Big Country Expat

Greetings and Salutations!
Took last night off away from the Computer as Gretchen was feeling neglected. In truth I am on this faaar too much, between work and the writing of this and the other research stuff I do on the regular.

Did me some good to get up and away. We went out for a meal on the cheap (less than $30 per including a stronk drink for her and 3 beers for me) and then we -tried- to go up to the beach for a quiet walkabout. Alas the County had the road shut down, so instead of a nice strolly-stroll at the beach, we got stuck in Friday night bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Worse than that? -I- knew of the supposed shutdown, as did everyone else. The D.O.T. in all it’s incompetence had been advertising via the big orange signs that “Gip Drive will be closed starting on Feb28 at 730pm” So natch, everyone was studiously avoiding Gip Drive.

The raging incompetence in this case?
They poasted the wrong fucking road.
Like literally backwards
Instead of just Gip Drive being closed, it was the Intersection of Gip Drive and 301 that was closed. And worse, it was a two mile stretch of 301, both directions that went from three lanes down to a single lane!!!

So we got to spend quality time for about an hour waiting patiently to go home, ‘cos we had no other choice.

So that was last night.

The other ‘name of my latest pain’ is the car.
Again
Not sure if I mentioned it when I raved about the plugs and injection system being all jacked up, but when I fixed all of the mentioned issues (the car is fine right now no whammies no whammies no whammies) I had found Mickey Fucking Rat had made a nest under the hood, right on top of the engine. I cleaned out all the crap, and vacuumed up everything, and I thought that was the end of it.

Until a week ago.

At first, when I noticed it, I thought Gretchen had run the car over a curb or something, causing mad damage to the left drivers side rocker panel. I was ready to raise all sorts of Hell at her as she has in the past had ‘minor dings’ and whatnot that she’s actually oblivious to, but I unfortunately find when I’m doing my PMCS on the car. However, when I ran my hand under the car, there was no damage. And on closer inspection, I realized Mickey and Fam had migrated:

Jesus Christo!
The furry fucker ate my rocker panel!!!
Since then, I installed a rodent thingamahjig that puts out sonics that drive ’em away (supposedly) and then got a stronk peppermint oil based repellant that I drenched the car in. THEORETICALLY this should get rid of Mickey and his Crew.

Gretchen wants me to repair it, which yeah, it’s ugly and yeah, it also cuts the valuation on the vehicle significantly. SO I went ‘shopping’ for the pieces-parts as I’m good at things like this. Just as I did with the throttle body, I saved about $600+ in labor AND parts by getting a good aftermarket part on the Zon ($250 less) and turning my own wrenches.

Let me tell ya…
These fuckers need to be reported on for outright theft.
That rocker panel, new/OEM weighs about 3.2 pounds according to one website. Unfortunately the majority of websites want $250-300 PLUS SHIPPING for it. The cheapest I found, and my newly found hatred for all things Commiefornia? (which is where I found the cheapest available part at $186.53) Try this:

I thought it was a joke until I check the various sources via “Is this website a fucking scammer?” and found out it’s one of the biggest OEM parts dealers stateside for Hyundai pieces-parts. Fucking $565.32?
Who the fuck charges that?

The next cheapest is on for $132.00 on eBay and that fucker wants $75 for shipping. And that’s the cheapest.

Makes one realize that Everything is a Grift these days.

Really grinds my ass that now, I’m going to have to spend some weekends chasing this particular part at the local salvage yard. I mean let me ask… what do y’all think? Part in the Hand (the eBay one for a total of $211 with road wear and scratches) or chase one in the “wild” and maybe lose said eBay part to someone else?

Now, it’s been about 48 hours since Krainefeld, seemingly on a MAD Kocaine Kowboy High, got 86’d out of the White House.

Good.

Fuck ’em.
“The Usual Suspects” of course went ‘full retard’ and REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEing until their heads exploded (metaphorically unfortunately). The Euro-weenies completely lost it as well, and almost to a country, the uniformity of the Twitter responses scream ‘coordination’ from some central intel clearing source:

Now… that’s Ursula-the-Ugly. Head of the Euroweenie Commission. This tweet was literally parroted by the following countries Leaders (that I could find): England, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Montenegro, New Zealand, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and of course, Sweden. It got so retarded that even Luxembourg got in on it, and got roasted immediately for their stoopid:

Heh.
EPIC Burn IMO.
And out of that 939 folks in the Amy? As of March 2022, the Luxembourg military had 112 female soldiers, which was about 12.6% of the force. Considering the Woke Nature of that country, any bets that the broads are ALL in the leadershit positions?

So it was glorious to watch.
The little shrimp must have reaaaaally believed all of them press releases, and the fact that he practically owned the Joetato with all the obvious bribery, criminality and graft and dirt he had on that particular asshole…

Seems as OrangeManBad said “You haven’t got any cards to play!”…. I’d call that right on. The days of ‘having leverage/blackmail’ are so done. And the best thing I saw? J.D. Vance knife handing that little shit:

Oh shit, things just got reely-reelz!!!

ANYONE who’s ever served in the Military is familiar with the “knife-hand”. Per wiki for those civvies visiting here: “In the military, a knife hand is a hand gesture used to discipline troops, correct a salute, or drive home a point. It’s a well-known and iconic gesture across all branches of the U.S. military.” Damned skippy. It’s a favorite of Drill Sergeants in ALL branches, and usually comes with a “I am sooooo going to unfuck you with pain!” lecture:

So when former Corporal Vance breaks it out while telling Krainfeld to pack his shit and fuck himself, it means that it just crossed over into the “Oh fuck!” range.

