Big Country Expat

Back Tomorrow
We’re personally (Gretch/Sapper/the Doggos and Cats) are good
The ‘Usual Suspects’ are at it again
Dammit

More Later

BCE

Greetings and Salutations!
Just a short one tonight. I’m working on some ‘extra-curricular’ activities for some side-ducats. My internet skill sets as well as my intel activities occasionally get me some side gigs which helps with Ye Olde Bills.

So I’m staying busy.

Hate to be that way, but billz got to get paid.

Especially since the groceries in particular have gone full retard over the past two plus years as we’re all familiar with. Now speaking on that, what I did find funny tonight is that when Sapper and I did a quick grocery run to the local Publix, I in particular checked the eggs for the current price. We didn’t need them, but I felt a current price check was warranted for future planning. And on investigating? Yep… –some– of them prices are insane… Seems that the “REEEEEEE”ing on the prices of the eggs at $10-$12 per dozen is correct… to a point???

Yeeeeeah… about that.

Now, MAYHAPS if you’re buying eggs laid by “organic, free range, hand fed, (grain only) Zero Antibiotic fed, sung lullabies while-they-roost-on-their -nests (made from the finest cotton-bunting mind you) Woke Elitist Chikinz”, well then yes, you are going to be paying $10-$12 bucks a dozen. That’s about a buck or more an egg, and utterly retarded.

Otherwise, the ‘regular large 18 pack’ of Publix brand eggs laid by Hoodrat/Illegal Alien raised ghetto-Chikinz on an Industrial Farm, then you’re only paying $6.89 for 18 eggs.

Seems that Virtue Signaling is expensive people.
Fucking social justice woke ass retard egg buyers…
Never Go Full Eggtard.

Heh
IMO that’s funny.

The source of all humor is the truth. The more absurd, the more painful? As Mark Twain said “The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow.” And those egg prices are the very definition of sorry.

So I have to bail
I’ve been working also on a possible Stolen Valor Issue of someone we all know and loath. I’ll be throwing that tomorrow. It’s enlightening and pretty fucked up IMO.

So More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
OK
Sooo the FrankenMauser is a Lamp/Wall Hanger. Today was lame in that respect…

BOTH bolts failed to fire.

For a few minutes I was puzzled. I successfully chambered a round, got the prerequisite 40 feet back with paracord and “click”….
Failure to fire like 3x times on the headspaced bolt.

So for grins and giggles I switched out to the ‘bad bolt’… and it too did the failure to fire 3x times.
Hmmmn… headscratcher…

So I then ripped everything apart and checked the firing pins, both of which were within specs.

It took me a minute but I figured it out eventually.

Each time I ‘fired’ or I should say had a ‘failure to fire’ I was exceptionally careful when opening the bolt. I had no idea if this was a bad round, soft primer strike or what, but it was on bolt number 2 I realized that when I went to un-chamber the round, the round was not being held by the extractor or –barely- being held… which made me realize that the throat erosion must be unreal.

When I originally tore it down and gave it a full-on ‘bath and scrub’ there was a LOT of crap built up in the barrel. I’m thinking the built up grease of 100 years more or less kept the rounds from being ‘deep throated’ by the chamber… when the firing pin was hitting, it literally hit the bullet down the chamber without igniting. Strong enough to lightly mark the primer, but as there was ‘wiggle room’ it was displaced down deeeeeep into the chamber as there seems like there was room available…

So, Lamp or ‘Cork the Barrel’ and wall-hang it?

I’m not parting it out except for the spare replacement bolt I got to recoup them bux.

Headspacing wouldn’t catch that.

Then today (early in the day) OtherGran, ReadiFreddi dropped off the Nukular Powered Redhead for the rest of the weekend. It’s OtherGran-Nona’s Birthday so they get a break as man, this kid is go-go-go from the get go. I need some Crystal Meth to keep up I swear… Gretchen is currently hosing her down as we went to Cowboys to check on him as well as me testing the Failed FrankenMauser. He came (RF) bearing gifties.

Seems Ole Freddi found some -interesting- things during the clean-out of his Father in Laws place. He (the FIL, Nona’s Da) unfortunately caught an unexpected and exceptionally bad case of the “Deads.” So since he and Nona lived right up the road, the OtherGrans have been tasked to cleaning up and organizing after such a bummer. In this instance, RF (for brevity) was digging into DOA-FIL’s closet and found some firepower!

So of course he asked me to vet it, as it’s been sitting a loooooooooong minute.

How long you ask?

Well, take the first example:

A Trapdoor Springfield dated 1884 in 45/70cal.

Now initially I was pretty pumped to check it out and evaluate it. Unfortunately, DOA-FIL had it in the closet, and so far, RF hasn’t found the missing pieces-parts and fiddly bits. RF isn’t sure if he was restoring it or what, but so far, no parts/no dice.

The missing parts include the entire lock plate and it’s components. They’re all MIA, as well as the trigger assembly. Also the butt plate.

Now, per the serial number, this particular Springfield was made in November of 1890. Oh and as I put up the pic, I also realized that the rear slide sight is MIA too. That’s a lot of ‘stuff’ to be gone. The stock is in pretty damned good shape for it’s age with only one significant chunk of wood being missing up towards the front of the muzzle.

All in all about $450+ to get the parts as they are available but cost quite a bit. Now normally I’d be all over this however…

When I did a scope of the bore?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Well you can tell at one point in it’s life it had rifling. There’s the faintest marks and manifestations of what was at some point ‘rifling’. Now? Not so much. “The Ghost of Rifling Past” so to speak. In fact I’d just call this a smoothbore musket TBH.

Which means an alternative use may be found.
Sapper and I were looking at it, and he said “Tusken Warrior Rifle” which no shit, sounds doable. I mean the damned thing has a 32 inch barrel and if I did some minor tweaks to it, it’d be an awesome Star Wars Larper weapon for someone who wants to play a Sandpeople? Person?

I’m going to have to see what RF says.

ALSO buried in the goodness of the Gun Closet was a somewhat rare Mossberg 402 Lever Action Tube Fed .22 called “The Palomino”:

Made from 1961 until 1971, the value apparently is alllll over the board, from $800.00 to $250.00. Judging by a far closer look at the first website I consulted with the sky-high valuation(s) I realized I was being “Fudded”

The other (majority) websites say about $250-300.

Now granted it is in pretty damned good shape. The wood is almost pristine, and there’s very little rust, with surface ‘stuff’ that I’ll hit with some steel wool. Overall I’d grade it NRA Good to VG on looks. But there is an mechanical issue. The close up of the action:

It wasn’t ‘cocking’ all the way.

