far is I had forgotten how crude and user-unfriendly this is compared to the American AR15. But I hope to preserve this one as a near-perfect example of what sober soviet weapons-makers were capable of. :)
I wasn't thinking about CZ-75s then, but when I saw this beauty sitting in the case, something again screamed "buy now, or regret in silence". This was the first, and apparently only, CZ75-B in polished stainless steel, next to my father's cold-war CZ75.
Still impeccable fit and finish, but the high-gloss polish makes it tricksy to hold on to, even with the rubber grips that come with it. It also makes it hard to rack the slide, although break-in and tuning will lessen the effort. Or I might go with a slightly weaker recoil spring. This is definitely a show horse, not a war horse.
I put on some Hogue wood grips for it, and it feels more secure. The rubber ones went to the old-timer, which was suffering from severe grip deficiency compared to the old soviet-bloc-style molded Bakelite.
Finally, I just decided the Hogue checkered aluminum grips in semi-gloss black would work best. They look like ebony, a good color choice with all this bling.
I'll try both out this week for a comparison test, if I can squeeze into the EBR store, and they have an open spot on the range. Places like that saw new records before and after the election have just had the afterburners kick in. I even noticed a woman take a brand new AR15, and put it in the trunk of her car, which had a single, discreet "Obama" sticker on it.
I'm seeing more and more items, even little stuff, marked as "not available" online, not "out of stock, taking backorders". One company that makes 75-round drums for AK74s have marked their magazine "not available after December 31, 2012".
After seeing other recent orders, determinations, and "if they won't do their job, I'll do it for them", I think the promised "under the radar" campaign is well underway. Maybe we will be told of its successful completion in his inaugural address.
When the true believers are hoarding and stockpiling the exact same evil items they want to grab from us, I'd say there was a pretty solid correlation of what is still officially called "right wing paranoia". And if anybody is intending to get a CZ75/85, the .22 Kadet conversion kits are vanishing fast. You might want to grab one while waiting for the main item to show up. They can only go up in price, and will (probably) not be controlled like a complete firearm.
I wasn't thinking about CZ-75s then, but when I saw this beauty sitting in the case, something again screamed "buy now, or regret in silence". This was the first, and apparently only, CZ75-B in polished stainless steel, next to my father's cold-war CZ75.
Still impeccable fit and finish, but the high-gloss polish makes it tricksy to hold on to, even with the rubber grips that come with it. It also makes it hard to rack the slide, although break-in and tuning will lessen the effort. Or I might go with a slightly weaker recoil spring. This is definitely a show horse, not a war horse.
I put on some Hogue wood grips for it, and it feels more secure. The rubber ones went to the old-timer, which was suffering from severe grip deficiency compared to the old soviet-bloc-style molded Bakelite.
Finally, I just decided the Hogue checkered aluminum grips in semi-gloss black would work best. They look like ebony, a good color choice with all this bling.
I'll try both out this week for a comparison test, if I can squeeze into the EBR store, and they have an open spot on the range. Places like that saw new records before and after the election have just had the afterburners kick in. I even noticed a woman take a brand new AR15, and put it in the trunk of her car, which had a single, discreet "Obama" sticker on it.
I'm seeing more and more items, even little stuff, marked as "not available" online, not "out of stock, taking backorders". One company that makes 75-round drums for AK74s have marked their magazine "not available after December 31, 2012".
After seeing other recent orders, determinations, and "if they won't do their job, I'll do it for them", I think the promised "under the radar" campaign is well underway. Maybe we will be told of its successful completion in his inaugural address.
When the true believers are hoarding and stockpiling the exact same evil items they want to grab from us, I'd say there was a pretty solid correlation of what is still officially called "right wing paranoia". And if anybody is intending to get a CZ75/85, the .22 Kadet conversion kits are vanishing fast. You might want to grab one while waiting for the main item to show up. They can only go up in price, and will (probably) not be controlled like a complete firearm.
>”I even noticed a woman take a brand new AR15, and put it in the trunk of her car, which had a single, discreet “Obama” sticker on it”<
You are obviously a better Man than I. Had I seen that, I would have made mention of the Woman’s hypocrisy to her face.
Her Vote helped to reinforce the Liberal Ruling Class who will continue to be protected by Serious Men with Firearms while they strip us of ours.
I will self edit the rest of what I am thinking.
One other thing, that new Pistol is absolutely gorgeous. May I ask what it cost?
My S&W Model 29 would have a perfect right to be just a little Jealous.
About $600, a fair price for old-world craftsmanship. The store got in a total of three during the course of the year. None lasted an entire day in the sales case.
Thank you.
I stopped by again today, on the off chance that all the sales activity might have brought in some seldom-seen collectible firearms in trade. 2012 has been good to me in that respect.
The place looked like it had been hit by locusts, or the government had confiscated all the guns.
Well, not all the guns, but they were reduced to two AR15 clones (being eagerly eyeballed), one HK91 clone, and two $2100+ Springfield M1As. Shotguns, handguns, and .22s were thinned out considerably. Magpul 30-rd magazines were sold out, as were most of the X, Y, and Z brand cheapies. They still had a dozen $42 H&K magazines, but they were moving too, just not as quickly. 5.56mm ammo? Fuhgedaboutit.
Meanwhile, people kept on walking into the store, asking about AR15s in stock. As soon as they heard the news, they turned around and left. Apparently a lot of people have been traveling around the Detroit area from store-to-store, hoping to find something, somewhere. If this had been a natural disaster, food supplies would look like this.
Talking to the owner, I asked why he didn't triple or quadruple the prices on the last of his inventory, as other stores in the area did. He said he hoped the panic would blow over, and when prices returned to normal, potential customers would remember who tried to rip them off, and who treated them fairly.
He also said he was amazed by the instantaneous panic buying of AR15s, despite selling tons of them over the last four years. The 2008 post-election sales were a tidal wave, and the 2012 sales even bigger. But he didn't see the panic coming until our overlords in DC started their Second Amendment trash-talking over the last two weeks.
Be grateful you have food, even if you can't find an AR15 to save your soul, right now. Remember this situation when things slowly return to normal. These are regular Americans, voting with their feet, and dollars.
I don’t know if I’d be getting another one now, or not, but I’m glad to have already gotten mine. Or... no... dang... now I remember that I threw it in the bay. And all the ammo. Dang. Way out in the deep part.
Be prepared to sign an "under penalty of perjury" statement, unless you were fishing off the Marianas Trench. :)
I took advantage of all the no-questions-asked "buy backs" to get rid of all that scary stuff. Since I could not safely eat at all those fast food joints before the coupons expired, I'd go through parking lots and slip them under windshield wipers as random acts of kindness.
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