I’m willing to bet that if there were any Marine Guards in the room or any former DotMil in that room, ALL of their assholes went into a involuntary asshole-puckering. I mean the ambassador for the Krain to us was holding her head and doing multiple facepalms while Krainfeld jumped up and down onto his dick, while wearing golf shoes, with both feet. I haven’t seen that much facepalm action since the Star Trek Next Generation Meme.

Of course this A.M. there was the ubiquitous sorry-not-sorry apology sort of kind of on Twitter from the Koked Up one himself (theoretically):

“Full Scale Invasion”
Wee bit of hyperbole there Krainfeld.
Fucking VodkaManBad has been holding back like a motherfucker for the past year, year and a half. He’s limited the amount of Civilian Targets he’s hit, as he could probably turn Kiev into a smoldering crater with no real flex on his part. You’ll notice that any mention of the Oreshnik strike has utterly vanished from the headlines shortly after VodkaManBad challenged KidsnifferManBad to an “Oreshnik versus Your Best ADA Artillery” duel.

If you didn’t hear, shortly after they hit that underground factory and Command and Control center with that Oreshnik non-nuke weapon, OUR idjits proclaimed that it was a bunch of lies/propaganda/doesn’t work sort of ‘stuff’ and gave it the brush off. VodkaManBad in return said essentially, “…you name the time and place, you put your best gear there to defend with, and we’ll launch another Oreshnik, and see who’s shit actually works and is the best.” Needless to say with the Patriot being a well known fucking dud, nothing except ‘burying the lead’ seemed to happen…

Now my sources (some old frens still working in ‘the biz’) when I inquired said that the complex was a total loss. The kinetic energy transference was on the “God Mode” level, and everything, down to 250 meters was turned into a pile of caved in rubble. Like no one got out. Another source (open source) said that the various seismometers around Europe felt that hit… all the way to Italy from what I understand. That’s a big hit.

So no Krainfeld… step away from the lines and lies.
The full scale invasion hasn’t happened
Yet.
Although the way things are going?
I would expect to see a LOT more Russians-taking-territory as the Krainian Army just got put on the serious back-foot by Krainfeld shooting his gob off.

Which leads me to my last thought on this.
I’m wondering if this was intentional?

If you think about it, allll the hulabaloo and rage and REEEEing by the Eurotrash talking shit about us now, and screaming how “They’ll go it alone!” when anyone with two functional brain cells can see that the ENTIRETY of ALL Eurotrash Armies are nothing more than a “Loot Drop” waiting to happen IF they’re so prideful and stupid to think they can take on the whole of the Russian DotMil? I mean the Russians have only been fighting for three solid years right now.

OUR DotMil has been ‘out of the game’ since 2011 in Iraq and 2021 in Afghanistan. And the 2021 pull out? Our guys had been primarily a training element, NOT a maneuver element. Maneuver War in practice was NOT feasible in the Stan, as there was hardly any way to pin the enemy down to destroy him. It was almost a pure Counter-Insurgency war. That’s a major reason we got our asses smoked like every other country that’s tried to take on the Afghans. There is NO ONE coming to save the Krainians, least of all the Eurotrash, nor the US, not that there’s any will to do so on the part of the American Public, ourside of the (((usual suspects))) there…

So here’s what I think.
MANY Times has OrangeManBad talked about wanting out of NATO. Add on he wants the war in the Krain to end.

Well, Krainfeld and the Euroweenies just handed him a Golden Opportunity. Let the Euros take over. Cut the Krain dead. Let them ‘die on the branch.’ Tell the Euros “Yo, fuck us? No, fuck you. You got this, have fun. We out.”

Then pack ALL our shit in Europe up. Shut down the remaining bases in Europe, and pull everything into Kuwait. Expand the fuck out of Arifjan. Keep a Division of Troops and Gear on “Ready Standby” there in case someone gets ‘jiggy wid it’ in the Gulf, but otherwise? Tell everyone adios, and call it a fucking day.

And if VodkaManBad does decide to take over Europe?

Let him.

At this point they got nothing.
BARELY any resources
Hardly ANY nationalism
The only thing they do have are Muslim Gimmegrants by the fucking uneducated bushel.

Hell… it’s be a net loss for them if Russia decided to take over Europe. It’d have the same vibe as when East Germany completely collapsed into a basket case post-wall, and West Germany had to pick up the tab. Trust me. I’m sure that the Russkies have no interest in taking on and over the almost now-majority Muslim Nations of Eurostan.

Thing is, OrangeManBad has some serious PRIDE in America, as do the majority of those he picked this time. Krainfeld and the Eurofags seem to forget this… they talked shit about the US AND him in particular (even while he was still campaigning do you think he’s forgotten or forgiven?), and guess what? He already told Krainfeld to get the fuck out, and started having his people cut ALL the aid. He doesn’t forgive easily either. He’s prickly and ornery, which is what the majority of America voted for. Any bets he tells Europe to fold themselves into sharp, pointy corners, and shove themselves up their own collective asses?

I know I would.
So, your thoughts?
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
I was a wee bit run down yesterday evening after Jeopardy… I ended up going to bed at 21:00 which is unusual for me, but might be indicative of the Tuesday Meatfrenzy we had.

I swear I ate like I had two assholes.
I might have said that…
But the enquiring minds and your questions? Yeah we ALL had a ‘Meat-High’ and the Sweats. Then it was taking turns blowing up Ye Olde Outhoose. As I said a great meal. Now, to tonight’s biddness as it were.

I have not gotten the pictures and video that Cowboy shot of the various test fires today. I said he sent them, but as of now they haven’t shown up on the phone.. Good thing I took the target home with me, so I can at least give y’all an idea of how things went.

The Range Report itself:

The 1941 BSA Shirley: Great Shooter. The bore is good and pretty accurate. A few feeding problems from the magazine, which I -think- was due to using soft/flat-ish Serbian BeeBees. It fired like a dream. The holes from this are in green circles on the target pic.