It has an internal hammer, and there’s a feed system that’s crap to be upfront. The boards I checked said it was a weak point as the feed lift doesn’t like to stay aligned. Add on that in this one, when I got the side plate off, it was fouled with 10000 years of carbon and a lot of oil that over the years (like on the FrankenMauser) had solidified inside the action.

A big ole squirt or 5 of carb cleaner took care of that and some fresh oil got it running again. It does still ‘catch’ occasionally, so I wouldn’t want to depend on this for any sort of repeated fire… Plinking OR using it as The Nukular Redhead’s first rifle it might it’s uses.

He also brought me some ammo to check out. A OLD box of 38-40 Winchester and what appears to be a factory reload box of 50 .38 Special Wadcutters.

That’s some old assed ammunition
However, inspecting it, it’s in great shape. And interestingly enough, I found out today that Cowboy has an 1892 Model Winchester that takes these beebees.

His is in pristine condition, and has that beautiful case hardened receiver with all the oil-looking-ripples on it.
I’ll probably give those to Cowboy with the warning that they might not work. Either way he said he’s never going to fire the rifle as it’s been appraised at quite a sum, so it stays in the gun safe and only taken out to oil it. Either way I think he should have some boolits for it, otherwise it’s just an expensive club right?

The .38 Specials came from a company called Marathon Reloading Services:

I did a search as they’re from Florida and I know my way around the State Licensing Board(s) sites and found out they were in business from 1975 until 1977.

Not sure if I want to trust those. I’m not a fan of reloads that I haven’t personally done, and the fact they went out of biddness in 2 years? Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah… Might just ‘pull’ all the boolits, shitcan the powder and re-evaluate the casings.

The last thing he had which I didn’t get a pic of was a FIE Titan .25 peashooter. This is a pic I lifted from an online review:

In this case, this was one of the first ones made. It looks just like those pics. This is a good thing as the first couple of hundred or so that were made came from Italy, and made of steel.

Later manufactured versions were known as low quality “Saturday Night Specials” as they were made in Miami, and of shitty pot-metal called Zermak that were prone to blowing up or breaking.

This one was like brand new, and dates from 1966, so I told him to let Nona have it as her purse-piece. THOSE ones are pretty well regarded as opposed to the later makes. It’s very much like the one Gretchen carries… my little Fabrique National Browning .25 that I repaired and poasted about waaaay back during Covid. That lil nasty is still working, and is over 120 years old now, being made in 1902. I might have to repoast that one.

And lastly, we finally got to do the Nukular Redhead’s Birfday.

She turned seven!!!!!

Oh Holy Hells I’m feeling it tonight.
Old Old Old Old Old.
Shit.
But it was fun. Cuppy-Cakes as she calls them, and the “Gift of the Year” apparently:

Too much cuteness in one spot.

She lost it I swear when she opened the gift bag.
BIG “SQUEEEEE!”
Whew…
What it is is it’s a mermaid tail. Like a functional mermaid tail/bathing suit. The bottom of the tail is a like a giant single swim-fin that straps on and she can propel herself with it.

Red has a serious Mermaid Addiction currently.

So a very busy day around here but pretty damned productive. I also want to thank a few of y’all… Coelacanth who sent me a bunch of dental instruments (which I used tonight in fact on the Mossberg). Those things are awesome Bro! MANY THANKS!

TFG who after reading my light bulb rant who sent me a care package of Lighting Goodness… again, you have my thanks. We’ll be set for a few years I reckon!

As well as Terrapod who continues to support my Junk addiction. Appreciate you bro!

Add on ‘Ed From Kentucky’ who donated a still in the wrapper WW2 P-38 Can Opener for the Museum of Mayhem:

Looks good on the Ration Display IMO.

And lastly to all the rest you deplorables who stop by here and fuck around to find out. Love all y’all!!!

Enjoy the Rest of The Weekend.
Tomorrow is the Stuporbowl.
I call it Chiefs to win by 12 points.
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Friday! TGIFF.
The extra “F” is intentional.
This’s been a wringer of a week man. It was good, it was bad, then it was good again, and then by the time it was over and the smoke cleared, to be honest I’m sort of dizzy from looking at it. I mean this was one week. ONE five day period of labor. 40 fucking hours (theoretically).

It felt like a month.
I feel like I ran a marathon or an Ironman or some such foolishness that’s better suited to the young and dumb. Physically I’m OK but I did pinch a nerve in the neck and the right arm and shoulder are fritzing out and in a lot of pain. Meh. Goes with the territory I suppose.

Now:

The “Meat and Taters” part of the Blog:

Yessir! Time to break it down a bit.

Now, from what I’ve been observing, seeing, and hearing it’s been “Win-Win-Win” across the board. This has been an interesting and more importantly, an enlightening time.

I.E. we’ve found out that the Oversized, Bloated, Unnecessary and utterly Incompetent and worse of all FRAUDULENT FedGov has been running mad scam since who the fuck knows. This shit is so bad that The God Emperor OrangeManBad’s Right Hand, the Glorious Elon of Muskage has dug out about 100 BILLION in FedGov bullshit in just the first week of him being on the job.

Color Me Highly Impressed.

I figured that the Deep State Retards would have gone full retard, but as we’re now seeing, the God Emperor had a plan in place and the Emperor’s Hand (acting as a Chaos Agent with +4 invulnerability) is whacking away at the core and root of the DemoncRat’s financial grifting base. They’re literally in the streets wailing, crying and rending their garments.

Sound like Victory to me.

BUT
This is why I’ve been sitting down and observing more than anything else… best to ‘scout the current terrain’ Aye?

Not to rain on that parade, but if you think this is a full on “win-win” situation right now, you got another thing coming.

The best example going as an example is the fact that the basic “Jap on the Street” i.e. ‘Everyman’ in August of 1945 thought that the Japs were “…still tenaciously holding out, and that victory was within their grasp…”

Until they weren’t.
Yeeeeeeeeaaah
About that….

Best to look to history.

Part of the reason we haven’t seen the DemoncRat’s storm troopers, the Abteilung für Sturmtruppen meaning the Brownshirts, AKA AntiFa(gs) is that they’ve ‘gone to ground’ and that they aren’t being paid. I mean thankfully the “Plan” seems to be working so far.

Which leads me to the Brilliance of The God Emperor’s Plan.

He went after the funding first.

The Emperor’s Hand knew how to write, and then utilize the ‘algorithms’ that could track where the money went, when said-shekels went, and most importantly WHO was on the receiving end of what (at the time) APPEARED TO BE endless untraceable and untrackable FedGov largess… and BAM! Every. Single. Grifting. Fucker. in the District of Criminality are collectively shitting in their pantaloons.

