Working on a longer think-piece from the hermitage. Meanwhile, thinking of you …
- Okay, you know the .22 LR shortage is desperate when people start reloading the stuff. S, who sent the link, says he’s not about to start personally risking his eyeballs packing gunpowder into tricky little rims; YMMV.
- Turns out that execrable CRomnibus spending bill (which rewards every pork-seeking group in the nation, with special attention to funding the D & R parties), has at least one good feature: it defunds the war on legalized cannabis.
- But Australia banned guns! So how can this possibly be happening???
- Well, the Olympia non-compliance rally didn’t draw as many who had signed up for it. But by every other measure it was a grand success. Here’s David Codrea’s take. And Mike Vanderboegh’s. And video of Mike’s speech. Activists burning their concealed carry permits and cops making no arrests as they watched protestors repeatedly violate the new law. Oh yeah …
- 75 little hacks for making everyday stuff easier. Very clever! (H/T AG; note, the servers at guff.com are having some problems right now, apparently from sheer overload. But once you can access this, it’s worthwhile for sure.)
And a big thank you to they buyers who’ve lifted my Amazon sales into healthy territory in the last week. This may not be a classic December, but it’s safely into the territory of becoming a good month. Thanks to many — but special nod to a seamstress, a rifle shooter, a skateboarder, a fitness fan, and a very fancy cat fancier!
Have to laugh at the comments at the Codrea article.BOTH parties screwing us under and republodems vehemently supporting Their party as they take it in the shorts AGAIN,by THEIR party!
How dam stupid are people? They legitimize the regime with their vote,get screwed over endlessly,and then defend it because it was YOUR SIDE that did it when it was both????????? And continue to vote for and defend them! NEVER do they catch on,no matter how many times it happens,how can that be????????
Maybe they should vote 3rd party,or 4th?
We’re living in Bizarro World.
It’s nice to see the Mike Vanderboegh is still out there fighting. It looks like it was a good rally, and I was pleased to see that they carefully declined to obtain a government “permit” to exercise their constitutional rights of free assembly and speech. Still, I thought I’d share another take on the events in Olympia. http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/35913/Hard-Truths-About-US-Patriot-Protests/
This is an unsigned piece on the Daily Bell, so I don’t know its author. But while I agree with him/her that “individual human action” is necessary to preserve our freedoms, I don’t think that mass actions such as the rally in Olympia are pointless. The government isn’t going to tolerate too much “disassociation” by individuals; when it reaches the level at which it becomes a threat to the established order they will respond. And it won’t be pretty.
I don’t understand the .22 situation. The caliber has become obsolete now. I can reload .38 special for the current price people are paying. I can buy pellets for the very good, and very silent, airguns that come close to .22lr usefulness. There are options. At $50+ a box of 500 its time to Walk Away.
I don’t know, Tim – not quite obsolete. I have enough .22lr to last a while, and it is very useful for training novices to shoot. I much prefer the 9mm myself, but keep my hand in with several other pistols and revolvers, just because. This is ancient technology, however!
I want a nice plasma pistol such as Lucy Kropotkin has, actually. This cartridge ammo thing is getting tiresome… and the danged things are heavy! š
Speaking of rallies, does anybody know what has been happening at the Bundy ranch since the story disappeared? Did they take him down when nobody was paying attention? Did the supporters that let their names become public get arrested and die in custody?
I hadn’t heard of reloading .22 LR, but I had heard of using the empty cases as bullets for .223 reloading. Found a couple of places that talk about it:
http://www.atgreloading.com/t1107-home-made-22lr-to-223-bullets
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110420115406AA94ti4
I believe airsoft guns of reasonable quality are excellent for practice. You have the same controls and feel as with a real gun, no need for hearing protection (but you should use eye protection), and bb ammo that even for the more expensive biodegradable stuff is something like 0.3 cents per [literal] round. One option for targets is to hook a paper clip on the end of a piece of cheap string, hook a soda can by its tab to the paper clip, and hang the other end of the string somewhere. It will even be a mover once you hit it.
In years past, .22lr cases were used to make jackets for .22 centerfire rounds. I thinkg Berger bullets offered dies and equipment for this process. The round itself is still as useful as it has ever been. I think the only practical replacement for it’s usefulness as a small game harvesting round would be a small caliber black powder rifle, squirrel gun.
If it keeps up as its going,we may have no choice but to reload our .22’s
Yep, using 22 empties as jackets for rifle bullets has been around since the late 1940’s.
actually, I’ve been seeing signs that the ammo shortage is slowly slowly easing. You *can* buy 9mm. 223 can be found easily. 22lr *can* be bought, albeit at horrid prices. But a year ago, I couldn’t find 22lr at all. The good ‘ol days of a brick for $7 are long gone, though. People are still panic buying. They see 22 at a gun show, and they buy 5 bricks, when they might have been content with one in years past.
I have to say, though, that the process described in the article linked to about reloading 22lr ammo is very dangerous. Essentially the author is stating that you can use ground up match heads (or toy caps) as a primer. Toy caps might be a *little* safer than working with match heads. Playing with match heads is seriously asking for a nasty burn at best. The article describes *GRINDING* the match heads, for heavens sake. Very very bad juju.
If the SHTF, and I had no ammo, I might consider something like it. But only then.
Can one purchase fulminate of mercury? If so an ingenious person could work out a small spinner for the empty .22lr casing to get it back into the fold. Then reload with a dab of the required powder, or even fine black powder, top with a small round ball and you are back in game getting business. It would only be worth the effort in truly desparate times and then one could use other means than a .22lr to harvest small game.
A long time ago Kurt Saxon tinkered with packed together match heads as an improvised explosive. Being somewhat skittish, I don’t have any plans to give that a try š
After his brother in law’s death, my brother was cleaning out his house to get it ready to sell and came across about 7000 rounds of .22 ammo, which he graciously gifted to me! Merry Christmas to me!