The 1942 Longbranch Canadian: Well, it didn’t blow up. And it hit the target. It loaded fine, cycled fine, BUT: It’s keyholing like a mother. More shooting at a proper range where I can get some groupings done, as well as test my own hand-poured boolits, and this might alleviate the issue. The same issue that the SMLE had, as the rifling post-shooting shows it’s just worn out. Still not a bad rifle. The circles on the target are in blue

The 1884/1888 Springfield Trapdoor AKA ‘The Smoke Pole’:
OK. Where to begin? Well… first, all y’all who said it ‘pushes’ is full of shit. This fucking thing has a kick like a mule. The recoil also transmits down the length of it right into the palm of your shooting hand. As I type this, I got Biofreeze all over my poor put-upon dickbeater. Seriously. This thing is a Fucking Beast. It’s accurate AF too. The holes for this are in red and much larger than the others.

I LOVE IT!!!!

I did one bench test round to start as one should firing a 145 year old Cannon like this as staying alive is high on “Ye Olde Liste of Pryoritees”. I set it up, put a 10 pound shooters sandbag on the barrel to keep it from jumping too much, and cut loose. Thank the Lord Cowboy had suggested we move the stand a wee bit further to the front of the table we were using or it would have ended up in the dirt. LOTS of recoil. LOTS of smoke. HUGE fireball. LOADS of fun!

Then I took two shots. One aimed Center Mass, and the second at the Head. Two shots and man, I was bit surprised by the recoil. Guess I have to get used to it as I’m way more accustomed to the M-4/AKs and whatnot. Been a minute since I fired a ‘real rifle’

So The Target:

As I said, the two .45-70, the chest one I didn’t account for recoil, so it went high. The headshot? Well I over-anticipated the shot, and I pulled the muzzle hard right. With some practice, I’ll get proficient. I need to start loading my own before that happens. Either way, I think it’s a damned good rifle that I’ll need to dial in at the proper long distance range.

Not bad for a 145 Year Old Smoke Pole?

Now the other two rifles? You can see the keyholing in the blue (1942). I wasn’t paying that close attention to the second shot, and it went wild/wide. The ones in green are not bad (1941), but again, I wasn’t trying for extreme accuracy as much as a basic functionality test. Things like “Will this blow up?” and “Did anything fall/fly/shoot off when it fired?” were far more immediate concerns than accuracy.

When I go to Manatee I’ll actually go for the slow, measured short to intermediate distances, just to see the groupings and whatnot. If I’m forced to go to the local “Shoot Straight”… well I’ll do what I can with the limits that fucking shithole places on shooters.

So that’s all for tonight… the next project is doing the ‘dip’ on my 1911. I’ve stripped it down, and I’ll start doing pics of what I’m doing, so y’all can follow along. I’ll also cover some of the latest poly-tics if I feel like putting my 2cents in.

So far, OrangeManBad and SpaceManBad have been laying waste to all sorts of deeply corrupted shit… not that it was unexpected… EVERYONE with two brain cells knew EVERYTHING has been ‘fake and ghey’ to the point I’m not even remotely surprised.

Beyond that?
Wake me up when fuckers start getting hauled off to Guantanamo… and I don’t mean the rapefugees…

More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Another night like tonight and I’m declaring both Bankruptcy and Obesity, all in one fell swoop. Reason being that tonight we celebrated Sapper finishing off his job with a BIG dinner out at a very Pricey Steakhouse.

Specifically the Terra Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse in downtown Tampa. Five Stars man…

$100 a person.
MAD Pricey.
BUT
A big Celebration means a big meal at a great restaurant.

This’s one of the traditional places that it’s all you can eat meats/seafood. The servers run around with fresh skewers of meat, and carve it off onto your plate. And ALL of the meat is top-shelf stuff… I won’t even begin to describe it… let’s just say I done et five full different critters tonight: Cow, Pig, Chikin, Shrimp and Lamb.

Good thing I’m in shape.
ROUND is a shape right?
So thus is the tardiness of Ye Olde Postage tonight, for which I apologize. (That and the Crème Brule was off the motherfucking chain baby!!!!)

So I finished scrubbing the Canuckistan Enfield today.

I took off what rust I could without utilizing the usual chemistry that would have also removed everything down to the bare metal. As I said, once it’s ‘proofed’ for firing, then we’ll do the raffle. This is the BEFORE cleaning, just as I had received it from GunGirl last week:

And then, the AFTER Cleaning, with the wood completely refurbished, but still with it’s ‘battle scars’ and personality:

Noticeable difference Aye?
It’s a LOT cleaner
The wood is by far in better shape than I originally expected, what with the Ethernopian Infestation. As you can see, the butt came out really well as you can see before and after:

I left the bore-holes intact, as they are part of the history of this thing. And the front? Well, I added a toy for it:

Part of the various changes that were done going from the Mod3, the SMLE, one of them was they got rid of the horse-killing extra HUUUUGE bayonet. Instead they ‘went cheap’ and introduced the spike bayonet. The one above is an early single-piece milled McStabby Stabber. Later they went with welded two-piecers that were cheaper and faster to make.

And yes, it fits:

The bayonet was actually WAAAY grosser to clean than the rifle. THAT was in a BLOCK of Cosmo I swear. It STILL has some oozing out from the nooks and crannies. It is however, fully operational and a legit milled 1942 produced spike. It’ll go to the winner of the Raffle, as well as some speed loaders, and a sling. I can’t send one of these babies out under-equipped.

So yep.
Gonna try to go and test ALL three tomorrow if I have MY way about it. The one I’m truly excited for is the Springfield. THAT smoke pole looks to be just vicious fun. I may even bring a pineapple or something to the affect to see if I can hit it and blow it the hell up.