Good

Works for me.

But like I’m saying:
Just as that “Jap on the Street” back in the day in 1945 still believed in Total Victory despite the reality that was right in front of his fucking face, these assholes STILL believe that they’re “defending muh demonocracy!!!” Granted it’s called “A Self-Delusionary Fantasy” and there are reams of P-Shrink info out there on these cases, but let me tell you… The majority of these ‘Leftist Hardcore/Hardcases’ are still out there and biding their time.

These are the things we have to worry about.

However, current day? As we speak? Right now, the weather has been cooperating vis-à-vis the cold snaps that are keeping people indoors… which also tells you a LOT about your potential retard opponents… whereas True Hardcore Americans are more like:

The majority of the Anti-Fa(g) motherfuckers out there have never known a day of deprivation in their miserable cellar dwelling lives. Now, there ARE some hardcores out there, BUT I got a serious hunch that the True Hardcores (who tend to be pragmatic AF… read the p-shrink analyses and you’ll get what I’m speaking of) have ‘gone to ground’ because right now?

They know the current Administration, as well as “Normul ‘Muricans” are just as liable to fucking grab their retarded asses up and then hang them outright Vigilante style like we used to do. So, like good criminals, they’ve gone to ground

For now.

My concern is when it warms up….
April/May is good “Opening Riot Season” nationally if you will.

Personally, I say at that point, and in particular if your local PD/Sherriff/Constabulary fail in their primary mission of stopping such Fucktardation, that you, per Matt Bracken, ‘pick up the slack’ and go ExtraJudicial.

I mean yes, I am actually promoting self defense here.
So to my FBI Agent monitoring me?
Dude…
Learn. To. Code. you worthless pusbag of shit.

We’re done with these folks and their ‘fellow travelers’ meaning Communists, Marxists and any motherfucker who voated for Hilleroid “Killer” Clinton. One of these day, if all is righteous and cool, we’ll get those voating records, and go full Holocaust on them as well…

They deserve nothing less.

So what are your thoughts?
Throw ’em at me in the comments.
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
So again it’s been a couple of busy days. I spoke of our trip up to Mom and Dads place on Sunday. Now of note, I forgot to mention the car issue reared it’s ugly head again. Now you may/may not remember/don’t give a shit but the car when the temp dropped precipitously (heh… I used a multisyllabic word… double heh… I done dood it again!) anyway, when it got cold AF ’round here, the throttle body (per AutoZone’s code reader) told me the throttle pedal and the throttle itself were out of synch.

The problem went away however when the car warmed up.
Huzzah!
I figured the cold caused the gunk inside to freeze up and slow the throttle throat plate where it coded out. Cool… literally.

What I didn’t realize, but do know is that there was still some issues. Now late Sunday coming home, if you’ve ever driven in the Tampa Area, it’s gotten really ‘Mad Max-ish” as of late… 80mph seems to be the minimum speed. I was trying to just go a sedate 78+/- but at one point I was forced to ‘gun it’ and Whoops!

Engine light again and the engine itself didn’t sound so hot… not a lot of power. I found out later the ‘safe setting’ is disallowed by the computer over 50mph. It means the car desperately wanted to go into ‘safe mode’ but it couldn’t do it as “highway” and all that. We made for home ASAP.

Made it too.
And so Tuesday Night I got a package in the mail from Faithful Terrapod. He’s been a great supporter, and a pack rat nonpareil that I can tell. He’s sent me some really cool excess stuff that he had laying around. In this case, most appropo, a code reader was in the care package (bows and scrapes while screaming “I’m not worthy!!! seriously T, many thanks!).

So because of this, I was able to find out that not only the throttle body had ‘errored’ again, but there were 3 out of the 4 cylinders misfiring!

Mind you back in October? I had a ‘supposed’ new engine thrown in b/c the one we had BTFU while under warranty.

Now since then, I’ve been s-l-o-w-l-y realizing we got scammed by the dealership. They fixed the engine no doubt. New rods at the minimum. The problem is that according to the paperwork that they gave me and that I discovered regarding this particular issue they’re supposed to ‘pull’ the whole fucking engine and replace the entire thing with ‘new’.

Reason being that Hyundai HQ wants the whole engine for analysis apparently. Makes sense as the Koreans are damned near as anal about failures as the Japanese, so OK… new engine. Great.

The problem is, as I’ve discovered, the Dealershit (intentional spelling) fixed the issue (I’m thinking new block and rods and crank) and instead of putting in the whole new shiny engine in, the fuckers stripped my old engine and put the already-high mileage parts back the fuck on the new block.

Hmmn.
A situation that requires Gretchen’s deft touch methinks…

So in the meantime, I need this thing running. I ordered the new ignition points/plugs (a kit for like $68 on the ‘zon) and a new plug socket, as I couldn’t find the old one to save my life… Of course during the repair process today the OLD fucking plug socket turned up, so now I have 2… or maybe even 3 by this time as this seems to be a pattern with my tools. Shit goes MIA when I need it, and ONLY re-appears AFTER I’ve dropped shekels on a new tool… They showed up today, so I called Glorious People’s Tractor Factory #231, and told Commissar that I’d punch early today, and I’d make up the time over the weekend so I could repair the car.

And yep. Three points of interest. One was when I popped the hood, apparently what appears to be a field mouse took up residence under the engine cover. I had to vacuum out a TON of cracked open and stashed acorns and whatnot, as well as some shredded cotton bunting of some form. The wires, thankfully, were intact. Two was that the points were nasty and old. These were not new by any means. (Hence the Dealershit fuckery) And then Third: the plugs? Damned near burned the fuck out… like the OEM plugs that came with the car 102000 miles ago when we got it new… (MOAR Dealershit fuckery)

Yeah… for a 2020 it’s been brutalized hard what with all the trips to East Tennessee and shit… still… besides it ‘swallowing a rod’ from a ‘known defect’ I really can’t complain. I change the oil/filter religiously as DeadDad taught me, and maintain the other fluid levels as needed, and as we found out, I can turn wrenches when needed.

So disconnected the battery, got everything cleaned up and out, old parts out, new shit it, and wow… A serious difference. I had gotten used to a wee bit of roughness that I had attributed to the mileage. And yeah, despite the new ‘engine’ my mind sees the odometer, and forgets the ‘transplant’ and that it should not be rough running by any means… In this case, it appears to be back. Smooooth runnings mon!!! The only thing left is the throttle body, and per the advice of ReadiFreddie, (the other GranDa) I got a full gas treatment/fuel system cleaner that –supposedly– will take care of the throttle body.