So that’s it for tonight.
I swear I’m in a meat -coma.
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
It’s only Monday?
Seems like after this weekend it’d be at least Wednesday.

Or at least have the courtesy to pretend it’s a later day of the week. I passed out it seems in the middle of polishing/cleaning up the stock parts of the Canuck Rifle. Woke up at 0409 when my neck got a crick in in it, and I managed to drag my carcass off to bed.

Only to wake up 3 hours later for the Wash/Rinse/Repeat

Except I got a LOT of good work done on the rifle.

Thus being the case.
BEFORE sanding/washing:

Then, I applied a heavy scrub with Murphy’s Cleaner, and popped the whole thing into the dishwasher. I set it for Pots and Pans, High Heat, with Heated Dry. The various parts came out looking like this:

After which I did my 600/800/1000/2000/2500 grit sanding of every single part. A few areas I had to go as low as 320 grit, in the case of ‘splintered’ areas, but thankfully those were minimal. Once everything was ‘scraped down’ I hit it with two coats of Walnut Stain, just like I did with Rifle #1:

That was left overnight, being allowed to be completely dry today. Now, the one ‘bothersome’ piece, the top ridged handguard? I managed to fill it, and stain the filler (a bit too dark but hey, no one is perfect) and get it ready for today’s cleanup:

Once I started cleaning everything up, I hit the ridged guard first, as I wanted to see how it came out with that big-assed crack in it:

Oh that’s just fine.

In fact, after polishing ALL of the pieces-parts of the stock, I’d have to say I did a pretty damned good job overall if’n I do say so myself:

Here’s the butt:

Then the mid-area of the rifle

And lastly the front:

As you can see the original finish is still on the majority of the metal. The wood is also far lighter, almost a blonde-ish color as opposed to Brit Rifle #1. It is apparent that the wood on Rifle #2 is in better shape despite the edibility of the stocks to the local Ethernopian Bug Population.

So now, again, I wait.

In this case for a safety, the front sight guard screw, and a main firing pin spring which is pretty much all this thing needs. Once those come in, I’ll finish up the cleaning up/rust removal, and decide WTF to do next. Restore to Factory or not.

And while I was waiting, a bunch of pieces-parts and fiddly bits came in for the Smoke Pole, to include the ammunition. The finish on the parts that came in is exceptional, and overall this’s a really pretty rifle. It’s missing the rear sight, as $250.00 for it is WAAAAY out of my current league, unless I sell the Enfield for a good premium to break even.

I’m unsure if it’ll fire safely, but I can NOT not try.

What do you think?

I had to step waaaaay back to get the whole thing in.

It’s over 52 inches overall, with a 32 inch barrel.
The rear stock needed a lot of cleanup. It had hard impact white paint stains… my guess is ReadiFreddi’s FIL banged it around in the back of the closet it was stored in over the years. I cleaned it up, and thus:

…and like I said, the Lock and trigger assemblies?

Lord… I love weapons
And pretty ones like this?
OMG……. gorgeous.

So this weekend, fingers crossed, I’ll be testing ALL three.
2x Lee Enfields
1x Springfield Trapdoor.

And the ammo for this Smoke-Pole Gorilla Gun?

From Left to Right:

.45-70 500gn Cast Boolit
.303 British 180gn Jacketed Hollowpoint
7.62.x51mm 174gn Full Metal Jacket
5.56x45mm 62gn M855 Full Metal Jacket

If I keep it, I’ll need to look at investing in the reloading dies and spare brass for it. Reloading keeps it to less than $1.25 a round whereas the over the counter?

$5.38 a round.
OUCH!
That leaves a mark.

Lastly: I didn’t hear many voats one way or another for the rifle I’m going to dispose of? Raffle? Direct Sale (pending test fire of course) Silent Auction? Let me know!

More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Slept in quite a spell today… didn’t get out of the rack until 10pm! Gretchen was up and running as she had to return the Redhead, but me? I got to rest which was a nice change of scenery. She then had to go up to her Parent’s place and check in up there, leaving me to myself!!!

And the new Enfield of course.
Which I present now:

Now as seen before, it’s a 1942 Long Branch Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk 1*. It’s seen better days as you’ll see as we go over it together. The stocks are in a wee bit better shape than the first No. 4 I just finished working on, but still has some issues wood wise. In particularly on the rear stock:

The problem isn’t as much on the right side facing, as much as the left:

Something found the left side to be ‘tasty’ if you will…
Those ‘dots’ are boreholes. To jump a bit ahead, I did (nominally) find what I think it was that did the munching:

This pic is from as I did the disassembly. When I removed the trigger/guard assembly, I found some sort of larvae corpse sitting in a bunch of chewed up wood on the barrel band.

That lil thing leads me to believe that at some point these were stored somewhere where the local wildlife could get at them… Anyways… to continue the overview:

There’s a few differences from the 1941 Model. Here’s the 1941:

The ’42 (top pic) is missing the bolt release that the ’41 has. That’s the little spring loaded metal tab located behind the charger bridge (where the speed loader fits in from the top). A better pic:

With the bolt to the rear, you can now see the little ‘tab’. To remove the bolt, you lift the ladder sight up, and before you fully pull the bolt to the rear, you push the tab down, and then pull the bolt fully to the rear while still holding the tab down. You release the tab, and it ‘pops’ the bolt face up and out of the bolt ribway, allowing it to rotate out, and then you can remove the bolt by sliding it all the way back and out.

The ’42 is missing this.
In fact, the receiver has a small ‘cut’ at the front where the bolt meets the barrel that allows you to rotate the bolt head out of the bolt ribway/track if you will. Again, jumping ahead:

That little notch cut into the front…
And yeah… as I took this thing apart, it was gross folks.
Truly funky and crusty….