I really hope it works. I was going to take it apart and scrub it with a specific cleaner, but maaaaaaan… today showed me that’d be a full fucking day of taking a LOT of pieces/parts off, and I already got enough on my plate.

And as far as the Dealershit?
Gretchen is up Hyundai’s Corporate asses like a raped fucking Ape for this one man…. Like hip-wader deep up the anus.
She’s pissed off.
Hell hath no fury like an under-medicated Hair Diva
(She’s been out of her pain meds for a week)

See… the Dealershit already scammed us out of $600 to get the car back after the transplant. They also damaged some shit, (like the hood latch) and tried to charge us for damage caused by their probably drunken incompetent wrench turners. It was $1000, but Gretchen went ‘beast-bitch mode’ then on them and got it down to where we could afford it sort-of-kind-of.

Now?
This?
OMG… the poor fuckers on the other end of the phone are reeeeeally hating life when she gets on with them. She starts out all south’en and sweet, and then goes full on psycho-house on them.
Have to see what she gets, but I’m confident Hyundai will cave before she will.

So now lets get into the other part headline tonight.
The FrankenMausers new bolt showed up.

AND

It appears to have successfully gauged out.

And I was positively shocked as to how good it looked when it arrived, as this is the actual auction I got it from:

The item in the pic looks pretty grungy. I had ‘sniped’ the thing in the last two minutes with a $75 total bid… it went from $40 to the $55.09 at the end, so I got it for short $$$. The reason I say that is because similar items?

That’s just 2x examples.

So when I get done tomorrow afternoon, the other bolt remaining will be auctioned off for a starting bid of $100, with shipping being like maybe $7.50 on the top end.

I figure it’s sell quick-quick, and whomever gets it MAY just be able to use it in their rifle like I did with this one. An added plus is just how clean I got the non-headspacing bolt. It looks brand new:

In fact both look pretty damned pristine.
We’ll see how it tests.
BTW: The Good One is in the rifle in the pix.

That being said, I mean for all I know it -still- might detonate like a hand grenade. The 7x57mm Mauser is a big honking round:

So the bench rest, 30 feet of 550 cord, and hearing protection is mandatory. If it doesn’t blow, and after 5 rounds, just like the Lee Enfield I’ll shoulder it and see how it shoots.

If it does BTFU (blow the fuck up) well then…

ScouterGreg who donated this to me had said during a conversation that if it failed, to turn it into a lamp… That got me thinking that IF it’s like that, I just may do that. I have enough ‘wall hangers’ already, and a Lamp might be cool.

Cut the barrel and stock down right in front of the rear ladder sight. This as it’s too long to be a floor lamp, and too short for a desk. Chopping it also means it gets a demil, and that’d be great.

Strip the bolt of the internals and drill out the face so the power cable can fit through. Then drill a hole through the underside of the receiver AND the bolt that match to make sure it’s “legally demilled”. Then strip out the trigger and fiddly-bits. Get a small on/off switch to attach the power line to, and feed the power line back through the back of the stock and out the back.

The switch I’d mount where the trigger would normally go naturally…

Get a wooden mount or make something similar:

Then once it’s ready, run the power line up and through to the top, where you connect it to the lamp kit:

So that might be cool amiright?
What I do with it then?
No clue.

Maybe raffle it?

Your Thoughts in the comments
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Saturday nights blog was off due to Ranger J’s 50th Surprise B-Day Party which was great fun all around. It’s been faaar too long since we hung out as ‘life and sheee-it’ kept getting in the way. I think Gretchen had the most fun out of the three of us (Sapper was part of the festivities) as she had 4 ‘stronk dranks’
and got pretty well picklated. To the point I went out and found her on the porch having a cigar w/J and some of the others.

The next day she was paying for it. I almost felt bad.

Then we got the call. Her Dad had fallen again. This time through one of the front windows of the house. THANKFULLY when he had bought the house, he got the windows treated with that 3M Anti Debris Film that keeps a window from turning into lethal shrapnel when it breaks (like in the case of a hurricane). The film saved his life by not allowing him to get cut all to shit and bleed the fuck out.

HOWEVER the fucking front window was now kaput.
BCE and Gretchen to the fucking rescue
Again

Dammit.
Another fuckin’ Sunday blown to fucking shitballs. Dad was OK and we spent the day working on getting everything cleaned up and prepped for a repair.

I got home and collapsed.

So… I’m going to throw a few things out here. One is that DiveMedic has probably one of the better summations over at his place regarding the ‘unmasking’ of the now obvious DEI ‘hire’ who was the Pilot of the Crashhawk. BTW: A side note… we called ’em ‘Crashhawks’ as they had a bad rep when they first showed up in the Army, hence the name.

DiveMedic’s poast is HERE
Go hither and then come back for my observations.

Now.
My points.
OK: She joined in June 2019.
To move from 2LT Butterbar to a Shiny First Lieutenant (1LT) in the Army, you have to have 18-24 months of time in grade (normally) It becomes automatic at 24 months provided the LT in question can see lightning, and hear thunder, and hasn’t gotten caught fucking the Gen’ruls daughter. To move from 1st LT to Captain: around two to four years.

With at current staffing averages is running slightly in the 3 year range as there aren’t enough carcii to ‘fill in the blanks’ i.e. empty billets.

So -normally- that would be, at max time, 6 years for her to make Captain. The shortest amount of time? 4 Years. And that would have meant she was better than fucking Patton. At everything.

Now, it’s come out that she was a ‘planner’ or some such thing at the Drooler’s White Haus. I posted a lot of this info on Twitter and positively got brigaded by the ‘usual suspects’ saying that I had no idea what I was talking about and “How dare you!!!” a’la Greta. Positively insane shit! Many people tried to say that this was ‘minor additional duty’ and that she was only there for ceremonies and the like. The problem is what few pics of her at the WH show her NOT in uniform, and wearing standard WH credentials, meaning it was a full time gig.

She was ALSO a certified Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) advocate. SHARP being a program that provides support and resources to victims of sexual assault or harassment. Her family statement regarding her future was that she wanted to continue her education and become a physician when she got out of the Army. My question: When she went to UNC, what did she get her degree in? Inquiring minds and all that.

SO, add on that she had to (-sometime-) attend flight school. Army helicopter flight school, also known as Warrant Officer Flight Training (WOFT), typically takes about 18 months to complete. The length of the program can vary depending on the type of aircraft and the bird that the future intrepid birdman is going to fly. It can take up to 24 months at the longer side.

So you want to talk about a busy lil beaver?

IF she went directly to flight school AFTER graduation, and then pinned 1st LT immediately after, and then manages as a brand new pilot to get assigned to one of the most sought after and prestigious postings in Army Aviation? A unit like that is one that usually takes years to get selected to get assigned to. Brand New 2LTs who can’t find their asses with both hands even when said-ass in engulfed in flames normally need not apply. Instead this chick gets a coveted spot right out of Flight School, and then gets a Platoon Leader’s slot? And then gets the Executive Orifiers slot?

Where did the two years at the White House come from? It had to be right after flight school… may ran concurrently when she was ‘supposedly’ a Platoon Leader? And the makes XO of the Company, and gets punched to Captain!?!

NONE of the timeline makes sense.

The only thing I’m absolutely convinced of is that she made the right connections somewhere to get her A) into flight school and B) moved up in the top echelon of ‘promote ahead of peers’ to make rank that quick. I also believe she had to have had a ‘rabbi’ (a senior ranking occifer) who was hand holding her as she was NOT a ringknocker… that means usually kids like her go to the ‘rear of the promotion line’ as ROTC kids are faaaar behind the West Point Protective Association.

It absolutely reeks of special privilege.

I mean personally I’ve never heard of ‘Big Army’ NOT releasing the name of someone kil’t in this fashion at the request of the parents. Never. Not Once. and I had friends who died when they were in, and as far as I know, the parents sometimes unfortunately found out FROM the media that their loved one got waxed and that they had unfortunately ‘won’ the ‘SGLI Sweepstakes’ as we called it…

SGLI being the Soldier’s Group Life Insurance that paid out (I think) $250k if you bought the farm… it was our dark humor that gave it that name. So in my opinion, the time spent hiding her was to scrub the fuck out of all info on her as it would have immediately given Hegseth ammo to start the executions with.

So judging from DiveMedic’s intel, she was a canyon yodeler who was a perfect example of a ‘meh’-talented individual given faaar too many accolades and had undeserved achievements handed to her that unfortunately cost a LOT of innocents their lives. Hence why DEI is really DIE.

She was obviously being, as Captain Willard said of Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now”: “…(s)He was being groomed for one of the top slots of the corporation. General, Chief of Staff, anything…” Someone was moving her up, and moving her fast.

And as all such things DEI, the plan (and her) died a horrible death. The question is who was behind it. Again, we’ll never know…

So that’s what I got there.
Your thoughts in the comments always welcome!
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
OK.
The ‘Grrrr’ part of the story. The gauges showed up today from Reamer Rental. As promised, it was a set of ‘Go’/’No Go’ gauges in 7x57mm:

Now… you can guess what happened….

Hence the ‘Grrrr’ in the title.

Problem is I’m hesitant to call this a complete failure.

My rationale for this is the red gauge as you see is plainly marked both with red paint, as well as the specifications of the gauge itself. The ‘theoretical Go gauge’ has NO paint and no markings.

Now granted they’re damned near the same size and all, but my worry is that the ‘Go’ gauge here is a field gauge. Field gauges are used, as they’re named in the field for a ‘rough estimate’ of “Is it safe to use this thing or not?” sort of situation. That’s the gauge I got for the Lee Enfield, and as I found, close enough is good enough, leastways speaking on the Lee Enfield.

Now on the ‘Unmarked Gauge’ it passed no problem. It seated nicely, the bolt closed w/no issue and hey, Good to go.

The problem or I should say in my personal experience is what happened with the obvious and well-marked ‘No Go’ gauge. I fed it into the chamber, closed the bolt, and about midway into closing the bolt, it caught. Got a wee bit hung up. Which is what a No Go gauge should do.

Then it ‘broke’ without too much resistance, and closed completely on the gauge.

Hmmn.

According to specs, the No Go gauge should not be able to close like that. However I’ve seen ‘close but not close enough’ gauging like this to make me think it might be ‘In Spec’ at least for now. I’m going to see when the new bolt gets here and if the same issue pops up, well then, I’ll play it by ear.

Either way, it’s getting the string test out at Cowboys in the very near future.

If it doesn’t blow up, then Huzzah!
If it does? Well hey I tried.

And then moving on to the next point of business.

Everyone who’s been closely following the Krain Situation has been wondering WTF is going on. The ‘usual suspects’ have been on and on and on about how the Russians are s-l-o-w-l-y working their way West. They take the lack of speed as if this was some sort of sign that the Russians are still on the ‘back foot’ when in reality, they’re going slowly because they can.

I’m not going to argue numbers, as every asshole has an opinion. The thing of it is, lately even the High Command in the Krain are screaming about the lack of bodies left to harvest to stuff into the Front Lines, and that if things don’t change, they’re utterly fucked within six months.

As far as Russian Numbers go, put it into perspective. Per the Goolag AI: “According to most historical records, around 8.7 million Russian soldiers (part of the Soviet Union) died during World War II, though some estimates place the number slightly higher, with the majority of these deaths occurring on the Eastern Front against Nazi Germany.”

That was from June 22, 1941 until the end of the war, with the fall of Berlin in May 2, 1945. That’s about 1410 days +/- from the start of the German invasion of Russia, until the end of the Battle of Berlin.

Russia invaded the Krain on February 24, 2022. As of today, that was 1072 days ago +/-, with it still ongoing.

8.7 MILLION KIA.
In a slightly longer timeframe
A profligate use/waste of manpower.
And back then, the Russians could afford it.
These days? Not so much. After WW2, and the various ‘issues’ population-wise (birth/death rate) Russia does not have the manpower to waste like Stalin did. Putin is going for ‘conservation of force/power’ IMO. It also keeps the ‘regular folks’ from getting too antsy about combat losses, especially when one realizes how truly massive the landmass of Russia is. People in Moscow probably rarely hear about “Siberian DotMil Member Casualties” and vice-versa amiright?

These days, I should say, Russia as a whole over all? They do have the manpower available but VodkaManBad prefers not to utilize it, as, for now, it’s not an existential issue.

BUT
If it were?
I guarantee VodkaManBad would have no problem reinstating a full on draft and putting a metric fuckton of cannon fodder in boots if needed. As of now? They’ve had all the volunteers they need, enough to equip six divisions. That are all currently in reserve. That doesn’t count the ‘regular’ 18 divisions they have at the ready.

To give you an idea, the entirety of the US Army, in total is 10 active duty divisions and a total of 8 National Guard divisions available. And that’s a best case scenario.

According ‘good sources’ including some I know personally, they say that the Russians have had about 450,000 to 600,000 Killed and Wounded in total IRL. The KIA for the Rus is about 450k+/- which are the plus/minus the real numbers that the professionals have figured out.