Another ‘minor anomaly’ is the bolt handle. The 1941 has a chunk shaved off on the handle leaving a flat profile, whereas the ’42 has a fully rounded head. No idea.

Now as far as the rest of the wood? Well the longitudinal cuts on the 1942 model upper wood are exceptionally well defined as opposed to the 1941:

There is a BIG problem however:

That’s a GIANT honking crack running almost the entire length of the piece.

It’s not unsurmountable, more of just a pain in the ass, as the wood there is far too thin to use the brass pin trick, so I’m going to have to rely on good ole Elmer and his wood gloo.

The rest of the rifle, the nose and sight guard are dirty and finish-free, but serviceable.

The only concern I have on the front is the guard retaining screw, the head is reeeeeally worn (like I could barely get the screwdriver to catch and bite so to speak), so I might replace it with old/new stock, as the shipping will cost more than the screw, probably about $10.

The bore is really filthy too, so I have no way to really tell until I can soak it and scope it. Right now? Ye Olde Field Gauge worked just fine, so it headspaces, and the Field Bore Test:

The bullet doesn’t go completely in, so that’s a good sign.
Like I said, as it cleans up, and I test it, we’ll have a better idea.

And as I was tearing it down, I found that originally, this one too had the Brit-Black finish, as one can see from the now-exposed barrel, as well as that gigunda crack on the top wood again:

Another oddity on the 1942, is that there really isn’t any significant markings on it… like hardly any stamps, either Armorer Marks, no other identifiers. The only markings really is the wrist Serial Number, 14L1069 and the previously posted pic:

Now looking at the databases, this was manufactured in September of 1942 per the production run schedule. The interesting thing? The Long Branch Arsenal is located in Ontario, Canada 20km outside of downtown Toronto, which produced Lee Enfield-pattern rifles for the Canadian military during World War II among other stuff like the Sten Gun.

So looks like I got me a Canoehead Enfield.

Unfortunately the only other serial numbered part is the bolt, and it doesn’t match:

The bolt is of Canadian manufacture (the ‘L’ gives that away) but the 344 makes it an oddball. And speaking of the bolt, it tore down and cleaned up pretty well:

The only concern here is the firing pin spring, which looks a wee bit compressed. I need to recheck it:

So, it’s torn down completely now.

I’ve started doing the same treatment to restore the stock wood back to the same as the 1941 and I’m in the process of rust removal and general metal cleanup. My concern right now is removing the rust without removing what little is lefrt of the original Brit-Black finish.

I already know how I’m doing it, so no worries, it’s just going to be exceptionally labor intensive.

MY BIG QUESTION TO YOU ALL THOUGH:
Raffle it or sell it outright?
Someone said do a blind bidding auction?

Let me know in the comments.

And whomever the winner is will get it as they want it
Fully Restored like I did the 1941, complete with a new finish
OR
Leave it cleaned up but in ‘Worn and Torn’ status?

This of course provided that the sucker shoots mind you.
Everything rests on that.
So as I said, let me know in the comments.
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutatio…..zzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Uh Huuuuuh!?! Whuzzat??
Oh… sorry… nodded off for a second there…

You’d be beat all to Hell too if you had to chase after the AD-HD Hyperactive Nookular Redhead going ‘critical’… Just add sugary cereal or an Egg McMuffin (or the home-made facsimile of one) and let her off the leash…

Whew…

Killer Day.
We ALL had fun.
Sapper wore his Multicam Wizard hat that he got!

He got me one too, but unfortunately it’s waaay too smol.

We’re going to have to exchange them or swap them out or something. Mine came in at size 60, and I wear like a 64.5 dammit. The morning also had it’s own special kind of Hell… which was the “Labor of Love” of Lacing Up Gretchen’s corset.

How the Hell them broads wore those every. single. day. back in the day baffles the shit out of me. The corset itself is a very expensive gift I got her on like Date #3 which was going to the Ren Faire back in Tampa in 2017. She had a corset, (emphasis on had) however….it was a cheap Chinesium one with plastic ribs.

Midway through our day at the Faire, there was an audible “crack” and suddenly her left titty was out on full display. No bra of course with the corset mind you, so she had to gather up one of the ‘girls’, which pre-Cancer was running an F Cup, so quite a substantial piece of bewbage.

That was back when I was making great ducats, so immediately we went to Ye Olde Corset and Bustier Shoppe, and they outfitted her on the spot.

To the tune of $350 smackers.

Tell you what though, it’s lasted. QUALITY handmade with real bone supposedly. She wore it the entirety of her NFL Career as a Tampa Bay Buccaneers Pirate Crewmember:

One of my favorite pics of her.

THAT was a gig let me tell you. She’d come home positively wiped out after running her ass off ALL over the stadium. When I’d help undress her, when the corset came off, it usually ‘splashed’ when it hit the floor she’d sweated so much. Funny thing today? We found the same Shoppe, and the lady running it remembered Gretchen and the ‘Tale of the Runaway Boobie’…. a fun moment.

Anyways…

Long of the short of it, we had a blast. The Redhead got her face painted:

Which came out great:

Snaggly Grin and them Baby Bloos man…
She’s still needing a couple of fangs to come out.
Anyways…
And she loved the Jousting.

The ‘usual storyline’ of “Good Knight Versus Bad Knight” she really got into, and at one point /ourguy (who happened to be the “Bad Guy Knight”) started ranting about wanting the duel to go “To the DEATH!!!” The crowd picked up on the chant “To the DEATH! To the DEATH! To the DEATH!”

The Redhead, much to the consternation, and maybe even shock? of the Elderly couple standing next to us who, not five minutes before were complimenting me on my “…beautiful daughter, and how ladylike she was!” to looking at me in horror, as the Redhead had joined the chant and was in a full-throated frenzy calling for a hand-to-hand sword battle as stated before, to the death…

I shrugged.
meh.
Normies.
How do you explain it to them that she’s already becoming seriously based and well trained at a early age? All I can say is I looked at them , grinned my biggest psycho-level Cheshire grin, and said, “I’m sooooo proud!”

The day ended well, and we all came home pretty well wiped. We did pizza as there t’weren’t no way in Hell I was cooking Jack nor Shytte. Not after this day!

And then to just finish out the day properly, Red smashed 5 slices out of an 8 slice medium 14in pizza on her own.

Dayyum!

The kid ate like she had two assholes I swear.

So it was a great day. One for the books as they say. WRSA said it best: “Cherish the days, amigo.”

I/We most certainly are my Brother.
We most certainly are.

More Later
Big Country

 

Greetings and Salutations!
Gun Addiction: It’s Real.
My name is Big Country, and I’m a gun addict…
Yep.
I went down today to drop off the paperwork for Lee Enfield Number 3 for the restoration/raffle project(s) that I’ve been doing. I unfortunately got delayed in doing so via a V.A. follow up appointment, and then add on the ‘usual Friday Commute Hijinks’ that ensued. As I was going into the V.A. up towards Big Bend, there were a huge number of fire trucks, police, ambulances… you name it all seemingly converging on the V.A. itself.

I got in just in time for my appointment, and it seems the fire as it was, was at the Self-Storage place next door to it. By the time I got out of the car and started hiking across the parking lot, MORE fire trucks and whatnot were coming in, as well as News Helos and the Sheriff’s Helo for good measure. Big billowing clouds of black smoke, so yep, a for-real fire and not a bad electrical false alarm.

By the time I got done 40 minutes later, the smoke was no longer billowing, although there was that acrid ‘smell’ of a fire in the air… not the ‘nice’ fire either but that chemical-melted plastic stank fire…

And 301 was a full-on fucking Parking Lot.

So much for ‘quick errands.’

Because of this, and the fact that due to my previous ‘legal entanglements’ the background check hadn’t cleared by the time Gun Girl was closing up shop. Guess I’ll get it tomorrow.

I did get to look it over however.

It’s a 1942 No 4, Mk 1 Long Branch.

It too is in exceptionally cruddy condition. Like caked with crap. The serial number on the bolt, as far as I could see, does not match, and the magazine has no serial number on it at all. There isn’t a lot of rust, but like I said, it IS crapped up pretty heavily.

The rear stock (which I forgot to take more pics of the thing dammit) is also about a 1/2 shorter when placed side by side with the one I worked on before, the BSA Matched Numbers rifle. I think at -some point- in Ethernopeian, some Starvin’ Marvin shortened the stock to fit his underfed frame. Whoever did it, well as of now it looks like they did a decent job on it. I realized this when I set both the refurb next to the new ‘rifle on deck’ so to speak as I brought in the refinished one to show off to Gun Girl per her request. Plus I will admit, I also do enjoy the accolades of the old timers who hang out in the shop on the regular.

Seems I’m gaining a reputation among the gunnies in the A.O. as being the go-to guy for these sorts of restorations, and GG also told me that one of the customers was asking if I’d sell the SMLE and to set my price.

Hmmmn.
This may bear looking at as a full time side-hustle methinks.
It’s convincing Gretchen that’s going to be the bitch.
Finding and tripping over weapons and piece-parts and fiddly-bits is de facto a part of The BCE Casa. I mean the look on Sapper’s face when he went to empty the dishwasher and found the stock parts from the Lee Enfield in it was epic. He then grumbled something along the lines of “Rifle parts in the dishwasher? Of course! Why not? Only in this house…” and finished removing the pieces-parts as well as the dishes that went through the cycle…

Oh yes, also speaking of The Sapper…
Give him some congrats and kudos for finishing up his job with the Unnamed Fuel Company that he’s been with for the past 4 years. He gave his two week notice two weeks ago (duh!) and finished today. The job was a stone-plated bitch, but he gutted it out. His reason for resigning is he’s prepping to leave this battle-space, and head back to the MidWest to be by HIS Grand, MiniMegaMind.

3M as I call him ‘cos as the kid has a HUGE squash and the brainpower behind it. He’s about 6 months younger than the Redhead, and when they (3M and Sapper’s Boy) come to visit, 3M and the Redheaded Nook get along like gangbusters.

Fuck.
I’m losing my right arm man…
Happy for him, but just…. fuck.

I mean it’s not like a forever Adios.
But still, he’s been my stronk Right Arm/Gray Man/Hitman for nigh on 9 years now… this’s going to take some adjusting to.

Maybe run an Ad?

“Minion Wanted: Morals Optional, Bloodthirsty a plus. Odd hours. Must be able to lift a male body (200+/- lbs) and carry at least 100 meters. Must be proficient with small arms and a shovel. Prior DotMil experience a plus.”

Something to that effect.

So that’s what got for tonight. We have to get the Redhead in the A.M. and head out for the Ren-Faire which is her first time for this… got me a hunch the experience is going to overload her, but hey, what the Hell. Pics and stories to follow.

How about you?
What you got planned for the weekend?
More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
Well, all the wood has been dealt with. The staining took two days worth of coating and soaking/drying, at which point this was the result this A.M.:

This’s just one piece, the main lower, but as you can see, it got dark with the walnut stain I used. Here’s a close up:

Then I polished it gently pretty much all day while working… working from home allows me a certain leeway in what I can do while on the phone. The wood, once hit with the stock sheen and conditioner, came out like this:

Niiiiice eh?
Well… the overall full piece ended up looking like this:

I’d call that a good recovery…

It’s been a LOT of work per usual… not as much as the SMLE, which needed MASSIVE rust removal and reconstruction and fitment of the replacement pieces parts and fiddly-bits. This was more of a straightforward clean/restore… I ended up going with a ‘simulated’ Brit-Black as it originally had.. a plain matte black engine paint that the boards recommended.

Personally, I think it looks spectacular. As the wood still has it’s original ‘personality’ so to speak, and it’s just been cleaned up and essentially depot-level restored, well… you tell me:

Considering how it started:

I’ll take the “W” on this.

What say you?

The only thing left is to test fire it, hopefully after work tomorrow. I’ll follow up with you all after the test. I know it’s a shooter, but the question is how good a shooter?

And as a heads up, I got another #4 that just got shipped which will be ‘up for grabs’ after I get it in and get it done. I think it’ll be here either Friday or Monday… We’ll figure out if I’ll do a raffle or just a straight out purchase/sale to one of y’all. Then we can figure out if it’ll be a restore/clean/rebuild or what based on the ‘dealer’s choice so to speak…

More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
So I took a LOT of y’alls advice regarding the Enfield Stocks. Took a few hours and a bunch of ‘things’ happened in the meantime. I ended up in the E.R. as that pinched nerve in my neck went into ‘crippling pain’ and I couldn’t move.

Like literally.

It’s part of the damage from my original injury that ended my DotMil career. Cervical 5-6-7 took a 10k vertical axial load dump when the main barrel of the tank got dropped on me. The brachial nerves took a squish, and I’ve had all the treatment I can pretty much for over 25+ years. Occasionally things get bad, but yesterday was the worst on an order of “hasn’t been this ouchie since the original injury”

They squared me away at the VA however. Bunch of shots/meds and I’m operational again. Higher than normal, but operational. I can at least turn my head, and chew again (plus side) as well as lift my arms above my waist and can type, which was not an option after 2pm yesterday. I got home and crashed, and then well, I’ve got a slew of new appointments to check just what went wrong, as this was far beyond the ‘normal’ flare up or slippage of discage I’ve had in the past. I’ll keep you up to date as we go.

As far as the rifle stocks? Well… this’s the ‘after’ of a LOT of steam, and a couple go-rounds in the dishwasher:

The rear stock is a WORLD of different is color now, with the original being this:

The dents are, for the most part out (the minor ones) but as you can see, it still looks like the poor thing was chained to the bumper of a pickup, and dragged down a gravel road. Now I -could- as one of you suggested, sand the ever-lovin’ shit out of it and try that. Thing is, is just how much sanding is it going to take to get that looking better?

Too much IMO.
And as far as ‘the personality of the weapon’?
This thing at this point isn’t so much a restoration as it is a ‘rescue’ as I don’t think many would be willing to go this far on such a trashed out set of stocks. Granted they’re the original and theoretically ‘serviceable’ but man, they’re ‘beat-on ugly-ugly’.

When do I call it and do a full on replacement?
Tough call.
Let me know your thoughts, as I have given it “Ye Olde College Try” and well, sometimes you have to just say “It’s dead Jim!” The last attempt I’m going to do now I think is re-staining with some dark stain, and a matte finish with some poly to seal it, and if it comes out ok, well then great. If not? Well it’s not like these are hard to find right?

Next on the list:
The Springfield Trapdoor.

ReadiFreddi the OtherGran, had given it to me to see what I could do with it. So I had put a stupidly low bid offer on eBay for the Lock Assembly that I never expected the guy to accept. He wanted like $200 for it alone. Including S&H I got it for a little over $150 and it’s in exceptionally good condition with as advertised 90% or better of the original brownish finish, with full functionality.

It fits beautifully in it as well:

The ‘US Springfield’ stamp with Eagle is quite prominent still, and it needs a lil scrubbing I think just to clean it up -very lightly- and it’ll be fine. It fit, as stated before, perfectly no wiggle room, and it only took very light thumb pressure to put it in place. The hammer also meets up right where it should on the trapdoor.

Maaaaaaaan
It IS like having a Crack/Heroin/Meth Addiction.

I can’t wait for the next pieces parts to show up to clean up and affix to the greater part of the rifle and give me my next ‘fix’. I think the next part coming in is the butt plate w/door and screws. That looks like it’s going to need a lot of scrubbing, as the pics show a lot of rust. I’ll further evaluate as needed. Then the only remaining parts are the trigger assembly (trigger and guard) w/screws, the Lock Screw Set, primary main screw, and the top rear primary sight w/screws.

That rear sight is a ‘wait and watch’ however.
The least expensive one out there starts at like $130 and goes up from there (for a serviceable one… rusty junk is available, but I want one that’s out of the box ready to play if you will). The other reason is there are SO many different models that this thing could and did have…

Add on that every single screw seems to NOT come with the part it’s intended to, but the majority of sellers are selling the screws as sets, but for what I consider extortionist prices… $30 for the Lock Screws… $15 a throw plus shipping. Unfortunately, these are the only players that are at least NOT gouging the hell out of people…

Older rarer collectible gun parts are MUY EXPENSIVO!

Hence why I compare this hobby to a crack addiction.

Thing of it is? If I get the Springfield up and running? The rounds to it are like $5 a throw. Only Buffalo Bore sells them…

$86.00 per box, plus S&H.

This’s going to be a ‘one off’ test, and if I find that it’s cool to shoot, maybe another box, and then I’ll do the reloading on it, as they have on the website the reduced loads that it needs to be properly done. Hell, have a ‘Pancho Villa’ Leather Boolit Cross Chest holder done by the guy I go to for leather holsters and ‘stuff’ on Etsy LOL

I mean let’s face it… adding a fucking Moose Killing Rifle that shoots a 500 grain cannonball does have it’s sexy appeal.

Sure… a bit on the slow side, but would YOU want to be getting clobbered by one of those things ? While wearing a vest? With Level III plates? I envision a guy getting hit by one of these in the chest the same as someone dropping a bowling ball on a PB&J sammich.

All the squishy goodness squirts out the edges.

Because fuck you, fuck your plates, and fuck the guy behind you and HIS plates as well. Plus how cool is it to be The Guy Who Uses a 134/141 year old Rifle as a Home Defense Rifle? I’m really looking forward to getting BOTH rifles up and running in a short period of time.

So More Later
Big Country

Greetings and Salutations!
SO the rifle is in the ‘wait and see’ part of things.
As you’ll see in these picture(s), I cleaned up the pieces-parts on it, and unfortunately, the finish is completely shot through on almost every exposed metal piece, to include the receiver.

Seeing that the original was done in the aforementioned “Brit-Black” paint, I’ve decided to stick with the original wood, but do a “Brit-Black” equivalent on the metal, as otherwise, it’ll just look ‘junky’.

Now the stocks originally, the butt in particular, looked like this:

After a full tear-down, and getting ‘my scrub on’ it now looks like this:

I used a heavy degreaser to start with to remove the cosmoline, as you can see in the first pic was bad, then I used Murphy’s Oil Soap and a DotMil issued Blue Bristled rifle brush to scrub on it. LOTS of grime came off, and as you can see, with the grime gone, it revealed a LOT more scratches/pitting and whatnot.

I then hit it with some Pledge deep restoration oil overnight, and finished off with Lemon Pledge Furniture polish, which didn’t appear to do a lot. I do not want to try and re-stain it, as that might mess the color up… so I’m in a quandary.

Sand it down with some fine grit, and then re-stain it?
OR
Just keep it ‘as is’ and give it a could or six coats of thick sealing oil, and then call it a day?
OR lastly, re-sand it, re-stain it, and reseal it with a low-gloss lacquer?
Your thoughts?

The other question I have, and maybe one of you deep Enfield Fanbois can tell me, but what’s the significance of the brass tack on the left side of the stock? I’ve been looking, and can’t find anything, anywhere that tells me this’s a marker or ‘official’ marker:

Nary a clue here
But it’s ‘original’ to the rifle that I can tell.
The butt-plate got some love too today. Because this’s an early pre-acceptance weapon, it’s brass with all the proper fittings.

That’s staying ‘as-is’
And the inside got cleaned out as OMG, the brass green verdigris buildup was OMG really really bad. You can see where I had to chisel it out and scrape it out to get to the pop-open door:

That’s about as clean as it’s getting.
Then, the other pieces parts have been prepped for the mini-paint booth:

As I stated early on, those were ONLY cleaned.
NOT scrubbed nor hit chemically or anything else.
The finish is down to pure metal for the majority of things

So the plan is to hit it tonight with the initial coating, and revisit it tomorrow for touch ups and second coats as necessary.

THEN re-assembly and by next weekend if I have my druthers, a test fire. If all goes well, I’ll be a happy camper over the weekend. This one by rights -should- go better than the Spanish Mauser.

And so lastly via WRSA and a few other folks, Matt Bracken had some very good points that summarized both his and my opinion regarding Drones and “The Death of The Infantry as a Viable Battlefield Maneuver Group” His full article can be found on his substack HERE

Now, between my comms with Don Shift, author of “Poor Mans Air Force” (link HERE) and a few other discussions, it’s becoming readily apparent that /ourguys need to if not embrace but at least know the basics of Drone Warfare. Don and I started by talking about our gear loadouts when I put up some pics for him to see just how his book had expanded my kit as well as learning curve:

https://twitter.com/BigCountryExpat/status/1890857384181907785

This got into a whole discussion and Q&A on the various ‘stuff’ I was packing, and the ‘where and how’ that I had learned it.

The current “RF Detection Kit” mentioned is a spec-an that Brushbeater had recommended as a ‘drone detector’ that I’m still learning how to use. The phone that I use to control the drone itself is a ‘scrubbed’ unlocked Samsung S-22 with a burner chip in it, that allows me both control the drone on it, and to see out the drone’s 1080p camera, both front and bottom, but also allows me to record video onto the secondary Micro SD Chip for post-mission analysis (if the mission is recon).

The case is a MOLLE attachable multi-fold hard case that’s waterproof and configurable to whatever mission you need, be it Drone Control, or in the current picture, drone detection. BOTH have their uses.

And per WRSA, Bill Buppert got on ‘the bandwagon’ with this:

…as well as Jack Lawson, author of “The Civil Defense Manual Part One/Two”. I got an email from Jack stating he was including Commander Bracken’s drone article in his soon-to-be-updated versions. Be on the look out for them.

So it’s been a very busy time as of late for me, between weapons restoration, and conversations with some folks regarding the whole “Death of the Infantry”. As I stated in my article linked HERE “The Infantry is Dead (For Now)” published back in September of 2023 (a lifetime ago it seems).

As I said then, and it bears repeating: “…unless there’s an absolute paradigm shift in personal armoring, i.e. Mobile Mecha/Gundam/Mobile Infantry ‘Marauder Suits’ then the Infantry is going to be damned near finished in it’s traditional role.”

The Traditional Ground Pounder Grunts have finally hit peak obsolescence. Combat is, at best a “Darwinian Concept” where ONLY the best and fastest adapted ‘X’ (using as a fill-in for this example) will survive and thrive. And in the current real time moronitude of the Dinosaur Cold War Retards running the show?

Hear that?
It’s a Fat Bitch Hollering/Singing.
They just are either willfully ignoring it or completely dense as to the meaning of it.

It’s going to be an interesting upcoming decade to say the least.
Stay Tuned!

More lter
Big Country