This in comparison to the Krainians, who as of now, and utilizing some of the same exact sources, in addition to some unclassified NRO pics of the expansion of Military Graveyards in the Krain, there’s the possibility of upwards of a million dead and wounded on the Krainian side. Call it 750-800k dead. Wounded? About 200-350k+/-. A lot of that from numbers from various prosthetic companies providing new arms and legs to the Krainians…

That’s a 2 or 3 to 1 ratio.

And if you decide to add in POW exchanges, and go by the corpse-exchanges, the numbers increase dramatically regarding the number of Krainian dead. Like 15 to 1. Prisoner exchanges run about the same at about 15-25 to 1 (Krainian to Russian). The problem is that no one on the Krainian side can afford to let the IRL numbers out, at all.

‘Cos that’d be a hangin’ for Krainfeld and his Klown Krew.

Hell, officially, they still claim only 60000 KIA!!!

In fact as of late, there’s been quite a bit of ‘leakage’ regarding MASSIVE protests of ‘regular Krainian’ women’ protesting “What happened to our men?” as many of them have had no word from their husbands/brothers/kinfolk in over a year. Whereas in Russia, where OUR media, the Ministries of Lies and Propaganda have yet to see such events.

Now those who say “Well the Russians are stopping the flow of information!!!” Really?

Please.
Enough with the naivete. A determined reporter these days sure as fuck can get a story out, no matter how hard, just as they did in the much lower-tech world 20 years ago. God know there’s a metric shitpot of ‘roving reporter cams’ out there, as well as everyday folks with cell-phone cams who’d eagerly ‘take up the cause’ and shoot negative vidya of the Russians if it was available. If anything, uncovering such info would be on the front Headlies of every. single. newspaper. in the West in less than 24 hours.

Much like the claims of the ‘meat assaults’ the Russians were supposedly doing, unarmed, with shovels, to no avail towards the Valiant and Upstanding ‘Defenders of Muh Democracy!’ The Krainians. That the ignorant and unarmed ‘orcs’ were butchered in ‘wholesale lots’ by the Krainians. The problem is that in this day and age of Go-Pro and the like? If the Krainians had such footage, it would have been on the International News 24-7 for weeks.

BUT

Alas… no such critter exists.

There -IS- plenty of footage out there of the body-recovery teams, Russian recovery teams, policing up both their own as well as the Krainian corpses from the battlefield. In fact invariably, the majority of the ‘rotting dead’ I’ve seen have been Krainian, not Rus. In fact part of my disgust for the Krainians is that a HUGE amount of video I’ve seen are from Krainians openly abandoning their dead AND wounded as soon as “Mister Drone” starts making a concerted effort to hit them. To me? There’s nothing more dishonorable than abandoning a wounded comrade on the battlefield… and that’s from THEIR videos… never mind the plethora of Rus vids showing the same.

And for those of you who want to say I’m ‘Pro’ VodkaManBad?

Nope. Ain’t got as dog in that particular hunt. I’m just interested in this war from a purely academic point of view. I will admit the tenacity of VMB in holding power the way he has, and how he brought Russia back from the bring of extinction. Otherwise, getting to watch a tech-leap at this level in real time? Priceless.

OTOH: Shit like this has made me exceptionally happy I’m no longer ‘in the game’ as being a unarmored grunt these days?

Hard Fucking Pass thankee very mucho.

Otherwise, the drone warfare has been utterly fascinating. The fact that people utterly refused at first to believe that COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) Drones were doing what they did, and then the aftereffects of specifically designed drones that were made to bust tanks/bunkers and what have you… the fact that anyone ever believed anything that the Ministries of Lies and Propaganda have been spewing for the past two-three years regarding losses and strengths on each side?

This’s the same exact media who said January 6th was an “Insurrection”. In that “…three to four police were killed in line of duty!” on January 6th. These same exact assholes are telling you that the Krain is ahead and winning numerically????

Which brings me to the commentary from the Head of the Krainian Gestapo, Kiril Budanov, or as I call him “Thugface”:

Yeah… this asshole.

I will say that yes I’m biased AF against this fuck.

IMO He’s evil.

He’s the one who’s been behind a lot of exceptionally shady shit that I have issues with. Considering he even looks like a douche, and acts like it? Yeah, I got nothing for him.

HOWEVER

There was a leak recently from a meeting of the Krainian parliament. Seems Thugface stated, and it was leaked, that “Someone asked him: ‘How much time do we have left?’ He responded, with his signature cold smile: ‘If there are no serious negotiations by summer, very dangerous processes could begin for the very existence of Ukraine.’”

This to me is worrisome.
This is a guy who has pushed for attacking kindergartens.
This is a guy who wants drone production moved to schools (K-12) because it might keep the Russians from bombing them to avoid a bad PR event…
This is a guy who has pushed for the most rabid elements of the Krainians to ‘do their worst’ against Russia and has been a major player so to speak in a huge number of atrocities.

That ‘signature cold smile’ to me is not a normal reaction.

A smile like that, and knowing the type? (Pure Sociopath IMO)

MY worry is this joker has something up his sleeve.

He’s been devious as fuck so far
Downright evil as I said if you’ve been following this war like I have. It makes my hair stand up on end, because not only did I read this in ONE article, but there have been multiple articles that have said that this motherfucker seemed very content in saying that within six months ‘the existence of Ukraine’ is questionable….

Guys like this are fanatics.
THIS fukkin’ guy in particular.

Which makes me personally believe he’s willing to ‘burn the world down’ rather than have the Russians win. Lord knows they’ve (the Krainians) been trying for months (and as of late) have been ramping up the BIG drone attacks on nuclear power plants all over Russia (those that are within range) as well as the ones all over the Krain itself. Big Drones in that they’ve taken to using Cessna sized Aircraft, rigged for remote control, and packed with HE.

IMO that’s fucking madness either way…
…the Krain already lost HOW many thousands of square miles due to Chernobyl going ‘full retard’ and yet assholes like this guy and his fucking ilk are actively trying to have a repeat performance!?!

So forgive the hyperbole, but when a guy with the ‘yank’ this asshole has goes and says with a self satisfied smirk that “…in six months nothing will matter” (which is how I read it) that shit makes me feel like that’s ‘nervous-making’…

I mean there’s been rumors for a loooong minute that all the Krainian Nukes (the Russian ones stationed in the Krain back in the day) were not accounted for? Yeah… this asshole worries me. He’s just fucking whacked enough to do something that fucked up.

Anyways.
Food for thought.
Yours in the comments. Am I wrong? My intel-analysis antenna is buzzing, so let me know what you think.

More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Well, call me a ‘convert’ on Brownells Aluma-Hyde II. I like the way the stuff works overall. A few gripes, but the outcome was really above what I had expected. After putting up the last post, I figured out how I could do the barrel and receiver. I took the long flower-tub I had used to soak the Lee Enfield in the rust cleaner (which had been drained) and then took a cleaning rod to use to suspend the whole thing over the tub so as to catch the overspray.

Then I had to let everything sit for 24-48 hours.
THAT is something I’m not good at. Waiting that is.

So, once I felt I could, I took out the sight bar and removed the tape:

Oh yeah… that came out nicely.
Then I mounted the slider:

I then put the hardware on to the stock, namely the butt plate:

OK, that looks great, and yes, the finish is silky-smooth.
Then it was inspection time of the barrel and receiver as well as the trigger group. I left the trigger group in place as at some point, the pin holding it all together got ‘mushroomed’ a wee too much for easy removal. Since it wasn’t in bad shape at all, and I really didn’t want to drill it out of mess with it, it remained in-situ.

So far, so good.

As I stated, it cause no issue when I did it this way:

“Looking Good Billy-Ray!”

“Feeling Good Louis!”

Indeed.
The final product:

And then the top-down view, including the action:

And then the flip side:

And lastly, from underneath:

So that’s a wrap on that except for the headspacing.
I’m still waiting on the gauges to get here.
Last I checked, they were in Atlanta?
Nope… now in Ybor… so figure Saturday maybe? Then I get them for 3 days, and have to send them back. Theoretically, the second bolt is going to be here tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it. If it gets here in the same timeframe, and I can test BOTH bolts out? That’ll work nicely.

So no politics tonight

And I’m not touching the DC Collision until we get some real answers. The only thing I’ll mention is the Aviators who fly for that unit? They’re among the best as they’re responsible for flying the Fat Fuck Perfumed Princes around… so you know the Gen’ruls and Admi-mules aren’t going to chance flying with low-hour Intrepid Birdmen.
Sooooo WTF happened?
Good Question.

So how do you think it came out?
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Well Praise the Lord for warmer temperatures! It got up to 66 degrees today, and this means that after work, I was able to start working on getting the FrankenMauser worked on.

Now one of you folks had made mention of Brownells ALuma-Hyde Epoxy coating. I did a little research, and when I went to Brownells, they had a special going on it, namely FREE SHIPPING!

Considering part of the reason I’m not a big fan of Brownells is they (by MY standards) are a bit heavy on the shipping rates. Even the basic rates, for itty-bitty pieces/parts, they tend to positively rape you on the shipping and handling.

But in this case? Free shipping on a can of Matte Black?
(which FYI, it’s still free for now… I took that screenshot right before I started banging this out)

$21 w/FL sales Tax +/-
I read various comments on it. Comparisons between it and the DuraCoat, as well as evaluations of the longevity and other things… Either way, I figured I’d get a can, as unlike the DuraCoat, it doesn’t have an expiration date.

The issue with the DuraCoat “One Can” coat, is that it has a built in activator, and states plainly that you only have 2-3 weeks before it’s no longer viable. You activate it using the red cap in the topper:

By pressing it into the bottom of the can here:

So the other thing that ‘nudged’ me into trying the Aluma was that it has a much lower temperature tolerance, meaning I can use it when it’s colder, whereas the DuraCoat requires 60 degrees plus.

So I started over the past few days taping and prepping the various pieces parts. One of them was the new rear sliding sight bar. I stripped it all the way down, and then taped it up to allow the coating to match up what it should look like. There are so many variants, that it comes down to what the owner wants to do. In this case, the centerline being blackened/blued, and the edges in the stainless like the bolt:

Once I removed it, and taped it up, it was prepped as such:

You can see where I tried to do the ‘heat and beat’ on the old one… I wasn’t happy with the outcome, so the $9 for the new slider (stripped) was worth the price, especially after it cleaned up so well.

The other part that I had reservations over was the butt plate. After my extensive research on all the Spanish Mauser boards, I realized that there were both blued plates, as well as ‘raw’ steel plates. Again, it all depended on the ‘where and when’ the rifle was converted and refinished. I concluded that MY plate was originally blued, so it too got the treatment tonight.

First, I prepped all the pieces parts by giving them a nice ‘bath’ if you will in some carb cleaner/degreaser that has a high evaporation point, so I didn’t have to worry about it being still one the part in a nook or cranny. Then I did a light pre-heat using a ‘baby sized’ heat gun I have before I hit it with the Aluma-Hyde. That also eliminated any left over carb cleaner.

It was now the ‘hold my breath and hope this doesn’t look like shit!’ moment. I laid out all the parts that I was going to hit in a smol-box, and went to town. The results?

Hmmn
SO far I’m very pleased.
I have to flip and move the stock rings and make sure I got all the angles on the trigger guard/mag well… but wow… I’m pretty damned pleased with this stuff so far (that being the key operative words here). Here’s a few close ups:

That’s looking good… might need one more coat…
The sight slider, from what I can see so far too looks good. Provided the tape held and I didn’t have any “bleed through”:

Another thing I did was after I got the parts in to set overnight, is that I again hit them all for about 10 minutes using the heat gun, just to assist in the baking on of the finish. The instructions say that if you really want to do it ‘right, that 3 hours at 195 degrees in an oven will do the trick, but I’m not in -that much- of a rush.

The barrel and receiver are the final parts that need to be done, and I figure tomorrow AFTER I get it gauged, as the Gauges are due to arrive by FedEx in the late afternoon. I don’t want to start working on the receiver, only to find out I have an issue. Better safe than sorry.

I also won a auction on eBay of all places that IF the headspacing is completely hosed, I have a spare bolt coming. I managed to ‘snipe’ that for $55. This is a great thing as the regular ‘buy it now’ pricing is $150+. If I end up using it, and I can get this headspaced, the spare bolt I’ll put up for $100 plus shipping, and I’ll be happy with a lil $25 Profit more or less.

SO thanks for all the comments from you all regarding your favorite weapons. I see a few trends out there in reading them, and some were quite enlightening. One of you asked the -why- of my (and others) love of the 249, so I might have to do another post on it, as I already did a pretty good writeup on it a waaaay long time ago, but hey, why not?

So More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
So besides the one guy who said last nights story was a repeat, there was another comment that made me laugh my ass off:

“Is there any weapon out there that DOESN’T look like a fuckin’ sawed-off Red Rider BB gun in your hands when you hold it?”
Sedition

This was in response to the pic I threw up of me holding my Heckler and Koch MP5-K model. The reason it hit hard was that before I published, I had actually mentioned something about the fact that I made it look like a small handgun as opposed to how a ‘puny stinking human’ would make it look.

I deleted my secondary commentary as it disrupted the flow of the narrative. I do a lot of self-edits when I do the 4-5 time re-reads before I hit publish, trying to make sure there’s no awkward sentence structure, as well as catching misspellings, which is a bitch if the autocorrect doesn’t catch it.

So due to that comment, I figured what the Hell, I’d throw a couple of pics with my favorite weapons I used to roll with. For an ‘unarmed Contractor’ I suuuure as Hell had a really good selection of firepower.

First one up is last nights MP5-K:

I purely loved that lil subgun.
Interesting side note: the MP5 series does not like hollow points. Since I was working on and in the CIF I traded some uniforms and boots to some Special Forces guys who’d been on the ground since BEFORE the actual Invasion, and their clothing and ‘stuff’ was pretty threadbare and wore the fuck out.

They gave me 6 MP5 mags, and about 300+ rounds of genuine Federal Hydrashok 147gn +P HP. It was a good deal all around, and especially for them, as I was told later that they had an ‘Inspector’ of some kind coming around, and they needed to ditch the hollow points, but didn’t want to waste them by shitcanning them outright.

Go figure… Geneva Convention and all…

Then, earlier when we first hit the ground running, one of our first weapons that we (Lil Country and me) shared together was your basic Ak-47, Type One Each:

Yeah, we were fucking around for those pics for back home…
Now I -believe- that it was a genuine early edition Russian made variant. I’m not an AK expert by far. It did (as you can see) have a milled steel receiver with a LOT of mileage on it. That pic was from about April of 2004, as was this:

I told you Lil Country was named b/c of our size difference.

So among many of the ‘deals’ I brokered over the first few months trying to get myself ‘heeled up’ properly, one of the weapons in particular was/is one I still regret not being able to get back to the States:

THAT was Uday Hussiens personal Hunting Rifle.
What or better yet who he used to hunt, I’ll leave that open.

I had this confirmed by the daughter of Saddams Armorer who used to assist Daddy with the cleaning and servicing of the family firepower… She was legit too, as CACI ran the LEP Cell, (the Local Employment Screening cell, responsible for vetting ALL Iraqis who wanted to work on base) and she had a full background check pulled, so yeah, I had in possession back then a rifle of pretty historical significance. (Like Eva Braun’s lil 7.65mm Mauser and the like)

It is, as you can see, A Dragunov SVD in 7.62x51R.
Specifically Crazy Son UDAYS Dragunov.

Lord knows I tried to get it legally imported to the States. I jumped through ALL of the fiery hoops that the DotMil, the ATF, and ALL the other pain in the ass bureaucracies threw in front of me. After 3 months of trying, if you can believe it, it was the fucking State Department Fags who said “No Dice!” as Iraq was still on the ‘no trade import’ list with the US.

What shocked me to my socks was the ATF response?
The Special Agent, whomever he was, put an approval on it, and then a post-it note on the file saying “AWESOME FIND!!!”

Color me completely shocked.
Stunned even

I ended up giving it, as well as the rest of my rather extensive collection over to a buddy of mine from 5th Group when I left at the end of 2006, as the last thing I wanted was to have them destroyed/looted/whatever by anyone after I left. That was actually the basis for my first Charlie Mike Comics story.

And when I say ‘extensive’, well you be the judge:

That was the ‘cream of the crop’ of my collection. There were about another 30-40 AKs and ‘other toys’ stuffed in two wall lockers that didn’t make the cut for the pic.

And yes, the chopped Krink looking AK at the bottom left on the bed was a silver plated AK belonging to Saddams Bodyguards. It was inoperative though due to a cracked bolt where the operating rod screwed in. Someone told me that was from the process of adonizing the silver… I’m not a metallurgist, so I don’t know.

I also on occasion got to fuck around with some DotMil weapons while there. In this case, a basic M-16A2 w/203 mounted under the barrel:

By that time I had gotten in really good shape and even with the PEQ, Aimpoint, and Surefire Tac Light, I was able to one-hand the fucker like Ahhhhh-nuld:

Not a bad sidearm if you can swing it Eh?

Anyways…
Cutting OUT of Iraq, after numerous years of being over there, I came home and became the DotMil Army Reserve Small Arms (Depot Level) Repairman. THIS was a dream job as I got to still play with Military Grade Automatic Weapons. On rare occasions I even got to test fire them. Like when I had to build some Mark-19 Grenade Launchers. An MP unit got 6 brand new ones in, and I never knew this, but they come without the barrel installed!!!

Which meant, per regulations that the guy who put them together was responsible for the first test-firing so that if HE fucked up, He was the one who got blow’d up. So this meant having to go to McDill, drawing some 40mm and testing them. This was me loading one into the van for transport:

It of course went off without a hitch.
I also got to test and play with the NEW M2A1 Browning .50cal Heavy Machine Gun. I never thought they’d improve on John Moses Browning’s (PBUH) design, but they did to a degree. In this case, The M2A1 has a quick change barrel and fixed headspace and timing which eliminated the whole HS&T thing. A good thing, but also a bad thing, as there are STILL basic M2s out there, and new grunts nowadays would have a clue as to do a headspace and timing, nevermind what they need to do it.

84 pounds of “Fuck You”

OF COURSE it takes like the single largest weapon in the DotMil Infantry Small Arms Inventory to look large in my hands, and even then, I’m holding it at ‘port arms’… I’m also one of 4 or 5? guys who, to my intel, to have ever fired the Ma Deuce, offhand (meaning from the hip/off mount) and not lost control and/or dropped it. It was only 5 rounds but still. How cool is that!?! TBH, it bucked like a pure-dee sumbitch!

Lastly, another weapon system I played with/serviced ALLLLL the time was my personal favorite, the M-249 SAW, the squad automatic weapon. I used this to great effect when I was in. Before the SAW became the Infantry ‘go-to’ Machine gun, I was a ‘Pig Gunner’, meaning I used the M-60A1. Unfortunately, those are but a memory now, as they went with the M-240B as a replacement. During that ‘in-between’ time, the SAW became my bestest fren:

Granted that’s a “chopped and lopped” parachutists version, but even then, I make that fucker look teeny. Just like the one I did akchully carry:

I love the SAW.
Love Love LOVE it.
A thirty+ year affair…
Even Gretchen knows a SAW can give her competition LOL!

If I had unlimited ‘Fuck You’ money, there’d be a brace of them here at the Casa. Even then, I’d LOVE to save for even a semi-auto variant, as I just love the thing.
Did I mention I love the SAW?

So yeah, what’s YOUR favorite weapon you used in the DotMil?
Or even as a Civvie?
Comments welcome below.
And for those of you who say this’s an ego thing, you’re damned right and it IS my blogg after all. Don’t like it? Make your own.

So More Later
Big Country

This one is Mine: